the children who are harassing her. When she finally overcomes her snobbishness and enjoys a pleasant day with Edith, her narrow-mindedness still intrudes. She cannot overlook the holes in Edith's socks. Guy allows the reader to watch the same pattern appear over and over. Phyllisia enjoys Edith, but at the same time she is ashamed of her, and feels that their friendship somehow endangers her standing in the world. Few young adult novels have demonstrated so clearly the fact that it is possible for adolescents (like everyone else) to feel two contradictory emotions at the same time. In fact, Guy elicits this response from the reader who can regard Phyllisia with two opposing feelings. She can be a sympathetic character, even as she behaves very badly.

Nowhere is this duality more evident than in Part Two of the novel. Almost every time Edith and Phyllisia interact, Phyllisia experiences some kind of tension. While she appears to accept Edith, she ultimately withholds her total approval since she is never able to reconcile Edith's appearance and poverty with her own self-view. Thus, she frequently and deliberately wounds Edith. When the girls are picnicking in the beginning of Part Two, Phyllisia cruelly brings up the new clothes she'll wear to school, explaining her behavior with this comment: "I never really intended to hurt Edith, but there was this little streak of wickedness that kept popping out of me. I didn't understand why.’’

Later that same day, Phyllisia actually gives voice to her conflicting emotions. When her mother asks to meet Edith, she makes up all kind of excuses:

I was making it up because I did not want her to see my friend. And I did not want to see her because I was ashamed of Edith. I loved her but I was ashamed of her. As the enormity of my betrayal of Edith hit me, it stunned me.

In many novels this self-knowledge would be the conclusion of the story. In The Friends, it is only a prelude, for although Phyllisia is finally aware of her true feelings, she finds herself unable to change. The very next time the two meet, Phyllisia explodes in anger when she thinks Ruby is comparing their lives to Edith's. In Presenting Rosa Guy, Jerrie Norris discusses the impact of this scene. ‘‘Phyllisia, who has camouflaged her ambivalent attitudes toward her friend throughout their summer together, launches a vicious, although indirect verbal attack upon her friend, brutally humiliating her in front of the Cathays. The friendship shattered, Phyllisia is left alone.’’

The last part of the novel describes Phyllisia's attempts to deal with the loss of her friend, followed shortly after by the loss of her mother. Self-knowledge does not come easily to her. Only after she realizes that her father's restaurant is a simple diner for working men does the "voice'' of her interior dialogue finally convince her that she had been deceiving herself all along so that she could feel superior. At last, then, she is able to change: "If I understood anything now, it was that I was almost sixteen and I had never accepted any responsibility. I had even blamed Calvin for my treatment of Edith. But I was the one who had made her suffer. She was my friend.’’

However, when Phyllisia rushes to Edith she discovers that Edith's little sister is dead and the rest of the family has been taken away to an orphanage. Although Guy creates a reconciliation between the girls, there is no happy ending. The novel's end opens doors of communication for Phyllisia to remain in the United States so that she can continue her friendship with Edith. But Edith is on her way to an orphanage, her family is separated, and Phyllisia's relationship with her father is tenuous.

Guy uses the same ambiguity in her development of Calvin Cathay. It is easy to respond to him as an extremely negative figure, since the first-person narrator, Phyllisia, often presents him that way. Indeed, even at the novel's beginning, his many flaws are extremely apparent. His abrupt rejection of Phyllisia because she is ugly is described in a truly brutal manner. In her review in The New York Times, Alice Walker vividly describes him: "Calvin is a menacing braggart who can show concern for his daughters in only the most tried, trusted, and useless ways: he beats them, locks them in, and makes constant comments on the salaciousness of their characters.’’

Guy, however, does not allow Calvin to remain a stock villain. Through Ramona, the novel projects his vulnerability. It is clear that he loves his wife. Her illness reduces him to helplessness so that Phyllisia notices that he is no longer ‘‘big and awesome,'' even wishing to touch and comfort him. When Ramona reminds him that he had been poor as a boy, his pride and determination to succeed become understandable.

