Option Z (creative option). At the end of both Black Girl Lost and Baby of the Family, a young African American woman sits waiting in a room. Compare, contrast, and evaluate the literary and cultural statuses of the two characters in relation to the worlds in which they live.

• How much has each character been free to tell her own story, and how much has her story been told for her? Alternatively, How has each reacted to her environment, and how much can either move beyond her environment?
• Based on what has gone before in each book, what possibilities are available for either woman? How much have their stories been told, and how much of their stories remain to be imagined by their readers?
• Conclude by relating each character’s story to "The Dream."

(This essay topic is shorter, but your essay shouldn’t be shorter or slacker. This topic gives you a chance to "dream" along with these characters, but that dream should be built from textual and thematic materials from your reading and from our class as well as from your imagination beyond those areas.)

We first see Lena in a quiet, sterile, white delivery room. We first see Sandra on a cold, dark street looking at a decaying building and listening to loud, abusive language. Sandra is a would-be victim from the opening pages with the man who almost molests her. Lena is a "chosen one" from the moment she appears with her caul over her face. Sandra goes about on "her daily search for food" and has to shoplift her clothes. In Lena’s life, "Food, after all, was just sustenance, but it was also something glorious and rapturous for the family." (106) Lena has her mama and grandmama making her clothes for all occasions. These examples should show that these two young women who we see waiting in their rooms, have come from completely different circumstances. The contrast is stark and striking.

Sandra has a mother that calls her, all too frequently, "Bitch" and "whore." Lena has a mother that gets the whole family to join in , ‘Hold the baby’ spoken just so made Lena feel safe and warm and looked after. Lena has family and friends. Sandra has Sammy and Chink. Where there is truly a circle of love for Lena, for Sandra that circle has always been smashed, broken and missing pieces which would make it whole.

Sandra is brutally raped and her man defends her honor. Lena and Sarah "play house" and get caught, causing Lena to lose her friend. We see Chink "free at last" as he dies. We hear that same thought from Rachel as she recounts tying herself to the tree and letting the water wash over her and take her to her freedom.

In "Black Girl Lost" we have fewer characters to remember than in "Baby of the Family." I cared for Chink and Sandra and even dear Sammy. I read about Lena, Nellie, Sarah and Mamie, but my heartstrings were not played even though the language of "baby of the family" was almost classical - as opposed to the hip hop/urban words of "Black Girl Lost."

I felt the scenes with Sandra, I observed them with Lena. I lived with Sandra, I watched Lena on a screen. One cannot read about Sandra without feeling deeply for her every circumstance, while it is possible to view Lena with a much more clinical detachment.

Sandra has not been free to tell her own story, much of her story has been determined by circumstances and happenstance. Her story has been told by others as well as been formed by others. Sandra has in many ways risen above her environment- she is articulate, well-dressed and is capable of loving. How far can she go? I believe that if given the chance, Sandra would move on to love again and be happy. If she were to be tried for killing Chink, or any of the assorted offenses that went along with his escape, I think she would survive her time in prison, but I think her spirit would be lost.

Lena has not been free to tell her story, the spirits have stopped her from being able to mention them. Her story has been told by others as well as been formed by others. Lena has indeed been "babied" and she will need to grow up fast. Can she move beyond her environment? I think she will always be near "The Place."

I think for both the young women, and with thanks to the skills of the authors, the possibilities that await each of them is definitely up to the reader’s imagination. I think that a lot of the possibilities I foresee for them have to do with my background. I want a "good" ending for Sandra; as for Lena, well I don’t want bad things to happen, but look at all that girl has already been given! Yet sadly, it is easy to believe that we might see the one who has much given more, while she who has little is stripped of what little she has. Life has not dealt even hands to these two women, and to expect otherwise in the future is overly optimistic.

Sandra has tasted a little bit of the dream, a wee little bit. She has lived with a taste of material success and money, though not acquired in the best of circumstances. I think her taste will make her hunger for more - hunger has always been in her life.

