Their Eyes Were Watching God

I’ve been aware of this book for many years and finally checked it out from the library a couple of years ago. I made it through most of the book but didn’t manage to finish it before it was due and then I didn’t get back to it until now. I was going to pick up where I left off when I checked it out again but instead I read it from the beginning. I think that was a wise choice.

Janie Crawford was raised by her grandmother, who worked for a white family. She grew up and played with the children in that family and never noticed a difference in skin color until she was older and it was pointed out. When she was a teenager and taking a bit of interest in a boy, her grandmother married her off to a much older man from a nearby farm. Her grandmother remembered what it was like to be a slave and Janie’s mother had experienced violence during Janie’s conception and was scarred in a way that made her unfit to be a mother. Her grandmother’s plan was to make sure Janie was set for life with a good man. Except her life didn’t have the simple existence her grandmother envisioned. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, we follow Janie’s journey through three marriages, mostly in the context of her life as a married woman. Janie is not one contented to just accept things as they are but wants to have choices in life, which aren’t readily available to her because she is a woman.

This is very much a feminist novel. Janie is no meek and mild woman, beholden to her husband. She has thoughts and she has desires. She faces considerable oppression as a wife but is always seeking to be considered an equal of sorts rather than the property of her husband. She does eventually find true love and she faces challenges even then due to its failure to satisfy social expectations of an appropriate relationship.

Race does play some part in the story. Janie has the “advantage” of having fair skin and at one point she finds herself dealing with someone who tries to elevate them both above the “darkies” around them. But Janie never thinks of herself as being above or below others, due to skin color or sex. And she’s not about campaigning for these rights, in general. She just wants to be treated equally herself.

What is captured so well in this story is the lovely vernacular and daily existence of the people. When she is working in her husband Joe’s store, you really feel like you are hanging out with them as they carry on their conversations. And when Janie is stopped from being part of things, you feel how that relaxed feeling is taken away. Later on you can feel the love between her and Tea Cake as they go through their lives on equal terms.

Overall, this was a beautiful and simple and easy read that is filled with so much. I give it 4.5 stars.