Both Calvin and Phyllisia have similar flaws. A Kirkus Review writer describes it as a "mixture of pride and snobbism.’’ Each of them makes an adjustment in their behavior that is difficult for them because of that pride. Phyllisia's change is more dramatic. She accepts responsibility for her behavior. However, Calvin also demonstrates an ability to admit a portion of wrongdoing. He eventually admits that he is strict with his daughters because he is afraid for them. He cares, but does not know how to show it. When Phyllisia tells him what happened to Edith's sister, he shows a ‘‘flash of guilt.’’ Nothing is neatly tied up at the novel's end. Guy is too sophisticated a storyteller to impose an unnatural conclusion. However, the story hints at hope for the future, which is perhaps all that anyone can expect from life.

The Friends is an important young adult novel because of its complex view of reality and its clear portrait of life in Harlem. In her article in Horn Book Magazine, Guy explains her success: "A novel is an emotional history of a people in time and place. If I have proven to be popular with young people, it is because when they have finished one of my books, they not only have a satisfying experience—they also have had an education.’’

Source: Mary Mahony, in an essay for Literature of Developing Nations for Students, Gale, 2000.
Mahony is an English instructor at Wayne County Community College in Detroit.

Rosa Guy's award-winning novel The Friends is the first in what would become a trilogy concerning two vastly different families: the Cathays, native West Indians relocated to New York City, and the Jacksons, poor African Americans struggling through life in Harlem. The Friends is primarily Phyllisia Cathay's story. Young and willful, Phyllisia cannot adjust to life in the United States, partially because she cannot see beyond herself. As she learns to care for the needs of others, Phyllisia takes her first steps to developing into an adult. The Friends is also an important novel for younger readers in its exploration of the misunderstandings and conflicts that exist within families, friends, and communities. The American Library Association named it as one of the Best of the Best Books published in the last few decades.

At the heart of the novel rests the unlikely friendship between two teenage girls, Phyllisia and Edith. Phyllisia has recently moved from the West Indies to Harlem, where she is befriended by tough, street-smart Edith. The two girls are a study in contrasts. Phyllisia is an excellent student whereas Edith appears disinterested in school. Phyllisia's family lives comfortably. Her father owns a restaurant, and her mother is cultured and refined. Edith's family is very poor. Her father works for the subway system and her mother is dead, so Edith takes on much of the responsibility of taking care of the family. Edith, however, turns out to be the only person Phyllisia can turn to. Through the relationship, Phyllisia learns how to grow up and look beyond herself.

When the novel begins, Phyllisia, who has only been in the United States for five months, feels isolated both from her family and her community. She resents being taken from her aunt's home in the West Indies, where she felt loved and treasured, to be ‘‘set ... down in this trap of asphalt and stone called Harlem.'' When she asks Calvin, her tyrannical father, why he brought her and her sister to New York, he answers, ‘‘To control your rudeness better,’’ a succinct statement that early on defines the antagonistic relationship between father and daughter. To make matters worse, her sister Ruby is already popular at school while the other students only notice Phyllisia to mock her accent and her interest in education.

While Phyllisia feels like a stranger to America, she also desperately wants to fit in, but she is utterly unable to do so. For instance, she is drawn to her neighbor Marian because she is ‘‘so brown and round and pretty’’ and wears ‘‘the prettiest dresses to school and those thick, ribbed socks that were all the rage.’’ Phyllisia, however, has nothing to offer Marian, who rebuffs her rudely. The superficiality—on both girls' parts—is underscored by the narration. Phyllisia notes that Marian ‘‘looked me up and down’’ before turning from Phyllisia to join her friends. Still, Phyllisia "longed so much for her friendship.’’ Phyllisia wants to be friends with Marian only because she is popular and pretty, not for more valued reasons.

