Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching Godis a 1937 novel byAmericanwriterZora Neale Hurston. It is considered a classic of theHarlem Renaissance,and Hurston's best known work. The novel explores protagonist Janie Crawford's "ripening from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her own destiny".
Set incentralandsouthern Floridain the early 20th century, the novel was initially poorly received. Since the late 20th century, however, it has been regarded as influential to bothAfrican-American literatureandwomen's literature.Timemagazine included the novel in its 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923.
Janie Crawford, an African-American woman in her forties, returns to her old town, after a year-long absence, and recounts her life story, along with the time she had been gone to her friend, Pheoby. Janie starts with her sexual awakening, comparing it to a blossoming pear tree kissed by bees in spring, that occurs when she allows a local boy, Johnny Taylor, to kiss her, which Janie's grandmother, Nanny, witnesses.
As a young enslaved woman, Nanny was raped by her white enslaver, then gave birth to amixed-racedaughter that she named Leafy. Though Nanny wanted a better life for her daughter and even escaped her jealous mistress, after theAmerican Civil War, Leafy was later raped by her school teacher and became pregnant with Janie. Shortly after Janie's birth, Leafy began to drink and stay out at night, eventually abandoning the baby and leaving Janie with Nanny.
Nanny, having transferred her hopes for stability and opportunity from Leafy to Janie, arranges for Janie to marry Logan Killicks, an older farmer looking for a wife.However, Killicks does not love Janie and wants only a domestic helper, rather than a lover or partner; he thinks she does not do enough around the farm and considers her ungrateful. When Janie speaks to Nanny about her desire for love, Nanny, too, accuses Janie of being spoiled and, soon afterwards, dies.
Unhappy, disillusioned, and lonely, Janie leaves Killicks and runs off with Joe "Jody" Starks, a glib man who takes her to the all-black community ofEatonville,Florida. Starks arranges to buy more land, establishes a general store, and is soon elected mayor of the town. However, Janie soon realizes that Starks wants her as atrophy wifeto reinforce his powerful position in town and to run the store, even forbidding her from taking part in the town's social life. During their twenty-year marriage, he treats her as his property, criticizing her, controlling her, and physically abusing her. Finally, when Starks's kidney begins to fail, Janie says that he never knew her, because he would not let her be free.
After Starks dies, Janie becomes financially independent, through his estate. Though she is beset withsuitors, including men of means, she turns them all down, until she meets a youngdrifterandgamblernamed Vergible Woods, known as "Tea Cake.” He plays the guitar for her and initially treats her with kindness and respect. Janie is hesitant, because she is older and wealthy, but she eventually falls in love with him and decides to run away with him toJacksonvilleto marry. They move toBelle Glade, in the northern part of theEvergladesregion ("the muck"), where they find work planting and harvesting beans. While their relationship is volatile and sometimes violent, Janie finally has the loving marriage that she always wanted. Her image of the pear tree blossom is revived.
Suddenly, the area is hit by the great1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Tea Cake is bitten by a dog, while saving Janie from drowning, and developsrabies. He becomes hydrophobic and increasingly jealous and unpredictable. When he tries to shoot Janie with his pistol, she fatally shoots him with a rifle, inself-defense, and she is charged with murder.
At the trial, Tea Cake's black male friends show up to oppose her, but a group of local white women arrives to support Janie. After theall-white juryacquits Janie, she gives Tea Cake a lavish funeral. Tea Cake's friends forgive her, asking her to remain in theEverglades. However, she decides to return to Eatonville. As she expected, the residents gossip about her, when she returns to town. The story ends where it started, as Janie finishes recounting her life to Pheoby.
The novel explores traditionalgender rolesand the relationship between men and women. Nanny believes that Janie should marry a man not for love, but for "protection".Janie's first two husbands, Logan Killicks and Jody Starks, both believe Janie should be defined by her marriage to them. Both men want her to be domesticated and silent. Her speech, or silence, is defined by her physical locations, most often. For example, Starks forces her silence at the store, a public—and therefore, male space at the time. He says: "... Muh wife don't know nothin' bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She's ah woman[,] and her place is in de home."Janie is also forbidden from socializing with the townspeople on the porch. Tea Cake is Janie's last husband, who treats her as more of an equal than Killicks and Starks did, by talking to her and playing checkers with her.
