Nanny In Their Eyes Were Watching God

In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a significant presence. In the novel by Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie, has a grandmother, Nanny, who is a significant presence in the story, although she just appears in some parts of the book. Due to Nanny having a negative experience in her life, she wants to marry her granddaughter with someone that she believes will take care and protect Janie. Nanny’s beliefs of who her granddaughter should marry take a major role in the story as Janie is in the search for true love. It is demonstrated in this novel that a parent or guardian always wants what is best for the child and to not have the same bad experiences
She states that it “wasn’t for me to fulfill my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do” (Page 16) which is something she doesn’t want Janie to experience because she wanted Janie to be treated equally. Nanny demonstrated male dominance by stating that “Ah don’t know nothin’ but what Ah’m told tuh do, ‘cause Ah ain’t nothin’ but uh nigger and uh slave.” (Page 17) Nanny’s experience as a slave gives her a perspective of how “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world so far as Ah can see” (Page 14) which is a metaphor that compares a black woman to a mule because mules are mistreated as well as black women. Janie starts to realize that women are considered minorities to men after she marries her first husband, Logan Killicks, and he starts treating her different as time passes. Although the reason that Nanny married Janie to Logan was for her granddaughter to be treated equally and like a woman, Janie starts to notice that that is not the case with neither Logan nor her second husband, Joe. Only until Tea Cake comes along, does she actually feel equally treated because he states, “yuh can’t beat uh woman,” (Page 96) which is something new to