Friendship

With a novel called The Friends, it is no surprise that it has friendship as a theme. The novel is told from the standpoint of Phyllisia, a young girl who doesn’t have any friends after she moves to Harlem, New York. At first, Phyllisia is too proud to make friends with people she feels are beneath her. She only wants to be friends with pretty and popular girls. They, however, don’t want to be friends with her because Phyllisia is plain. For the majority of the novel, “friendship” is defined by superficiality.

It is a hard lesson for Phyllisia to learn, but through her constancy, Edith Jackson shows her that friendship means more than shared beauty. Friendship is substantial; one friend will be there when the other needs them. For example, Edith comes to see Phyllisia’s mother when she is dying. Phyllisia asks Edith to...