Theme

Zachary Bailey
March 25th, 2009
Blog 6
C Block

Theme: God and Divine Intervention

The theme of god and divine intervention is present all throughout the story. Even the title Their Eyes Were Watching God relates back to this theme. Throughout the entire story, the reader is bombarded with constant snippets of dialog and narrator appealing to or referring to god, and associating His involvement with events. God's presence in the story is almost that of a guide, dictating the course of the characters lives. While at first this does not seem so obvious, by the end of the story "god" seems to have stepped in and taken a direct hand in Janie's life as the whole world begins to crash down around her.

As the hurricane approaches the everglades, we see almost biblical events. The sky darkens, the winds grow ferocious, and even the animals are fleeing. Just before the true storm hits, however, the characters are roused from their games by a bolt of lightning. "Six eyes were questioning god" (page 159) and as they look out at the sky, as they looked to god, he answered "through the screaming wind they heard things crashing and things hurtling and dashing with unbelievable velocity . . . the lake got madder and madder with only its dikes between him and them" (page 159). The people that stayed, Tea Cake and Janie included, made the decision thinking that they can handle whatever is coming and effectively pitted themselves against god.

As the storm hits and everything boils over, we are witness to the destruction of the storm. During the middle of the storm, the middle of god's fury "They sat in the company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be starting into the dark, but their eyes were watching god" (page 160). They had pitted themselves against god and god pushed back and the whole world crashes down around him. By the time the eye, or at least a short respite, has reached Janie and Tea Cake they have made the decision to flee, and they leave, with the lake nipping at their heels the entire journey.

While this is not the only instance of god in the story, it represents the cumulation of His role, and for the rest of the story Janie and Tea Cake seem to be on their own, completely without god's assistance. Each situation from there on is noticeably lacking in any sort of divine interference, as if to say that, without god, the characters cannot survive. This turns out to be the case, as Tea Cake, while saving Janie from a rabid dog, is bitten. Thinking nothing of it at the time, they reach their destination and attempt to get back on their feet. In only a few weeks however, Tea Cake is dead, shot in self-defense as, in his rabies addled state, he tries to shoot her. This final moment of irony, seems to sum up the idea of the necessity of gods protection, proclaiming, through the even, that without Him they are as children, helpless.