SOURCE: Montgomery, Maxine L. “The Fathomless Dream: Gloria Naylor's Use of the Descent Motif in The Women of Brewster Place.” CLA Journal 36, no. 1 (September 1992): 1–11.

In the following essay, Montgomery discusses Naylor's use of the descent motif in The Women of Brewster Place.

The Women of Brewster Place is an experimental novel that functions as a rare, incisive work of social criticism. Gloria Naylor's clever choice of Langston Hughes' poem “Harlem” as an epigraph directs the reader's focus of attention to the lives of those for whom the American dream, whether it entails socioeconomic advancement or stability and fulfillment in the nuclear family, is all too often indefinitely deferred. No doubt the community of Brewster Place is a microcosm for black America, and it is comprised of marginal people who are excluded from the social, economic, and political mainstream. Each quest for linear progress ultimately fails on the community's...