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Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. My interest here is to look at the way in which Naylor rethinks the poem in her novel's attention to dreams and desires and deferral., The dream of the last chapter is a way of deferring closure, but this deferral is not evidence of the author's self-indulgent reluctance to make an end. For a week after Ben's death it rains continuously, and although they will not admit it to each other, all the women dream of Lorraine that week. Perhaps because her emphasis is on the timeless nature of dreams and the private mythology of each "ebony phoenix," the specifics of history are not foregrounded. The "real" party for which Etta is rousing her has yet to take place, and we never get to hear how it turns out. For one evening, Cora Lee envisions a new life for herself and her children. Even as she looks out her window at the wall that separates Brewster Place from the heart of the city, she is daydreaming: "she placed her dreams on the back of the bird and fantasized that it would glide forever in transparent silver circles until it ascended to the center of the universe and was swallowed up." Eva invites Mattie in for dinner and offers her a place to stay. 3642. She shares her wisdom with Mattie, resulting from years of experience with men and children. 1, spring, 1990, pp. She finds this place, temporarily, with Ben, and he finds in her a reminder of the lost daughter who haunts his own dreams. In a frenzy the women begin tearing down the wall. 4, 1983, pp. At first there is no explanation given for the girl's death. And Naylor takes artistic license to resurrect Ben, the gentle janitor killed by a distraught rape victim, who functions as the novel's narrator. Samuel Michael, a God-fearing man, is Mattie's father. She continues to protect him from harm and nightmares until he jumps bail and abandons her to her own nightmare. After she aborts the child she knows Eugene does not want, she feels remorse and begins to understand the kind of person Eugene really is. Mattie's dream has not been fulfilled yet, but neither is it folded and put away like Cora's; a storm is heading toward Brewster Place, and the women are "gonna have a party.". And Basil inexplicably turns into a Narcissist, just like his grandfather. Basil grows up to be a bothered younger guy who is unable to claim accountability for his actions. 571-73. Mattie names her son, Basil, for the pleasant memory of the afternoon he was conceived in a fragrant basil patch. Company Credits A comprehensive compilation of critical responses to Naylor's works, including: sections devoted to her novels, essays and seminal articles relating feminist perspectives, and comparisons of Naylor's novels to classical authors. She vows that she will start helping them with homework and walking them to school. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). They refers initially to the "colored daughters" but thereafter repeatedly to the dreams. When they had finished and stopped holding her up, her body fell over like an unstringed puppet. The oldest of three girls, Naylor was born in New York City on January 25, 1950. Are we to take it that Ciel never really returns from San Francisco and Cora is not taking an interest in the community effort to raise funds for tenants' rights? She says realizing that black writers were in the ranks of great American writers made her feel confident "to tell my own story.". In Mattie's dream of the block party, even Ciel, who knows nothing of Lorraine, admits that she has dreamed of "a woman who was supposed to be me She didn't look exactly like me, but inside I felt it was me.". She tucks them in and the children do not question her unusual attention because it has been "a night for wonders. Basil and Eugene are forever on the run; other men in the stories (Kiswana's boyfriend Abshu, Cora Lee's shadowy lovers) are narrative ciphers. Years later when the old woman dies, Mattie has saved enough money to buy the house. The sixth boy took a dirty paper bag lying on the ground and stuffed it into her mouth. Their ability to transform their lives and to stand strong against the difficulties that face them in their new environment and circumstances rings true with the spirit of black women in American today. Then she opened her eyes and they screamed and screamed into the face above hersthe face that was pushing this tearing pain inside of her body. Ben is killed with a brick from the dead-end wall of Brewster Place. She dies, and Theresa regrets her final words to her. The limitations of narrative render any disruption of the violator/spectator affiliation difficult to achieve; while sadism, in Mulvey's words, "demands a story," pain destroys narrative, shatters referential realities, and challenges the very power of language. At that point, Naylor returns Maggie to her teen years in Rock Vale, Tennessee, where Butch Fuller seduced her after sharing sugar cane with her. The second climax, as violent as Maggie's beating in the beginning of the novel, happens when Lorraine is raped. 