3+ paper examples, study guides & outlines
Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is a foundational text in American literature courses, African American studies, and women's and gender studies. Published during the Harlem Renaissance, it follows Janie Crawford's journey through three marriages and her search for identity, voice, and self-determination. The novel draws significant academic attention for its use of Southern Black vernacular, its layered exploration of race and gender, and Hurston's anthropological background, all of which make it unusually rich for close literary analysis.
Student papers on this novel tend to approach it through literary analysis and textual summary, with particular attention to Hurston's use of symbolism. The recurring focus on symbolic elements suggests that writers frequently examine objects, settings, or natural imagery within the narrative as vehicles for the novel's larger thematic concerns. Some papers take a broader survey approach, combining plot summary with interpretive commentary, which reflects how the novel is commonly assigned in introductory as well as upper-level literature courses.
A strong essay on Their Eyes Were Watching God benefits from a focused, arguable thesis rather than a general claim about the novel's importance. Evidence drawn from specific passages, dialogue rendered in dialect, and recurring images tends to carry the most analytical weight. Writers should resist the temptation to spend too much of their essay on plot summary; the goal is interpretation, and describing what happens is only useful when it directly supports a precise literary argument about how or why Hurston makes her narrative choices.