In Janie's early life she lived with her grandmother, Nanny. Nanny and Janie were pretty well off and had the privilege to live in the yard of white folks. While Janie was growing up she played with the white children. While she was in this stage, she was faced with much criticism and was called many names, so many that everyone started calling her alphabet, "'cause so many people had done named me different names." Soon she started piecing together what she knew of her odd identity. Then one day she saw herself in a photograph and noticed that she looked different, that she had dark skin, and she said, "before Ah seen de picture Ah thought Ah wuz just like de rest." From this point, Ja

Not long into this marriage, Janie has had enough, and when the chance to go away with a smooth, romantic man, she takes the chance. The man Janie left Logan for was named Joe Starks. Joe was a smart man who started his own town, Eatonville. In the beginning of her relationship with, Joe, she felt loved, something she never really felt while she had been with Logan. At first, when she ran away with Joe, she felt as if she was finding her new identity, but all there was for her to find was a great maze not always heading her toward her new identity. While she was with Joe she felt as if she had a position of subservience to Joe, he did not see her as an equal. When Joe was nominated to be mayor, and the people wanted to hear from Mrs. Mayor Starks, Joe said, "mah wife don't know nothin' 'bout speech-makin'." What he was saying was that Janie wasn't there for her smarts, she was there to be his wife, to beat for the show, to run the store and the post office, and most of all to be Mrs. Mayor Starks. Throughout this marriage Janie seems as though she was losing more and more of her identity and freedom in this marriage. By the end of the marriage, she did not have her kitchen and house work that she loved to do, and she had lost her name.

nie fell into somewhat of a downward spiral, setting her off of the path toward finding her own identity in society. Finally when she was older Nanny saw her doing somethings under the pear tree that she thought w

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Approximate Word count = 983
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)