Quote 1
[Nanny:] "So de white man throw down de load and tell de n***** man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De n***** woman is de mule ud de world so fur as Ah can see." (2.44)
Black women, as far as Nanny can see, get the worst lot in life. While white men are highest in the hierarchy and look down on black men, the black men in turn drop the burden on the shoulders of their women. Everyone treats black women like animals.
Quote 2
[Nanny to Janie:] "Don’t tell me you done got knocked up already, less see—dis Saturday it’s two month and two weeks."
"No’m, Ah don’t think so anyhow." Janie blushed a little.
"You ain’t got nothin’ to be shamed of, honey, youse uh married ‘oman. You got yo’ lawful husband same as Mis’ Washburn or anybody else!" (3.10-12)
To Nanny, a woman should take pride in bearing her husband’s children. Conversely, unmarried women should be ashamed of getting pregnant. So, in Nanny’s eyes, women’s worth is defined by their position relative to men.
Quote 3
[Nanny] "Well, if he do all dat whut you come in heah wid uh face long as mah arm for?"
"Cause you told me Ah wuz gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t. Maybe if somebody was to tell me how, Ah could do it."
"You come head wid yo’ mouf full uh foolishness on uh busy day. Heah you got uh prop tuh lean on all yo’ bawn days, and big protection, and everybody got tuh tip dey hat tuh you and call you Mis’ Killicks, and you come worryin’ me ‘bout love." (3.17-19)
Janie still considers the idea of love essential to a marriage, and she thinks that because she still doesn’t love Logan, something has gone wrong. She earnestly wants to love the man and make the marriage work, but Nanny brushes off her worries as frivolous. In Nanny’s eyes, Janie should be happy simply with her property and status as a respectably married woman; love is irrelevant.
Quote 4
"Yeah, Janie, youse got yo’ womanhood on yuh. So Ah mout ez well tell yuh whut Ah been savin’ up for uh spell. Ah wants to see you married right away."
"Me, married? Naw, Nanny, no ma’am! Whut Ah know ‘bout uh husband?"
"Whut Ah seen just now is plenty for me, honey, Ah don’t want no trashy n*****, no breath-and-britches, lak Johnny Taylor usin’ yo’ body to wipe his foots on."
Nanny’s words made Janie’s kiss across the gatepost seem like a manure pile after a rain. (2.25-28)
For Nanny, a girl becomes a woman at the first sign of her emerging sexuality. She sees any sort of extramarital sexual activity—even kissing—as shameful and thus makes "Janie’s [first] kiss…seem like a manure pile after a rain."
Quote 5
[Nanny on Leafy:] "Dat school teacher had done hid her in de woods all night long, and he had done raped mah baby and run on off just before day."
"She was only seventeen, and somethin’ lak dat to happen! Lawd a’ mussy! Look lak Ah kin see it all over again. It was a long time before she was well, and by dat time we knowed you was on de way. And after you was born she took to drinkin’ likker and stayin’ out nights. Couldn’t git her to stay here and nowhere else. Lawd knows where she is right now." (2.72-73)
Here, Janie learns that the act of sex—which she has seen performed only in terms of love—can be used to hurt. Leafy was only 17 when she was raped and impregnated by her teacher, and it was such a traumatic experience that she never recovered. This serves as a warning to Janie not to idealize sex or mistake it for love.
Quote 6
[Nanny at the sight of Johnny Taylor kissing Janie:] "Janie!"
The old woman’s voice was so lacking in command and reproof, so full of crumbling dissolution,—that Janie half believed that Nanny had not seen her. So she extended herself outside of her dream and went inside of the house. That was the end of her childhood. (2.18-19)
Janie’s definitive end of childhood and the most naïve level of innocence is initiated by a single word from Nanny. Curiously, this word does not carry a tone of authoritative reproof but is marked by its frailty. It seems that Janie is more moved by pity for Nanny than actual regret for kissing a boy, and that her childhood innocence is lost not from the awareness of her sexuality but from disappointing Nanny.
