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Chapter 3 Summary
Assured by the old folks that love will come with marriage, Janie marries Logan Killicks on a Saturday in Nanny's parlor. Two months later, she comes back to visit Nanny, complaining that even though her husband is not mean or abusive, she does not love him. He is ugly and his feet stink, and Janie wants beauty and love. Nanny tells her not to be so foolish, because Janie has the money and respect about which most black women only dream. She says love is the "very prong all us black women gits hung on" and tells Janie to give it some time.
A month later, Nanny is dead. Though Janie waits through the seasons, nothing changes. She cannot help but dream of the beauty she first saw in the blooming pear tree, and when that first dream dies, she becomes a woman.
Chapter 3 Analysis
Janie's true womanhood is marked not by her marriage but by the realization that marriage does not necessarily mean love. Her intangible wishes for romantic love contrast with Nanny's cynical expectations—that love is more often destructive than not and money and respect form the pinnacle of a successful life. In fact, this measurement of success by material gain (in the form of Logan Killicks' sixty acres) is what Janie will fight throughout the book. Even though in her grandmother's (and society's) eyes Janie has everything she could possibly want, Janie perceives her own life as dull and bleak, and she feels trapped by both her loveless marriage and her grandmother's wishes.
Her grandmother's death ultimately frees Janie from the prospect of disappointing her, but it is too late to extricate herself from her marriage. Despite her feelings, Janie's inexperience and her sense of honor and duty prompt her to follow her grandmother's advice, wait and do the best she can to make the marriage succeed.
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