Study Questions
1. Where does Joe sleep after the fight from the preceding
chapter?

2. Explain the following sentence: “Well, if she must eat out of a long-handled spoon, she must.”

3. Since Joe is refusing to see Janie, who is cooking and cleaning for him?

4. What does Pheoby advise Janie to do about the rumor that she is poisoning her husband?

5. What does Pheoby know about the medicine man who started the rumor about Janie?

6. What medical problem does Joe have?

7. Describe the character of Death.

8. Joe claims that Janie never had sympathy for him. Does Janie agree?

9. What does Janie want Joe to do before he dies?

10. What has been waiting for Janie in the looking glass?

Answers
1. Joe moves his things to a room downstairs and sleeps there.

2. It means that Janie cannot do anything to change her situation, so she must live with it.

3. Old lady Davis is doing the housechores, even though Janie is a better cook.

4. Pheoby tells Janie to act as if she doesn’t know about the rumor and to say nothing about it, since nobody believes it anyway.

5. That same man tried to sell gophers last year to people in Eatonville.

6. Joe’s kidneys have failed.

7. Death is described in the novel as “that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West. The great one who lived in the straight house like a platform without sides to it, and without a roof.” In the legend, he waits for a messenger to call him to come.

8. Janie had a lot of sympathy, but she tells Joe “ah just didn’t never git no chance tuh use none of it.”

9. Janie wants him to listen to what she has to say.

10. Janie’s “girl self” has been waiting for her in the looking glass.