Teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God

Study Questions

Chapter 1

1 / Hurston starts her novel with a description of ships on the sea and the expansive horizon. What is the tone of the opening paragraph, and why does Hurston start the novel this way?
2 / In the first paragraph, who is the “Watcher,” why does he “[turn] his eyes away in resignation,” and why are “his dreams mocked to death by Time”?
3 / Why is the description in the first paragraph “the life of men?”
4 / Why do “women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget”?
5 / What is the significance of the statement, “The dream is the truth”?
6 / In what ways are men and women different, according to Hurston’s opening page?
7 / Chiasmus is a pattern in which two parts of a sentence are balanced with the parts reversed. Hurston uses a chiasmus in paragraph #2 on page 1: “Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget,” reversing “women/remember” and “remember/forget.” What is the effect of this literary device?
8 / Janie Crawford, the heroine of the story, has returned to town after burying someone. Whom has she buried, and what do we know about her already from this information?
9 / What is the effect of describing the dead as “sodden,” “bloated,” and “sudden”?
10 / Why is the sun described as having “footprints”?
11 / How do the people on the porch change as the sun goes down?
12 / What do we know about the people on the porch by reading that they are “tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences…[that] mules and other brutes had occupied their skins’?
13 / Why are the people referred to metaphorically as “skins”? As “lords of sounds and lesser things”?
14 / What does it mean that they “pass nations through their mouths” and “[sit] in judgment?
15 / What is the effect of including a biblical allusion to sitting in judgment?
16 / Why are the people envious?
17 / Why is it “mass cruelty”?
18 / How can words “[walk] without masters”?
19 / On page 2, Hurston shifts from dialect to standard written English. What is the effect of this shift?
20 / Why do the people on the porch criticize the heroine for her clothing, her hair, and her choice of a young man?
21 / Hurston chooses not to have Janie’s words revealed on page 2. Why does she do this?
22 / What is significant about the men noticing Janie”s buttocks, hair, and breasts?
23 / Why do the women “[lay the clothes] away for remembrance”?
24 / Why are the faded shirt and muddy overalls “a weapon against her strength,” and why might the women want Janie to “fall to their level some day”?
25 / How do Pearl Stone, Mrs. Sumpkins, and Lulu Moss react to Janie’s return?
26 / How does Pheoby defend Janie to them?
27 / What is the “booger man”?
28 / Why does Pheoby enter by way of the “intimate gate”?
29 / What is significant about her bringing a bowl of mulatto rice?
30 / What is the tone of Janie’s answer to Pheoby, “…Ah ain’t brought home a thing but mahself”?
31 / Why does Hurston include “cloud dust” in the setting for their conversation?
32 / The ritual of washing feet appears in the Bible. What is the effect of using it here?
33 / Why does Pheoby give Janie advice about what to tell the townspeople? What is Janie’s reaction and why?
34 / What is the significance of Janie’s comment, “Dat’s just de same as me ‘cause mah tongue is in mah friend’s mouf”?
35 / What is the difference between corn-meal dumplings and a bed-quilt?
36 / What is Janie saying when she comments. “Ah been a delegate to de big ‘ssociation of life. Yessuh! De Grand Lodge, de big convention of livin’ is just where Ah been dis year and a half y’all ain’t seen me”?
37 / Why is Pheoby worried that her interest might seem like “mere curiosity”?
38 / Why is “self-revelation the “oldest human longing”?
39 / Comment on the last line in the chapter: “Time makes everything old so the kissing, young darkness became a monstropolous old thing while Janie talked.”
40 / Analyze the shifts between dialect and standard written English in this chapter. What is the content of each section? When does Hurston make the shifts, and what is their effect?

