THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
By Zora Neale Hurston
Reading Guide
An active reader employs multiple reading strategies throughout the reading of a text in order to comprehend,
interpret, analyze and evaluate. As you read Their Eyes Were Watching God, you will demonstrate your active
reading by completing a variety of tasks before, during and after your reading.
ACTIVE READING TASKS:
 BEFORE you read:
o Write a Personal Response Reflection responding to one of the Personal Response Questions for
that section. This personal reflection will enhance your reading by highlighting a connection you
have to the characters and/or events. (300-400 words, typed, double spaced, 12-pt standard font)
o
Preview the reading comprehension questions provided to help you anticipate and predict as you
read and notice key elements of plot, character development, and literary devices.
 WHILE you read:
ANNOTATE THE TEXT (margin notes or post-its)
o Look for and mark responses (annotations or sticky notes) in the text to the provided questions.
o Note Janie’s transformation, relationships with others, levels/dynamics in power and control.
o Mark and note any significant aspects, features, literary elements, etc.
 AFTER you read:
o Return to the Personal Response Reflection and address the prompt in relation to Janie and Their
Eyes…. (another 300-400 words, typed, double spaced, 12-pt standard font).
o
Socratic Seminar Discussion Questions Preparation (you have options…)
 Prepare responses, supported by the text, to at least five (5) of the provided discussion
questions (one bullet=one “question’) (typed, double spaced, 12-pt standard font).
 Prepare at least five (5) of your own discussion questions with possible answers
 Or prepare a combination of yours and mine
On the day the reading is due we will conduct our Socratic Seminar of that section. In addition, your annotations
will also be credited and your Reflections and your possible answers to the discussion questions will be collected.
Due dates are as follows:
February 20, 2015
Chapters 1-9
February 27, 2015
Chapters 10-20
Reminder: Late work is not accepted. If you are absent on one of the due dates, your work must be submitted
prior to the start of class via email or a family member/friend; however, the Socratic Seminar will only be able to
be made up for partial credit, as the point of a discussion is a conversation with your peers. Annotations must be
shown to me the day of your return (during my office hours, not class time).
AP Literature and Composition
C. Sawada
AP Literature and Composition
C. Sawada
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD Chapters 1-9
Personal Response Prompt Options:
Prompt 1: Media, Stereotypes and Expectations
Before: How do media images and advertisements send simplified messages or stereotypes about the roles of men
and women and how they should interact? What are some of the results/consequences of these messages
about relationships between people?
After:
Like the media, Hurston paints images throughout her novel. As a romantic writer, she uses a great deal of
nature. How does Hurston use nature to reflect the state of relationships throughout the novel?
Prompt 2: Power of Choice
Before: Up until recently, your parents/guardians have made choices for you. The power of choice has most likely
been shifting from your parents to you as you transition through adolescence. Discuss where you are in this
transition. Who has the power of choice in your life, or how is it shared? With the choices that you are able
to make for yourself, are these choices leading you to what you seek?
After:
WHILE you read:
o
o
o
At the beginning of the novel, Nanny makes choices for Janie. Then, Janie begins to make choices for
herself. Analyze her choices. Do her choices lead her to what she seeks?
ANNOTATE THE TEXT (margin notes or post-its)
Look for and mark responses (annotations or sticky notes) in the text to the following questions.
Note Janie’s transformation, relationships with others, levels/dynamics in power and control
Mark and note any significant aspects, features, literary elements, etc.
Chapter 1
1. Why does Hurston open the novel with an analogy? What authorial purpose does it serve?
2. What conclusions can you draw about Janie Starks, her character, and the events in her life based on the dialogue of her
neighbors?
3. Where and how does Hurston’s narrative voice differ from the dialogue of her characters?
Chapter 2
1. What might the pear tree symbolize? What is Janie’s quest?
2. Where and how does Hurston reveal Nanny’s motivation for forcing Janie to marry? Is that motivation pure, malevolent, or
something in between?
Chapter 3
1. How, and why, do Janie and Nanny differ in their ideas of love?
2. Describe the prevailing tone of this chapter. Identify the elements that set the tone.
Chapter 4
1. What does Joe (Jody) Starks represent to Janie?
2. How does Jody’s character begin to establish Hurston’s theme of male dominance and aggression? Contrast this with
Janie’s first husband, Logan Killicks.
