Her Sweet Jerome by Alice Walker
"Her Sweet Jerome" by Alice Walker is a poignant exploration of love, identity, and the complexities of marriage set against the backdrop of the American South. The story centers on a large, unconventional woman who owns a small beauty shop and aspires to elevate her social status through marriage to Jerome, a local schoolteacher. Despite her affection and efforts to win his love, Jerome remains emotionally distant, absorbed in his revolutionary ideals and academic pursuits. This imbalance leads to a tumultuous spiral of jealousy and despair as she suspects him of infidelity, prompting her to confront a range of women in her quest for answers.
As her obsession deepens, the protagonist's mental state deteriorates, culminating in a dramatic confrontation with her husband's true passion: his commitment to social change. This realization drives her to a breaking point, where she lashes out against the symbols of his dedication, leading to a harrowing climax. Walker's narrative examines the themes of unrecognized devotion, societal expectations, and the struggle for self-worth, providing a rich commentary on the human experience. "Her Sweet Jerome" invites readers to reflect on the intersections of personal desire and broader social movements, showcasing the lived realities of its characters with sensitivity and depth.
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Her Sweet Jerome by Alice Walker
First published: 1973
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: The late 1960's and early 1970's
Locale: The American South
Principal Characters:
Mrs. Jerome Franklin Washington, III , owner of a small beauty shopMr. Jerome Franklin Washington, III , her husband, a schoolteacher and "black revolutionist"
The Story
The protagonist owns a small beauty shop in the South. She is a big, awkward woman with short arms that end in ham hands, plump molelike freckles down her cheeks, and a neck that is a squat roll of fat protruding behind her head as a big bump. To many people, she is anything but lovely.
The woman's trouble starts one day when Jerome, a neat and cute local schoolteacher, walks past the window of her shop. Although she is ten years his senior and knows very well that she should not desire him, she cannot resist the temptation of being called "Mrs. Jerome Franklin Washington, the third." Being married to a schoolteacher would greatly enhance her social status. Her family is known as "colored folks with money," but there is not yet a schoolteacher to grace the family name. Marriage does take place between the two, but it is a marriage marked by her total devotion and his complete oblivion. Her efforts to make herself sexy and pretty have no effect on him; instead, they drive him away from her. Married more to his revolutionary beliefs than to her, he is buried in his books and meetings, hardly showing any interest in her.
A rumor spreads that Jerome is interested in other women. Feeling rejected and cheated, his wife sets out searching for his lovers in order to destroy them. Rage and suspicion lead her to taverns and churches, from whorehouses to prayer meetings, through parks and outside the city limits, all the while armed with axes, pistols, and knives of all descriptions. She looks at white girls, black women, brown beauties, ugly hags of all shades, asking them if they have been messing with her Jerome. Soon, she is consumed by all this and stops operating her beauty shop. Her madness is obvious to all but her husband.
One hot night, made bold by a drink, she bursts into her husband's school principal's house, where she has seen her husband go in and out, and where she has been watching night after night to figure out what is going on inside the house. She is bewildered and astonished to find the women she has suspected sitting in one corner, and men in another, debating about things that she cannot comprehend. Her husband, without paying any attention to her, starts reciting some of the nastiest-sounding poetry she has ever heard. When the only woman in the room who acknowledges her asks laughingly if she has come to join the revolution, she leaves the room in shame and confusion.
At home, she hunts through her husband's clothes for a clue. It does not take her long to figure out that her rival is not a woman, but the revolution in which her husband believes. In a second, she gets down on the floor and takes out the books that have fallen from her husband's hands behind the bed over the months of their marriage. The word "Black" appears on every cover: Black Rage, Black Revolution, and so on. She looks with wonder at the books that are her husband's preoccupation, enraged that the obvious is what she has never guessed before.
Stacking the books neatly on his pillow, she uses the largest of her knives to rip and stab them through. Failing to make the words disappear, she hastens with kerosene to set the marriage bed afire. Calling the books trash and crying, "I kill you! I kill you!" as if they were his mistresses, she herself is on fire.
Bibliography
Banks, Erma Davis, and Keith Byerman. Alice Walker: An Annotated Bibliography, 1968-1986. New York: Garland, 1989.
Christian, Barbara. "Novel for Everyday Use: The Novels of Alice Walker." In Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980.
Lauret, Maria. Alice Walker. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.
McMillan, Laurie: "Telling a Critical Story: Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens." Journal of Modern Literature 23, no. 1 (Fall, 2004): 103-107.
Noe, Marcia. "Teaching Alice Walker's 'Everyday Use': Employing Race, Class, and Gender, with an Annotated Bibliography." Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction 5, no. 1 (Fall, 2004): 123-136.
Parker-Smith, Bettye J. "Alice Walker's Women: In Search of Some Peace of Mind." In Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation, edited by Mari Evans. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1984.
Tate, Claudia. Black Women Writers at Work. New York: Continuum, 1983.
Willis, Susan. "Black Woman Writers: Taking a Critical Perspective." In Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism, edited by Gayle Greene and Coppelia Kahn. London: Methuen, 1985.