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Symbolism In The Street By Ann Petry

680 Words3 Pages

Being a black woman raised in a white world, Ann Petry was familiar with the contrast in lives of African Americans and whites (McKenzie 615). The Street, centered in 1940’s Harlem, details these differences. While Petry consistently portrays Harlem as dark and dirty, she portrays the all-white neighborhoods of Connecticut as light and clean. This contrast of dark vs light is used in the expected way to symbolize despair vs success. But Ann Petry also uses the contrast in an unusual way by allowing the darkness to inspire, while the light exposes unexpected tragedies. Most places that Lutie Johnson goes in The Street are dark and dirty. The stairwell leading to the apartment she wants to rent appears to be symbolic of all that is wrong in Lutie’s …show more content…

Petry uses the light to expose trouble in the Chandler household. In the clean bright home, Lutie witnesses a relationship that looks to be only for appearances, and not a relationship made of love. And it is by the light of the Christmas tree that Lutie witnesses some of the horror that exists even in seemingly successful, bright homes, as Jonathon Chandler chooses this occasion to commit suicide. It is not only the light that is used contrary to the obvious. Ann Petry also uses the darkness as a vehicle to strengthen Lutie’s resolve to improve her life and be better able to provide for her son. Lutie has seen the light side of life and believes it is attainable for herself. She knows it is just a matter of trying hard enough, and working long enough, and saving enough (Petry 43). Later in Harlem, as Lutie walks past the dark, dirty storefronts, with their withered produce, her determination is strengthened to get out of her current situation; “the dark streets filled with shadowy figures that carried with them the horror of the places they lived in, places like her own apartment.” (Petry 153) Lutie seems to believe that she should do as Booker T. Washington advised and “pick [herself] up by the bootstraps” and make a new life for herself and her son. (Bressler

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