Their Eyes Were Watching God, Book Review Example

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel, a vision that portrays unending optimism and search for love. The protagonist, Janie Crawford, is a dreamer-she hopes to be united with love. Well, love for her was like the tree in the backyard, that blossomed to make it look full and happy. To her love was beyond the boundaries of thought, an explicit imaginative foreplay that would sweep her off her feet.

Why was Janie crazy for love? Was it recourse to her silent captivity in the monotonous grudges of her grandmother?  Or was love a desire, a strange feeling that she had never felt before? It was like a taste that would brethren her senses. True to the fact, that she was never loved or cared, her grandmother and mother were both raped. They never really gave her feelings of warmth and love…she never had a father and never realized the bondage of a family.

Characterization of Janie reveals that life had always been harsh on her. She wore old clothes given by her white master, she was treated with contempt and neglect, she was forcibly married to a old man…most of all her young dreams were shattered by her insecure grandmother.  Little did she realize that Janie was different. Her dictionary did not mean family, husband, children and work- her life was a passion. She wanted to love and be loved.

Janie was married three times. Each of them was a shade of experience in her quench of finding the ultimate happiness. Janie was of black origin but color could never hamper her spirits. She was beautiful and sensuous quite unlike her old, obese husband, Logan Killicks.   Janie was forced to marry him by her nanny; it was a marriage in denial. She made compliance to the relationship but was eventually treated with distraught.   Torment , cynicism and sudden encounter with a handsome young man named Joe Starks, gave her the hope of love. They fled to Eatonville.  Janie desperately wanted to be happy, as this marriage was the first glimpse of love for her. Was Jody the man of her dreams? Would Jody give her all the unfulfilled love ? All were not as well as preempted. Jody was chauvinistic and dominated Janie. He stopped her from expressing her thoughts and emotions. He attempted all forms of mental brutality to stop Janie from being what she was. He envisaged Janie as a homemaker, who would be constrained in the four walls of the house. Jamie lost her freedom and her wing of dreams became mere oblivion.

Janie was a fighter and her spirits were undaunted. Jody died of a disease when Janie was at the age of 40. It was another chance for retrieval, another opportunity to get back her life and dreams. Nevertheless, Janie was still sensuous and could easily capture the mind of many a men. Multiple offers for marriage came her way, but she wanted to enjoy her freedom. She continued her work but at the end of the day she felt lonely. Her desire for love was still on fire and she felt her incompleteness. During this period she met Tea Cake, a much younger man than Janie.

Tea Cake was young, virile, energetic and happy. He rekindled Janie’s deep rooted desires to live a life of happiness; where pleasure of togetherness, simplicity and bondage were considered to be the ultimate joys of life. They laughed, played, worked in merry as if the most wished dreams of Janie were finally coming true.  But her happiness was short lived, an accident made Tea Cake sick. He became a threat to Janie’s life and under circumstances Janie killed him.

Well, there was a sudden darkness in her bright colored dreams. Life, love, romance and hope suddenly had a setback. Was Janie a loser, not by choice but by luck? She had unfulfilled marriages and an incomplete family life. She also did not get the bliss of motherhood.

Janie was not a mother; a situation by choice or will is quite unknown. However, without any basic reference of her wish for children, it was obvious that maybe she never wanted to become a mother.  How can a woman not desire children? Was Janie self centered and was only concerned to accumulate the joys that she never had?

Janie was a portrayal of a character that never found love. She had no family; her mother and grandmother were victims of servitude and torment. She envisaged three generations of distraught, neglect and insecurity. She was an unwanted child herself, and maybe she wanted to save her child from apathy.

Janie personified as a teenager and as a woman, who has no voice. She did not want her child to live the same agony, same narrow ideologies, same denial and same deprivation. Huston described an era where the black women were ridiculed and lead the life of a slave. They were mere objects of slavery, domestic workers and caretakers of children. She did not want to give her daughter such a life, such a home or such an environment.

Janie always thought that marriage could bring the happiness she was looking for.  She was throttled in the chauvinistic environment but yet she thought that the love from a man could bring her the happiness. Maybe her lack of experience as being a daughter , a joy in the family lead her to believe that her dream tree would blossom from love by a man. She never could imagine that love does not know gender. She lacked the sensitivity, the knowledge about the happiness from children. Deprived recognition made her believe that children could not be the reason of her love. Her strong feminist feelings were ruthlessly crushed by the men in her life, which made her a pessimist. She did not even give the opportunity to happiness to come and knock her door.

Janie‘s grandmother and mother had always been poor. They were workers in white households,  and Janie was raised among them. Much of her childhood desires were unfulfilled. But Neale Hurston sketches Janie to be rich. Often the attraction of Tea Cake was considered as his ploy to get control over the riches of Janie. So she was an independent woman with riches. She could have easily brought up her children in comfort and could gift them the joys that they deserved. However, her mere ignoring of the aspect of children is fumed from her deep regret of life and her share of grief and tragedy.

Critically examining the life of the author, Zora Neale Hurston, she was a feminist born in a family of eight children. She was the fifth child and had high ambitions. She was a private person and epitomized love. A propagator in black movement, she was critical of the racism and had radicalized views. Her family life was full of speculation shadowed by many marriages. She was often ridiculed and is even said to be arrested for molesting a young boy. These character imprints show that Hurston had a bias towards children and family. She carved her characters according to her preferences and experiences. Maybe this is one of the reasons Janie was left childless all throughout all her life.