Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel by Zora Neale Hurston, was published in 1937.

...ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep. It connected itself with other vaguely felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about her consciousness.

—Zora Neale Hurston, from Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known work of the Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston. Born in Eatonville, Florida, in 1891, Hurston moved to Harlem in 1925. Hurston's works—novels, short stories and plays—usually portrayed the lives of African Americans in the rural South in the 1800s. Hurston's writing was strengthened by her work as a folklorist and anthropologist. Hurston studied anthropology at Barnard College under the famous Franz Boas and used what she had learned to travel the rural south interviewing storytellers. Many scholars believe that this fieldwork added depth to her characters and settings. Although Hurston wrote prolifically, Their Eyes Were Watching God is named by many critics as her strongest work. In it, she tells the story of an independent black woman who is searching for herself in the rural south. Of the novel, acclaimed writer Alice Walker said, "There is no book more important to me than this one."

EDSITEment
In Folklore in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (9–12), students explore the way African-American author Zora Neale Hurston makes use of closely observed black folklife in her novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Students read the novel, research Hurston's own life and ethnography, listen to her WPA recordings of folksongs and folktales and compare transcribed folk narrative texts with the novel itself.

ARTSEDGE
Faces of the Renaissance: Writers: Zora Neale Hurston (6–12) offers a brief biography of Hurston along with links to other information about her life and times.

Learn about other writers of the Harlem Renaissance at Faces of the Renaissance: Writers (6–12), part of the ARTSEDGE mini-site Drop Me off in Harlem (K–12).

The cuesheet Zora (9–12), a guide to the performance of Zora, includes information about Zora Neale Hurston, Jim Crow laws, the performance and more.

ReadWriteThink
Students are encouraged to learn about folklife through observation of the actions and traditions of characters in another novel in the lesson Making Personal and Cultural Connections Using A Girl Named Disaster (6–8). In the lesson, students learn about Africa, Shona traditions, geography and society. They also develop critical thinking skills and self-awareness as they examine cultural similarities and differences and make personal connections to the story.

Passages from Their Eyes Were Watching God are used to explore the use of style in literature in Style: Defining and Exploring an Author's Stylistic Choices (9–12). Student find examples of specific stylistic devices in the passages, search for additional examples and explore the reasons for the stylistic choices that the author has made.