54 pages • 1-hour read
The Girls in the Stilt House
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Themes
The Resilience of Women
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of racism, gender discrimination, illness and death, and emotional abuse.
Nearly every female character in the novel demonstrates incredible resilience. Remarkably, each woman finds her own way to manage the trauma she undergoes in her life, from abusive husbands to systemic racism. Though their lives are not always happy or peaceful, they find ways to endure and maintain their dreams for a better life.
Sylvie manages by carefully choosing her battles and secretly plotting an escape for herself and Ada; Teensy displays resilience by focusing her thoughts on the things that bring her joy. When Ada returns to Virgil’s home, finding it in absolute squalor, “She was almost glad her mother was not alive to see this, to have to live with this, which she would have [….]. [H]er mother was well schooled in living with things. With enduring” (12). Ada realizes that her mother must have felt trapped, and this makes the revelation that “her mother had planned an escape for the two of them” (62) all the more surprising and uplifting to her. Sylvie may have acted like a mouse, may have feared snakes, and been deeply vulnerable, but she maintained a quiet strength, it seems, for her daughter.
For her part, Teensy “always referred to the shack as ‘our house,’ though to Matilda’s mind it wasn’t theirs and it fell way short of a house” (112). Teensy prefers to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. Calling their “shack” their “house” helps her to be grateful for what she has rather than focus on what she doesn’t. Teensy tries to find and hold onto life’s small joys: a beautiful sunset, a piece of pie, and so on.
Ada and Matilda learn to be resilient from their mothers, though they do have more opportunities than the women of the older generation did. Ada recalls the way Sylvie would engage in fun activities with her, especially when they sewed, and she worked hard to learn the skill from Sylvie. After Teensy’s death, Matilda learns what made her so determined: love for her children and the desire to give them as good a life as she could. Bitterness and regret are not that way. Thus, Matilda makes her promises to Annis and begins writing to make it easier for her to endure what she cannot change: “She had kept her sanity by keeping this record [of unjust events] and, more than that, by telling herself that she would use it when the time was right. She would find a way” (225). Writing helps Matilda to process her experiences and survive them, even when they threaten to overwhelm her; in short, it helps her to persevere.
After the fire at the Pattersons’ home, Gertie tells her, “It always happens you get what you need, a little at a time. You get through a hour, then a day, then a week. Then you look back and it’s been a year, and then more years, and good things found a way in, too” (232). Women in the novel keep finding new ways to “get through” the challenging, unfair, painful aspects of their lives, to raise their children, and to create a future where life is better.
The Complexities of Friendship Across Social Divides
Because the power imbalance between Black Americans and white Americans was so pronounced during this period, any attempt to create a friendship that transcends this boundary would necessarily be fraught with misunderstanding, pain, and perhaps resentment.
Despite her appreciation of Matilda, Ada cannot help but recreate certain aspects of the unequal social dynamic between white and Black people in the community. Ada relies on Matilda a great deal, but she thinks of her feelings as gratitude rather than Matilda’s position as a kind of servitude. At one point, however, Ada’s “thoughts took a rare bold turn, leading her down a sloping path that eventually ended with Even though she’s colored. Those words flattened her with shame as she tasted her father’s poison on her own tongue” (84). Despite herself, Ada is affected by the ideas of the white people who raised her. She marvels at Matilda’s self-sufficiency, unable to understand why her wonderment might irritate Matilda. She begins to think of Matilda as a sister and Gertie as a grandmother, not realizing that they face a number of obstacles and challenges that she does not.
Matilda is much more aware of the social dynamics of her relationship with Ada, attempting to establish early on that she does not “work for” Ada. To Ada, “Sometimes it seemed that Matilda could see right into Ada’s soul and read her thoughts” (84). This is because Matilda knows that even the most well-intentioned white girl was still raised in an environment that facilitates her helplessness and dependence on Black people, all while maintaining their lower status and lack of freedoms. Ada may not be intentionally racist, but she has been brought up in a community founded on systemic racism, so it is easy for her to fall into familiar patterns without really interrogating her motives or understanding Matilda’s feelings.
It’s difficult for Matilda not to resent Ada’s opportunities and good fortune because, as a Black person, she has not been afforded the same. When Ada brings home her earnings from Flora, “Matilda knew that Ada was looking to be patted on the back […]. But Matilda was having trouble getting past that four dollars and fifty cents lying on the table for work Ada had done while sitting in a chair” (276). To Matilda, who is used to farming and physical labor, Ada’s earnings feel out of step with her physical effort. Further, “the sewing machine that had dropped out of heaven into Ada’s lap irked her some, too. Most everyone Matilda knew could sweat in the fields for weeks, months, and still have no hope of ever owning a sewing machine” (276). This knowledge complicates Matilda’s feelings. While she’s glad that Ada can do something, the ease with which Ada seems to come by gainful employment and its benefits is irritating.
