A Summary Of Lutie's Growth
Throughout a majority of the novel, Lutie, the main character fights her battle of survival as her and her son Bub live through poverty. Although she continuously gets crushed every step of the way she always kept her head up as she wanted to give the best to her son. However, towards the end of the novel we see this change as Lutie gets exposed to things that become out of her control and she starts to give up. Despite Luties strength and commendable qualities, Petry sent her on a ‘journey of decline’ to her breaking point.
From the start of the novel Petry describes the social issues going on throughout Harlem, and how Lutie goes about living with them. Right away Lutie is interrogated by Jones and Mrs. Hedges whether it be on a personal
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However, as Petry sends her on that ‘journey of decline’ she begins to crumble and lose control. “Lutie thought no one could live on a street like this and stay decent. It would get them sooner or later, for it sucked the humanity out of the people slowly, surely, inevitably” (Petry 229). She felt that no one could live a normal life on the street and somehow they will fall apart at some point. Although she held on for a long, she began to get the idea that eventually she won’t be able to go any longer, and will fail to get out of poverty. “Suppose it didn’t work and she had to stay there, what would the street do to her? She thought of Mrs. Hedges, the super, Min, Mrs. Hedges’ little girls. Which one would she be like, say five years from now? What would Bub be like?” (Petry 184). Lutie never stopped thinking in the back of her head about what would happen if she didn’t succeed. She reaches her breaking point when the super attempts to sexually assault her. During this time, women in Harlem were treated under very bad circumstances such as situations like these because people felt they were easy targets. Although Lutie came out of the situation unharmed, her fear increased drastically. In addition, Boots and Junto eventually team up together against Lutie as they claim to give her a chance to sing at Junto, however end up turning their back on her and refusing to pay or even help her to start up a
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