Symbolism In Edwidge Danticat's Nanny

Novelist Edwidge Danticat contends Nanny “has craved small comforts, like sitting idly on a porch, and wants her granddaughter to have them, along with money and status, no matter what the emotional cost” (xvi). From early in her childhood, Janie strives to obey and submit to the will of her elders, regardless of her inner desire to find “her authentic self and real love” (Danticat ix). However, Nanny’s concern is that Janie will relegate herself to a life of promiscuity like her mother or, worse yet, to a life of poverty and bare subsistence unless Janie finds financial freedom through the sanctity of marriage. Nanny’s constant worry becomes the primary motive to orchestrate Janie’s marriage to Logan Killicks, an elderly but independent and financially stable farmer who offers enough provisions to spare Janie from treatment as “de mule uh de world” (Their Eyes 14). The marital arrangement is Nanny’s highest desire to protect Janie’s virtue, as well as provide a respectable alternative to the demeaning social conditions of an impoverished life. Like Nanny, Logan is the epitome of Washington’s ideal of the post- slavery African American, for Logan has “the onliest organ in town, amongst colored folks … [got] a house bought and paid for and
[Add Du Bois ideology of conservative blacks] As Joe stifles Janie’s voice, he damns himself while revealing his true nature, to which the narrator says, “It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say anything one way or another that took the bloom off of things” (Their Eyes 43). It marks the beginning of his marital dominance, and Janie’s feelings for Joe begin its transition into a dying façade of her former passion, for she was no longer “petal-open anymore with him,” shriveling like the wilted bloom of a daylily (Their Eyes