Their Eyes Were Watching God

Hey blogosphere! I'm back! I know, you did not expect me for another month or two, but I decided to be proactive while I wait until I can eat lunch. Today, I am reviewing the last of my AP Language novels, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston. Away we go!

Characters: Janie Crawford: heroine of the story/ is married three times/ is looking for more out of her marriage than just security
Logan Killicks: Janie's first husband/ wants to have Janie do a lot of work around the house/ is much older than Janie
Joe Starks: Janie's second husband/ dies a decade after he married Janie/ wants to control Janie and keep her as a trophy wife
Tea Cake: Janie's last husband/ moves to the Everglades with Janie/ teaches Janie how to shoot a gun

The Plot: Janie Crawford isn't looking for just security in a relationship: she is looking for something more. But her grandmother, out of fear that Janie will end up just like her mother, marries Janie off to an old man (Logan Killicks). Janie fears her chances to find true love are lost forever. Only months after her first marriage, Janie runs off with Joe Starks in the hopes that she can create a new life, one where there will be mutual love and respect between both husband and wife. Instead, she becomes Joe's trophy wife and is belittled and mistreated by him. Over a decade later, Joe dies and Janie fears that she will never know true love and happiness. But Tea Cake, a man of almost no money and importance comes into her life and changes everything. Through all her relationships, Janie goes on the journey of self discovery until she finally reaches the point she had only dreamed of: true independence.

What I liked: I really liked this book. First, I want to talk about the format of "Their Eyes Were Watching God". (From now on I'm just going to refer to the book as "Eyes") The book is written in this sort of free-flowing dialogue with this distinctive, flavorful dialect. I believe that this dialect gives "Eyes" its heart and soul. It gives the novel a greater substance than most novels. Novels like "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Eyes" have rich dialect that take the reader into a time and place quite different from their own. However, there are moments where we get into the character's minds for long passages where the dialect completely disappears and a more educated narrator tells us Janie's thoughts. For example, we learn what Janie is thinking when she is "coping" with Joe's death. I used quotes around coping because Janie isn't really too sad about it. Anyways, Janie talks about the "veil" which separates the grief she projects to the outside world from the actual relief that she feels inside. These moments give a sort of clarity to what goes on in the characters minds that can be occasionally lost through the dialect, which can be challenging at times. Also, the Janie of the story would not be able to provide this beautiful allusion; the narrator of Janie's thoughts can. I also really liked that as a woman, I can relate to this story. Not so much the married three times part, thankfully, but the self-discovery and independence that Janie yearns and searches for. I identified with Janie because she was never satisfied with an average life; she wanted extraordinary and that drive really resonated with me. With both Logan and Joe she had a "safe" position in life but that was not good enough for her. She looked to find something greater in both her relationships and life. She looked to find her voice, and her spirit. That journey was the reason why I rooted for Janie so hard; I wanted to have her find herself like every person should. I also loved the ending. *SPOILERS AHEAD* Janie ends up shooting Tea Cake when he becomes infested with rabies and tries to kill her. Tea Cake dying was kind of a blah moment for me because he was not really my favorite character, more on that in a moment, but how Janie was finally able to assert herself and no longer truly live in submission to her husband. Also, the way that she stood up in court and defended her love for Tea Cake was a beautifully written ending, in my opinion. Lastly, Mrs. Turner was a truly awful character, and I am so glad that she was included. Mrs. Turner is a black woman that likes to spend time with Janie because she is "whiter" than the other blacks. (Janie is half white and half black). It was awful to see how she put Janie up on a pedestal because she was half white and vehemently hated her own race because they were "too black". It was such an awful portion of the book but it was so essential to see the struggles that Janie and others like her go through.

What I didn't like: Tea Cake was not my favorite character. He gambled a lot, he tried to "protect" Janie, and then he ended up hitting Janie to show Mrs. Turner that Janie was still his. I was not a fan. He just did not behave in a way that made sense for Janie to idolize him like she did. It also was completely out of character for him to hit Janie. I don't believe that he would actually do that if Tea Cake and Janie were real characters. Tea Cake adored Janie. He wouldn't hit her. Ever.

Overall: 8 out of 10. It would be higher but Tea Cake hitting Janie made me mad. Overall, beautifully written book by Zora Neale Hurston.