Chapter 9 Summary

Jody is buried with all the fine accessories the town expects, including Janie dressed in expensive black folds and a veil she describes as "a wall of stone and steel." With Joe's death comes glorious freedom and time for reflection. Janie thinks about going back to her old home to find her mother and tend her grandmother's grave, but she has no desire to do either. She realizes she hates her grandmother, who sold her off in the name of love: "Some people could look at a mud-puddle and see an ocean with ships. However, Nanny belonged to that other kind that loved to deal in scraps. Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little...