Book Summary

Their Eyes Were Watching God is built on the story that the protagonist Janie Crawford tells her friend Pheoby Watson. The story begins when Janie comes back to her home town. The townspeople speculate on why she has returned, and talk badly about her marrying such a younger man. The woman are jealous of her beauty, and the fact that she does not even have to try. Pheoby comes to check on Janie, and Janie tells Pheoby her life story. Janie was raised by her grandmother after her mother left. Her grandmother worked for a white family, the Washburns, by taking care of their children. Janie’s childhood is filled with memories of the Washburns and does not know she is colored until she sees a photograph of herself where she states “Aw, aw! Ah’m colored!” (Hurston 9) Janie’s first sexual experience is described when she sees a bee pollinate a pear tree. The first time she feels attraction towards a boy is to Johnny Taylor and describes it as, “Through pollinated air she saw a glorious being coming up the road. In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes.” (Hurston 12-13) She kisses him, and her nanny then decides it is time for her to get married. She marries her off to Logan so that Janie can be stable, but unfortunately she never falls in love with him. Logan threatens Janie’s life, and states “Ah’ll take holt uh dat ax and come in dere and kill yuh!” (Hurston 31) Janie leaves Logan for Joe Starks, and the two get married and move to Eatonville, Florida where Joe becomes the mayor. She finds financial stability with Joe, but lives in her husband’s shadow. He refuses to treat her as an equal, and expects her to live beneath him. He keeps putting his position in the town above Janie, and their relationship is on a rapid decline. Janie has put up with his degrading behavior for years before she finally cracks and yells at her husband in the store that she runs. She yells, “"Talkin’ ‘bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life." (Hurston 79) Joe’s health is getting worse and worse and still does not let Janie come to see him on his death bed. She does anyway and basically tells him the truth where she states, “Ah’m just tryn’ tuh make yoou know what kinda person Ah is befo’ it’s too late.” (Hurston 85) Joe dies and Janie is finally free from being compressed as an individual. Janie meets Tea Cake, who is a lot younger than she is and worries about his intentions because she is now well off. He takes her to do fun things like fishing in the dark, and she “felt like a child breaking rules. That’s what made Janie like it.” (Hurston 102) She ends up falling in love with him, their relationship comes naturally and is fun for her. He describes the way he thinks of Janie when he state, “Janie, Ah hope God may kill me, if Ah’m lyin’. Nobody else on earth kin hold uh candle tuh you, baby. You got de keys to de kingdom.” (Hurston 109) Janie marries Tea Cake, and the two move to the Everglades. Tea Cake gets bit by a dog during a storm and gets rabies. Janie has to shoot him to save her own life. She goes to jail, but the court states that “We find the death of Virgibal Woods to be entirely justifiable, and that no blame should rest upon the defendant Janie Woods.” (Hurston 189) She gives Tea Cake a lovely funeral in Palm Beach Florida. The book ends with Janie feeling peace as she states, “He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking.” (Hurston 193)