Praisesong For The Widow

“[T]o Avey Johnson’s disgust, [Thomasina] had abandoned them to dance in a carnival parade they were watching with other passengers from the Bianca Pride. Had gone off amide a throng of strangers swishing her bony hips to the drums. With the slight hump like an organ grinder’s monkey begging pennies from her shoulders. And with their fellow passengers watching. White face laughing! White hands applauding! Avey Johnson had never been so mortified.” 

The increasingly present motif of dance is introduced here through Avey’s shame in seeing Thomasina move freely in front of the other passengers. This quote is significant because it reveals Avey’s long-conditioned anxiety about her black identity—and that of her peers. She associates Thomasina’s free movement with the blackness she has tried to stamp out from her public image. It is a blackness rooted in cultural expression as well as one she feels subscribes to white prejudice. To Avey, the white passengers’ pleasure in watching Thomasina dance is at her expense—she fears they enjoy watching a caricature and revel in a type of performative blackness. Therefore, this quote reveals the racism Avey has internalized and which dictates her perception of decorum. 

“As a rule she seldom dreamed. Or if she did, whatever occurred in her sleep was always conveniently forgotten by the time she awoke. It had been like this ever since the mid-sixties. Before then, she had found herself taking all the nightmare images from the evening news into her sleep with her. The electric cattle prods and lunging dogs. The high pressure hoses that were like a dam bursting. The lighted cigarettes being ground out on the arms of those sitting in at the lunch counters. Her dreams were a rerun of it all.”

Dreams communicate Avey’s subconscious desires and fears. Here, her ability to shut out her dreams represents willful decisions to root out horrid memories and thoughts. Avey’s conscious decision to free her mind of these images—images of the violence inflicted upon black Americans during the civil rights era—is initially to protect herself from the pain of existing within this system. The quote is also a stark reminder that Avey lived through the Civil Rights Era. Therefore, her decision to repress her black identity reads as a survival mechanism that results in the prolonged neglect of her culturally specific self. Furthermore, this reminder of the brutalities black Americans faced continues to serve as a contrast to the privileged lifestyle Avey and Jerome achieve by turning a blind eye to these injustices; they trade their cultural identity for material success. 

“Puzzled, she sat for what felt to be a long while, listening to the noise around her and gazing at her immobilized hand holding the spoon. Her slight frown had returned. Until finally, without her having anything to do with it, her hand suddenly came alive again with a jerk, and she found herself firmly placing the spoon back down on the table. Her heart was beating thickly. Her stomach, her entire midsection felt odd.”

Avey’s body can sense what her mind cannot, and her inexplicable motions and feelings allude to the significant revelations she will accomplish in submitting to her physical sensations. This is accomplished by Avey’s gradual realization that her body can become a place where physical sensations indicate more meaningful emotions. Though she is confused by her lack of control, Avey detects something is wrong. This awareness, as it develops, allows Avey to embark on a physical journey (both through her movement from place to place as well as the bodily functions she will endure) that restores her awareness of her cultural identity and ancestral duty. Just like in her dreams, Avey’s body works to communicate what her subconscious needs: her heritage and cultural sense of self. 

“Her head raised, Avey Johnson followed the bird’s stiff-winged trajectory into the bright midmorning sky. It appeared to be rushing in a straight desperate line toward the upper air, as far above the ship as possible. It struck her as being somehow alive despite the stiffness—as something human and alive—and she felt a sudden empathy with it. She almost heard herself call out a warning; and when the shot rang out a few seconds later, shattering it midair, she recoiled as violently as if the old woman with the gun had turned in the next instant and fired it at her […].”

This passage represents the danger Avey finds herself in: the danger of losing herself completely. The clay pigeon being catapulted for a white woman to shoot symbolizes Avey: stiff and lifeless from decades of molding herself so she can live in a world where she can never enjoy herself. She sees herself in the bird, and this sudden realization reveals her deep understanding that beneath the rigid surface, she is still alive. 

