Their Eyes Were Watching God: Crash Course Literature 301
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- In which John Green reads Zora Neale Hurston's novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God," and talks to you about it. You'll learn about Zora Neale Hurston's life, and we'll also look at how the interpretations of the book have changed over time. Also, this book will give you a healthy appreciation for the rabies vaccine, and the terrible dilemmas you've avoided thanks to that modern development.
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A new literature crash course and just like every literature class I've taken, I haven't read the material. Let's do this!
I'm not finished reading it, but let's do this!
NO. Read the book first. Do not let someone else tell you what to think. Read introductions and reviews LAST
+Pata Fea While normally I'd agree, I won't have time to finish reading it for another week. Also, I've never let anyone else tell me what to think or feel about anything. Reviews, introductions, commentary matter naught to me. I'm interested but they've never swayed me one way or the other.
Hannah Wells
You will be influenced whether you like it or not. You will read something and think "oh yes, this is what john was talking about when he said X and it means Y" you'll never know if you would have interpreted it differently. For example I didn't see the tree metaphor that way, and now I can see it his way and my own way, where as otherwise it would have looked sexual to me right from the beginning.
True
This is perfect. One of my favorite passages:
"Once set up her idols and built altars to them it was inevitable that she would worship there. It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood."
That's one of my favorite passages too! :-)
Triple YES!s for you madam and/or sir.
I like that tea cake isn't portrayed as a total pure person because then it would feel more like a prince charming saving her then her own perseverance
My Eyes are Watching John - The Novel
Puffs at a distance have every Nerdfighter’s wish on board. For some puffs come in with the video. For others it sails forever on the net, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns their eyes away in resignation, our dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of Nerdfighters. Now, giant squids of anger forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The puff is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
Haha, yeah:). Oh my gosh John would make such a great teacher !!!!!:)
+Riley Horne That was beautiful. Hurston would be proud.
This book brought me to tears when I finished it. I found a deep connection and meaning to the story and the symbolism involved. I think Janie also represents the constant dichotomy and pull she suffered as a black woman who never fully belonged to any "world" in her communities and the phallic symbols, such as the long braid she always wore, showed her strength of mind and resistance even if her journey was messy, flawed, and not without pain. I think anyone who feels like an outsider, stuck in-between worlds would understand to some degree what the main character is feeling/talking about. Feminism itself is not black and white, and no one person is without mistakes or contradictions. I think that makes this book even more human and brilliant imo.
Beautifully articulated!!
Zora's mind was before her time...
One of the most interesting things about this book is how Joe Starks is portrayed. Although he is initially charismatic, he becomes progressively more of a white slave-master. He controls Janie's sexuality and behaviour and even tries to repress it. He controls where she can go, who she can see and how can she dress. But I wouldn't agree that Janie is passive. She emasculates Joe by insulting his manhood in front of his friends.
And dat hair.
+Alex Durso Dat hair doe!
Yes, and when she does he wastes away and dies (like he wasted his time in life). Janie is pretty passive up until that point I think, which is why it's such a turning point when she finally calls out his BS
wouldn't that be passive aggressive?
There is the line though that Janie tried countless times to fight back with her tongue as best she could but it never really amounted to anything. So I think that she did try to fight back as well as she could because she knew that when she did to her full abilities, Jody wouldn't be able to handle it. And he wasn't. He literally died because she 'cast his empty armor before the rest of the men and they had laughed at it'.
Zora Neale Hurston: Living proof that "black don't crack"
Erased 10 years from her age and no one caught on? YAAAAASSSSSS!
The free mule and his free mule doings were my favorite part of that book.
Can y'all do Crash Course Film? I dunno how many people it would help, but it would totally rad.
Thank you! I have wanted to learn more about film making. :D
Several channels look at specific films in detail.
My favorite channel is Nerdwriter, though he does other topics as well, like music and current politics. i really enjoyed his most recent video, about The Darjeeeling Limited.
As long as it is about Art and World cinema, then yes please.
Every frame a painting is your answer
This needs to happen :)
"Sexy pear trees," - John Green 2016.
rabid pear tree sounds like a dark souls boss
I wrote a paper on that sexy pear tree
Nice, can I read it?
it is a dark souls boss.
I read this whole book in one day :). I loved it! I can totally understand why its a classic. I cannot wait to see what we read next!! This course is making my summer!
