Imagery in their Eyes..

Imagery	Interpretation
“The sun was gone, but he had left his foot prints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long.”(1)	The small town where Janie lives is a typical southern town where everyone is in everyone else’s business.
“The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets” (2)	Although Janie is about 40 she still has the features of her former young self.
“They sat there in the fresh young darkness close together. Pheoby eager to feel and do through Janie, but hating to show her zest for fear it might be thought mere curiousity. Janie full of that oldest human longing- self revelation.”(7)	Pheoby and Janie are really close and they are “bosom bodies” and tell each other everything. Pheoby does not want to seem too eager and Janie wants to remember what her life happened.
“From barren brown stems to glistening leaf buds; from the leaf buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again…. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep” (10)	The tree is an image in nature of Janie growing up and going through womanhood. Janie sees the tree as what love should really be like for people which is why she is disappointed in her first marriage.
“She bolted upright and peered out of the window and saw Johnny Taylor lacerating her Janie with a kiss” (12)	Janie is seen by Nanny kissing Johnny how is disreputable and Nanny does not want to have a backlash of what happened to her and her daughter.
“Nanny’s head and face looked like the standing roots of some old tree that had been torn away by storm. Foundation of ancient power that no longer mattered.” (12)	Nanny is quite angry and shocked at the fact that Janie is already at womanhood.
“The woman’s voice was so lacking in command and reproof, so full of crumbling dissolution-that Janie half believed that Janie had not seen her”	Janie is in shock that Janie has grown so quickly.
“She slapped the girl’s face violently, and forced her head back so that their eyes met in struggle” (14)	Janie gets slapped very hard.
“It was a citified, stylish dressed man with his hat set at an angle that didn’t belong in these parts. His coat was over his arm, but he didn’t need it to represent his clothes” (27)	Janie can tell that this new strange man is not from around and is already developing a crush on him.
“So the put on one of her bought dresses and went up the new-cut road all dressed in wine-colored red. Her silken ruffles rustled and muttered about her.”(41)	Jody wants Janie to look the best out of all the women.
”She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she had grabbed up to drape her dreams over.” (72)	Janie is in shock and finally realizes that she never really loved Joe and that she just used him as a way to get away from her old life.
“This business of the head-rag irked her endlessly. “ (55)	Janie did not like wearing the head rag at all and she felt it was hiding her away.