Discusses the writing of Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Includes critical essays on the work and a brief biography of the author.

The rediscovery of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, first published in 1937 but subsequently out-of-print for decades, marks one of the most dramatic chapters in African-American literature and Women's Studies. Its popularity owes much to the lyricism of the prose, the pitch-perfect rendition of black vernacular English, and the memorable characters--most notably, Janie Crawford. Collecting the most widely cited and influential essays published on Hurston's classic novel over the last quarter century, this Casebook presents contesting viewpoints by Hazel Carby, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Barbara Johnson, Carla Kaplan, Daphne Lamothe, Mary Helen Washington, and Sherley Anne Williams. The volume also includes a statement Hurston submitted to a reference book on twentieth-century authors in 1942. As it records the major debates the novel has sparked on issues of language and identity, feminism and racial politics, A Casebook charts new directions for future critics and affirms the classic status of the novel.

A Study Guide for Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God highlights the vitality of African American culture. This casebook demonstrates how African Americans fashioned themselves individually and collectively to combat racism, classism, and sexism. With provocative documents that contextualize the complex issues of the novel, Lester provides an excellent resource for students and teachers first approaching the excitement and cultural flavor that define Hurston's novels. The casebook is an encyclopedia of African American folk culture that simultaneously presents historical, political, and social commentary on the relationships between men and women and between blacks and whites in America. Documents include interviews with people living in the South at the time of the novel's publication, poetry, rap, folktales, and sermons. Also included are original materials on ebonics, minstrel songs, the blues tradition, the novel in theatrical and dance performance, and materials on Hurston's hometown of Eatonville, Florida.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, University of Tubingen, course: PS II Literatur , language: English, abstract: In Their Eyes Were Watching God, written by Zora Neale Hurston, marriage is a central topic. The main character of the book, Janie, is married three times. Her husbands are very different from one another which is also reflected in the relationship between her and her husbands in each marriage. Nevertheless, all three marriages show certain similarities which correspond to common gender roles of this time. The following essay thus will explore and analyze these marriages. Afterwards it will compare them with regard to three common gender roles of that time, and it will show that all three marriages are more or less built upon these common gender-specific ideas.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), the most prominent of the Harlem Renaissance women writers, was unique because her social and professional connections were not limited to literature but encompassed theatre, dance, film, anthropology, folklore, music, politics, high society, academia, and artistic bohemia. Hurston published four novels, three books of nonfiction, and dozens of short stories, plays, and essays. In addition, she won a long list of fellowships and prizes, including a Guggenheim and a Rosenwald. Yet by the 1950s, Hurston, like most of her Harlem Renaissance peers, had faded into oblivion. An essay by Alice Walker in the 1970s, however, spurred the revival of Hurston’s literary reputation, and her works, including her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, have enjoyed an enduring popularity. Zora Neale Hurston: An Annotated Bibliography of Works and Criticism consists of reviews of critical interpretations of Hurston’s work. In addition to publication information, each selection is carefully crafted to capture the author’s thesis in a short, pithy, analytical framework. Also included are original essays by eminent Hurston scholars that contextualize the bibliographic entries. Meticulously researched but accessible, these essays focus on gaps in Hurston criticism and outline new directions for Hurston scholarship in the twenty-first century. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this volume contains analytical summaries of the most important critical writings on Zora Neale Hurston from the 1970s to the present. In addition, entries from difficult-to-locate sources, such as small academic presses or international journals, can be found here. Although intended as a bibliographic resource for graduate and undergraduate students, this volume is also aimed toward general readers interested in women’s literature, African American literature, American history, and popular culture. The book will also appeal to scholars and teachers studying twentieth-century American literature, as well as those specializing in anthropology, modernism, and African American studies, with a special focus on the women of the Harlem Renaissance.

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject American Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: In this paper, Zora Neale Hurston’s novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is examined to demonstrate how storytelling and the blues, as aspects of diasporic survival, function in her fiction which depicts how African cultural heritage operates in the United States. She articulates the need for her black folks throughout diaspora to confront racism by employing their African cultural heritage as a vehicle for empowerment. Janie, Hurston’s protagonist, finds that when she embraces her African heritage not only does she gain great awareness of her selfhood better as African American, but she also discovers that her Africanity and her identity are intertwined.

This compelling volume examines Zora Neale Hurston's life and writings, with a specific look at key ideas related to Their Eyes Were Watching God. Essays discuss a variety of topics, including whether the novel can be viewed as an example for all women, whether it still relevant today, and whether it proves that romantic fantasies cannot last. The book also explores contemporary perspectives on women's issues, such as the idea of women creating their own model of a female hero and the impact of white stereotypes on modern black women.

Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930's, journeys from being a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance.

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, Hawai'i Pacific University, course: 20th Century Women Writers of Color, language: English, abstract: Nora Zeale Hurston’s novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" can be considered “one of the sexiest, most ‘healthily’ rendered heterosexual love stories in our literature” (Walker, “Zora Neale Hurston” 88). This paper provides information about the outer contexts of the novel, as well as inductive analyses of the novel. The first part of the paper (Ch. 2-5) reveals information about the author and the historical and literary context of the time in which Hurston’s novel was published. The second part of the paper (Ch. 6-7) starts off with an analysis of the plot and characters of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and then focuses on the theme of Otherness as it occurs in Huston’s novel. The examinations of the concept of “Otherness”, alongside with other terms such as “Dichotomization” and “Stigma”, will be based on the concepts that Rosenblum and Travis describe in their work The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class and Sexual Orientation.