logo

56 pages 1 hour read

Sister Souljah

The Coldest Winter Ever

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Symbols & Motifs

Drugs

Drugs are simultaneously symbolic of power and ruin in the novel. For Winter, she sees drugs as a means to an end. Drugs are what made her family incredibly wealthy, and it’s what allows the men she pursues to be rich as well. Yet, even though drugs led to her family’s downfall and her mother’s untimely death, Winter upholds her view of drugs as a way to achieve what she wants. Much unlike Winter, Souljah views drugs as a pathway to ruin because it rips families and communities apart. In this way, Winter and Souljah are antithetical characters, divided by their view on drugs and its effect on the community.

Nicknames

Many of the characters throughout the novel use nicknames to simultaneously obscure their identity and create a new one. In this way, nicknames are symbolic of the fact that many of characters don’t really know each other. This is especially true of the men that Winter seeks out. For example, for much of the novel, Winter tries to seduce Midnight or daydreams of seducing Midnight. However, he brings up the point that she doesn’t even know his real name; she’s willing to give herself to him sexually, but she doesn’t even know who he really is. In fact, she doesn’t even learn his real name or anything about him until almost the end of the novel, and by that time he’s already moved away. This means that her daydreams and desires for Midnight were based on an illusion. Midnight said that he got rid of his real name, his accent, and his old clothes to earn respect on the streets. While Winter is attracted to the façade that is Midnight, his true identity and self is Bilal. Midnight is the drug dealer, while Bilal is a family man who owns a barber shop. It is only after Midnight leaves the streets of Brooklyn that he can let down his guard and be Bilal.

Similarly, Winter is attracted to Bullet; she has sex with him, becomes his girlfriend, and moves in with him without ever knowing his real name. In fact, she doesn’t know anything about his true personhood. All she knows is that she likes having sex with him and he has money. Yet, even Winter ends up taking on a nickname to hide her true self. When she briefly lives with Souljah, she goes by “Sasha.” By using a nickname, she tries to create a new identity to prevent things between her and Souljah from getting too personal.  

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text