Their Eyes Were Watching God – Flashcards

Slavery in the southern United States, though abolished by the time of Janie’s life, has a profound effect on the book. This horrific history grounds all discussion of racism and emerges most strongly in the character of Nanny.

Nanny’s early experience as a slave shapes her mentality so that the highest honor she can imagine would be to occupy the position of a wealthy, married woman—to be someone that doesn’t need to work. She imposes this goal on Janie and proceeds to ruin her granddaughter’s life. Because of this, even Janie chafes under the continuing legacy of the slave tradition—racism and a twisted mentality that white is right.

Janie spends time in both rural and urban parts of the state of Florida. Rural spaces seem to represent periods of innocence and relative happiness for Janie. She’s comfortable living in nature, under the pear tree as a child and in the Everglades with Tea Cake in her final marriage. These rural settings emphasize Janie’s poverty and the relative decency and integrity of the lower classes, giving a sense of naturalness and righteousness to Janie’s innocence. The Everglades provide the necessary setting for the hurricane—a force of nature, destiny, and God—to interrupt Janie and Tea Cake’s utopian life and bring tragedy upon them.

The central urban setting, Eatonville, is a center of vice and corruption. There, chafing under her marriage to Joe, Janie loses her innocence most profoundly and discovers in herself the ability to deceive. Cities also mean walls and, appropriately, Janie stifles in claustrophobic spaces where she is confined both physically and metaphorically by Joe.

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, to John Hurston, a carpenter and Baptist preacher, and Lucy Potts Hurston, a former schoolteacher. Hurston was the fifth of eight children, and while she was still a toddler, her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black incorporated town in the United States, where John Hurston served several terms as mayor. In 1917, Hurston enrolled in Morgan Academy in Baltimore, where she completed her high school education.

Three years later, she enrolled at Howard University and began her writing career. She took classes there intermittently for several years and eventually earned an associate degree. The university’s literary magazine published her first story in 1921. In 1925, she moved to New York and became a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance. A year later, she, Langston Hughes, and Wallace Thurman organized the journal Fire!, considered one of the defining publications of the era. Meanwhile, she enrolled in Barnard College and studied anthropology with arguably the greatest anthropologist of the twentieth century, Franz Boas. Hurston’s life in Eatonville and her extensive anthropological research on rural black folklore greatly influenced her writing.

Their Eyes Were Watching God was published in 1937, long after the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance. The literature of the 1920s, a period of postwar prosperity, was marked by a sense of freedom and experimentation, but the 1930s brought the Depression and an end to the cultural openness that had allowed the Harlem Renaissance to flourish. As the Depression worsened, political tension increased within the United States; cultural production came to be dominated by “social realism,” a gritty, political style associated with left-wing radicalism. The movement’s proponents felt that art should be primarily political and expose social injustice in the world. This new crop of writers and artists dismissed much of the Harlem Renaissance as bourgeois, devoid of important political content and thus devoid of any artistic merit. The influential and highly political black novelist Richard Wright, then an ardent Communist, wrote a scathing review of Their Eyes Were Watching God upon its publication, claiming that it was not “serious fiction” and that it “carries no theme, no message, no thought.”

Hurston was also criticized for her comportment: she refused to bow to gender conventions, and her behavior often seemed shocking if not outrageous. Although she won a Guggenheim Fellowship and had published prolifically (both works of fiction and anthropological works), Hurston fell into obscurity for a number of years. By the late 1940s, she began to have increasing difficulty getting her work published. By the early 1950s, she was forced to work as a maid. In the 1960s, the counterculture revolution continued to show disdain for any literature that was not overtly political, and Zora Neale Hurston’s writing was further ignored.

A stroke in the late 1950s forced Hurston to enter a welfare home in Florida. After she died penniless on January 28, 1960, she was buried in an unmarked grave. Alice Walker, another prominent African-American writer, rediscovered her work in the late 1960s. In 1973, Walker traveled to Florida to place a marker on Hurston’s grave containing the phrase, “A Genius of the South.” Walker’s 1975 essay, “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston,” published in Ms. magazine, propelled Hurston’s work back into vogue. Since then, Hurston’s opus has been published and republished many times; it has even been adapted for the cinema: Spike Lee’s first feature film, She’s Gotta Have It, parallels Their Eyes Were Watching God and can be viewed as an interesting modern adaptation of the novel.

