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Comparison Of Chapter One Of Ann Petry's The Street

Decent Essays

This reading response will be covering chapter one of Ann Petry’s 1946 novel The Street. The first chapter introduces us to the character Lutie Johnson who is trying to create a stable life for her and her son. Using Lutie Johnson story as a medium, Ann Petry paints a picture of the struggles of being a woman in the inner city. The story opens with a few paragraphs talking about the wind. The wind is perceived under the view of naturalism. This means it’s denoted with a negative connotation. Lutie’s battle against the wind symbolically shows the battle a woman goes through to make it in life. Whether it’s because of society or people in society a woman is held back and pushed back against for making headway. The wind pushes back at …show more content…

Despite it all, Lutie attempts to settle the unease by using humor. She pictures the complex with tenants sleeping in cots outside to settle her mind. This brings us back to the tone the wind set, concerning obtaining a break before being tossed back into the storm.
She is thrown back into the storm, when she meets the Superintendent and his hunger filled eyes (p.172). This sparks a very real fear for a woman left alone with a strange man with lust filled eyes. Lutie fears she will be sexually assaulted or rape. Her femininity is objectified as she can feel his gaze looking up at her as he makes her take the lead upstairs. This fear becomes more intensified as she is left alone in a tiny apartment with the nearest witness being downstairs. Lutie attempts to reassure herself by reminding herself she is doing all this for her child and the man could very well be fixated on something else. But even she knows instinctually that may not be the case as she recalls her grandmother’s words on being able to feel out evil people as well the police may come eventually if she’s being raped (p.176 & p.177). As a desperate mother, she decides to forgo these feelings of dread to do right by her child. She does make a final attempt to subvert the danger by implying that she is married by giving the name of Mrs. Lutie Johnson. This could be taken as she had a husband all along but based on the reading, she is likely using this as a deflection tactic. A man, when

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