Chapters 25–28 Summary and Analysis
Chapter 25
As she became more closely involved with Muriel, Audre began to think about the political aspects of being a lesbian. Her progressive straight friends did not see sexuality as an important matter, but Audre felt that any political revolution must include a place for love between women; otherwise, it was not worth fighting for.
One night, when Audre and Muriel had been making love and were lying together on the couch, Rhea came back and, when she saw them, suddenly burst into tears. Audre thought that her sadness must have been caused by the contrast between their happiness in a type of love Rhea regarded as “incorrect” and her own unhappiness. However, they never discussed the matter, and Rhea left New York a week later. Many years afterward, the author discovered that Rhea had been denounced for sharing an apartment with a gay Black woman and was in danger of losing her job.
Chapter 26
Muriel had suffered from schizophrenia and described her electric shock treatments to Audre, saying that it felt as though something had been stolen from inside her head. A light had gone out inside her, and she would never forgive the doctors who treated her for extinguishing it. This was her way of warning Audre what a challenge it would be to live with her. However, they decided to move in together soon after Rhea left. For Audre, this symbolized a commitment not far short of marriage. Sometimes, they would talk about moving west, to a place where a Black woman and a white woman could live together without exciting too much comment.
Audre met many friends of Muriel’s, all of whom were white. However, they believed that as lesbians they were all outcasts and that this erased the color difference, though Audre did not agree. Whenever people stared at Audre and Muriel in public, she could not tell if these people knew the two of them were gay or if they were shocked by a Black woman and a white woman being friends. Her Blackness was the only thing that separated her from Muriel.
Audre and Muriel continued building their home together, acquiring furniture and other possessions in common, and building up a wardrobe of shared clothes. Their friends increasingly regarded them as a permanent couple, and both believed they had found the love that had been absent from their lives for so long.
Chapter 27
In the summer of 1955, Lynn came to live with Audre and Muriel. She was a former lover of Bea, with whom Audre had conducted a brief affair immediately before going to Mexico. Lynn’s husband had recently died, and she had nowhere to go. Audre found herself becoming very attracted to Lynn but did not want to jeopardize her relationship with Muriel. The three of them discussed the matter at great length and eventually embarked on a three-person relationship. They had never heard of or read about anyone else doing this and viewed it as an unprecedented situation, which they had to navigate carefully.
In time, it became clear that Muriel and Audre were much more devoted to one another than either of them was to Lynn. She was a guest in their house and a third party in their relationship. One day, the two of them came home to discover that Lynn had left the apartment, taking all her possessions with her, together with their collective savings, amounting to ninety dollars.
Chapter 28
The author says that she had always been quiet, a listener rather than a talker, and this quality became even more marked at...
(This entire section contains 1017 words.)
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this stage in her life, when she worked in the New York Public Library and communicated with Muriel mainly by intuition. She believed that listening carefully was the principal way, perhaps the only way, to learn, and she wanted to go back to college to finish her degree.
At the end of 1955, both Audre and Muriel spent Christmas with their families but returned for New Year’s Eve, which they spent together with friends. After their friends left, they wrote about the theme of “New Year” and then exchanged notebooks. Muriel had written in hers that Audre had found a new job, sent out poems, started therapy, and planned to return to college in 1955, whereas she herself had accomplished nothing. Audre felt as though cold water had been thrown over her as she realized that the woman she loved was measuring her lack of ability and direction against Audre’s comparative success.
Analysis
These four chapters constitute the first section of the book that focuses on a character other than the author since the very beginning, when the spotlight is on Linda, Audre’s mother. Audre rushes into a relationship with Muriel and immediately feels as committed as if she were in a marriage. The reader is likely to be skeptical, particularly when recalling the author’s descriptions of her devotion to Eudora and other women, and this skepticism increases in chapter 27, when Audre is attracted to Lynn. However, her reaction to this attraction is to discuss it earnestly with both Muriel and Lynn herself, and it is Muriel who is, in fact, the first to sleep with Lynn. This episode, which at first seems likely to destroy the bond between Audre and Muriel, only strengthens it, or perhaps exposes its strength. Lynn is only frustrated by the way in which the closeness of the other two women makes her feel like an outsider.
However, serious difficulties in the relationship are foreshadowed from the beginning. Muriel warns Audre about her schizophrenia and says that her treatment killed something inside her, as though a light had been extinguished forever. She also warns her that she is psychologically unable to seek employment. Audre interprets this as a normal dislike of job-hunting, which she shares, but later realizes that Muriel is describing a barrier that is insuperable for her. The section ends with an ominous beginning to the new year, when Muriel shows Audre the notebook in which she has contrasted Audre’s achievements with her own paralysis, displaying her lack of self-esteem.
