In the opening chapter, Janie is returning home from a long journey (we don’t yet know from where). How do townspeople react to her? Compare and contrast this experience to the one she recounts about growing up playing with the Washburn children in Chapter 2.
Janie returns to town and even one looks down at her. All of the people in the town talk poorly about her. All they could do was sit there in judgment. It was "mass cruelty". All the townspeople knew was that Janie's husband had died and left her with a lot of money. I believe that they were talking badly about her simply because they were envious. Zora Hurston says, "the men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets; the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like plume." This shows that Janie was very pretty and that all the guys fell for her. I believe not only were the townspeople envious of her, they just wanted something to talk about and choose her. The one towns person who stood up for Janie was Pheoby Watson. When everyone was talking down to Janie, Pheopby stood up and told them that she was Janie's best friend. I think that Pheoby made a good point which was that they were just talking poorly about Janie because she wouldn't tell them her business. Pheoby and Janie had a long conversation about Janies childhood. She told Pheoby that her friends didn't really care if she was different, in fact they didn't even realize it. Therefore, Chapters one and two were completely different because in chapter one Janie was not accepted in the townspeople's eyes and in chapter two she was.
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