 January/February 2003
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
To write such a seminal novel as Their Eyes Were Watching God, and for it to become a signature piece says quite a bit for a book that went out of print not long after its first appearance. Coincidentally, it stayed out of print for nearly 30 years. Like the proverbial lore of the Phoenix rising, it not only adds resilience to the author’s legacy but proves without a doubt that good works…even neglected ones should be reexamined for overall viability and content analysis despite determined imperviousness to shame. The previous statement alludes itself to efforts by the establishment not understanding the style in which it was written, and the authors’ ways of languishing (albeit negatively) in the public’s eye.
To understand this novel, one first need to know that Zora doesn’t write directly about black people in the context of a white singular world, but writes exclusively within the confines of black expressionism. This is a book that, despite its lofty status as a classical force of a national epic, it offers a people his or her own spoken language freshly caught on paper and raised to the heights of poetry.
Their Eyes…has universal implications for women in that it protests against the restrictions and limitations imposed upon women by a masculine society. Zora illustrates and give credence to a heroine, Janie Crawford, who must make a major decision about the course of her life. This fluid love story full of thoughtful interpretative realism, pays tribute to a black woman, who, thought constricted by the signs of the times, still demanded to be heard. The characters resonate with colorful imagery: Janie’s three husbands, Mir. Killicks, Mayor Starks, her best friend Phoeby, Tea Cake, and the other images that she allows to come to life.
The story is rather awkwardly told by both Janie, and an omniscient narrator, and is revealed, for the most part, in a flashback to Phoeby Watson. The key to the novel is Janie’s idea of marriage, which is pitted against other, less romantic ideas of a perfect union. Janie ends up on trial for the murder – in self-defense –of the man she loved. The people who knew the couple side against her at the trial, hoping to see her hanged. It is the whites –the judge and jury, and a group of women originally gathered just for curiosity’s sake – which see into the anguished depths of a black woman’s love and acknowledge her dignity and ultimate innocence. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she gives more homage and insightful explanation to Phoeby.
This is a book that should be read by all, with its main thrust toward life and the fact of it being an affirmation rather than denial of why women possess much more strength than men…at least in this adaptation. I like it because it speaks for the self, for equality, for the pursuit of happiness instead of possessions, and lastly, it speaks for and seems to recommend a way of life uncluttered by tradition, sterotypes, and materialism. Zora had the right idea and made statements. She left us with a good signature, reminding us that we may yet learn the possibilities of ourselves only “If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk wit so many people never seein’ de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin’ round and God opened de door”. This is Zora at her best!
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