Janie With A Kiss Analysis

This questions power dynamics within the novel. There is an ongoing motif of attempting to tame Janie for her own good. This is first presented with Nanny, who marries Janie off after, ‘Johnny Taylor [was] lacerating her Janie with a kiss.’ Through the choice of the word ‘lacerating’, Hurston connects the act of kissing, to whipping. To lacerate, means to tear or make deep cuts; this definition starkly contrasts the soft and vulnerable nature of a kiss. The delineation resonates with Nanny recounting the time where the slave master’s wife was whipping her, ‘but dem last lick burnt me lak fire’ . The only difference between the way Nanny explained her beatings and the brutality of Janie’s kiss, are simply a matter of linguistics; Nanny uses