Duke professor andBlack feministcultural critic,Mark Anthony Nealwrites that Tea Cake defies theheteronormativeroles of his ownmasculinityand Janie'sfemininityin their relationship despite hisdomestic violencetowards her. He writes: "Tea Cake reads as progressive in opposition to traditional gender politics within black communities and institutions and the larger society during the era." Throughout the novel, Janie struggles with her agency in relation to domineering male figures, even Tea Cake whom she chose to love.
Scholars argue that, inTheir Eyes Were Watching God, the role ofmasculinityis portrayed through the subordination and objectification of women. In a reflection of post-slavery Florida, black men are subordinate only to their white employers and adhere to white patriarchal institutions of masculinityin which women are held in a positive social regard only if they are attractive, are married, or have attained financial security via previous marriages. Black women, specifically, face greater oppression, as their own struggle for independence was considered counter-productive to the greater fight for equality for black Americans as a whole.Nanny explains this hierarchical structure early on to Janie when she says:
In the book, men view women as an object to pursue, acquire, and control through courting, manipulation, and even physical force. Janie's journey for the discovery of her self-identity and independence is depicted through her pursuit of true love—her dream—through marriages to three different men. Each of the men she marries conforms in some way to gender norms of the day. The role offemininityis portrayed through the symbolism of property, mules, and elements in nature. Women in the book are considered a trophy prize for males, to simply look pretty and obey their husbands. The analogy of the Mule and Women is stated repetitively in the book and is used to represent the gender role of women. Janie's Nanny explained to Janie at a young age how African-American women were objectified as mules. "De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so far as Ah can see."Mules are typically bought and sold by farmers, usually to be used to work until exhaustion. Later in the book, Janie realizes that Nanny's warnings were true when she identifies with an abused mule in Eatonville. She sees herself as a working animal with no voice, there for the amusement of others and at the expense of her own free will. This identification is shown in the book when the townspeople are laughing at the mule that Jody had eventually bought and rescued (in an attempt to manipulate Janie). However, Janie does not laugh alongside the townspeople as she is shown to empathize with the mule ("Everybody was having fun at the mule-baiting. All but Janie") and she feels disgusted by the situation. The mule represents the feminine gender role in the story by which men suppress and degrade women who are stereotyped as unable to think for themselves and needing constant guidance from men. These stereotypes "become a chain on the American women, preventing them from developing individuality, and from pursuing their personal happiness"and ultimately what forces them to mold into their gender role.
Janie Crawford is the main character ofTheir Eyes Were Watching God. At the beginning of the story, she is described as naive, beautiful, and energetic. However, as the story progresses, Janie is constantly under the influence and pressure of gender norms within her romantic relationships. As she navigates each of her relationships with men, Janie ultimately loses her confidence and self-image, conforming to roles that the husbands want her to fill.
In Janie's first relationship, she was given as a wife by Nanny at an early age and was told that love may come with marriage but that it was not important. However, as time passed, Janie was unable to love Logan. "She began to cry. 'Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think.'"As time passed on, Logan began forcing Janie to conform to a traditional lifestyle, telling her that he would buy a mule for her so that she could work.  However, Janie was strong-minded and Logan made little progress on changing Janie. Janie raised her voice, but still she remained susceptible to suppression and abuse. "You ain't got no particular place. It's wherever Ah need yuh. Git a move on yuh, and dat quick."
Then, in Janie's second relationship, she left Logan Killicks in an attempt to pursue a better future with her new husband, Joe Starks. Joe was the Mayor of Eatonville and achieved incredible wealth, placing Janie in a higher status than her peers, since she was "sleeping with authority, seating in a higher chair". Janie believed that her life would change for the better. However, she was confined in the roles of a housewife and was made to be Joe's prized possession. "The king's mule, and the king's pleasure is everything she is there for, nothing else".
In Janie's third and last relationship, she was able to experience true love, on her own terms, with her third husband Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods. Janie was older than Tea Cake by nearly twelve years. He loved and treated her better than her previous husbands. While she was no longer strictly confined by the gender roles placed upon her by her previous husbands, she was still easily influenced and manipulated by Tea Cake. Janie was forced to shoot and kill Tea Cake in self-defense after he developed rabies.
Logan Killicks is Janie's first husband. Shortly after Nanny observes Janie sharing her first kiss with a boy named Johnny Taylor—and therefore showing signs of puberty—she informs Janie that she was promised to Logan Killicks, a widower, from a young age for her own well-being and protection. Logan owns a farm with 60 acres of land. He grows and sells potatoes as well as chops and delivers wood. He has one mule to plow the fields and decides that he needs to add another to the stable. Though Janie hopes that it will grow, there is never any gentleness or love between her and Logan. She is 15 or 16 years old when she is married off to Logan and later, she grows to resent her grandmother for selling her off, like a slave.Their marriage is purely based on logic, work and convenience—he is a man with property and he needs a wife while Nanny is an aging woman raising her grandchild alone, and she needs to secure Janie's future. There is little regard for Janie's happiness as Nanny believes Logan to be a good husband based on his financial prospects alone.
