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"No matter what Jody did, she said nothing. She had learned how to some and leave some."

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Janie had to learn when to speak and when not to speak while she was married to Joe Starks. Many times, she wants to speak up, and doesn't. But sometimes, she wants to speak up, and she does. She finds the balance between speaking her opinions and leaving well enough alone in order to avoid a fight. In other words she assesses the importance of what she has to say against a fight she'd have with her husband for voicing it.

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"This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. But Jody was set on it. Her hair was NOT going to show in the store."

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Janie is of a mixed race and has long, soft, black hair. She doesn't have the course hair that the rest of the people in town have. Joe is trying to have her hide it so that she doesn't seem different than the rest of the town.

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"Before she slept that night she burnt up every one of her head rags and went about the house the next morning with her hair in one thick braid."

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Her burning her head rag, meant to conceal her hair, is a symbol of freedom and acceptance of herself.

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"Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to. She got so she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest."

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Now that she has moved on from her old life with Joe and is surrounded by a different mixture of people, she is seen as an equal in her community and in her relationship with Tea Cake. Her being allowed to speak, and Tea Cake and the other folks listening to her proves this new freedom.

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"For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation."

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The horizon is people's dreams and aspirations. It can be far out of reach, maybe so far that people give up.

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"She had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in search of people...But she had been whipped like a cur dog, and run off down a back road after things."

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Again, the horizon represents what Janie wants to reach in life, and how she was inhibited from doing so by the more powerful people than herself in her life.

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"But oh God, don't let Tea Cake be off somewhere hurt and Ah not know nothing about it. And God, please suh, don't let him love nobody else but me... Ah done waited a long time."

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Her love for Tea Cake is evident in this part of the story as she is awfully worried about him, hoping that he's not hurt. She also mentions her hoping he's not out there loving anybody else. She loves him very much and it would hurt her greatly if he loved someone else other than her.

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"Mah daily prayer now is tuh let dese golden moments rolls on a few days longer till Ah see you safe in life."

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Nanny expresses to Janie how she can't rest (die) until she knows that Janie is taken care of. Nanny loves Janie a lot, as she took care of her since she was a baby, and is fighting to live each day until Janie is safe and doesn't rely on Nanny to take care of her anymore.

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"It was time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was time to hear things and talk... But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things... They passed judgement."

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The community Janie is living in during the time after Tea Cake dies is full of sanctimonious gossipers. People who are not accepting and quick to judge. A place where Janie does not feel welcome or happy.

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"It was generally assumed that she thought herself too good to work like the rest of the women... But all day long the romping and playing they carried on behind the boss's back made her popular right away."

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At first people assumed that Janie thought to righteously about herself, but quickly learned otherwise and accepted her.

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"The vision of Logan Killicks was desecrating the pear tree..."

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The pear tree represents her youth and her innocence. Her marriage with Logan serves as an embodiment of her losing youth and innocence. That she is no longer a child, and is forced to grow up.

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"He could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring."

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The blossom of the pear tree could represent Janie's growth from a child into a young woman. And in this quote, Tea Cake is the "bee" who comes to be with her, perhaps sexually which further defines her growth from innocence.

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"Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see…De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see."

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Nanny talks to Janie about how the world works at the time. About how the white man is seen as superior, and that is the reason that Nanny had been through all that she'd been through in her life. She talks about the black woman's role in this type of world.

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"Six eyes were questioning God... Their eyes were watching God."

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During the hurricane, Janie, Tea Cake, and Motor Boat stayed behind on muck and when it started to get intense, they watched the storm questioning what "God" or fate had in store for them. Whether the hurricane was going to get better or worse, whether they would survive it, or what the outside would look like afterwards.

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"It's so many people never seen de light at all. Ah wuz fumblin' round ad God opened de door."

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Janie explains to Tea Cake that God, who represents fate in the novel, had led her away from her misery with Joe and into his (Tea Cake's) arms.

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"Through the screaming wind they heard things crashing and things hurtling and dashing with unbelievable velocity. A baby rabbit, terror ridden, squirmed through a hole in the floor and squatted off there in the shadows against the wall, seeming to know that nobody wanted its flesh at such a time."

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The hurricane symbolizes overpowering force in life.The rabbit relates to Janie in the way that she has had some other body dictating her life, and somebody has always been after her mostly in a romantic/sexual sense.

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"A big burst of thunder and lightning that trampled over the roof of the house... Motor looked up in his angel-looking way and said, "Bit Massa draw him chair upstairs."

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The hurricane also represents their belief in God and fate.

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"They makin' coffins fuh all de white folks...Don't dump no white folks in de hole jus' so."

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In this time, Jim Crow laws were in effect separating the races in public places, and it stands to show how and why Janie, Tea Cake, and the rest of the African Americans in the story struggle in society.

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"Ah can't stand black niggers. Ah don't blame de white folks from hatin' 'em 'cause Ah can't stand 'em mahself. 'Nother thing, Ah hates to see folks lak me and you mixed up wid 'em. Us oughta class off."

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Mrs. Turner expresses to Janie that she thinks that dark black people are the reason for her, a lighter black person, not being accepted into white society.

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"Have yo' way all yo' life, trample and mash down and then die rather then tuh let yo'self heah 'bout it."

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Here, Janie is speaking to Joe about how controlling he's been in their marriage in throughout this twenty years of his life. Joe Starks showed up in this town one day and started setting things in place for the town, he then was named mayor. He was mayor for twenty years lived up in a white house to show that he was above everybody else. He also was very controlling towards Janie, only letting her leave the house with her hair covered, and just in general he asserted his power over her and the people of the town. This is what Janie was referring to in this quote.

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"Was He noticing what was going on around here? He must be because He knew everything."

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Janie reflects on why God had put this trouble with Tea Cake getting rabies into their lives, showing that she believes that God is a powerful being that knows all.

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"Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine. These men didn't represent a thing she wanted to know about."

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This is in reference to how Janie is feeling after Joe's death. Janie had lived under Joe's control for twenty years, and upon his death she found a new freedom and independence and wasn't interested in the men that offered a threat to it.

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"They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' for theyselves."

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Janie tells Pheoby that the gossipers of the town need to ignore everyone else, stop having expectations and judgments on the lives of others and be independent those thoughts and figure life out or themselves.

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"She looked hard at the sky for a long time. Somewhere up there beyond blue ether's bosom sat He... It wasn't exactly pleading, it was asking questions."

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Janie ponders God's reasoning for the obstacles he has placed in her life. She believes that he is in heaven up above the sky and is listening to her thoughts.

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"Ah jus' know that God snatched me out de fire through you. And ah loves yuh and feel glad."

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Janie expresses to Tea Cake how God had taken her out of her misery and led her to him where she finally go to experience love and happiness.

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"Ah was born back due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and do. Dat's one of de hold-backs of slavery. But nothing can stop you from wishing."

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Nanny talks about slavery and the ramifications of the era. How black women were treated and how they weren't to fulfill a purpose for which they chose, but that they always had hope and dreams, which could play into how life improved for them over time.