Customer Reviews

Their Eyes Were Watching God

5 star:		(145)
4 star:		(57)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Their Eyes Were Watching God was one of the best books that I've ever read. The book answered a lot of questions about life. We are faced with several conflicts in humanity with choices having to be made between Love, Good, Evil, Hope or reality, and Truth. It is a story about Janie, a young black woman, who tries to find herself through her grandmother's footsteps and eventually confronts herself to become the person she knows is of her own good. Taken along the memory lane in a small southern black town, "Their Eyes were Watching God" is a beautiful portrayal of the conflicts confronting Janie, not only about herself but also about how her society perceives her. Through an amazing creativity in characters, plot development, excellent narrative, lessons and dialogues and an easy ride through time, Zora successful made the reader to understand and appreciate black culture. This absolutely credible story is a highly recommended book to anyone with a taste for classic stories. THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES,DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE,THE GREAT GATSBY, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN are other fascinating and insightful stories

A must read for anyone interested in the black experience.

Hurston's novel is a very interesting portrayal of the life of

black people in the fictional black town of Eatonville. Set in

the early 1900's Hurston is able to convey through a handful of

characters the vernacular, and thinking of black folk in the

early American south. The Language may require some getting use

to but it is well worth it. The novel incorporates a myriad of

oral performances- personal narratives, folktales, and sermons-

and charts the comming to womanhood of protagonist Janie Starks.

The novel is not for those who demand sex or high drama,instead

it is a video of words that depict the entirety of the basic

concerns of black folk in a new town of their own. There are ex-

amples of black men that lived from"hand to mouth" everyday who

casually gather around Janie's general store to "cut the fool"

and talk of the subtle foolishness in their lives, and there is

Joe Starks the talented negro with his plan to go to Eatonville

with 300.00, his new bride ,and make a name for himself.The wo-

men of the town tend their poorches every evening and anyone's

business they can. Janie was married to an older man(Mr. Logan

Killicks) through her grandmother when she was about 16, Mr Kil-

licks could never satisfy the desires of his ambitious maidens

heart,therefore Janie runs away with the dynamic,most ambitious

Joe Starks who promises her everything except the loving she de-

sires.At first Janie imagines this is the relationship she has

dreamed of until Joe's male chauvinistic beliefs begin to

stifle her ambitions. After 20 years of marriage,and the death

of Joe, Janie meets a young "Jiggalo" named "Tea Cake" who

helps her come to some self actualization which she is pleased

with. Because citizenship, and racial equality were hot issues,

Jim Crow was in full effect,and lynching of black men a regular

Sunday outing durning this era in America, Hurston's novel was

the target of much criticism from literary peers like Richard

Wright because there was no voice of black militancy,or outrage

at circumstances confronting black folk,and the issues seem to

have been ommited from the story, with the exception of Janie

discovering she was the child of a white rapist school teacher.

I feel Hurston's millitant was Janie herself. She was a woman

that was always told what to do, and when to do it. Most of her

actions or lack of action throughout the novel were motoviated

by submission, or liberation.

As the vernacular thickened, and the climax is approached,Janie

achieves the freedom of love,freedom of speech, and the liber-

ation of her feminine conscious through her affair with Mr. Tea

Cake. Reader besure, this is a great American fiction novel.It

takes the reader to Main Street Eatonville, your black narrator

delievers a story of the everyday struggles of a real people in

a fictional town trying to find their way in a new living con-

dition. Perhaps, Zora Neale Hurston's monumental accomplishment

in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is the creation of a literary

language that captures a place in time.

When I started reading it, I didn't enjoy it too much but it wasn't to the point that I wanted to put it down. So I trudged through and found that it developed a lot faster than I thought. I think Hurston has a way with words and knows how to switch back and forth from modern English to the South.

I know there are people out thee who may not like having to read a different dialect in English but there are interesting themes in the story that I think people can explore and learn from, maybe even discuss.

I have read this book half a dozen times and made the decision to own it. Every time I read it I find something new. Zora's writing style, imagery and prose have no equal. One of my top 10.