Lena was born into a family that is comfortable and respected, at least by the patrons of "The Place." She has not done without too much and knows that success is possible. I would think that "The Dream" will be her dream if the night spirits allow.

The way you have phrased this immediately brought to mind Audre Lord’s "Hanging Fire" with the image of the girl too big for her room and the mom in the bedroom behind closed doors. I would liken the girl too big for her room to Sandra and the girl behind the closed door to Lena, and then again I would liken the girl too big for her room to Lena and the girl behind the closed doors to Sandra.

Sandra is too big for her room - the ghetto. This is a young woman with smarts, both intellectual and street. Lena is too big for her room - her ordinary life. < She needs to have the opportunity to harness the gifts that she has been given. Lena is hiding out because of those same gifts, her uniqueness, her "otherness." Sandra is hiding out because of where she has come from and at the end of the book, because of who she loves. [PAA 00]

* I suppose that I am choosing Option Z for classification’s sake, but you know how I hate categories, so my essay (as you’ll see) will be a reflection of the combining of the two options given (for as much as time allows me).*

In reading our first two books of the semester, Goines’s Black Girl Lost and Ansa’s Baby of the Family, I see a wide range of dynamics shown between the books concerning the literature and culture of African Americans in the 20th century. Coming into this class, my only experiences with African American literature had been books dealing with a "strong, black woman" who really knows who she is and what she wants. I had admired that since, sometimes I feel just the opposite of possessing that kind of confidence and strength against all odds. Given some of my life circumstances, I longed for that quality in my own character. What’s interesting about these two books is that they focus on the journey of lost, confused, scared black young girls – that sheds a whole new light on how they come to be these amazing women I adore. So, I really enjoyed comparing the two settings and styles of the books and the characters they portray. (I can’t necessarily say that either was my favorite as far as the characters go – you just sort of love them both. But stylistically, I prefer Baby… or maybe it’s just because I love Rachel’s chapter so much.)

There is a definite relationship between the literary style the author’s use and the cultural scenarios of each book. This is evident just in the first lines of text from each book. "The sounds coming from inside the house were more than just loud and helter-skelter… the cuss words seemed to fill the night air whirling around the child who stood shivering in the Los Angeles…wind" (Goines 7). By beginning the story this way, Goines immediately gives the reader the tone of his work – harsh, cold, direct, fast, lonely. Contrast that image with Ansa’s opening lines. "A hush swallowed the hot little room as the mother…bore her…baby girl into the world. ‘Awww,’ the doctor’s and nurses sighs floated on the hot humid air of the room like a hymn." Here we have the tone of this piece – warm, melodic, familial, leisurely. Readers find that not only are these the tones set in the books, but they are the styles of the authors. In Goines’s book, we are rushed from one scene to the next. It’s action based, as is the life of Sandra. With Ansa, we pause, even in the middle of scenes, just to get a little more history or insight into a character or place. Neither style is necessarily better than the other, but both are necessary to complete the goal of telling their stories. The styles cannot be interchanged given the plot of the two novels. To have Ansa writing Lena’s story in Goines’s style (or vice-versa with Sandra’s story) would make either book an impossible read.

The main characters of each story have not been free to tell their own story as much as they could have been. Both novels were written in the third person, as many novels are. Still, I cannot help but wonder how it would’ve been to read their stories in a first person narrative. To do so, of course, would be to miss out on major cues in other characters’ behavior patterns that are necessary to the plot. Lena is very sheltered by her family, for example, and we know so much about them through Ansa’s liberty with third person tense. And if Sandra were free to tell her own story, she’d probably have us believe that she’s tougher and more independent than Goines shows us she really is. By not being totally free to tell their own stories, though, there is a certain element of that voiceless quality that echoes throughout the respective plots.

