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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Another Brooklyn, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Loss, Denial, and Grief
Friendship, Womanhood, and Support
Religion, Tradition, and Death
Racism and Classism
Summary
Analysis
August recalls the night her father took her and her brother from SweetGrove. For days leading up to this departure, their parents argued viciously and their mother vowed to start sleeping with a butcher knife under her pillow. She also claimed Clyde told her that August’s father slept with another woman recently, despite the fact that Clyde had already been dead for almost two years. These days, August’s father tries to entertain her and her brother by taking them to Coney Island on Saturdays and letting them go on the rides. During this period, August and her brother struggle to grasp the fact that they live in poverty, since they manage to get by rather well even though the family is short on money. Still, their apartment is small, and they’re forced to share a room while their father sleeps on a fold-out couch in the living room.
Although August leads a relatively happy life in which she doesn’t feel crushed by the weight of poverty, she still faces a number of challenges in Brooklyn. First and foremost, she’s haunted by the memory of her mother and the turbulent period that led up to her parents’ separation. As if this isn’t already stressful enough, August’s father’s attempts to distract her from such thoughts by taking her to Coney Island ultimately fail, and she also slowly begins to see the limitations of the family’s new life in Brooklyn, coming to terms with the fact that—though they don’t live in abject poverty—they don’t have very much.
Themes
One day, Angela is dancing on the sidewalk when she suddenly stops and clenches her fists. August and the other girls ask what’s wrong, but she doesn’t say anything, simply shutting down as a woman hobbles by them on the street. This woman is unsteady and clearly addicted to drugs, but the girls hardly pay any attention to her. Instead of focusing on the woman, August thinks about how Angela’s hands remind her of her mother’s when they suddenly curled into fists. As the woman turns the corner, August wonders how she (August) is supposed to navigate life without a mother.
A beautiful young woman named Jennie moves into the apartment below August and her family. Jennie is from the Dominican Republic, but August feels as if she could easily have hailed from Tennessee. For this very reason, Jennie reminds August’s brother of their mother, so he whispers to August that their mother is “almost back now,” though their father instructs them to stay away from Jennie. During this period, August washes her brother’s hair and tells him to close his eyes and pretend that her hands belong to their mother.
In this passage, it’s clear that August isn’t the only one who has been significantly impacted by the absence of her mother. Indeed, her brother also yearns for their mother to return to the family. Because she’s older than him, August tries to soothe him by giving him the kind of love and attention a mother might give. Unfortunately for her, though, there is nobody to do the same for her—nobody, that is, except her friends.
Themes
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August is acutely aware that the Vietnam War continues to rage on, especially since so many former soldiers wander through her neighborhood. Many of them are living on the streets and addicted to heroin, and August becomes used to the site of needles scattered on the ground. The children around her become so accustomed to the presence of addicts that they take bets about whether or not a stumbling man will fall over. Meanwhile, August hears Jennie leading men to her apartment, telling them not to touch her until they give her money. When August’s brother asks what these men are paying for, August says, “Just things.”
Not only does August have to deal with the sorrow of growing up without a mother, but she has to do so in a rather fraught environment, one in which she’s surrounded by desperate, vulnerable people like the drug-addicted veterans on the streets. Jennie’s exchange about money implies that she is a prostitute, which explains why August’s father was adamant that she and her brother stay away from Jennie. Though August tries to protect her brother from the harsh realities of their neighborhood, it’s clear that nobody is working to shield her from all this turmoil.
Themes
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August once again recalls her childhood in Tennessee, remembering what it was like to run through the lush land of SweetGrove. Although August’s family owned such a large farm, neither her father nor Clyde knew how to tend to it, so the task fell to August’s mother. Accordingly, August has memories of her mother working with her hands in the fields, turning the property into a flourishing oasis. However, a fire razed most of the fields the year August’s brother was born, and then the government reclaimed the majority of the land the following year, saying that there were too many years of unpaid taxes. Still, the large and quirky house remained in the possession of August’s family, and they made do with what they had—that is, until Clyde went to Vietnam and was killed in 1971, precipitating August’s mother’s breakdown.
Once more, August demonstrates how hard it is for her to move on from her life in Tennessee. Memories of her mother stay with August as she vividly remembers SweetGrove and the way it flourished under her mother’s supervision. With all of this in mind, it is undoubtedly hard for August to move on and accept that her mother is no longer in her life.
Themes
