1Following the Civil Rights Movement, there was a legal expectation that life for Black Americans would improve on all levels, particularly financially and vocationally. The Civil Rights Movement was a twentieth century (1954-1968) effort to end racial discrimination against nonwhite people as well as end segregation in the United States of America (Newman 1). Such discrimination against minoritized populations took various forms. African Americans were segregated from white schools, restaurants, and libraries. Black people were also not allowed to hold certain jobs or vote (“African American Voting Rights”). By the Civil Rights’ conclusion, laws were enacted such as granting voting rights and fair housing and abolishing segregation, which should have suggested dramatic improvement for African American life due to legal mandates for change. Yet, as revealed in Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow (1983), this article contends that the process of upward mobility for Black Americans during this time was neither easy nor straightforward. Upward mobility is defined as the “movement from a lower to a higher social level” (Oxford English Dictionary I.1.e.). While societal factors contribute to the challenges of black characters attempting to reach new levels in their careers and educations, hurdles from personal relationships formed both before and after one’s social mobility often influence how well a black character upwardly advances.
2Paule Marshall, an African American woman author and recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship (also commonly referred to as the “Genius Grant,”) commonly wrote on African Americans’ necessity to (re)connect to their African or Caribbean roots. In a radio interview, Paule Marshall speaks about her memoir, Triangular Road, and the three parts that define her identity, which are her African American, African, and Caribbean roots (Paule Marshall: Coming of Age). Likewise, Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow’s primary character, Avey, provides a literary representation of Marshall’s advocation of appreciating one’s identity based on one’s background. The formations (or threads of connections) between black individuals regardless of their nation of origin rank supreme in Marshall’s Praisesong (Vásquez 2017: 464). The tripartite identity speaks to the multiple identity points present within the protagonist’s, Avey, story as she learns to reconnect with her ancestorial roots, childhood roots, and African American culture.
- 1 Rememory is defined as “reclaiming things remembered and things forgotten... the rituals and tradit (...)
3Praisesong opens with Avey, a middle-class, middle-aged black woman abandoning a multiday cruise based on a spiritual and physical calling. In moments of “Rememory[ing],”1 Avey is reminded of her past and what led to her distancing from her former self. Avey’s embarkment towards self-discovery and reconnection to her cultural past provides a palatable option for Marshall because of her advocation for African Americans to embrace their Caribbean and/or African roots. Praisesong endorses one solution for Black Americans to abide by, which is black nationalism, not a movement towards materialism or white American culture. Towards the end of the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968), the Black Arts Movement (1965-1975) began, which recognized Black Americans as a people and nation entitled to self-determination of their destiny. This black nationalism refers to the idea that people within the black race are their own nation within the American nation (Smethurst 2005: 10-12). Marshall’s 1983 novel draws from these ideas regarding this centering of black cultural and racial unity. Shane Graham suggests that Praisesong is “a project that developed in conversation with Marshall’s black radical political activism” (2020: 412). This process of embracing a black cultural background, black people, and a black self-identity is centered through Avey’s childhood in Tatem, South Carolina with her great-aunt Chuney, her life in Brooklyn and North White Plains, New York, and later her visits to Grenada and Carriacou. Each point of Avey’s journey notes the challenging progression of fully accepting her multidimensional identity. Marshall’s novel identifies the complications that may occur in traditional upward mobility narratives when one fails to remember one’s cultural roots; however, Praisesong for the Widow also provides examples of how to be both mobile and loyal to black community building through the supernatural.
- 2 In the United States, race has significant meanings that can impact a person’s daily life. Race is (...)
- 3 The Jim Crow laws were “state and local laws that enforced racial discrimination by segregation acr (...)
- 4 Racism is the belief in racial hierarchies and division (Bangstad and Fuentes 2023).
4Upward mobility narratives follow the progression of a character from one class to another. Generally, in American literature, upward mobility narratives such as the popularized Horatio Alger’s Rags-to-Riches stories detail young, optimistic characters rising to financial security (Scharnhorst and Bales 1985: 34). The literary archetype that hard work, noble character traits, and determination equate to rising beyond one’s impoverished lot in life suggests that such upward progression is indicative of the American dream. Literary scholar Bruce Robbins’s Upward Mobility and the Common Good (2007) examines how upward mobility is revealed in literature from the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Robbins notes two necessary components for upward mobility narratives. These components include having a benefactor to help the protagonist get to a higher economic level and distancing the protagonist from his community (2007: 13). The upward mobility narrative marks literary representations of characters moving from one socioeconomic class to another but as Elda María Román explicates, there is another layer to such movement when race is included. Minoritized populations may find their loyalties questioned by those who share similar ethnic or working-class backgrounds (2018: 2). The American iteration of the upward mobility narrative is radicalized when featuring black characters. The narrative is racialized in very particular ways due to the characters being a part of the black race.2 The economic and labor conditions were markedly different for African Americans during the Jim Crow era3 and following the Civil Rights Movement because of racism,4 which is when the novel, Praisesong is set.
- 5 The Reconstruction era began after the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the abolishment of slaver (...)
5Praisesong for the Widow’s setting speaks to distinct moments in American history, for the novel begins in the 1940s and continues into the 1980s. Readers are introduced to Avey and Jerome Johnson’s journey from poverty to financial security. Importantly, the novel discusses the challenges faced by Jerome due to racial discrimination in the workforce and his movement from his cultural roots. The couple’s poverty reflects the black condition during the Jim Crow era. Because of racial discrimination and inequality, many African Americans did not have fair opportunities for social mobility or social capital. Following the Reconstruction era5 and into the 1960s, Jim Crow laws and practices were methods to disenfranchise African Americans. As a result, African Americans were faced with the threat of violence and efforts to enforce control. The challenges faced by African Americans during this period made upward progression exceedingly difficult.
