Their Eyes Were Watching God

What kind of God are the eyes of Hurston's characters watching? What is the nature of that God and of their watching? Do any of them question God?

Chapter 1-3

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The line for the title occurs during the hurricane. At this point in the novel we are introduced to the major conflict of Man vs. Nature. This conflict proves once again that man can't win. In this conflict Tea Cake tries to outsmart, outrun and outwit nature, but in the end Nature wins by ultimately proving fatal.

It is also representative of the folkloric nature of Hurston's writing. They speak of god as Ol' Massa and relate to him in a narrative story like fashion. This shows her anthropological background where she studied the way uneducated African Americans used story telling to help them understand the world because that was the only way they knew. This took them back to their roots.

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