39 pages • 1 hour read
Jacqueline WoodsonAnother Brooklyn
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Death and Mourning
This novel centers on two deaths: the early-2000s death of August’s father, and the death of her mother in the 1970s. Her father’s death is the occasion for her reflection: by the time she returns to Brooklyn to care for him, she has become an anthropologist, studying the way societies around the world cope with death and mourning. She includes anecdotes of these ritual practices throughout the text, implying that there is no one way to cope with death: it is so vast and difficult to understand that it spawns as many ways to mourn as there are ways to die.
In a sense, then, August’s way of mourning her father is to think back to her mother’s earlier death and the way she coped with it. As a young girl transplanted from Tennessee to Brooklyn, her main mechanism was denial. Although she knew her mother had gone somewhat mad, talking to the ghost of her deceased brother, Clyde, and refusing to believe he had died, she “forgets” her mother’s death. She persists for years in telling her younger brother that her mother will come tomorrow. Even though her mother’s ashes sit in the living room, she cannot acknowledge their reality. It is only another death—that of Angela’s mother—that leads her father to confront her and force her to acknowledge the truth.
There are several other significant deaths in the novel: the soldier who overdoses under Gigi’s building; Angela’s mother; and Gigi. The first two are deaths by overdose, and Gigi’s is a death by suicide. In addition, the events of this novel take place during the Son of Sam murders. All cultures must come up with a formula for mourning, and Brooklyn is no exception. For August, at least, the only response to living in a neighborhood plagued by drugs and violence is to leave. Her professional career studying death may itself be her form of mourning.
Migration and the African Diaspora
August and her family move from SweetGrove, Tennessee to Brooklyn. While August’s mother once owned land and a farm, the government eventually requisitioned the majority of their property, leaving them only the house. Without a way to maintain his livelihood after his wife’s death, August’s father takes the family to Brooklyn. August and her brother grew up with an agrarian life and a sense of freedom and safety. Looking out the window of their new apartment, the density of life frightens them, and their father is likewise frightened for their safety. Yet the migration of the African diaspora northward is necessary: Brooklyn is the land of economic opportunity.
The migration route from North to South is taken by many of August’s neighbors: Sylvia’s family comes from Martinique, and Gigi’s family comes from South Carolina. In the 1970s, Brooklyn is a black enclave—a place where work is readily available. As their families migrate in, white families migrate out.
In the wake of the Vietnam War, this migration route does not guarantee safety. Heroin use is rampant, homeless veterans live in back alleys, and blackouts and heat waves leave the social structure vulnerable. Yet the young characters want to avoid returning “Down South.” When a pregnant classmate, Charlesetta, is sent to live Down South with her aunt, August and her friends are afraid of encountering a similar fate
Female Friendship Under Patriarchy
By the time August is 8, her mother has warned her not to trust other women. As she makes close friends, she discards this advice, and her friends become an ultimate source of solace. As young black women, they affirm each other’s beauty, protect each other from sexual predation as best they can, and serve as each other’s confidants. They are able to support each other’s professional and personal goals.
Many of the threats these young girls face come from men: men catcall them, violate them, and make them feel unsafe. Female friendship is in this sense a powerful form of surviving the patriarchy. Yet competition for heterosexual partnership also shapes their friendships. As they reach adolescence and begin dating, Sylvia sleeps with August’s ex-boyfriend Jerome, betraying the rules of their friendships. While female friendship can have a powerful role in protecting young women, Sylvia chooses a male partner over a female friendship. This does not lead August to fully embrace her mother’s advice, but it does suggest the difficulty of maintaining female bonds in a society that does not value women
Faith and its Limits
August’s father takes solace in his Muslim faith after his wife’s death. His son follows suit, trusting in Allah after his father’s death. August acknowledges that faith does console. When Sister Loretta began to give their family structure, routine, and prayer, the wounds of her mother’s death and absence began to heal. However, even as a teenager, August knows that faith chafes against her needs and desires: she is unwilling to wear a hijab or forego sexual experimentation.
As an adult anthropologist who studies death, part of August’s job is to chronicle the faith-based rituals that various cultures employ to cope with death. While she acknowledges the potency of these rituals—and her brother’s continuing Islam—she seems to take solace elsewhere. Each faith has its limits in confronting death. Her knowledge of the world’s many beliefs and rituals give her greater comfort than any one particular set of beliefs.
Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls
August and her friends are constantly aware of the threat of sexual violence. August herself does not seem to experience sexual violence firsthand and is able to leave Brooklyn and go to college without the trauma of assault or the difficulty of teen pregnancy. Gigi, however, is not so lucky. While August’s narrative does not explicitly connect the dots between Gigi’s sexual assault at 12 and her suicide at 15, the close proximity of these two events in the novel’s timeline suggests that the unresolved trauma of sexual violence may have left her without the fortitude to cope with her public humiliation.
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