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Dark But Their Eyes Were Watching God Quotes

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4. The exact connotation of the title is up for discussion, although it touches upon many of the book’s important themes. There are two primary points in the novel that reference the title. Firstly, "The time was past for asking the white folks what to look for through that door. Six eyes were questioning God" (150). Shortly thereafter, a second significant sentence appears: "They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God" (151).
These two quotes hint that the title relates to the theme of race. In the first quote, Hurston in many ways blames African Americans of looking to Caucasians to learn what their future holds. The black community queries God only after they understands that white people cannot give them the answer. This seems to be a bad move; by following what the white people have been doing – hanging around the Everglades when a hurricane is coming – the African Americans have …show more content…

In the first quote, the African Americans have realized that looking to the past slave masters, the white people, won’t do. So they look to the "Ole Massa" (18.29) or God. This has several implications. Firstly, that God is the master of everyone – black and white – which is a rather equalizing notion. The second implies that God is the master and humans are slaves. As slaves, free will is irrelevant or non-existent. It seems that peoples’ futures are determined by fate or God. This point is further driven home by nature and agricultural imagery found throughout the novel. Tea Cake, Janie, and their Everglades friends are all agricultural workers – essentially people that manipulate nature to do their bidding. By looking at agriculture, man seems to have much control over nature and fate. However, God shows up and can manipulate nature to a much larger degree – He comes with a hurricane and flood waters. God makes it clear who the boss really is, and who can actually control nature and

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