Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of an African-American woman named Janie’s quest to reach her horizon. The story begins with Janie returning to the town of Eatonville, where she tells her curious friend Phoebe her life story. This fills the body of the book. When Janie is young, she had a life directing experience beneath a pear tree. There she first realizes her desires and dreams for life. However, her Grandmother assures her that prosperity and protection should be the main aims in life, rather than fulfilling dreams. Because of this, Janie marries a man named Logan, whom her grandmother chooses.
Janie soon discovers that their marriage does not have love, a quality she had dreamed of having under the pear tree. She eventually leaves Logan to marry Joe, a man who claims that he will treat her like a princess. He keeps his promise, showering her with beautiful things and giving her a high position in society in the town of Eatonville. Yet he also constantly controls her, causing their marriage to lack the freedom and comradeship that Janie desires in a relationship. She says nothing for many years, but eventually confronts Joe in front of his peers, destroying his reputation and losing his trust. Though repentant, Janie confronts Joe a second time when he is on his deathbed, and he dies while she tells him of his wrongs.
After Joe’s death, Janie relishes the freedom that she experiences for the first time. Eventually, she meets and falls in love with a man named Tea Cake, and she decides to leave Eatonville to marry him. In Tea Cake Janie finds the nurturing, caring relationship that she had dreamed of having as a girl. They marry and move to the Everglades, were their relationship continues to grow as they build a life together.
However, Janie and Tea Cake are forced to flee their home when faced by a terrible hurricane. During their escape, Tea Cake is bit by a rabid dog while attempting to protect Janie, and he eventually develops hydrophobia. Janie tries desperately to help him, but he goes mad before anything can be done. In a moment of insanity, Tea Cake draws a gun on Janie and she is forced to kill him in order to save her own life. Janie is later acquitted of her crime by a white jury. No longer having Tea Cake, Janie returns to Eatonville and the story resumes where it had begun. Later that night, after talking to Phoebe, Janie thinks back over her experiences and realizes that, with Tea Cake’s help, she has reached her horizon. Having fulfiller her dreams, she is at peace.