6Social programs ideally designed to help Black Americans ultimately proved unsuccessful. Post-reconstruction social welfare began with the Freedman’s Bureau. The Freedman’s Bureau was created to temporarily provide the formerly enslaved with clothing and food, the creation of schools and hospitals, and assistance to the elderly and orphaned (Olds 1963: 247). Government-run programs that set out to give the former enslaved a financial leg-up proved to be unsatisfactory. While the Freedman’s Bureau aided African Americans living in the South, the damage and culture resulting from slavery could not be overturned during the seven years of the program. By 1935, President Roosevelt’s public assistance programs were intended to help Americans facing poverty; however, racial discrimination during the 1930s and 1940s cheated African Americans out of social welfare programs due to “separate but equal” mandates (Carten 2016). Auteur0000-00-00T00:00:00AAuteur0000-00-00T00:00:00AAlma Carten notes in the 1950s and 1960s that “man in the house rule” shut social welfare cases of those with a man living in a residence. Other regulations such as residency requirements for African Americans migrating from the South made government help especially difficult for black people. This lack of assistance for Jerome and Avey Johnson causes Jerome to overwork as he attempts to economically progress.
7Jerome’s upward mobility narrative involves the trials and eventual triumphs of finding gainful employment; however, he surrenders connection to his cultural practices such as listening to jazz and blues music, dancing, and stylistic changes in exchange for professional advancement. The novel proposes that although Jerome’s story of movement is one that upwardly progresses in the professional and economic realms, the cost of such movement is too much and should not be seen as an acceptable path.
- 6 Tatem is a location rich with African and African American history. Throughout the novel, reference (...)
8Instead, Praisesong for the Widow advocates for the need to remain connected to one’s cultural community as an avenue for personal growth. Praisesong follows Avey Johnson’s multidimensional identity as she learns to reconnect with the supernatural roots and cultures she previously gave up as her husband, Jerome, pursued upward mobility. Avey’s journey is about finding herself reconnected to parts of her identity that she let die. This article does not mark Avey’s navigation as an upward mobility narrative because she is not advancing professionally. Rather, Avey learns to appreciate the multiple parts of her identity that make up her rich background. Avey’s early years start with an awareness and appreciation of her culture while visiting her Aunt Chuney in Tatem, South Carolina,6 and while living in Brooklyn, New York. Later, upon Avey’s arrival and spiritual transformation in Carriacou, she embraces all aspects of her identity, the spiritual, mental, and cultural parts. This multidimensional identity notes the diffractive nature of the black diasporic experience and survival.
9The novel dramatically begins with Avey Johnson suddenly deciding to leave a cruise ship and arrival on the island of Grenada. Once in Grenada and during a fitful night’s sleep, Avey wakes up in her hotel room being criticized by a spectral Jerome. In this meeting, readers are also introduced to Jerome’s fears surrounding Halsey Street:
‘Do you know what you’re playing with?’ said in that tone also meant the house in North White Plains and the large corner lot on which it stood, and the insurance policies, annuities, trusts and bank accounts that had been left her, as well as the small sheaf of government bonds and other securities which were now also hers, and most of all the part interest guaranteed her for life in the modest accounting firm on Fulton Street in Brooklyn which bore his name... All of it seemed to feel had been thrown into jeopardy by her reckless act. ‘You must want to wind up back where we started’ (Marshall 1983: 88).
10The vision of Jerome notes concern with losing their home located in a nice neighborhood, insurance policies, annuities, trusts, bank accounts, government bonds, securities, and interest from Jerome’s company further clarifies the amount of wealth Avey Johnson possesses. The pluralized words indicate that it is not just one bank account or annuity that appears to be at risk but multiple streams of income. Marshall later elucidates that “back where we started” is Halsey Street, which is the pair’s first home. Avey’s assets alone clarify that Jerome’s fears are irrational in that leaving a vacation cruise several days early does not put the pair in jeopardy of returning to the home where they lived when they were financially insecure.
11Through flashbacks, readers are taken back to Jerome and Avey Johnson’s humble beginnings. Halsey Street, where the Johnsons initially live, is set in a black section of Brooklyn. The family’s housing condition is neither comfortable nor safe. The narrator describes Halsey Street as being on a block with
a noisy trolley... [with] knocking in the pipes as the meager heat struggled to reach the top floor... Loudest of all in the silence the snow had brought was the coughing of Sis and Annawilda in the back bedroom. It was a sound heard all winter. One night, she [Avey] feared, one of them would quietly choke to death on the phlegm trapped in her throat while she and Jay slept. (Marshall 1983: 89, 98)
12Avey’s poverty is beyond what can be seen. There is a sound to poverty. It is found in the noise from the train that echoes throughout the apartment; and the personified reverberation of “knocking” pipes asking for permission to let heat into the apartment, yet not able to be granted full access to warm the small abode. This issue of inadequate heating snowballs into an even larger problem during the winter months as the rattling of Avey’s children’s coughing is so intense that she fears for their very lives. Based on the material condition of the apartment on Halsey Street, it is understandable that Jerome would not want to return. The couple’s poverty reaches so deep that Avey takes “scalding hot baths, castor oil, the strong cups of fennel root tea... [and] small brown pills” in an attempt to abort her youngest daughter so that she could avoid the same coughing fate as her older siblings (1983: 89-90). The effects of poverty run deep. It fills Avey with fear for her children and causes an image of Jerome to rise from the dead to warn Avey of an improbable return to Halsey Street.
- 7 The 1940s setting for this section of the book is very much based on its moment in United States’ h (...)
13The impoverished couple’s 1940s flashback to their housing conditions was an unfortunate reality for many African Americans.7 Douglas Massey and Mary Denton’s American Apartheid note the effect of housing segregation and the negative impacts it has on Black Americans. The authors define the creation of “dark ghettos,” as isolated communities that perpetuate injustices, in particular economic inequalities that disproportionately affect African Americans (Massey and Denton 1993: 2-3). Nearly fifty years after W.E.B. Du Bois’s pivotal The Philadelphia Negro (1899), which noted racial discrimination and systemic hardships as the cause for black poverty, the conversation continues in Praisesong’s 1940s flashback. The novel addresses the challenges faced by Avey and Jerome Johnson as issues centering around racism. Alice O’Connor notes “a black/white paradigm, traced the roots of racial inequality to a wide range of social and cultural disadvantages rooted in white prejudice...” (2001: 76) This institutionalized racism resulted in barriers to upward progression and caused a lack of equity for every part of African American life.
