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2. Mattie Michael
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Women of Brewster Place, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Racism and Poverty
Sexism and Female Relationships
Sexuality
Motherhood
Religion
Summary
Analysis
Etta forever remembers the agony she heard as a teenager in the voice of a woman singing about an uncaring man. When she drives back to Brewster Place in a Cadillac, she’s carrying Billie Holiday albums. She walks, head high, to Mattie’s apartment—but once Mattie lets her in, she stops acting: these old friends don’t deceive each other. She explains that she left her ex and stole his car, a theft he won’t report because his wife’s father is a sheriff.
Billie Holiday (1915–1959) was a famous and influential African American jazz singer. Music has made a deep impression on Etta due to its ability to express female pain about men, suggesting that she has had a series of unfulfilling heterosexual relationships. By contrast, her relationship with Mattie is characterized by unvarnished honesty and strong friendship.
Themes
As a teenager in Tennessee, Etta got in trouble for refusing to defer to white people. She had to flee the state to escape relatives of a “horny white bastard” who burned down her father’s barn when they couldn’t find her. But even after she moved, “America wasn’t ready for her” in 1937, so she lived off men.
As a teenager in the 1930s, Etta has to contend with both sexism and violent racism: a “horny white bastard” made unwanted sexual overtures and his relatives tried to lynch her when she rejected him. The phrase “America wasn’t ready for” Etta suggests that the U.S., due to its sexism and racism, was unable to understand or accept her independence and self-respect. As such, it is implied, no one would give her opportunities to succeed by herself—and she had to rely on male romantic partners for financial support.
Themes
Mattie asks what Etta plans to do now. Etta says she’ll sell the car and live off the money until a “business opportunity” arises. When Mattie suggests she get a job, Etta points out that her resume is too patchy. She speculates that she should marry a man who will support her. Mattie invites Etta to come to church with her that evening, as several bachelors will attend.
When Etta says she’ll wait for a “business opportunity,” Mattie suggests Etta should get a job instead, which implies that “business opportunity” is a euphemism for another male romantic partner. Despite Mattie’s own traumatic past experiences with religious policing of sexuality, she still suggests that Etta look for a husband at her church, a suggestion that shows Mattie’s continued religiosity and investment in church communities.
Themes
That evening, Etta puts on a low-cut dress and goes to Canaan Baptist Church with Mattie, where a poor congregation “still worship[s] God loudly” because their needs are great. The music reminds Etta of her youth, when faith could defang pain. She looks at Mattie and sees her friend feels “free.” Etta replays her life in her mind, imagining that she made different choices and became a respectable lady. She tugs up her dress and wonders whether it’s “too late.”
The claim that Mattie’s congregation “worship[s] God loudly” due to their great need suggests that poor and oppressed people find comfort in emotional religious outpourings. Etta’s memory of her lost youthful faith assuaging her pain further contributes to this suggestion, as does Mattie’s obvious “free” feeling while participating in religious music. Meanwhile, Etta clearly knows that her sexuality, represented by her low-cut dress, makes her less than respectable—a knowledge that reveals the controlling social forces that punish women for being sexually active.
Themes
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A magnetic preacher takes the podium. He whips up the congregation until they’d do anything—but all he’ll request is money for religious work. Etta notes the man’s wealthy appearance. She recognizes his seductive “techniques” from the secular world, but she also judges that he could make her respectable. She asks Mattie whether he’s married. Mattie explains that he’s a visiting preacher named Rev. Woods—and tells Etta to wait till after the prayers to snag him.
When Etta recognizes the preacher’s “techniques” of seducing his audience from nonreligious contexts, it hints that the preacher may be something of a manipulative conman, squeezing the poor congregation for money. Yet Etta, despite her previous bad experiences with men and sexism, still hopes that such a man could make her economically secure in a racist and unequal society.
Themes
Rev. Woods has already noticed Etta. Though he’d criticize her overt sexuality to his congregation, she makes his mouth water. After the service, he’s angling toward her when Mattie approaches him with Etta in tow. Mattie praises his sermon’s advice to “throw[] away temptation.” Then she introduces Etta. Etta and Rev. Woods flirt while pretending to talk about Etta’s soul. At last, Rev. Woods offers to talk with Etta about her troubles that very evening. Etta agrees.
Rev. Woods is a religious hypocrite: he wants to have sex with Etta, but he would police and criticize her sexuality to the congregation on whom he relies for money. Mattie’s praise of Rev. Woods for advising the congregation to “throw[] away temptation” is clearly an ironic commentary on the sexual “temptation” that Etta poses to him, which he has no intention of throwing away himself.
Themes
Outside the church, Mattie tells Etta that Rev. Woods is only interested in sex. Etta, offended, says that Mattie may think Etta’s not good enough for Rev. Woods, but she plans to settle down and find peace with a man like him—and the naysayers can shut up. Shocked to be misconstrued, Mattie realizes she can only let Etta make her own mistakes and be there for her afterwards. She says she’ll see Etta at home later.
Mattie is a true friend to Etta, telling her the unpleasant truth about Rev. Woods just as Eva once told Mattie the unpleasant truth about her son Basil. Yet Etta’s insecurity about others’ judgment of her sexual history makes her misinterpret Mattie’s words as a negative judgment on her—when in fact it’s a negative judgment on Rev. Woods.
Themes
Etta is about to follow Mattie when Rev. Woods exits the church and ushers her into his car. As they drive, he admires her skill at the “game”—but he’s confident he’ll win because she doesn’t know that he’s playing the game at all. It’s only after he’s finished thrusting inside her that she realizes what the evening was: Rev. Woods is the same as all the other men she’s had.
Rev. Woods almost immediately proves Mattie’s negative judgment on him right: he is a religious hypocrite down to the core, playing a “game” against Etta in which he tries to extract casual sex from her without giving back any of the social standing or economic support she’s hoping for. Etta realizes his entirely selfish, exploitative motives only after she’s had sex with him.
Themes
Later, Etta asks Rev. Woods to drop her a street over from Brewster Place, so he doesn’t have to navigate the dead-end street. He’s pleased that she’s not clingy, but when he sees how “slumped” she looks standing on the street corner, he speeds away. Etta, looking at the wall, fears that if she enters Brewster Place, she’ll never leave. Yet she starts walking. When she realizes a light is on in Mattie’s apartment and Etta’s records are playing, she laughs and approaches “the love and the comfort that await[] her.”
The wall symbolizes the barrier that structural racism poses to Black economic security. Ergo, when Etta looks at the wall and fears that she’ll never leave Brewster Place, it represents her understanding that no man is going to support her economically and that she has limited economic opportunities as a Black woman in the U.S. Yet “the love and the comfort” of Mattie’s friendship shield Etta from total despair, showing once again the importance of female solidarity to oppressed women’s flourishing.
Themes
