Their Eyes Were Watching God Short Summary

This is a book by Zora Neale Hurston about the struggle of a woman to find her true love.

Here Is a Quick Synopsis

The book is basically about the life of a girl named Janie Crawford who was of mixed race. She lived in a time where it was difficult being a mixed race. When Jane is an adolescent, she spots a bee in the process of pollination in the garden and gets obsessed with the prospect of finding her true love.

Janie is first married to a farmer named Logan. This marriage had been planned by her grandmother with good intentions. It does not work as Logan is uninspired abusive though reliable. He although threatens to kill her for disobedience and she leaves him.

Jane meets Joe stark a mayor, and she goes with him to Eatonville in Florida, which was an all-black city. She became the mayor’s wife but soon realized that it was meant for her. She lived a lavish life, but her husband was too rigid. He had a primitive definition of the role of women and did not respect other people’s opinions.

Joe gets old, and he decides to divert the attention of the public from his aging self to his wife by saying she acted too immature for her age. Jane refuses to take any more of him and lashes out, insulting him. She tells him off at his deathbed.

After Joe’s death, Jane meets Teacake, a fun vagrant twelve years younger than her. He turns out to be the love that she had been searching for. They make it through some periods of jealousy but eventually become happy working in the fields in Everglades.

Disaster strikes as a hurricane strike the land. Tea Cake had been warned of its coming but was arrogant about fleeing because of his love for money. The hurricane was ferocious and eventually forced him to leave. While they fled, a rabid dog bites Tea Cake while he saves Jane from it. Jane gets tried for murder for shooting her husband to avoid rabies infection, but she is pronounced innocent. He dies, and Jane goes back home. She meets her friend named Pheoby Watson and narrates her story.