Woodford is a doctoral candidate at Washington University and has written for a wide variety of academic journals and educational publishers. In the following essay, she discusses how the dream motif in The Women of Brewster Place connects the seven stones, forming them into a coherent novel.

Gloria Naylor's novel, The Women of Brewster Place, is, as its subtitle suggests, "a. novel in seven stories"; but these stories are unified by more than the street on which the characters live. The interactions of the characters and the similar struggles they live through connect the stories, as do the recurring themes and motifs. Of these unifying elements, the most notable is the dream motif, for though these women are living a nightmarish existence, they are united by their common dreams.

The novel begins With Langston Hughes's poem, "Harlem," which asks "what happens to a dream deferred?" And Just...