Written by Zora Neale Hurston

Written by Zora Neale Hurston

Written by Zora Neale Hurston, Their eyes were watching god is a novel that speaks out against male chauvinism and women’s disempowerment. The author uses themes Janie Crawford, the protagonist, to re-evaluate male-female relationships in perspective of its violation of equality. Zora Hurston indirectly criticizes the false sense of security, abuse of women’s rights in the pretense of protection by men, and redefines love as requiring mutual respect and understanding. “Their Eyes Were Watching God” is arguably an outcry against male dominance. Hurston, through the protagonist Janie Crawford, discusses silence versus speech and love versus independence in the context of a male-dominated historical period.

The novel presents its arguments through the narration of Janie Crawford’s story to Phoeby Watson by Janie herself. The reader is introduced to the theme of love versus independent right from the beginning of the novel. Jane Crawford, a beautiful, dreamy girl who turns out a confident woman, first lives in her Grandmother’s, Nanny’s home. Understandably, Nanny’s perception of love is biased to be all about financial security and the male protection of the woman because of her upbringing in slavery. Her long years in poverty and slavery form the basis of her argument when Nanny asks Janie to settle only with a partner who can provide and care for her. However, Janie’s conception of love develops from her 16-year-old self’s obsession with the bee and the pear blossom. Janie saw “a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arches to meet the loving embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and froathing with delight. So this was a marriage!” (11). Janie’s interpretation of the scenario was that the bee needed the tree, while the reverse was also correct. Both the bee and the tree had a symbiotic balance, with each having a purpose and helping strengthen the other. Particularly impressive was that neither would survive without the other. Similarly, Janie established that each partner in a relationship ought to care, understand the individual needs, and appreciate the contribution of the other in strengthening the relationship. Without the other, as is in the case of the bee and the pear tree, neither of the couples would enjoy the relationship leave alone to survive in it. The significance of the pear tree and contact with the bee is carried throughout the novel as Janie uses the image as the basis of evaluating her multiple marriages. Unfortunately, all her marriages fail miserably when marked with the score sheet of the bee and the peer tree.

Nanny develops an urgency of setting up her granddaughters’ first marriage when she sees her kiss Johnny Taylor under the pear tree. The symbolism of the kiss under the peer tree stirs the reader’s mind with the hope that Johnny would be the bee in the life of Janie Crawford, the pear tree. After the kiss, “that was the end of her childhood” (12) because Nanny had a preconceived husband in mind for Janie, Logan Killicks. Although Janie was innocent at the time of the kiss, she had to quickly become a woman going into her first marriage. She marries Logan Killicks following Nanny’s advice, but it soon turns to be the worst decision of her life. It is essential that Hurston describes Logan Killicks as a man who would shower Janie with money and protection, the essential qualities in a partner in Nanny’s perspective. Janie marries Logan after her repetitious begging and soothing of Nanny not to go through with it fell on deaf ears. Soon enough, Janie visits her Grandmother requesting her opinion and what would seem to be a piece of informed advice after she develops concerns that she might not ever fall in love with Logan, now her husband. Nanny comes out loud and clear that Janie’s marriage will create a love bond automatically; she is wrong. An irony strikes out when Nanny further urges Jane to be submissive, obedience, and appreciative of Logan’s wealth and status. To add insult to injury, Nanny Points out that by living with Logan, Janie would develop the utmost respect for him and develop love with time. Jane gives time to the relationship, in obedience to Nanny’s informed advice, but in a year, “she knew now that marriage did not create love” (24). The story takes a different dimension when Janie gives up hope of ever loving Logan and decides to end the relationship. Logan stops “talking in rhymes to her” (25) assumedly an end of love gesture. He starts ordering her around, asking her to perform farm work. In reiteration, Janie says that Logan expects her to worship him, and she was not sorry to say that she would never bend that low. She moves on and enters into her next relationship, thinking at first that her new husband was different, but ironically, neither respect her, nor does he offer the love she was after.

Her marriage with Joe Starks, her second husband, starts on a higher note. Joe presents with big exciting dreams that rekindle Janie’s love again. It is in this other relationship that the author establishes the theme of silence versus speech. The irony of the second relationship being worse than the first, although having started with huge expectations, is noticeable even by an untrained eye. When Joe becomes a mayor, he establishes limitations, does and don’ts, for Janie. He expects nothing short of total submission and obedience from his wife. Joe Starks, the new mayor, brings his title to the relationship. He directs that Jane should not have a social life, express herself, or even talk to the townspeople because such was the mannerism of a mayor’s wife. Joe believes that leaving his wife free would be demeaning and would expose him as a weak leader. When Janie is requested to make a speech during her husband’s inauguration ceremony as the town’s mayor, Joe “spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything.” (41). It was clear that Janie was silenced right from the beginning of the marriage.

Although Joe thinks that silencing his wife would depict her as the suitable mayor’s wife, and him as the appropriate leader, his actions drives Janie away as they shut down her autonomy. Now a silenced woman Janie had no more “blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where petals used to be” (68). However, when the push turned shoving, Janie could no longer tolerate being suppressed any longer. Joe insults Janie when she makes an inept mistaken when serving a customer, provoking her to insult him right back. “Ah ain’t no young gal no mo’ but den Ah ain’t no old woman neither. Ah, reckon Ah looks mah age too. But Ah’m uh woman every inch of me, and Ah know it. Dat’s uh whole lot more’n you jin say. You big-bellies round here and out a lot of brag, but ‘it ain’t’ nothin’ to it but yo’ big voice. Humph! Talkin’ bout me lookin’ old When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life” (75). Her outburst and the author’s use of a typical black-woman accent is figurative and acts as an open call for all women to shun tolerating disrespect and suffering from male chauvinists. Janie finally breaks out from the bondage of suppressed individuality and stands out to defend her autonomy.

The problems of Joes and Janie’s marriage are more than meets the eye. To imagine that a relationship would thrive without freedom of expression, respect for autonomy, and understanding between both partners would be a total fiasco. Joe is egotistic and only minds about his fortunes and his plans for the town. He suppresses Janie’s feelings and establishes total dominance over her. The reader is brought up to speed when the narrator describes that Janie’s husband, “Joe wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it” (86). Any attempt Janie made to reverse the situation would be a total letdown. She soon realized that trying to change Joe would only worsen the case, “it did not do her any good. It just made Joe do more” (86).

Janie’s marriage and his interpretation were further ruined by Joes consistently using her as a tool for display. He stole her privacy when he deprived her of the right to interact with the townsfolk terming them commoners who were not good enough for her. Jose built her used her as a tool for display when they opened the store. In Joe’s own words, “everybody was coming sort of fixed up, and he didn’t mean for nobody else’s wife to rank with her… She must look on herself as the bell-cow, and the other women were the gang” (51). The reader understands the extent of problems of Janie’s marriage with Joe when the two fail to reconcile even on his deathbed when he contracts a kidney disease. As if indicating a drastic end to the relationship, Janie exclaims, you wouldn’t listen. You done lived wid me for twenty years, and you don’t half know me at all. And you could have but you so busy woshippin’ de works of yo’ own hands, and cuffin’ folks around their minds till you didn’t see uh the whole heap up things yuh could have” (104).

Ultimately, the novel “Their eyes were watching god” is not merely a narration about the protagonists failed multiple marriages; instead, it is a call for redefining love and accepting the role of a woman in the relationship. Fast-Forwards to today, the fight for gender equality has not been fully embraced. While it is true that noticeable progress has been made in the fight for gender equality, it is still incontestable that male dominance is still rampant, and the pangs of women’s disempowerment are still lingering in the stomach of modern society.