Lily Flashcards
(4 cards)
role
-the outgoing, contraverial aunt of ernestine and ermina and the sister of sandra
-feelings for Godfrey talk about loneliness, love and acceptance.
-her critical thinking contrasts with godfrey, highlighting America at that time through making him uneasy by instilling in girls everything Godfrey’s tried to avoid
—->alcohol, cigarettes, sex, communism which can make her unlikable but also represents how we must not stay comfortable and push past barriers
-and also catalyst for ernestine’s (and ermina’s) grown-up and coming of age
-though flawed, her undesired qualities are the consequence of a red scare and racist 1990s world in which she’s limited being who she really wants to be.
her big character is a reflection of the big dreams she carriers, which are unable to be released, making her very human
Lilly’s death makes audience overthink about how Lily ended up here, life hasn’t treated Lily as she hoped, thought provoking lily’s dramatic death.( -nottage isn’t say there is a way to succeed-she is saying the crumbs are love and Lily died without love )
-communism=her religion
critical thinking and new ways of life
-upon meeting ‘ravenously bites into a sandwich’. adverb ravenously suggests she has animal like tendencies making her seem like a threat to Godfrey’s ‘peaceful’ life that the girls have been living.
-‘wrapping her wiry arm around her nice’s thick frame’ (pg 39). ‘thick frame’ a ref to ernestine being slightly chubby, suggesting childlike innocence which ‘wiry arm’ connotates harshness, toughness, artificial meaningg (ref to consumerism) as if lily is polluting what is left of childhood in the girls, and destroying work done by godfrey by introducing them to the harsh world. also neccesary at the same time-they need to find about the world.
-‘lily flicks her ashes on top of an old magazine’ (pg 30) constant substance abuse shown here again. could be seen as self righteous settling in a home with ease but that’s its a way of dealing with rejection. also ref to ernestine immersing herself in a world of movies and glamour in seeking the crumbs of the world and lily’s ashes are a metaphor for burning her dream like state of the world. flicks adverb casualness as if she doesn’t care about consequence of actions or simply cannot.
-‘I practically conceded to God when he took his sax up on that scale’ (pg 37).
link to religion parallels to Godfrey and coping mechanisms and back story on bebop: lily exits when a bebop version of ‘Salt Peanuts plays. (pg 37). she talks about be bop a lot and imposes it in house as we see with ermina and even plays at end of play. the role of it was enabled the musicians to play at faster tempos. demonstrating how lily is too fast and head of the world in her own way, so not understand and indulges in music, also linking to how her communism is equal to Godfrey’s religion
-‘takes out a tissue, spits into it and extinguishes her cigarette’ (PG 22). cigarette metaphor for ignorance. as it connotates danger. spitting form of-words-from herself showing the kids more to the world, saving them from that ignorance. extinguishes link to her need to fight, dramatic like a fire.
coping mechanism
in a world that won’t accept her (communism, racism eg) lily makes herself big and copes in various ways to deal with this.
-on page 37 straightens ermina’s hair to make her blend in more but on page 24, ‘do like to say it, y’all’ . contrast portrays unpredictability of her-perhaps in a world of being stereotyped. implies we will never really understand her-reflection of how she isn’t allowed to be
-‘the only thing people see is the brown of my skin (…) so why even bother to get dressed.’excuses for not working out of fear. the lack of a question mark contrasts to Godfrey’s who has an unability to think and simply ask FD qs, and as here doesn’t ask qs demonstrates her fear being in different ways, dealt in different ways.
-‘Black like coal’ (pg 39) simile as if she is romanticising scene, like cinema. coal link to industrialism and consumerism world as if this encounter was artificial and she is using it to make herself feel better-consumerism. she also says ‘black like a new pair of patent-leather shoes’ (pg 40) patent leather is shiny, and later talk about godfrey shining shoes…she uses him in replacement as simile shows for godfrey who she really wants.
-‘lights a cigarette in the shadow of the three gold balls of a pawn shop’ (pg 55). three gold= family. gold connotates treasures goods aka love and here in selling her stuff, metaphor for her never getting that love. shadow implies metaphor for mother, or will never be apart of it, always hovering them. light and shadow juxtapose emphasising how she uses it to make herself feel better about a certain loneliness that comes with the way she lives her life.
-‘I let a memory carry me this far, but even that memory done ran out of fuel’ (pg 75) memory is personified. referring to relationship and hopes to a car, reminds audience of commercialised and fast changing world and fuel connotates cars and artificial, in a consumerism world once more, lily hadn’t moved on from past like many and still had hopes for godfrey and that he could be like he was-and she too.
-‘Period. Stop!’ literally everywhere-her catchphrase. the use of repetition places emphasis on her ability to want to be heard and making herself big in a world that tries to Make her small. shortness of sentence create urgency in linking to her revolution in her wanting to change things. emphasised on page 79 when she tells Ernie to get a job like a nurse, essential so she can always hold her head high and then says it next to it.
-on page 9 godfrey wears an ‘impeccably pressed suit’ and lily wears ‘a smartly tailored suit’ adverbs demonstrate them as both an armour, better versions of themselves as the world views them and need to control what they can in a racist 50s America
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING-
humanity, identity, grief, love, loneliness, acceptance, romantacism (dreams and hopes)
-upon seeing her sister’s photo lily ‘whimpers, then recovers her composure’ verb whimpers makes her seem weak and feeble, reminding audience she too is grieving her sister but by composing herself instantly she is contrasted with godfrey and made to be a resilient person.
-like everyone searching for meaning as shown with her affiliation of communism. ‘Go on say it, tongue won’t fall out’. the use of hyperbole contrasts with godfrey fear and overpowers it. tongue is a symbol of voice and speech, demonstrating lily’s ability to speak and find herself in a world that won’t let her.
-‘Well..I…know…Godfrey’ (pg 66). use of ellipses demonstrate the unexplicable and complicated nature of their relationship also creating irony as the spaces imply she doesn’t know the new changed godfrey and has bee therefore replaced by gerte (as she has no spaces), thus emphasising her loneliness.
-even looking after girls is noble, but also her trying to find meaning. ‘Well, babies, a Negro Woman with my gumption don’t keep work so easily’. the noun babies connotates a motherly feel and through educating them, unlike godfrey, she is created as a mother like figure which is emphasised through parenthesis on ‘babies’ which also mimicks her protecting them from the world.
-‘sparkling white gloves’ (pg 22) white connotates purity but also simplicity, adverb sparkling however contrasts with this idea-once again lily costume is an armour for simple thing we all want-love. and perhaps why she doesn’t succeed at end and everyone else does.
-‘lily’s cold body poked full of holes, her misery finally borne out’ (pg 85). holes imply drugs but also metaphor for emptiness/lack of stuff she wanted as whole paragraph ernestine has been talking about crumbs and what we want. misery is personified here and made larger than it is-as if a battle we all face.
-‘she leans into him a plants a kiss’ (PG 43) adverb plants connotates growth and suggests lily’s arrival helped them grow in one way or another-such as it did with all characters-we can choose to see good-bittwesweet reflection of life