CC mythology please!
second that! one season for each!
I will be extremely disappointed if they do not do this
OMG WHAT A GREAT IDEA!!!!! ALL OF THEM I HOPE!!!
supershinigami1 xD
Hype!
daddyleon YES!!!
John Green is like wine. He gets better with age
I read this book in my AP Literature class and I remember enjoying it quite a bit.
We had a great substitute at the time who really had us discuss openly the ideas in the book.
Great discussion! I love these videos. I read "Their Eyes Were Watching God" my senior year of high school and was taught that the only thing that mattered in the whole book was the line about how we are sparks in little mud balls. I wish I had had a teacher like John Green who encouraged taking multiple views of a novel, of exploring it from different angles and empowering everyone to have their own interpretation. I didn't learn about different literary theories and views of studying text until college. In my high school, we were told there was only one right answer, one way of viewing a book, and it had to fit the silly "teacher's manual" that the teachers somehow received. God I'll never forget my teacher telling me that the rose bush outside the prison at the beginning of "The Scarlet Letter" had one meaning and my interpretation was "wrong." ::shudders:: Maybe, Mrs. Davis, maybe that bush meant NOTHING. Maybe Hawthorne just needed a flower outside his prison! Why does every line have to equal one particular symbol that equals YOUR interpretation!!!
Um, anyway, still angry about high school lit teachers a decade later. This world needs more John Greens!
THIS WOULD'VE BEEN HELPFUL FOUR MONTHS AGO
HAHAHAHAHA XDXCDDDD
same WHERE WAS THIS FOR MY JUNIOR PAPER
THIS WAS MY SUMMER READING LAST YEAR
Same
@@madameblabla98 junior??? i have to do this as a freshman
What fortuitous timing. I'm reading this book right now in my Studies in African American Literature class at Appalachian State University.
I remember reading this in high school and being thoroughly confused. This explained things a bit better.
I think it's been very convenient for John Green to have a twin that can play as younger-him. But I think he also deserves to appear in the credits with the rest of the crue.
You do know that's just Hank in a mask, right?
;)
When my dad dies, he told us he wants us to write "THIS MAN DIED OF RABIES" on his tombstone (no name or anythin else lol)
Lol
Legend
There Eyes Were Watching God was one of the few actual novels I had to read in high school for class that I loved. I'm more of the mind to read it as the interpretation of Janie's emancipation, especially in regards to the headscarf and the power her hair has. I actually wrote an entire paper on that subject, and it was one of the best grades I've ever gotten on an essay. Such, such a good book.
This is one of my absolute favorite books--it's lyrical, beautiful and heartbreaking. Very much like Gatbsy in that way.
i sooo wish this had 2 parts, this book packs so much material into 193 pages
Maybe when she says she has been to the horizons, she means she has turned her life into a work of art turning herself into a storyteller, therefore achieving the impossible of living beyond her death.
Omg that's deep. I love it!
There was a lot of internal thoughts about living down to expectations, settling for what one's locale provides and trying to live within one's desires that I really appreciated in this book. We English do not always give credit to American authors as much as we should and this is a good example of works worthy of reading. Also I like that it was shorter than a lot of texts.
I'm not American but this is one of my favourite books. Definitely lean more towards the empowerment reading.
I love the crash course videos, learning stuff I wouldn't have thought to pursue on my own, and I love the thoughtful commenters, sharing their thoughts respectfully. More than anything else, this community is what gives me hope for the future.
I visited Eatonville last week, and attended her father's church. I visited her home and other land marks. This came right on time!
The Rabies thing was too soon, man. I literally just finished the book…
I'm too poor as a student to help you guys but I wanna tell you john and your team my most sincere thanks for hours of FUN. Yes FUN, I'm weird that way but I enjoyed every single course you gave on crash course and for that. thank you.
Also I would love to see your book recommendations
best regards
My all time favorite novel is"Shogun". A slice of the culture in the 1600's of medieval Japan from a English captain of a Dutch ships point of view. I've read thousands of books and author James Clavell's knowledge of Japan is astounding. Not your usual kind of happy ending, but riveting in scope and understanding.