At the same time that Phyllisia wants acceptance, she knowingly sets herself apart from the other students. While she describes herself as physically gawky, ‘‘too tall for fourteen years, and without any shape,’’ when in class she admires the picture she presents: ‘‘I pulled myself tall in my seat, made haughty little movements with my shoulders and head, adjusted the frills on the collar of my well-ironed blouse, touched my soft, neatly plaited hair and pointedly gave my attention to the blackboard.’’ Phyllisia also acknowledges that in school she relishes her role of "star pupil,'' the person who is "always jumping up to let others know how smart I was.’’ Even when she knows she will draw the ire of her fellow students by showing off, she continues to do so. For instance, when the teacher specifically calls on her in class to answer the question of where Egypt is located, Phyllisia answers the question, and ‘‘despite a sixth sense warning me to remain silent,’’ she gives an extremely detailed answer. Tellingly, Phyllisia equates ‘‘sitting there and not answering’’ with "begging," and she is too proud to beg—in this case, beg for friendship from the other students. Ruby, in notable contrast, does not experience Phyllisia's inherent difficulty of adjusting to a new culture, for she follows a deliberate pattern of not "calling attention to oneself,'' even if it means pretending not to know the right answer.

Phyllisia's isolation is also underscored by the attitude of her teacher, Miss Lass, a woman who openly resents and dislikes her students. The day after one of the other girls physically attacks Phyllisia, in response to the catcalls in class, Miss Lass only reminds the students, "What you do out in the street is your business.’’ Like the other adults in her world, Miss Lass makes no effort to ease Phyllisia's adjustment. Miss Lass even draws attention to the way Phyllisia is different from the other students in her educational diligence. Phyllisia is hit by the sudden realization that Miss Lass is setting her up "as a target'' in order "to keep the hatred of the children away.’’ She is the "natural choice because I was a stranger and because I was proud.''

Phyllisia knows that one of the reasons the other students dislike her so much is that her isolation makes her appear an easy target. She ‘‘had reasoned that the children singled me out for abuse because I walked alone. They might leave me in peace if I walked with a friend.’’ However, the only person who wants to be with the real Phyllisia is Edith, who "had made up her mind, from the first day I entered this class, that she would be my friend whether I wanted it or not.’’ Edith is drawn to Phyllisia for the same reason that other students hate her: ‘‘Girl, you sure are smart,’’ she says. Phyllisia, however, does not like Edith, as she firmly asserts on the first page of the novel. Edith speaks ungrammatically, chews gum loudly, and "always came to school with her clothes unpressed, her stockings bagging about her legs with big holes.’’ Phyllisia grudgingly becomes friends with Edith, despite herself. One thing she likes about Edith, however, is that her new friend always compliments her—the only person who does so.

From the start, however, the friendship is unequal and tenuous. For example, Edith constantly compliments Phyllisia—her clothes and her appearance—while Phyllisia takes little note of the hardship that Edith goes through simply to keep her family fed and clothed. Instead of praising Edith for her hard work, Phyllisia silently looks down upon Edith's shabby life. While Phyllisia embraces Edith and her family when it suits her—away from the eyes of her family or when Edith's younger sister is bestowing affection upon her—she still keeps Edith at a distance. Her relationship with Edith takes place amid strangers, in the park for instance. Phyllisia also deliberately makes clear to Edith that she is superior—financially and intellectually—for in truth, she is ‘‘ashamed of Edith.’’ Phyllisia's father owns a restaurant, while Edith's father is a laborer. Phyllisia's family lives in a comfortable apartment, while Edith's family lives in a ramshackle tenement. These are details that Phyllisia cannot forget, nor does she want to forget them, for they contribute to her sense of self-worth.

As time progresses, Phyllisia's life changes dramatically. Edith's father disappears, and Edith drops out of school so she can work to support her family. Phyllisia becomes friends with Marian, whose former best friend has moved to the suburbs. At the inception of the relationship, Phyllisia compares Marian to Edith: ‘‘[H]er eyes lacked expression. They did not have the levels of interest that had always forced me to probe into Edith's eyes, no intense fires to feed on ... Hers were toneless.’’ Yet, Phyllisia is forced to acknowledge that ‘‘everything about her, the pores of her brown skin, her carefully arranged hair, shouted good care.’’ Here, Phyllisia's words hearken back to her earlier self-appraisal, when she notes her own good grooming. Clearly, Phyllisia values someone who mirrors her own image. Phyllisia also raises a perhaps more important issue: "No one would ever dare question Marian as a choice for a friend.’’

