By Scott Morgan
 
Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God is a
bildungsroman, a "coming of age" novel for the main character Janie. She evolves throughout this novel, and these final pages mark the 
culmination of her transformation.  At the beginning of her story, Janie is an innocent sixteen-year-old girl bound by the railing of her 
grandmother's estate.  By the end, she is a learned and confident 
middle-aged woman who has numerous happy memories to look back on and a peaceful, enjoyable future to look forward to. She learns important life lessons from her grandmother, her two oppressive 
husbands, and Tea Cake which help Janie become listened to, respected and autonomous. 

What Janie learns during the course of the book is reiterated in the 
concluding three pages, and this is the selection of text I have chosen to annotate.  This selection begins with "Janie stirred her strong feet in the pan of water" (191) and ends with the last line of the novel.  I 
believe residing within these three pages is Hurston's direct message to her readers, repeated for their benefit so that all may learn from Janie's example. 

My hypertext selection begins with Janie speaking to her friend Phoeby. Janie is wrapping up the story of her life which she began 
telling in the first chapter.  Phoeby reacts excitedly, she develops an 
appetite for learning and growth by listening to Janie.  It is her reaction to Janie's tale of development that Hurston wants all of her female readers to have.  Hurston, in this way, has included exactly how she wants her audience to respond to this novel within the work itself.  I plan to investigate this literary aspect with my hypertext project.

This selection of text is not only composed of reaction cues Hurston leaves for her audience, but also many symbols, comparisons, and themes that have appeared throughout the novel.  These include the connection Janie makes between trees and marriage, the correlation that Hurston makes between Janie and Jesus, and the affects of the porch-talkers on Janie's life.

These porch-talkers are mentioned several times in the final pages of Their Eyes Were Watching God.  These criticizing folks are repeatedly called upon to hear Janie's story and learn from it. In a sense, we are these "criticizing folks", commenting on Janie's life just as the members of Eatonville do.  It is through this hypertext that I hope to discover each of the lessons Zora Neale Hurston planned for us, the sitters-and-talkers, to learn by reading Janie's story. 
 
Rationale  | Links | Text Selection
 
 
The song you are listening to is "Selfless, Cold and Composed" by Ben Folds Five.