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Their Eyes Were Watching God

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Narrative Structure

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a la Shmoop

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Give us a framework for the story itself.

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What happens in the novel?

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It's a serial. It kind of covers a whole litany of

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painful life experiences that

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you don't need to be a young, Black, teenage girl

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to relate to. I can certainly relate to them.

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- Sure. - And walk us through that.

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Yeah, it really is the story of Janie's coming of age.

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This girl starts out the book as a teenager.

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It's a flashback to her as a teenager.

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And we watch her go through

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two really painful marriages and by the end, three.

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And we see her grow up.

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More than kind of...

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becoming mature -- When we normally think of

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a coming of age, we think of someone becoming more and more mature.

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And she does, but it's really all about

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the path to self-discovery.

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And this is a story about how Janie is treated

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by everyone around her -

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White, Black, man, woman, everyone -

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and how she kind of gets past all that

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and is able to find herself among

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a bunch of people telling her that she's not good enough

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and treating her like she's not good enough.

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[ pen writing ]

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What's the narrative structure of the novel?

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How is Their Eyes Were Watching God a story

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about Janie's self-discovery?

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