Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston: Literary Analysis

In the short novel “Their Eyes were Watching God,” by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford is a young, mixed-colored girl in search for love, happiness, her hopes, dreams. Blacks are often discouraged to become successful and go their own route because they are treated differently by their community. In 1937, it was challenging for women to find themselves and blossom as human beings. The story had nothing to do with the black versus white disputation, but someone dealing with their own personal problems, such as love, abuse, and loss. In addition, the African-American experience included things like cultural, spiritual, social, and political issues (Cite) in which they attempt to succeed in society and find acceptance from others. Important issues associated with the literature and the culture of this

In the lower class, they are content with what they have, are more appreciative, and down to earth. While the higher class believe they have power and the ability to manipulate others. As for Janie, it didn’t matter to her what kind of position or name a person held in their society. Her first husband was a farmer, her second was a mayor, and Tea Cakes was younger than herself and quite average, enjoying the little things in life. Janie didn’t care to be wealthy or poor, no matter who she ended up with, as long as it was someone that she loved and he in return. Additionally, Hurston wrote this story in regards to her own life, but in a different way. She married and divorced three husbands and, at age forty-four, fell in love with twenty-three-year-old Percy Punter—like Janie and Tea Cakes, they also had an age gap, and Janie going through different marriages as well. When he asked her to marry him, she refused because she "had things clawing inside [her] that must be said." She wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God, trying in its pages "to embalm all the tenderness of [her] passion for him