14Praisesong notes the unsatisfactory housing option available to the family has a direct connection to their race. This is not to say that all individuals within racial groups adhere to stereotypical assumptions regarding one’s class level, but it is to say that the text reveals an unfairness in the Johnson’s living conditions on Halsey Street because they are Black Americans, which is directly correlated with Jay’s low paying job. Massey and Denton indicate that social and economic factors lead to residential segregation and that black segregation occurs at drastically higher rates than any other racial group (1993: 2). The 1968 Fair Housing Act was created to ensure equal housing opportunities regardless of a person’s background (“History of Fair Housing”). While this act was the final legislative move marking an end to the Civil Rights Movement, it did not solve all of the housing crises due to de facto segregation. De facto segregation is segregation “in fact” rather than by law. Because of social patterns, some schools, churches, and neighborhoods remain segregated in the United States even though it is not legally mandated anymore (Krysan and Crowder 2017). It is crucial to recognize the serious effects such segregation has on Black Americans and how such segregation is connected to Marshall’s novel. There is a cyclical effect of housing inequalities that relates to unequal employment opportunities available to the family, which has a direct connection to their race.
- 8 Racist atrocities are shown through residential segregation within America. Walter Johnson refers t (...)
15Housing segregation was based on separating people of different racial backgrounds. Legal practices such as redlining, which denied racialized minorities access to certain neighborhoods, were used to disenfranchise African Americans. Such housing inequalities can have disastrous results since poor housing conditions can result in health risks due to vermin, peeling or lead-based paint, increased levels of pollutants, and school inequalities (Danzinger 2001: 377-379; Lathan 2023). It is crucial to recognize the serious effects such segregation has on Black Americans8 and how such segregation is connected to Marshall’s novel. One of the powers of literature is that it provides a different medium for this conversation. By Marshall setting part two of her book in the 1940s and 1950s, readers can see more of the internal conflict and relational challenges that occur between Jay and Avey due to their poverty and housing conditions. Also, readers may observe how the family advances to a more affluent, mostly white suburb in the late 1950s and continues their lives there until the 1970s, yet this comes with its own psychological and cultural consequences.
16Even though the Johnsons lived in poverty as indicated by their housing conditions, there was still happiness until economic and work pressures overwhelmed their marriage. While readers first meet Jerome in the literary present, Marshall takes readers back to the 1940s and 1950s past to understand the man he was. In this way the readers, too, experience a kind of loss, meeting Jerome first as a ghost before realizing the rich depth and dimension of Jerome’s character before his striving for upward advancement stripped him of his unique, culturally centered personality. Avey recounts moments of marital harmony consisting of “small rituals and private pleasures” involving authenticity, connection, and romance (Marshall 1983: 122). There are several distinct activities Jerome participates in that link him to his culture and help him embrace his identity as an African American man. Music, mustache, and movement: These words are symbolic in meaning and are used to separate Jerome from Jay. Jay, the nickname Avey gives her husband while living on Halsey Street, is transformed into Jerome as he upwardly progresses.
17Jay is distinguished from Jerome by his awareness of the hardships that occur while working at white-dominated workplaces and his need to find emotional relief in his culture. Every day when Jay returns home, he greets his wife and then turns on his phonograph to listen to his music. Avey notes that a change comes over Jay as soon as he comes home. Much like “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar (Paule Marshall’s namesake), Jay’s transformation when he arrives home is parallel to taking off a mask he is forced to wear at work. While the music plays, Jay would “lean his head back, close his eyes...” and let the musical artists “work their magic, their special mojo on him. Until gradually, under their ministrations, the fatigue and strain of the long day spent doing the two jobs—his and his boss’s--would ease from his face, and his body... [until it] would look as if it belonged to him again” (Marshall 1983: 94). Marshall’s vivid descriptions aid readers in understanding the emotional toll Jay endures and the processes he takes to let go of the workday. Jay listening to his music proves therapeutic and a sort of spiritual experience for him as he deals with the pressures of the workday. Music has a symbolic purpose while the couple lives on Halsey Street. Jay uses music as a stress reliever and a sort of cleansing from the racism of the workday (Bracks 1998: 106). Marshall’s use of “magic” and “mojo” to describe music’s power on Jay in that it helps him change from the person he must present while at work to the true person he becomes within the comforts of his own home. Thus, a spiritual transformation occurs as Jay’s spirit becomes revived after work as he listens to music.
18Jay’s music choice is also significant in that he picks jazz and blues music, which have roots in African American culture, to ease his tensions at work. Douglas Henry Daniels notes the necessity of using blues music to deal with American political and social injustices (1985: 14). The emotion and messages behind jazz and blues music can be used to affirm the painful situations many African Americans faced in their everyday lives. The music speaks at deep, spiritual levels as listeners allow the songs to provide a sense of community and mutual understanding of the struggles of being black in America. Jay’s need to absorb such music after leaving his white-dominated workplace proves the sort of healing properties present within these musical genres. Jay recognizes that he does “Two jobs for the salary of one” (Marshall 1983: 92). This insight into Jay’s work-life complications nicely sets up his upward mobility narrative as it is revealed that he has a long way to go before he can progress vocationally.
19However, even throughout his work dissatisfaction, Jay remains grounded in his distinctiveness and pride in being a black man. Jay’s mustache serves as a unique metaphoric connection to his background. Jay’s mustache is stylized in a fashion that is not current during the setting of the flashback, instead, it is modeled after his father’s and the style popularized during World War I (Marshall 1983: 93). Also, to shape up his mustache, Jay must go back to his former neighborhood in Harlem. This return to his roots and community serves as a reminder that Jay is different from the spectral Jerome readers first meet. Jay resists racist expectations against him as a black man, especially while on the job. Not adhering to stereotyped assumptions of blackness and celebrating his very own uniqueness is part of what distinguishes Jay from Jerome. Jay’s mustache does two things: It serves as a shield and as a covering for his private self (1983: 93). Jay’s mustache takes the focus away from his intelligence and assertiveness, by drawing people to its appearance (1983: 93). Thus, the mustache covers him like a mask while at work by appearing to be the person he was expected to be (one who is not seen as intelligent or assertive). Although it is later revealed that Jerome does not give into stereotypes associated with black men at work, he also does not fully refute them to manage his job security. Jay remains intelligent and assertive but uses his mustache to hide these characteristics. Simply put, Jay’s mustache covers him from his actual identity which can only be revealed at home.
- 9 The white gaze pertains to the portrayal of minorities in a stereotypical manner to satisfy those i (...)