One of the strengths of Hurston’s work is that it can be studied in the context of a number of different American literary traditions. Most often, Their Eyes Were Watching God is associated with Harlem Renaissance literature, even though it was published in a later era, because of Hurston’s connection to that scene. Certain aspects of the book, though, make it possible to discuss it in other literary contexts. For example, some critics argue that the novel should be read in the context of American Southern literature: with its rural Southern setting and its focus on the relationship between man and nature, the dynamics of human relationships, and a hero’s quest for independence, Their Eyes Were Watching God fits well into the tradition that includes such works as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. The novel is also important in the continuum of American feminist literature, comparing well to Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. More specifically, and due in large part to Alice Walker’s essay, Zora Neale Hurston is often viewed as the first in a succession of great American black women writers that includes Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Gloria Naylor. But Their Eyes Were Watching God resists reduction to a single movement, either literary or political. Wright’s criticism from 1937 is, to a certain extent, true: the book is not a political treatise—it carries no single, overwhelming message or moral. Far from being a weakness, however, this resistance is the secret of the novel’s strength: it is a profoundly rich, multifaceted work that can be read in a number of ways.

The novel begins at the end of the story and then goes back to the beginning. Most of the book is the story that Janie is telling Pheobey after this has all happened.

Written in 3rd person omniscient and uses formal English. Uses many metaphors and philosophy.

Hurston uses dialect to bring the story as well as the characters to life. The use of dialect makes the characters seem real; they are believable. After making some initial adjustments as a reader to become familiar with the language, readers feel as if they were actually a part of the action.

It is worth noting that the dialect used in the novel is closer to a Southern dialect, rather than an African-American dialect. Not only do Janie, Tea Cake, and their friends have similar speech patterns, but also the guards who command Tea Cake after the hurricane speak in a comparable dialect. Hurston’s familiarity with the language of the South enables her to accurately depict the dialect of the region.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is rich in dialect, known as the spoken version of a language. Dialect is regional, and it has distinctive features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Early in the novel, Hurston tells her readers what to expect in the language of her characters. She states that Janie will tell her story to Pheoby in “soft, easy phrases.” Readers unfamiliar with such phrases often see Hurston’s language as a strange dialect and a barrier to enjoying the novel. Once readers understand the dialect and its common features, the text becomes familiar and easy to read.

The reader approaches both Eatonville and the muck as an outsider and soon discovers patterns in the language of the characters. Initial and final consonants are frequently dropped. “You” becomes “yuh,” occasionally “y’all,” a plural. “I” is invariably “Ah.” Vowel shifts also occur often. For example, “get” becomes “git.” The final “r” is “ah.” “Us” may occur as the nominative, and verbs, especially auxiliary verbs, are generally left out. A double negative such as “Nobody don’t know” gives emphasis. Distortions of the past tense also occur. For example, “knew” becomes “knowed.” Because “-ed” is a sign of the simple past, it is logical in dialect to add “-ed” to make a past tense verb. The reflexive pronoun “himself” becomes “hisself.” A final “th” is spoken as “f,” and although the final “r” is softened in some words, it is added to others. In addition to patterns of dialect, Janie and her friends speak a language rich in a vocabulary of localisms and folklore references. These features are also characteristic of regional speech and help make dialects distinctive.

The character of Tea Cake is to some extent characterized by his language. He is the only character who consistently uses “us” as a nominative; perhaps it is Hurston’s subtle way of suggesting that Tea Cake is of a lower class than Joe or the porch sitters.

Nanny, Jody, Tea Cake, Logan, the people in Eatonville

The protagonist of the novel. Janie defies categorization: she is black but flaunts her Caucasian-like straight hair, which comes from her mixed ancestry; she is a woman but defies gender stereotypes by insisting on her independence and wearing overalls. Behind her defiance are a curiosity and confidence that drive her to experience the world and become conscious of her relation to it. Part of Janie’s maturity rests in her ability to realize that others’ cruelty toward her or their inability to understand her stems not from malice but from their upbringing or limited perspective.

Janie’s third husband and first real love. Twelve years younger than Janie, Tea Cake impresses her with his quick wit and zest for living. But behind the flash, he has a real affection for, and understanding of, Janie. He doesn’t try to force Janie to be anything other than herself, and he treats her with respect. He is not without faults, however; he does steal from her once and beat her. These reprehensible incidents, though, make him a more real character than one who possesses only idealized positive qualities.

Janie’s second husband. Jody, as Janie calls him, travels from Georgia to Eatonville to satisfy his ambition and hunger for power. A consummate politician and businessman, he becomes the postmaster, mayor, storekeeper, and biggest landlord in Eatonville. But he treats Janie as an object rather than a person, and their marriage deteriorates.

