Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

First published: 1937

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Bildungsroman

Time of plot: Around 1900

Locale: Florida

Principal Characters

• Janie Crawford Killicks Starks Woods, the thrice-married, twice-widowed protagonist
• Pheoby Watson, her friend
• Nanny, her grandmother
• Logan Killicks, her first husband
• Joe Starks, her second husband
• Tea Cake Woods, her third husband

The Story

A little girl, Janie Starks assumes she is white. She lives with her grandmother and plays constantly with the children of the Washburns, for whom Nanny works. Only when a photographer takes the children’s picture does Janie realize that she is the black girl in the photo. Nanny is protective of her and worries when she becomes a teenager. To Nanny, the easiest way to protect Janie from the attentions of useless men is to marry her off young to a good one.

So Janie finds herself married early to Logan Killicks, an older man with a house and land. No affection exists between them; Logan seems to want someone to share the work. Janie can hardly stand to be around him. She complains to Nanny about his big belly, his mule-foot toenails, and the fact that he refuses to wash his feet before coming to bed: “Ah’d ruther be shot wid tacks than tuh turn over in de bed and stir up de air whilst he is in dere.”

One day Janie meets a stranger on the road, a handsome, charming man named Joe “Jody” Starks. He is on his way to make a place for himself in a new all-black town, Eatonville. After sneaking off to meet Jody in the scrub oaks for several days and getting him to promise to marry her, Janie runs away with him.

Jody does make himself a place in the new town, becoming the mayor and opening the first store. Janie finds herself the most envied woman in town, with the most important husband and the biggest house. She spends her days working in the store but soon finds that life with Jody is not as wonderful as she had imagined. He is given to jealousy and insists that she wear a kerchief over her beautiful long hair so that the men who come into the shop will not admire or touch it. To keep her in her place, he frequently criticizes her work and refuses to let her express her opinions to their acquaintances and friends who visited with them on the porch of the house in front of the store. Over the years this treatment drains the life from Janie: “She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels.”

One night Joe becomes angry when Janie miscuts a plug of tobacco. Although she knows it is better to keep silent, she talks back and he, fearing to lose face in front of his friends, strikes her. From then on, Jody sleeps downstairs. Soon after, he becomes sick, but he still refuses to let Janie come near him again. Even on the night of his death, when she comes into his room to speak with him, he cannot forgive her.

After Joe’s death, Janie tends the store. Joy comes back into her life with Tea Cake Woods, a young man of questionable reputation who finds his way to the store one day and entertains her with checker games and his guitar. Before Jody is dead nine months, Janie starts spending all of her time with Tea Cake, wearing colorful dresses and showing off her hair. When Janie leaves town to marry Tea Cake, the town is sure she is being taken for her money. The townsfolk are wrong, though. Despite the difference in their ages—Janie is close to forty by this time—and the difference in their former lives, Janie finds that her new husband loves and appreciates her. He takes her to the Everglades, where they go “on de muck” picking beans. Here, Janie finds herself in the center of a community of lively, happy, hardworking folk. Janie and Tea Cake’s house becomes the center of activity after a day’s work, and the main activities are making music and gambling, both of which Tea Cake does well. For the first time, Janie finds happiness in a marriage.

After two good seasons, disaster comes when a hurricane strikes, breaks the dam, and floods the area. Most of the residents anticipate the storm and leave early enough, but Tea Cake and Janie stay. By the time they finally try to make it to high ground, the dam bursts and they find themselves swimming to safety. Janie almost died in the rush of water but managed to grab a swimming cow’s tail to be carried along. When a dog riding on the cow’s back tries to bite Janie and force her away, Tea Cake rised up and kills the dog, but not before the dog bites him in the face. Finally, exhausted, Janie and Tea Cake reach safety.

Their relief is short-lived, however, for Tea Cake begins to suffer from terrible headaches and becomes ill-tempered. Janie finally arranges for a doctor to see him, who informs her that the dog that bit him was rabid and that it is not too late for treatment. The doctor warns Janie to be careful around the ill man. When Tea Cake, in the middle of one of his attacks, comes at Janie with a gun, she shoots him in self-defense. She is brought to trial but found not guilty, and Tea Cake’s death is ruled an accident. After a few weeks with Tea Cake’s friends in the Everglades, she heads back to Eatonville, where her life began.

Bibliography

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