Their Eyes Were Watching God

“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 power and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.”

Hurston introduces the porch, the gathering place for the town of Eatonville. The power and ability of the porch-sitters to pass judgment shows the centrality of the storytelling culture to the identity of the people who sit there—mostly working-class people who expend much of their energy just surviving.

“Ah don’t mean to bother wid tellin’ ’em nothin’, Pheoby. ’Tain’t worth de trouble. You 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.”

Janie’s trust shows the importance of Pheoby’s friendship. Janie’s statement also shows her willingness to violate community norms no matter what: She is a free woman.

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!”

The pear tree, which Janie first saw as a 16-year-old girl, symbolizes Janie’s burgeoning awareness of her sexuality. She repeatedly turns to the pear tree as a vision of idealized love and desire.

“De n––– woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see. Ah been prayin’ fah it tuh be different wid you. Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!”

Nanny articulates the triple burden of poverty, racism, and sexism that African American women face in an unfair world.

“Ah didn’t want to be used for a work-ox and a brood-sow and Ah didn’t want mah daughter used dat way neither. It sho wasn’t mah will for things to happen lak they did. Ah even hated de way you was born. But, all de same Ah said thank God, Ah got another chance. Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin’ on high, but they wasn’t no pulpit for me. Freedom found me wid a baby daughter in mah arms, so Ah said Ah’d take a broom and a cook-pot and throw up a highway through de wilderness for her. She would expound what Ah felt. But somehow she got lost offe de highway and next thing Ah knowed here you was in de world. So whilst Ah was tendin’ you of nights Ah said Ah’d save de text for you.”

Nanny’s description of herself emphasizes the exploitation under which she labors as an enslaved woman, while her description of Leafy’s fate shows how trauma has narrowed her vision of what is possible for her granddaughter. Janie struggles against Nanny’s belief in the virtue of owning things for much of her life.

“She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making. The familiar people and things had failed her so she hung over the gate and looked up the road towards way off. She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”

Janie’s vision of marriage as romantic love rapidly erodes due to the decidedly unromantic relationship she has with Logan. Recognizing that this vision is an ideal and not reality shows that Janie’s maturity.

“Every day after that they managed to meet in the scrub oaks across de road and talk about when he would be a big ruler of things with her reaping the benefits. Janie pulled back a long time because he did not represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon. He spoke for change and chance. Still she hung back. The memory of Nanny was still powerful and strong.”

Janie’s loss of her idealized vision of love leads her to accept Joe Starks as a partner because he feeds her sense of herself as a person who could experience a life beyond the confines of rural, racist Florida. Her initial hesitation turns out to be wise; although he has ambitions for himself, Joe’s plans do not allow Janie to have autonomy.

“He was very solemn and helped her to the seat beside him. With him on it, it sat like some high, ruling chair. From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything. A bee for her bloom. Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them.”

The reference to the “high, ruling chair” shows how unwittingly Janie steps onto a pedestal that limits her freedom. Janie’s misconception that life with Joe would meet her ideal is also indicated by her assumption that he would be “the bee for her bloom,” the vision of love she had under the pear tree.

“Janie made her face laugh after a short pause, but it wasn’t too easy. She had never thought of making a speech, and didn’t know if she cared to make one at all. It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off of things. But anyway, she went down the road behind him that night feeling cold. He strode along invested with his new dignity, thought and planned out loud, unconscious of her thoughts.”

Janie finally realizes that marriage to Joe would require her to relinquish her self-expression. Joe’s cluelessness reveals that he embraces traditional notions of womanhood.

“She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams, just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be […] She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.”

After Joe slaps her over a poorly cooked meal, Janie realizes that she’s been immature to believe he would fulfill her ideals. The reference to having an inside and outside shows how she has learned to conform to gendered expectations, at least outwardly, to survive.

“Naw, 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 kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but ’tain’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.”

As she enters her forties, Janie finally wearies of Joe’s public humiliation and decides to respond in harsh terms in a public setting—the store—when he attacks her. Her public retaliation signals her unwillingness to conform to gendered expectations that she be a meek and quiet wife.

“Janie starched and ironed her face and came set in the funeral behind her veil. It was like a wall of stone and steel. The funeral was going on outside. All things concerning death and burial were said and done. Finish. End. Nevermore. Darkness. Deep hole. Dissolution. Eternity. Weeping and wailing outside. Inside the expensive black folds were resurrection and life. She did not reach outside for anything, nor did the things of death reach inside to disturb her calm. She sent her face to Joe’s funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world.”

The difference between Janie’s internal celebration and her exterior mourning shows her recognition that Joe’s death grants her freedom. She keeps these emotions to herself because she recognizes that joy would violate societal norms for grieving women.

“Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go die horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her. She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love.”

Janie finally realizes the negative impact of Nanny’s notions of security and love. In rejecting Nanny, Janie embraces an identity not shaped by the trauma of slavery, and turns her back on Nanny’s materialism.

“He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.”

Janie’s first impression of Tea Cake, which includes natural imagery and the pear tree references, makes it clear that Tea Cake meets her idealized vision of masculinity.

“If people thinks de same they can make it all right, so in the beginning new thoughts had tuh be thought and new words said. After Ah got used tuh dat, we gits ’long jus’ fine. He done taught me de maiden language all over.”

Janie is willing to violate gendered norms to be with Tea Cake because he helps her experience life in a way no other man had before. The relationship with Tea Cake is thus a crucial part of Janie’s development as a woman.

“He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”

Despite Tea Cake’s actions—gambling and taking her money without permission—Janie decides to trust him. Her willingness to be vulnerable to him contrasts with the way she hid who she really is from Joe.

“Mrs. Turner, like all other believers had built an altar to the unattainable—Caucasian characteristics for all. Her god would smite her, would hurl her from pinnacles and lose her in deserts, but she would not forsake his altars. Behind her crude words was a belief that somehow she and others through worship could attain her paradise—a heaven of straight-haired, thin-lipped, high-nose boned white seraphs.”

Hurston describes the hypocrisy and self-hatred involved in colorism practiced by people like Mrs. Turner. This characterization lends nuance to the novel’s exploration of Black Women’s Identity, illustrating how the pressure to conform to social and cultural norms (in this case, white beauty standards) harms the self-esteem of Black women and stokes conflict between them. In critiquing Mrs. Turner’s “crude words,” the narrative ultimately embraces and celebrates Black beauty.

“They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

Janie and the community on the muck confront nature as an overwhelming force, a symbol of the unknowability of God. The title of the novel speaks to the burdens of life as an African American in the South, struggling against exploitation and poverty, always on the lookout for God’s perceived tests, judgments, and mercy.

“It was the meanest moment of eternity. A minute before she was just a scared human being fighting for its life. Now she was her sacrificing self with Tea Cake’s head in her lap. She had wanted him to live so much and he was dead. No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.”

Janie feels conflicted the moment after she must defend herself by killing Tea Cake. The moment is deeply tragic, but also one in which Janie, perhaps for the first time, chooses herself over another.

“The court set and Janie saw the judge who had put on a great robe to listen about her and Tea Cake. And 12 more white men had stopped whatever they were doing to listen and pass on what happened between Janie and Tea Cake Woods, and as to whether things were done right or not. That was funny too. Twelve strange men who didn’t know a thing about people like Tea Cake and her were going to sit on the thing. Eight or 10 white women had come to look at her too. They wore good clothes and had the pinky color that comes of good food. They were nobody’s poor white folks. What need had they to leave their richness to come look on Janie in her overalls?”

This scene in the courtroom is one of the few in which white people explicitly play a role in the lives of Black characters. Janie’s bemusement over their curiosity makes it clear that their perspectives are not particularly important to her, despite their power. Janie’s irreverent attitude captures Hurston’s implicit belief that there was no need to plead for white respect for African American culture.

“It was not death she feared. It was misunderstanding. If they made a verdict that she didn’t want Tea Cake and wanted him dead, then that was a real sin and a shame.”

Janie is worried that the court, lacking the important cultural and personal contexts of her life, would misunderstand her testimony. This concern highlights Janie’s understanding of the court proceedings as part of a story over which she wishes to exercise control, despite her lack of systemic power as an African American woman.

“Lawd! […] Ah done growed 10 feet higher from jus’ listenin’ tuh you, Janie. Ah ain’t satisfied wid mahself no mo.’ Ah means tuh make Sam take me fishin’ wid him after this. Nobody better not criticize yuh in mah hearin.”

Pheoby’s reaction shows the power of Janie’s story to expand the range of identities available to African American women.

“Now, Pheoby, don’t feel too mean wid de rest of ’em ’cause dey’s parched up from not knowin’ things. Dem meatskins is got tuh rattle tuh make out they’s alive. Let ’em consolate theyselves wid talk. ’Course, talkin’ don’t amount tuh uh hill uh beans when yuh can’t do nothin’ else. And listenin’ tuh dat kind uh talk is jus’ lak openin’ yo’ mouth and lettin’ de moon shine down yo’ throat. It’s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo’ papa and yo’ mama and nobody else can’t tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tub find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.”

Janie shares her hard-earned wisdom, gained through years of conforming to other people’s ideas about how to conduct her life as a woman, to make the argument that personal experience is the best teacher.