Ch 3 Study Questions

2. Who arranges Janie’s wedding ceremony?

3. When Janie asks Nanny for “information” why does Nanny laugh?

4. What does Janie want Nanny to do?

5. What does Nanny mean when she says “bein’ a fool don’t kill nobody. It just makes you sweat”?

6. What doesn’t Janie like about Logan’s appearance?

7. What does Nanny do after Janie leaves her?

8. What is “a bloom time, a green time, and an orange time?”

9. What does she tell the seeds, and why?

10. What “failed” Janie, and what does she do about this?

2. Nanny and Mrs. Washburn take care of everything.

3. She guesses that Janie might already be pregnant.

4. She wants Nanny to tell her how to love Logan.

5. According to Nanny, love is what keeps a woman “pullin’ and uh haulin’ and uh sweatin’ and doin’ from can’t see in de mornin’ till can’t see at night.” She considers such behavior foolish, because to her love isn’t realistic, and it is senseless to worry oneself over it.

6. According to Janie, he is too fat, “his toe-nails look lak mule foots,” and he doesn’t wash himself enough.

7. After Janie leaves her, Nanny goes to her shack and prays the entire night.

8. These “times” are the seasons that pass as Janie waits for her marriage to improve.

9. She tells the seeds, “Ah hope you fall on soft ground,” because she had heard seeds say that to each other.

10. Janie looks up the road that passes her gate because “the familiar people and things had failed her.” She looks for something new and exciting to come along and rescue her from this familiarity.

2. What does Janie do when Logan threatens not to chop any wood for her?

3. Why does Logan want an extra mule?

4. Describe Joe as Janie first sees him.

5. As Joe walked down the road, “he acted like Mr. Washburn or somebody like that to Janie.” What does this imply?

6. Why does Joe want Janie to shake her head?

7. What does Janie mean when she says to Logan, “you don’t take nothin’ to count but sow-belly and cornbread”?

8. Why does Logan ask Janie to come to the barn while she is in the middle of cooking breakfast?

9. What does Logan look like with a shovel in his hand?

10. According to Janie, why is Logan mad at her words?

2. Janie tells Logan that if he stops chopping wood, she won’t make him any dinner.

3. He wants to have a large potato crop, and expects Janie to help him plow with one of the mules.

4. Joe was “seal-brown,” “cityfied,” and “stylish dressed.” He had on a silk shirt, with his coat hanging from his arm. His hat was worn at an angle, which indicated that he “didn’t belong in these parts.”

5. Joe’s confident stride is something that Janie has seen only in Mr. Washburn, and in her mind, that confidence is only in people who possess some sort of power. She is immediately interested in Joe because she has never seen a black man act with such confidence.

6. Joe loves to see Janie’s long hair move back and forth when she shakes her head.

7. Logan is concerned more with his crops and his farm than with his wife. As long as his dinner is made every night, it seems to Janie that anyone could be his wife.

8. Logan wants Janie to help him move a pile of manure into the barn.

9. Logan looks like “a black bear doing a clumsy dance on his hind legs” with a shovel in his hand.

10. Janie says that Logan is mad at her because he already knows that she doesn’t consider him or his land important. She also doesn’t feel the gratitude that he apparently expected from her. As she tells him how she feels, she also tells him that he shouldn’t be so mad because he already knew all of this.

2. Describe the town as it is when Joe and Janie first arrive.

3. When Joe leaves town for the first time, who stays behind, and why?

4. How does Lee Coker respond to Amos Hicks and his criticism of Janie?

5. How does Hicks respond to Joe’s announcement that he is going to get a post office for Eatonville?

6. Why is Tony Taylor upset at Lige Moss during the party celebrating the store’s grand opening?

7. How does Joe decide to celebrate the arrival of the street lamp?

8. Describe the Starks’ new house.

9. What did the phrase “Our beloved Mayor” mean to the residents of Eatonville?

10. Describe the incident between Henry Pitts and Joe Starks.

2. When Janie and Joe first come to Eatonville, they are surprised to find it hardly a town at all. It is described in the novel as a “scant dozen of shame-faced houses scattered in the sand.”

3. Amos Hicks stays behind in order to introduce himself to Janie and offer her any assistance she might need. Janie knows what sort of “assistance” Hicks means and politely refuses.

4. Lee Coker knows that Hicks is pretending that he doesn’t like Janie only to make himself feel better after Janie rejected him.

5. Hicks laughs, saying that Starks is talking without doing anything. However, he feels a little nervous because he believes that Starks can get a post office, and “he wasn’t ready to think of colored people in post offices yet.”

6. Tony Taylor is mad because Lige Moss interrupts “the one speech of his lifetime,” which was being made to welcome the Starks couple to Eatonville.

7. Joe arranges a barbecue to celebrate the town’s first street lamp.

8. The Starks’ house, which is called the “big house,” is two stories high with porches and banisters. It is also painted bright white. All of the other houses look like “servants’ quarters” when compared with the Starks’ home.