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Chapter 1 Summary
As the book opens, forty-something Janie Crawford comes home to her small Florida town, having left a year and a half earlier with Tea Cake, a man at least ten years her junior. The gossip of those who hang out on Phoeby Watson's porch at dusk speculate that Tea Cake took all Janie's money and ran off with a younger girl. However, they are clearly jealous of pretty Janie, who, with her overalls and long rope of braided hair, carries herself as if she is much younger than she is. Janie passes them up and disappears through the gate of her own house.
Finally, Phoeby gets up and goes to take her a bowl of mulatto rice. On Janie's back porch, Janie tells Phoeby that Tea Cake is gone. She agrees to tell Phoeby the whole story, saying Phoeby can tell the others whatever she wants: "Ah don't mean to bother wid tellin' 'em nothing,' Phoeby. ' Tain't worth the trouble. You can tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."
Chapter 1 Analysis
Their Eyes Were Watching God was initially met with widespread criticism for its departure from the more traditional African-American protest literature and for a stereotypical portrayal of ignorant, but carefree, African-American characters. Hurston's use of colloquial speech may have added to that perception, though the rich and real language gives the story both its beauty and its powerful believability. The dialogue, which attempts to capture the oral flavor of dialect rather than relying on traditional written English, reflects human voices to the point that it is impossible not to believe these characters exist, or to become immersed in their lives.
Despite its poor reception by African-American reviewers, the book developed a large following among women, who immediately recognized its protagonist, Janie Crawford, as a strong, independent woman quietly searching for her own identity. Caught between society's traditional expectations and her own desires, Janie's story is one of self-realization and self-fulfillment, which she ultimately achieves through a love based on equality.
The story is told using a frame—a story in which the main story happens in the past and is introduced and concluded by chapters set in the present. Chapter 1 sets up the frame, introducing Janie, the protagonist, as she mysteriously returns home after a long absence. Janie will tell the main story to her best friend, Phoeby Watson, as she explains what happened not only during her absence, but also during the years that led to her decision to leave town.
A frame serves two purposes in a story. The first is to introduce an element of suspense, by making readers curious about the references to the past. In the first chapter, we learn that Janie left town a year and a half earlier with Tea Cake; a younger man who the townspeople were certain would betray her. The fact that she is returning alone with nothing but the overalls on her back causes immediate speculation, not only among the wagging tongues on the porches, but also for the reader: The reader questions whether Janie was betrayed and as to what happened to Tea Cake. Janie only tells her friend Phoeby, "Tea Cake is gone," a neutral statement that makes it impossible to tell whether the end of the relationship is a good or bad.
It also introduces a powerful conflict between Janie and the rest of the town, who "made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs." We immediately perceive by their hateful criticism and their negative, self-righteous assumptions that the members of the town are jealous of Janie, who acts and appears younger than her age. While the men focus on her beauty, the women take note of her muddy overalls as hopeful proof "that she might fall to [their] level some day." We do not yet know why this conflict exists, but Janie's physical appearance is deliberately at odds with what the town expects of a forty-something woman. The townspeople hope to that Janie has returned a broken woman: "She sits high, but she looks low. Dat's what Ah say 'bout dese ole women runnin' after young boys." The fact that Janie passes up the gossips without more than a pleasant greeting implies that, in fact, she does consider herself above them—and their expectations.
The primary purpose of a frame story, however, is to provide some distance between the narrator and the events of the past. As time passes after an event, we tend to gain perspective of it, so that when we tell the story later, we can help the audience—and ourselves—make better sense of what happened. Early in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie begins to narrate her story to Phoeby, starting with her childhood, from the perspective of the much older, wiser woman she is now. Although the novel is told using an omniscient third-person narrator—one who sees and knows everything, including the thoughts of all the other characters—this story is Janie's, and relies on Janie's feelings and observations for its thematic and emotional power. Janie's story is "full of that oldest human longing—self revelation," and this statement, articulated in the first chapter as Janie's purpose for telling her story, forms the central theme of the book.
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