"The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her hip pockets;...still it was a hope that she might fall to their level some day." (pg. 2)
This paragraph is saying that for being over 40 she is very attractive and the men still notice her when she walks by. While the men watch after her and remember how she filled out the clothes, the women remember the fact that she was wearing ratty-looking clothes that they could use against her if nothing else. They also hold some hope that her clothes symbolize that she might fall from a class above them, down to their level.
"She sits high, but she looks low. Dat's what Ah say 'bout dese ole women runnin' after young boys." (pg. 3)
The women are saying that she may have money, but she dresses and acts like she's poor. Also, that she's chasing after guys who are younger than her (like Tea Cake). And the person speaking disapproves of such behavior, so that puts Janie lower on her list of respect/approval.
"An envious heart makes a treacherous ear." (pg. 5)
This quote tells us that there is something about Janie that the other women are envious of. Maybe it's her hold over their men or the fact that she's of a higher class.
"Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf." (pg. 6)
Janie is saying here that what she tells her friend is the same thing that she would tell anyone who asked. It's also what her friend would say if he/she was asked about her.
"They don't know if life is a mess of corn-meal dumplings and if love is a bed-quilt." (pg. 6)
What this quote is saying is that people are so caught up in other people's business that they wouldn't know love if it bit them on the butt, or what living life is if they were to die then. They don't pay enough attention to the things going on in their own lives because they're too obsessed with someone else's.
"If they wants to see and know, why don't they come kiss and be kissed?" (pg. 6)
I'm not quite sure what she means here. It's an interesting quote, but it's confusing to me. Might this have something to do with the "my tongue is in my friend's mouth" quote?
"De Grand Lodge, de big convention of livin' is just where Ah been dis year and a half y'all ain't seen me." (pg. 6)
Janie is explaining to us where she's been for the time she's been gone that everyone's been wondering about.
"They don't need to worry about me and my overhals long as Ah still got nine hundred dollars in de bank." (pg. 7)
Janie's telling Pheoby that she's still well-off and she has her money in the bank, that she needn't worry about her until that's no longer true.
"Tea Cake ain't wasted up no money of mine, and he ain't left me for no young gal, neither." (pg. 7)
Self-explanitory...She's discrediting any rumors floating around about her and Tea Cake.
"Pheoby, we been kissin'-friends for twenty years, so Ah depend on you for a good thought. And Ah'm talking to you from day standpoint." (pg. 7)
This means that she trusts Pheoby, and has for twenty years. Kissing-friends refers to her quote "my tongue is in my friend's mouth," which is about her trusting Pheoby to tell things as she says them.
"Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches." (pg. 8)
She's foreshadowing the flashback later about the pear tree, sitting beneath it for three days every chance she got, and soon after, letting Johnny Taylor kiss her. The pear tree symbolizes marriage to Janie. By referring to her life as a tree, she's saying she's married (to Tea Cake) and that she's been through some good and some bad, but she's still standing strong.
"Ah ain't never seen mah papa. And Ah didn't know 'im if Ah did. Mah mama neither." (pg. 8)
This tells us that she was raised by her grandma, not her parents. It also tells us that she doesn't really know who her parents are.
"Mah grandma raised me. Mah grandma and de white floks she worked wid. She had a house out in de back-yard and dat's where Ah wuz born. They was quality white folks up dere in West Florida. Name Washburn." (pg. 8)
Her grandma raised her in the house, on the Washburns' property, that she was born in. This also tells us that she lived in west Florida for at least a while.
"Ah never caled mah Grandma nothin' but Nanny." (pg. 8)
Is that because that's what all the white kids called her, because that's what she was, or because she didn't know she was colored as well?
"Nanny used to ketch us in our devilment and lick every youngun on de place and Mis' Washburn did de same. Ah reckon dey never hit us ah lick amiss 'cause dem three boys and us two girls wuz pretty aggravatin', Ah speck." (pg. 8)
Her grandma used to catch them when they got into things and punished them for doing so, as did Miss Washburn. And Janie suspects that the adults never hit them when they didn't deserve it because they were always caught and punished when they did something wrong.
"Ah was wid dem white chillun so much till Ah didn't know Ah wasn't white till Ah was round six years old." (pg. 8)
Janie didn't know she was colored until she was 6 years old because she was around them so much and they probably didn't treat her any different.
"A man come long takin' pictures and without askin' anybody, Shelby, dat was de oldest boy, he told him to take us." (pg. 8-9)
Shelby, the oldest boy of the five, told a man who was a traveling salesman (taking pictures and selling them to you) to take their picture which is how Janie finds out that she's colored; it also gets them all punished because it cost Ms. Washburn money when they got the picture.
"So when we looked at de picture and everybody got pointed out there wasn't nobody left except a real dark girl with long har standing by Eleanor...Ah don't see me." (pg. 9)
Everyone was shown where they were and the only person left is a real dark-colored girl and Janie doesn't realize that that's her. She thinks it might be someone else in her spot.
"Everybody laughed, even Mr. Washburn...don't you know yo' ownself?" (pg. 9)
Janie didn't even recognize herself when she looked at the picture.
"Dey all useter call me Alphabet 'cause so many people had done named me different names." (pg. 9)
Apparently many different people have "named" her in her younger years.
"Aw! Aw! Ah'm colored!" (pg. 9)
She's obviously not happy when she finds out that she's colored, not white like the other children.
"But before Ah seen de picture Ah thought Ah wuz just like de rest." (pg. 9)
Before Janie saw that picture, she thought she was white.
"Dere wuz uh knotty head gal name Mayrella dat useter git mad every time she look at me...Dat useter rile Mayrella uh lot." (pg. 9)
Mayrella was upset because Ms. Washburn would dress Janie in her kids' old clothes, which was still better than what the other kids at her school had.
"Den they'd tel me not to be takin' on over mah looks 'cause they mama told 'em 'bout de hound dogs...so he could marry her." (pg. 9-10)
People are trying to rile Janie up by talking about the bloodhounds the sheriff and Mr. Washburn sent out to look for the man who raped Janie's mom (Janie's dad, a teacher), but they don't talk about how he was going to come back later to marry her.
"Janie had spent most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the backyard...It stirred her tremendously." (pg. 10)
When she wasn't doing chores, Janie spent every second she could under a blooming pear tree in the back yard. She watched it for three days, from the time its first bloom opened. It was a mystery and it intrigued her; she wanted to know how and why it could go from barren brown stems to leaf-buds to blooms. Maybe she's trying to look at her own life like the tree, growing from not much of anything and growing into something beautiful and captivating.
"She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace...Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid." (pg. 11)
Janie is experiencing/seeing love for the first time. She sees the harmony and bliss in the marriage between the bee and the blossom and longs to feel like that herself.
"Oh to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom!...Where were the singing bees for her?" (pg. 11)
Janie is 16 and wanting to know what it feels like to be loved like the bee and the blossom (see above).
"In her former blindness she had known him as shiftless Johnny Taylor, tall and lean. That was before the golden dust of pollen had beglamored his rags and her eyes." (pg. 11-12)
Before opening her eyes and awakening (as Thoreau called it), she didn't really notice Johnny Taylor as anything other than just another person there. Now that she is in this hormonal teenage girl mood where you notice everything to do with guys, she actually sees him for the first time.
