Key Facts
full title · Their Eyes Were Watching God
author · Zora Neale Hurston
type of work · Novel
genre · Bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel), American Southern spiritual
journey
language · English
time and place written · Written in seven weeks during 1937 while
Hurston was in Haiti; published in New York
date of first publication · September 1937
publisher · J.B. Lippincott, Inc.
narrator · The narrator is anonymous, though it is easy to detect
a distinctly Southern sensibility in the narrator's voice.
point of view · Though the novel is narrated in the third person, by
a narrator who reveals the characters' thoughts and motives, most
of the story is framed as Janie telling a story to Pheoby. The result
is a narrator who is not exactly Janie but who is abstracted from
her. Janie's character resonates in the folksy language and metaphors that
the narrator sometimes uses. Also, much of the text relishes in
the immediacy of dialogue.
tone · The narrator's attitude toward Janie, which Hurston
appears to share, is entirely sympathetic and affirming.
tense · Past
setting (time) · The early twentieth century, presumably the 1920s
or 1930s
setting (place) · Rural Florida
protagonist · Janie
major conflict · During her quest for spiritual fulfillment, Janie clashes
with the values that others impose upon her.
rising action · Janie's jettisoning of the materialistic desires of
Nanny, Logan, and Jody; her attempt to balance self-assertion with
her love for Tea Cake; the hurricane—this progression pushes her
toward the eventual conflict between her environment (including
the people around her) and her need to understand herself.
climax · The confrontation between Janie and the insane Tea
Cake in Chapter 19 marks the moment at which
Janie asserts herself in the face of the most difficult obstacle.
falling action · Janie's decision to shoot Tea Cake demonstrates that
she has
the strength to save herself even though it means killing the man she
loves; the white women's support of Janie points toward the importance
of individuality as a means of breaking down stereotypes.
themes · Language as a mechanism of control; power and conquest
as a means to fulfillment; love and relationships versus independence; spiritual
fulfillment; materialism
motifs · Community, race and racism, the folklore quality of
religion
symbols · Janie's hair, the pear tree, the horizon, the hurricane
foreshadowing · In Chapter 1, we learn that
Janie has been away from her town for a long time and that she ran
off with a younger man named Tea Cake; Janie then tells Pheoby that
Tea Cake is “gone.”
The entire beginning, then, foreshadows the culmination of Janie's
journey.
