supported and protected by their uncles and grandparents and feel safe in their home in the close circle. This prevents her from racism and prejudice of being a
black. Unfortunately, her mother’s boyfriend, Mr. Freeman, rapes her.
According to Briggs, Black environment was also familiar with a lot of social
problems such as rape, child abuse, and some other criminal behavior Briggs.
This event makes Marguerite disconnected to her understanding of a child and the world that she faces.
After that accident Mr. Freeman is violently murdered. Marguerite’s family underground criminal associates kill him. Crimes indeed exist in the Black
society. ‘The police said, “Seems like he was dropped there. Some say he was kicked to death”’72. However, Marguerite thinks it is her fault. Since that
tragedy Marguerite stops talking to everyone but Bailey. When she refuses to speak after a few months, she is punished and then
she and Bailey are sent back to her grandmother’s house again. Marguerite is happy to be back though her brother is not. Life becomes muted and pale to
Marguerite, and she cannot remember a lot of people from the town. People think that her silence is just sadness at being taken away from the city.
It is described in the novel that most of the weeks in stamps is a matter of repetition. In Stamps, on Saturday people come into town, dress up, give their
children some money to spend. However, Marguerite and her brother have to do a lot of chores on Saturday.
2. Marguerite’s adolescence
This part consists of Marguerite’s life in her adolescence during her stay with her grandmother in Stamps up to her stay with her mother again in San
Francisco.
a Living with her grandmother
Marguerite’s childhood influences her life. When she is a teenager she still admires her grandmother “Momma Henderson” for her power and strength.
Besides, Momma is also a religious person. In the novel, Stamps is described as a religious place. For black people in Stamps faith gives them a sense of self
righteousness that someday they will win over the white people and be recognized by God as better and more faithful people. It is ironic, in a way that
the black people of Stamps think that white people will not go to heaven because “the lord loved the poor and hated those high cast in the world”. That reason
makes the black people feel better about their status and their economic hardship. In the novel we could learn from Momma’s way in leading her family
according to stern Christian values and strict rules. She gives her grandchildren life lesson that will greatly influence them in their later life. Momma is a
religious and discipline woman. “THOU SHALL NOT be dirty” and “thou shall not be impudent” were
the two commandments of Grandmother Handerson upon which hung our total salvation.
Each night in the bitterest winter we were forced to was faces, arms, necks, legs and feet before going to bed…if they weren’t clean enough
for her, she took the switch she kept one behind the bedroom door for emergencies and woke up the offender with a few aptly placed burning
reminders…but Momma convinced us that not only was cleanliness next to Godliness, dirtiness was the inventor of misery 21-22.
Racism appears stronger in Marguerite’s adolescence. It is described when Bailey tells Marguerite, Momma and Uncle Willie that he has seen a dead
black man fished out of the pond and very decayed. “… He was wrapped in a sheet, all rolled up like a mummy, then a
white man walked over and pulled the sheet off. The man was on his back but the white man stuck his foot under the sheet and rolled him
over on the stomach.” He turned to me. “My, he had no color at all. He was bloated like a
ball.”We had had a running argument for months. Bailey said there was no such things as colorlessness, and I argued that if there was no such
color there also had to be opposite and now he was admitting that it was possible. But I didn’t feel good about my win. “The colored men
backed off and I did too, but the white man stood there, looking down, and grinned. Uncle Willie, why do they hate us so much?”
Uncle Willie muttered, “They don’t really hate us. They don’t know us. How can they hate us? They mostly scared.”167
From that quotation racism again shows itself in Stamps and the
inability of Uncle Willie or Momma to explain it or confront it to Bailey’s argument shows how deep it is. To them racism becomes something that cannot
be understood. Momma and Uncle Willie do not want to answer the question, or may be cannot face the truth themselves. Therefore, Marguerite thinks that is why
Momma decides to send her and Bailey to their mother to protect them from the extreme racism. They know that Marguerite and Bailey will not be able to accept
and live with the way things are there, so it will be better for them to leave the South.
b Living with her mother
Most of Marguerite time is spent in Momma’s house in Stamps, but, Marguerite realizes that she is going to see her mother again, for the first time
since the rape. She does not exactly prepare she will face her mother because of
the past event. Again in this part, Marguerite and her brother feel that Momma abandons them. Momma leaves Marguerite and Bailey to the parents they barely
know. It makes Marguerite and Bailey feel nervous. In San Francisco Marguerite and her brother live with their mother in a small apartment in Oakland for a
while, and her Grandmother Baxter and two of their mother’s brothers are nearby. Marguerite and her brother enjoy being with their mother and her
cheerfulness makes it easy to bear the cramped conditions. Marguerite considers her mother as a very tough woman. For example, her mother shouts her business
partner because of getting disorderly and cursing her. World War II starts while Marguerite and Bailey are in San Francisco, and her mother marries Daddy
Clidell, who is the first father Marguerite knows. They move to San Francisco and the Baxters stay at the house in Oakland.
According to Briggs 1 in the thirties a large majority of the white men in the South believe blacks needed to learn their place and remain there. Though
the Whites never said just what this place was, they showed it to them by limiting education, by discrimination on the streets and railroads, and barring them from
public parks, public libraries, and public amusements of all kinds. It is described in the novel when Marguerite transfers to George Washington High School, a
school that has only three black students, with the rest being white. The students are bolder than she is and many are better educated and they intimidate
Marguerite. Even though Marguerite is at the top of her class she has been reminded
of the limits of the future just because she is a black. Marguerite and other Blacks are not expected to attain professional careers and as a black girl she is not
expected to do anything except becoming a wife and a mother. They only earn a low level job to survive, as that shown in the novel 152. For example, it is
difficult for Marguerite to get a job even as a streetcar conductor. The bad treatment is experienced by Marguerite when she wants to get a job on the
streetcar. Marguerite tries to get the job even though her mother tells her that the white people will not hire her because of her colored skin. Marguerite has to face
the bad treatment at the office when she meets the receptionist. The classified pages of the morning papers had listed advertisement for
motorettes and conductorettes and I reminded her of that. She gave me a face full of astonishment that my suspicious nature would not accept.
“I am applying for the job listed in this morning’s Chronicle and I’d like to be presented to your personnel manager.” While I spoke in
supercilious accents, and looked at the room as if I had an oil well in my own backyard, my armpits were being pricked by millions of hot
pointed needles. She saw her escape and dived into it. “He’s out. He’s out for the day. You might call tomorrow and if he’s in.
I’m sure you can see him.” Then she swiveled her chair around on its rusty screws and with that I was supposed to be dismissed 226.
The receptionist’s treatment shows that she does not really like Marguerite who wants to apply the job. Her attitude really makes Marguerite
feels she will not be accepted.
B. Marguerite’s Perception about Life as a Black Woman as Portrayed in the Novel
