Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Quote 1

"Women folks is easy taken advantage of. You know what tuh ... let none uh dese stray niggers dat’s settin’ round heah get de inside track on yuh.

Ike Green tries to feed Janie the idea that women cannot function on their own, without a man. However, readers recognize that Ike is one of the "hawgs" that he is so quick to condemn. Janie also isn’t as dumb and easily duped as Ike thinks either. She recognizes Ike’s tactics and calls him a "pee-de-bed."

Chapter 9 Quote 2

This freedom ... feeling was fine. These men didn’t represent a thing she wanted to know about. She had already experienced them through Logan and Joe. She felt like slapping some of them for sitting around grinning at her like a pack of chessycats, trying to make out they looked like love.

Having experienced horrible failed marriages with Logan and Joe, Janie enjoys her single status for the first time in a long time. Now she knows what she wants out of a man and she definitely knows what she doesn’t want – pretense of love. Now that Janie has learned what love is not, she will soon learn what it is.