“Well you know whut dey say ‘uh white man and uh nigger woman is de freest thing on earth.’ Dey do as dey please.” Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937 This anonymously voiced sentence (end of Chapter 19), accompanied by the few sentences before it, encapsulates Janie Wood’s life. It echoes the opening sentence, “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” Who owns these ships? What are they carrying? …showed first 75 words of 876 total…

…showed last 75 words of 876 total…the sun sets. She could have spent the rest of her days in prison, they could have hung her- Janie was complete. She had seen the light at daybreak that morning. She had enough love to last her forever. She did not care what those men on the porch were saying. She had been to the horizon, where these men feared to tread, and returned a woman. The woman she had always meant to be.