Janie’s first husband. Nanny arranges Janie’s marriage to Logan because she values financial security and respectability over love. Logan pampers Janie for a year before he tries to make her help him with the farming work. Feeling used and unloved, Janie leaves him for Jody Starks.

Janie’s best friend in Eatonville. Pheoby gives Janie the benefit of the doubt when the townspeople gossip viciously about Janie. She is the audience for Janie’s story and her presence is occasionally felt in the colloquial speech that the narrator mixes in with a more sophisticated narrative style.

Nanny Crawford – Janie’s grandmother. Nanny’s experience as a slave stamped her worldview with a strong concern for financial security, respectability, and upward mobility. These values clash with Janie’s independence and desire to experience the world, though Janie comes to respect Nanny’s values and decisions as well intended.

Everglades residents who run a small restaurant. Mrs. Turner prides herself on her Caucasian features and disdains anyone with a more African appearance. She worships Janie because of her Caucasian features. She cannot understand why a woman like Janie would marry a man as dark as Tea Cake, and she wants to introduce Janie to her brother.

Pheoby’s husband. Sam Watson is a source of great humor and wisdom during the conversations on Jody’s porch. When a few Eatonville residents begin to express their resentment toward Jody, Sam acknowledges that Jody can be overbearing and commanding but points out that Jody is responsible for many improvements in the town.

Janie’s mother. Leafy was born shortly before the end of the Civil War and ran away after giving birth to Janie.

A resident of Eatonville, Florida. Hicks is one of the first people to meet Janie and Jody. He tries unsuccessfully to lure Janie away from Jody.

One of Tea Cake and Janie’s friends in the Everglades. Motor Boat flees the hurricane with them and weathers the storm in an abandoned house.

The delivery boy and assistant shopkeeper at Jody’s store. After Jody’s death, Hezekiah begins to mimic Jody’s affectations.

A friendly white doctor who is well known in the muck.

A young man whom Janie kisses when she starts to feel sexual desires at age sixteen. This incident prompts Nanny to force Janie to marry the more socially respectable Logan Killicks.

A wealthy widow who lived in Eatonville, and her much younger fiancé, who took her money and fled at the first opportunity. Early in her marriage to Tea Cake, Janie fears that he will turn out to be like Who Flung and that she will end up like Annie Tyler.

Nanny’s employers after she became a free woman. Nanny lived in a house in the Washburn’s backyard, and they helped raise Janie with their own children.

A girl in the Everglades who flirts relentlessly with Tea Cake. Janie grows extremely jealous of Nunkie, but after Tea Cake reassures her that Nunkie means nothing to him, Nunkie disappears from the novel.

Sparknotes:

Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of how Janie achieves a strong sense of self and comes to appreciate her independence. But her journey toward enlightenment is not undertaken alone. The gender differences that Hurston espouses require that men and women provide each other things that they need but do not possess. Janie views fulfilling relationships as reciprocal and based on mutual respect, as demonstrated in her relationship with Tea Cake, which elevates Janie into an equality noticeably absent from her marriages to Logan and Jody.

Although relationships are implied to be necessary to a fulfilling life, Janie’s quest for spiritual fulfillment is fundamentally a self-centered one. She is alone at the end yet seems content. She liberates herself from her unpleasant and unfulfilling relationships with Logan and Jody, who hinder her personal journey. Through her relationship with Tea Cake, Janie experiences true fulfillment and enlightenment and becomes secure in her independence. She feels a deep connection to the world around her and even feels that the spirit of Tea Cake is with her. Thus, even though she is alone, she doesn’t feel alone.

Sparknotes:

As Janie returns to Eatonville, the novel focuses on the porch-sitters who gossip and speculate about her situation. In Eatonville and the Everglades, particularly, the two most significant settings in the novel, Janie constantly interacts with the community around her. At certain times, she longs to be a part of this vibrant social life, which, at its best, offers warmth, safety, connection, and interaction for Janie. In Chapter 18, for example, when Tea Cake, Janie, and Motor Boat seek shelter from the storm, the narrator notes that they “sat in company with the others in other shanties”; of course, they are not literally sitting in the same room as these others, but all of those affected by the hurricane share a communal bond, united against the overwhelming, impersonal force of the hurricane.

