4964. In other words, he contends in a review in Freedomways that Naylor limits the concerns of Brewster Place to the "warts and cankers of individual personality, neglecting to delineate the origins of those social conditions which so strongly affect personality and behavior." He is beyond hope, and Mattie does not dream of his return. They agree that Naylor's clear, yet often brash, language creates images both believable and consistent. According to Annie Gottlieb in Women Together, a review of The Women of Brewster Place," all our lives those relationships had been the backdrop, while the sexy, angry fireworks with men were the show the bonds between women are the abiding ones. Encyclopedia.com. Kiswana grew up in Linden Hills, a "rich" neighborhood not far from Brewster Place. She won a scholarship to Yale University where she received a master's degree in Afro-American studies, with a concentration in American literature, in 1983. Empowered by the distanced dynamics of a gaze that authorizes not only scopophilia but its inevitable culmination in violence, the reader who responds uncritically to the violator's story of rape comes to see the victim not as a human being, not as an object of violence, but as the object itself. While Naylor sets the birth of Brewster Place right after the end of World War I, she continues the story of Brewster for approximately thirty years. The brick wall symbolizes the differences between the residents of Brewster Place and their rich neighbors on the other side of the wall. ', "I was afraid that if I stayed it would be like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. "But I didn't consciously try to do that. Ciel, for example, is not unwilling to cast the first brick and urges the rational Kiswana to join this "destruction of the temple." It also stands for the oppression the women have endured in the forms of prejudice, violence, racism, shame, and sexism. For example, in a review published in Freedomways, Loyle Hairston says that the characters " throb with vitality amid the shattering of their hopes and dreams." In dreaming of Lorraine the women acknowledge that she represents every one of them: she is their daughter, their friend, their enemy, and her brutal rape is the fulfillment of their own nightmares. "Rock Vale had no place for a black woman who was not only unwilling to play by the rules, but whose spirit challenged the very right of the game to exist." The women again pull together, overcoming their outrage over the destruction of one of their own. Having recognized Lorraine as a human being who becomes a victim of violence, the reader recoils from the unfamiliar picture of a creature who seems less human than animal, less subject than object. The street continues to exist marginally, on the edge of death; it is the "end of the line" for most of its inhabitants. Brewster Place names the women, houses She leaves her middle-class family, turning her back on an upbringing that, she feels, ignored her heritage. Unable to stop him in any other way, Fannie cocks the shotgun against her husband's chest. While Mattie has accepted the loss of her house at the hands of Basil, and has accepted her fate in Brewster Place, she refuses to discuss the circumstances that have The image of the ebony phoenix developed in the introduction to the novel is instructive: The women rise, as from the ashes, and continue to live. Discusses Naylor's literary heritage and her use of and divergence from her literary roots. As the Jehovah's Witnesses preach destruction of the evil world, so, too, does Naylor with vivid portrayals of apocalyptic events. "The Men of Brewster Place" include Mattie Michael's son, Basil, who jumped bail and left his mother to forfeit the house she had put up as bond. She will not change her actions and become a devoted mother, and her dreams for her children will be deferred. Critical Overview When she dreams of the women joining together to tear down the wall that has separated them from the rest of the city, she is dreaming of a way for all of them to achieve Lorraine's dream of acceptance. Idealistic and yearning to help others, she dropped out of college and moved onto Brewster Place to live amongst other African-American people. She assures Mattie that carrying a baby is nothing to be ashamed about. By considering the nature of personal and collective dreams within a context of specific social, political, and economic determinants, Naylor inscribes an ideology that affirms deferral; the capacity to defer and to dream is endorsed as life-availing. And so today I still have a dream. 