“Many of them in passing greeted Avey Johnson. A young couple leading two little girls in matching sundresses between them smiled and waved at her. An elderly man looking formal in a dark suit and tie lifted his hat. A woman in a bright yellow print carrying a small suitcase not only waved but called out something to her in Patois.”

This scene marks the great contrast between the settings of the cruise ship and the island, as well as their respective effects on Avey. On the cruise ship, the other passengers ignore Avey and her travel companions. To keep these slights from bothering her, Avey taught herself to ignore or suppress her feelings about being treated so poorly. Once she is on the island, Avey is overwhelmed by kind treatment and, being so used to the cold treatment of her fellow passengers, she becomes irritated. This emphasizes the importance of Avey’s carefully crafted persona; at this time, she does not want to fit in with the crowd on the wharf because she has spent the past three decades fighting to fit in with comfortable middle-class society of White Plains. Rather than interpreting these gestures as friendliness, she interprets them as marking her failure. 

“Taking her first look out their hotel room window at the endless range of craggy, snow-covered mountains surrounding them at the Arctic sky above, she had felt tears well up for a moment […] for months afterwards, she would find herself thinking—again for no apparent reason—of the practice among the Eskimos long ago of banishing their old people out on the ice to die. She would see—the image vivid for a second in her mind—the bent figure of an old woman, her face hidden in the deep ruff of fur around her hood, left huddled on some snowy waste, while the sleds filled with the members of her tribe raced away toward warmer ground. For months the perplexing vision had come and gone.”

This quote portrays the profound isolation Avey feels because of her disconnection from her culture. Rather than reflecting her anxiety over aging, the quote reveals her guilt over neglecting her cultural inheritance and her fear of being permanently abandoned. The passage also conveys the isolation felt across generations of descendants of the African diaspora; it communicates the overwhelming pain of feeling disconnected from one’s people. 

“Like someone unable to recover from a childhood trauma—hunger, injury, abuse, a parent suddenly and inexplicably gone—Jerome Johnson never got over Halsey Street. When she had long purged her thoughts and feelings of the place, and had come to regard those years there as having been lived by someone other than herself, it continued to haunt him, and to figure in some way in nearly everything he did.”

Part 2 of the novel offers a great deal of characterization for Avey and Jerome while describing the gradual breakdown and ultimate loss of their sense of selves. For Jerome, it was the relentless fight to escape a street that represented their greatest fears that led to his loss of self. Halsey Street, for Jerome more than Avey, was a constant reminder of the material scarcity they feared would lead to the loss of themselves. Ironically, it is Jerome’s unyielding pursuit of material success that leads to this. As with most unprocessed trauma, the lasting impact of Jerome’s is that he fears the trauma is always in danger of repeating itself and therefore never allows himself a moment’s rest. 

“He would lie within her like a man who has suddenly found himself inside a temple of some kind, and hangs back, overcome by the magnificence of the place, and sensing around him the invisible forms of the deities who reside there […] Until under her touch and the words she whispered to him […] his hesitancy fell away, and he was suddenly speaking again. But with his body this time. A more powerful voice. Another kind of poetry.”

This scene shows the spiritual, emotional, and physical connection Avey and Jerome enjoyed before they lost themselves to the pursuit of money. The quote accomplishes this by likening their sexual connection to a temple, positing that this should be acknowledged and revered with zeal. Furthermore, the passage associates this bond with their cultural connection by describing it as poetry; on the previous page, Avey describes the frequency at which poetry filled their home and Jerome’s passionate rendition of the works of Hughes, Brooks, and Hayden. 

“Those private times in the bedroom! They had seemed inviolable. Yet, as with everything else, they gradually fell victim to the strains, to the sense of the downward slide which had brought on that Tuesday night in the living room, and to the punishing years that followed. Jay’s touch increasing became that of a man whose thoughts were elsewhere, and whose body, even while merged with hers, felt impatient to leave and join them. […] Love like a burden her wanted rid of. Like a leg-iron which slowed him in the course he had set for himself.”