Chapter 2

1 / Chapter 2 begins Janie’s tale, starting when she was a child. What is the tone of the opening paragraph.
2 / What is the effect of the comparison between Janie’s life and a “great tree in leaf”?
3 / Why are both “dawn and doom” in the branches?
4 / What positive and negative experiences does Janie have as a child?
5 / What is the significance of Janie’s being called “Alphabet” as a child?
6 / Why do the others laugh at Janie’s surprise?
7 / Why is Mayrella bothered by Janie’s wearing the Washburns’ hand-me-down clothes and ribbons?
8 / Why would the sheriff and Mr. Washburn hunt for Janie’s father?
9 / Why does Hurston use the phrase, “crumple mah feathers,” to describe the intended hurt?
10 / Why does Nanny, Janie’s grandmother, arrange to buy land and get their own house?
11 / How does Pheoby’s “hungry listening” help Janie talk about her life?
12 / Why does Janie believe that “her conscious life had commenced at Nanny’s gate?
13 / What does the pear tree represent, and how does this symbol affect the reader?
14 / What is the “mystery” that Janie sees in the first bloom?
15 / How does it “stir” her?
16 / Why does Hurston compare the call of the bloom to a “flute song”?
17 / Why does she use the phrase, “the rose of the world”?
18 / What “[emerges] and [quests] about in her consciousness”?
19 / Why does Hurston focus on the bees, the sun, and the breeze?
20 / Why is the voice “inaudible”?
21 / What is Janie’s perception of marriage at this point in the book?
22 / Why is there no answer for herself?
23 / Some critics have said that Janie experiences her first orgasm in this scene. Do you agree or disagree?
24 / Hurston uses a series of questions on page 10: “What? How? Why?” She uses a second series of questions on the next page: “When? How?” What is the effect of this questioning, repetitive structure?
25 / Why is it the “beginning of the world”?
26 / Why does Janie want to “struggle with life”?
27 / How does the scene beneath the pear tree affect Janie?
28 / What does Johnny Taylor represent for Janie?
29 / What are the connotations of “lacerate,” and why is Johnny Taylor “lacerating her Janie with a kiss”?
30 / Why does Nanny react so strongly to seeing Janie kiss Johnny?
31 / Why is Nanny’s voice so weak when she calls to Janie?
32 / Why is it “the end of her childhood”?
33 / The scene with the pear tree is rich and sensuous. The description of Nanny on page 12, however, describes a different kind of tree. What details does Hurston include to describe Nanny as a tree, and how does this image affect the reader?
34 / Why does Hurston describe Nanny in a Medusa-like way?
35 / Why are the leaves “palma christi” leaves?
36 / Why does Janie have trouble thinking of herself as a woman now?
37 / Why does Nanny want Janie married right away?
38 / How do Nanny’s words about Johnny Taylor affect Janie?
39 / What prayer has Nanny said to God, and why?
40 / How does Janie react to Logan Killicks’ name?
41 / What is Nanny’s version of “[marrying] off decent”?
42 / What does nanny mean when she said that Janie wants her to “suck de same sorrow” that her mother did?
43 / In what ways would Logan Killicks “desecrate the pear tree”?
44 / Why does Nanny cry?
45 / How does Nanny see the role of the white man, and why?
46 / How does nanny see the role of the black woman, and why?
47 / According to Nanny, what are the benefits of marriage?
48 / What is the effect of including the Biblical allusion to “de angel wid de sword”?
49 / What is the effect of the image, “Us colored folks is branches without roots”?
50 / How does Nanny’s childhood compare to Janie’s?
51 / Why does Nanny “hate the way [Janie] was born?
52 / Why does Nanny want to “preach a great sermon about colored women sittin’ on high”?
53 / What is the effect of the Biblical allusion, “a highway through de wilderness”?
54 / What “text” is Nanny saving for Janie?
55 / What “stand on high ground’ does Nanny want Janie to make?
56 / What are “mind-pictures” that Nanny sees?
57 / Nanny is raped by the slaveowner, and his wife later threatens Nanny and her newborn baby. Why does Mistis slap her and say that the overseer will whip her the next day?
58 / Hurston spends much of the end of this chapter recounting the story of Nanny’s life. Why does she do this, and what is the significance of the story?
59 / What is the effect of the phrase, “spit cup”?
60 / Why does Nanny say she is a “cracked plate”?

