Study Questions

1. How long has Joe been dead in this chapter?

2. What color does Janie usually wear?

3. What does the Pastor say about Tea Cake?

4. Where does Pheoby stop before she goes to Janie’s house?

5. Why doesn’t Janie wear mourning clothes anymore?

6. Why is Pheoby scared that Janie is becoming like a possum?

7. Why does Janie decide to sell the store?

8. What does Janie mean when she says, “ah done lived Grandma’s way, now ah means to live mine”?

9. How is Pheoby like a chicken?

10. What costume is Janie preparing for her marriage to Tea Cake?

Answers

1. Joe has been dead less than nine months at the beginning of the chapter.

2. Janie usually wears blue clothes now.

3. The Pastor says that Tea Cake has been keeping Janie from attending church.

4. Pheoby stopped at other houses before she goes to Janie’s house in order to make it seem as if she is stopping over there by accident. This way, the others couldn’t ask Pheoby for gossip.

5. Janie doesn’t feel the need to wear mourning clothes because she is no longer grieving for Joe.

6. The possum loses sense as it gets older, and Pheoby is worried that this is what is happening to Janie.

7. Tea Cake isn’t a businessman like Joe was. Janie is afraid that everyone will compare him to Joe if he started to run the store.

8. Janie married Logan because Nanny fixed them up. She then married Joe and lived with financial security, which is what Nanny always wished for her. Now she intends to choose her own husband and live for the things that she wants to live for.

9. Pheoby says that the “chicken drink water, but he don’t pee-pee.” Pheoby is also able to keep everything inside her, meaning that she can keep a secret.

10. Janie has a new blue satin dress with high heels and jewelry. Tea Cake picked everything out for her to wear.