Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

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 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels published since 1923. One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, to John Hurston, a carpenter and Baptist preacher, and Lucy Potts Hurston a former schoolteacher. Hurston was the fifth of eight children. While she was still a toddler her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black incorporated town in the United States, where John Hurston served several terms as mayor. In 1917, Hurston enrolled in Morgan Academy in Baltimore where she completed her high school education. Three years later, she enrolled at Howard University and began her writing career. She took classes there intermittently for several years and eventually earned an associate degree. The university’s literary magazine published her first story in 1921.

In 1925, she moved to New York and became a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance. A year later, she, Langston Hughes, and Wallace Thurman organized the journal Fire, considered one of the defining publications of the era. Meanwhile, she enrolled in Barnard College and studied anthropology with arguably the greatest anthropologist of the twentieth century, Franz Boas. Hurston’s life in Eatonville and her extensive anthropological research on rural black folklore greatly influenced her writing. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Nora Neale Hurston was published...

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...racter Janie have similar things about them. They both did not have a mother growing up and both were stifling towards something that was so in power to them. During the time Their Eyes Were Watching God did not get the review Hurston was looking for, after years later the novel is one of the famous novels.

Works Cited

Kaplan, Deborah. Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition, January 2010, P1-6

“Hurston, Zora Neale (1891-1960)” African and American: Culture, Politics and History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2008. Cerdo Reference. Web 01

Hurston, Zora Neale “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. New York: Harper Collins, 1990.Print.

Thomas, Cassidy. Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition, September 2006, P1-8

Walker, Alice “Looking For Zora”. First Published in 1975. P396-411

"Zora Neale Hurston." 2014. The Biography.com website. May 07 2014