"Where's dat blue satin dress she left here in? Where all dat money her husband took and died and left here? What dat ole forty year ole `oman doing wid her hair swingin' down her back lak some young gal?"

I know nothing of Zora Neale Hurston except that she wrote a great classic in Their Eyes Were Watching God sometime in the nineteen thirties.

The book makes its focal point around Janie Crawford, the envy of all other black sisters because of her light skin and her below the waist long hair. A strong and independent Afro-American woman, Janie knows what she wants out of life and leaves her town of Eatonville searching for it; finding herself at the altar on three occasions.

Forced more or less into the first marriage with Logan which did not last longer than a snowball in hell, Janie does her best to be a good wife, but at this stage she is still young and does not understand what is required of her in this unity which is on the verge of breaking down. As this happens, she quickly hooks up with the sweet talking Joe Starks, a man whom she looks up to and who will become the mayor of the small county where they live. Life with Joe Starks is different to the marriage with Logan as all the folks respect Starks who is responsible, thoroughly arrogant, stubborn and forces his opinions and standards on Janie, like it or not.

But a reprieve comes in Janie Crawford's life after the death of the Mayor, which finds her grown into maturity and with a better comprehension of the world around her, and a better understanding of her desires and how she may acquire this love which has eluded her all these years. From her past experiences Janie reaches out for marriage the third time over with a man twelve years her junior, and this is when she will taste love at its sweetest for the first time, and be acquainted with pain, racial prejudice and great loss. For lovers of classical books, this book comes highly recommended!!!

Heather Marshall Negahdar (SUGAR-CANE 28/03/05)

Through Pain and Loss comes this exceptional piece of literature, that though a classic within itself can be read many times over and find something new to capture your attention. This is a one of a kind,special and intrigueing novel about the difficult past in Harlem.
Also recommended: Nightmares Echo, Color Of Water and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

This isn't a book--it is poetry and I mean that in the best sense--not to turn people off. The writing is beautiful, flowing like a rippling stream over stones. As if this weren't enough, the themes and handling of the materials in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is breathtaking. If you enjoy great writing that is on the same level as McCrae's "The Bark of the Dogwood" or some of Alice Walker's books, look no more--this is it.

Criticized for not writing a protest novel by some of her fellow African-American writers of the time, Zora instead wrote one of the most poetic novels ever written in the United States. Written in the vernacular of her African-American characters while narrated in standard form, this novel is a blues tale which uses both variations of the language to tranport the reader into the heart and soul of Janie, a young African-American woman in the 1930s on a search.

Musical, heartbreaking, endearing, hilarious, and a novel where the issues of the day enter in horrific ways, this book's title has to best describe Zora as she wrote this book, divinely inspired. There is love, there is marriage, there is separation, there is an irrepressible woman who still speaks to all about the search all meaningful lives undertake.

Alice Walker so loved this book and this author she restored her grave.

Sometimes it takes forty years of life, many tragedys and three marriages
before we finally get it right.
Janie got it right towards the end. Zora Neale Hurston was ahead of her time ... writing about a black female hero, a woman who had opinions, a woman who didn't accept tradition, a woman after my own heart.
Janie is a black woman with attitude.
"What does he mean I can't do that, do I not have a mind, an opinion, a soul?"
Janie is black, not the color to be in the 30s, 40s, 50s, even now, sometimes....but she endures, lives, loves.
Tea Cake is her shining star; the younger man, the one most likely to leave her, since she's a forty year old has-been...but
he is her beautiful prince, her young Lolita, her life.
Janie is a survivor, a woman we all want to be like, a believer in the human experience, a woman...(Watch me Roar!)

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" is about a woman outliving heartache, humiliation and death...
She is still living...
inside every woman who believes life can be caught in mid-air, sucked up, absorbed, and changed
if one so desires...
How about you?

I was required to read this book in class. Although many of my peers disliked it, I found Their Eyes Were Watching God to be an interesting book. The vernacular dialect made it hard to read but I enjoyed the theme of love throughout the book. I was interested in the lessons that Janie, the main character, learned through each person that she met throughout her journey. I was interested in all of the African-American culture that filled this book. I would not recommend this book to everyone but it would be good for anyone who wants to broaden their horizons.