Logan has traditional views on marriage. He believes that a man should be married to a woman, and that she should be his property and work hard. Everyone contributes to tending the family land. He believes Janie should work well from dawn to dusk, in the field as well as the house, and do as she is told. She is analogous to a mule or other working animal.He is not an attractive man by Janie's description of him and seems to be aware of this. As such, his prospects at finding a mate based on attraction and his age are slim, thus the reason for approaching Nanny early on about an arrangement of marriage to Janie when she comes of age.
During the course of their brief marriage, Logan attempts to subjugate Janie with his words and attempts to make her work beyond thegender rolesin a typical marriage. He does not appreciate her streaks of independence when she refuses his commands and he uses her family history to try to manipulate her into being submissive to him.At one point, he threatens to kill her for her insubordination in a desperate and final attempt to control her.
Joe "Jody" Starks is Janie's second husband. He is charismatic, charming and has big plans for his future. Janie, being young and naive, is easily seduced by his efforts to convince her to leave Logan. Ultimately, Joe is successful in gaining Janie's trust and so she joins him on his journey. Joe views Janie as a princess or royalty to be displayed on a pedestal. Because of her youth, inexperience, and desire to find true love, Janie is easily controlled, and manipulated, into submitting to his male authority.
Joe Starks is a man who is strong, organized and a natural leader. He has money from his time working for white men and he now aims to settle in a new community made up of African-Americans, a place in its infancy where he can make a name for himself. Joe quickly establishes himself as an authoritative figure around the town which has no determined name or governance of any kind when he and Janie arrive. With the money he has, he buys land, organizes the townsfolk, becomes the owner-operator of the general store and post office, and is eventually named Mayor ofEatonville. Joe strives for equality with white men,particularly the mayor of the white town across the river from Eatonville. To attain this status he requires nice things: the largest white house, a nice desk and chair, a gildedspitoon, and a beautiful wife. He is a larger-than-life character and during their time in Eatonville, he has grown an equally large belly and taken up the habit of chewing nicecigars, both of which cement his status with the locals as an important man around town. Joe, like most of the men in the book, believes that women are incapable of thinking and caring for themselves. He likens them to children and livestock that need constant tending and direction. "Somebody's got to think for the women and chillen and chickens and cows. God, they sho don't think none fo themselves."
Jody is a jealous man, and because of this he grows more and more possessive and controlling of Janie. He expects her to dress a certain way (buying her the finest of clothes, with tight corsets) and requires that she wear her long, beautiful hair—symbolic of her free spirit and femininity—covered and up in a bun, so as not to attract too much unwanted attention from the other men in Eatonville. He considers her long hair to be for his enjoyment alone.He excludes Janie from various events and the social gatherings in Eatonville to further his dominance and control over her. He restricts her from being friendly with the other townswomen, requiring her to behave in a separate and superior manner.
Tea Cake is Janie's third and final husband. He is her ideal partner in her search for true love. He is charismatic, charming, sharp-witted, and creative with a penchant for embellished stories. To Janie, he is larger than life, wise, and genuinely caring. Tea Cake is loving towards Janie and respectful of her as an autonomous individual. Unlike in her previous two marriages, Tea Cake never stops trying to make Janie happy. He is more than willing to share with her what he has learned from his own experiences and show her the greater world outside of her own existence. He enjoys being with Janie and playing the role of a teacher. Through Tea Cake, Janie learns to shoot a rifle, play checkers, fish, and hunt alligator, among other activities.
However, Tea Cake shows tendencies of patriarchal dominance and psychological abuse towards Janie, somewhat like in her previous two marriages.He isn't always truthful with her—in a show of male dominance in their relationship, Tea Cake takes $200 from Janie without her knowledge or permission and spends it on a guitar and a lavish party with others around town without including her in the festivities. While accounting for his spending of her money, he tells Janie that he had to pay women that he deemed unattractive $2 each to keep them from the party.He then gambles the remaining amount to make the money back, telling her to put it in the bank and to only rely off of him and whatever money he could make. What differentiates Tea Cake from Joe in this regard is that Janie regularly confronts him and he acquiesces to her demand that she not be excluded from aspects of his life.
