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The Street By Ann Petry Summary

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Sometimes in the wind of change, we find our true direction. In the short story, The Street, by Ann Petry, a relationship between the nature of an uninhabitable, brutal environment and a woman, Lutie Johnson is characterized through her ironic adversary with the urban setting. Through characterization, imagery, and personification, Petry depicts the complex relationship between Lutie and a brutal urban city. Ann Petry establishes and introduces a harsh, negatively characterized urban city through the use of personification with the wind. By starting off with a “cold November wind blowing through 116th street”, Petry established the atmosphere and climate of the city; by the setting’s description, the author is able to establish the relationship between Lutie and her negative surroundings. The author expresses the environment and atmosphere of the city through the wind; by expressing a wind that would “grab hats, pry scarves from around people’s necks, [blow] people’s coats away from their bodies”, Petry is also able to foreshadow the unpleasant environment the character, Lutie Johnson, will endure. …show more content…

As describing a city that “did everything it could to discourage the people”, the author emphasizes the nature of the wind through Lutie’s point of view. Portraying a wind that “lifted [her] hair away from the back of her neck so that she felt suddenly naked and bald”, Petry is able to highlight the ruthless city Lutie and others must endure. With imagery, the author is able to emphasize a discouraging city who target its people as victims, including Lutie through Lutie’s thoughts, actions, and

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Ann Petry pens a stimulating expositional read in her 1946 novel, The Street. Running with the over-arching anticipated universal theme of vulnerability, Petry establishes Lutie Johnson’s relationship with the urban setting quite succinctly. Through her use of well-placed literary conventions, Ann Petry delivers a piece that will withstand the test of time. Petry establishes the wind as a symbol of an attacker to foreshadow Lutie Johnson’s violent future. From the very first paragraph, the wind is written ripping through the street, doubling over the pedestrians against its force.

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The excerpt begins with Petry introducing the wind as a main antagonist through the careful use of personification. The cold wind “[drives] most of the people off the street”, “set[s] a barrage of paper swirl[ing] into the faces of people”, and even “make[s] it difficult to breathe.” These unpleasant and abrasive acts of the wind succeed in their goal of discouraging the residents of the city. They respond with frustration

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