In a country run on the backs of dollar bills, to intentionally hold back an entire race of people is not only indicative of a truly disgusting sense of superiority and entitlement, but is also incredibly harmful to society over the long term. Likewise, Jones’s open mouth pairs with the gaping cellar door, the approaching threat of rape, and Lutie’s silence makes the reader just as powerless as she is. It is this metamorphosis‹”The same people who had made themselves small on the train, even on the platform, suddenly grew so large they could hardly get up the stairs to the street together” (58)‹that defies objectified labels, and the competition for street space is based upon personal largeness rather than on the shrinking of the public sphere. The relationship between Lutie Johnson and the urban setting is established by the use of personification, imagery and characterization, in The Street by Ann Petry. The characterization of Lutie reinforces the notion that one can reach their goals in the city amid adversity with the mettle and motivation to succeed.

The possibility of death or violence in the city is implied through the image of the apartment sign’s white paint—symbolic of purity, innocence—being battered by “years of rain and snow” (53) to appear with a “dark red stain like blood” (55). The Street by Ann Petry: Literary Analysis “There was a cold November wind blowing through 116 th Street.” You’re alone in an unfamiliar, grimy and bitter city, just looking for a place to spend the night. The wind is described negatively by its actions towards pedestrians further, as driving people off the streets and doing “everything it could to discourage the people walking along the street.” (Lines 21-22) By giving the setting human-like qualities, it makes it easier for the reader compare it with Lutie, and find the relationship between the two. As her own perceptions and actions towards the outside world begin to pervert and twist, Lutie’s race and gender function as both inner and outer demons, providing volatile context for her life as a woman, a provider, and a mother. The imagery of “theater throwaways, announcements of dances and lodge meetings” (11-12) blown around shows some of the city’s local color and—with the asyndetic structure—identifies and emphasizes the large scope of the wind’s area of effect.

(236) The subjects, grammatically or to the reader’s eyes, of the choppy sentences are usually body parts‹his fingers, his arms, her feet, her nails, and the final demonic image of Jones’s face‹as both assaulter and victim again are objectified, as on the subway. Nevertheless, sight, as we will later see, is the most powerful sense in The Street; it opens up space for males, often as an illusion, while women are cornered in, as is Lutie here. Petry descriptively characterizes in her novel, in order to establish a relationship between the setting and the main character, Lutie. The speaker’s strong diction personifies the wind as the city’s mischievous and aggressive antagonist. As a musician, not a singer, Boots is deft with objects and can move via objects, as his name suggests. They dressed hurriedly in their small dark hall bedrooms, so impatient for the soft lights and music and the fun that awaited them that they fumbled in their haste.

Although at times she “felt suddenly naked and bald” (36-37) when the wind would lift her “hair away from the back of her neck” (35-36), touch “the back of her neck and [explore] the sides of her head” (39-40), she endured the wind’s abuse, so she could accomplish her mission. Be sure to review the Chief Reader Report (2019 versions available later this fall). In The Street, Petry uses imagery as a tool to establish a relationship between the setting and Lutie. The sagging leather pouch that was swung over his shoulder bulged with mail. 0 Moreover, despite being a woman of mettle, she remained undaunted by the sign whose “metal had slowly rusted, making a dark red stain like blood” (54-55), this pun possibly foreshadowing an unpleasant future if she remains in the city. Through the combined use of these devices and others, Petry is able to make the reader relate to Lutie in this new, harsh and confusing environment. Science Teacher and Lover of Essays.

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