Essay: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston – An Analysis

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel by African-American author Zora Neale Hurston. Published in 1937, the text relates the journey of Janie Mae Crawford, an African-American woman living in the South in the 1930s, in her search for her own identity and voice while she faced a racist and sexist society.
While Their Eyes does not center on racism, Hurston uses the physical nature of Janie’s mixed heritage to explore discriminatory perceptions of race both within and without the black community.
Due to colonialism and white supremacy, white European features were held for centuries as the ideal standard of beauty and power (Hunter 238). Sociologist Margaret Hunter argues that this notion created a skin tone bias where people of color with lighter skin and more traditional white features were and continue to be privileged and preferred over people with darker skin (237). Hunter defines this as Colorism or skin tone stratification (237). This discrimination is related “with actual skin tone, as opposed to racial or ethnic identity” (Hunter 237).
From the very beginning of Their Eyes, the reader can suspect that racial identification and appearance are an important part of Janie’s characterization. In the second chapter, the author reveals that Janie was a product of sexual and racial violence: both Janie’s grandmother, Nanny, and Janie’s mother, Leafy, were raped by white men (19). These violations are to blame for Janie’s mixed appearance: she has light black skin and long black hair. Additionally, Janie tells her friend Phoebe that she grew up with her grandmother in the backyard of a white family, The Washburn’s. As she was surrounded by white children and often interacted with them, Janie recalled that she did not realize she was black until she was about six years old and looked at a photograph of herself (Hurston 8). This anecdote highlights Janie’s particular relationship with her racial background.
Janie’s long black hair, which reflected her Caucasian ancestry, is perhaps her most defining physical characteristic, and it emerges as a motif throughout the novel. When the ambitious Joe Stark- the man who would eventually become Janie’s second husband- first saw her, he ignored her. Hurston described him as “seal-brown color but he acted like Mr. Washburn” around Janie, meaning that he acted as he had an authority over her. (27). However, as soon as she ran and let her “heavy hair fall down,” he started to pay attention to her (Hurston 27). Likewise, when she arrived to Eatonville, the townsmen agreed that Janie’s long hair was her most outstanding and attractive feature: “Dat ‘oman aint so awfully pretty no how when yuh take de second look at her… Tain’t nothing to her ‘cepting’ dat long hair” (Hurston 38). Janie’s long hair is both admired and envied, and in many ways it becomes an indicator of her racial status.
As Joe started to gain more power within the Eatonville community and became mayor, he only allowed Janie to associate with the rest of the locals superficially; he didn’t let her participate in community activities like porch conversations or the mule’s funeral. He regarded her as superior than the rest of the community by both her looks and her association with power, “she must look on herself as the bell-cow, the other women were the gang” (Hurston 41). It is important to notice that many members of Eatonville regarded Joe’s power structure in the town similar to that of white people. For example, he forced the town to drain the street in front of his store, and he built a big house and painted it in a “gloaty, sparkly white. The kind of promenading white that the houses of Bishop Whipple, W. B. Jackson and Vanderpool’s wore” (Hurston 47). Joe then evidently perceived Janie’s multiracial appearance as adequate for his idea of power, authority and wealth.
The most evident example of prejudiced perceptions of skin tone is found later in the story when Janie lived with her third husband, Tea Cake, in the Everglades. Mrs. Turner was a neighbor who idolized Janie’s mixed features. While she was an African-American woman, Mrs. Turner had a slight pointed nose and thin lips, both characteristics that caused her a lot of pride, “even her buttocks in bas-relief were a source of pride,” as she thought these characteristics set her apart from other black people (Hurston 140). Mrs. Turner deeply admired Janie’s “coffee and cream complexion and her luxurious hair” (Hurston 140) and resented Janie for marrying Tea Cake, a darker-skinned man. Mrs. Turner believed that she should be treated differently than darker skinned people because of her Caucasian features, “even if dey don’t take us wid the whites, dey oughta make us uh class tuh ourselves” (Hurston 142). Janie, on the contrary, showed disagreement with this sentiment responding, “Us can’t do it. We’se uh mingled people and all of us got black kinfolks as well as yaller kinfolks. How come you so against black? ” (Hurston 142). Hurston uses this dialogue between the heroine of the story and a bitter and disliked character to highlight the bigoted perceptions towards people with a darker complexion, and the intra-race discrimination that is often found. Hurston also emphasizes a prevalent idea throughout the story: while Janie’s mixed heritage affected the way people saw her, it didn’t affect how she perceived herself. Janie saw no use in trying to see the color distinctions between her and the members of her own community, and on the contrary, she believed in the solidarity between them. While Mrs. Turner comments didn’t seem to bother Janie that profoundly, they did clearly affect Tea Cake. After overhearing Mrs. Turner, he became more insecure and violent towards Janie, beating her as a way of proving “dem Turners who is the boss” and leaving marks over her light skin to prove the power he had over Janie (Hurston 148). This was applauded by other men in the town, who believed Tea Cake was a “lucky man” because people could see every place where he hit Janie, while in “ol’ rusty black women” it was harder to leave marks (Hurston 147). This highlights yet again a skin tone bias towards lighter skin, and how women are the ones most affected by this discrimination.
The skin tone stratification is seen again in the burial scene, but this time coming from white people. After the hurricane destroyed the city, groups of men, both black and white, were looking for the deceased. White people were supposed to go to the cemetery, while black people would be thrown in dugs (Hurston 170). Identifying the bodies’ race was hard, so the guard told Tea Cake and the rest of the group to “look at they hair, when you can’t tell no other way” (Hurston 171). This discrimination allowed racially mixed people to get a proper burial, while darker black people would not get that same treatment.
It is important to notice that this skin tone bias surfaced once more after the trial, when Janie overheard two men saying, “Aw you know dem white mens wuzn’t gointuh do nothin’ tuh no woman dat look lak her” (Hurston 189). The men were implying that Janie’s mixed features gave her an advantage that she wouldn’t have had if she were darker.
While Their Eyes is not a story that centers on racism, it evidently permeates the narrative and the characters. Hurston uses Janie’s multiracial appearance to bring to light certain prejudiced perceptions of skin tone and race that existed inside and outside the black community, such as a preference for lighter skin and Caucasian like features. Nevertheless, she explores these topics without defining or corrupting her protagonist, Janie, who at the end is able to find her self-worth and identity in spite of what others around her expect her to be.
Hurston’s Critique
I really liked the way Hurston approached this story. Through her powerful narration and colorful folkloric dialogue she entices the reader into the story, while she also creates an accurate image of the black experience in the South during the ‘30s.
I thought it was really interesting how, while racism is present in the story and we are able to get a glimpse of how cruel and terrible white people were, it does not completely define the characters, nor does it mandate their lives. In fact, Hurston rather focuses on the inner race dynamics of the black community. I think she in part wanted to show through her art that mistreated groups are far more than just a people subjected to oppression: they have their virtues, their flaws, and their dimensions; they are complex, and they are not just victimized by their circumstances. This was a brave position in a time where African American writers often focused on the racial dynamics between black people and white people.
Hurston’s book is not a racial protest, but rather a story about a human experience encapsulated in a black woman. I believe she included certain elements that allowed her to explore sociological themes like gender, race, and inner community dynamics without presenting her characters as completely haunted by their historical context. In its core, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a story about self-discovery and love more than anything else; and that in it itself is a good enough reason to read the novel.