Passage: "' Come to yo' Grandma, honey. Set in her lap lak yo' use tuh. Nanny wouldn't harm a hair uh yo' head. She don't want nobody else to do it neither if she kin help it. Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see. So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don't tote it. he hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see. Ah been prayin' fuh it tuh be different wid you. Lawd, Lawd, Lawd!'" (TEWWG 14)
- A distinct transition to her Grandmother referring to herself externally to a first person perspective. I think this accomplishes a few goals. #1. It demonstrates the initially comforting tone after she hit Janie. #2. By starting as an external perspective, her analysis of the power structures can be seen as 'universally true' while as she refers to herself (AS herself) she puts her opinions on how to operate in the framework provided). #3. The external perspective is used when referring to her physical self but not her opinions which may serve to denote a difference between her physical being as distinct from her personality which truly defines HER (esp. in a conversation to convince Janie that appearances are unimportant.)
- Directly following her physical slap to Janie, this line seems to indicate 2 things. #1 The regret/denial the Nanny has for assaulting Janie and/or #2. That the Nanny does not consider the physical harm that she inflicted nearly as powerful or as important as the more emotional/personal harm that she seeks to prevent. (see #3 of )
- This is the analysis of racism and white supremacy. The nanny concedes that in society as it exists 'now' that whites are more powerful than blacks.
- Here is probably one of the key ideas about power where the Nanny demonstrates her (and probably the author's) understanding/belief that power is not a definite thing, but rather a fluid perception that gains its importance from universal acceptance that that is the way things exist. Additionally, that simply because we see something exist doesn't equate to an eternal truth.
- These sections indicate the Grandmother's either hope or even willingness to believe in a better alternative to the status quo. Following her acknowledgment that power is based on the PERCEPTION of truth, she can both envision a world where the power structure doesn't exists and more, brings the hope that such a thing could exist in THEIR world in the future.
- Almost contradictory (or ironically?), following the Nanny's analysis of power structures and their fluidity, she presents her own perceived assumed power structure by accepting the premise that the man was originally FORCED to pick it up (which further begs the question, what is 'FORCE')
- All instances in the passage where women are shown as subservient to men (following the black-white power dichotomy)
- This is another example of dehumanization of the ones doing the work (the black women); noticing in particular how the animal being compared is one that traditionally is known for a purely working purpose to humans.
- This shows a clearly religious aspect to the story which can serve both to represent the average religious beliefs at the time period as well as to show that perhaps religion allows relief an faith of something better even for those (like black women) who recognize that they are at the bottom of all of society.
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