Their Eyes Were Watching God is a 1937 novel and the best-known work by African American writer Zora Neale Hurston. The novel narrates main character 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 in central and southern Florida in the early 20th century, the novel was initially poorly received for its rejection of racial uplift literary prescriptions. Today, it has come to be regarded as a seminal work in both African American literature and women's literature. Time included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.
Read more about Their Eyes Were Watching God: Politics of Their Eyes, Plot Synopsis, Inspirations and Influences For Their Eyes, Critical Analysis, Adaptations For Theater, Film and Radio
Famous quotes containing the words eyes and/or watching:
“A full bosom is actually a millstone around a woman’s neck: it endears her to the men who want to make their mammet of her, but she is never allowed to think that their popping eyes actually see her. Her breasts ... are not parts of a person but lures slung around her neck, to be kneaded and twisted like magic putty, or mumbled and mouthed like lolly ices.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)