Kameron Brown

English 102

Dr. Lorick

Their Eyes Were Watching God

In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God the main character Janie Crawford goes through a lot of changes. The changes Janie goes through can be directly compared to a caterpillar evolving into a butterfly. Caterpillars go through different steps to reach the final part of there life, which is a beautiful being. Janie goes through the same process of evolving. Janie has 3 husbands which help her in her course of growing and going through life. Each of her husbands is a stage in her own evolution. It’s a long process for a butterfly to evolve and it’s the same for Janie. Janie goes through her ups and downs to become complete in her journey through life. Being a young, attractive, middle aged, black woman is her life story. Janie is the talk of the town because of the confidence she carries with her. When Janie is younger she often sits under the blossoming pear tree, and admires the springtime sights, like a newborn caterpillars first time on earth its realizing it has a lot to accomplish to one day grow into something beautiful and fly off into the real world.

        When Janie was growing up she lived with her grandmother who she called “Nanny”. Just like a abandoned caterpillar Janie never met her parents. Nanny was born into slavery and was raped by her slave owner. Nanny then became pregnant with Janie’s mother Leafy. The slave owner’s wife figured out that Leafy was her husbands’ child because of the light eyes and hair the baby had. The wife then was going to sell Leafy when she reached a month old and have Nanny viciously whipped. Nanny ran away with her newborn baby and hid out until the civil war was over. When Leafy got older she was raped by her school teacher and that’s when Janie was born. Janie’s mother ran away and left Janie with Nanny. That put Nanny in charge; she was now responsible for Janie. She didn’t want Janie to have a life like her or Leafy, they went through a lot of hardships and Nanny wanted Janie to avoid all of them.

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        Metamorphosis is the series of developmental stages insects go through to become adults. Butterflies have four stages of life, the egg, larva which is the caterpillar stage, pupa which is the stage where it’s in its cocoon, and the final stage is the butterfly. When Janie was left by her mother Leafy it was her egg stage. This is the first part of her life, being with her grandmother was like a new egg being hatched. Immediately after hatching, the caterpillar is so small it can barely be seen. This can be compared to Janie because she was nothing to the ...

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