I had to read her academic work for one of my folklore classes and honestly I recommend it. It's mostly ethnographies, or studies on specific groups ie communities in the American South. It uses the differences in prose and spelling for dialogue in comparison to narration, showing her place as a observational participant (someone who is studying a group by participating in the group's activities) as well as her academic credentials, as skeptics to her academic background were likely. It's every part, kind of like "here's how people in my parts live, respect me as I tell you this information"
I love a good book, that's why I watch these. Thanks cc!
Read Their Eyes Were Watching God for AP English my senior year of highschool, the flood made me cry a lil bit I gotta say.
"Your eyes are watching me but their eyes are watching God" 😂😂😂😂
Can I just say I love how John and Hank bring education to the world
So good to have John Green back.
5:29 I have to say... I love that difference!
That was pretty unique, and still is to some degree.
I loved this book! Powerful message from a black woman!
Can you do Art History? The Renaissance, Bauhaus, post-modernism, etc., etc..
They have a channel on that called 'The Art Assignment'.
Just finished reading this last night. I loved it so much that I did two extra gym sessions and read it while on the stationary bike so I could justify all my extra reading time.
I have missed this show so much, I cannot put into words the anticipation and appreciation I feel, thank you so much John Green ❤️
Thank you, John! I'm glad you're back piqueing my interest once again for literature long forgotten. When I read the book 30 odd years ago, I just thought of it as a tragedy and haven't thought about it since. I'm fifty now, so I'm going to read it again (with mature understanding) for pleasure and not as a college assignment.
I know everyone wants World History Season 3 but you must understand that John Green is a novelist. The first "educational" videos the vlogbrothers made were book club videos. And literature is important. Learning this stuff is important. I am a history major who wants to be a teacher and I love CC world history but literature is important too.
I would love to see an episode about As I Lay Dying. I love that book
Who else is glad John's back. It wasn't the same without you.
Thank you!! There is so little material out here on this novel in particular; I would know, because it was the subject of my major essay for Contemporary American Lit last semester!!
this explains john's recent video about horizon
Indeed it does!
Thans for this John. I think I might try to read the book again. That's is so much in the story, and sounds like it deserves another try. I might get it through audio books.(as was suggested last week) It should be easier to understand if I don't have to decipher the language while understanding the story. I live in the south so have been privledged to hear some of the same language, so I'm hoping I'll understand it. Thanks again.Jessica
What I think is so grate is that she never gets what she wants it's the point she tricks her self into thinking that she has found happiness when in reality she has not , at the start she mocks men's lack of moving to there dreams but she is mocking Jamie and her gender for needing to try to achieve the goals even if they never will. The story shows us the fatality of all human effort
Crash Course Political Science please
Just imagine that comment section
Check out crash course us government. The host does an excellent job of introducing the topic of political science and putting it in an applied American context.
+Devan Anderson I think it deserves its own series like philosophy, biology, history etc. it's a huge topic and it needs to cover international politics, global perspective etc.
How about Crash Course Social Science? That was one of my favorite classes in college.
Social science is psuedo science. Might as well teach Crash Course Homeopathy or Astrology.
I literally gasped when I got back from vacation and saw a new CC: Literature run. Leeeeeet's Gooooooo!
YAHOOO!!!
I know, I missed crash course literature
Glad to see season 3 starting, I just finished a binge-course of Season 1 and 2.
I'm wondering, will Lovecraft, Poe and/or Pratchett ever get covered? Some of my favorite authors and some great worldviews. I especially love the similarities and contrasts between Lovecraft and Pratchett and I think a back-to-back episodes based on the similarities between their works, but the vastly, _vastly_ different outlooks on life.
Coincidentally, I just read this! It became clear as I was reading it it was going to be one of my favourite books of all time, along with Crime and Punishment.. it's a frigging masterpiece. I'm going to try to read everything she ever wrote
I can't wait for Lord of the Flies!
oh that is, without a doubt, my favorite book I had to read in English class!
Good book. Didn't like it. I'm more of Animal Farm guy.
It was interesting but the 5 pages it took for William Golding to describe the tide coming in or the sun coming up was taxing
John is certainly not excited
rcutler9 I can see why. The book really has no point other than to show the savage and awful side of humanity
Great Video! I really enjoyed reading the book this week and I wouldn't have discovered it without this season of crash course literature.
I just finished listening to this on audiobook. It was a beautiful story! I had no idea Zoa Neal Hurston was such an inspiring person. I'm so happy CCLit is back!!
