The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

“Hattie looked more closely at the crowd on the sidewalk. The Negroes did not step into the gutters to let the whites pass and they did not stare doggedly at their own feet.”

Hattie does not know what to expect before she arrives in Philadelphia. When she emerges from the train station, she is stunned to see black people walking on the streets with as much dignity as white people. The sight convinces her that, in Philadelphia, she is free to realize all of her hopes and dreams. While this proves false, Hattie will always consider the North a more hospitable place than the South.

“Seven Days they get to be heathens out in the open.”

Layfette explains to Floyd that the “hoodoo” celebration occurring in the town’s streets is the annual Seven Days festival. During the rest of the year, the townsfolk conform to social expectations, but for Seven Days, they joyously flout taboos. Ironically, these are the same people who condemn Lafayette for his nonconforming sexuality.

“No one had ever looked at him with such revulsion; he had never done anything so terrible that it made him less than human.”

The fear and confusion Floyd feels after his sexual encounter with Lafayette stems not just from a general, social imperative to be heterosexual, but also from a personal childhood experience. During an intimate moment with his friend Carl, Carl’s mother intruded and expressed her revulsion. Her reaction contributed to Floyd’s awareness of the need to discipline his sexuality or risk banishment from society itself.

“Not so infrequently, news of a lynching or a murdering white mob traveled up from ‘that place’ and invaded the houses of Wayne Street, leaving the residents of the block hushed and grateful for their asylum in the North.”

Although the North disappoints Hattie and most Wayne Street residents in many ways, it nevertheless provides a refuge from the racial terrorism of the South. Floyd discerns that, having grown up in the North, he can never fully understand the experiences of southern blacks who are ever vulnerable to violence. The reader is reminded that blacks, as a “race,” are differentiated; each is an individual with unique experiences.

“Six thought mercy and weakness were the same thing and was as revolted by them as he was by his own frail body. He wanted to punish, not forgive.”

The novel posits questions about strength, weakness, and morality. Six equates forgiveness with weakness, which positions the reader to reflect on Hattie’s character in terms of her enormous strength and her inability to forgive. Hattie eventually concedes that maintaining her anger toward those who failed her became a heavy burden.

“Perhaps there was some other way to understand the world, but Six couldn’t imagine what that could be.”

In Six’s world, frail boys are the object of ridicule and bullying. Six has internalized this loathing for “effeminate” boys like himself, so he participates in the abuse of another small boy when the opportunity arises. By acknowledging that there might be another way to think about gender or identity, Six’s thoughts gesture to the novel’s larger concerns with social categories and assumptions.

“Maybe good was only accomplished indirectly and through unlikely channels: fake healings or a room full of jealous angry men with Bibles who nonetheless drew these sad people and lifted their spirits for a few days.”

Six’s sense that much of the mystique surrounding religion—its purity or its righteousness—is “fake” prepares the reader for Hattie’s conclusion at the end of the novel that religion is “the way of fraudulence.” The comfort that a spiritual community can provide “sad people” is real, however, as Hattie herself discovers.

“Later that evening, and for years to come, he would wonder if he had misunderstood her, if her shame wasn’t at having a child with him, but something larger that he didn’t understand, and if it wasn’t his failure to grasp this that had doomed them.”

Hattie’s greatest shame is having been fooled by August, who, at the outset of their marriage, duped her into believing he would become an electrician and their family would prosper. She fears Lawrence is no more dependable than August. Moreover, a future with Lawrence holds even more risk because she does not know what will become of her children.

“They were beyond punishment or forgiveness, beyond what they had inflicted on each other, beyond love.”

After realizing she won’t find security with Lawrence, Hattie returns to August, and he accepts her. Together they have endured devastating losses and disappointments. Their sorrows and survivals are unique to them and constitute who they are as individuals and as a couple. Because of their binding history, they will continue their journey together despite the obstacles.

“And of course the other women of Wayne Street had been wounded and chastened by the North, just as Hattie had been, but she was so insistent on the singularity of her disappointment she could not see she wasn’t alone in her circumstance.”

Although Hattie’s disappointments are her own, her insistence on their singularity blinds her to the wider social forces that work against black economic success. She blames August exclusively for their family’s failed fortunes, which is just one example of the tensions between personal responsibility and overarching forces that the novel explores.

“You’ve been in the house with your afternoon teas and garden club so long you think you can pretend we’re not who we are, but you know just as well as I do that my dignity, my goddamned dignity, would have had us swinging from a tree.”

This argument between Pearl and her husband registers the fact that, in the 1950s American South, “race,” not class, was the measure of a person. Pearl is outraged that Benny humbled himself before the white men who interrupted their picnic, even though the men were obviously poorer. Benny’s response here signals that, regardless of how hard they work to elevate their class status, black families and individuals in this society fall short of social equality because of racism.

“She snatched the jar from the table and hurled it at the wall behind August. The two of them watched the butterflies, stunned and struggling in the broken glass.”