Avey relates the significant loss their marriage suffers as they pursue material success. This passage relates that their sex life became predominately transactional, rather than the spiritual and emotional experience they once shared. Money and success taint all aspects of their life, but this is one of the most painful losses for Avey. Her husband loses the ability to see her and truly be present with her, so her body becomes repository for his burdens.  

“The lights from the surrounding balconies caught the sheen of the tears against her blackness. The tropical night resonated with the sound of her grief. For the first time, in the four years since Jerome Johnson’s death, she was mourning him, finally shedding the tears that had eluded her even on the day of his funeral. Bent over almost double on the side of the recline, Avey Johnson mourned—not his death so much, but his life.”

The first major step in Avey’s spiritual journey is to mourn the person her husband once was because it forces her to recognize the same loss of identity in herself. By having the natural scenery echo the sounds of Avey’s pain, the novel roots this revelation in the setting, indicating that Avey’s being on the island is essential in reaching this discovery. Finally, in mourning Jerome’s life, Avey realizes that it was not truly a life worth living. Mourning her husband—the real version of him—is an integral component in her ability to address her pain and move on. 

“’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: ‘The trouble with half these Negroes out here is that they spend all their time blaming the white man for everything […]’ Holding them solely responsible.” 

Jerome’s immense change and its ultimate impact is represented here. First, his unrelenting drive, which stems from his knowledge that obstacles are placed in his path because of his race, emphasizes the same reality for black Americans during (and beyond) this time. To succeed, Jerome must work substantially harder than his white counterparts. Rather than causing him to hate the system designed to hurt him, he begins to resent himself because of his skin color. Once he achieves some success, he takes this anger out on the rest of his race, blaming the victims rather than, again, the system itself. Like Avey, this reflects an internalized racism that lets Jerome reconcile a success that required his complicity in oppressive structures. He adopts the mindset that if he can overcome such obstacles, then the only reason others cannot is because they do not work as hard as him. 

“She understood suddenly what it must be like for a child to find itself surrounded by a wealth of Christmas toys but finding no pleasure in them because the one it wanted most wasn’t there […] Something that simple, yet containing all the magic in the world.”

This quote demonstrates the demoralizing effects of materialism. By likening herself to her grandchild unsatisfied with the array of presents on Christmas Day, Avey portrays the simplicity of the important things—that the things we want most in life will always matter more that the quantity of things we possess. Though Avey achieved the financial stability she always dreamed of, she realizes that the cost—of losing her happiness and her husband—was never worth it.  

“What would it have taken? […] Awareness. It would have called for an awareness of the worth of what they possessed. Vigilance. The vigilance needed to safeguard it. To hold it like a jewel high out of the envious reach of those who would either destroy it or claim it as their own. And strength. It would have taken strength on their part, and the will and even cunning necessary to withstand the glitter and excess. To take only what was needed and run. And distance. Above all, a certain distance of the mind and heart had been absolutely essential.” 

Avey has finally achieved the clarity she has missed for the last few decades: clarity to understand what she and Jerome had, as well as how to protect it. However, it arrives too late. This passage explains the true cost of material success. The novel intertwines the themes of loss and materialism to facilitate Avey’s spiritual awakening. Though it is too late for Jerome, Avey can still implement this knowledge in order to change—and thus save—her life. 

“Nothing crosses her drawn, spent face or stirred in her eyes. It was as if a saving numbness had filtered down over her mind while she slept to spare her the aftershock of the ordeal she had undergone last evening. Or that her mind, like her pocketbook outside, had been emptied of the contents of the past thirty years during the night, so that she had awakened with it like a slate that had been wiped clean, a tabula rasa upon which a whole new history could be written.”