5:54 whoa, didn't expect to see someone I see often on this show. (and the 'arrested for trying to open his own gate' is referring to when he was arrested for trying to get into his own house)
Octavia Butler!!!! Any book! Every book! Pleeeeeese!
I read this book this past year and I really enjoyed it
Hi I'm John Underpuff and welcome to CrashPuff UnderCourse!
It's great to have you back, John! We've missed you.
One of my favorite books from high school, and watching this made me realize I don't remember it at all...time to read it again!
Thanks John, one of my favorite episodes to date!
This is one of my favourite shows on RUclips. Excellent discussion as always!
Book starts at 3:30
So, her book was criticized for using vernacular speech to represent how people in the south actually talked, the same thing Huckleberry Finn was praised for 50 years earlier? Or am I wrong and that came later also?
ExCUSE ME THERE'S A NEW LITERATURE SERIES???
it's not a new series, just a new season
If you're from the UK you call "a season" a series :)
+PureNightfall OHHHH im so ignorant sorry!!
YES, YES, THERE IS! :)
lol
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read this book years ago. It was a good read.
You are a rockstar! Just found your site and as a tutor, your summaries are awesome! Thanks for this one.
I love this book!! Thanks for discussing it on Crash Course.
I read this in high school junior year english, loved every word!
Hey there! I was just wondering if there was a possibility that the Crash Course Literature team could put together a few episodes over Shakespeare's Macbeth? I've never really been much into Shakespeare, but after being forced to read the book for my Brit Lit class and having discussions about it, I still feel like I'm missing a lot of explanations for why some of the characters do what they do. I'd really appreciate it if you guys wouldn't mind going a little bit into the psychological perspective of the story to further explain this plot line!
Horizon and back == Went where I wanted to (the horizon that drew her to go) and is done with it.
I feel it's just that simple.
I'm a junior in high school and my AP English Language Arts class just finished this novel. I believe that this book is written to exemplify feminist love vs. patriarchal love. I think it embodies how women ultimately overcome male dominance and begin to find their voice in relationships. I also think it is vital to highlight the symbols that are brought up throughout the novel. A symbol that I found intriguing was the bees and hints to trees and buds. I think that this is important to evaluate because in essence this novel shows how over time Janie begins to find herself and transition from a woman who is held down by male domination to a woman who is given the experience of true equality within a relationship. She finds that in Teacake. Over all I enjoyed the book and is one of the best novels I have read.
She lived in Fort Pierce, Florida! They named a library after her! There's an historical walk based on the places she lived and worked while she lived there! It's called the Dust Tracks Heritage Trail!
Hello Mr. Green i really enjoyed the video and i'm looking forward for you to discuss Alice Walker's The color Purple thank you :D
Held off on the video until I finished reading this book. Beautiful read.
oof i'm cramming an ap assignment into two days. send prayers.
I chose to read this book my sophomore year for our book club and it was absolutely life changing. Reading it as a young back girl at that time of my life was so important
I wait 2 years for crash course world history 3, and I get THIS?
Although the author claims that there isn't a racial politics in the novel, I do notice some incidences. When Janie goes to court, she had an all white jury and one of the reasons for her not guilty verdict was because of the testimony of the white Doctor. The unburied black bodies as mentioned In the video. The muck where mainly black folks worked and played compared to the white owners. The colorism expressed by *forgot the ladies name* because Janie was of fairer skin with straight hair.
Yay John is back and Yay this book is part of my summer reading and they made a crash course video for it just in time
We just finish this book in my English 3 class.
Aaah, and now I get the inspiration for your video essay about staring out at the Great Lakes.
I need to visit Marquette and Copper Harbor again, also the shipwreck museum at Whitefish Point. Lake Superior is a truly haunting place where you feel both your own mortality and the immensity of possibility.
Hurston- their eyes were watching god: "It was a spring afternoon in West Florida. Janie had spent
most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back-yard.
She had been spending every minute that she could steal from
her chores under that tree for the last three days. That was to
say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her
to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to
glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of
bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a
flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered
again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out
smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and
caressed her in her sleep. It connected itself with other vaguely
felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about
her consciousness.
She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in
the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to
her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom;
the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the
ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in
every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!
She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a
pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid."
And now Edith Wharton's Summer:
"There she lay down on the slope, tossed off her
hat and hid her face in the grass.
