Summer

English III AP Summer Reading Assignment

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

The following quotations are important and can be found throughout the novel.

If you are able to purchase the novel (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), you are to highlight the quote.

 If you are not able to purchase the novel, you are to mark with sticky tabs. 

In a journal, you are to explain the importance of the quotations and their meaning.

Bring the novel and your journal with you on the first day of school.

Important Quotations:

1. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others the sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turneds his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

	Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”

2. “Listen, Sam, it is was nature, nobody wouldn’t have tuh look out for babies touchin’ stoves, would they? ‘Cause dey just naturally wouldn’t touch it. But dey sho will. So it’s caution,” “Naw it ain’t, it’s nature, cause nature makes caution. It’s de strongest thing dat God ever made, now. Fact is it’s de onliest thing God ever made. He made nature and nature made everything else.”

3. “It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshipers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshiped. 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 worshiped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”

4. “The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in the company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be starting at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

Pay close attention to the attire Janie wears throughout the novel and its significance. Take notes in your journal or highlight and annotate in your book (if you purchase your own) when you notice the change.