24, No. Naylor attributes the success of The Women of Brewster Place as well as her other novels to her ability to infuse her work with personal experience. Middle-class status and a white husband offer one alternative in the vision of escape from Brewster Place; the novel does not criticize Ciel's choices so much as suggest, by implication, the difficulty of envisioning alternatives to Brewster's black world of poverty, insecurity, and male inadequacy. As she explains to Bellinelli in an interview, Naylor strives in TheWomen of Brewster Place to "help us celebrate voraciously that which is ours.". In the epilogue we are told that Brewster Place is abandoned, but does not die, because the dreams of the women keep it alive: But the colored daughters of Brewster, spread over the canvas of time, still wake up with their dreams misted on the edge of a yawn. After the child's death, Ciel nearly dies from grief. When he jumps bail, Mattie loses her house. Mattie's dream presents an empowering response to this nightmare of disempowerment. "Although I had been writing since I was 12 years old, the so-called serious writing happened when I was at Brooklyn College." When Naylor graduated from high school in 1968, she became a minister for the Jehovah's Witnesses. Tearing at the very bricks of Brewster's walls is an act of resistance against the conditions that prevail within it. Ciel is present in Mattie's dream because she herself has dreamed about the ghastly rape and mutilation with such identification and urgency that she obeys the impulse to return to Brewster Place: " 'And she had on a green dress with like black trimming, and there were red designs or red flowers or something on the front.' When her mother comes to visit her they quarrel over Kiswana's choice of neighborhood and over her decision to leave school. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Further, Naylor suggests that the shape and content of the dream should be capable of flexibility and may change in response to changing needs and times. The women again pull together, overcoming their outrage over the destruction of one of their own. Naylor's temporary restoration of the objectifying gaze only emphasizes the extent to which her representation of violence subverts the conventional dynamics of the reading and viewing processes. Ciel first appears in the story as Eva Turner's granddaughter. When she remembers with guilt that her children no longer like school and are often truant, she resolves to change her behavior in order to ensure them brighter futures: "Junior high; high school; collegenone of them stayed little forever. The chapter begins with a mention of the troubling dreams that haunt all the women and girls of Brewster Place during the week after Ben's death and Lorraine's rape. He loves Mattie very much and blames himself for her pregnancy, until she tells him that the baby is not Fred Watson'sthe man he had chosen for her. Her babies "just seemed to keep comingalways welcome until they changed, and then she just didn't understand them." Once they grow beyond infancy she finds them "wild and disgusting" and she makes little attempt to understand or parent them. Naylor piles pain upon paineach one an experience of agony that the reader may compare to his or her own experienceonly to define the total of all these experiences as insignificant, incomparable to the "pounding motion that was ripping [Lorraine's] insides apart." This technique works for Naylor because she has used the setting to provide the unity underlying the story. A voracious reader since "the age of literacy," Naylor credits her mother as her greatest literary influence. Fannie Michael is Mattie's mother. The children gather around the car, and the adults wait to see who will step out of it. By the end of the evening Etta realizes that Mattie was right, and she walks up Brewster Street with a broken spirit. Flipped Between Critical Opinion and, An illusory or hallucinatory psychic activity, particularly of a perceptual-visual nature, that occurs during sleep. Writer They have to face the stigma created by the (errant) one-third and also the fact that they live as archetypes in the mind of Americans -- something dark and shadowy and unknown.". As the look of the audience ceases to perpetuate the victimizing stance of the rapists, the subject/object locations of violator and victim are reversed. Naylor brings the reader to the edge of experience only to abandon him or her to the power of the imagination; in this case, however, the structured blanks that the novel asks the reader to fill in demand the imaginative construction of the victim's pain rather than the violator's pleasure.. Kiswana (Melanie) Browne denounces her parents' middle-class lifestyle, adopts an African name, drops out of college, and moves to Brewster Place to be close to those to whom she refers as "my people." Despite the fact that in the epilogue Brewster Place is abandoned, its daughters still get up elsewhere and go about their daily activities. Even though the link between this neighborhood and the particular social, economic, and political realities of the sixties is muted rather than emphatic, defining characteristics are discernible. The collective dream of the last chapter constitutes a "symbolic act" which, as Frederic Jameson puts it, enables "real social contradictions, insurmountable in their own terms, [to] find a purely formal resolution in the aesthetic realm." Then Cora Lee notices that there is still blood on the bricks. By denying the reader the freedom to observe the victim of violence from behind the wall of aesthetic convention, to manipulate that victim as an object of imaginative play, Naylor disrupts the connection between violator and viewer that Mulvey emphasizes in her discussion of cinematic convention. Inviting the viewer to enter the world of violence that lurks just beyond the wall of art, Naylor traps the reader behind that wall. