of heterosexual love and is wary of inviting another man into her life, but when she meets Franklin, she again sees an opportunity for happiness in a monogamous relationship. She enters into a romance defined by conflict, in which her autonomy is jeopardized continually by Franklin’s dominance. She becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son at Franklin’s urging, only to face escalating emotional and physical abuse. To a certain extent, she reclaims her independence and makes plans to return to her father’s home in Ohio with her baby, but when Franklin shows up again, she is clearly attracted and, hence, vulnerable to him even as the novel concludes. Zora is a developed character, rounded and complex. She faces the very real dilemma of wanting a loving marriage and family while not being sure of how much she must or should give up of her own autonomy and self-respect in order to secure that illusive ideal.

Franklin Swift

Franklin Swift, the other narrator, a handsome, intelligent, married high school dropout who works sporadically as a construction worker and drinks heavily. He has goals of getting a college education and owning his own business. Often out of work because of racial discrimination, he feels helpless because he can not contribute money to the life he shares with Zora. He wants her to have their baby, perhaps because it will bolster his faltering sense of masculinity, which is being destroyed in the workplace. Deprived of all socially acceptable ways to feel “in charge” of himself and his family, Franklin resorts to physical strength, the only kind of power he still has, rapes Zora, and wrecks her apartment before leaving her. He returns months later, clearly faring better. Although their sexual passion is reignited, he states bluntly that he is not back to stay. It is difficult to sympathize with Franklin, even with an understanding of the cultural conditions that have made him such a bitter man. He falls too completely into a villainous role. Zora’s enduring attraction to him becomes frustratingly inexplicable, though not unrealistic.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah, Zora and Franklin’s son. Zora must take complete responsibility for the baby even though she had been hesitant about having it.

Portia

Portia, an outspoken member of Zora’s close network of girlfriends. She also becomes pregnant by a married man, Arthur. Unlike Franklin, Arthur gets a divorce in order to marry Portia. Zora’s girlfriends are an important support group for Zora, and her loyalty to them is a constant source of jealous irritation for Franklin.

Franklin’s name alludes to Benjamin Franklin. Like that of his prototype, Franklin’s first-person voice is clear and self-confident as it gives his view of the novel’s events. Franklin Swift is self-educated, lives a healthy, spartan life, and dreams of owning his own business. The time is the early 1980’s, however, and his source of assistance, the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) office named “A Dream Deferred,” portends unfulfilled dreams. Hired by white construction companies under equal opportunity laws, Franklin is inevitably laid off, a victim of American racism. Though his voice sometimes belies it, Franklin suffers from the negativity that is the result of childhood attacks on his worth by his domineering mother.

Franklin’s frustrations resulting from external forces and internal wounds seriously affect his relationship with Zora. He admires her college education, her steady employment, and her Standard English, but he resents these, too, as his dreams burst. Though he admires Zora’s voice, he accuses her of preferring white songwriters and films about white people—accusations that stem from depression and self-pity. Franklin also believes that Zora should bear with him no matter how he acts, because he is a victim.

To some degree, then, Franklin is the voice of the beleaguered African American male, heaping his anger on the back of the enduring, resilient black woman. Franklin’s first-person voice, however, shifts too often to a manipulative, melodramatic, self-pitying whine. After the first months of their relationship, only occasionally, usually in his periods of economic plenty, does Franklin’s other voice, a confident and loving one, sound. Overall, his tone lessens a reader’s ability to connect with Franklin’s struggle.

When Franklin and Zora separate at last, he needs only a brief three-month separation to reappear a new man, no longer angry or violent. His first college course, psychology, has solved his mother problem. He has a job and is cured of his alcoholism. This radical change, however, is not developed enough to justify Zora’s conviction that Franklin has changed.

Franklin and Zora can also be seen as a 1980’s version of the characters in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Terry McMillan’s Zora parallels Hurston’s protagonist Janey; Franklin combines the traits of Janey’s three husbands—oppressor, achiever, and caring lover. Like Franklin’s, the love of Janey’s husband Tea Cake turns violent. Janey, however, discovers after Tea Cake dies that she can voice her story alone, and she becomes content in her own personhood; Zora waits for the day when the very much alive Franklin will be again by her side.

As first-person narrator, Zora tells her own story; she starts where Janey ends, with a powerful voice and a way with words. Zora is also comfortable with her sensuality at the novel’s start, while Janey journeys to such an awareness. Perhaps Zora, finding a man who is an ideal sexual partner, has unfortunately also found a man who wants to speak for or to her, not with her. Thus, Janey is re-created. Zora has her voice, her words, her sensuality.

The 1980’s version of Janey still faces old problems. Whenever Franklin stands motionless, he renders Zora motionless, first by his words and eventually by physical intimidation. She shrinks her boundaries to Franklin’s, giving up friends, enjoyments, career, freedom from parental responsibility, financial independence, and even her desire to marry before having a child. Though she is a first-person narrator, she rarely describes experiences beyond those she shares with Franklin. For example, only once does she bring readers with her to the schoolroom in which she spends long hours. On the other hand, she plays endless Scrabble games with Franklin. In this symbolic ritual, Franklin usually wins and thus overpowers her intellectually—which is why he insists they play every night, no matter how Zora feels. She usually acquiesces.

Concern for her child causes Zora to leave Franklin when he turns oppressive and violent. Separated from Franklin, she still wants him back. Without him, she does regain her momentum, but her dreams are changed. She forfeits her singing career and writes songs instead, an ambiguous act: She is choosing to voice her inner-found words, as Janey did in Hurston’s novel; yet her motive is to remain home, where she can care for her son, another black male, and wait for Franklin.

If Zora is a 1980’s professional woman seeking an African American man who can accept her as she is, the ending seems to suggest that she will have to take second-best, after all. Franklin will dominate the life of the African American woman, no matter what.

Minor characters suffer from the book’s narration, which the dual-first-person point of view centers on the protagonists. In general, the book’s minor figures are neither well developed nor integrated successfully in the narration.