Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937, was a novel so ahead of its time that it was hardly recognized until nearly 40 years later. The story follows the life of Janie Crawford, a black woman living in Florida in the early 1900's. The book centers on Janie's desire and search for self-establishment, but also deals with the problems of racism, materialism, death, and the treatment of women, among others. Throughout the forty …showed first 75 words of 598 total…

…showed last 75 words of 598 total…what happened to Tea Cake, she feels immense gratitude for the life he has given her and finds joy in the many warm memories of their life together. Janie is fulfilled at the end of the novel, in which "she called in her soul to come and see." Their Eyes Were Watching God was the first novel by an African-American woman to explore the interior psyche of a woman who successfully "creates" her own persona.