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. The rain begins to fall again and Kiswana tries to get people to pack up, but they seem desperate to continue the party. Kiswana cannot see the blood; there is only rain. Why is the anger and frustration that the women feel after the rape of Lorraine displaced into dream? There were particular challenges for Naylor in writing "The Men of Brewster Place.". I read all of Louisa May Alcott and all the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder.". Her family moved several times during her childhood, living at different times in a housing project in upper Bronx, a Harlem apartment building, and in Queens. Release Dates Two examples from The Women of Brewster Place are Lorraine's rape and the rains that come after it. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying, Cape and Smith, 1930. "But I didn't consciously try to do that. Then her son, for whom she gave up her life, leaves without saying goodbye. As she climbs the stairs to the apartment, however, she hears Mattie playing Etta's "loose life" records. Having her in his later years and already set in his ways, he tolerates little foolishness and no disobedience. Etta Mae dreams of a man who can "move her off of Brewster Place for good," but she, too, has her dream deferred each time that a man disappoints her. WebHow did Ben die in The Women of Brewster Place? The final act of violence, the gang rape of Lorraine, underscores men's violent tendencies, emphasizing the differences between the sexes. Both literally and figuratively, Brewster Place is a dead end streetthat is, the street itself leads nowhere and the women who live there are trapped by their histories, hopes, and dreams. When Mattie moves to Brewster Place, Ciel has grown up and has a child of her own. 62, No. Baker and his friends, the teenage boys who terrorize Brewster Place. She stresses that African Americans must maintain their identity in a world dominated by whites. The son of Macrina the Elder, Basil is said to have moved with his family to the shores of the Black Sea during the persecution of Christians under Galerius. Brewster Place is born, in Naylor's words, a "bastard child," mothers three generations, and "waits to die," having "watched its last generation of children torn away from it by court orders and eviction notices too tired and sick to help them." , Not only does Langston Hughes's poem speak generally about the nature of deferral and dreams unsatisfied, but in the historical context that Naylor evokes it also calls attention implicitly to the sixties' dream of racial equality and the "I have a dream" speech of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Demonic imagery, which accompanies the venting of desire that exceeds known limits, becomes apocalyptic. The changing ethnicity of the neighborhood reflects the changing demographics of society. Unable to stop him in any other way, Fannie cocks the shotgun against her husband's chest. Having been rejected by people they love And then on to good jobs in insurance companies and the post office, even doctors and lawyers. Her life revolves around her relationship with her husband and her desperate attempts to please him. Boyd offers guidelines for growth in a difficult world. ", The situation of black men, she says, is one that "still needs work. The women have different reasons, each her own story, but they unite in hurling bricks and breaking down boundaries. Lorraine clamped her eyes shut and, using all of the strength left within her, willed it to rise again. Black American Literature Forum, Vol. Though Etta's journey starts in the same small town as Mattie's, the path she takes to Brewster As an adult, she continues to prefer the smell and feel of her new babies to the trials and hassles of her growing children. My emotional energy was spent in creating a woman's world, telling her side of it because I knew it hadn't been done enough in literature. The "imagised, eroticized concept of the world that makes a mockery of empirical objectivity" is here replaced by the discomforting proximity of two human faces locked in violent struggle and defined not by eroticism but by the pain inflicted by one and borne by the other: Then she opened her eyes and they screamed and screamed into the face above hersthe face that was pushing this tearing pain inside of her body. Ciel's eyes began to cloud. They ebb and flow, ebb and flow, but never disappear." 4964. ), has her baby, ends up living with an older black woman named Eta and lives her life working 2 jobs to provide for her child, named Basil. When Miss Eva dies, her spirit lives on in the house that Mattie is able to buy from Miss Eva's estate. That year also marked the August March on Washington as well as the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. 1004-5. Cora Lee began life as a little girl who loved playing with new baby dolls. Now the two are Lorraine and Mattie. As Naylor's representation retreats for even a moment to the distanced perspective the objectifying pressure of the reader's gaze allows that reader to see not the brutality of the act of violation but the brute-like characteristics of its victim. They contend that her vivid portrayal of the women, their relationships, and their battles represents the same intense struggle all human beings face in their quest for long, happy lives. The men in the story exhibit cowardice, alcoholism, violence, laziness, and dishonesty. Naylor was baptized into the Jehovah's Witnesses when she was eighteen years old. Brewster Place, carries it within her, and shares its tragedies., Everyone in the community knows that this block party is significant and important because it is a way of moving forward after the terrible tragedy of Lorraine and Ben. Lorraine, we are told, "was no longer conscious of the pain in her spine or stomach. