The Street By Ann Petry Analysis

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The Street, written by Ann Petry, is a novel that explores the way of life for both Caucasian and African Americans during the 1940’s and provides valuable insight to the problems that plagued both races during this turbulent time in history. The Street uses money as a motif that demonstrates a proverbial wall between Caucasians and African Americans during the 1940s. Ann Petry, according to her biography written by Marilyn Mobley McKenzie, experienced a dual world of African Americans and Caucasian while growing up. McKenzie writes that Petry had, “the perspective of her own black middle-class upbringing in a small, predominantly white New England community and the perspective of her years living and working among the black poor of New York City. The weight of her observations from the second perspective prompted her to write The Street” (McKenzie 615). …show more content…
There are several examples of money and wealth in the novel that show the vastly different worlds lived by Caucasian and African Americans during this time period. Petry uses the central protagonist, Lutie Johnson, to explore the different world of Caucasian and African Americans during the 1940s. Lutie learns early on in life that money matters which she believes partly what separates her from Caucasian Americans. Petry imbues wealth and money throughout her novel, The Street, and uses it to show a wall that separates Caucasian and African Americans. The Street gives valuable insight, through is characters, into the mindset of Caucasian and African Americans during the 1940’s; the novel uses money and wealth as an impassable wall that Lutie Johnson peers over but never

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