20Jay performs in such a way that pleases his coworkers and boss which aids in his survival at work. He does not talk back to his boss, he does more than his fair share of work and politely communicates with his coworkers (Marshall 1983: 92-93). Even though he is not happy with his work situation as shown through his need to decompress every day, Jay understands that he must abide by certain expectations for him as a black man. In her self-help book, Working While Black: The Black Person’s Guide to Success in the White Workplace (2004), Michelle T. Johnson provides scenarios and methods of survival for black workers in white workplaces. Her tips range from possessing certain mindsets to addressing different communication styles, and methods for building resilience, which she argues is a necessity for black people in predominately white, white-collar professions. Johnson explains that much of the burden put on black workers depends on the mandate of making white coworkers comfortable. There is a certain presentation accepted by society that deems one to be “acceptably black” (Engles and Kory 2013: 55). Jay’s behavior at work is a façade, which is why his mustache works as a sort of shield and guise to implement while at work. The hegemonic white gaze9 worked and continues to work through determining a level of appropriateness expected of black workers.
21As Praisesong argues, there is a protective mechanism, or method to destress, against racism that black workers must enact which is a connection to their roots and culture. Marshall reinforces this idea with dancing. When Jay and Avey dance together, it solidifies their bond and strengthens their marriage. Avey reminisces on the playfulness and imaginative qualities of their dances and aches for their reemergence when she notices their absence (1983: 123). She remembers a romantic game of make-believe, where the couple’s living room transforms into a dance club that further fosters their relationship:
‘What’s your pleasure this evening, Miss Williams?’
‘Why don’t we go on over to the Audubon for a change. I hear there’s a dance there tonight. I’m kinda tired of those other places. And afterwards if we’re hungry we can go back crosstown for chicken and waffles at Wells.’ (1983: 123)
22Jerome referring to Avey by her maiden name adds to the flirtation present in this scene. It proposes that they go on a date pre-marriage and pre-children to reinforce their utter focus and devotion to each other without distraction. In their make-believe, magical world, they attend the dance clubs that their lack of money prevents them from patronizing. The suggestion of eating chicken and waffles references a cultural nod to soul food, Black American cuisine. Additionally, in this scene, the couple dance to jazz records such as Auteur0000-00-00T00:00:00AAuteur0000-00-00T00:00:00A“Flying Home,” “Take the A-Train" “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” and “Cottontail” in their fantasy. The imaginary element of pretending to be elsewhere while dancing and listening to popularized jazz music creates a bond and ritual that connects with their true identities, which is an embrace of their cultural music and dancing.
23Marshall’s descriptive qualities relate the dancing to something deeper than a physical bond. It is a spiritual action. It merges the couple and goes beyond their living room and works as a sort of calling home to one’s roots. Not only does dance bring the couple back to their black culture but it also works as a stress alleviator that helps Jay take off the burdens from his workday. Barbara Frey Waxman argues that dancing serves as a healing process (1994: 79). This healing process is necessary for Jay as he is unable to relax and show his identity while at work.
24Jay uses music, his mustache, and dancing to help him deal with his dissatisfaction in his work life. While Jay instills these elements to aid in his emotional regulation, it does not fully eradicate the fact that he does not make enough money because of his race. Also, with the rising pressure of a new baby coming, Jay must work additional hours to provide for his family (Marshall 1983: 90). While Jay already works two jobs for the pay of one, he must now work even more hours to support his family. This discrimination is directly correlated with his race as Jay remarks that “for some red-faced Irishman who sits on his can all day laughing to himself at the colored boy he’s got doing everything...” (1983: 105). The additional labor enforced upon Jay relates to what Imani Perry defines as the “black tax.” This black tax is the “real economic costs associated with being Black” (2011: 162). The complications Jay faces in upwardly progressing are because of the systematic cost of being black, which relates to his higher levels of labor at his job and a lack of other work opportunities due the racism. While Jay must pay in terms of his increased work ethic because of racial discrimination, he also must pay in terms of his cultural identity when he attempts to distance himself from his race in exchange for momentary success.
25The cost of mistreatment against black employees has several impacts upon Jay: the need to decompress and turn to his true identity when he returns home, putting on a façade while at work thus using his performativity as survival, and complications to family life. Jay must work even more hours because of wage inequality. Yet, the consequence is that it worries Avey because of all the hours he spends away from home. As a result, “something shattered in her mind” which causes her to imagine her husband cheating on her with his white female coworkers (1983: 91). This very real cause of work injustices is shown in Avey’s paranoia. Directly, the text’s central argument for this scene is that the mistreatment of the workforce can cause poverty and therefore a negative impact on the family.
26The narrator marks a fateful night during the winter of 1945 as a spiritual change in the characterization of Jay and Avey as they become Jerome and Avey Johnson (Marshall 1983: 110-111). This shift occurs in the wake of an intense argument between the couple after Avey accuses her husband of cheating on her instead of working extra hours (Marshall 1983: 96). In this pivotal scene,
[Avey thinks] she saw Jay take a slight step backwards. Without his actually moving, he appeared to be slowly backing toward the door to the hall which stood a few feet behind himAuteur0000-00-00T00:00:00A... Any second and he would be at the door... he would be racing down the stairs... to be gone. His anguished face, his eyes... reflected the struggle. (Marshall 1983: 111)
27This assumed movement refers to the metaphoric switch from Jay to Jerome. Although Jay physically stays there, he is no longer the same person. Jay in fact does race down the stairs and leave the home and replaces him with Jerome. Jay’s change occurs because of his lack of gainful employment which affects his financial security and relationship with his wife.
28This change from Jay to Jerome appears almost suddenly as Avey looks back and recognizes he is no longer the man she once knew. As a result, she begins to refer to Jay as Jerome. Avey notes that “On occasion, glancing at him, she would surprise what looked like the vague, pale outline of another face superimposed on his, as in a double exposure” (Marshall 1983: 131). This face on top of Jerome’s face represents a sort of mask that feeds into the new man he has become. This mask represents the face that he wore at work and was able to take off when he arrived home by returning to the cultural practices that distinguished him from being the version his employer and coworkers wanted to see. This mask represents Jerome, the man Avey did not see while at work. Its “pale outline” amounts to a movement toward whiteness and thus a shift away from black culture. Ultimately, Jerome’s pursuit of success and gainful employment causes him to stop doing the things he loves such as caring for his mustache, listening to music, and dancing.