Another tendency that Tea Cake shares with Joe is his jealousy and need to maintain some amount of control over Janie. When he overhears another woman, Mrs. Turner, speaking poorly to Janie about Tea Cake and attempting to set her up with her brother, Tea Cake decides to take matters into his own hands. He initially discusses it with Janie, but when Mrs. Turner's brother actually comes to town, he slaps his wife around in front of Mrs. Turner and others to show them that he is in charge and to assert his ownership over her.He ends up successfully executing an elaborate plan to ruin her establishment.
In the end, Tea Cake plays the role of hero to Janie when he saves her from drowning and being attacked by a rabid dog. Tea Cake himself is bitten and eventually succumbs to the disease. Not able to think rationally and enraged with jealousy, he physically attacks Janie, who is forced to shoot and kill Tea Cake.
Janie is constantly searching for her own voice and identity throughout the novel. She is often without a voice in relation to her husbands as she will not fight back. Janie also encounters situations that make her feel that her value as an African-American woman is little to none. She is seen as distinct from other women in the novel, who follow traditions and do not find a life independent of men. Janie's physical appeal becomes a basis for Starks and Tea Cake to have jealousy and belittle her looks. Starks orders Janie to cover her long hair as other men are attracted to it. Similarly, Tea Cake remarks on Janie's lighter skin and her appeal to Mrs. Turner's brother. But Janie begins to feel liberated in her marriage with Tea Cake because he treats her as an equal and mostly does not look down on her. As a result, she loves him more than she did her other two spouses.
Janie does not find complete independence as a woman until after Tea Cake's death. She returns to Eatonville with her hair down and she sits on her own porch chatting with her friend Pheoby. By the end of the novel, she has overcome traditional roles and cultivates an image of the "liberated black woman."
Janie grew up under the care of her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny's experiences as a slave and freedwoman shaped the way Nanny saw the world. She hoped to protect Janie, by forcing her to marry Logan Killicks, although he was older and not attractive. Janie followed her grandmother's advice but found that it wouldn't be as easy to love him as Nanny had suggested. African Americans believed in marriage during the early 20th century because they had been prevented from such legal protection under slavery.Unhappy in her marriage to Logan, Janie runs off with Starks and commitsbigamy. After the death of Starks, Janie meets Tea Cake and they fall in love. Her community thought he was a broke nobody and were suspicious of him. Tea Cake wasn't the perfect man, but he was better than the community of Eatonville had expected him to be.
During the early 20th century, the African-American community asked African-American women to set aside self-realization and self-affirmation values. They imposed male-dominated values and often controlled who women married.Janie suffereddomestic violencein her marriages with Joe Starks and Tea Cake. Starks initially seemed to be good for Janie, but later beat her several times, in an effort to exert his authority over her.Despite her husband's physical and emotional abuse, Janie did not complain, behavior that was approved by the townsmen. Domestic abuse was not entirely disapproved by the African-American community, and men thought it was acceptable to control their women this way.After Starks' death, Janie was freed from his abuse. Tea Cake was kinder to her and respected her, but he was occasionally abusive toward her, such as when he beat her in order to show his dominance when another man seemed to make a pass at Janie.As a result, it is only after Tea Cake's death that she is fully liberated from the threat of domestic violence.
The early 1900s was a time in whichpatriarchal idealswere accepted and seen as the norm.Throughout the novel, Janie on multiple occasions suffers from these ideals. In her relationships, she is being ordered around by the man, but she did not question it, whether in the kitchen or bedroom.Janie in many ways expresses her growing distance from the sexual and social norms of her time. After the death of Starks, Janie goes to his funeral wearing black and formal clothes. But for Tea Cake's funeral, she wears workers' blue overalls, showing that she cared less for what society thought of her as she got older. In addition, critics say that Tea Cake was the vehicle for Janie's liberation.She went from working in the kitchen and indoors to working more "manly" jobs, such as helping in the fields, fishing, and hunting. Tea Cake offered her a partnership; he didn't see her as an object to be controlled and possessed through marriage.
Throughout the novel, Hurston vividly displays how African American women are valued, or devalued, in theirmaritalrelationships. By doing so, she takes the reader on a journey through Janie's life and her marriages. Janie formed her initial idea of marriage off the beautiful image of unity she witnessed between a pear tree and a bee. This image and expectation sets Janie up for disappointment when it came time to marry. From her marriage to Logan Killicks to Tea Cake, Janie was forced to acknowledge where she stood as a powerless female in her relationship.
