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Their Eyes Were Watching God

by Zora Neale Hurston

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Describe Leafy Crawford from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

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Leafy Crawford, Janie's mother in Their Eyes Were Watching God, is of mixed race, born after her mother, Nanny, escaped slavery. Nanny hoped for Leafy to become a teacher, but after being raped by her schoolteacher, Leafy became pregnant with Janie. Traumatized, Leafy turned to alcohol and eventually disappeared, leaving Nanny to raise Janie. Leafy's story is used by Nanny to justify her desire for Janie to marry for protection and security.

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Janie's grandmother, whom she calls "Nanny," leaves her former plantation with Leafy around the time that Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865. Though slavery ended two years before, Nanny doesn't know that she's free until "all de men in gray uniforms had to go to Moultrie [a fort in Georgia], and bury their swords in the ground to show they was never to fight about slavery no mo.' So den we knowed we was free." So, technically, Leafy wasn't born into slavery, though she was born on a plantation.

She takes on domestic work "with some good white people" in West Florida, due to that being the only work black women could get, and tries to create a better life for Leafy. With new access to education, Nanny had ambitions for her daughter to become a schoolteacher. However, as the previous educator mentioned, Leafy...

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was raped by her schoolteacher and hidden "in de woods all night long." She arrives home the next morning "crawlin' in on her hands and knees." She was seventeen at the time, suffered from the trauma of the incident, and then found out that she is pregnant with Janie. After Janie is born, Leafy becomes an alcoholic and an itinerant. She becomes true to her name, drifting along and wasting away. By the time Nanny is telling Janie this story, she doesn't know where her daughter is. She senses that Leafy's not dead, though she wishes that her daughter were "at rest."

Nanny tells Janie the story about her mother in the context of trying to help Janie understand why she wants her granddaughter to marry Logan Killicks. While Janie is delighting in her burgeoning sexuality, the sight of it sends fear into her grandmother, who is determined to break the cycle of abuse and exploitation: "Ah can't die easy thinkin' maybe de menfolks white or black is makin' a spit cup outa you..." She thinks that, once Janie is married, she'll be protected.

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In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Leafy Crawford is Janie's mother.  Leafy is mixed race, as Nanny was raped by the slave master in charge of her plantation.  Throughout Leafy's childhood, Nanny tried to protect her and give her a life that was better than the one Nanny had.  So Nanny runs away with Leafy from the plantation and finds a place to live in west Florida.  When Leafy becomes a teenager, Nanny has dreams that Leafy will become a school teacher; however, Leafy is raped by her own teacher and becomes pregnant with Janie.  The man is never charged because he runs away, and once Janie is born, Nanny is left in charge of raising the girl.  Leafy turns to alcohol to deal with her hardships and eventually runs off herself.  Janie knows little about her mother as a person.

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