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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
As August and her friends grow older, they listen to the radio and feel like the songs are talking about certain parts of their own lives. They also begin to envy one another’s features, though they don’t let this come between them. When the girls walk down the streets and boys call out to them, they proudly tell them not to even speak their names, linking arms with each other and walking away. August notes that when they are all together, boys don’t understand them. Indeed, although boys might think they understand girls when they’re on their own and “praying for invisibility,” they don’t know what to make of August, Sylvia, Angela, and Gigi as an ensemble.
That August’s friend group makes her feel like she can easily dismiss the boys who call out after them is a testament to the empowering qualities of female companionship. Needless to say, it’s unfortunate that August and her friends wish for “invisibility” because of the way boys treat them when they’re on their own, but they thankfully have each other to make them feel powerful. In turn, their bond illustrates the value and inherent strength that comes along with friendship.
Themes
Older men also begin to notice the girls’ bodies. In response, the girls warn each other about which men to avoid, saying—for instance—that they shouldn’t go to a certain shoe repair shop on their own, since the owner will offer girls a quarter to see their underwear. Similarly, Gigi tells her friends not to sing in their church choirs, explaining that her pastor comes up behind her and presses his penis against her back while she’s singing. To deal with this, she says, she closes her eyes and pretends she’s elsewhere. Gigi adds that she learned this trick from her mother, since Gigi often looks into her eyes and realizes that she’s absent. When Gigi’s mother is paying attention, though, she tells Gigi to go to Hollywood, saying that she’ll be safe there. August and her friends don’t ask what, exactly, Gigi will be safe from.
This section of Another Brooklyn touches on the unsettling fact that grown men sometimes sexually objectify young girls who have recently gone through puberty. When Gigi tells her friends not to sing in their church choirs, she highlights one of the reasons it’s so tragic that men treat girls this way—after all, Gigi and her friends shouldn’t have to avoid church choirs in order to remain safe. And though it’s helpful that the girls develop a support network intended to warn each other about such situations, their tactic of avoiding certain places and people indicates that they are unfortunately expected to simply make compromises in their lives without expecting that their surrounding society will ever change or address the problems they’re trying to avoid. With this in mind, it’s especially heartbreaking when Gigi says that her mom thinks she’ll be safe if she goes to Hollywood, since it’s clear that even as a grown woman in California she will most likely face the same kind of misogyny and unwanted sexual attention, since these things are societal problems and therefore not confined to Brooklyn.
Themes
That Sylvia remains so disciplined is directly related to the extent to which her parents are involved in her life. With their high expectations, it’s clear that they have pushed Sylvia to pursue a career in law over all else. In this way, her home life is drastically different from August’s, since August’s father is more or less uninvolved in her life and her mother is completely absent.
Themes
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As August and her friends get older, their bodies continue to change, attracting even more attention from men. As they walk through the streets, they still feel powerful but they know deep inside that they would feel unsafe if they were on their own—many men lurk in dim hallways and wait in tucked-away areas on the street, hoping to reach out and grab them when they’re alone. Because of this, the girls invest themselves even more intensely in their group dynamic. August even fantasizes about the day her mother will return, when she can introduce her to Sylvia, Angela, and Gigi and tell her mother that she was wrong to think that it’s unwise to have female friends.
One of the reasons August is so sure that her mother was wrong about becoming close with other women is that August’s friends make her feel tangibly safer. While walking in her neighborhood alone, August feels vulnerable and afraid. When she’s with her friends, though, she feels empowered and capable of navigating a world full of danger—a world that is otherwise unsafe for young women on their own.
Themes
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August and her brother still look out the window sometimes and they often see a young man who recently returned from the Vietnam War. Having lost both arms, the veteran has learned to hold a syringe in his teeth and inject heroin into his armpit. Seeing this, August and her brother promise each other that they’ll never use heroin. During this time, August’s brother tries to decide what he wants to do in life, and they both recognize that everyone around them is looking for a way to “dream themselves out” of their current circumstances, clearly believing that there’s “someplace other than” this neighborhood—“another Brooklyn” that they will someday find.
The fact that so many people around August are living in destitution and are addicted to heroin is a sign that she’s not the only one who doesn’t have much support. Indeed, the man who injects heroin into his armpits clearly lacks the resources to beat his addiction and deal with the trauma of having been injured in a bloody war. This dynamic only emphasizes the sustaining qualities of August’s friend group, helping her feel a little less like she has to find a way to “dream” herself out of her current circumstances and into “another Brooklyn.”
Themes
Around this time, August has a fragmented conversation with her father about the contents of a jar that he keeps in the apartment. When she asks what’s inside, he replies by saying that she already knows. She then recalls that he told her there are ashes inside the jar, but she doesn’t know whose. “You know whose,” he responds, but August is incapable of guessing.
This is the first moment in which it seems that August is keeping herself in a state of ignorance. When her father says that she knows whose ashes are inside this jar, readers will likely intuit that her mother isn’t simply absent, but dead—something August apparently refuses to acknowledge. To that end, the mere fact that she uses the word “jar” to refer to what is clearly an urn highlights her desire to deny the reality that her mother has died, though Woodson has not yet clarified whether or not this is truly the case. All the same, it’s clear that August isn’t ready to face what’s really in the urn.
Themes