The novel associates both Hattie and Bell with butterflies and moths, which arguably represent their restless spirits. Before Pearl’s arrival, Hattie captures butterflies for Ella’s enjoyment, much as she has contained her restlessness for the benefit of her children. Hattie’s efforts prove futile when she loses Ella to Pearl due to her family’s poverty, for which Hattie blames August. Hattie’s spirit, like the butterflies, suffers from constraints.

“You done nothing but put me in a box and now you’re mad ’cause I won’t stay in it.”

By approaching Hattie from her children’s different perspectives, the very structure of the novel resists the idea that the riddle of who she is can be solved by putting her in a box. The characters, however, frequently try to define others using social categories, as Alice does when she makes assumptions about Eudine based on her status as a black maid. Eudine ultimately defies Alice’s assumptions, particularly when she wins Billups’s admiration.

“I caught my reflection in the living room window. I looked like a pile of fool’s gold, you had to squint from all the shine coming off of me—buttons, shoes, epaulets.”

When Franklin dresses up as a respectable serviceman to impress his estranged wife, he knows he is a fraud. Six is also an imposter as a preacher, as is Alice in her role as an upper-class woman. Hattie will finally acknowledge that forfeiting one’s autonomy to socially sanctioned roles or ideologies is “the way of fraudulence.”

“Most of my missions are at night. I shoot into the darkness and sail away before I have to count the body parts.”

Franklin construes his military assaults in Vietnam as symbolic of the damage he has done in his personal relationships. On both fronts he avoids facing the consequences of his actions, which allows him to discount his responsibility for the destruction.

“When it reached her throat, she threw her head back and opened her mouth. Her moths flew out—legions of them, all moonlight silver.”

Bell imagines the pain in her chest from tuberculosis as the work of sharp-winged moths fluttering in her lungs. The moths symbolize her restless spirit, or her yearnings to have an exceptional life. Hattie has the same restlessness, but she has learned to discipline herself for the sake of her children. Because Bell never acquired such self-discipline, and because she lacks the confidence to pursue exceptionalism, her restlessness becomes a self-destructive force that she dreams her death will set free.

“Long way from home.”

Willie, the juju healer who once lived on Wayne Street, recognizes Bell and remarks that, living as she does in the ghetto, Bell is a long way from home. One way or another, all of Hattie’s children travel a long way from home. Bell notes that her siblings do not hold Hattie accountable for their troubles, and this insight suggests that their personal journeys precipitate their awareness of their autonomy.

“They’d trample her to death, all these things she wanted.”

Both Bell and Hattie yearn to somehow set themselves apart from others, and particularly from those who, like themselves, are boxed in by race and class limitations. Because of her own shattering setbacks, Hattie ruthlessly discourages her children’s impractical aspirations. Bell is like her mother but can’t “trample” down her wants, so they nearly trample her.

“At some point in their lives Bell’s sisters stopped blaming Hattie for their messes.”

Bell has always attributed her feelings of defectiveness to Hattie’s lack of tenderness for her children. After Hattie rescues Bell from her path of self-destruction, Bell realizes that Hattie loves her, not tenderly but fiercely. Having fundamentally misinterpreted her mother’s emotions, Bell can no longer blame Hattie for her own “messes.”

“She didn’t know how to tend to her children’s souls, but she fought to keep them alive and to keep herself alive.”

When Hattie arrived in the North, she believed it would be the promised land where her restless soul would finally be free to find fulfillment. Her expectations were soon crushed, and although it angered her, she accepted that her spirit would always be hampered by the disadvantages of her race and class. She cannot nurture her children’s souls or her own until she refuses to accept that misery is their lot.

“I sympathize with her. I know how difficult it is to resist certain urges. My urges are abhorrent.”

Afflicted with mental illness, Cassie attributes her “urges,” or desires, to the voices in her head, thus denying that they are her own. Hattie also has unsatisfied yearnings that she resists and represses, and Cassie here sympathizes with the effort it entails. Although the causes of Cassie’s illness are unknown, the reader recalls that, as a child, she longed to play the piano, but Hattie forbade it.

“Mother was a beautiful young woman; the house was too plain, too small to contain her.”

When Cassie was a young girl, she witnessed an expression of yearning on Hattie’s face instead of her usual anger. In that moment Cassie perceived that her mother dreamed of a life much richer in possibilities than the one she was living. The image of a house, invoked here and elsewhere throughout the novel, represents Hattie’s aspirations and frustrations.

“The church brought her great peace, and if she only pretended to believe, if she was a fraud, well, that was the price she had to pay for comfort and fellowship.”

Although Hattie believes in God, she does not believe in God’s mercy. Indeed, the trials of her life have convinced her that, as the Bible says, “man is born unto trouble,” from which there is no deliverance. This belief does provide comfort, in that it releases one from responsibility, but it also promotes bitterness in Hattie.