She was blind and insensible to many things, and dimly
knew it; but to all that was light and air, perfume and
colour, every drop of blood in her responded. She
loved the roughness of the dry mountain grass under her
palms, the smell of the thyme into which she crushed
her face, the fingering of the wind in her hair and
through her cotton blouse, and the creak of the larches
as they swayed to it.
She often climbed up the hill and lay there alone for
the mere pleasure of feeling the wind and of rubbing
her cheeks in the grass. Generally at such times she
did not think of anything, but lay immersed in an
inarticulate well-being. Today the sense of well-being
was intensified by her joy at escaping from the
library."
Though where Janie's story is supposed to be a boldungsroman, I'd argue Charity's is like a reverse bildungsroman. Janie transitions from lacking freedom to somewhat incrementally gaining it throughout her life and experiences. Charity is the opposite. She starts off pretty liberated and with a bunch of freedoms which she loses/gives up by the end of the book
I've always wondered if Janie dies from rabies in the end because after all, she did get bit in the arm as Teacake fell from the gun blast (also not shown in the movie). Also, John Green didn't mention that she was from mixed ancestry. That's a pretty important aspect of the book. She has smooth hair like the white folk, therefor it's considered her best physical quality. She's also treated fairly better than the other blacks due to her "coffee-and-cream" skin. Also, objects in this book that are described as white in color such as Janie's clothes and Joe Stark's house are considered beautiful and magnificent.
I liked the book when i read it, it wan't bad or good in my opinion just fine. (mainly due to it having been a forced read where my entire grade depended on me pretty much reading the book three times in two weeks. for the big test just before finals) i liked it as i read it but could understand why people held it in such high regard. i loved her use of the dialect and the story she was telling was good, but i can't say it was a great book because with great books i feel the need to show emotion, such as happiness, or anger, or sadness. and i only smiled once and that was due to my teachers jokes about the men she's been with compared to the narrator. I feel i would like the book better if i didn't have to hear of it's high regard in every sentence it's in.
... on a seperate topic, of Zora herself. i at first though she was rude and arrogant due to how she was represented in "Jump at the Sun" which documented her life. and how she copyrighted the play she and Hughes (I think) had made in only her name making it uneditable by Hughes who thought it was not yet finished. I liked her more when a disregarded much of what i was shown by my teacher and did my own research on her. Not to say i din't find her rude in some aspect still.
John is an author himself? That's quite cool!
Read his novel Looking for Alaska. And then all the others.
Stephanie Areson Earl I'll keep my eye out for it!
He's best known for The Fault In Our Stars, which was recently made into a movie.
Nolan Thiessen Is it any good?
Tiaan De Swardt I enjoyed the book. The movie was okay.
Well, he said the word "Feminism," let's wait and see how the comment section blows up.
And there is also black people! It will be funny, or depressing :P
At least there was no mention of Islam...
+LittleLion93 Everyone type in the chat: Alex is a stupid ni...
+James A Clouder Well hopefully nobody brings up the Console Wars, or Gamergate or just videogames in general it seems these days.
I'm down here for the same reason. Popcorn?
Good to see John Green again..
I think the duality of Teacake is really important. because one reading of the novel is "Woman leaves generally okay guy with stinky feet for a guy who beats her; she is relieved upon his death so that she can go be with another guy who beats her. when he dies, she returns home and is sad about the death of her husband who beat her, no not the firs one, the *other* one who beat her."
YES IT STARTED BACK UP AGAIN.
This was the first assigned book that I ever read and enjoyed. It's always a bit strange remembering how my younger self experienced and understood things, and re-examining those things as an adult.
as i was reading this book for this episode, i was wondering why there was so much vernacular and stories of hanging out and messing around in eatonville and the 'glades, but john changed my perspective. i should probably appreciate the culture documented throughout all of the anecdotes of the book, since very few of Hurston's contemporaries made an initiative to do so.
Ok so, the idea of empowering the reading by pointing out we as we read give the book meaning reminds me of when I study communication theory, and the debates against the communication model of Pierce by Humberto Eco. He empowered the receptor to give him the power to give the communication meaning as much as the emmiter did.
And here I sat thinking all the tumblr posts saying John Green is a human cinnamon roll were exaggerating
Crash Course Literature is my favorite.
One of my favorite books!