SOURCE: “Ben Franklin in Harlem: The Drama of Deferral in Ann Petry's The Street,” in Deferring a Dream: Literary Sub-Versions of the American Columbiad, Gert Buelens, Ernst Rudin, 1994, pp. 1–23.
In the following essay, Wurst shows that Lutie, the protagonist of The Street, is doomed to failure when she tries to model herself on Benjamin Franklin, a white male with very different cultural values and expectations.
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