Their Eyes Were Watching God

            A southern, black, woman in her mid 30's, named Janie Starks comes home from her recent relationship with a young, black fellow named Tea Cake. Residents of the southern town gather on Pheoby Watson's porch to gossip about why Janie came back in overalls all muddy and where Tea Cake was. Pheoby sticks up for Janie and resents the other women for talking about her like they did. Janie later reveals to Pheoby why she left Tea Cake in the Everglades, because she can no longer be happy there. .
             Pheoby doesn't understand what Janie Starks means by not being able to be happy in the Everglades so Janie recalls her past. Janie's grandmother raises her, for her mother left and she never knew her father either. Janie and her grandmother, whom she calls Nanny, live in the back yard of a white couple's house, the Washburn's. Janie grows up playing with the Washburn's children, and later finds out that she is colored in a photograph. Nanny and Janie are prompted to their own land when Janie is being made fun of at school for living in the white people's backyard. .
             Janie is sixteen and often ponders under a pear tree about life and her blossoming into a grown woman. Nanny wakes to find Janie kissing Johnny Taylor across the gate, she gets worried and decides it is time to marry off Janie to a wealthy, middle-aged, farmer named Logan Killicks. Though Janie at first protests she agrees to go along with it, all Nanny wants is to see her marry a prosperous and protective man before she dies. .
             After Janie tells Nanny about her protests, Nanny recounts to Janie her hardships of growing up. Nanny had been born into slavery. Nanny was raped by her master and had her child Leafy, when the master's wife saw the baby she was furious, knowing it was her husbands she ordered to have Nanny whipped the next day and her baby, Leafy, sold when she was one month old. Meanwhile, the master was fighting in the civil war, and Nanny ran off with her baby until the war was over and went to work for the Washburn's.