Their Eyes Were Watching God Literary Analysis

Literary Analysis on “Their Eyes Were Watching God”

“The Eyes are Watching God” is written by Zora Neale Hurston, a 1935 classic novel that received great acclamation and criticism. The novel is about a white girl, Janie, and her life with three husbands and her grandmother. Life chronicles also detail facts about the people she knows or comes in contact with, which greatly shape her life experiences.

Hurston’s novel is mainly enlightened by racism and diversity with her explanation of the cultural complications and Black diversity unveiling. The concept of horizon, which is the main focus of the paper, is displayed differently for Janie and has numerous interpretations in each of her life experiences distinctly.

The concept of “horizon” has a complex interpretation. The readers could comprehend it in their ways as per their understanding of the novel’s context. Since the main character of the novel “Janie” has been through hard times in poverty and hardship, being a female, the horizon could have symbolized self-acceptance, confidence, and entirety, opening new doors to happiness, security, and self-acceptance, or completion.

The author uses this symbol several times within the novel. For example, when Janie married Logan Killicks, her thoughts embarked upon her feelings when Jody Starks appeared to her as an indication of the horizon. It again shows that she was hoping for a better life and could have gathered dreams about how happy she could be if she were with Jody. However, throughout the novel, it was noticed that Janie could not reach up to that horizon for which she wished so desperately. If she could find love, she would be deprived of peace and independence.

Since the novel is mainly an exploration of ‘self,’ which, for Janie, keeps evolving with her age as she explores herself from being a girl to being an attractive woman (Bernard, 2007). The concept of horizon keeps on changing as well. The words used above to portray what horizon meant for Janie in each situation are interlinked but suited for her specific situation, marriage, or the man she was married to at a point in time.

For case in point, when she was in a marriage with Jody, and as soon he became ill, he could not control her anymore as he was so full and could not be contained. Her wishes were far greater to achieve the horizon of her happiness, which she thought she could not get anymore from Jody with his illness.

In the case of Tea Cake, he was forced by the hurricane to leave as he had to find a way through the floods. It was an entire opposite side of nature, opposite to what horizon depicted for Janie. The hurricane is symbolized as nature’s destruction in contrast with Janie’s idea of the horizon, which is hope and happiness. Hurricanes cause chaos and vulnerability; however, the horizon was peace and calmness that Janie was always on the lookout for.

Since the horizon is always far away and cannot be completely reached, no matter how far one travels, Janie feels the same about her hopes, dreams, and happiness. The quote is related to her Nanny: “Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon- for no matter how far a person can go, the horizon is still way beyond you.”

With time and the evolution of her ‘self’ with each of her husbands, she realized that desire or happiness is not the symbol for the horizon; it should be satisfied. It should be the fulfillment of her long-wanted desires and the purity of love she thought she had found with Tea Cake as she found solace in his partnership. She came to know when Jody was dead and noticed that it was only passive love that she was after; in actuality, it was Tea Cake that changed the meaning of her love for her, which was a more shining horizon that was aiming at.

Each of the instances within the book where the horizon is mentioned exhibits a different meaning. For example, the love she initially wants to connect with appeared as a mystery to her in the beginning. Soon after she married her first husband, her life experiences helped shape her beliefs about the horizon. Till the end of the book, the horizon kept symbolizing her ‘chase,’ seemingly ending with the book when she superficially reached harmony with the world and accepted it as it is.

As the story is written intricately, by narrating the story in the voice of Janie, narrating it with the voice of the author herself, and narrating it by Janie’s grandmother, there is a distinctly individual context for each time the horizon is symbolized. The past, present, and future wishes have been intermingled with a strict sequential narration of the dynamic elements related to Janie’s life. Janie, being a human, and her relationship with the life’s incidents that link her with nature create a deep connection with the horizon that is explicit in diverse scenarios.