ShmoopTube

00:01

We speak student!

00:06

Their Eyes Were Watching God

00:07

Flashbacks

00:08

a la Shmoop

00:10

She's relating her story

00:13

in the past. So we know she lives.

00:15

She wasn't killed, because she couldn't relate it if she didn't.

00:18

And it changes the vibe of the story,

00:24

given that she's kind of speaking about her past.

00:26

It's a different kind of tension.

00:29

Flashbacks on their own a lot of times

00:32

take away a lot of drama but they add a lot of mythology almost.

00:35

[ buzzing ]

00:40

Storytelling is at the heart of all of this,

00:43

and Janie is the one

00:45

telling her story.

00:47

She's gone out into the world,

00:48

experienced what she's gonna experience,

00:50

and has come back and is reflecting on it.

00:52

And that is a microcosm of the entire novel,

00:58

because that is really

01:00

what's happening throughout this whole novel

01:01

is that people are telling stories.

01:03

When Janie comes back,

01:04

the community starts telling stories

01:06

about her. They're gossiping about her

01:08

and kind of talking about her.

01:10

Phoebe's trying to defend her, and so on.

01:13

So it shows that Janie, in the midst of all of this talk

01:17

and this storytelling and everyone else's voices,

01:20

is able to have her own and tell her own story.

01:24

This is, again, symbolic of the Harlem Renaissance

01:27

where this Black community in Harlem came together

01:31

and had this rebirth of culture where they were able to say,

01:33

"No, we're gonna tell our story.

01:34

The story of slavery and oppression

01:39

isn't the story. We're gonna tell the story."

01:41

And kind of trying to come out of that.

01:44

[ pen writing ]

01:46

Why does Hurston have Janie tell her story through a flashback?

01:50

How were people in the Harlem Renaissance treating their own history?

01:58

Uhh... Oh.

Full Transcript