This quote employs the Latin term tabula rasa, meaning “clean or blank slate,” to represent the beginning of Avey’s cultural regeneration. The term was adopted by Western philosophy, particularly stoicism, to describe the human mind as starting out empty and therefore being susceptible to the rest of the world imprinting on it. As the mind gathers information, it allows the individual to form an identity based on the knowledge they have gathered. Therefore, in bestowing a tabula rasa unto Avey, the novel argues that her cultural regeneration can only be achieved by starting over and wiping away her artificial self. This is done to achieve a sort of psychic purity, one that gives Avey access to the cultural memory buried within her body that had been previously obstructed by her mind.  

“What was the man going on about? What were these names? Each one made her head ache all the more. She thought she heard in them the faint rattle of the necklace of cowrie shell and amber Marion always wore. Africa? Did they have something to do with Africa? Senile. The man was senile. The minds of the old….”

Avey’s increasingly present headache as she is confronted with her inability to claim a nation is another example of her body sensing what her conscious mind cannot. Moreover, her frustration with Lebert and her assertion that he must be senile is more reflective of her agitation with herself than with Lebert. she bristles when confronted with her disconnection from her heritage, just as she did when being greeted with familiarity on her first day on the island because it is a brutal reminder of the great void in her life. It is easier for Avey to interpret Lebert as confused than to accept her culpability in her unhappiness. 

“She felt as exhausted as if she and the old man had been fighting—actually, physically fighting, knocking over the tables and chairs in the room as they battled with each other over the dirt floor—and that for all his appearance of frailty he had proven the stronger of the two.”

Avey’s exhaustion echoes how she felt after fighting her great-aunt in her dream. Both serve as metaphors for the battle Avey has been fighting for three decades and her body’s physical response to no longer being able to maintain the struggle. Her fight with Lebert symbolizes her nearly lifelong resistance to her cultural inheritance. Now weakened from the battle, Avey can allow herself to rebuild her identity and strength by pursuing her sense of self. 

“As more people arrived to throng the area beside the river and the cool morning air warmed to the greetings and talk, she would feel what seemed to be hundreds of slender threads streaming out from her navel and from the place where her heart was to enter those around her. And the threads went out not only to people she recognized from the neighborhood but to those she didn’t know as well […] While the impression lasted she would cease being herself […] someone small, insignificant, outnumbered, the object of her youngest brother’s endless teasing; instead, for those moments, she became part of, indeed the center of, a huge wide confraternity.”

Here, the novel represents cultural ties with the threads Avey envisions connecting her Gullah family. Rather than being family through blood relation, Avey understands their bond as transcending direct relation. The threads signify her vast connection to those she shares traditions and heritage with. These connections are shown as powerful and empowering; because of them, Avey has a greater purpose and is never alone. 

“She hadn’t realized what had happened, that a connection had been made, until two nights later when her great-aunt had appeared. She had stood there large as life in the middle of her dream, and as a result there was a hole the size of a crater where her life of the past three decades had been.”

Hearing Patois is the catalyst for Avey’s subconscious communicating to her conscious mind that her disconnection from her culture has created a painful void for Avey. This passage portrays the latent effects of this trigger and how it takes time for Avey’s mind to process what her body has been working to tell her. Language is positioned as the most far-reaching cultural connection, a legacy that will transcend time and space. Furthermore, Avey’s great-aunt represents Avey’s duty to honor her heritage. She sees Cuney in her dream because Cuney is her strongest and most direct tie to her cultural inheritance. Language expedites and necessitates this discovery for Avey. 

“In her dimming consciousness she was only aware of the continuing upheaval inside her which had grown worse with the empty retching. Not only were the contractions more wrenching now that there nothing left, they had reached below her stomach to the place where up to this morning in the rum shop she had felt a strange oppressive fullness. As if there was actually something there, some mass of overly rich, undigestible food that had lodged itself like an alien organ beneath her heart and needed to be expelled, all of her body’s fury was suddenly concentrated there.”