Though Ada doesn’t have an easy life, her race doesn’t make her life harder. Thus, Gertie tells her, “You ain’t got half a notion what [Matilda is] carrying around with her. What she been carrying around before she ever laid eyes on you” (296). Racial privilege is something Ada simply does not understand, and she doesn’t understand that she and Matilda have “different things at stake” (297), as Gertie says. For Matilda, “when Virgil Morgan’s house began to feel like home to her, when she realized she had developed a fondness for his daughter and his granddaughter that turned what began as justice into something that felt like betrayal, she’d had to leave” (309). Matilda acknowledges that she killed Virgil because he would’ve killed Ada, not because he killed Dalton and Annis, and this makes her feel like a traitor to her family. Ada becomes so dependent on her that it takes Matilda leaving for Ada to finally figure out how to help herself and be an active participant in her life instead of a passive recipient of others’ actions and words. It is, ultimately, finding themselves on more equal footing—both in possession of a skill that offers them financial independence and personal fulfillment and going their separate ways—that finally “heal[s]” the “something between them” (363) that Ada never fully understands.
The Moral Dilemmas Faced by People on Society’s Margins
Because people like the Pattersons and, to some extent, the Morgans, are already socially disempowered, they are sometimes faced with incredibly difficult decisions. Often, they may feel compelled to make choices that could be considered morally questionable to protect themselves and the people they love from harm. These dilemmas can cause incredible guilt and emotional hardship for individuals who would prefer to do the “right thing,” so to speak, but are forced to set aside their preference to prioritize their survival.
Dalton gets roped into Creedle’s bootlegging scheme and even keeps what he knows about Frank Bowers stealing liquor a secret to maintain his family’s safety. Matilda asks, “‘Can’t you tell Old Man Creedle you’re done with it? We ain’t slaves.’ [Dalton says,] ‘Too far in.’ [He and Matilda] glanced at each other. ‘Most likely [Frank] just took them few bottles that one time, and that’s the end of it’” (148). It’s true that they aren’t enslaved, but the Pattersons are still very dependent on the Creedles, and Dalton hesitates before potentially angering them. After Matilda sees Frank stealing a large quantity of liquor from the well-house, she agonizes over whether to tell Dalton, not wanting to endanger him: “If she did [tell her father] and Old Man Creedle questioned him about missing bottles, he might try to feign ignorance and seem guilty. Despite his deal-making with Curtis, her father was an honest man, unaccustomed to lying. And nothing good could come of his accusing Frank outright” (166). Matilda feels herself to be in a complicated moral position, and she has no wish to involve or compromise her father.
Further, Matilda and Dalton cannot accuse Frank outright because Frank’s word will always be believed over theirs, and he could easily claim that Dalton was stealing from Creedle and is trying to pin the theft on him. When Matilda learns that Frank killed Buddy, “She felt as though the fates of everyone she loved most were in her hands—her pregnant mother, her hopeful father, sweet, innocent Stella Mae” (188). She must weigh many priorities, including her integrity and her loved ones’ safety, before she can decide what is best. It’s agonizing, evident in the simile the narrator uses to describe how these secrets “ate at her like poison” (196). She wants to be honest, but she cannot be loyal to Buddy’s widow and her own family, who could suffer terribly if she tells the truth.
Ada finds herself in a similarly difficult position when Frank exercises his power over her. When he learns that Matilda was living with her, he frightens her into confessing that Matilda killed Virgil. She feels so guilty for telling Frank what Matilda did, but “she had to protect Annis, and protecting Annis, as Frank had ordered things, required condemning Matilda. Everything was tied up together and revolving around Ada, spinning and moving forward toward some horrible end” (346-47). Frank says he can blackmail the deputy sheriff with information about his involvement in the bootlegging operation, and his word will always be believed over Ada’s or Matilda’s. Ada realizes how little power she has because of how Frank “ordered things”—truly, how the society Frank represents orders things—and she doesn’t want to hurt Matilda, but she must protect her baby. Ultimately, she leads Frank to his death in the woods, finding a way around one problem by potentially creating another.
Because Matilda and Ada lack the social power of Frank and Creedle, they are somewhat at the mercy of men like this. It means that these men have a great deal more leverage, more bargaining chips, than Dalton, Matilda, or Ada ever could. This complicates the decisions those with less power must make, as they cannot simply do what seems right because the consequences could be so unjust.
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