Novel Drama

The Women of
Brewster Place
Author Year Published Original Language
Gloria Naylor 1982 English

THEMES

What Happens Set in an aging housing project, The Women of Brewster Place explores the
lives of seven vulnerable yet resilient black women. Out of the diversity of
to a Dream their dreams and complexity of their lives emerges a portrait of shared
struggle and hope in a place that is both a prison and home.
Deferred?

Alienation Unfulfilled Dreams Community of Women

The women feel rejected by Racism, sexism, poor choices, Kinship and friendship create
and therefore isolated from and violence have derailed a safety net in the shared
the rest of the world. the women’s dreams. fight to survive.

Author Main Characters

Mattie Michael Kiswana Browne

GLORIA NAYLOR Strong, matriarchal heart of Ambitious, idealistic college

1950–2016 Brewster Place; surrogate dropout; campaigns to improve
mother to Ciel community living conditions
Naylor joined the ranks of
leading black women novelists
in 1982 with The Women of
Brewster Place, which earned
her a National Book Award
in 1983. Praised by critics
for her candid, emotionally
charged depiction of black
life in urban America, her
work portrays courage that
transcends racism and Lucielia “Ciel” Turner Lorraine
shattered dreams.
Loving, optimistic mother and Schoolteacher whose desire
partner; gives in to fatal despair for a peaceful existence with
when her baby girl dies Theresa ends in tragedy

Symbols

Water Wall Color

Symbolizes purification, Stands for the barriers of Represents the women’s

clarity, and renewal poverty, racism, and sexism individuality and their shared
experience

hey were hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally

demanding, and easily pleased, these women
of Brewster Place.
Narrator, “Dawn”

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, New York Times,

Understanding Gloria Naylor by Margaret Earley Whitt

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