3. What symbolic meaning does the horizon begin to assume?
Chapter 5
1. What type of power does Jody come to represent in the plot of the book?
2. Where and how does Hurston relate power to language?
3. How does Jody attempt to control Janie? Does he ultimately succeed?
4. What does Janie’s hair symbolize?
Chapter 6
1. Why do you suppose Hurston uses the third person narrator to reveal what Janie is thinking while using dialogue to allow
us to get to know her husband and the other Eatonville residents?
AP Literature and Composition
C. Sawada
2. What is the significance of Janie’s verbal outbursts to the gathering on the porch?
3. What conflict does the conversation between Pheoby’s husband and Lige Moss center around? How is it significant to the
developing theme of the novel?
4. What motivates Jody to suppress Janie?
Chapter 7
1. Where do you see Janie reassert herself in this chapter? How does Jody react to it?
2. What is the significance of the allusion: “The thing that Saul’s daughter had done to David” (75; ch. 7)?
Chapter 8
1. What do the following metaphors that begin Chapter 8 suggest? “He had crawled off to lick his wounds.” “But the stillness
was the sleep of swords.” “Well, if she must eat out of a long-handled spoon, she must.” (77; ch. 8)
2. What does the narrator reveal about Jody that Janie does not know?
3. How is the couple’s situation ironic? What type of irony is it?
Chapter 9
1. Why does Janie burn her head rags?
2. Why does Janie hate her grandmother?
3. Explain what Hurston means by saying that Nanny choked Janie with the horizon. Did Nanny intend to hurt Janie?
5. Why does Janie discourage all of her suitors?
Socratic Seminar Discussion Questions for Chapters 1-9
 What do the first two pages tell the reader about the author’s feelings (tone) toward each character or group?
 What views of men and women are presented? How do you see today’s media images connecting to this text and
Hurston’s ideas?
 How do Nanny’s assessment and choices rely on the societal beliefs that surround her regarding the roles of men
and women and their ethnicity? Consider history and experiences.
 How does Nanny use power to control? What aspects of respect are missing in the relationship between Nanny and
Janie?
 How do Logan’s views of women and white people shape the way he treats Janie? How do these views affect Janie
and Logan’s marriage?
 How does Joe’s view of men’s and women’s roles affect his behavior toward Janie? Does Joe see anything wrong
with his constant finding of fault with Janie? Are Joe’s controlling actions a display of real love? Does Janie believe
Joe’s actions are a display of love? Why or why not?
 Why are the Sitters so negative? How does the porch sitters’ conversation reflect the expectations and roles of men
th
and women during the early 20 century? How do the Sitters reinforce societal norms about power and control?
Why do you think they do this?
 What might Hurston be trying to show the reader regarding power and control dynamics here?
AP Literature and Composition
C. Sawada
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD Chapters 10-20
Personal Response Prompt:
Prompt: Relationships
Before: What is acceptable behavior in a healthy relationship? How do our families affect our behavior and our
relationships? What does society expect of men and women in their relationships? How do these
expectations impact society? How do the choices we make affect our lives and our relationships? Use
examples from your own experience or the experience of those close to you to support your ideas.
After:
WHILE you read:
o
o
o
Each of Janie’s relationships is complex, with both positive and negative aspects; she negotiates her way
through each relationship, influenced by her family history and the societal norms and expectations of the
time. Discuss what Janie’s search has made you consider or taught you about defining your own personal
boundaries of what is acceptable or not in relationships. Considering societal and media influences on
expectations and roles of men and women, compare her struggles in defining personal boundaries and
th
healthy relationships in the early 20 century to contemporary society.
ANNOTATE THE TEXT (margin notes or post-its)
Look for and mark responses (annotations or sticky notes) in the text to the following questions.
Note Janie’s gradual transformation, relationships with others, levels/dynamics in power and control
Mark and note any significant aspects, features, literary elements, etc.
Chapter 10
1. Why is the checker game between Janie and Tea Cake significant?
2. Describe the overall tone of this chapter. How do the attitudes of Janie and Tea Cake affect the tone?
Chapter 11
1. How does Tea Cake fulfill Janie’s original youthful yearnings under the pear tree?
2. What conflict does the following passage reveal? Analyze the tone of the following passage. What element creates the
tone?
