Their Eyes Were Watching God: Chapter 1-3

In a small town down in the south, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston begins with the trek of Janie Starks, toward the porch of her loyal best friend Phoeby Watson. All eyes on her as she walks through the town to seek comfort in the presence of her friend, the whisper of judgmental thoughts, ring in her ear loud and clear. Becoming an immediate outcast after rumors of her man leaving her and taking all of her money, eyes on her, remorse, memories and the overalls she has on are the only things left for her to hold on to. However, when Phoeby asks about the truth in the rumors, Janie rebukes it and begins her recount of events; starting her story at a more naïve and young version of Janie herself.
                Janie explains her experience at the Washburn’s, the white household she used to live in along side her grandma, Nanny. At a young age Janie struggled to understand her identity to the extent of not recognizing the difference between her skin and the other children’s.  Although this aspect of the chapter might be seen as the naivety of a child and the lack of prejudice at a young age, the color of one skin isn’t really something you can avoid for very long. For a child to not understand why her skin makes her different is one thing, but Janie seemed not to know that she was of black descent at all; this realization marks the beginning of Janie as a black girl aware of her color which plays an important role in the book, emphasis on blacks culture is what shapes her and the story, even through the vernacular narration expressed through dialogue.                Nanny, being her guardian after the departure of her mother, decides to buy her and Janie her own land and eventually move away. This house is where we are introduced to the blossoming pear tree, and immediate stress is put on this tree, showing great importance to Janie and her coming of age. The tree is blossoming just as Janie is at the age of sixteen, a metaphor for this phase in her life, Janie observes and the bees come to visit the tree from time to time and share their sting and wonders why everything around her is so alive while she is not. The bees and tree are a metaphor for women and men and translate into Janie’s life as she becomes eager for a man to come and visit her own tree.  Nanny marries her off to Logan Hillicks, a marriage where Janie finds no happiness. When Janie complains of her early marriage, Nanny tells her of her hardships; how she was born into slavery, raped and yet cared for her daughter and now her grandchild like her own—a character that extenuates the power of a true woman and her refusal to be turned into a mule by male. Nanny dies soon after that, the death of a proud black woman, yet the beginning of another one—Janie.                A year after Nanny has died; Janie still does not love Logan but rather seeks comfort in a sharp handsome man named Joe Starks. Janie seeking comfort in men and their presence gives us a sense of her lack of independence and the long way she has to go to become the woman her grandmother was. Her own self is not enough to keep her happy, she is very much obsessed with the concept of love just as she was when looking at the bees and the tree.  Joe Starks is a part of Janie’s search for something better, a new life that will be superior to her previous one, a new horizon in which she can find love and happiness. So eager to find this new horizon, she marries Joe the first chance she gets, desperate to get what she wants. Yet at this point, Janie isn’t even quite sure of what she wants, rather a need to be alive.