Chapter 2 serves as the exposition of the novel by providing valuable background information about the characters of Janie and Nanny. Readers learn for the first time about Janie's childhood, her absent mother, and Nanny's life as a slave on a southern plantation. Readers now can understand Nanny's sincere need to protect Janie from the evils of the world. She wants Janie to have a better, more secure life than she (and her daughter) did.
For the first time in the novel, Hurston compares Janie's life to a tree with the simile, "Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done, and undone." The image of the tree continues as Janie becomes infatuated with a blossoming pear tree in Nanny's backyard. While the first image compared Janie's life to a tree, this next image causes Janie to make a realization. As she watches a bee enter the center of a bloom to extract pollen, Janie suddenly understands what she believes to be the concepts of love and marriage. Although Janie is married three times in the novel, it is not until her third marriage that she encounters true love. It becomes evident that, more than anything, Janie yearns for true, unconditional love. Hurston's tree image appears again as she uses the metaphor, "She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her." At 16, Janie yearns for the answers to life's questions, especially those queries about love.
