Chapters 16 - 18 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 16

Audre finds another apartment and is still affected by her abortion. She goes to college and works a part-time job. She also starts to go to meetings of the Harlem Writers Guild. Her poems are improving.

Chapter 17

Audre fails trigonometry and German but doesn't realize that this is because she is spending most of her time tending to the needs of the Branded. She decides to drop out of college and begins to recognize her latent lesbianism. She decides that summer that she is going to have an affair with a woman. She mentions several potential candidates, like her friend Marie. Audre transitions into a discussion of the rising McCarthyism of the time. Then Audre notes that Marie gets wrapped up with a dangerous man named Jim who she eventually marries. He eventually takes her away from the...