“In the cool of the afternoon the fiend from hell specially sent to lovers arrived at Janie’s ear. Doubt. All
the fears that circumstance could provide and the heart feel, attacked her on every side. This was a new
sensation for her, but no less excruciating. If only Tea Cake would make her certain! He did not return that
night nor the next and so she plunged into the abyss and descended to the ninth darkness where light has
never been.” (103; ch. 11)
Chapter 12
1. Where and how does Pheoby play the role of devil’s advocate in this chapter?
2. Compare and contrast Janie’s feelings toward the community—as represented by the porch gatherers—when she was
married to Jody and now that she is with Tea Cake.
Chapter 13
1. After Tea Cake and Janie marry, why do you suppose she keeps silent about the $200 she has hidden in her clothes? Is this
behavior consistent with Janie’s character?
2. Explain the significance of Mrs. Tyler to the plot line.
3. What is significant about the fact that Tea Cake refuses to touch Janie’s money and insists that he will provide for her?
4. What is ironic about Tea Cake’s determination to provide for them?
Chapter 14
1. What contrasting ideas dominate this chapter?
2. What do these ideas represent to Janie?
3. How and why is this change in setting significant to the plot?
4. What symbolic significance do the Everglades take on?
5. What might Tea Cake’s teaching Janie to shoot symbolize? How is the fact that Janie becomes a better shot than Tea Cake
significant? And what might it foreshadow?
6. What is Hurston establishing by having Janie go out to work with Tea Cake?
AP Literature and Composition
C. Sawada
Chapter 15
1. Why does Hurston devote this chapter to Janie’s jealousy of Nunkie?
Chapter 16
1. What subtle shift in narration occurs in this chapter?
2. What authorial purpose does this change in narrative voice serve?
Chapter 17
1. Is Tea Cake acting out of character when he beats Janie?
2. Why do you suppose Janie remains silent in the face of Tea Cake’s physical abuse?
Chapter 18
1. In the face of the hurricane, how does Tea Cake’s belief system reveal itself to mirror that of Jody Starks?
2. What practical role does the hurricane play in the narrative structure of the novel and the development of the novel’s
theme?
3. In what way is the hurricane the high point of Janie’s and Tea Cake’s relationship?
4. How does Hurston revisit the theme of community before, during, and after the hurricane?
Chapter 19
1. How is Motor Boat’s survival ironic?
2. What is the significance of the instructions given by the white workers to the black men they forcefully enlisted to help
bury the dead?
3. What do the circumstances of Tea Cake’s death illustrate about Janie?
4. Why does Hurston have Tea Cake’s death run as it does: the three empty chambers in the gun, Janie’s hesitation to fire her
rifle, etc.?
5. How does Hurston establish Janie’s powerlessness as a black woman in white society?
Chapter 20
1. Besides Janie’s desire to plant the seeds in remembrance of Tea Cake, what do the seeds represent?
2. What unifying theme comes full circle in Janie’s revelations to Pheoby?
3. As Janie returns to the bedroom she last shared with Tea Cake, what symbolic q uest finally ends?
Socratic Seminar Discussion Questions for Chapters 10-20
 How does Virgible Woods (aka Tea Cake) differ from society in his views of men and women?
 How does Tea Cake fall prey to societal views both of gender and of ethnicity?
 What connections do you see between Tea Cake’s treatment of Janie and today’s media images of women?
 What happens when Tea Cake physically abuses Janie? Why does he use violence? What does Janie think of his
violent actions? What is the community’s perception of Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship after the physical abuse?
How do expected roles within relationships and definitions of love contribute to this perception?
 What might Hurston be trying to show the reader regarding power and control dynamics here?
 What type of narrative structure did Hurston employ? Why might she have done this, what purpose does the
narrative structure serve?
 How important is Hurston’s use of vernacular dialect to our understanding of Janie and the other characters and
their way of life? What do speech patterns reveal about the quality of these lives and the nature of these
communities?
 How do the imagery and tone of the last few pages of the novel connect with other moments in the novel? Does
Janie’s story end in triumph, despair, or a mixture of both?
 What kind of God are the eyes of Hurston’s characters watching? What crucial moments of the plot does the title
allude to? Does this God ever answer Janie’s questioning?
AP Literature and Composition
C. Sawada