An Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

When thinking about the novels that are read in high school, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby come to mind for most people. The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston usually is not thought of. Throughout the years, critics believed Hurston’s novel to be just fiction and that it pose no meaning. In spite of the novel not having much politics, it does contain many social issues from the past that are still somewhat relevant today. Above all, Their Eyes Were Watching God deals with the way people are unequally treated in society based on their gender, race, or anything that makes them diverse from others. It is probable that Hurston brings up the controversial issues of her time era in the hope to cause a transformation in the world.

Despite the fact that Their Eyes Were Watching God was

The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God also accurately includes the cruel judgement that blacks faced throughout the 1900s.

“The sun was gone…It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.” (1).

On this page the narrator describes the lack of confidence the black people of Eatonville have during the day, but that disappears at night when the white "bossman [is] gone." When the white men depart, the black people start to feel more comfortable because the cruel treatment and belittled has ended. It is illustrated in the passage that the black people of Eatonville only feel comfortable to live out their lives when the white people are not surrounding them, but are rather with the people from their own