In both Their Eyes Were Watching God and Night, the theme of religion was opposite. In the beginning of Night, it was obvious that the villagers were very religious, and applied those beliefs to their daily lives. They were very serious about how their families followed religious rule. For example, Elizier’s father did not want him to learn Kabala because he wanted to learn traditional Judaism. As the story progressed, there was a decline in faith for many of the people who were sent holocaust camps. However, Elie’s father stuck to faith for a while. Elie lost his sense of belief when he witnessed all of the horrors that occurred in the camps.
On the contrary, Their Eyes Were Watching God did not necessarily have characters that were very religious, but there were a few religious references. Throughout the story there were hints mentioning god and his eternal light, however there was no consistency of a formal religious following. Unlike the strict religious followings in Night, the second book was vague about the religious outlook of the town, and what people did.
In Night, a heavy religious following dwindled away as times got worse, but there was never a structured religion in the other book. There was A couple times, there were parts like when one character Davis leads a prayer after lighting the lamp and there was another time in the middle of the book where the author mentions how Janie quit attending church after she gets together with Tea Cake. Overall, these two books are complete opposite when it comes to religion.
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