[.ca] Their Eyes Were Watching God (Maxnotes Literature Guides) (ISBN 0878910530)

From Amazon.com:
At the height of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was the preeminent black woman writer in the United States. She was a sometime-collaborator with Langston Hughes and a fierce rival of Richard Wright. Her stories appeared in major magazines, she consulted on Hollywood screenplays, and she penned four novels, an autobiography, countless essays, and two books on black mythology. Yet by the late 1950s, Hurston was living in obscurity, working as a maid in a Florida hotel. She died in 1960 in a Welfare home, was buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly faded from literary consciousness until 1975 when Alice Walker almost single-handedly revived interest in her work. Of Hurston's fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie's life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world--a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists--but she doesn't ignore the impact of black-white relations either: It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment. One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can "tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf." Hurston's use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices. --Alix Wilber

An outstanding story:
Their Eyes Were Watching God was one of the best books that I've ever read. The book answered a lot of questions about life. We are faced with several conflicts in humanity with choices having to be made between Love, Good, Evil, Hope or reality, and Truth. It is a story about Janie, a young black woman, who tries to find herself through her grandmother's footsteps and eventually confronts herself to become the person she knows is of her own good. Taken along the memory lane in a small southern black town, "Their Eyes were Watching God" is a beautiful portrayal of the conflicts confronting Janie, not only about herself but also about how her society perceives her. Through an amazing creativity in characters, plot development, excellent narrative, lessons and dialogues and an easy ride through time, Zora successful made the reader to understand and appreciate black culture. This absolutely credible story is a highly recommended book to anyone with a taste for classic stories. THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES,DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE,THE GREAT GATSBY, UNCLE TOM'S CABIN are other fascinating and insightful stories

Through Pain And Loss:
Through Pain and Loss comes this exceptional piece of literature, that though a classic within itself can be read many times over and find something new to capture your attention. This is a one of a kind,special and intrigueing novel about the difficult past in Harlem. Also recommended: Nightmares Echo, Color Of Water and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Their eyes were watching God:
A must read for anyone interested in the black experience. Hurston's novel is a very interesting portrayal of the life of black people in the fictional black town of Eatonville. Set in the early 1900's Hurston is able to convey through a handful of characters the vernacular, and thinking of black folk in the early American south. The Language may require some getting use to but it is well worth it. The novel incorporates a myriad of oral performances- personal narratives, folktales, and sermons- and charts the comming to womanhood of protagonist Janie Starks. The novel is not for those who demand sex or high drama,instead it is a video of words that depict the entirety of the basic concerns of black folk in a new town of their own. There are ex- amples of black men that lived from"hand to mouth" everyday who casually gather around Janie's general store to "cut the fool" and talk of the subtle foolishness in their lives, and there is Joe Starks the talented negro with his plan to go to Eatonville with 300.00, his new bride ,and make a name for himself.The wo- men of the town tend their poorches every evening and anyone's business they can. Janie was married to an older man(Mr. Logan Killicks) through her grandmother when she was about 16, Mr Kil- licks could never satisfy the desires of his ambitious maidens heart,therefore Janie runs away with the dynamic,most ambitious Joe Starks who promises her everything except the loving she de- sires.At first Janie imagines this is the relationship she has dreamed of until Joe's male chauvinistic beliefs begin to stifle her ambitions. After 20 years of marriage,and the death of Joe, Janie meets a young "Jiggalo" named "Tea Cake" who helps her come to some self actualization which she is pleased with. Because citizenship, and racial equality were hot issues, Jim Crow was in full effect,and lynching of black men a regular Sunday outing durning this era in America, Hurston's novel was the target of much criticism from literary peers like Richard Wright because there was no voice of black militancy,or outrage at circumstances confronting black folk,and the issues seem to have been ommited from the story, with the exception of Janie discovering she was the child of a white rapist school teacher. I feel Hurston's millitant was Janie herself. She was a woman that was always told what to do, and when to do it. Most of her actions or lack of action throughout the novel were motoviated by submission, or liberation. As the vernacular thickened, and the climax is approached,Janie achieves the freedom of love,freedom of speech, and the liber- ation of her feminine conscious through her affair with Mr. Tea Cake. Reader besure, this is a great American fiction novel.It takes the reader to Main Street Eatonville, your black narrator delievers a story of the everyday struggles of a real people in a fictional town trying to find their way in a new living con- dition. Perhaps, Zora Neale Hurston's monumental accomplishment in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is the creation of a literary language that captures a place in time.

It doesn't get any better than this:
This isn't a book--it is poetry and I mean that in the best sense--not to turn people off. The writing is beautiful, flowing like a rippling stream over stones. As if this weren't enough, the themes and handling of the materials in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is breathtaking. If you enjoy great writing that is on the same level as McCrae's "The Bark of the Dogwood" or some of Alice Walker's books, look no more--this is it.

A GREAT CLASSIC!!!:
"Where's dat blue satin dress she left here in? Where all dat money her husband took and died and left here? What dat ole forty year ole `oman doing wid her hair swingin' down her back lak some young gal?" I know nothing of Zora Neale Hurston except that she wrote a great classic in Their Eyes Were Watching God sometime in the nineteen thirties. The book makes its focal point around Janie Crawford, the envy of all other black sisters because of her light skin and her below the waist long hair. A strong and independent Afro-American woman, Janie knows what she wants out of life and leaves her town of Eatonville searching for it; finding herself at the altar on three occasions. Forced more or less into the first marriage with Logan which did not last longer than a snowball in hell, Janie does her best to be a good wife, but at this stage she is still young and does not understand what is required of her in this unity which is on the verge of breaking down. As this happens, she quickly hooks up with the sweet talking Joe Starks, a man whom she looks up to and who will become the mayor of the small county where they live. Life with Joe Starks is different to the marriage with Logan as all the folks respect Starks who is responsible, thoroughly arrogant, stubborn and forces his opinions and standards on Janie, like it or not. But a reprieve comes in Janie Crawford's life after the death of the Mayor, which finds her grown into maturity and with a better comprehension of the world around her, and a better understanding of her desires and how she may acquire this love which has eluded her all these years. From her past experiences Janie reaches out for marriage the third time over with a man twelve years her junior, and this is when she will taste love at its sweetest for the first time, and be acquainted with pain, racial prejudice and great loss. For lovers of classical books, this book comes highly recommended!!! Heather Marshall Negahdar (SUGAR-CANE 28/03/05)