Of the Cathays, only Calvin questions Phyllisia's friendship with Edith, which comes to a head after Phyllisia brings Edith home for the first time, to meet her mother, who is ill with cancer. Both Ruby and Mrs. Cathay enjoy Edith's company and conversation. Unlike Phyllisia, they look beyond the surface. As Phyllisia acknowledges, upon meeting Edith, ‘‘Ruby's pleasure seemed genuine. Perhaps she had not noticed Edith's clothes ... It was as though I was the only one who noticed how untidy Edith was.’’ Phyllisia is actually discontented to have Edith in her home, for she doesn't truly feel that Edith belongs in so "elegant'' a place. She also resents Edith's ability to speak to adults in a "calm, relaxed manner,’’ an ability that she lacks. Phyllisia gets increasingly upset as she sees Edith being elevated and is forced to confront her own family's poverty in the West Indies. When Calvin comes home, he yells at seeing a "picky-headed ragamuffin’’ in his house, and Phyllisia does not defend her friend because she secretly believes his insults to be true.

After her mother's death, Phyllisia is forced to grow up quickly. Through a series of events, Phyllisia comes to the realization that she is like the father she claims to despise. "I had wanted to be the unhappy princess living with the cruel king of a father,'' she realizes. ‘‘I had wanted to be the daughter of the owner of a big restaurant ... I had wanted to be rich, to live in luxury, so that I could feel superior to them—to people like Edith.’’ With this mature comprehension, Phyllisia is able to renew her relationship with Edith and become a true friend, for the first time: "Don't you ever say again you don't have anybody,’’ she tells Edith. ‘‘You have me. And you'll have me as long as I live.’’ Her new-found maturity and compassion also gives her the strength to convince Calvin not to send Ruby and her back to the West Indies. In so doing, she makes the commitment to forming a true family, a commitment to openly communicating with her family as well as with herself. ‘‘And Daddy,’’ she says, ‘‘I-I-I'm much older today than I was yesterday.'' With these words, Phyllisia signifies her transformation from a selfish girl to a caring and considerate young woman.

Source: Rena Korb, in an essay for Literature of Developing Nations for Students, Gale, 2000.
Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers.

Rosa Guy's young adult novel The Friends begins with the same dark urgency as Richard Wright's Native Son. Within very few pages the reader learns that Phyllisia Cathay, a fourteen-year-old girl born in West India and recently moved to Harlem, is not only unaccepted but also persecuted by the other students in her classroom. She is ostracized because of her different physical features, accent, and intellect. Ironically, she is also rejected by the larger society in which she lives. The largely white, largely prejudiced society of the 1960s groups her with all other Harlem blacks and leaves her without a social circle. Further compounding Phyllisia's hardships is a seemingly tyrannical father, a mother too ill to provide much comfort, and a self-absorbed sister who, because she is willing to disguise her own intelligence and willing to modify her appearance to fit in with her peer group, offers no support.

Enter Edith Jackson, a young woman whose spirit and confidence seem unquenchable. Wiry and disheveled with holes in her stockings and her shoes worn down at the back, Edith Jackson commands the respect of the other students in Phyllisia's homeroom and effectively stops their mistreatment of Phyllisia, whom she has decided to befriend for no apparent reason. By the second chapter Phyllisia and Edith have cemented their friendship by running away from school together and spending the day sharing the simple pleasures of New York City including subway rides, refreshingly cool department stores, and Peter Paul Mounds chocolate bars.

From this point, a reader might expect the story to move along predictable lines and tell a tale of girlhood friendship. To her credit, Guy did not continue along a predictable path. Instead, she introduced a series of crises in Phyllisia's life and a corresponding series of crises in Edith's life that kept the two girls apart for much of the book and kept their friendship unsure at best.

Guy is a gifted writer. Her knowledge of her setting, her gift for description, and her characterization of some of the characters provide a readable, and at times compelling, book. However, because Guy is ultimately unconvincing in her characterization of Phyllisia, leaving readers with the impression that Phyllisia is not trustworthy (an absolutely necessary quality in friends), the story rings hollow at the end and leaves the reader with unfulfilled expectations, unanswered questions, and an uncertain feeling toward the protagonist.

