--- title: "Their Eyes Were Watching God — AP African Am. Studies Guide" description: "Their Eyes Were Watching God is Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel celebrating Black self-definition through dialect and folklore, central to Topic 3.11's New Negro movement." canonical: "https://fiveable.me/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/their-eyes-were-watching-god" type: "key-term" subject: "AP African American Studies" unit: "Unit 3" --- # Their Eyes Were Watching God — AP African Am. Studies Guide ## Definition Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is Zora Neale Hurston's novel that used African American dialect and Southern folklore to portray a Black woman's journey toward self-definition, exemplifying the New Negro movement's Black aesthetic and its counternarratives to racial stereotypes (Topic 3.11). ## What It Is Their Eyes Were Watching God is a 1937 novel by [Zora Neale Hurston](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/zora-neale-hurston "fv-autolink"), an anthropologist and writer associated with the [Harlem Renaissance](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-3/13-envisioning-africa-in-harlem-renaissance-poetry/study-guide/Zh54kUD3POKtjil3 "fv-autolink"). The novel follows Janie Crawford, a Black woman in rural Florida, as she pushes back against what husbands, neighbors, and society tell her she should be and figures out who she actually is. That arc of self-definition is exactly what the New Negro movement was about (EK 3.11.A.1). What makes the novel matter for [AP African American Studies](/ap-african-american-studies "fv-autolink") is *how* Hurston wrote it. She filled the book with African American dialect and Southern Black folklore, material she had collected as a trained anthropologist. Instead of treating Black vernacular speech as something to hide or "correct," she treated it as art. That choice helped build the Black aesthetic the New Negro movement called for (EK 3.11.A.2) and served as a counternarrative to racial stereotypes that mocked Black speech and rural Black life (EK 3.11.A.3). ## Why It Matters This term lives in Topic 3.11 (The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance) in [Unit 3](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-3 "fv-autolink"): The Practice of Freedom. It directly supports learning objective 3.11.A, which asks you to describe how the New Negro movement emphasized self-definition, racial pride, and cultural innovation. Hurston's novel is a concrete piece of evidence for all three. Janie's story is self-definition in plot form, the dialect and folklore are racial pride in literary form, and the novel itself is the cultural innovation. When the exam asks how Black creators built counternarratives during and after the [nadir](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/nadir "fv-autolink"), Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of the clearest examples you can name. ## Connections ### [The New Negro: An Interpretation (Unit 3)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/the-new-negro-an-interpretation) [Alain Locke](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/alain-locke "fv-autolink")'s 1925 anthology laid out the vision of a New Negro who defines themselves through art and culture. Hurston's 1937 novel is that vision actually carried out, more than a decade later, in a full-length work of fiction. ### ["The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (Unit 3)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/the-negro-artist-and-the-racial-mountain) [Langston Hughes](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/langston-hughes "fv-autolink")'s essay argued Black artists should draw on authentic Black life instead of imitating white standards. Hurston's use of dialect and folklore is the novel-length version of that argument. ### Blues and jazz (Unit 3) The CED groups the era's music and literature together as counternarratives to racial stereotypes. Hurston did with vernacular speech what [blues](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/blues "fv-autolink") and jazz musicians did with sound, turning everyday Black cultural expression into celebrated art. ### The nadir (Unit 3) The New Negro movement emerged in response to the atrocities of the nadir. Hurston's novel shows the cultural side of that response, asserting Black humanity and interior life at a moment when mainstream America denied both. ## On the AP Exam Expect this term in multiple-choice and short-answer questions about Topic 3.11, usually asking why Hurston's choices were significant rather than what happens in the plot. A typical question asks why her use of African American dialect and folklore mattered to the New Negro movement. The answer the exam wants connects her craft to the CED's three big ideas: self-definition, the creation of a Black aesthetic, and counternarratives to stereotypes. You don't need to recall plot details. You need to be able to use the novel as evidence that Black writers turned vernacular culture into art on its own terms. ## Their Eyes Were Watching God vs The New Negro: An Interpretation Both show up in Topic 3.11, but they're different kinds of texts. The New Negro: An Interpretation is Alain Locke's 1925 anthology, a collection that announced the movement's philosophy. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a single novel from 1937 that put that philosophy into practice. If a question asks for the manifesto of the movement, that's Locke. If it asks for a literary work embodying the Black aesthetic through dialect and folklore, that's Hurston. ## Key Takeaways - Their Eyes Were Watching God is Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel about Janie Crawford, a Black woman in rural Florida who defines her own identity against social expectations. - Hurston's use of African American dialect and Southern folklore created a Black aesthetic, treating Black vernacular culture as art rather than something to be hidden. - The novel functions as a counternarrative to racial stereotypes, which is exactly how the CED frames the New Negro movement's artistic innovations (EK 3.11.A.3). - Janie's journey of self-definition mirrors the New Negro movement's core call for African Americans to define their own identity during and after the nadir (EK 3.11.A.1). - Hurston was a trained anthropologist, and her fieldwork collecting Black Southern folklore directly shaped the authenticity of the novel's language and culture. ## FAQs ### What is Their Eyes Were Watching God in AP African American Studies? It's Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel about Janie Crawford's journey toward self-definition, taught in Topic 3.11 as an example of the New Negro movement's Black aesthetic and its counternarratives to racial stereotypes. ### Why did Zora Neale Hurston use dialect in Their Eyes Were Watching God? Hurston, a trained anthropologist, used African American dialect and folklore to present Black vernacular culture as legitimate art. This built the Black aesthetic the New Negro movement called for and countered stereotypes that mocked Black speech. ### Was Their Eyes Were Watching God published during the Harlem Renaissance? It came out in 1937, after the Harlem Renaissance's 1920s peak, but Hurston was a Harlem Renaissance figure and the AP course treats the novel as an expression of New Negro movement ideals about self-definition and racial pride. ### How is Their Eyes Were Watching God different from The New Negro: An Interpretation? Locke's The New Negro (1925) is an anthology that stated the movement's philosophy of self-definition through art. Hurston's novel (1937) is a single work of fiction that put that philosophy into practice through dialect, folklore, and Janie's story. ### Do I need to read Their Eyes Were Watching God for the AP exam? No, you don't need to read the whole novel. You need to explain why it matters: Hurston used dialect and folklore to create a Black aesthetic, model self-definition, and counter racial stereotypes, all tied to learning objective 3.11.A. ## Related Study Guides - [3.11 The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-3/11-the-new-negro-movement-and-the-harlem-renaissance/study-guide/3cv7itK8BhGU4iG4) ## Structured Data ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"LearningResource","@id":"https://fiveable.me/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/their-eyes-were-watching-god#resource","name":"Their Eyes Were Watching God — AP African Am. 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