At other times, however, Janie scorns the pettiness of the gossip and rumors that flourish in these communities, which often criticize her out of jealousy for her independence and strong will. These communities, exemplifying a negative aspect of unity, demand the sacrifice of individuality. Janie refuses to make this sacrifice, but even near the end of the book, during the court trial, “it [i]s not death she fear[s]. It [i]s misunderstanding.” In other words, Janie still cares what people in the community think because she still longs to understand herself.

Shmoop:

Jealousy is an ugly beast (with famous green eyes) that affects men, women, and communities at large. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, jealousy ranges from simple envy to an obsessive desire to hurt or take revenge on the object of desire. This spite can manifest itself in bitter words aimed to injure, unfounded rumors, plain falsehoods, confinement, or physical violence.

Often, jealousy is unvoiced, but its presence can be fathomed by the bestial terms in which the narrator immerses the jealous character. The idea is that jealousy strips one of his reason and humanity, rendering him animalistic and base. Jealousy can lead to blind hate if allowed to fester long enough.

Two types of pride are present in Their Eyes Were Watching God—a negative interpretation that has the connotations of hubris and conceit and a positive version as dignity. Hubris is often linked to unfounded high esteem of one’s masculinity. Another kind of excessive pride defies or ignores divine law and incites God’s vindictive wrath. Often, pride can lead to wrongdoing that is then recognized and regretted. Watch out; pride goeth before a fall.

Janie’s hair is a symbol of her power and unconventional identity; it represents her strength and individuality in three ways. First, it represents her independence and defiance of petty community standards. The town’s critique at the very beginning of the novel demonstrates that it is considered undignified for a woman of Janie’s age to wear her hair down. Her refusal to bow down to their norms clearly reflects her strong, rebellious spirit. Second, her hair functions as a phallic symbol; her braid is constantly described in phallic terms and functions as a symbol of a typically masculine power and potency, which blurs gender lines and thus threatens Jody. Third, her hair, because of its straightness, functions as a symbol of whiteness; Mrs. Turner worships Janie because of her straight hair and other Caucasian characteristics. Her hair contributes to the normally white male power that she wields, which helps her disrupt traditional power relationships (male over female, white over black) throughout the novel.

Clothes are another external status symbol that the author uses. Although Jody wants his wife dressed in fine clothes, he advertises his dominion over her by making her wear a head rag, worn by slaves and, later, by older women. After his death, Janie declares her freedom by doffing her head rag. Janie’s feelings for her two dead husbands are also expressed in her clothes. After the death of Jody Starks, she wears expensive black-and-white dresses, the prescribed colors worn by a mourning widow. In contrast, after Tea Cake dies, Janie is so grief-stricken she is very indifferent to society’s conventions and wears overalls to his funeral.

The hurricane represents the destructive fury of nature. As such, it functions as the opposite of the pear tree and horizon imagery: whereas the pear tree and horizon stand for beauty and pleasure, the hurricane demonstrates how chaotic and capricious the world can be. The hurricane makes the characters question who they are and what their place in the universe is. Its impersonal nature—it is simply a force of pure destruction, lacking consciousness and conscience—makes the characters wonder what sort of world they live in, whether God cares about them at all, and whether they are fundamentally in conflict with the world around them. In the face of the hurricane, Janie and the other characters wonder how they can possibly survive in a world filled with such chaos and pain.

Also…

The hurricane’s devastation is beyond the control of the book’s characters. Capricious but impersonal, it is a concrete example of the destructive power found in nature. Janie, Tea Cake, and their friends can only look on in terror as the hurricane destroys the structure of their lives and leaves them to rebuild as best they can. A pivotal event in the novel, the hurricane marks an abrupt transition from Janie’s idyllic life with Tea Cake. After the storm strikes, events rush rapidly to Tea Cake’s death and the novel’s conclusion.

“Wind” or “whirlwind” is also used as a metaphor in other parts of the book, always in reference to power, often in conjunction with destructiveness. “Wind” represents power that effects change–but is not always in control of the results. For example, Joe is described as “uh whirlwind among breezes…We bend which ever way he blows.” (p 42)

The horizon represents Janie’s idealized views of nature. The horizon represents the far-off mystery of the natural world, with which she longs to connect. Janie’s hauling in of her horizon “like a great fish-net” at the end of the novel indicates that she has achieved the harmony with nature that she has sought since the moment under the pear tree.