Starting with her marriage to Logan, Janie was put in a place where she was expected to prove her value with hard work. On top of all the physical labor expected from her, Janie endured constant insults and physical beatings from her male counterparts. Hoping for more value, Janie decides to leave Logan and run off with Joe Starks. However, in reaction to this decision, she's only faced with more beating and devaluement. Joe expected her stay in the home, work in the kitchen, and when she was in public, Janie was expected to cover her hair and avoid conversation with the locals. With one last hope, Janie engaged in a marriage with Tea Cake, a younger man, and things finally seemed to look up for her, even though she was still expected to help in the fields and tend to her womanly duties. Overall, throughout her marriages, Janie experienced the hardships that most African American women went through at that time. From the physical labor to the physical beatings, Janie was presented with the life that a woman was expected to live. [See detailed argument and synopsis in Addison Gayle, Jr.'s article, "The Outsider"]
Janie was able to feel like a woman in her third marriage with Tea Cake. In her first marriage with Logan she was being controlled by her husband. She didn't feel like a woman in her first marriage. She didn't feel any love or affection either. In her second marriage with Jody, she was able to experience independence as a woman. With Jody's death, she became in charge of the store and his property. She was able to experience freedom and an economic stable life. She learned about ownership, self-determination, self ruling, and home ruling. In her last marriage with Tea Cake Janie experienced true love. But she also learned who she was as an African American woman. Throughout her marriages she learned how to value herself as a woman, an African American woman, and a hard working woman.
The novel is written in dialect and colloquial language that expresses it as a story of a black woman fromSouthern United States. Throughout the novel, Janie serves both as protagonist as well as occasional narrator, detailing the events of her life, her three marriages, and the aftermath of each, that eventually lead to her return to Eatonville. This is done with two contrasting writing styles, one in standard English prose when the narration is done inthird person, and the other making use of black Southern vernacular in dialogue. The theme of having a voice and being able to speak out is a prevalent theme throughout the novel. During her first two marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, Janie is subjugated and held under their rule, the former comparing her to another mule to work his field and the latter keeping her in a powerless position of domesticity. Throughout both marriages she finds herself without the ability to speak out or to express herself, and when she tries she is usually shut down. This leaves her feeling like a "rut in the road," the isolation taking its toll until she finally confronts Joe and attacks his ego with a verbal assault against his manhood. The effect this takes is that it leaves Joe resenting Janie and in effect destroys what is left of their marriage. When Janie marries Tea Cake, we see how language affects the way Janie begins to feel about herself. The way Tea Cake speaks to her allows her to find the freedom in her own voice and to begin to learn how to use it. We are able to see how language helps Janie grow as a person once she learns that her voice is her power.
While the novel is written about Black people in the South, it is not primarily a book about a racist society. Nanny is the first character to discuss the effects of slavery. "Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfil my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do. Dat's one of de hold-backs of slavery."The novel is mostly concerned with differences within the black community. Starks is compared to the master of a plantation, as he has a huge house in the centre of the town. "The rest of town looked like servants' quarters surrounding the 'big house'.Starks becomes a figure of authority because he has money and is determined to create the first black town. But his plans seem to result in a town where people impose their own hierarchy. "Us talks about de white man keepin' us down! Shucks! He don't have tuh. Us keeps our own selves down."When Janie marries Tea Cake and moves to theEverglades, she becomes friendly with Mrs. Turner. This woman compliments Janie on her light skin and European features, from her mixed-race ancestry. Turner disapproves of her marriage to Tea Cake, as he is darker skinned and more "African" looking.
Perhaps the strongest inspiration for Hurston's writing ofTheir Eyes Were Watching Godwas her former lover Percival Punter.Hurston writes in her autobiography that the romance between Janie and Tea Cake was inspired by a tumultuous love affair. She described falling in love with the man as "a parachute jump".Like Janie in the novel, Hurston was significantly older than her lover. Like Jody, Punter was sexually dominant and sometimes violent.Hurston wroteTheir Eyes Were Watching Godthree weeks after the tumultuous conclusion of her relationship with Punter. She wrote in her autobiography that she had "tried to embalm all the tenderness of [her] passion for him."With this emotional inspiration, Hurston went on to paint the picture ofTheir Eyes Were Watching Godusing her personal experience and research as a template.