Guy knows her setting well and presents the streets of Harlem with sensory details that bring the story immediately into focus. Phyllisia moves to Harlem in winter, and the cold reception she receives from her classmates mirrors the cold weather. Several classmates follow and bully her for blocks when she leaves school before ultimately surrendering to the cold. With relief Phyllisia watches them "hunch their shoulders up to their ears and go home.’’ However, as winter passes and the weather heats up, so do the tempers of Phyllisia's classmates, and their anger breaks loose on the first hot day. Just before a throng of students attacks her, Phyllisia looks for help to the adults standing on stoops around the school and looking out the windows of adjacent buildings. The sense of crowding from the surrounding buildings is as palpable as the crowding of the mob. By the time Phyllisia escapes her attackers, dashes through street crossings, and hears "horns blowing, brakes screeching, blending with the jeers which seemed a very part of the air,'' the reader is running along with Phyllisia, dodging cars and jeers.

Guy is as effective at describing characters as she is at describing the setting. She introduces Edith in this way:

Edith always came to school with her clothes unpressed, her stockings bagging about her legs with big holes, which she tried to hide by pulling them into her shoes but which kept slipping up, on each heel, to expose a round, brown circle of dry skin the size of a quarter.

Edith has a wiry body with a square little face and an impish grin that readers can see as clearly as if they had spied a picture of her peering out of a magazine or television screen.

Yet, it takes more than description to bring a character to life. Guy animates several of her characters effectively. Calvin, with his booming voice, is every bit as imposing in his personality as in his appearance. Broad gestures accompany his speeches, which may be accurately described as performances, and he speaks in short, effective phrases of the type used when issuing commands or running for elected office. The first time readers encounter him he has been drinking, and he is lively and uninhibited, basking in the approval of his friends, encouraged by the material goods he has provided for his family. When he cries pathetically to his wife that he only ‘‘tells the lies that I can make come true,’’ he becomes totally human, therefore imperfect, but deserving of forgiveness.

Guy's gifts for description and animation should easily turn this into a memorable story, but sadly, her characterization completely fails with the protagonist, Phyllisia. Guy handles the physical description of Phyllisia well, which can be difficult to do with a first-person narrator. As her father praises Ruby and Ramona's beauty, Phyllisia reflects on her own physical self:

I was plain and tall, too tall for fourteen years, and without any shape. At home it had not mattered. On The Island my Aunt loved me. She had promised that soon my breasts would begin to develop. She had promised too that one day my nose would stand up straight on my face and look like my mother's. But up to this time none of her predictions had come true. My nose still remained undefined. My chest was still flat. The only things constantly changing about me were my arms and legs, getting longer and skinnier with the years.

Later, in Chapter Nineteen, Phyllisia shares that her ‘‘breasts were fuller than Ruby's now, so were my legs and thighs. I had even grown an inch or two taller than she.’’ These descriptions are important because so much of Phyllisia's self-image is tied to her appearance. A generous critic could assert that Phyllisia's absorption with personal cleanliness and neatness exists because she realizes that her inner self falls far short of such beauty. Such an interpretation might stir up sympathy for Phyllisia. But an average reader will have grown tired of Phyllisia's preoccupation with appearance and her unfair derision of Ruby's and Marian's appearance-consciousness. In the case of Ruby and Marian, readers can almost forgive them their preoccupation because they use style and appearance as means of entering and belonging to a group rather than as a way to exclude. Ruby does not shun Edith when Phyllisia brings her to the apartment, but Phyllisia bristles when Ruby reveals that on The Island, Phyllisia ran around without shoes. Phyllisia's anger is the result of her unacknowledged need to feel that she is better than Edith. In this scene as in many others, Phyllisia uses appearance to separate and disenfranchise people, most tragically Edith.

