Their Eyes Were Watching God Book Analysis

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The afterword at the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God was written by Henry Gates Jr. and its praises Zora Hurston, the author of the book, to no end. Along with praising Hurston, Gates sprinkles in parts of the author’s life and how it influenced this piece as well as others. The afterword is broken up into four separate chunks and in the first section Gates writes about Hurston’s life. He praises her for her excellent writing as well as giving a brief summary of events that shaped her life like where she went to school and who taught her. “...she was the dominant black woman writer in the United States.” This quote sums up this first chunk perfectly and the quote is completely true. Hurston’s work not only inspired other authors but also…show more content…
The movie starts with Janie walking into town without Tea Cake just like in the book. Everyone in town begins to blindly gossip about her and her story until Pheoby, Janie’s friend, comes to her and asks Janie her story. She begins with Nanny similar to the book but doesn’t take long for her to become married to Logan Killicks. The movie neglects to talk about Janie’s time before the pear tree situation which I feel was a major misstep due to the fact that Janie’s childhood is what makes her who she is and the movie doesn’t even mention it. Just like with Nanny, Janie’s time with Logan is very short and in the movie, the two do not fight as much as they did in the book. Logan’s final time with Janie is a let down as they do not get in the big argument in the movie like they do in the…show more content…
Janie is faced with multiple cases of racial challenges just like her mother and her grandmother. By the time Janie is born, slavery has been outlawed but that is not true for her grandmother. Nanny was raped by her “owner” and the baby was Janie’s mother and it's implied that Janie’s mom was raped as well give the world Janie. Even at a young age Janie was treated differently around the schoolyard due to her skin color even when she didn’t know she was black. According to graphs on Economic History in all cases, no matter gender or age white children always had a higher percentage, roughly double, of attending school when compared to black children. This fact is shocking when put into perspective that it was nearly a nine to one ratio of blacks to whites in the south during the early
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