Annotated Bibliography - Essay Example

Annotated bibliography: Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: HarperPerennial, 2006. In “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, Hurston points towards the way women particularly from the African American origin were treated and used by men in the conservative male dominated society in the first half of the twentieth century. The original publication of “Their Eyes Were Watching God” can be traced back to 1937. (Small and Valenza, n.d.). Janie is an African American girl who is desperate for gaining self identity and discover love in the highly sex-driven, racist and extremely conservative American society of the 1930s.

Janie is married to a rich man, Logan. But she does not remain happy with him because of his insulting behavior and instead runs away with Joe who becomes mayor of the town they run to using his wife as a source. Later, he starts insulting her and dies, causing Janie to marry Tea Cake who is very young for her age. One day, Tea Cake is shot dead by Janie because he was infected with Rabies. Every time Janie got married, she gave herself in the hands of her husband who decided her fortune. Janie is attracted to nature and looked for natural love in her relationships which she rarely discovered except for once when she was saved by Tea Cake as he fought the dog that gave him Rabies.

To her misfortune, she had to kill Tea Cake for it was God’s decision. She feels guilty that she did not realize the sign when God warned her through the Indians about the hurricane that left Tea Cake into Rabies. Upon its initial publication in 1937, the book was quite less appreciated. The black community thought that the cruelty and insult they were offered by the white lot was quite misrepresented in the story. Works cited:Small, Sarah and Valenza, Joyce. “Their Eyes Were Watching God: A WebQuest about Authors Choice”. N.d. 12 Aug. 2010.

Hurston, Zora Neale. “Their Eyes Were Watching God”. New York: HarperPerennial, 2006. Print.