Praisesong For The Widow

In Part 3, Chapter 1, dreams become increasingly symbolic as they expose Avey’s subconscious and subsequently influence her actions and decisions. Her dream alludes to her desire to be who she was when she and Jerome still lived on Halsey Street while foreshadowing her coming enlightenment. She wakes after dreaming that every light in the apartment suddenly turns on, only to discover it’s the blaring sun filling her hotel room in real life. Therefore, the dream alludes to the illuminating quest she will embark on.

It also works to unsettle Avey, causing her to become gradually more introspective. Her behavior becomes increasingly unusual, marked by her carelessness towards her possessions and her appearance: “She was without even a little face powder. Her watch, which she never failed to put on after showering in the mornings, had been on the vanity in the bathroom” (152). The changes are further represented by her careless and aimless wandering; “[w]ith a child’s curiosity and awe” (154), she is drawn to the deserted beaches, far from the hotels. She feels these sights are all new to her because of how altered she is; though she has seen many beaches like this, the profound change beginning to take hold of her causes her to see everything differently. She reverts to a child-like state of wonderment and naivety, allowing her to reevaluate and rebuild her self-possession.

The fraught tone of Chapter 1 is supplanted by the consolation and reverence Avey feels when entering the rum shop in Chapter 2: “the place [had] the tone hushed tone of a temple or church. Through the open door could be heard the faint shouts of the children diving off the jetty: a lyric sound in the silence” (159). Though the owner is momentarily hostile, the bar is initially marked as a place of refuge and revelation for Avey. Its significance becomes more apparent as the old man describes his connection to the excursion.

In his descriptions of Carriacou and the excursion, the old man relates a sense of tradition and community completely foreign to Avey. Furthermore, when she cannot answer which nation she comes from, the interaction starkly highlights her disconnection from her cultural identity. The chapter also uses the motifs of storytelling and dancing to convey this—first in the man’s tale of the excursion’s events and then in his insistence that they must dance for the “Old Parents” so they are remembered (166). The story of the excursion, which is primarily meant to honor one’s ancestors, demonstrates the task that Avey has failed to do: upholding a cultural legacy imparted unto her by Aunt Cuney.

As Avey unravels her own story for the man, her “old self” is shocked to see her “talking so freely” (170). Avey begins to unburden herself of the feelings she cannot yet identify. Her newfound openness marks another development in her character and allows a profound connection between Avey and the man to form. The man’s acceptance and unspoken understanding of Avey alludes to this connection being rooted in far more than this single interaction. The implication is that it derives from a distantly shared experience, feeling, or history.

Chapter 3 builds upon the motifs of dance and storytelling to begin Avey’s cultural regeneration, one of the greater thematic elements of the novel. The loss of Avey’s cultural identity is addressed in direct and indirect ways. The man overtly addresses it in his attempt to console her: “It have quite a few like you. People who can’t call their nation […] Is a hard thing. I don’t even like to think about it” (175). Indirectly, the loss is acknowledged by his explanation that only the Carriacouans who left the Caribbean no longer come back for the excursion: “an aggrieved wave of his hand spelled out Canada, England, the States, but he refused to call the names. (‘…grands and great-grands I has never seen…’)” (183). These statements touch upon both Avey’s personal distance from culture and the vast, lasting impact of the African diaspora, demonstrating the violence still inflicted upon African descendants because of the legacies of imperialism and slavery. This is then explicitly explored through the tale of The Bongo as the man describes that a husband is sold to Trinidad, a wife to Haiti, and two children orphaned. This family represents the millions of others who were torn from their home and loved ones and scattered across the world, disconnecting them from their ancestral home and therefore their cultural traditions.

Despite this, the novel conveys that cultural regeneration is possible through Avey’s reluctant journey. Her old self, briefly worried about her material possessions, loses the fight against the old man’s offer to join the excursion because it is one she has been fighting her entire life: “[s]he continued to search her mind for an excuse […] But nothing more emerged. There was only the gaping hole and the darkness” (184). Avey can no longer ward off the need to restore the parts of herself she lost over the years because she can no longer find a reason for avoiding it. The reality of her subconscious desires have made themselves known, and she can now take on the journey of her cultural self-possession.