"de mule uh de world"

In the book Their Eyes Were Watching God on page 14 Nanny is explaining to Janie why it is a good thing for her to marry Logan Killicks even though she may not want to. Janie believes that marrying Logan would go against her dreams of Freedom and love and would "desecrate" her pear tree (the pair tree is mentioned as a motif for her wants and dreams throughout the book). So Nanny who wishes for Janie to marry Logan is trying to convince her to marry him as it will make her life easier and clear her of burdens. Imagery in the passage includes the pair tree which is established throughout the book as a very important motif and is used to describe Janie's dreams and freedom. Another instance of imagery was when Nanny told Janie about roles in the world. She told Janie that the white man in in power and under them is the black man (at the time) who where given the burdens of the white man, then the black man handed off the burden to their women making the black woman the "mule" of the world. This describes the heirarchy of the time period in depth and shows with imagery (such as hard working mules) that the black woman was squarely at the bottom. The main concept of the passage is that Nanny is trying to get Janie to marry Logan as this will clear her of the burdens placed on the black woman. Nanny says that marrying Logan will provide Janie with wealth and a good life that will ease her burdens, and that Nanny always dreamed of seeing janie find peace, safety, and substance which she, as a slave never had.

-Griffen Cook, Whitney Marshall