The first two chapters already begin to give us an insight onto the African American culture at this point in time.  Both Janie’s mother and grandmother were victims of rape and as a result have had very troubled lives.  However Janie’s Grandmother was determined to raise her in a way she thought was appropriate because of how her mother grew up.  The Black culture is also depicted when Janie returns in her overalls, her neighbors are all outside when she returned and started gossiping about her rudely as she walked by, it shows their sexism and prejudices towards Janie.  The automatically assume that Janie had been off with younger men and had lost all of her money because of it.  They assume so much about her and criminalize her without even knowing what had actually happened.  Another thing that was particularly noticeable was how all of her neighbors assumed that Janie was making the same criticisms about all of them, they think that she thinks that she is better then them and seem to be almost defensive against her thinking that she is better as opposed to simply offensive towards her.