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Their Eyes Were Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watching God
By: Zora Neale Hurston

Janie Crawford has returned to town after a trip of some sort. Janie is a full-figured woman with big breasts, firm buttocks, and long hair. The men look at her with desire. She is wearing overalls, which is quite unsual. It is dusk and people are sitting on their porches watching Janie walk back into town. These people, the porch sitters, sit on their porches and talk about everyone else's business. They cannot wait to hear all about Janie's life while she has been away. Janie's best friend, Pheoby Watson, also can't wait to talk to her also. The porch sitters want Pheoby to find out the information about Janie and then come back and tell them everything. Janie says that she will tell Pheoby all about her life and what happened to her, and specifically, why she has returned to the town. Pheoby tells Janie that she will only tell the porch sitters what Janie says she can tell them.
Janie begins telling Pheoby her story. She tells her all about how her grandma, Nanny, raised her in West Florida with white people, the Washburns. Mrs. Washburn dressed Janie in her children's old clothes (which were nicer than the clothes of Janie's colored schoolmates). Janie was called "alphabet" because people called her all different sorts of names. When she was a teenager, 16 years old, she used to sit under the pear tree and dream about being a tree in bloom. When she is 16, she kisses Johnny Taylor to see if he was the one. Nanny sees her kiss him, and says that Janie is now a woman. She wants her to marry now and suggests that Janie marry Logan Killicks because he has shown an interest in Janie by always coming around their house. Janie does not want to marry Logan because he is old and he ruins the her way of the blooming pear tree that she dreams about.
Nanny tells Janie about what happened to Janie's mother, Leafy and herself. Nanny lived in Georgia before moving to West Florida. The white woman in charge of her...