49 pages • 1 hour read
Adele MyersA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
At the Summer Solstice, Mr. Winston addresses the crowd and extols the accomplishments of the town’s most prominent members. He encourages everyone to try the MOMints, especially young mothers, and recognizes the doctor, Dr. Robert Hale, involved in their creation. The whole town centers on the tobacco production, with even the Reverend thanking God in prayer for “the blessings you’ve bestowed upon our fair town, for the sun and rain, for every seedling and leaf that puts food on our tables and roofs over our heads” (69). On Etta’s instruction, Maddie visits the fair’s exhibits, all focused on tobacco, which credit the birth of the yellow tobacco leaf for which Bright Leaf got its name to a plantation owner and not an enslaved person. When Maddie sees this injustice, she is remined of her father’s words about how times are changing, and she can be part of the change.
Maddie feels out of place amongst all the wealthy people and self-conscious wearing such an expensive gown when she was used to rationing fabric during the war. As Mitzy introduces Maddie to other prominent Bright Leaf ladies and brags about Maddie, Maddie is unnerved by Mitzy’s level of familiarity, remembering Daddy’s words that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Maddie meets members of the affluent Hale family: Cornelia, the matriarch, Rose, wife of Dr. Hale, and Mitzy’s older sister, Ashley. Maddie sees that Ashley works for Bright Leaf as an auctioneer. Maddie meets Mitzy’s godson, David Taylor, who is home from boarding school and gives her more insight into the townspeople while he takes her on the Ferris wheel. The two form a connection and he is eager to see her again, to which Maddie agrees.
Maddie leaves the Summer Solstice and rushes home to Etta’s, but she loses her way through the tobacco fields and gets her dress dirty in the process. She is out later than she was supposed to be, and when she returns home, Etta is there with Frances and Ashley. Etta is recovering after overheating at the event. Maddie is tired and thinks about how “being around wealthy people was downright exhausting. Always on your best behavior, minding your p’s and q’s” (94). Unlike life in the Holler, where she could be herself, here Maddie feels on display and worried about making a mistake. As she tries to fall asleep, her mind turns to Daddy, who enlisted in the army for the GI benefits to offer a better life for Momma and Maddie. Maddie begins to resent him for that.
Maddie and Etta arrive at the Winstons’ for dress appointments for Mitzy, Cornelia, and Rose. An upcoming Gala at the end of the summer will be the social event of the season, but the appointment is interrupted when Etta breaks out in a rash and is unsteady on her feet. Mitzy insists that she go to Dr. Hale, and the women leave Maddie alone at the Winston home. David arrives soon, and he comforts Maddie when Maddie learns that Etta has measles. Etta asks Maddie to take over the gown designs and appointments for the Gala, and Maddie is overwhelmed at the responsibility. David and Maddie bond over feeling like adults abandon them or tell them that life isn’t fair, and she feels an intimacy growing between them. He helps her to call the hospital and she writes down the number on a discarded letter. David assures Maddie that Etta is in good hands—Dr. Hale has been treating David for asthma since he was a child. Maddie tries to call her mother but learns that the number has been disconnected.
While Maddie absorbs the news about Etta and the reality that her mother has simply dropped her off, Mitzy returns and tells her the plan that she’s come up with: Maddie will stay with the Winstons while Etta is sick and they will conduct the dress appointments from the house. Maddie is put off by Mitzy’s enthusiasm, feeling that there “was something dishonest about it all, about her—a need underneath all that enthusiasm that made me want to run” (115). Maddie shares an uncomfortable dinner with Mr. Winston and Mitzy, during which Mitzy is scolded by her husband and burns her hands on her dinner plate before Mr. Winston leaves early to go back to work to deal with an issue at the factory regarding the female workers. Mitzy shows Maddie the luxurious guestroom where she’ll be staying, which feels to Maddie like a real-life fairy tale, but she is pained with guilt when she thinks about Aunt Etta alone and suffering in her hospital bed. She promises to herself that she will make Etta proud by taking up the sewing work ahead of the Gala and help her just as she was helped. Maddie realizes that the letter she used as scrap paper is marked confidential and belongs to Mr. Winston and she vows to return it to his study tomorrow. As she takes a bath, she sees that the black flecks and grime are still on her body days after the visit to the factory.
Maddie enlists Anthony’s help with the gowns ahead of the Gala, and their first appointment of the day is with Cornelia, whom Maddie finds stern and unnerving. Cornelia’s late husband was a forefather of the town. During the appointment, Maddie has a difficult time finding the courage to voice her ideas for the Gala dresses. Maddie remembers that Cornelia feels that her late husband took credit for her ideas and hard work. When she shares her opinion—that Cornelia should wear a pair of trousers instead of a gown—she learns that Cornelia, who also owns textile mills in North Carolina, has taken on an enterprising venture by convincing society ladies to follow the latest trend in fashion from Paris, wearing the color mauve, just as she does. The color is rare and challenging to find and orders for it would be profitable, and Maddie thinks: “The old lady knew what she was doing. I saw Cornelia differently in that moment, and she stared right back at me, unflinching” (141). This moment marks a turning point in Maddie’s assessment of Cornelia, who is routinely mocked and dismissed by Rose and Mitzy. Cornelia gives Maddie a chance to prove herself with the design of her Gala hat and shares a book with her about the influence of southern women.
In these chapters, Maddie grows more familiar with townspeople as she begins to participate in life in Bright Leaf. Seeing the importance of tobacco in the town establishes a facet of Societal Constraints and Female Empowerment present in Bright Leaf: Maddie witnesses how women are involved in events like the Miss Bright Leaf pageant and the garden exhibits, while men give speeches, prayers, and lead demonstrations about the town’s history and tobacco manufacturing. Furthermore, even as she sees the Winston family’s influence and the town’s reliance on tradition, she knows that she can be part of a forward progression. Myers mobilizes Maddie’s outsider perspective to focus the narrative lens on the need for change, as Maddie is able to question conventions. She is also influenced by her own background in the Holler, especially with the wisdom and advice that she continues to remember from her Daddy.
This part of the novel introduces central figures in the text like Cornelia, who Maddie first misjudged and then comes to appreciate; the ability to change her mind and realize she was wrong about someone is a marker of her continued maturation. The introduction of these figures catalyzes Maddie’s character development. The texts and encouragement she receives from Cornelia will serve as important guides once she makes her way in the world. Furthermore, Maddie’s budding relationship with David will become an important source of support and connection, and their early connection makes Maddie feel like there are possibilities for her future that she hadn’t imagined before.
During the rising action, Myers introduces and intensifies the novel’s conflicts: Aunt Etta gets sick, and Maddie absorbs the reality that Momma has left her completely alone, which causes her to feel without support and parental guidance. Situating these challenges at this point in the novel emphasizes Maddie’s development: Maddie has just started to find her bearings and she must draw from her own self-reliance. Relatedly, Maddie starts to evolve as a character when she realizes that her ideas are worthwhile and her voice matters; she remembers what Daddy told her, “[a]ct as if and so it will be” (136), and allows those words to guide her.
This section reinforces The Contrast Between the Opulent Façade and Hidden Realities of Society because Maddie sees how the tobacco wives approach people in different socioeconomic spheres; she watches Mitzy praise the women who have taken on factory work and treat them with generosity while Rose is repulsed by any association with them. Still, the fortunate lives both these women lead are funded by the hard work of those in the farming fields and the factory, and Maddie continues to confront this discrepancy. Myers represents this confrontation with the grime that remains on Maddie days after her visit to the factory; the wealthier women stay clean by maintaining their distance, while reality is difficult to ignore once this distance is closed to such an intimate extent as skin contact.