Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale HurstonReview by Ashley Tan
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
Can Human beings really see God? Their Eyes Were Watching God is written by Zora Neale Hurston. It talks about an African woman-Janie. She has three different husbands. They are Logan, Joe and Tea Cake. Logan is kind of old; he spends most of his time at the farm. He always forces Janie to work. Joe is quite similar to Logan because he lacks Janie’s freedom too. But he is younger and richer than Logan, that’s why Janie runs away with him. Tea Cake is very different from them; he is a romantic, young guy. Even he doesn’t have that much money, but Janie like him, because Janie knows that is what the true love is. Each of Janie’s husbands reflects Janie’s personality and her changing dream.
Working is not the definition of love in Janie’s mind. Logan, Janie’s first husband, is a 60 year-old black man; he is a hard-working person. He always makes Janie works on the farm but nothing else. Janie does not want to marry him but her Granny-Nanny forces her to married him. “Did marriage end the cosmic loneliness of the unmated? Did marriage compel love like the sun of the day?”(21) She tries to persuade herself that marriage do makes love because she has no time and no chance to know things, her marriage comes real quite even that’s not what she want. But after the marriage, she found she is totally wrong. She is looking at the pear tree, tries to look for another style of life.
Janie thinks money can let her feel what love is but her beautiful dream breaks again. After Nanny Dies, Janie is very disappointed for life, she lost her direction. At these miserable days, Janie met Joe, his appearance just like an angel, tries to save her. Since Joe is young and rich, Janie knows that he can give her a better life than Logan does. So Janie decides to run away with Joe. She is so selfish, she never thinks about how Logan feels at this cruel moment. But something changes gradually after they marry for few years. Joe doesn’t like Janie to play with the porch people, so he “lacks” her at the store and tried to keep her away from other porch people. He becomes a violent person. He slaps Janie just because he is afraid Janie notices that he is old. “You done lived wid me for twenty years and you don’t half know me atall. And you could have but you was so busy worshippin’ de works of yo’ own hands, and cuffin’ folks around in their minds till you didn’t aee uh whole heap uh things yuh could have.”