Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman lost in her own world. She longs to be part of something and to take “a great journey to the horizons in search of people” (85). Janie Crawford's journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities that “represent ever-widening circles of experience and opportunities for the expression of personal choices” (Crabtree). Their Eyes Were Watching God is an important work of fiction that explores relationships within black communities and families. It also examines different issues such as gender and social class, and these issues bring out the theme of voice. In her attempt to find herself, Janie becomes a stronger woman through three marriages. Janie's first discovery about herself came as a child. She was around six years old when she realized that she was colored. Janie's confusion about her race is based on the reasoning that all of her peers and the children she grows up with are white. Janie and her nanny live in the garden of the white people for whom her nanny works. When Janie doesn't recognize herself in the photo taken by a photographer, the others find it funny and laugh, leaving Janie humiliated. This racial discovery is not “social prejudice or personal malice but affection” (Cooke 140). Janie is often teased at school because she lives with white people and dresses better than other colored children. Even though the children teasing her were all of color, this is the beginning of Janie's experience with racial discrimination. Janie grows up faster than her nanny realizes when she catches "Johnny Taylor slashing Janie with a kiss" (11). Nanny wants... middle of paper......to look at God'. The Southern Literacy Journal 17.2 (Spring 1985): 54-66. Literary Resource Center. Internet. February 11, 2011.Ha, Quan. “Utopian and dystopian elements in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.” Rep. in Themes of Conflict in 19th- and 20th-Century Literature of the American South. Ed. Ben Robertson. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007. 27-41. Print.Hurston, Zora N. Their eyes looked upon God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1937. Print. Jordan, Jennifer. “Feminist Fantasies: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 7.1 (Spring 1988): 105-117. Literary Resource Center. Internet. February 9, 2011. Rosenblatt, Roger. “Their Eyes Were Watching God by Roger Rosenblatt. » Rep. in Modern Critical Views of Zora Neale Hurston. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 29-33. Print.