29Jay’s upward mobility narrative leads to his transformation into Jerome. The text states, “It appeared finally that the street had won” (1983: 111). Marshall’s personification of the street reveals the battle between the street and the people living there. For the Johnsons, the street represents their poverty and inability to upwardly progress due to racist factors that hinder Jay’s professional advancement. Because Jay’s work conditions are unfair and unsatisfactory, he is resigned to living in a location that reflects his poverty (as shown through the hazardous conditions of the couple’s home). The street wins because Jay realizes at that moment that he cannot remain his true self and keep his family. As a result, Jay leaves, and Jerome enters instead. Jay is swapped for Jerome due to dissatisfaction regarding his treatment at work and his inability to upwardly progress despite his already extraordinary efforts. Although Jay attempted to provide his family with the best he could, he could not stay. Jerome takes Jay’s place as his attention is turned from his downtime activities to excessive levels of work. Jerome is never without two or three jobs, never takes an off day, never takes vacation days, takes courses in accounting and business management, and uses his free time to study (Marshall 1983: 112-3). It is important to note that Jay has a strong work ethic, but Jerome’s work ethic is unnatural, for it is extreme. He has no downtime, and it leads to his early death years down the road because of his overworking.
30Even though Jerome later earns his degree, he still finds opportunities to be scarce. Jerome’s search in Manhattan fails due to misconceptions about black professionals. Jerome does not have personal mentors to help him get through certain doors. Rather, even after working several jobs and going to school, he still finds himself shut out of the professional workforce. Jerome finds that jobs are “filled” right before he arrives, he is told that he is not qualified enough, or that the information in the ad is incorrect (Marshall 1983: 114). As shown by Jerome’s experiences, people are judged based on their skin color, long before they are given the chance to even interview for a job, and if hired, the chance for advancement is hindered by racist perceptions. Even when Jerome searches in his black neighborhood, Brooklyn, he is also met with suspicions. Unfortunately, it is not until Jerome sells himself short (offering to do extensive services at a fraction of the pay), that he starts to get his foot in the door (1983: 120). Jerome, aware of the discrimination, picks himself up by his bootstraps, turns to performativity, and distances himself from Jay. Because Jerome works his way up as an accountant, he can quit his second and third jobs. Jerome continues to work excessively out of fear of returning to Halsey Street, which represents his family’s poverty. This anxiety causes Jerome to not only create distance between his past life on Halsey Street but also from black people who subscribe to their black culture. Jay and the family no longer take trips to Brooklyn or Tatem and move away from Halsey Street to the North White Plains, a white suburb, all of which represents the family distancing themselves from their cultural connections as they upwardly advance.
31Jerome’s behavior and viewpoints regarding African Americans directly speak to the upward mobility narrative trope of separating oneself from one’s cultural community. Although Jerome advances due to his hard work, he also chooses to disassociate from his black community and culture (as seen in his love for jazz music, his facial hair styling, and dancing). In Elda María Román’s Race and Upward Mobility (2018), she notes the challenges characters may have when seeking approval in the workplace which can result in complications in loyalties to their racial backgrounds (2018: 2). Román discusses the “sellout narrative,” which involves an ethnic minority “exchanging his or her communal identity, or the community itself, for membership in the dominant group... all in an attempt to improve their socioeconomic status” (2008: 12). In the characterization of Jerome, he positions himself in opposition to working-class black people and creates distance from his heritage.
32As Avey recollects her relationship with Jerome, she is reminded of his haughty attitude. Jay begins to speak about other black people as if they were “a race apart” (Marshall 1983: 140). This is exemplified by Jerome’s (and Avey’s) disengagement regarding civil rights matters: “Hadn’t she lived through most of the sixties and the early seventies as if Watts and Selma and the tanks and Stoner guns in the streets of Detroit somehow did not pertain to her... she had spent nearly a decade avoiding the headlines...” (Marshall 1983: 140). E. Franklin Frazier criticizes such black social mobility in his seminal text, Black Bourgeoisie. Frazier notes a tension resulting from African American social mobility and states that these individuals are “Lacking a cultural tradition and rejecting identification with Negro masses...” (1965: 27) Although Avey notices the changes in behavior and viewpoints happening to Jerome, she finally recognizes that she, too, like Jerome has allowed distance to grow between her and other black people.
- 10 The Poor People’s March was a campaign advocating for more jobs and fair treatment on said jobs (“P (...)
33By turning a blind eye to civil rights struggles and viewing her economic and class status as a great divider, Avey loses sight of who she is as a black woman. Ironically, when their daughter, Marion, calls during the Poor People’s March,10 the couple wants to ignore her call and pretend like such issues do not exist (1983: 140). Because the couple is not directly impacted by black issues, they are not invested in black people’s causes (Graham 2020: 2-3). The Johnson’s failure to remember their communities due to self-serving approaches to upward advancement is sharply criticized and deemed as a failure according to Praisesong. The couple’s methods of coping with failures in welfare provision result in an elitist viewpoint. The couple’s social mobility leads to a distancing from the original communities, for they have forgotten where they came from. When the couple upwardly advanced, they rejected connections to their race, culture, and former socioeconomic status and separated themselves from advocating against the vocational and civil rights challenges of African Americans.
34As indicated in Praisesong, there sometimes is a cost that often comes as lower-income minorities progress to a higher economic class. As Román explains, “if upward mobility grants wages, it also imposes a tax. This tax reveals the impossibility of straight-line assimilation into a white mainstream” (2018: 12). The progression Jerome experiences in his career comes at the cost of meshing into the dominant society. Vershawn Young and Bridget Tsemo reference E. Franklin’s Frazier’s perspective regarding black middle-class performance in which there becomes an abnegation of one’s social and racial heritage and later amounts to living in a “make belief” world absent from racism (2011: 4-5). However, as Young and Tsemo indicate, social mobility does not eliminate the system of racial inequality. To effectively achieve this assimilation, Jerome denounces his affiliation with his former black cultural grouping and identity that made him Jay, the man who enjoyed jazz music, dancing, and his unique facial hair stylings.