Chapter 3

1 / What is meant by the statement, There are years that ask questions and years that answer”?
2 / What does Janie expect from marriage to Logan Killicks?
3 / How does his house appear to Janie?
4 / Why does Nanny feel “beaming pride”?
5 / Why does Nanny wonder if Logan has “done took and beat [Janie] already?
6 / What does Logan do for Janie around the house, and why does Janie mention it?
7 / Why is Nanny’s description of Logan kissing Janie’s foot both funny and poignant?
8 / What is Nanny’s attitude toward love?
9 / Why is love a “prong” that black women get “hung on”?
10 / Why is Nanny impatient with Janie in this scene?
11 / What is the importance of Logan Killicks having a house, sixty acres, and the only organ in town?
12 / What is Nanny criticizing in her comment about the man who keeps looking at the sole of his shoe?
13 / Why is Janie unhappy with Logan?
14 / What does Nanny think while she prays after returning from talking with Janie?
15 / What is the tone of the description of Nanny’s death?
16 / What has Janie learned by the end of the chapter?
17 / Why does she speak to the seeds?
18 / Why is the world “a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether”?
19 / Why does God tear down the world each evening and build a new one the next morning?
20 / Why have he familiar people and things…failed her?
21 / Why does her new knowledge lead her to “[become] a woman”?

Chapter 4

1 / How has married life changed for Janie?
2 / What does Janie do to stand up for herself, and why does Logan back down?
3 / Why is Logan buying a second mule, what reaction does he expect from her about it, and what is the nature of her response?
4 / What is Janie’s first impression of Joe Starks, and what contributes to this impression?
5 / Why does Janie think Joe acts like Mr. Washburn?
6 / Why does Hurston emphasize Janie’s hair when she is pumping water?
7 / What does Joe see when he “[looks] hard”?
8 / Why does Hurston repeat Joe’s desire “to be a big voice” twice on one page?
9 / Why has Joe come to Florida?
10 / What is the tone of Janie and Joe’s first conversation?
11 / If Joe does not “represent sun-up and pollen and blooming trees, but he spoke for far horizon,” why does Janie go with him?
12 / How does Janie’s hair affect Joe?
13 / Why is Logan critical of Janie’s background?
14 / Why does Logan say, “Thought Ah’d take and make somethin’ outa yuh” to Janie?
15 / Why doesn’t he think other men would trust Janie?
16 / Why does Logan want to hurt Janie?
17 / Why is the sun “threatening the world with red daggers”?
18 / Why is Logan angry?
19 / Janie responds to Logan with a commentary about marriage. What does her speech reveal about her verbal abilities and desires to speak at this point in the story?
20 / How does Logan respond to Janie’s speech?
21 / Why is his “last sentence…half a sob and half a cry”?
22 / What is going on in Janie’s mind at the end of this chapter?
23 / Why isn’t Janie angry?
24 / What does it mean that Logan is “accusing her of her mamma, her grand-mama and her feelings”?
25 / What “feeling of sudden newness and change” comes over Janie, and why?
26 / What does the apron symbolize?
27 / What expectations does Janie have when she leaves with Joe Starks?
28 / Why doesn’t Janie feel the need to divorce Logan Killicks before marrying Joe?
29 / What “old thoughts [are] going to come in handy now,” and what “new words” will Janie need?
30 / The porch is a recurring setting in Hurston’s novel. What is the function of the porch at the end of this chapter?

Chapter 5

1 / How does the beginning of Janie’s second marriage compare and contrast with her first?
2 / What is Janie proud of when she looks at Joe?
3 / Why are the houses “shame-faced”?
4 / Joe says, “I god, where’s de Mayor?” What is the effect on the reader of his “I god” opening?
5 / What does it suggest when Lee Coker and Amos Hicks are “sitting on their shoulder blades”?
6 / Why does Amos Hicks immediately lose interest when he finds out Janie is Joe’s wife, not his daughter?
7 / What is the significance of Joe’s comment, “Ain’t got no Mayor! Well, who tells y’all what to do?
8 / What is the role of women in Joe’s world?
9 / What do Amos and Lee think about Joe?
10 / What is Amos’ opinion of himself?
11 / What does Amos mean by the comment, “Mah co-talkin’ is too deep. Too much co to it”?
12 / Lee is Amos’ straight man when Amos talks about his talents with women. Yet what is the effect when Lee says, “Ah’s much ruther see all dat than to hear ‘bout it”?
13 / What are the dynamics of the conversation between Amos and Lee?
14 / Joe is holding court on the porch. What are the content and tone of the conversation?
15 / What is Janie doing while Joe is talking?
16 / Why does Joe say, “Lemme speak to mah wife a minute and Ah’m goin’ see de man”?
17 / Why do the men “want to laugh” when Joe says he intends to buy the land from Captain Eaton?