Alisha Emrich's Reviews > Their Eyes Were Watching God

I've read this book I don't know how many times, with differing feelings each time. Hurston is considered THE Black literary fore-mother of a black female literary tradition, and rightly so. Their Eyes were Watching God is a love story, but it is more-so a story of a woman on a quest to discover her inner self and learn how to live her life on her own terms.

The first few readings were exhilarating. I recently read it again a few months back and I still enjoyed it, but some passages didn't sit well with me, in particular, when teacake beats Janie just to quell his insecurities and this is looked at as something to brag about and be proud of. In fact, on the whole I did not like Teacake, he was very immature and irresponsible and at times seemed he took advantage of Janie, though she probably didn't see it like that.

Janie is seen as an independent woman, yet she's dependent on nanny, and then three husbands throughout the course of the book. I have to wonder if the book didn't end as it did, would she really have been free or would she still have been depending on Teacake to take care of her?

Still it's a really good story, one of Hurston's best novels and an important part of the literary canon and should be read.