Quote 7
[Nanny]: "She [Leafy] was only seventeen, and somethin’ lak dat to happen! Lawd a’mussy! Look lak Ah kind see it all over again. It was a long time before she was well, and by dat time we knowed you was on de way. And after you was born she took to drinkin’ likker and stayin’ out nights. Couldn’t git her to stay here and nowhere else. Lawd knows where she is right now. She ain’t dead, ‘cause Ah’d know it by mah feelings, but sometimes Ah wish she was at rest." (2.73)
Nanny recalls how her own daughter, Leafy, violently lost her innocence. Leafy’s rape by her schoolteacher left the impressionable young girl deeply disturbed. Leafy, after being raped, couldn’t live a normal life because she was haunted by the memory of her violent and unwilling sexual initiation into womanhood. Thus she never develops into a fully healthy woman.
Quote 8
[Nanny]: "Dat mornin’ on de big plantation close to Savannah, a rider come in a gallop tellin’ ‘bout Sherman takin’ Atlanta. Marse Robert’s son had done been kilt at Chickamauga. So he grabbed his gun and straddled is best horse and went off wid de rest of de gray-headed men and young boys to drive de Yankees back into Tennessee.
"They was all cheerin’ and cryin’ and shoutin’ for de men dat was ridin’ off. Ah couldn’t see nothin’ cause yo’ mama wasn’t but a week old, and Ah was flat uh mah back. But pretty soon he let on he forgot somethin’ and run into mah cabin and made me let down mah hair for de last time. He sorta wropped his hand in it, pulled mah big toe, lak he always done, and was gone after de rest lak lightnin’. (2.58-59)
Although not stated explicitly, it seems that Nanny’s slave master cares more for Nanny than his white wife. It is, afterall, Nanny that the master returns home to caress and say goodbye to before heading off to battle, not his wife. This harkens back to Leafy’s situation as well. Her white schoolmaster raped her, but he also apparently wanted to marry her. Though socially unacceptable at the time, and often displayed in negative ways, love was not confined to members of a person’s own race.
Quote 9
[Nanny]: "Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see. So de white man throw down de load and tell de n***** man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De n***** woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see." (2.44)
This book reveals a social hierarchy based on race and gender. While the fact that black men were often put down and discriminated against by white men is common knowledge, Nanny points out an even more victimized group – black women. By virtue of being both a racial minority and the "weaker" sex, black women had it worst of all and were essentially the bottom of the totem pole.
Quote 10
[Nanny]: "How come?"
"’Cause I hates de way his [Logan’s] head is so long one way and so flat on de sides and dat pone uh fat back uh his neck."
"He never made his own head. You talk so silly." (3.24-26)
Although young Janie resents Logan for his ugliness, Nanny makes the wise observation that Logan had no choice in his looks. Clearly, however, Logan’s looks to impact the way his life plays out – Janie leaves him in part because he isn’t pretty. Janie’s fate is also subject to her looks; at least her first two marriages, which both give her increasing social status, are a direct result of her attractiveness.
Quote 11
[Nanny]: "Whut Ah seen just now is plenty for me, honey, Ah don’t want no trashy n*****, no breath-and-britches, lak Johnny Taylor usin’ yo’ body to wipe his foots on." (2.27)
Nanny considers Johnny Taylor far below her and Janie’s station. This is apparent because she uses words like "trashy" and "breath-and-britches," implying that Johnny is poor. She equates his low social status with negative intentions toward Janie – which may or may not be the case. Still, Nanny uses social status as a way of determining a person’s value and integrity.
Quote 12
[Nanny to Janie]: "If you don’t want him [Logan], you sho oughta. Heah you is wid de onliest organ in town, amongst colored folks, in yo’ parlor. Got a house bought and paid for and sixty acres uh land right on de big road and…Lawd have mussy! Dat’s de very prong all us black women gits hung on. Dis love! Dat’s just whut’s got us uh pullin’ and haulin’ and sweatin’ and doin’ from can’t see in de mornin’ till can’t see at night." (3.21)
Nanny envies the middle-class white life, valuing key material objects that signify wealth like organs (not like kidneys, but the piano-like instrument), houses, and "sixty acres uh land." She wants that kind of wealth for Janie and assumes that social status and worldly goods will automatically bring happiness.
Quote 13
[Nanny]: "How come?"
"’Cause I hates de way his [Logan’s] head is so long one way and so flat on de sides and dat pone uh fat back uh his neck."
"He never made his own head. You talk so silly." (3.24-26)
Janie’s shallowness and frivolity as a teenage girl makes her resent Logan simply for being ugly. Nanny’s wise words point out that Logan has no control over his looks; the implication is that of the things he does have control over, he has done well.
