Sylvester is one of Amma’s oldest friends. Sylvester is queer and used to go by the name Sylvie. He wore dresses and had long hair, proudly challenging gender norms alongside his partner, Curwen. He maintains the radical political views he held in his 20s and continues to run his socialist theater companies, putting on plays in community centers and demanding social change from outside society’s institutions. He repeatedly calls Amma a sellout for premiering The Last Amazon of Dahomey at the National Theatre, and this creates tension between them. Sylvester sees the debate between radical and reformist approaches in black and white. He is unforgiving toward those who take a reformist approach, failing to see that both sides depend on each other to make social change. Sylvester’s refuses to acknowledge his own hypocrisies, mainly how his middle-class upbringing, which has allowed him to pursue the arts, contradicts his radical beliefs.
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Sylvester Character Timeline in Girl, Woman, Other
The timeline below shows where the character Sylvester appears in Girl, Woman, Other. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Amma
Then there’s Sylvester, who never misses an opening night and whose own theater work is inspired by avant-garde...
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Amma notes that Sylvester is as revolutionary as ever but that this is not always a good thing. Sylvester...
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Chapter 1: Yazz
As usual, the theater is full of old people—including Amma’s friends, like Sylvester, whom Yazz pities. Amma has been complaining that he refuses to change, and Yazz thinks...
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Chapter 5: The After-party
Roland spots “Chairman Mao Sylvester” who he’d hooked up with in his younger, partying years. Reminiscing on those days isn’t...
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Annoyed with Roland’s academic ramblings, Sylvester cuts him off and walks away. This deeply offends Roland, who thinks, “you can keep...
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...plays because she wants to avoid all these people from her past, like Roland and Sylvester, who she’d caught up with briefly earlier.
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