Their Eyes Were Watching God
First published 1937 · English · 231 pages
- Novels
- Science and nature
This novel follows Janie Crawford, a Black woman in early twentieth-century Florida, as she looks back on her life and her search for love and a voice of her own. Raised by her grandmother, she goes through several relationships, each of which tests what she wants from marriage and from herself. Much of the story is set in Eatonville and in the farming country of the Everglades. Hurston mixes lyrical description with the rich spoken dialect of her characters. The book explores independence, gender, and community, and it is now seen as a landmark of American literature.
Quotes
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.
Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.
So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he donʼt tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.