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. She couldn't tell when they changed places and the second weight, then the third and fourth, dropped on herit was all one continuous hacksawing of torment that kept her eyes screaming the only word she was fated to utter again and again for the rest of her life. That same year, she received the American Book Award for Best First Novel, served as writer-in-residence at Cummington Community of the Arts, and was a visiting lecturer at George Washington University. As presented, Brewster Place is largely a community of women; men are mostly absent or itinerant, drifting in and out of their women's lives, and leaving behind them pregnancies and unpaid bills. She stops eating and refuses to take care of herself, but Mattie will not let her die and finally gets Ciel to face her grief. WebBasil grows into a spoiled, irresponsible young man due to Mattie's overbearing parenting. She also encourages Mattie to save her money. He complains that he will never be able to get ahead with her and two babies to care for, and although she does not want to do it, she gets an abortion. To fund her work as a minister, she lived with her parents and worked as a switchboard operator. Etta Mae was always looking for something that was just out of her reach, attaching herself to " any promising rising black star, and when he burnt out, she found another." Critics agree that one of Naylor's strongest accomplishments in The Women of Brewster Place is her use of the setting to frame the structure of the novel, and often compare it to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. Give evidence from the story that supports this notion. As lesbians, Lorraine and Theresa represent everything foreign to the other women. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. "This lack of knowledge is going to have to fall on the shoulders of the educational institutions. Driving an apple-green Cadillac with a white vinyl top and Florida plates, Etta Mae causes quite a commotion when she arrives at Brewster Place. Mattie's entire life changes when she allows her desire to overcome her better judgement, resulting in pregnancy. "The Two" are unique amongst the Brewster Place women because of their sexual relationship, as well as their relationship with their female neighbors. Yet, when she returns to her apartment, she climbs into bed with another man. Give reasons. She tries to protect Mattie from the brutal beating Samuel Michael gives her when she refuses to name her baby's father. The first climax occurs when Mattie succeeds in her struggle to bring Ciel back to life after the death of her daughter. Etta Mae 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." The scene evokes a sense of healing and rebirth, and reinforces the sense of community among the women. 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. "I started with the A's in the children's section of the library, and I read all the way down to the W's. GENERAL COMMENTARY For example, Deirdre Donahue, a reviewer for the Washington Post, says of Naylor, "Naylor is not afraid to grapple with life's big subjects: sex, birth, love, death, grief. As the object of the reader's gaze is suddenly shifted, that reader is thrust into an understanding of the way in which his or her own look may perpetuate the violence of rape. Retrieved February 22, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/women-brewster-place. Eugene, whose young Mattie's dream presents an empowering response to this nightmare of disempowerment. Ciel hesitantly acknowledges that he is not black. In Naylor's representation of rape, the victim ceases to be an erotic object subjected to the control of the reader's gaze. The wall of Brewster Place is a powerful symbol of the ways racial oppression, sexual exploitation, and class domination constrains the life expectations and choices of the women who live there. WebSo Mattie runs away to the city (not yet Brewster though! All of the Brewster Place women respect Mattie's strength, truthfulness, and morals as well as her ability to survive the abuse, loss, and betrayal she has suffered. There are many readers who feel cheated and betrayed to discover that the apocalyptic destruction of Brewster's wall never takes place. The four sections cover such subjects as slavery, changing times, family, faith, "them and us," and the future. Dreams keep the street alive as well, if only in the minds of its former inhabitants whose stories the dream motif unites into a coherent novel. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. ", The situation of black men, she says, is one that "still needs work. As a black girl growing up in a still-segregated South, Etta Mae broke all the rules. While critics may have differing opinions regarding Naylor's intentions for her characters' future circumstances, they agree that Naylor successfully presents the themes of The Women of Brewster Place. He murders a man and goes to jail. WebLife. Christine H. King asserts in Identities and Issues in Literature, "The ambiguity of the ending gives the story a mythic quality by stressing the continual possibility of dreams and the results of their deferral." "The Women of Brewster Place After kissing her children good night, she returns to her bedroom and finds one of her shadow-like lovers waiting in her bed, and she folds "her evening like gold and lavender gauze deep within the creases of her dreams" and lets her clothes drop to the floor. Naylor created seven female characters with seven individual voices. Struck A Chord With Color Purple Sadly, Lorraine's dream of not being "any different from anybody else in the world" is only fulfilled when her rape forces the other women to recognize the victimization and vulnerability that they share with her.

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