Chapter 11 Fits and Starts Summary and Analysis

Chapter 11 deals with finding one's identity. We will continually ask the question throughout our lives of who we are. That identity will also change over time. Joan is committed to an identity as a dancer, but she has had many additional roles throughout her eighty plus years. Mary finds out that the identity that fits her best is a writer. Nevertheless, she has had a multitude of other roles as well. Johnnetta has to remind herself every morning that she is the president of Spelman College because this new identity has not quite sunk in yet.

Mary uses simile to compare composing a life to making a Middle Eastern pastry or a samurai sword. Each of these things has multiple layers and takes repeated actions to create. She also inserts a weaving metaphor when she...