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    A Study Guide for Ann Petry's "The Street"
    A Study Guide for Ann Petry's "The Street"
    A Study Guide for Ann Petry's "The Street"
    Ebook41 pages32 minutes

    A Study Guide for Ann Petry's "The Street"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Ann Petry's "The Street," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535839846
    A Study Guide for Ann Petry's "The Street"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Ann Petry's "The Street" - Gale

      10

      The Street

      Ann Lane Petry

      1946

      Introduction

      Published in 1946, The Street was the first novel by a female African American writer to sell over one million copies. Inspired by her experiences working in the ghettos of Harlem, Ann Petry's first book joined the growing number of African American voices that called attention to the horrific impact of racial and gender inequality in the United States—a chorus whose message was ignored by many until the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Unlike the works of her contemporaries, Petry's novel paints a picture of urban ghetto life from a female perspective. Until publication of The Street, novels written about urban African American women, such as Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1923) or Jessie Fauset's Plum Bun (1929), focused primarily on the experiences of middle-class protagonists. Other famous works that did focus on the experiences of poor, urban African Americans often neglected the female experience.

      Set in Harlem in the 1940s, Petry's novel paints a grim picture of life for African Americans in the ghettos of New York. Speaking to the inextricable relationship between racial inequality and poverty, The Street follows one working-class woman, Lutie Johnson, as she struggles desperately to find a safe place to raise her only son. As readers learn early in the novel, eight-year-old Bub is at risk of falling prey to the many traps that often ensnare the African American youths of the inner city—violent crime, substance abuse, and prostitution, among others. Believing that hard work and determination will ultimately enable her to alter what seems increasingly like an inevitable spiral downward, Lutie labors tirelessly to achieve the American Dream of financial stability. Despite her remarkable resilience and commitment to not sell her body for money, Lutie not only fails to achieve her goals but is consumed by rage and abandons her son completely, leaving readers to wonder what, if anything, could have been done to change the story's devastating outcome.

      While the majority of Petry's novel is concerned with the interior experiences of its characters, it does paint a realistic picture of life in Harlem during the 1940s, including occasional descriptions of violence and instances of profanity that may be disturbing to some readers.

      Author Biography

      The youngest of three daughters, Ann Lane was born on October 12, 1908, into one of only two black families in the small town of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Ann never knew her oldest sister, who died at the age of two. Ann grew up at a time in the United States when African Americans were considered by many

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