Ann Petry’s novel The Street was written in 1946 during the “blue period” of Black American literature. The “blue period” begins in the late 1940s and ends before the Black Power Movement of the 1960s. One of the characteristics of this period is alienation. It is in this backdrop that Petry introduces us to Lutie Johnson, a young Black mother raising Bub, her eight-year-old son on 116th Street in Harlem, New York. In order to support her family, Lutie works in the homes of wealthy Connecticut suburbanites. She sees how they live and knows the comfort money can buy. Each night she dreams of one day having that kind of life for herself and her son. Each morning she is confronted with the reality of what it means to be a poor Black woman in America. Can Lutie overcome the three “strikes” against her and achieve the American Dream? In this course we will find the answer in Ann Petry’s honest and realistic examination of the intersection of race, class, and gender.
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