The novel of Their Eyes Were Watching God is set in the turn of the 20th
century Florida, but there is one reference to the period following the Civil
War. The different areas that Janie lived were northern Florida, Eatonville,
Tampa, and the Everglades. The author
organized the story it is in the End to Flashback pattern of arrangement, this
is because how the story started with Janie talking to her friend Pheoby. The story begins to develop in a chronological
order with it being like a story that Janie is telling Pheoby and at the end
the story ends but Janie is still talking to Pheoby. The story is centered on Janie, this
protagonist started as a young woman that was coming into her first marriage
and the story than goes through all three of her marriages. The story began in northern Florida and from
there switched to Eatonville when Janie remarried. In another marriage she lived
in Tampa and the Everglades both. From looking at the information in the text
it is understood that the timespan of the story was about 60-70 years after the
Civil War and covered the adult life of Janie for about 25-30 years.
The
story had all five types of conflict and these were the; Person vs. Person,
Person vs. Society Person vs. Herself, Person vs. Nature, and Person vs.
God/Fate. Examples of each are in order:
Janie and her first two husbands had disagreements and they abused her both
verbally and physically, all of the main characters in the story were colored
and since they lived in the era of racial discrimination there were struggles
with this, Janie was torn at what to do when she was offered a new life and
marriage in both instances of men seeking her out, when the Everglades flooded
the area that Janie lived in and threated her life, and Janie and her husband
at the time both struggled with understanding God.