The title of the book’s third part, “Lavé Tête,” roughly translates to “head washer.” This is used ironically, as Avey soils herself on the boat. The extreme physical discomfort and humiliation she endures is part of her spiritual healing. After purging, Avey is cleansed of the pain and anger she has carried with her over the years. Furthermore, the swollen “mass of overly rich” food symbolizes the compromised morals Avey digested. Her pursuit of a lifestyle that negated—and, at times, erased—her sense of self is like as a tumor that causes physical illness to symbolize her spiritual affliction. By being expelled of this foreign mass, Avey is finally able to reconnect with her past. She can now wipe away the damage inflicted upon her spirit by whiteness and make room for her to develop her own identity.  

“On an old-fashioned buffet in the main room of the house lay the sacred elements: a lighted candle in a holder and, next to it on a plate, a roasted ear of corn fresh from the harvest. An embroidered runner—a starched, immaculate white—had been placed under them for the occasion and the high polish given the buffet made it glean in the sunlight filling the room […] The Old Parents, the Long-time People would be pleased.”

Once Avey’s spirit has been purged and restored, she can accept the traditions that she once found strange. She begins to understand the necessity of these rituals, and her acceptance resurfaces memories of similar traditions her family once observed. By reverting to a blank slate, Avey perceives community rituals as positive and recognizes her own connection to them. This quote also underlines the novel’s overall emphasis on the importance of tending to one’s roots through traditions. Small, even seemingly strange, ritualistic acts have lasting and meaningful impact. 

“Then, slowly, they radiated out into her loins: When, when was the last time she had felt even the slightest stirring there? (Just take it from me! Jerome Johnson used to say.) The warmth, the stinging sensation that was both pleasure and pain passed up through the emptiness at her center. Until finally they reached her heart. And as they encircled her heart and it responded, there was the sense of a chord being struck. All the tendons, nerves and muscles which strung her together had been struck a powerful chord and the reverberation could be heard in the remotest corners of her body.”

Avey’s spiritual awakening manifests through the physical restoration of her limbs. She is likened to an infant after a bath, whose bones and muscles must be tended to so they can grow in properly. Avey’s physical needs are indicative of her spiritual needs. The bathing after the purging reinforces how she is becoming a clean slate, and the massage illustrates the recovery of the physical sensations to which she had been numb. Her spiritual rebirth breathes new life into Avey. The novel associates the renewal of sensation to the physical dissatisfaction she endured later in her marriage and directly connects her spiritual fulfillment with physical gratification. 

“Another long forgotten fragment drifting up to imprint itself with the sharpness and immediacy of something that might have happened only moments ago on the empty slate of her mind.”

Avey’s restorative experience on the schooner opens her mind to memories she repressed. They are her most direct connection to her cultural inheritance and, therefore, their increasingly frequent presence in the narrative marks her cultural regeneration. The “empty slate” of her mind makes distant memories feel more present and consequently contributes to reforming her sense of self. Avey has been cleansed of the false morals she adopted over the years and can now clearly see the values instilled within her through her heritage.  

“Avey Johnson smiled but she neither heard nor saw them clearly Because it was a score of hot August nights again in her memory, and she was standing beside her great-aunt in the dark road across from the church that doubled as a school. And under cover of the darkness she was performing the dance that wasn’t supposed to be dancing […] The Ring Shout. Standing there she used to long to give her great-aunt the slip and joining those across the road. She had finally after all these decades made it across.”

Avey’s cultural regeneration is complete when she begins dancing. The movement transports her to her childhood, when she would watch the Tatem churchgoers performing the Ring Shout. Though she always wanted to join them, she never could because her great-aunt had imposed an exile upon herself. Here, Avey fulfills her childhood desire of joining the Ring Shout. This desire reveals Avey’s lifelong craving for a community. In joining the dance, she asserts her right to belong to her chosen community and reconnects with her heritage.