46 pages • 1 hour read
Lynn NottageCrumbs From the Table of Joy
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1998A 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
Food and Crumbs
The phrase “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” is adapted from “Luck” (1947), a short poem by Langston Hughes:
Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Sometimes a bone
Is flung
To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only heaven (Hughes, Langston. “Luck.” Poetry Society of America).
The poem that suggests that some people sit at the table for the feast of love, while others don’t. Those who only get crumbs have to hope for a more satiating afterlife. This applies to the Crump family, linked to the poem and the play’s title through their near-identical name, as they scramble for hope in the aftermath of Sandra’s death.
Food represents safety and survival, as well as love and care. In the play’s opening monologue, Ernestine talks about well-wishers bringing the family memories of their mother, some of which were centered on food and even food poisoning. Ernestine describes their grief for their mother as relentless nausea, “tugging at our stomach and our throats” (5), which doesn’t let up until they move to New York. In a metaphorical sense, Godfrey pulls them away from their immense mourning to keep them from starving to death. In New York, he hangs a photo of their mother, who can no longer keep her family fed, and of Father Divine, whom Godfrey now trusts to feed them. He gets a job at a bakery, and he comes home smelling like bread and with pockets full of cookies or pastries, symbolizing his new role as their caretaker. When he meets Gerte on the train, he offers her a cookie and she eats it hungrily, asking whether his wife made it. She is pleasantly surprised that Godfrey made it, and to her, this symbolizes his ability to nurture her.
Later in the play, after Godfrey is attacked, Ernestine reaches into his coat pocket and finds a handful of crumbs in place of the cookies. This represents how the attack shatters Gerte’s illusion that the family lives in an anti-racist society and the family’s sense of hope and peace. However, this isn’t a permanent state, and his pockets are filled with cookies again by the end of the play.
Clothing
Ernestine and Ermina are bullied for their clothes, which were “sewn with love” by their mother but are criticized for being immature and countryish by their peers in their new cosmopolitan environment (6). Ermina fights back, tearing at her bullies’ fancy clothes in the process and proudly “walk[ing] home with a handful of greasy relaxed hair and a piece of gray cashmere stuffed in her pocket” (6). The sisters’ dresses represent a way that their mother cared for them and draped them in love, and wearing them is a way to keep her love with them. These dresses are remnants of the past, much like Godfrey’s shoes, which he lovingly polishes to a like-new shine.
Clothing also represents aspiration in the play. When Lily shows up, the girls are surprised to see a Black woman who is “dressed up like a white lady” (15). Lily tells Ernestine and Ermina that she bought her suit on Fifth Avenue, where wealthy white ladies shop, and the way she dresses is therefore subversive. Later in the play, she tries to hide that she sold her suit, attempting to maintain her image of being a powerful feminist and activist. Godfrey purchases new dresses for his daughters and new shoes for himself to wear to the Mission, hoping to cultivate new pious identities for them. Lily mocks the white pinafores that make them look like little girls, the whiteness representing the purity and virginity that Godfrey attempts to impose on his daughters. When Father Divine doesn’t show up at the banquet, Godfrey feels foolish sitting there in his new shoes and waiting for nothing. While Godfrey tries to force a relationship with Father Divine throughout the play, this moment shows that he can’t grasp this dream.
This symbolism is reinforced by Ernestine’s graduation dress, which she begins sewing in Act I, Scene 1, and wears to her graduation. The dress is a link between the past and the future as Ernestine’s mother chose the pattern before she died. The dress becomes a visual representation of Ernestine’s coming of age, and the two adult women in her life try to give her advice while making it. Ermina steals some expensive lace for the dress, showing her belief in Ernestine’s future. Gerte inadvertently insults Ernestine by suggesting that she use the lace to cover the crooked collar, showing a different perspective between the two. Lily insults this lace by calling it childish, and Ernestine tears it off. However, before Lily leaves and disappears from their lives, she takes the lace from her own slip and sews it on the dress, creating a generational connection and strengthening the dress’s matrilineal significance. In the Epilogue, Ernestine wears the dress with the hastily sewn lace, symbolizing how her aunt, however imperfect, is a part of her and her achievements.
Godfrey’s Notebook
Godfrey first pulls out his notebook and writes something in it after refusing to allow his daughters to go to their neighbor’s apartment, wanting them to avoid interacting with white people. A bit later, Godfrey makes a note while discussing the crime in the city around them. He writes in his notebook when he is embarrassed about forgetting Ernestine’s graduation. When Lily notices the notetaking, she asks Godfrey about it, and he explains that he is writing down questions he wants to ask Father Divine as they come to mind. The notes symbolize his uncertainty in his new role and his desire to get things right; Godfrey seeks control, and he hopes that finding the right answers will unlock the key to being a good father for him. However, Godfrey never gets to ask Father Divine his questions, leaving him feeling uncertain and unmoored.
After Godfrey is attacked, Gerte catches him writing in his notebook and stops him. She reveals that this is not his only notebook but one of hundreds that he has stashed all over the apartment. It becomes clear that Godfrey has been using his notebooks to avoid moving forward with his life. When Gerte confronts him and they start tearing the pages up, they finally kiss, showing that he is taking control over his own life rather than letting someone else control his destiny.
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By Lynn Nottage