Phyllisia fails as a character for another reason. Though we are asked to believe that she has grown as a person by the end of the book, we have no reason to believe it. Time and time again Phyllisia makes promises that she does not keep and proclamations that lack conviction. She shuns Edith from the moment Edith offers her friendship, then desperately wants Edith to return to school and be her friend later the same day. After Edith subdues the entire class with her speech on Phyllisia's behalf, Phyllisia turns to Edith to thank her, but upon seeing Edith's shabby dress, her ‘‘feeling of gratefulness changed to one of annoyance. Did this mean then that I actually had to accept this girl's friendship? Why, she might even want to make it a habit of walking with me!’’ When Phyllisia and Edith run away from school together, Phyllisia thinks, as she rides the subway with Edith, that "I found that I was really having fun. I liked Edith. I really liked her.’’ However, within a short time span, after Edith has shoplifted from a store counter, Phyllisia confesses silently, ‘‘my confidence came surging back and with it all of my former revulsion, my dislike for Edith.’’ This pattern occurs over and over in the book until the reader cannot believe Phyllisia's statements, cannot forgive her treatment of Edith, and cannot like her character.

In the end we are asked to accept that Phyllisia has changed. We are given to believe that she has learned many lessons throughout the book and that she is now a better person and, most importantly, a true friend to Edith. A discerning reader cannot believe this because while Phyllisia asserts often that she has learned some important lesson, we do not see her understanding translate into action. Time and again in the story Phyllisia has revelations. These revelations often follow powerful events, yet readers do not see Phyllisia's revelations as a natural result of these events. Instead of working her way through conflicts or confusion, Phyllisia pushes ahead blindly until confronted by an epiphany or visited by a spirit; she suddenly "sees." Because she has not invested energy, emotion, or intellect in changing her behavior, change seldom occurs, and when it does, it is temporary. On page eight, Phyllisia has one of her revelations:

I knew it suddenly. Standing in front of the room, her blond hair pulled back to emphasize the determination of her face, her body girdled to emphasize the determination of her spine, her eyes holding determinedly to anger, Miss Lass was afraid!! She was afraid and she was using me to keep the hatred of the children away from her. I was the natural choice because I was a stranger and because I was proud.

This insight comes to Phyllisia after Phyllisia has answered one of Miss Lass's questions, elaborated on her answer to dispel any thought that she might be guessing, then been praised by Miss Lass who says, "If some of you would follow Phyllisia's example and study your books, then perhaps the intelligence rate in this room might zoom up to zero.’’ Readers are shocked by Phyllisia's epiphany because while we have witnessed the entire exchange, we could not possibly have reached Phyllisia's conclusion on our own because no evidence warrants it.

One of the most important scenes in the book happens in this same, miraculous way. Phyllisia is examining her feelings about Calvin, his restaurant, his sternness, and his pride:

Then, just like that, it was clear. I had seen things the way I wanted them to be. I had wanted to be the unhappy princess living with the cruel king of a father. I had wanted to be the daughter of the owner of a big restaurant. Perhaps it was because the kids in school had been so hard on me. I didn't know. But I had wanted to be rich, to live in luxury, so that I could feel superior to them—to people like Edith. Calvin had never lied to me. I was the fraud.

Real people do not come to self-knowledge this suddenly or this completely. Self-knowledge comes one bit at a time like adding pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. If it does come suddenly and completely, it is usually years after the fact when the subconscious has been fashioning the puzzle all along. Phyllisia seems to receive bulletins from a supernatural source, but because she has not worked hard for them, readers do not want to credit her with perception or maturity.

In Guy's next novel, she made Edith Jackson the hero. Edith deserves to be one. She is honest, sincere, loving, and lovable. Beside her Phyllisia appears self-centered, affected, and dishonest. On only one occasion do readers find themselves in complete agreement with Phyllisia. When she is thinking about Calvin and how many people love him, Phyllisia thinks, ‘‘I would never understand what made some people love other people.'' Sadly, we share Phyllisia's bewilderment because we cannot understand why Edith, unselfish and unflinchingly honest, loves Phyllisia.

Source: Karen D. Thompson, in an essay for Literature of Developing Nations for Students, Gale, 2000.