Plot Points
Who visits Janie at her home after she returns to Eatonville?
Her friend, Pheoby Watson
This represents Janie’s idealized vision of love, harmony, and passion.
The Pear Tree
Describe Janie at the beginning of the novel in one word.
Many options here! Curious, hopeful, lively, etc.
Nanny wants Janie to marry for this reason, prioritizing security over love.
Protection and financial security / safety from sexual exploitation
Hurston’s lush descriptions of nature (trees, blossoms, horizons) are examples of what literary element?
Imagery
Nanny arranges Janie's marriage to this man shortly after catching Janie kissing Johnny Taylor.
Logan Killicks
What does Janie’s hair symbolize?
Power, freedom, femininity, identity
What motivates Joe Starks?
Power, status, ambition.
How does Logan Killicks view marriage?
As work/partnership for labor
Hurston writes the townspeople’s dialogue in regional speech patterns. What literary technique is she using?
Dialect / vernacular
What major change happens when Joe Starks arrives in Janie's life.
She leaves Logan and goes to Eatonville with Joe.
Nanny describes the Black woman as this animal, carrying the burdens others refuse to touch.
The "mule of the world"
When Janie looks at a photograph and doesn't recognize herself at first, what does this moment reveal about her identity?
She has been defined by others (white household, Nanny) so thoroughly that she doesn't know her own face. Her racial and personal identity is shaped externally.
What does Janie realize about her marriage (as it pertains to love) to Logan?
Love does not grow automatically.
The story of Matt Bonner’s mule represents the oppression of Black women, especially Janie. What literary device is at work when a character or event symbolizes a broader social message?
Allegory
What happens to Matt Bonner’s mule?
Joe buys it and sets it free. When it dies, the town throws a big, dramatic funeral for it.
This geographical term represents Janie’s dreams, possibilities in the future, and the distance she must travel to find herself.
The horizon
Why is Janie speaking back to Joe near the end of his life a significant character moment?
It marks her refusal to remain voiceless and shifts the power dynamic.
Joe Starks expects Janie to play a specific role in their marriage. What does he forbid her from doing with the townspeople?
He forbids her from socializing, playing, speaking freely, or participating in the community storytelling/jokes on the porch.
The recurring image of the horizon represents Janie’s dreams and possibilities. What literary term describes a recurring image that develops theme?
Motif
What public moment embarrasses Janie during her marriage to Joe?
Joe insults her appearance and intelligence in the store, then strikes her.
What does Eatonville represent in Joe’s vision?
Self-governance, power, and Black success
How is Janie’s “inside self” different from the version of her the town sees?
She is internally reflective, authentic to herself, and questioning, rather than outwardly composed and obedient.
Joe silences Janie when she is asked to speak at the store's opening. He says a wife's place is not on the platform. Janie says nothing, but what does she think?
She feels something fall away inside her, and a part of her hope for the marriage dies; she realizes Joe sees her as ornament, not partner.
Janie returns to Eatonville and tells her life story to Phoeby, who then carries it back to the community. What literary device is Hurston using by embedding Janie’s main story inside this opening scene?
Frame story