Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

 

Their Eyes Were Watching God

By Zora Neale Hurston

This is the story of Janie, who has returned to the town where she spent most of her adult life after leaving it to find herself and her own true freedom and happiness. Janie is telling her life story to her friend Pheoby, who she instructs to go and tell it to everyone she had passed on her way into town who asked her where she had been, thinking she was so high and mighty. Janie recounts how she was pushed into marriage by her grandmother who wanted Janie to have all of the freedoms she never did. 

But Janie is told to marry a man she didn't, and couldn't, love until one day she meets a man she finds extremely handsome and charismatic. She leaves her husband and follows this man (Joe Stark) to a new place where he becomes an influential person, raising Janie's life up to great financial heights compared to the others in the community. However, her life with Joe proves unsatisfying because Joe wants to keep her apart from the community. He has a jealous nature and uses his great wit and manipulation to keep Janie sequestered from the goings on in the community. 

After Joe dies, Janie continues to run his prosperous business until another charismatic man named Tea Cake comes around. Everyone warns her that Tea Cake only wants her money, but she ignores them and follows her heart. Tea Cake takes her away to live a menial life full of love, joy, and fun. Janie finds herself and learns what freedom is. Ultimately Tea Cake also dies, leaving Janie free to return to the town she left from with him. There, she decides she will live her life on her own terms without fear or care what anyone else says or thinks.

I enjoyed this story, the setting, and the characters. It was a beautiful message. However, the dialectical writing was really tough to get through. That really held it back for me. Their Eyes Were Watching God had the potential to be a great story for me, but in the end I can only give it 4 stars. It hurt my head to stumble through the dialogue.