Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurtson Janie Crawford (Killicks, Starks, Woods) - The novel is the story of Janie's coming to self-awareness, living her life according to her own purpose. At the beginning of the novel, she decides to tell her story to her friend, Phoebe, knowing full well that the town of Eatonville will be wanting to know why she has arrived back home by herself, a middle-aged woman wearing overalls and tying her long hair in a great rope. Janie's story charts her life from her earliest awareness of family and race through three lives, or marriages, where she tries out various methods of living. Janie is a woman determined to live up to her high level of awareness and her loftiest vision of what a human life should be. As her life goes on, she becomes an independent women. "Tea Cake" (Vergible Woods) - Janie's third husband, Tea Cake, is a independent person. He is in his twenties, about fifteen years younger than Janie. Tea Cake has no family and not much history. He is the first man to value Janie as a real person with desires of her own.