Sammy's Reviews > Their Eyes Were Watching God

When I first started this book, I was unsure about it. The language was slightly taxing, but I found that by the end I was able to read the dialogue without any trouble. It also took me a little bit to get past the focus that my professor had set for the book. It took some of the enjoyment out of the emotional side of the story, because I was too busy analyzing the political message for the response I had to write.

Once I was able to sit and think about the book, I was a lot more impressed with it. The characters were interesting and extremely flawed. Zora Neale Hurston was my favorite reading of this semester (which focused on Harlem), next to Claude McKay. Both write about relateable protagonists and they do not hide the unpleasant, controversial topics. I only read exerpts from Home to Harlem, but am planning to read the entire novel in the near future, because I enjoyed the exerpts far too much not to.

There is one complaint that I have and perhaps it is a slight spoiler, but not necessarily. I will do my best to say this without spoiling anything that happens. Tea Cake, one of the main characters, is often glorified as a romantic figure. He is talked about in a way that makes him sound like he is the perfect man. This drives me insane, because I do not agree. The first time I heard this description was when I decided to watch the film version. Oprah gave an introduction to the film that sang the praises of Tea Cake. Needless to say, I never made it past her introduction. His words never rang true for me and I often viewed him as manipulative. He was no different, from my perspective, than Joe Starks or Logan Killicks.