It is vital to observe that Bonner spends Lee’s transformation in order to assess the solutions in addition to dilemmas of the social milieu of which the smoothness flees
ville seemed very useless and you can barren of any beauty one to Lee started to would you like to one to she had passionate an additional recommendations. . . . They needed to be seen through-and resided compliment of-otherwise battled due to- particularly her very own issues” (165). Bonner uses this semirural wilderness to exteriorize Lee’s issues and permit the type in order to connect the newest occurrences unfolding before the girl to your business she’s briefly left behind. Which have an actual physical barrenness reminiscent of The brand new Yellow Rose, Tootsville gets a web page in which Lee can also be situate this lady have trouble with Mrs. Sands in the framework from prior to tragedies: brand new untimely death of their mothers, the annulment regarding a disappointed earliest matrimony, and also the death of the woman former partner in a drunk-driving crash. By this process of dislocation, meditation, and reorientation, Lee starts to avoid the latest oppressive come to of Mrs. Sands and the black bourgeoisie she embodies. The defining minute of Lee’s travel boasts various other thematic come back, right here to that out of wedding due to the fact determined, commonly unholy wedlock. Attracted to assist good harried mom which she encounters regarding road, Lee finds out herself the latest unwitting facilitator regarding and you can witness into matrimony of woman’s adolescent girl, Annie Mae, and boyfriend having whom she’s become detained to your a good morals fees. Brand new resulting jailhouse nuptials not simply reflect the fresh new unceremonious tenor off Lee’s basic relationships and in addition expose another exemplory instance of relationship once the brand new strategic maintenance of personal order: it’s not sure whether Annie Mae’s mom is much more concerned about this lady daughter’s premarital sex or just around the newest hearsay you to sex commonly make. The brand new criteria of teenager’s relationship situate her midway within younger romanticism you to definitely propelled Lee towards the woman illadvised basic matrimony and brand new tragicomic size of the fresh matrimonial spectacle inside the “Towards the Altar.” No matter what role of private passions about indiscretion wherein Annie Mae is actually arrested, the girl mother’s insistence propels brand new ceremony designed to sanction they. Bonner’s depiction of the many around three instances-Beth’s, Lee’s, and you may Annie Mae’s-evokes “a deeply political, feminist need to help you write [the] patriarchal strictures” of Victorian beliefs away from marriage and correct womanhood.67 However much marriage as personal offer can get bolster status, category, otherwise battle, the key benefits of instance plans to help you Bonner’s emails, especially the lady, are often debatable. In connection with this Lee’s struggle with Mrs. Sands is not merely a matter of child up against mother-in-rules and also certainly one of personal tend to up against public orthodoxy. Though Lee prevents new response to cease Annie Mae’s relationship, the experience brings her that have a heightened awareness of their put-and you can agency-during the duration of women sacrificed to help you and you can circumscribed because of the impression ninety
Whenever Mrs
from responsibility, award, and you may propriety. Sands funds the woman girl-in-law’s treasure asia for the “aristocratic” Brewsters, the latest post-Tootsville Lee is at past able to disagreement the lady mom-in-law’s specious top out-of exceptionality and contingent says of society: “There are certain things on the son’s domestic- (which happens to be my house also)-that do not end up in their guy! One to beverage put try mine! You’d no to contact things for the here versus asking myself!” (174). Into the reclaiming the fresh tea lay, an indication of bourgeois mores as well as out-of individual history, Lee performs brand new double move of asserting the lady standing regarding the group one to Mrs. Sands polices and you may reclaiming the girl term just like the an independent getting just who is over the woman husband’s appendage. Lee’s getting rejected out of the lady mom-in-law’s invasive visibility reinforces their getting rejected of one’s more mature female’s exclusionary sight from society. Breaking the literal and you can figurative silence enveloping most other Bonner protagonists, Lee ultimately need a personal-laid out existence clear of the fresh emotional and you can spatial restrictions lay by other people. She refuses to are now living in one “Black colored Ghetto,” whether it is a nicely decorated sanctuary inside her own home or a great socially stifling conditions inside her people. On coming back domestic, Lee views the girl landscaping which have a fresh direction and you will, for the first time inside her lingering battle with Mrs. Sands, reconsiders the lady partner’s position in their contentious domestic: “ ‘Why-he’s got seen just how hatefully highhanded his mommy will be-until then!’ Sample fast owing to Lee’s notice” (175). For the position Lee’s partner due to the fact a prospective ally, Bonner reinforces the woman criticism of your philosophy depicted by the Mrs. Sands and you will destabilizes monolithic impression of your own black bourgeoisie. Within their united stand against the hypocrisy and snobbery regarding an more mature generation, Lee and her partner, like the Reddish Flower’s Nice and you may Finest Bloodstream, strongly recommend the promise of a younger, far more modern generation, you to which the notice-aware persona out-of Bonner’s “On the Becoming Younger-a lady-and you will Coloured” and you will “The students Bloodstream Hungers” you will fall-in. Rather than count on tight nineteenth-100 years public determines as Gran and you may Mrs. Sands carry out, these types of choice modernist data alternatively make use of early-twentieth-millennium currents off public changes and you may thinking-commitment. Furthermore, Bonner and prevents romanticizing the working-group setting you to encourages Lee’s reevaluation out-of the woman earlier in the day. There are no outlying (African) pastorals as one finds for the Lacascade’s Claire-Solange. To the contrary Bonner, to present the latest Tootsville characters because simple mortals whoever very real, very human failings force Lee to examine her own rules, refuses to depict Annie Mae and her mother once the 91
