Their Eyes Were Watching God

CHAPTERS 1-4

READING CHECK

1. What is the name of the all-Black town to which Janie returns at the start the novel?

2. What is the name of Janie’s husband who just died?

3. To which character does Janie tell her story?

4. Who is Janie’s father?

5. Who is Logan Killicks?

6. What happens to Nanny a month after Janie reveals her marriage is loveless?

7. Which character takes Janie to Eatonville at the end of Chapter 4?

QUIZ

1. What scandal do Janie’s neighbors discuss at the start of the novel?

A) Janie’s husband died under mysterious circumstances.

B) Janie left years earlier with a much younger man.

C) Money went missing at the general store where Janie worked.

D) Janie married a white man.

2. How does Janie first learn she is Black?

A) Her classmates tell her.

B) Nanny tells her.

C) She is turned away from a whites-only swimming pool.

D) She sees herself in a photo alongside white children.

3. To what event does Janie refer as “the end of her childhood”?

A) marrying Logan Killicks

B) Nanny catching Janie kissing Johnny Taylor

C) watching the bees come and go at the pear tree

D) the moment she learns she is Black

4. Which one of these is NOT a characteristic Janie ascribes to Logan Killicks?

A) a voracious sexual appetite

B) a tendency toward uncouth behavior

C) an unattractive face

D) a lack of desire for Janie

5. What does Nanny tell Janie leads to the downfall of Black women?

A) experiencing racism under Jim Crow laws

B) being accused of having affairs

C) chasing after love and fulfillment of sexual desires

D) losing vitality and spirit in stable marriages

6. What does Joe hope Janie can help him do in Eatonville?

A) become a prominent figure

B) start a family

C) desegregate the town

D) challenge the miscegenation laws

7. What natural object is the symbol of Janie’s awakening sexuality and desire for love? (short answer)

CHAPTERS 5-8

READING CHECK

1. What elected office does Joe hope to win?

2. For what animal do the Eatonville townspeople hold a mock funeral?

3. Where does Janie work while married to Joe?

4. What physical ailment of Joe’s does Janie reveal after he publicly berates her?

5. What ultimately causes Joe’s death?

QUIZ

1. What does Joe expect from Janie as a wife?

A) love and affection

B) happiness and contentment

C) complete obedience

D) equal partnership

2. Why does Joe demand that Janie dress formally in public?

A) He wants her to show that she is above the other women.

B) He thinks it is the custom for women in Eatonville.

C) He finds her most attractive in formal dresses.

D) He believes it is important for all community members to look their best.

3. What gesture by Joe causes Janie to give a speech praising his generosity?

A) He compliments Janie’s cooking in public.

B) He buys a mistreated mule and sends it out to pasture.

C) He pays to rebuild a blind man’s house after it burns.

D) He builds the town’s first streetlamp.

4. How does Joe justify his mistreatment of Janie?

A) He recalls that his father treated his mother the same way.

B) He believes it is his duty to raise her up as a person of prominence.

C) He knows Janie would treat him the same way if she could.

D) He suspects Janie of infidelity.

5. What does the root doctor claim is the cause of Joe’s illness?

A) a curse Janie placed on him

B) kidney failure

C) an unwanted spirit in the home

D) slow poisoning by Janie

6. In Eatonville, what is the symbol for the town’s rich storytelling culture? (short answer)

CHAPTERS 9-13

READING CHECK

1. Who is Hezekiah?

2. What is Vergible Woods’s nickname?

3. Over what game do Janie and Tea Cake initially bond?

4. Why does Janie fear that the town will judge her for fraternizing with Tea Cake?

5. At what event do Janie and Tea Cake make their public debut as a couple?

6. To whom does Janie reveal her plan to marry Tea Cake, sell the store, and move away?

7. What happens to the $200 hidden in Janie’s dress?

8. When Tea Cake returns with $320, with what weapon has he been attacked?

QUIZ

1. What best describes Janie’s attitude at Joe’s funeral?

A) putting on a brave face but secretly devastated

B) openly celebratory over her newfound freedom

C) weeping uncontrollably and unable to contain her emotions

D) playing the mourning widow but secretly happy to be free

2. Why does Janie initially deny all her suitors after Joe’s death?

A) She cherishes her newfound freedom.

