Their Eyes Were Watching God opens with a lyrical passage in which Janie Starks returns to Eatonville, Florida, where she had previously lived. The other townspeople observe her in judgment and speculate about what has brought her back. Through their dialogue, the characters of Pheoby, Janie's best friend, and Tea Cake, the young man she had left with, are introduced. Eventually, Pheoby visits Janie, who tells her that Tea Cake is "gone." The rest of the novel consists of the story Janie tells Pheoby about what has happened to her.

In Chapters 2 through 4 Janie summarizes her childhood, when she lived with her maternal grandmother, Nanny, who also cared for several white children. At one point, a photographer takes a picture of all of the children. While examining the photograph, Janie realizes that she is black, for until then she had thought she was like all of the white...