03.07 Free Choice Blog

Chapter two of Their Eyes Were Watching God begins with Janie telling Pheoby about her life. Janie tells Pheoby that she was raised by her grandmother and never met either of her parents. The name Janie uses in the story for her grandmother is Nanny. Janie and Nanny lived in the backyard of the Washburns who are a white couple that Nanny worked for. The other kids made fun of Janie for living back there so eventually Nanny bought some property for them to live on. Janie tells how Nanny caught her kissing Johnny Taylor and married her off to a wealthy farmer named Logan who can provide a stable life for Janie. When Janie complains about marrying him, Nanny tells Janie about the hardships she went through and why she has such high hopes for her. Nanny was a slave who was raped by her master and had Leafy. When her master's wife saw Leafy she became furious so Nanny ran away and worked for the Washburns. Nanny had really good hopes for Leafy but then she was raped and after she had Janie she got drunk almost every night. So now, nanny has put her hopes onto Janie. This story uses flashback in order to manipulate chronological order as its organizational pattern. The author's intent was to open up the life story of Janie to readers and continute setting the stage for the rest of the novel.