Their Eyes Were Watching God

A 1937 novel by Zora Neale Hurston follows Janie Crawford’s search for love, independence, and selfhood in the American South.

Janie Crawford: The protagonist of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, who recounts her life and search for selfhood. Her story gives the novel its central arc from constrained marriage to chosen independence.
Frame story: A narrative structure in which an outer story introduces or contains an inner story. Janie tells her life to Pheoby, framing the novel’s central narrative as an intimate account.
Zora Neale Hurston: An American writer and anthropologist associated with the Harlem Renaissance and Black Southern folklore. She wrote the novel using her literary skill and knowledge of Black Southern speech and traditions.
Richard Wright: An American novelist whose works include Native Son and Black Boy. Wright criticized Hurston’s treatment of Black life, exposing a sharp disagreement over representation and politics.
American literary canon: The body of works treated as central to the study of American literature. The novel’s movement from neglect to canonical status shows how literary reputations change.
Tea Cake: Vergible Woods, known as Tea Cake, is Janie’s third husband and companion in the Everglades. His relationship with Janie tests whether love can coexist with her independence.
Free indirect discourse: A narrative technique blending third-person narration with a character’s idiom or thoughts. It lets narration move between Janie’s inner life and the novel’s broader storytelling voice.
Harlem Renaissance: A flowering of Black American arts and letters centered in Harlem during the 1920s and early 1930s. Hurston’s career emerged from this cultural movement, though the novel appeared after its height.
Native Son: Richard Wright’s 1940 novel about Bigger Thomas, a young Black man in Chicago. Its urban violence and naturalist style contrast with Hurston’s rural setting and focus on Janie’s inner life.
Alice Walker: An American novelist, poet, and activist whose works include The Color Purple. Walker’s 1970s advocacy helped renew public and critical attention to Hurston’s work.

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