35As he physically distances himself by no longer visiting black neighborhoods and moving his family to a white suburb, he also spiritually and emotionally separates himself from black culture and black people. Referencing his upward mobility, Jerome states, “’ When you come this color, it’s uphill all the way,’ he would say, striking the back of one dark hand with the other—hard, punishing little blows that took his anger out on himself. Or, with even greater vehemence, out on his own [black people]” (Marshall 1983: 134). Instead of taking this anger out on his oppressors, he takes it out on himself and people who look like him as if they are the ones to blame. Jerome’s anger is misplaced. As James Baldwin declares in “On Being ‘White’…and Other Lies,” that whiteness is a social construct founded in hierarchies and registering lower values to others (1998: 179). By Jerome lowering the value of himself and other Black Americans through his disdainful comments, he subscribes to whiteness as he upwardly progresses.
36The physical violence Jay inflicts on himself provides insight into his mental state. While he has done well for himself financially, there is something wrong within. The “hard, punishing blows” are indicative of the painful cost of the upward mobility narrative (Marshall 1983: 134). Marshall’s characterization of Jerome provides insight into the upward mobility narrative and the payment enacted through such financial progression. Jerome’s character is not a model to follow. Rather, he is a warning of the cost of giving up one’s roots. Readers should see the flaws in his logic. Marshall spends the better part of the book’s second section detailing Jerome’s issues at work such as being taken advantage of by doing double the work for a fraction of the pay, discrimination as he tries to find gainful employment, working abnormal hours and multiple jobs to provide for his family, and selling himself short to even get his foot in the door of his field. Yet, when readers see Jerome finally “make it” after twelve years of enduring horrendous conditions, he blames black people for their inability to find work: “The trouble with half these Negroes out here is that they spend all their time blaming the white man for everything. He won’t give ’em a job... When the problem really is most of ’em don’t want to hear the word ‘work’” (Marshall 1983: 134-5). Jerome has failed to acknowledge the conditions many African Americans (including himself) face finding gainful employment, for he holds African Americans as solely responsible for their un(der)employment. Yet, as Praisesong reveals earlier in its chapter about Jerome’s issues with advancing in his career, this is an unfair assessment of the labor conditions in America.
37Jerome’s misunderstanding regarding the complications that may come with being a minority attempting to progress in a country that systematically can prevent their advancement is apparent. Jerome criticizes black protestors who protest for civil rights and jobs and yet claims that they need to create their own as well (1983: 135). This conflict shows that he is not looking at the full story. And while Jerome does do well professionally by having his accounting firm, he fails to note the extensive labor he had to put in. Jerome’s “confusion, contradiction and rage” cause a brain hemorrhage (1983: 135). Jerome’s inner turmoil and lack of peace are in that he does not know what to do with both his upward mobility and racial identity. As he nears the end of his life, the magic and beauty are gone. Instead, he resolves to surrender affiliation with his black cultural identity and subscribe to what Román calls a “sellout narrative.”
38But Marshall does not advocate for this sort of ending. Jerome’s upward mobility story is not one of success. While he does manage to work his way up to financial comfortability, it is at the cost of himself and his cultural roots. Jerome’s years of overworking send him to an early grave (1983: 135) and distance him from the activities that brought him joy and respite. Though Avey becomes much like Jerome, her trip to the Caribbean allows her the opportunity to right her wrongs by subscribing to black nationalism and the embracement of her cultural identity. By remembering her roots, Avey is reminded of the importance of black diasporic traditions. Additionally, her journey to the Caribbean allows for a return to spiritual practices that enable her to appreciate the unique parts of black cultures.
39Avey’s story provides an optimistic view that one can right their wrongs. While readers first meet Avey haphazardly leaving her cruise ship because of physical and spiritual discomfort, by the novel’s conclusion, Avey finds that reconnecting with her cultural roots and spirituality brings her peace. Before Jerome’s unsettling visit, Avey is first called by her aunt. The hauntings from her Great Aunt Cuney and Jerome bring her back to her time in Tatem, South Carolina with Ring Shouts and pride in the Ibo Landing and Brooklyn, New York where living room dances to jazz romanced her and Jerome in their living room.
40Avey remembers her summers with her Great Aunt Chuney in Tatem abounding with spiritual occurrences. In a flashback to her girlhood, Aunt Chuney tells the tale of enslaved Africans arriving on Ibo Landing (Marshall 1983: 37-40). Once there, the enslaved are provided a supernatural preview of the future that awaited them if they remained in America. The group sees the history of enslavement, emancipation, and hard times for African Americans that continued into the twentieth century. Rather than enduring mistreatment in America, the Ibo people turned around, walked on water, and returned home. Because the Ibos saw an oppressive and violent future ahead of them, they took their lives into their own hands and returned the way that they came (Marshall 1983: 37-40). Every summer, Aunt Chuney would enact a cultural tradition of sharing the story of the resistance of the Ibo people with her grandniece. Tara Green notes the story of the Ibos as an “empowerment over oppression,” a myth passed down to provide hope (2018: 145-6). It is a cultural and oral narrative that the enslaved used to stake claim to their own stories.
41In history, Ibo Landing is also referred to as an empowering choice of enslaved Africans choosing death over slavery. In rebellion, the Igo people took over the ship and killed their captors (Ciucevich 2009: 152). It is thought that once the Igo people made it to land, the group sang “The Water Spirit brought us, the Water Spirit will take us home” before walking into water and accomplishing a mass suicide rather than being forced into slavery (Ciucevich 2009: 152). Oral history traditions mark the Ibos’ resistance to enslavement and power. The Ibos were thought to have walked on water or flown to return home (Watts 2006: 211). The mythological story has continued to be passed down and represented as a story of power and agency.
42It is key to note that the tale of the Ibo Landing requires a suspension of belief. Walking across the ocean while fitted with chains is not possible, and when a ten-year-old Avey questions the validity of the story, she is met with her aunt’s displeasure. To Aunt Chuney, the story of Ibo Landing is as real as the story of Jesus walking on water (Marshall 1983: 40). It is a story of faith. Faith requires belief even if the facts say otherwise. Myths like the “Flying African” and “Ibo Landing” are stories of resistance but also spiritualize the enslaved Africans (Green 2018: 146). They enact nonhuman properties that enable them to escape repressive conditions. As Praisesong iterates, Ibo Landing is possible because of magic and the supernatural qualities that are within the realm of possession when black people bind together in unity. This unity and connection to oral and cultural traditions amongst black individuals guides Avey as she later connects with members of the diaspora in the Caribbean.