Also…

Janie invokes the symbol of the horizon repeatedly throughout the novel; to Janie, the horizon symbolizes the realm of the possible, that which she can dream about. During her arranged marriage with Logan Killicks, Janie remarks that the stylish and ambitious Jody Starks shows her a glimpse of the horizon, meaning that he provides her with a vision of what her life could be like. Though after Jody, too, turns out to treat Janie poorly and stifle her voice, it is Tea Cake who ultimately provides Janie with access to the horizon: in her marriage with Tea Cake, Janie is able to find love, sexual satisfaction, independence ,and self-expression all at once, that which she has always dreamed of. For that reason, even after Tea Cakes death, Janie feels that she still has and always will have access to the metaphorical horizon.

The incident of the “town mule”, when Jody “rescues” Matt Bonner’s mule (p 55-62), is more than just a humorous moment in the book. The mule story serves to illustrate the strained relationship between Janie and Joe Starks. More than that, however, the figure of the mule can refer not only to Janie herself but to any black woman struggling for independence. At the beginning of the novel Nanny tells Janie, “Honey, white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out…So de white man throw down de load and tell de n… man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De n… woman is de mule of de world so fur as Ah can see. Ah been prayin’ fuh it tuh be different wid you. Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!” (p 14) Janie identifies with the mule, which remains stubbornly independent despite its master’s efforts to beat it down. Ironically, while Jody’s position in the city gives him the power to free the mule, his pride and ambition cause him to virtually enslave his wife. He can free Janie only by his death.

The Muck represents Janie’s lifelong urge to get to be a little wild and do whatever she wants. It gave her the freedom to stop being a high class lady and start being just a lady. She begins to become herself while working with the rest of them.

The pear tree represents Janie’s idealized views of nature. In the bees’ interaction with the pear tree flowers, Janie witnesses a perfect moment in nature, full of erotic energy, passionate interaction, and blissful harmony. She chases after this ideal throughout the rest of the book.

Also…

Janie has her first experience of sexual awakening under the blooming pear tree in spring, just before her first kiss with Johnny Taylor. Throughout the novel, the pear tree symbolizes for Janie the feeling she experienced directly while sitting beneath it – the sense of possibility in life for a connection between the self and the natural world, and the feelings of sexual desire and love. Thus when looking at the sexualized imagery of the pear tree blossoms, Janie declares, “So this was a marriage!” Janie’s conflation between sexual desire and marriage is an idea that is eventually debunked for Janie by her experiences with Jody, but is reinvigorated when she meets Tea Cake and finds that her marriage to him allows room for both sexual fulfillment and love. It is for this reason that Janie feels she has finally reached the horizon.

Janie Crawford, an attractive, confident, middle-aged black woman, returns to Eatonville, Florida, after a long absence. The black townspeople gossip about her and -speculate about where she has been and what has happened to her young husband, Tea Cake. They take her confidence as aloofness, but Janie’s friend Pheoby Watson sticks up for her. Pheoby visits her to find out what has happened. Their conversation frames the story that Janie relates.

Janie explains that her grandmother raised her after her mother ran off. Nanny loves her granddaughter and is dedicated to her, but her life as a slave and experience with her own daughter, Janie’s mother, has warped her worldview. Her primary desire is to marry Janie as soon as possible to a husband who can provide security and social status for her. She finds a much older farmer named Logan Killicks and insists that Janie marry him.

After moving in with Logan, Janie is miserable. Logan is pragmatic and unromantic and, in general, treats her like a pack mule. One day, Joe Starks, a smooth-tongued and ambitious man, ambles down the road in front of the farm. He and Janie flirt in secret for a couple weeks before she runs off and marries him.

Janie and Jody, as she calls him, travel to all-black Eatonville, where Jody hopes to have a “big voice.” A consummate politician, Jody soon succeeds in becoming the mayor, postmaster, storekeeper, and the biggest landlord in town. But Janie seeks something more than a man with a big voice. She soon becomes disenchanted with the monotonous, stifling life that she shares with Jody. She wishes that she could be a part of the rich social life in town, but Jody doesn’t allow her to interact with “common” people. Jody sees Janie as the fitting ornament to his wealth and power, and he tries to shape her into his vision of what a mayor’s wife should be. On the surface, Janie silently submits to Jody; inside, however, she remains passionate and full of dreams.

After almost two decades of marriage, Janie finally asserts herself. When Jody insults her appearance, Janie rips him to shreds in front of the townspeople, telling them all how ugly and impotent he is. In retaliation, he savagely beats her. Their marriage breaks down, and Jody becomes quite ill. After months without interacting, Janie visits him on his deathbed. Refusing to be silenced, she once again chastises him for the way that he treated her. As she berates him, he dies.

