The first defining moment of Janie’s life comes to her at the young age of sixteen. During this time in her life, she is living with her grandmother i

Although Jody, severely beats Janie for the way that she has humiliated him in front of many of the town folks, Janie finally feels like she has accomplished something by standing up for herself. She finally realizes that she has an inside and out. Janie had figured out how to choose a battle that she could win. By coming out on top, and insulting Jody, she had attacked his masculinity and even caused him to realize that he was not the man that he used to be. Upon this verbal defeat, it seems as if Janie had killed something inside Jody, something he would never again be able to regain.

Upon Tea Cakes death, Janie leaves the Everglades and returns back to Eatonville, a town that holds bad memories and a lot of gossip. Janie has changed though, instead of taking offense to the snide comments made by those around her, she lets them roll off her shoulders, not even caring about what they have to say. Until the end, Janie remains a strong and beautiful woman who is able to maintain her sense of self and independence through the most troubling of times. In the end, her journey did not necessarily find her what she was looking for, nor did it take her away from black southern culture or the Everglades. Janies journey instead brought her deeper into the blackness, and communal life, both of which represented immersion into black traditions (Washington xi). Although Janie believed that she would find true happiness through a spouse, they never seem to play that large of a role in her life. Although it was her relationships with these individuals that helped her discover herself, it was only through her own perseverance that she was able to understand and become the woman that she transformed into.

n West Florida and spends many of the hot summer afternoons under a pear tree in her grandmother’s backyard. On one particular occasion, Janie “saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom” (Hurston 11). “So this was a marriage!” (Hurston 11). Janie believed that she would one day find someone that she would be able to depend on for survival. Janie expects that her marriage will resemble the union that the flower shares with the bee. The flower relies on the bee for pollination and the perpetuation of it’s species, while the bee relies on the flower for food and nourishment. It is this experience that Janie will remember for the rest of her life, with the pear tree representing the awakening of the woman inside her and setting a standard of sexual and emotional fulfillment for the rest of her life. This revelation compelled Janie to seek out affection from a young boy named Johnny Taylor. Nanny witnesses Janie and Johnny sharing a kiss and immediately becomes overwhelmed with emotions, afraid that Janie will make the wrong choices in life. Since Nannie comes from a slave background where all aspects of her life were controlled, she can

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