Lived to Tell the Story

Back to my bucket list, this time Zora Hurston Neale’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.  It is a simple story of one woman’s life and loves as interpreted by her community and told to her best friend.  Sort of a female Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, although Janie is a long survivor in her early 40s and the water-related catastrophe was a Florida hurricane.  Although other reviews of the novel laud it as an African American classic, it seems to me more of a theme of the necessity to interpret one’s life by recounting it to a neutral but sympathetic listener.  

That theme is echoed with Janie’s forced alienation from the life of her assumed home town of Eatonville when her second husband forbade her to participate in the gossip and humor of the men-folk gathering in front of the store.  But her silence is associated with a deeper gender bias.  Janie’s grandmother and both her first and second husband Logan set expectations for her that assigned her to a time and cultural fixed role:  either is helpmate or accessory.  Janie’s urge to find the fullest expression of her womanhood only comes about through her marriage to Tea Cake.  As passionate and lively her love and life was with Tea Cake, it was hardly a match between equals.  Tea Cake hits her, more to have her bruises prove his manliness when he suspects her of falling under the spell of the town’s matron’s brother.

The ending still points out that Janie isn’t comfortable with her own voice.  She tells Pheoby that she can tell the town what has happened to her while she was away.  Janie seems to be happy with the voices and visual memories she has in her head as she recalls her love for Tea Cake behind closed doors.  She no longer owns the town store; she recreates herself as the rich widow holed up in a house.  The reader senses she will not emerge again to join the conversation.

Do I think  this book should rank in the top 100 American novels?  I have mixed feelings.  It is as simple as The Old Man and the Sea and Neale has an ear for realistic dialect ... things she must have overheard growing up are expressed lyrically.  I did fall into her story rabbit hole but not to the extent that I have with The Name of the Rose.  Still and all, a worthy entry for the 2012 list.