Their Eyes Were Watching God Study Guide

1. What, according to Hurston, is the difference between women and men?

• Men are farmers and women are mules.
• Women don't wait for their dreams to come true. The possession of the dream is enough.
• Women seek the horizon; men do not.
• Men use their voices and women do not.

2. When Janie returns to Eatonville, she is wearing

• The headrags that Joe made her wear
• Her blue satin wedding dress
• Overalls
• The same shoes that she left in

3. Who is Janie's life long best friend?

• Pheoby
• Nunkie
• Tea Cake
• Nanny

4. Janie wants Pheoby to relate her story to the townspeople on her behalf. We know this because she says

• "An envious heart makes a treacherous ear."
• "The oldest of human longings is self revelation."
• "Two things everybody got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves."
• "Mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."

5. When Janie is a girl, she loves ...

• spending long hours talking to Nanny
• to spend the afternoons laying under a pear tree, staring into the branches
• reading books; her friends call her "Alphabet."
• All of the above

6. According to Nanny, when does Janie become a woman?

• After she kisses Johnny Taylor
• After she is raped by her school teacher
• After her first period
• After she is mesmerized by the golden beauty of bees pollinating the pear blossoms

7. Why was Janie's mother named Leafy?

• Nanny hid her in the leafy moss when she ran away from the plantation
• Nanny had sex with the plantation master when she was a slave in the leafy forests
• Janie's mother had green leafy eyes
• All of the above

8. Why does Janie marry Logan?

• Janie wants to marry someone who has land and a stable livelihood.
• Janie falls in love with him after a session under the pear tree.
• Nanny forces her to.
• Logan is unbearably handsome.

9. What is a symbol of new opportunities in the novel?

• The gate
• The horizon
• The porch
• The pear tree

10. What is a symbol of Janie's freedom in the novel?

• The pulpit
• The Oak tree
• Her hair
• The horizon