The novel explores protagonist Janie Crawford's "ripening from a vibrant, but voiceless, teenage girl into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her own destiny".
[4] Janie Crawford, an African-American woman in her forties, returns to her old town, after a year-long absence, and recounts her life story, along with the time she had been gone to her friend, Pheoby.
Though Nanny wanted a better life for her daughter and even escaped her jealous mistress, after the American Civil War, Leafy was later raped by her school teacher and became pregnant with Janie.
Unhappy, disillusioned, and lonely, Janie leaves Killicks and runs off with Joe "Jody" Starks, a glib man who takes her to the all-black community of Eatonville, Florida.
Though she is beset with suitors, including men of means, she turns them all down, until she meets a young drifter and gambler named Vergible Woods, known as "Tea Cake.” He plays the guitar for her and initially treats her with kindness and respect.
At the trial, Tea Cake's black male friends show up to oppose her, but a group of local white women arrives to support Janie.
Duke professor and Black feminist cultural critic, Mark Anthony Neal writes that Tea Cake defies the heteronormative roles of his own masculinity and Janie's femininity in their relationship despite his domestic violence towards her.
He writes: "Tea Cake reads as progressive in opposition to traditional gender politics within black communities and institutions and the larger society during the era."
These stereotypes "become a chain on the American women, preventing them from developing individuality, and from pursuing their personal happiness"[13] and ultimately what forces them to mold into their gender role.
'"[12] As time passed on, Logan began forcing Janie to conform to a traditional lifestyle, telling her that he would buy a mule for her so that she could work.
He has money from his time working for white men and he now aims to settle in a new community made up of African-Americans, a place in its infancy where he can make a name for himself.
With the money he has, he buys land, organizes the townsfolk, becomes the owner-operator of the general store and post office, and is eventually named Mayor of Eatonville.
He is a larger-than-life character and during their time in Eatonville, he has grown an equally large belly and taken up the habit of chewing nice cigars, both of which cement his status with the locals as an important man around town.
He expects her to dress a certain way (buying her the finest of clothes, with tight corsets) and requires that she wear her long, beautiful hair—symbolic of her free spirit and femininity—covered and up in a bun, so as not to attract too much unwanted attention from the other men in Eatonville.
[17] He isn't always truthful with her—in a show of male dominance in their relationship, Tea Cake takes $200 from Janie without her knowledge or permission and spends it on a guitar and a lavish party with others around town without including her in the festivities.
Tea Cake was kinder to her and respected her, but he was occasionally abusive toward her, such as when he beat her in order to show his dominance when another man seemed to make a pass at Janie.
With one last hope, Janie engaged in a marriage with Tea Cake, a younger man, and things finally seemed to look up for her, even though she was still expected to help in the fields and tend to her womanly duties.
[See detailed argument and synopsis in Addison Gayle, Jr.'s article, "The Outsider"[35]] Janie was able to feel like a woman in her third marriage with Tea Cake.
Throughout the novel, Janie serves both as protagonist as well as occasional narrator, detailing the events of her life, her three marriages, and the aftermath of each, that eventually lead to her return to Eatonville.
During her first two marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, Janie is subjugated and held under their rule, the former comparing her to another mule to work his field and the latter keeping her in a powerless position of domesticity.
This leaves her feeling like a "rut in the road," the isolation taking its toll until she finally confronts Joe and attacks his ego with a verbal assault against his manhood.
[45] Scholars of the African diaspora note the cultural practices common to the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States in Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Carter G. Woodson, founder of The Journal of Negro History wrote, "Their Eyes Were Watching God is a gripping story... the author deserves great praise for the skill and effectiveness shown in the writing of this book."
The critic noted Hurston's anthropological approach to writing, "She studied them until she thoroughly understood the working of their minds, learned to speak their language".
"[53]For the New York Herald Tribune, Sheila Hibben described Hurston as writing "with her head as with her heart" creating a "warm, vibrant touch".
She praised Their Eyes Were Watching God as filled with "a flashing, gleaming riot of black people, with a limitless sense of humor, and a wild, strange sadness".
[54] New York Times critic Lucille Tompkins described Their Eyes Were Watching God, thus: "It is about Negroes... but really it is about every one, or at least every one who isn't so civilized that he has lost the capacity for glory.
[56] This new respect coupled with a growing Black feminism led by Mary Helen Washington, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and others, would create the space for the rediscovery of Hurston.
[59] In The New York Times, Virginia Heffernan explains that the book's "narrative technique, which is heavy on free-indirect discourse, lent itself to poststructuralist analysis".
[60] With so many new disciplines especially open to the themes and content of Hurston's work, Their Eyes Were Watching God achieved growing prominence in the last several decades.