1. pg. 11 “She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight;” Janie is reclining underneath of a blooming pear tree, meant to symbolize her own blossoming womanhood at the age of 16.
2. pg. 14 “She slapped the girl’s face violently, and forced her head back so that their eyes met in struggle. With her hand uplifted for the second blow she saw the huge tear that welled up from Janie’s heart and stood in each eye;” Nanny, being angry with Janie and their conflicting opinions, slaps her, and instantly regrets it.
3. pg. 41 “Jody told her to dress up and stand in the store all that evening. Everybody was coming sort of fixed up, and he didn’t mean for nobody else’s wife to rank with her. She must look on herself as the bell-cow, the other women were the gang. So the put on one of her bought dresses and went up the new-cut road all dressed in wine-colored red. Her silken ruffles rustled and muttered about her;” Joe, being the mayor of Eatonville, wants Janie to be ranked higher than the other women of the town.
4. pg. 24/25 “And when she gained the privacy of her own little shack she stayed on her knees so long she forgot she was there herself. There is a basin in the mind where words float around on though and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by though. Nanny entered this infinity of conscious pain again on her old knees;” Nanny is old, and everyone eventually dies at some point. This is her time, but at least she accomplished raising Janie the way she wanted her to be raised.
5. pg. 12 “Through pollinated air she saw a glorious being coming up the road. In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes;” Janie, after her realization of the similarities between her and the pear tree, spies Johnny Taylor strolling up the road: the perfect man to suit her romantic desires.
6. pg. 32 “The morning road air was like a new dress. That made her feel the apron tied around her waist. She untied it and flung it on a low bush beside the road and walked on, picking flowers and making a bouquet;” Janie has a feeling of unlimited freedom as she leaves Logan Killicks and embraces a future with Joe Starks.
7. pg. 17 “Nigger, whut’s yo’ baby doin’ wid gray eyes and yaller hair? She begin tuh slap mah jaws ever which a’way. Ah never felt the fust ones ‘cause Ah wuz too busy gittin’ de kivver back over mah chile. But dem last lick burnt me lak fire;” The plantation owner’s wife notices the similarities between Nanny’s baby and her husband, and grows suspicious.
8. pg. 47 “Take for instance that new house of his. It had two stories with porches, with banisters and such things. The rest of the town looked like servants’ quarters surrounding the ‘big house.’ And different from everybody else in the town he put off moving in until it had been painted, in and out. And look at the way he painted it – a gloaty, sparkly white. The kind of promenading white that the houses of Bishop Whipple, W.B. Jackson and the Vanderpool’s wore;” Joe Starks, being a very wealthy man and the mayor, can afford very prestigious items.
9. pg. 9 “Ah didn’t know Ah wuzn’t white till Ah was round six years old. Wouldn’t have found it out then, but a man come long takin’ pictures and without askin’ anybody, Shelby, dat was de oldest boy, he told him to take us. Round a week later de man brought de picture for Mis’ Washburn to see and pay him which she did, then give us all a good lickin’. So when we looked at de picture and everybody got pointed out there wasn’t nobody left except a real dark little girl with long hair standing by Eleanor. Dat’s where Ah wuz s’posed to be, but Ah couldn’t recognize dat dark chile as me. So Ah ast, ‘where is me? Ah don’t see me.’ Everybody laughed, even Mr. Washburn. Miss Nellie, de Mama of de chillum who come back home after her husband dead, she pointed to dark one and said, ‘Dat’s you, Alphabet, don’t you know yo’ ownself?’” Janie, growing up in an all white environment, never had any reason to think she wasn’t white, and it came as quite a shock when she finally found out.
10. pg. 27 “It was a citified, stylish dressed man with his hat set at an angle that didn’t belong in these parts. His coat was over his arm, but he didn’t need it to represent his clothes. The shirt with the silk sleeveholders was dazzling enough for the world. He whistled, mopped his face and walked like he knew where he was going. He was a seal-brown color but he acted like Mr. Washburn or somebody like that to Janie;” Just as Janie is feeling that she will never love Logan, the man of her dreams comes into view, Joe Starks.
Picture from: http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/Thornhill/3ThornhillOld.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment