The themes of race, youth, and community are apparent in chapters one and two and throughout the entire book.
Hurston takes no time in hinting at the themes that will be appearent throughout the entire novel. In the first chapter, she describes how “The sun was gone…It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. [The porch sitters] passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment. (1.4)” Here, the narrator describes how the black people in Eatonville only felt comfortable once the “bossman,”
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She has recently arrived from the Everglades. Many people in her neighborhood begin to gossip about her and many of the men coo at her as she walks. Eventually, the reader is told that Janie had previously fallen in love with a man who the members of her community call “Tea Cake.” However, they also believe that Janie was too old to be with him. Later, Janie’s friend Phoeby finds her. Phoeby confirms to Janie that she is being gossiped about even though Janie tells her that it doesn’t really matter what other people think about her. Phoeby worries that “Tea Cake” took her money and found a younger girl. Janie rebukes this. However, she does tell Phoeby that “Tea Cake” is gone. “Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done, and undone," and soon afterwards she notices a bee pollinating a flower and believes that this is representative of love. Janie’s “nanny” (or grandmother) loved her and tried to find a husband for her through Logan Killicks because he owns a lot of land in the form of a potato farm. Not only is Killicks much older than her, but Janie objects to marrying him because she has never even met