Their Eyes Were Watching
God
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston
• Actually lived in Eatonville, FL, as a child
– First all-black incorporated town in the US
– Her dad (John) served several terms as
mayor
• Studied at Howard University (obtained
her degree in Literature)
– Published in literary magazine
• Significant figure in the Harlem
Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
• Generally, from the end of WW1 through the
middle of 1930’s depression
– Talented young African-American writers produced a
sizable body of literature in the four prominent genres
of poetry, fiction, drama, and essay
• W. E. B. DuBois introduced the notion of “twoness”: a divided awareness of one’s identity
– “One ever feels his two-ness – an American, a
Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled
stirrings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose
dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn
asunder.”
• Common themes of the Harlem
Renaissance writers
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Alienation
Marginality
Use of folk material
Use of the blues tradition
• More than just a literary
movement
– Included racial consciousness
– “back to Africa” movement, led by
Marcus Garvey
– Racial integration
– Explosion of music, particularly jazz,
spirituals, and blues
– Painting
– Dramatic revues
• Hurston, Langston
Hughes, and Wallace
Thurman organized the
journal Fire!, considered
one of the defining
publications of the era
• Hurston studied
anthropology at Barnard
College (obtained
anthropology degree)
• Her writing was
influenced by her
anthropological research
on rural black folklore
• Incorporates BVE (Black
Vernacular English) into
• Eyes was published in 1937, long after
“heydey” of the Harlem Renaissance
– 1930s brought an end to the sense of cultural
openness that allowed the renaissance to
flourish
– Political tension increased and social realism
dominated cultural ideas
• Art should be political and expose social injustice
– Richard Wright (Native Son, Black Boy) wrote
that Hurston’s novel was not “serious fiction”
and that it “carries no theme, no message, no
thought.”
• Hurston refused to “honor” gender
conventions
– Her behavior sometimes seemed shocking
– Fell into obscurity for a number of years
• By late 1940’s she was having trouble
getting published
– By 1950’s she was working as a maid
– In the late 1950’s she suffered a stroke and
entered a rest home in Florida
– Died penniless in 1960 and was buried in an
unmarked grave
• In late 60s, Alice Walker
rediscovered Hurston’s
work
• In 1973, Walker traveled
to Florida and marked
Hurston’s grave with the
phrase “A Genius of the
South”
• Walker’s 1975 essay, “In
Search of Zora Neale
Hurston,” published in Ms
magazine, brought about
new interest in her work
• Spike Lee’s film She’s
Gotta Have It is a modern
adaptation of the novel
BVE Dialect makes the story come to life and makes the
characters real
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Initial and final consonants are frequently dropped.
“You” becomes “yuh,” occasionally “y’all,” a plural.
“I” is invariably “Ah.”
Vowel shifts also occur often. For example, “get” becomes “git.”
The final “r” is “ah.”
“Us” may occur as the nominative, and verbs, especially auxiliary
verbs, are generally left out.
A double negative such as “Nobody don’t know” gives emphasis.
Distortions of the past tense also occur. For example, “knew”
becomes “knowed.” Because “–ed” is a sign of the simple past, it is
logical in dialect to add “-ed” to make a past tense verb.
The reflexive pronoun “himself” becomes “hisself.”
A final “th” is spoken as “f,” and although the final “r” is softened in
some words, it is added to others.
In addition to patterns of dialect, Janie and her friends speak a
language rich in a vocabulary of localisms and folklore references.
These features are also characteristic of regional speech and help
make dialects distinctive.
• [Review by George Stevens, The Saturday
Review of Literature, 18 September 1937:]
• Whether or not there was ever a town in
Florida inhabited and governed entirely by
Negroes, you will have no difficulty believing
in the Negro community which Zora Neale
Hurston has either reconstructed or
imagined in this novel. The town of
Eatonville is as real in these pages as
Jacksonville is in the pages of Rand McNally;
and the lives of its people are rich, racy, and
authentic.
Major Characters
• Janie
– Dreams of love and
wonders whether love will
come with marriage
• Nanny
– Born into slavery on a
plantation, she bears
Leafy. Nanny dotes on her
grandchild, Janie
• Mrs. Washburn
– Nanny’s employer and
benefactor
• Logan Killicks
– Janie’s first husband
• Joe Starks
– Janie’s second husband
and the mayor of Eatonville
• Vergible “Tea Cake”
Woods
– Janie’s third husband
• Pheoby Watson
– Janie’s best friend and
confidante
– She can be trusted to listen
to Janie’s story
Frame Structure (story within a
story)
• The novel begins and
ends with two people,
Janie and Pheoby, sitting
on the porch of Janie’s
house
– Janie tells her stories to
Pheoby during the course
of an evening
• Janie begins with what
has happened in the
years since she left
Eatonville and memories
of her childhood
• Story proceeds
chronologically
• Narration is not firstperson
– Hurston uses third-person
point of view
– Reader encounters Janie’s
experiences and Janie
faced them, and Hurston
controls the story
• Frame gives Janie a
voice in the novel
– Lets Hurston show her
gaining strength and
independence
Four Units to the Framework
Janie’s childhood and adolescent
years with Nanny
*details Nanny’s wish that Janie
Has a better life
*emphasizes Nanny’s protective love
*explores Janie’s feelings about love
Janie’s marriage to
Tea Cake
*True freedom and
Independence
*True happiness
Reader’s learn Nanny’s story;
Janie’s loss of childhood
after she marries Logan Killicks
Janie’s years with Joe Starks
*Happiness and dissatisfaction
*Suffering from possessive love
*Janie fosters her strength
and autonomy