39 pages • 1 hour read
Anne MoodyComing Of Age In Mississippi
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Dreams
Dreams occur throughout Coming of Age in Mississippi. The book opens with one: “I’m still haunted by dreams of the time we lived on Mr. Carter’s plantation” (11). Moody then goes on to describe bullying by her uncle George Lee and the beating she got when he lied and blamed her for the house fire. Her parents also separate while living on the Carter land. The next dream happens when Raymond wants the entire family to help with chopping cotton. Moody dreams of heat overcoming her in the field, and all her family members lie dead between the rows; she knows that she is next. Another dream turns out to be real—Moody wakes up from a dream full of screaming to realize that the Taplin house is on fire and that the whole family has perished. Many of the dreams Moody has in childhood reflect her helplessness; she has no way to defend herself from George Lee or not to work in Raymond’s cotton field. When Moody discovers that the screaming nightmare is actually a waking-life event, she recognizes more deeply her own helplessness and that of her fellow Negroes at the hands of white people.
Moody’s positive dreams are few and far between. The first is in eighth grade when Daddy buys her a special dress to wear as homecoming queen, and Moody loses herself “in dreams of how [she] would look tomorrow in that gown” (105). The other is in college after she learns of Uncle Clift’s death and a coworker calls it a “terror killing” (367). Moody returns to Tougaloo College and dreams of returning to Canton and visiting her fellow movement workers. These dreams are active and positive. Even though Clift’s death is devastating, Moody finds a way to dream toward what she wants to be doing, which is acting toward change. Moody’s dreams of looking beautiful in her dress are realized in many ways at the homecoming celebration: Mama registers surprise at Moody’s beauty; Linda Jean registers another kind of surprise at Moody’s beauty; and Moody receives special treatment from fellow students.
One dream mentioned in the book is not Moody’s dream; it is Martin Luther King’s. She attends the March on Washington in 1963 and listens to King’s famous “I have a dream” speech. Moody dismisses King and his dream, as well as the other leaders she calls “dreamers.” Exhausted by practical action, Moody remarks, “[I]n Canton we never had time to sleep, much less to dream” (307). A few weeks after the March on Washington, a church is bombed in Birmingham, and Moody renounces nonviolence: “If Martin Luther King thinks nonviolence is really going to work for the South as it did for India, then he is out of his mind” (319). King’s dream collides with Moody’s dreams of practical action, and Moody rejects the dream that is not hers.
House fires
Three major house fires happen in the book: the fire that George Lee sets to scare Moody and Adline; the fire that Junior sets by accident; and the fire that white people deliberately set for the Taplin family. The fires show Moody’s powerlessness to a family bully, to her economic circumstances, and to a system that oppresses black people.
Tears
Moody writes of tears and crying in Coming of Age in Mississippi. The earliest occurrences appear in childhood, specifically in relation to George Lee’s physical bullying: “He hit me hard against the head; I started to boo-hoo as usual […] I was still crying so he slapped me clean off the porch” (12). After Daddy beats Moody, she “kept crying” (17) as she tells her mother that George Lee started the fire, not her. The next instance of Moody crying is when Junior starts a house fire, and the flames claim the new clothes that Mama had bought her and her siblings for Christmas: “I stood there beside her with tears running down my face” (34). Moody even cries tears of joy after she learns that Raymond will build them a house.
As Moody grows older, she reports fewer tears, but she does cry after seeing Mama’s aged appearance at high school graduation. Moody also weeps at rallies, once when she explains that CORE workers do not have food: “Tears were running down my cheeks and I was shaking and saying, ‘What are we going to do? Starve to death?’” (297), and another time when she watches an elderly man bravely facing the line of policemen in Canton: “I could taste hot tears running down my face” (374-75).
Moody also mentions tears wept by other persons, especially Mama. Mama cries when Daddy spends time with Florence. She cries a lot during pregnancy and even after birth: “I remembered how she cried all the time after Junior and James were born” (57). Mama suffers major losses after those births; Daddy leaves after Junior is born, and Miss Pearl takes James away. Mama cries when Miss Pearl does not speak to her after Jennie Ann’s birth: “I looked at Mama and now tears were running down her face” (59). When Mama comes to New Orleans for a birthday party, Moody notices that Mama’s eyes are “full of water” (351) when Mama looks at her.
Tears happen when Moody and Mama do not have control over their lives, circumstances, or emotions; this may be true of other characters, as well. Grown men cry in church, and once Moody sees “tears in the corner of Miss Pearl’s eyes” (64) during a church service. Moody notices other women crying and wonders if “they are all crying because they are doing somebody wrong” (64); she also thinks that Miss Pearl should cry for the way she treats Mama. Tears during church services show no control over emotions, but they may also indicate an awakening of conscience.
