Their Eyes Were Watching God

Lore & Background

Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God in Haiti in the span of seven weeks. She was self-described as 'under internal pressure' when writing and wished she could 'write it again'. Though retrospectively she felt the work captured 'all the tenderness of [her] passion'. The novel was initially poorly received by the African-American community.

Reader's Guide

After the publication of Alice Walker's article 'In Search of Zora Neale Hurston' in Ms. Since the late 20th century, Their Eyes Were Watching God has been regarded as influential to both African-American literature and women's literature. The novel explores themes of gender roles, masculinity and femininity, and Janie Crawford's journey toward self-identity and independence through her marriages to three different men.

Did You Know?

• Hurston wrote the novel in Haiti in seven weeks.
• The novel was initially poorly received by the African-American community.
• The novel is set in central and southern Florida in the early 20th century.

Origins and the Architecture of a Mythos

The Cthulhu Mythos deities trace their roots to the pen of American writer H. P. Yet Lovecraft did not work in a vacuum. He drew upon the vocabulary and conceptual frameworks of earlier literary figures, including Ambrose Bierce, Robert W. Chambers, Arthur Machen, and Lord Dunsany, weaving their ideas into his own cosmology. After Lovecraft's death, the mythos was taken up and significantly reshaped by other prolific writers. August Derleth and Lin Carter are particularly notable; Carter is often credited with formalizing the Cthulhu Mythos as a coherent body of work, while both contributed the concept of the Elder Gods, a category that did not exist in Lovecraft's original writings. Since then, a continuous stream of authors and creators has added new deities and expanded the lore, ensuring the fictional pantheon keeps growing long after its creator's passing.

The Great Old Ones: Nature and Existence

The Great Old Ones form a loose pantheon of ancient, immensely powerful entities who, in Lovecraft's fiction, once held dominion over Earth before sinking into a death-like slumber. They are described as beings who existed since the infinities of chaos before the first humans appeared, possessing the capacity to shape the dreams and minds of mortal creatures. Crucially, they are never truly dead. Even dormant, with stars unaligned, they persist as immortal entities not composed of ordinary matter, a concept captured in the famous line that what can eternally lie is not dead, and even death may perish with strange aeons. When awakened, they can traverse from planet to planet. Their true habitats, as described by the character Albert N. Wilmarth, lie in abysses so bizarrely organized that they exceed the limits of human imagination, with the entire cosmos humans perceive being merely an atom in their genuine infinity. Lovecraft named several of these beings, including Cthulhu, Ghatanothoa, and Yig. With few exceptions they exist outside conventional space-time, often imprisoned beneath oceans, within the Earth, or in other dimensions until a hapless protagonist stumbles upon them.

Indifference, Not Malice: The Moral Landscape

One of the most distinctive features of the Great Old Ones is that they are not evil in any conventional moral sense. Unlike the antagonistic gods of traditional mythologies, these cosmic entities are utterly indifferent to humanity. They do not scheme against humans, do not punish them, and do not reward them. They are, in the words used to describe them, essential awfulness—beings so far beyond human conceptions of good and evil that moral categories simply do not apply. They scarcely ever respond to the worship of the deranged human and inhuman cults that revere them. Only a very small number, such as Nyarlathotep and Y'golonac, are clearly malicious in intent. Others present a more complex picture: Yig typically bestows blessings on his followers, Tsathoggua is regarded as less harmful than his peers, and Mordiggian appears neutral unless humans disturb its corpse. Even deities that seem to stand on humanity's side are not compassionate; they pose a lower threat but still attack humans regularly. This fundamental indifference, rather than active cruelty, is what makes them so terrifying.

Expansion and Legacy in Popular Culture

The Cthulhu Mythos has evolved far beyond Lovecraft's original stories, shaped by successive waves of creators who reinterpreted and reorganized his concepts. August Derleth was instrumental in applying the Great Old Ones framework across the entire body of work, and together with Lin Carter he introduced new tiers of beings, including the Elder Gods and the Lesser Old Ones, also called Greater Servitors, who serve the higher deities and command the races that worship them. In the tabletop role-playing game published by Chaosium, the pantheon was further reclassified: the most powerful and abstract cosmic entities were separated into a new category called the Outer Gods, while the Great Old Ones were redefined as god-like entities with supernatural attributes rather than true deities, though they remain classified as deities in a broad sense. In popular culture, the trend has leaned toward portraying the Great Old Ones as evil and malevolent, standing in opposition to the Elder Gods, a framing particularly visible in young adult novels, comics, and games. Yet the mythos continues to grow, with new writers adding deities and deepening the lore, keeping Lovecraft's fictional universe alive and expanding.