Both girls have reacted differently but appropriately to their environments, given their different settings. Sandra centers everything on survival. Even her relationship with Chink is based on need. She finds herself in desperate circumstances and he is part of her "opportunity" to "make it." She loves him, as we see, but I believe that her love itself is part of that need to survive, to have something worth surviving for. Her mother certainly does not provide the nurturing that a young girl needs. And we tend to forget, as she moves in with Chink and he calls her his "woman," that she is indeed, just a child. Conversely, we are constantly reminded with Lena that she is the "baby." She cannot even go to the creek like her brothers to play or cross the street by herself to visit a friend. Her life is quite sheltered and we know that, despite the faults of her family, Lena is loved. Still, she has her own demons (pardon the pun). She is in search of her self. Does her gift make her who she is? Who is she without "the magic"? We do not see either girl grow to maturity, but we do see enough to know that they are limited in what they can do as far as moving beyond their environments. Sandra only accomplishes pseudo-movement in that she thinks she has overcome her past when she gets the apartment with Chink, but they still live outside the law. Lena only has degrees of movement available to her. She cannot get away from herself or her past, but she does try to come to terms with it by the end of the book.

In the ending scenes of each book, both girls are alone, and the possibilities facing each girl, on the surface, are grim. For Sandra, her first options seem to be either suicide or prison. She’s left beside Chink’s dead body and the police are there to take them into custody. Somehow, there is the hope of a second chance. Sammy may rescue her from a harsh sentence or the cops may feel sorry enough for her to let her walk away. As far as what will actually happen, we are told that she doesn’t care as long as she knows "her man was free… at last" (Goines 184).[dream] Lena’s options seem to be drenched with terror and loneliness and fear as we leave her there in her bed sitting up all night. Maybe she is afraid to go to sleep. Maybe she has too much to think about. Maybe after all that staring into the mirror she still doesn’t know who she is… or maybe she discovered that she doesn’t like who she found there. There are so many loose ends. Perhaps all night awake, pondering one’s life, leads to a renewed faith and strength and confidence to replace all of her bad feelings.

Because we only get sketches of Sandra’s life, little vignettes of her experiences, we are less connected to her by the end of the book than we would like to be. At least, this was true for me. I sympathized for her and empathized with her, but her peace was mine in the end. As she let Chink go, I could let her go. But we uncover the story of Lena in layers; slowly, carefully, and deliberately, Ansa reveals her life to us. By the end of the book, when she sits wide-eyed clutching her covers, I clutch her the same way. I am not willing to release her into the darkness. There are parts of both girls’ stories that remain to be told. For the most part, it remains to be imagined. What I long to know more about in the end is Sandra’s soul and Lena’s future. Will they become the great women I have read about before? How will they get to that point? I find that I have more questions than answers, and that’s surprisingly okay with me.

The girls, through their experiences, have embodied the Dream to a certain extent. There was the need for struggle, gained and missed opportunities, setbacks, and the continual desire to rise again. The last lines of the books leave the image of the Dream with us. Ansa has Grandmama telling Lena to "claim what is yours… it’s your birthright." This suggests not only for

Lena to claim what is hers, but for all African Americans to claim their birthright as equal citizens of this country. Goines makes a direct reference to Dr. King’s famous speech by writing of Chink from Sandra’s viewpoint, "…her man was free... He was free at last." This is how I envision the futures of the two girls. A battle against the system, against inner secret fears, and against anything or anyone who stands in the way of their becoming. Becoming who they already are. (Like the woman in some old movie said to the man, "You’re already in love with me, only you just don’t know it yet." It’s the same here. In their journey to become women, they must learn at some point that the women they "become" are made of the girls they are at these moments of the ending of the books.) Once they grow up, if they’ve succeeded at the task of understanding and accepting one’s self, and of causing the rest of the world to understand and accept them as well, I suppose that the idea I’ve had or known of African American literature, my limited experience anyway, would’ve come full circle. [JM 00]