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. When he share-cropped in the South, his crippled daughter was sexually abused by a white landowner, and Ben felt powerless to do anything about it. Miss Eva opens her home to Mattie and her infant son, Basil. Frustrated with perpetual pregnancy and the burdens of poverty and single parenting, Cora joins in readily, and Theresa, about to quit Brewster Place in a cab, vents her pain at the fate of her lover and her fury with the submissiveness that breeds victimization. When Lorraine and Teresa first move onto Brewster street, the other women are relieved that they seem like nice girls who will not be after their husbands. Linda Labin, Masterpieces of Women's Literature, edited by Frank Magill, HarperCollins, 1996, pp. As she watches the actors on stage and her children in the audience she is filled with remorse for not having been a more responsible parent. While much of her prose soars lyrically, her poetry, she says, tends to be "stark and linear. Etta Mae spends her life moving from one man to the next, searching for acceptance. WebBrewster Place. The scene evokes a sense of healing and rebirth, and reinforces the sense of community among the women. For example, when one of the women faces the loss of a child, the others join together to offer themselves in any way that they can. Miss Eva warns Mattie to be stricter with Basil, believing that he will take advantage of her. Naylor uses Brewster Place to provide one commonality among the women who live there. It also stands for the oppression the women have endured in the forms of prejudice, violence, racism, shame, and sexism. But perhaps the most revealing stories about She cannot admit that she craves his physical touch as a reminder of home. Now the two are Lorraine and Mattie. She spends her life loving and caring for her son and denies herself adult love. Only when Kiswana says that "babies grow up" does Cora Lee begin to question her life; she realizes that while she does like babies, she does not know what to do with children when they grow up. Biographical and critical study. WebTheresa regrets her final words to her as she dies. Kate Rushin, Black Back-ups, Firebrand Books, 1993. He associates with the wrong people. asks Ciel. Following the abortion, Ciel is already struggling emotionally when young Serena dies in a freak accident. The inconclusive last chapter opens into an epilogue that too teases the reader with the sense of an ending by appearing to be talking about the death of the street, Brewster Place. The attempt to translate violence into narrative, therefore, very easily lapses into a choreography of bodily positions and angles of assault that serves as a transcription of the violator's story. Critic Jill Matus, in Black American Literature Forum, describes Mattie as "the community's best voice and sharpest eye.". According to Stoll in Magill's Literary Annual, "Gloria Naylor is already numbered among the freshest and most vital voices in contemporary American literature.". When Samuel discovers that Mattie is pregnant by Fuller, he goes into a rage and beats her. and the boys] had been hiding up on the wall, watching her come up that back street, and they had waited. The sun is shining when Mattie gets up: It is as if she has done the work of collective destruction in her dream, and now a sunny party can take place. Jehovah's Witnesses spread their message through face-to-face contact with people, but more importantly, through written publications. Share directs emphasis to what they have in common: They are women, they are black, and they are almost invariably poor. Hairston, however, believes Naylor sidesteps the real racial issues. As a result, The residents of Brewster Place outside are sitting on stoops or playing in the street because of the heat. Cora Lee loves making and having babies, even though she does not really like men. The presence of Ciel in Mattie's dream expresses the elder woman's wish that Ciel be returned to her and the desire that Ciel's wounds and flight be redeemed. "They get up and pin those dreams to wet laundry hung out to dry, they're mixed with a pinch of salt and thrown into pots of soup, and they're diapered around babies. a body that is, in Mulvey's terms, "stylised and fragmented by close-ups," the body that is dissected by that gaze is the body of the violator and not his victim. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. And so today I still have a dream. Etta Mae ." Victims of ignorance, violence, and prejudice, all of the women in the novel are alienated from their families, other people, and God. Just as she is about to give up, she meets Eva Turner, an old woman who lives with her granddaughter, Ciel. The interactions of the characters and the similar struggles they live through connect the stories, as do the recurring themes and motifs. The brief poem Harlem introduces themes that run throughout Langston Hughess volume Montage of a Dream Deferred and throughout his, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts, The Woman Destroyed (La Femme Rompue) by Simone de Beauvoir, 1968, The Women Who Loved Elvis all their Lives, The Women's Court in its Relation to Venereal Diseases, The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story by Joel Chandler Harris, 1881, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/women-brewster-place, One critic has said that the protagonist of. Furthermore, he contends that he would have liked to see her provide some insight into those conditions that would enable the characters to envision hope of better times.