Roselily

“Roselily” is the opening story of Alice Walker’s debut collection, In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women. It was published in 1973, ten years before Walker became the first Black American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel The Color Purple. “Roselily” is a stream-of-consciousness narrative that intercuts incomplete, italicized phrases from marriage vows with the title character’s expansive reflections on her life, her impending marriage, and the sociopolitical tensions that exist between her rural Christian upbringing in the South, her own atheism, and her groom’s life as a devout Muslim in a Northern city. The action of the story takes place in the span of a few short sentences spoken by the officiant of the wedding, while the conflict and drama of the narrative play out in Roselily’s internal debate over whether she accepts the changes the wedding will cause in her life.

Roselily, a single mother living in the small town of in Panther Burn, Mississippi, has agreed to marry a man from Chicago who is referred to only as the groom. Their wedding takes place on the front porch of Roselily’s home, near the highway. Though he wants to marry Roselily, the groom is not pleased by the wedding. He sees it as a burden he must put up with for the sake of Roselily’s family, particularly as he is Muslim and the service is rooted in Christian tradition. He chafes at their religion and at the White drivers going by on the highway, correlating Christianity with the South’s history of racism.

As the preacher officiating the wedding begins to speak, Roselily pictures herself as a child in her mother’s wedding dress, even though she has already lived a full life and has had several children of her own. Roselily, who is well aware of her groom’s negative feelings about the day, is uncomfortable, and self-conscious because she has sullied her wedding dress by walking through the yard. She wishes, briefly, that she didn’t already have three children, but the thought makes her ashamed, and she turns her attention to the preacher. She tries to make herself look humble, pretending that she believes the preacher is a man of God even though she is an atheist.

Roselily’s thoughts turn to her groom’s religion, Islam, which she associates with imagery of bondage. She has similarly negative thoughts about Chicago, where she plans to move with the groom after the wedding, picturing the city as a place filled with smoke and ash. At the same time, she acknowledges that moving to Chicago will allow her a chance to build a good life for her children, as the groom is well-equipped to provide for them.

Roselily thinks next of her fourth child, who lives with his father in New England. This child’s father is very unlike Roselily. During their relationship he was unsympathetic to the ways she differed from him, a critical stance that led to their separation. He went to school at Harvard and values markers of social sophistication—classical music, chess, and proper language—that Roselily could not provide. She wonders if her fourth son will come back to the South to try to engage in the struggle for racial equality, as his father did, and if so, whether her son will be stronger than his father. The father was an emotional wreck during her pregnancy, even threatening suicide, and she knows that her son will be changed by living in New England, and may not be able to handle the South. As she did when she pictured Chicago, she thinks again of ash and cinders, weighing on people in the North, and changing them.

Hearing the preacher’s words, “If there’s anybody here that knows a reason why” (5), Roselily mentally forms a list of possible objections. She knows there are plenty of reasons to object to the marriage, notably the difference between her life and her groom’s, and the way his severe personality and strictness may not combine well with her own sense of self as a mother. She is unsure how her children will react to their new life, and worries they will be changed by time in the groom’s household. She suddenly doubts whether she can start over by remarrying.

Wondering if she is capable of putting down new roots when she has so many already, Roselily thinks of her family—her mother, dead; her father, who watches the wedding dispassionately; and her younger sisters, whom she suspects may find the wedding absurd. She feels too old to be getting married, too connected to the world through history, children, and ghosts.

Roselily knows that the groom doesn’t see her that way, though; he puts her on a pedestal. His adoration is its own source of worry, as she knows she won’t be a bride forever in his mind. The groom has promised that she will have a restful life, but she is beginning to think that his promise may not hold, and that although she will not have to work, inevitably they will have more children, which she does not want.

She thinks she should have spent more time building an understanding of what the groom means for their new life to look like, but she has been impatient to start over, and to see the South Side of Chicago. She has not felt free or happy in her life in Panther Burn, but she is also aware that the freedom the groom promises comes wrapped in patriarchal traditions and expectations.

Roselily knows the groom to be serious, sober, and proud, but wonders if she loves him. She loves his understanding of Blackness and the way he wants to rescue her and give her an easier life. His love for her is clear, but it is complicated by the knowledge that he wants to remake her into a married, Muslim woman who does not work. She thinks about how unloved she has been over the course of her life in comparison to how loved she is in this relationship. The contrast makes her sad, but the groom’s love doesn’t change her feeling of being trapped by the wedding. She arrives at a question: has she ever lived? She becomes angry at the preacher and has the urge to strike him out of her way.

The preacher utters his final line in the ceremony—“his peace” (8)—and Roselily does not hear the rest. The ceremony concludes with a passionate kiss, and horns honk and fireworks go off while the dogs come out from under the house and bark. Her groom’s hand clings too hers tightly, and her children press close. Roselily notices the way her groom keeps apart from the celebration, though, knowing that the people gathered don’t understand him, and not caring to explain himself to them.

Roselily thinks about later, when they will drive through the night to Chicago. The only thing she knows about Chicago is that Lincoln lived there, which makes her feel ignorant. She holds her husband’s hand tighter, but he is not looking at her, and he does not notice how she is feeling.