43Tatem is also a crucial point in Avey’s development not only because she learns about her black ancestors but also observes Ring Shouts here. Ring Shouts were performed at church and were used to uphold longstanding traditions (Marshall 1983: 33-4). At church, a group would dance, stomp, and clap their hands while in a circle. This tradition has West African roots and was passed down to enslaved, and later to free, black people (Holland). When Great Aunt Chuney is suspended from the Ring Shouts for having crossed her feet, her pride keeps her from ever returning. Standing on the outskirts, Avey’s aunt would watch “unreconciled but nostalgic” for the circle and people “who still held to the old ways” (1983: 34). It is not until years later after Great Aunt Chuney dies and Avey is no longer a young girl that this reawakening to the former ways is finally reconciled.
44The pivotal Aunt Chuney who provides Avey with crucial cultural traditions appears to her in a dream. The spectral Chuney “kept up the patient summons; and from where she stood on the unpaved country road, Avey Johnson ignored it, growing more annoyed each time the hand beckoned” (1983: 41). Chuney’s “patient summons” evokes an image of persistence and pleading, for the spiritual figure recognizes the importance of Avey coming with her and returning to the place that formed a central part of her identity. Green suggests that Aunt Chuney’s pleadings are due to an urgency. Avey is nearly at the point of cultural death (2018: 145). Thus, Avey’s harkening to her aunt’s pleadings and calls to return to Tatem are crucial.
45Avey’s refusal to obey her great aunt’s promptings shows where she is mentally and culturally at the start of the novel. She is not interested in returning to the place that once was a crucial component in her development. This rejection of Great Aunt Chuney’s summons, therefore, is a rejection of her cultural identity. Tegan Zimmerman argues that it is not so much Aunt Chuney who is the ghost in this scene but rather Avey has become a ghost by killing off her past (2023: 219). Avey’s obsession with materialism leads to a rejection of cultural roots as she distances herself from her former communities in Brooklyn and Tatem (Marshall 1983: 140). Avey’s anger after her fur stole falls during the altercation with her aunt further symbolizes the exchange Avey has made for financial upward mobility for her roots (1983: 44). By not accepting the invitation to the place where she spent part of her childhood; the place where she learned about Ibos who defied white enslavers by returning to the ocean rather than become slaves; the place where people performed Ring Shouts; Avey appears to be too far gone. As shown by Jerome’s rejection of such appreciation of black cultural practices and communities, his untimely demise reflects Praisesong’s disapproval. However, Avey, the main character, who went down a similar path as her husband reaffirms that this condition does not have to be permanent.
46By Avey following the promptings to leave her cruise ship, she can create a new path for herself. The dreams involving the ghostly Aunt Chuney speak to the deeper parts of Avey and help her to remember a part that she had let die. Avey’s decision to leave the cruise ship and get off at an unknown location is not a rational choice. Instead of making a well-thought-out decision or one that appears practical, naturally speaking, she makes one from the depths of her being. It is a spiritual decision. The spiritual pressures that prompt Avey off the ship are the mysterious pit in her stomach and the lack of peace that Avey feels, which cannot be tied to a physical ailment (Marshall 1983: 51-52). Susan Rogers suggests that “Avey’s body communicates to her what she has taught her conscious mind to ignore: her disconnection from her sense of herself and from the African American and Caribbean heritage which is a crucial part of that self” (2000: 77). While Avey feels physically sick, she is undergoing an intangible, spiritual change. Her mind has started to slip. She is confronted by strange visions that cannot describe something occurring in everyday life. Avey notes that “before she could think to act, her eyes played another of their frightening tricks. In a swift, subliminal flash, all the man’s wrinkled sunbaked skin fell away...” (Marshall 1983: 59). What happens to Avey’s mind on the ship supports this idea that her experiences are going beyond what she can physically control. She has begun to see things that extend past the natural realm, which frightens her enough to leave the cruise ship. Praisesong for the Widow asks readers to suspend disbelief of events that can only take place in the natural and to instead believe events and feelings that speak to other dimensions.
47Spirituality can be used to describe what does not make sense in the traditional world. When Avey gets off the cruise ship and lands in Grenada, an island in the Caribbean, she is visited by the spectral Jerome and meets Lebert Joseph, her guide into the spiritual world. Lebert Joseph is modeled on the Yoruba (a West African ethnic group) and Caribbean deity, Legba. Legba represents a deity of the crossroads in that he serves as a liaison between the spiritual and natural worlds (Russell 2009: 12, 26). Lebert’s guidance helps Avey move beyond her worldview that distanced her from remaining connected to her culture. Avey’s spiritual transformation parallels the outward transformation readers observe Lebert undergoing. At several points, Lebert’s physical form changes beyond Avey’s eyes. In a scene where Lebert shows his dance moves, his limp seemingly disappears, his legs become equal lengths, he becomes younger and taller in an instant, and his masculine disposition becomes more feminine (Marshall 1983: 179). Lebert’s ability to change at will connects to spiritual and cultural practices and aids Avey in the final steps of embracing her multidimensional identity.
48Through Lebert’s guidance, he convinces Avey to take a short boat trip to Carriacou where he pays respects to ancestors and visits living relatives. Similarly, it is here on the boat trip that Avey endures the rebirthing process that reconnects her with her ancestors. Whilst on the boat to Carriacou, Avey remembers the annual boat trip she would take as a child up the Hudson River to Bear Mountain. In her flashback, she recalls a “strange sensation” that was the same feeling she would get when at church in Tatem. The memory of invisible threads reaching out to black people across the world supports the novel’s purpose of connection and reconnection of members across the African diaspora (1983: 190). Also, in this flashback, she is a little girl on Easter Sunday who becomes sick. In the book’s literary present, she also becomes violently ill. Avey’s connection between her past and present merges in this moment.
49Instead of continually being influenced by Jerome’s upward mobility story that led to him disowning his culture, Avey begins a different transformation process. Reaching back to Avey’s ancestry, the novel alludes to the transatlantic slave trade as she crosses the ocean: “her mind flickered on briefly of other bodies lying crowded in with her in the hot, airless dark. A multitude it felt like lay packed around her in the filth and stench of themselves, just as she was... Their suffering—the depth of it, the weight of it in the cramped space—made hers of no consequence” (Marshall 1983: 209). Avey becomes spiritually connected with her ancestors as they make their journey to a new location. Both Avey and victims of the transatlantic slave trade entered their respective boats and were never the same again. While the journeys were physically taxing, there is a transformation that takes place. Spirituality can be used to describe the depth, dimension, and seriousness of the transatlantic slave trade, which literally altered the course of history. It is more than a corporeal event.
