Roselily

Roselily is a complex character with a rich inner life, and she is keenly aware of her position in society as a single Black mother of four children. The first full line of the story after the preacher’s opening, “Dearly beloved,” is “She dreams; dragging herself across the world” (3). By pairing dreaming with dragging, Walker sets up the dichotomy of Roselily’s life, both overall and in the moment of her wedding: her mind is racing into the past and the future as she walks down the aisle on her family’s land, and she has lived a life of struggle while retaining a sense of herself as someone with hopes and dreams.

This juxtaposition of material struggle and mental energy position Roselily’s marriage to the groom as bittersweet. The tradeoff is clear: she will no longer have to work as a seamstress and support her three children alone, and she will escape the sadder parts of her life in the South: the nonexistent relationships with the fathers of her children, her friends, and their husbands, even perhaps the omnipresence of the White people on the highway. This escape also means loss, however.