In 1927, a decade before writingTheir Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston traveled south to collectfolk songsandfolk talesthrough an anthropological research fellowship arranged by herBarnard CollegementorFranz Boas.The all-black Eatonville ofTheir Eyes Were Watching Godis based on the all-black town of the same name in which Hurston grew up. The town's weekly announced in 1889, "Colored People of the United States: Solve the great race problem by securing a home in Eatonville, Florida, a Negro city governed by negroes."The hurricane that symbolizes the climax of Hurston's story also has an historical inspiration; in 1928, "a hurricaneravaged both coastal and inland areas of Florida, bringing torrential rains that broke thedikesofLake OkeechobeenearBelle Glade".Scholars of the Africandiasporanote the cultural practices common to the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States inTheir Eyes Were Watching God.
Hurston wroteTheir Eyes Were Watching Godwhile living in Belle Glade, at the home of Harvey Poole, who, as manager of one of the locallabor camps, informed her tremendously about bean picking, and the labors of African-Americans on the muckland. The book was also written while on aGuggenheim FellowshipinHaitito researchObeahpractices in the West Indies.
Hurston's political views inTheir Eyes Were Watching Godwere met with resistance from several leadingHarlem Renaissanceauthors.
Novelist and essayistRichard WrightcondemnedTheir Eyes Were Watching God, writing in a review forNew Masses(1937):
Ralph Ellisonsaid the book contained a "blight of calculated burlesque."
Alain Lockewrote in a review: "when will the Negro novelist of maturity, who knows how to tell a story convincingly—which is Miss Hurston's cradle gift, come to grips with motive fiction and social document fiction?"
The New Republic'sOtis Fergusonwrote: "it isn't that this novel is bad, but that it deserves to be better". But he went on to praise the work for depicting "Negro life in its naturally creative and unselfconscious grace".
Not all African-American critics had negative things to say about Hurston's work.Carter G. Woodson, founder ofThe Journal of Negro Historywrote, "Their Eyes Were Watching Godis a gripping story... the author deserves great praise for the skill and effectiveness shown in the writing of this book." The critic noted Hurston's anthropological approach to writing, "She studied them until she thoroughly understood the working of their minds, learned to speak their language".
Meanwhile, reviews of Hurston's book in the mainstream white press were largely positive, although they did not translate into significant retail sales. Writing forThe New York Times, Ralph Thompson states:
For theNew York Herald Tribune,Sheila Hibbendescribed Hurston as writing "with her head as with her heart" creating a "warm, vibrant touch". She praisedTheir Eyes Were Watching Godas filled with "a flashing, gleaming riot of black people, with a limitless sense of humor, and a wild, strange sadness".
New York TimescriticLucille TompkinsdescribedTheir Eyes Were Watching God, thus: "It is about Negroes... but really it is about every one, or at least every one who isn't so civilized that he has lost the capacity for glory."
As universities across the country developedBlack Studiesprograms in the 1970s and 1980s, they created greater space for Black literature in academia. Several prominent academics, includingHenry Louis Gates, Jr.and Addison Gayle, Jr., established a new "Black Aesthetic" that "placed the sources of contemporary black literature and culture in the communal music and oral folk tradition".This new respect coupled with a growingBlack feminismled byMary Helen Washington,Audre Lorde,Alice Walker, and others, would create the space for the rediscovery of Hurston.
Hurston first achieved a level of mainstream institutional support in the 1970s. Walker published an essay, "Looking for Zora", inMs.magazine in 1975. In that work, she described how the Black community's general rejection of Hurston was like "throwing away a genius". TheNational Endowment for the Humanitieswent on to awardRobert Hemenwaytwo grants for his work to write Hurston's biography.The 1977 biography was followed in 1978 by the re-issue ofTheir Eyes Were Watching God.
In 1975, theModern Language Associationheld a special seminar focusing on Hurston.In 1981, professor Ruth Sheffey of Baltimore'sMorgan State Universityfounded the Zora Neale Hurston Society. Hurston had attended the school, then known as Morgan Academy, in 1917.
In 1978,Harper and Rowleased its rights toTheir Eyes Were Watching Godto theUniversity of Illinois Press. However, the printing was so profitable that Harper and Row refused to renew the leasing contract and instead reprinted its own new edition.This new edition sold its total print of 75,000 in less than a month.
InThe New York Times,Virginia Heffernanexplains that the book's "narrative technique, which is heavy onfree-indirectdiscourse, lent itself topoststructuralistanalysis".With so many new disciplines especially open to the themes and content of Hurston's work,Their Eyes Were Watching Godachieved growing prominence in the last several decades. It is now firmly established in theliterary canon.
On November 5, 2019, theBBC NewslistedTheir Eyes Were Watching Godon its list of the100 most influential novels.