Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Ratings Explanation

Language: “Nigger” used over 20 times. A handful of common swear words and over 20 religious exclamations.

Violence: Grandma slaps Janie. A slave owner’s wife hits a slave for having a white baby, it is presumed that the baby is the child of the owner. The Mistress tells the slave that she will be whipped 100 lashes in the morning. Jody slaps Janie. Tea Cake is stabbed in a fight but there are no details given. A man slaps his wife around to show he’s the boss. A drunken brawl in a cafe.

Sexual Content: A woman’s firm buttocks and breasts are mentioned. There are a few sexual illusions within the metaphor of flowers, blossoms, pollination and open petals. An unmarried couple wakes up together. A married couple fights and it turns passionate. A few kisses.

Adult Themes: The rape of a 17-year-old girl is mentioned. Jody thinks men have to think for women. He puts them in the same category as chickens and cows. Jody’s oppression of Janie. A black woman despises others who have darker skin than she and seeks association with those who have lighter skin. Slavery. Social issues relating to race.

Synopsis

Their Eyes Were Watching God is the story of Janie Crawford and her journey to know herself. It takes her through poverty, wealth, loving and empty relationships, three marriages and death. Janie has been raised by her grandmother, a former slave, who only wants safety and protection for Janie. But Janie longs “to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?” So Janie goes about her life, always longing to be that tree in bloom and searching for what will fulfill her.

An absolutely beautifully written book. Zora Neale Hurston has an incredible gift for language and imagery as well as the ability to see human behavior and put words to it that capture it exactly. Here are a couple of examples from the book.

“She was a rut in the road. Plenty of life beneath the surface but it was kept beaten down by the wheels.”

The following quote comes after Janie and her husband fight and her husband hits her. “Janie stood where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over.”

I loved Janie’s journey and the woman she becomes in the end – able to stand completely on her own, regardless of the whispered comments behind her back,  at peace with where she has been and where she will go from here. A must read for high school and older.