B) She wants to defer to social custom and propriety.

C) She feels too much grief and respects Joe’s memory.

D) She thinks the suitors possess too little self-worth.

3. What is the biggest difference between Tea Cake and Janie’s first two husbands?

A) Tea Cake lacks formal education.

B) Tea Cake initially rebuffs Janie’s advances.

C) Tea Cake treats Janie with more respect.

D) Tea Cake is Christian.

4. Which of these is NOT an anxiety Janie has about dating Tea Cake?

A) their age difference

B) his lack of manners

C) their wealth disparity

D) his lasting feelings for her

5. What response do townspeople show to Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship?

A) wary acceptance

B) exasperated resignation

C) shocked disapproval

D) joyful exuberance

6. In Janie’s mind, what type of women might be happy with being placed on a pedestal?

A) women with traits like hers

B) white women

C) young women

D) formerly enslaved women like Nanny

7. Where does Janie spend her honeymoon with Tea Cake?

A) Eatonville’s fanciest hotel

B) a boardinghouse in Jacksonville

C) the Florida Keys

D) the Mississippi Gulf Coast

8. Where do Janie and Tea Cake decide to move at the end of Chapter 13? (short answer)

CHAPTERS 14-17

READING CHECK

1. Near what lake do Janie and Tea Cake relocate?

2. How do Janie and Tea Cake obtain most of their meat?

3. Whom does Janie catch with Tea Cake tussling suspiciously on the ground?

4. Who is the restaurant owner who tries to convince Janie to end things with Tea Cake?

5. What does Tea Cake do to Janie in an attempt to show the Turners he has control over his marriage?

6. Why do Mrs. Turner’s son and brother leave town?

QUIZ

1. Why does Janie eventually join Tea Cake in the bean-picking fields?

A) Tea Cake misses Janie during the day.

B) They need the extra income.

C) All the other men’s wives do the same.

D) Janie doesn’t trust Tea Cake alone.

2. What location quickly becomes the center of social life for the bean pickers?

A) a secluded spot in the fields

B) Georgie’s Bar and Grill

C) Janie and Tea Cake’s home

D) the old rock quarry

3. What is Tea Cake’s explanation when Janie catches him rolling around with another woman?

A) He says the woman was having a seizure and he was trying to help.

B) He says that all the bean pickers have extramarital affairs.

C) He says the woman stole his work tickets and he was getting them back.

D) He says it is unnatural for a man to be with only one woman at a time.

4. Why does Mrs. Turner want Janie to end her marriage?

A) She believes marriage is an outdated institution.

B) She disapproves of Tea Cake’s darker skin.

C) She secretly wants to marry Tea Cake herself.

D) She thinks Janie deserves someone who does not cheat.

5. Why does Mrs. Turner continue to interfere in Janie’s life, even after Janie snubs her?

A) She views her efforts to break up Janie and Tea Cake as a mission from God.

B) Her interference becomes a form of revenge against Janie for snubbing her.

C) She is bored with her life and interfering with Janie’s is entertaining.

D) She so idolizes Janie’s light skin and straight hair that she feels she deserves snubbing.

6. Why do Tea Cake’s coworkers particularly admire him after he hits Janie?

A) They did not believe he possessed the physical strength or emotional resolve to do so.

B) They are impressed he has control of a woman light enough to show bruises.

C) They assume he will be punished, but he suffers no consequences.

D) They dislike Janie’s obvious contempt for them and wanted her to be cowed.

