“The Long Rain” is powerful in part because it lends itself to two culturally separate but complementary interpretations. In Western psychological terms, Annie is suffering through an acute depression brought on by the worsening strife between her and her mother; looked at from an Afrocentric spiritual perspective, Annie’s sickness can be seen as a dormant period that she has to endure before the final emergence of her adult identity. Further, it is hinted that the identity that emerges is the identity of a conjure woman, like her grandmother; unlike her grandmother, however, Annie’s medium will be words, not roots and herbs. It is the ability to see words that marks the onset of Annie’s sickness, and when she recovers, she finds herself able to speak in words that carry a new authority that demands that people listen.