50In a similar vein, while Avey does not change physically, her spirit transforms. Like a child dependent on the care of her mother, Avey becomes physically unable to care for herself as she is born again. Rosalie Parvay, Lebert Joseph’s daughter, cares for Avey as she lies sick after the boat trip. During her illness, Avey is confused about who looks after her: “her mother holding in her hands a bottle of medicine and a spoon, the nurse in the hospital where she had had her children...the figure had even grown to twice its height at one point to become her great-aunt beckoning to her in the dream” (1983: 217). Avey remembers the women who cared for her in the past and subconsciously connects Rosalie’s care with those in previous moments of her life. Physically and spiritually, Avey becomes purged from her and Jerome’s upward mobility narrative grounded in materialism and rejection of black cultural roots. Avey’s rebirth is further solidified by women on the boat and Lebert Joseph’s daughter and her maid caring for her as she gathers her strength. Memories of Halsey Street, early motherhood, and Aunt Chuney remind Avey of moments when she allowed herself to embrace her tripartite identity and culture.
51When Avey feels well enough to leave Rosalie’s and attend the Big Drum ceremony, she recognizes connections to the traditions in Tatem. The Ring Shouts Avey saw her great aunt and her church members perform are similar to the Beg Pardon dance performed on the island. The text locates the Ring Shouts in Tatem, the Beg Pardon dance in Carriacou, and the dances with Jay in Brooklyn as revelations to Avey’s tripartite self in that these three moments of dancing connect her to black diasporic communities that celebrate cultural traditions. At the Big Drum ceremony, the dancers ask their ancestors for forgiveness while drums play (Thorsson 2013: 644). The symbolic significance of the Beg Pardon dance brings readers full circle as Avey dances in a similar manner that her ancestor Chuney did.
52The text reaffirms that it is not merely a matter of dancing, rather it is a spiritual reconnection to Avey’s past. Trancelike, Avey joins the Beg Pardon dance and in a full circle moment: “Her face was expressionless, her body still and composed, her bottom lip had unfolded to bare the menacing sliver of pink... Finally, just as the moving wall of bodies was almost upon her, she too moved—a single declarative step forward” (Marshall 1983: 247). This key scene is a reclamation of Avey’s roots. Avey takes a purposeful, measured movement toward others’ dancing. Her action is twofold. Not only is she physically closing the gap between herself and the people of Carriacou, but symbolically, she is also spiritually or metaphysically returning to her black culture. By unfolding her lip, she unearths its full size and shape to embrace a black physical characteristic. Unlike Avey Johnson who would fold her lips tight to minimize their size thus displaying her discomfort with her complete black identity, this new Avey releases constructions that work to minimize her blackness. This “declarative step forward” is an announcement that she is no longer bound to her husband’s upward mobility story that requires a leaving behind of one’s cultural community rather she reconnects with her roots.
53Avey’s return to her past identity now shapes her present identity and understanding of the world around her. Avey is brought back to the Ring Shouts performed at the church in Tatem while being present at the Beg Pardon dance in Carriacou. For a moment, Avey, too, like her aunt stood outside the Beg Pardon dance “unreconciled but nostalgic” (Marshall 1983: 34) for a rebirth and reemergence as Avatara, the person who connected with and appreciated her cultural subgroupings. This looping bond of connection reconciles Avey with her ancestors and reconnects her with her aunt (Green 2018: 159). This spiritual expression of claiming admittance into the dance is doublefold as Avey’s actions provide a healing of severed ties for Aunt Chuney too. Yet, this nostalgia for a cultural memory from the past becomes complete and no longer unreconciled as Avey is finally able to enter the dance. Unlike her aunt, Avey does not have to stay on the outskirts any longer. She is brought in and welcomed into black diasporic traditions. The hands that draw Avey into the Beg Pardon dance evoke the summons of Aunt Chuney and her beckoning hand (1983: 41). The hands motif works as a Rememory of Avey’s past.
54Praisesong for the Widow’s conclusion suggests that circular mobility is the best option for black adults like Avey who need to reconnect with one’s past. This embrace of a former identity connects Avey back to a tripartite identity that has roots in Tatem, Brooklyn, and her new home, Carriacou. At the conclusion of the novel, Avey vows to tell everyone about her spiritual transformation and to warn “those young, bright, fiercely articulate token few for whom her generation had worked the two and three jobs, she would stop them” (1983: 255). Avey recognizes the negative impact upward mobility had on her and her family in that it prevented her from finding cultural peace. As Lean’tin L. Bracks further explains, Avey’s loss is due to exchanging material success for her roots. The exchange that occurs in Jerome and Avey in their hopes for upward mobility causes a disconnection as they forget where they came from. Avey’s transformation was necessary but a result of Jerome's overworking and the couple’s rejection of their roots in exchange for monetary success. Finally, Avey vows to return to Tatem and requests her grandchildren’s visits so that she can tell the story Aunt Chuney once told her.
55Praisesong for the Widow speaks to cultural and political issues from the past up until its 1983 publication. The post-Civil Rights Movement novel identifies social mobility challenges for African Americans due to systemic racism, which impacted employment opportunities and inclusion in social welfare. 1980s America under Ronald Reagan’s presidency was repressive for policies negatively impacted black people, disproportionately. Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign centered around the racialized narrative of a “welfare queen” who took advantage of the American welfare system (“Black America”: 13). Despite hardships occurring during Jim Crow and following the Civil Rights Movement, Praisesong advocates for a black nationalism rooted in the spiritual. The upward mobility narrative is a genre that centers on dynamic characters who journey to find financial and educational success. These journeys or methods to upwardly advance are not always smooth or advocated for as shown through Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow. Although Robbins outlines the requirement of distancing from one’s subgroup as one upwardly advances, this arguably is not an appropriate path for black characters following the second reconstruction. Praisesong criticizes Jerome’s upward advancement as he creates distance from his former self, cultural expressions, and communities. Instead, Avey follows the same upward mobility narrative as Jerome until she is spiritually called to begin anew. Avey’s transatlantic, diasporic connections reaching back from her childhood and reemerging as she links with Caribbean culture spiritually allow for a view that reimagines black characters’ agency and empowerment despite social conditions in the United States.