After Jody’s funeral, Janie feels free for the first time in years. She rebuffs various suitors who come to court her because she loves her newfound independence. But when Tea Cake, a man twelve years her junior, enters her life, Janie immediately senses a spark of mutual attraction. She begins dating Tea Cake despite critical gossip within the town. To everyone’s shock, Janie then marries Tea Cake nine months after Jody’s death, sells Jody’s store, and leaves town to go with Tea Cake to Jacksonville.

During the first week of their marriage, Tea Cake and Janie encounter difficulties. He steals her money and leaves her alone one night, making her think that he married her only for her money. But he returns, explaining that he never meant to leave her and that his theft occurred in a moment of weakness. Afterward, they promise to share all their experiences and opinions with each other. They move to the Everglades, where they work during the harvest season and socialize during the summer off-season. Tea Cake’s quick wit and friendliness make their shack the center of entertainment and social life.

A terrible hurricane bursts into the Everglades two years after Janie and Tea Cake’s marriage. As they desperately flee the rising waters, a rabid dog bites Tea Cake. At the time, Tea Cake doesn’t realize the dog’s condition; three weeks later, however, he falls ill. During a rabies–induced bout of madness, Tea Cake becomes convinced that Janie is cheating on him. He starts firing a pistol at her and Janie is forced to kill him to save her life. She is immediately put on trial for murder, but the all-white, all-male jury finds her not guilty. She returns to Eatonville where her former neighbors are ready to spin malicious gossip about her circumstances, assuming that Tea Cake has left her and taken her money. Janie wraps up her recounting to Pheoby, who is greatly impressed by Janie’s experiences. Back in her room that night, Janie feels at one with Tea Cake and at peace with herself.

The precise meaning of the title is up for hot debate (nothing hotter than a literary debate), although it touches upon many of the book’s important themes.

There are two primary points in the novel that reference the title. Check ’em out:

The time was past for asking the white folks what to look for through that door. Six eyes were questioning God. (18.30)

They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God. (18.39)

These two quotes hint that the title relates to the theme of race. In the first quote, Hurston in many ways accuses blacks of looking to whites to learn what their futures hold. The black community questions God only after they realize that white people can’t give them the answer. This seems to be a bad move; by following what the white people have been doing—hanging around the Everglades when a hurricane is coming, for example—the blacks have been led into danger and suffering.

In the second quote, the black people seem to be looking at darkness—perhaps looking beyond race, because everyone is the same when the lights are out. However, though they seem to be looking at “the dark,” they’re actually looking at—rather than questioning—God.

This switch from questioning to watching potentially means two things. The people could have gained faith in God. Alternatively, they may no longer be asking what their futures hold but watching to see what God will bring.

Why make this the title of the whole book? Good question.

The title is cryptic, but it could mean that the book is about racial and personal independence—not following what others tell you your future holds but instead following God. Janie seems to do just that. She rejects other people’s ideas of what she should want in life.

Most of the black characters’ notions of what they should desire seem born out of the still-recent history of slavery. Nanny, in particular, as a former slave envisions that the best possible life is to live like a wealthy white woman, with nice material belongings and plenty of leisure time. Nanny looked to whites to determine what her future should hold and was led astray. Janie, however, goes after what she wants in life: love. We could see Janie as having eyes watching God, rather than watching other people.

The title can also be looked at from the slave/master standpoint. In the first quote, the blacks have realized that looking to the former slave masters, the white people, won’t do. So, they look to the “Ole Massa” (18.29), or God.

This has several implications. Firstly, that God is the master of everyone—black and white—which is an equalizing notion. The second implies that God is the master and that all humans are slaves. As slaves, free will is irrelevant or non-existent. It seems that people’s futures are determined by fate or God.

This point is further driven home by nature and the agricultural imagery found throughout the novel. Tea Cake, Janie, and their Everglades friends are all agricultural workers—essentially, people that manipulate nature to do their bidding. By looking at agriculture, man seems to have much control over nature and fate. However, God shows up and can manipulate nature to a much larger degree, coming with a hurricane and flood waters. God makes it clear who the boss really is and who can actually control nature and fate.

In the context of the entire book, the title would seem to mean that individual free will is irrelevant…only fate or God’s will matters. Looking at the second quote again, the people are looking into the darkness; their fate is not illuminated, so they look to God because only He knows what will befall them.

In this light—or should we say darkness?—the title implies that nothing is earned by Janie in the book: her happiness and sorrow is all God’s doing. Her eyes then look to God, wondering what he’ll bring into her life next.