Their Eyes Were Watching God is written by Zora Neale Hurston and published in 1937 at a period where females were not recognized for their hard work. Hurston 's novel features the first strong, independent black woman in a novel to search for her identity and happiness. It tells about a woman who acquires the power to speak, who finds her voice and so learns to tell stories and create metaphors. Although Janie is a victim again and again of male repression, Janie stands up for herself at several points throughout the novel. The story starts out with Janie, a middle-aged African American Woman, returning to her hometown in Eatonville, Florida. Her surprise visits gets the town talking. " What she doin coming back here in dem overhalls? Can 't she find no dress to put on?-Where 's dat blue satin dress she left here in?-Where all dat money her husband took and died and left her?-What dat ole forty year ole 'oman doin ' wid her hair swingin ' down her back lak some young gal?-Where she left dat young lad of a boy she went off here wid?-Thought she was going to marry?-Where he left her?-What he done wid all her money?-Betcha he off wid some gal so young she ain 't even got no hairs-why she don 't stay in her class?-"(Hurston 2). Janie did …show more content…
These successive relationships provide the novel 's structure, for each new lover brings about both a change in setting and s new stage in the story of Janie 's life. Though each relationship is different from the others, there are two in which Janie is involved, her short-lived romance with Johnny Taylor and her marriage to Tea Cake, and two in which she is restricted and unhappy, her marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe