Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Coming of Age in Mississippi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Intersection of Racism and Poverty
Loss of Innocence
The Importance of Community
Gender and Racism
Religion and Hypocrisy
Summary
Analysis
Having experienced a taste of “real life,” Anne is bored back at school. Her classwork is too easy, and her peers and teachers seem stupid to her. She uses her savings to buy a piano and soon becomes the regular pianist at Centreville Baptist. She also excels at gymnastics, coached by Mr. Hicks.
Anne’s disappointment at her return to Centreville highlights her desire to do impactful work. Her excellence in piano and gymnastics also highlights the importance of self-esteem in the development of a young person.
Themes
At her class performance night towards the end of the school year, Anne organizes herself and some of the girls to do an “African” dance. The school is scandalized by their revealing outfits, and Mama scolds her when she gets home.
The dance that Anne organizes shows her lack of fear of authority and status quo. Her disagreement with Mama over it puts further distance between the two, as they have fundamentally different ideas about how to move through the world as Black women.
Themes
The next summer, Anne once again goes to visit her Aunt Celia, Sis, and Grandma Winnie in New Orleans. Though initially she struggles to find work, she eventually finds a job washing dishes with Grandma Winnie at a restaurant called Maple Hill. At first, the chaos of the restaurant and by her male coworkers’ interest in her overwhelms her. As she washes dishes, she notices how much food the white restaurant patrons waste.
The unwanted attention that Anne receives from her male coworkers highlights the impact that sexism has on her experience in the world. On another note, in observing the amount of food wasted, Anne develops her understanding of economic inequality and its connection to race in society
Themes
At the restaurant, Anne eventually meets Lily White and Lola. She is confused by their gender presentation, commenting on how much Lily White sounds like a woman and asking Winnie if Lola is a man or a woman. On the way home from work, Winnie tells her more about Lily White and Lola, and Anne reflects on how hard her life must have been. She reflects that Winnie had, after all her hardship on Mr. Carter’s plantation, ended up in a difficult and draining restaurant job with types of people that are strange to Anne.
When Anne meets Lola and Lily White, she is confronted with types of people and expressions of gender that she has never encountered before. This experience, in combination with her empathetic reflection on Winnie’s life, widens her understanding of the world around her. It also complicates her understanding of the social landscape, having met two people who do not fit into her previously understood categories of the world.
Themes
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One day, Anne is assigned to work in the dining room as a bus girl rather than in the back of the restaurant washing dishes. The chaos of the job quickly overwhelms her, however, and she drops a tray full of glasses. She observes the Tulane students and wishes that she were a waitress because she would make more in tips. Her coworker, P.J., complains to Anne about the white customers from Mississippi, who barely tip at all. Though Anne is exhausted and aching from the job after the first day, she soon gets used to bussing tables and enjoys the extra money and human interaction. She enjoys being around the students and looks forward to attending college herself. Soon, she becomes a waitress and earns more money.
Anne’s ability to overcome the initial challenge of serving reflects her tenacity and determination to better her circumstances. Her observation of the students and wealth around her serves to encourage, rather than discourage, her dreams of getting an education and earning more money.
Themes
Anne becomes friends with Lily White, whose given name is James. He tells her about his work in nightlife and she goes to see him dance at a gay club in New Orleans. She is amazed at his performance, and from then on, the two are close friends. James tells her more about Lola, who “unlike James […] thought of himself as a real woman” and had previously spent time in prison. Eventually, she also befriends Lola, who encourages her to care more about her appearance.
Anne’s friendships with Lola and Lily White expose her to different types of people and parts of society. This learning helps her development as an empathetic, open-minded person. As Lola encourages of Anne to take more pride in her appearance, she symbolically encourages Anne to value herself in general.
Themes
