Roselily

Roselily Summary | Roselily Summary

The entire story takes place during a wedding ceremony. The narrator of the short story is Roselily, a black woman who is in the process of getting married. The wedding ceremony takes place on the bride's front porch. Roselily lives in Mississippi's countryside.

The short story begins as the preacher greets everyone and starts the ceremony. Immediately the reader is taken out of the actual ceremony and into the observations, dreams, thoughts, and memories that Roselily is having while she is getting married. Roselily visualizes a small girl in her mother's wedding dress submerged in quicksand. In contrast, she sees the groom as he is in reality, standing beside her on the porch being married with the sounds of cars passing by.

The preacher's voice briefly interrupts from time to time throughout the story, but again and again the reader is taken out of the ceremony and is privy to Roselily's memories, thoughts, and observations. The preacher's words seem to guide Roselily's train of thought. The groom is never referred to by name, only by "he" or "him." Roselily claims to know what her groom is thinking and feeling and it is in this way that the reader is able to gain some insight into his character. The groom is not a Christian. He blames Mississippi and the following of the wrong God for the way the men, women, and children in attendance behave. He feels anger and contempt for the white people driving by on the highway and feels that they are disrupting the wedding.

Roselily fantasizes that she doesn't already have three children and instantly feels superstitiously ashamed and fearful for even dreaming this. At this point during the wedding service, the preacher talks about joining man and woman. Roselily immediately thinks of things that bind a person's freedom: ropes, chains, handcuffs, and her groom's religion. She knows she will be required to sit apart from him with her head covered at his church in Chicago.

Roselily has never been to Chicago, but the word itself conjured up one immediate image: smoke. This is due to her groom's explanation of Chicago's cinders. Roselily pictures Chicago as having clean neighbors and black specks falling from the sky. Roselily doesn't feel excited about going to Chicago, but of what Chicago represents to her and her children. Chicago represents respect and opportunity for her and her children.

While the preacher rattles on about holy matrimony, Roselily thinks of her fourth child, a son, whom she gave away to the child's father. The father of this child went to Harvard and had some money, and Roselily believed that her son would have more opportunity and respect living up north in New England with the father and his wife than he would have with her in Mississippi. Roselily considers the father a good but weak man. She still worries about her son living up north in New England among his father's people. Roselily wonders if her son will ever return to Mississippi. Her view is that anyone who has moved to the North and comes back to the South is a completely changed person. Again, she thinks of smoke and cinders as big and heavy as hailstones, weighing on people.

Roselily feels distant from the man who will soon be her husband. She feels shut off from him due to how it is going to be with him and his religion. She also feels that she has already lost her children to their places in their new lives, places where they will have no roots. In her new life, Roselily does not know what to do with her memories or how to make new roots. Roselily feels old and feels that her soon-to-be husband should marry someone else.

Roselily knows that once in Chicago, her husband will start to view her differently; for this, she is thankful. She is also thankful that she will no longer have to work in a sewing plant and that her place will be in the home, like he wants. Although Roselily has prayed for this, she now wonders what she will do once she is fully rested with nothing but time on her hands. Roselily realizes that it is inevitable that she will be having more children and that her time will be filled with raising these new children. Roselily is not comforted by this realization.

Roselily wishes that she had taken more time to find out from him what her future life would be like and what will be expected of her. Roselily acknowledges that, at the time, she didn't care-she was just impatient to be done with working and raising her three children alone. She was impatient to leave Mississippi and the people she had always known, to leave the fathers of her children that may or may not acknowledge her when they drove by. She wanted to leave her past and all reminders of the past behind. She was impatient to be respected and free. Roselily believed that by marrying this man she would gain her freedom.

Roselily doesn't know if she loves her husband-to-be but she knows she loves his attributes and his willingness to make her into the wife he wants. She wants to truly live for once but doubts if she ever has or ever will. Roselily feels trapped once again. The wedding ceremony is over and her children gather around her, looking at their new father with dislike mixed with wonder and hope. Her husband stands apart from it all and feels different than the people surrounding him. He knows they can't comprehend why he is not a Christian or why he's not more like them, and he is unwilling to explain. Roselily thinks about how they will leave that night and arrive in Chicago in the morning. Chicago, a place she knows nothing about. Roselily feels ignorant and worried and fears she made the wrong decision; she seeks comfort from her new husband and does not get it.