Baritone thunder. Snarling winds. Consuming downpours.
Okeechobee, the disastrous hurricane of 1928,
tore through the North Atlantic basin, laying waste to entire communities.
In Eatonville, Florida, the storm forced many to flee.
But for Janie Crawford, it inspired an unexpected homecoming.
Janie’s return begins “Their Eyes Were Watching God,”
Zora Neale Hurston’s acclaimed novel
about a Black woman’s quest for love and agency
in a time that sought to deprive her of both.
When Janie arrives back in Eatonville, her arrival is shrouded in mystery.
Her neighbors and friends are quick to gossip about her reappearance,
her finances, and most importantly, the whereabouts of her missing husband.
But only Janie’s friend Pheoby gets to hear the whole story.
Over the course of a conversation that spans most of the novel,
Hurston untangles Janie’s life story;
from her complicated childhood and her life in Eatonville,
to her scandalous departure and the shocking events that followed.
The specifics of Janie’s story are often larger than life,
but many of the book’s details reflect the incredible experiences of its author.
Zora Neale Hurston was raised in Eatonville,
one of the first planned and incorporated all-Black communities in America.
Like Janie, she also left Eatonville abruptly,
traveling first to Jacksonville and DC, before eventually moving further north.
In New York City, Hurston studied anthropology
and became a renowned author in the Harlem Renaissance,
a cultural, literary and artistic movement that’s still considered a golden era
of Black artistry and creativity.
Here, her work garnered enough support to fund research trips through the South,
where she collected stories and folktales from Black Americans.
By 1937, her fieldwork had taken her all the way to Haiti,
where she wrote most of “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
Hurston drew on all these experiences for the novel,
incorporating folkloric elements alongside her own family and romantic history
to bring readers into the intimate spaces of Black southern life.
She uses regional phrases and sayings
to capture the dialect of her Floridian characters.
And the novel’s omniscient third-person narration
allows Hurston to unleash her poetic prose on everything
from birdsong, architecture, and fashion,
to her characters’ deepest feelings and motivations.
Perhaps more than any specific details,
Hurston’s experiences of being a Black woman in America at this time
are more evident in the novel’s themes.
Over the course of one long evening,
Janie and Pheoby discuss the nature of family, marriage, spirituality and more.
But their conversation always comes back to Janie’s truest desire:
to live honestly and be truly loved in return.
As a teenager, Janie resents an arranged marriage,
despite the safety it offers her and the wishes of her loving grandmother.
When her family becomes well-respected in Eatonville,
she struggles with the judgmental eyes of strangers
and a husband who wants her to be something she’s not.
Throughout her life, Janie frequently feels she’s at the whim
of natural and spiritual forces
that can shift the course of her existence without warning.
And when she finally does find true love,
these unknowable powers continue to act on her,
threatening to destroy the life she's so painstakingly built.
The story takes place during a time where women had little to no agency,
and Janie’s life is full of complicated characters
who demand different kinds of love and submission.
But despite the loneliness of her situation,
Janie navigates these trials with defiance and curiosity.
Her questions and commentary push back in subtle, clever ways.
And as the reader follows Janie’s journey from childhood to middle age,
her confidence becomes infectious.
Just like Hurston, Janie defies the restrictive expectations
for a woman in her time.
Early in the novel, Hurston writes that
“there are years that ask questions and years that answer,”
suggesting that life can only truly be understood by living it.
But through her empathetic storytelling,
Hurston invites us into Janie’s life, her life,
and the lives of so many other women.