7. How does Tea Cake get his revenge against Mrs. Turner? (short answer)

CHAPTERS 18-20

READING CHECK

1. What natural disaster strikes Janie and Tea Cake’s home in Chapter 18?

2. What animal attacks Janie in Chapter 18?

3. For what crime is Tea Cake arrested in Chapter 19?

4. What job is Tea Cake forced to work in Palm Beach?

5. With what disease is Tea Cake diagnosed near the end of the book?

6. Who kills Tea Cake?

QUIZ

1. Why do the Seminoles and Bahamians leave the fields before picking season ends?

A) to find higher paying work

B) to avoid the racism of the region

C) to escape the coming hurricane

D) to evade the workers who threaten them

2. Where are Janie and Tea Cake at the end of Chapter 18 after fleeing the storm?

A) stranded atop a hill in the middle of nowhere

B) a small sleeping space in Palm Beach

C) their home near Lake Okeechobee

D) a refugee camp for survivors

3. Why can’t Tea Cake be treated for the disease he contracts?

A) No treatment for the disease exists.

B) The treatment must be administered soon after the incident that caused it.

C) Tea Cake refuses any help from a medical doctor.

D) Tea Cake is genetically resistant to the treatment.

4. What reason does Tea Cake cite for trying to kill Janie?

A) his suspicion that Janie was stealing money from him

B) his belief that Janie is withholding treatment from him

C) his resentment over getting bit by the dog while protecting Janie

D) his fear that Janie plans to leave him for Mrs. Turner’s brother

5. Who does NOT empathize with Janie at her trial?

A) curious white women

B) the all-white jury

C) the judge

D) Tea Cake’s Black friends

6. Why does Janie wear old overalls to Tea Cake’s funeral?

A) She is in too much real grief to put on a superficial show of grief.

B) She believes Tea Cake would have wanted her to wear her work clothes.

C) She falls in the mud on the way to the funeral and has to change.

D) She feels Tea Cake did not deserve for her to wear her mourning dress.

7. Why does Janie say she doesn’t care if the town gossips talk about her behind her back?

A) because she is leaving town again soon

B) because she knows that they quietly empathize with her

C) because it’s not worth listening to those who do not experience life

D) because she is already plotting her revenge against them

8. Whose spirit does Janie sense in the novel’s final scene? (short answer)

DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS

1. Use the Question 1 from the Chapters 1-4 Quiz to discuss how the “porch” serves as a kind of Greek chorus for the book. Explain why its members believe Janie violated the community’s values. What does their judgmental attitude toward Janie say about societal expectations of young Black women in the time period of the novel?

2. Use Question 4 from the Chapters 5-8 Quiz to discuss the book’s depictions of hierarchies—by race, gender, and class. What events or character reactions in the novel show Joe Starks’s feelings about these hierarchies? In what ways do the hierarchies contradict one another? How might the gender and class hierarchies in the novel stem from the pervasive racial hierarchies in the Jim Crow South? What does Hurston seek to say about Black women’s position in these hierarchies?

3. Use Question 1 of the Chapters 9-13 Quiz to discuss how Janie’s outsider status mirrors Zora Neale Hurston’s outsider status, both in her Florida community and in the Black literary world. Students can read Alice Walker’s 1975 essay “Looking For Zora” (initially titled “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston”) in which Walker argues for a cultural reexamination of Hurston’s work, which had been initially rejected by many Black intellectuals in an act she characterizes as “throwing away a genius.” Why might the Black literary community and various tastemakers of the Harlem Renaissance have initially dismissed Their Eyes Are Watching God? What has led to the book’s cultural reassessment as a literary classic?

4. Use Question 4 from the Chapters 14-17 Quiz to discuss the phenomenon of colorism, in which individuals of a similar perceived ethnicity are discriminated against based on the darkness or lightness of their skin. For context, assign students this Black Perspectives article by Ibram X. Kendi titled “Colorism as Racism: Garvey, Du Bois, and the Other Color Line.” Why is it important to consider colorism when discussing how to dismantle racism and racist systems? In what ways does colorism manifest in the 21st century, either in pop culture, politics, or one’s everyday life?

5. The Lake Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928 is by many estimates the second deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, killing 4,000 or more people. Yet despite the singular devastation it caused, the hurricane has been forgotten by many. Using this 2003 Sun-Sentinel article for reference, discuss the economic and racial reasons this horrific disaster was swept under the rug for decades.