Quote 14
[Nanny:] "Tain’t Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have, baby, it’s protection. Ah ain’t gittin’ ole honey. Ah’m done ole. One mornin’ soon, now, de angel wid de sword is gointuh stop by here. De day and de hour is hid from me, but it won’t be long. Ah ast de Lawd when you was uh infant in mah arms to let me stay here till you got grown. He done spared me to see de day. Mah daily prayer now is tuh let dese golden moments rolls on a few days longer till Ah see you safe in life.
"Lemme wait, Nanny, please, jus’ a lil bit mo’."
"Don’t think Ah don’t feel wid you, Janie, ‘cause Ah do. Ah couldn’t love yuh no more if Ah had uh felt yo’ birth pains mahself. Fact uh de matter, Ah loves yuh a whole heap more’n Ah do yo’ mama, de one Ah did birth. But you got to take in consideration you ain’t no everyday chile like most of ‘em. You ain’t got no papa, you might jus’ as well say no mama, for de good she do yuh. You ain’t got nobody but me. And mah head is ole and tilted towards de grave. Neither can you stand alone by yo’self. De thought uh you bein’ kicked around from pillar tuh post is a hurtin’ thing. Every tear you drop squeezes a cup uh blood outa mah heart. Ah got tuh try and do for you befo’ mah head is cold." (2.52-54)
Nanny isn’t afraid of death, but afraid of having unfinished business when she does die. She considers her life satisfactory except for Janie’s single status; she refers to her dying days as "golden moments." Nanny’s attitude toward death is markedly different than that of Joe Starks, who is terrified of death and refuses to believe he is dying. In Joe’s case, maybe his fear stems from dissatisfaction with his life.
Quote 15
There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought 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 thought. Nanny entered this infinity of conscious pain again on her old knees. Towards morning she muttered, "Lawd, you know mah heart. Ah done de best Ah could do." De rest is left to you." She scuffled up from her knees and fell heavily across the bed. A month later she was dead. (3.30)
Nanny is ready to die because she no longer feels that she has unfinished business on earth. She has "done de best [she] could do." Nanny dies probably realizing that she’s hurt Janie by choosing Logan as her granddaughter’s husband, but feels she can’t fault herself for making an imperfect decision based on love. Later in the book, Janie reveals that she hates her grandmother for forcing her to marry Logan. Do you think Hurston wanted the reader to agree with Janie?
Quote 16
[Nanny]: "Ah was born back in slavery so it wasn’t for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do. Dat’s one of de hold-backs of slavery. But nothing can’t stop you from wishin’. You can’t beat nobody down so low till you can rob’ em of they will. Ah didn’t want to be used for a work-ox and a brood-sow and Ah didn’t want mah daughter used dat way neither. It sho wasn’t mah will for things to happen lak they did. Ah even hated de way you was born. But, all de same Ah said thank God, Ah got another chance. Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin’ on high, but they wasn’t no pulpit for me. Freedom found me wid a baby daughter in mah arms, so Ah said Ah’d take a broom and a cook-pot and throw up a highway through de wilderness for her. She would expound what Ah felt. But somehow she got lost offa de highway and next thing Ah knowed here you was in de world. So whilst Ah was tenin’ you of nights Ah said Ah’d save de text for you. Ah been waitin’ a long time, Janie, but nothin’ Ah been through ain’t too much if you just take a stand on high ground lak Ah dreamed." (2.56)
Nanny speaks of something deeper than simple pride in the human spirit when she talks about the indomitable will of the black slaves. Nanny’s faculty of "nothing can’t stop you from wishin’" might be described in universal terms as human dignity. She links this concept of dignity with Janie’s upbringing, trying to teach her to stand on "high ground" and "preach a great sermon about colored women sittin’ on high." This is her ultimate goal for Janie, but she does not take into account Janie’s free will.
Quote 17
[Nanny] "Humph! don’t ‘spect all dat tuh keep up. He [Logan] ain’t kissin’ yo’ mouf when he carry on over yuh lak dat. He’s kissin’ yo’ foot and ‘tain’t in uh man tuh kiss foot long. Mouf kissin’ is on uh equal and dat’s natural but when dey got to bow down tuh love, dey soon straightens up." (3.15)
For a man, according to Nanny, love must be dignified. It is a dishonor for a man to "bow down" to a woman, even out of love. To feed their pride, they must love on equal footing (or else force the woman to bend and kneel, which is what Logan and Joe try to do).