Sister Citizen

Post World War II cognitive psychology research studies on field independence were performed to show how individuals locate the upright in a space. Placed in a crooked chair in a crooked room, researchers found that some people could be tilted by as much as 35 degrees and report that they were perfectly straight based on being aligned with the other tilted images. In Melissa V. Harris Perry’s book, Sister Citizen, she references how the study mirrors black women’s struggle when they confront issues such as identity, gender roles, intimacy and mental health. Toni Morrison, author of God Help the Child develops these themes that are expanded on in Sister Citizen. The main character in Morrison’s novel, Bride, experiences both internal and external assimilation caused by the crooked room. Cloaked in her own image, Brides attempts to stand upright in a crooked room can be seen as both resilience or fragility.

Born Lula Ann Bridewell, she changes her name to Bride at sixteen as an attempt at defining herself. She wanted to distance herself from her parents who were ashamed of her because of her dark skin.

Upon his departure from her life she began to recap events in a way that lets the reader know what matters to her. “selfish bastard, I paid the rent, not him, and the mail too. When we went to clubs and concerts we rode in my beautiful Jaguar or in cars I hired”. (Morrison 12) her ability to financially deliver gave her a sense of control. She goes on to talk about the beautiful shirts she bought him that he never wore. Her lack of positive examples combined with her overcompensating, caused her to treat him like a possession yet she never questions him in efforts to not cause trouble just as her mother taught her to as a child. She also admits that she talked about herself mostly and later realizes the error in