Girl, Woman, Other

by

Bernardine Evaristo

Carole Williams Character Analysis

Carole experiences poverty in her childhood; she and her Nigerian immigrant mother, Bummi, live in public housing. Growing up, Carole is a good student and is uninterested in boys or parties. Everything changes when Carole attends a party at her friend LaTisha’s house and a college student named Trey sexually assaults her. Carole keeps her assault a secret for the rest of her life, and her unaddressed trauma often leaves her feeling disconnected from her body. Carole’s mother, like many immigrant parents, has sacrificed everything to give Carole a shot at success in England. Carole feels the weight of this expectation and enlists Mrs. Shirley King, her teacher, to help her get back on track academically. Mrs. King encourages Carole to find success by assimilating into white English culture, and Carole’s assimilation accelerates furiously upon her arrival at the University of Oxford, where she feels out of place among her wealthy (and mostly white) classmates. After college, Carole marries a white man, Freddy, whose parents disapprove of his marrying a Black woman. Carole eventually becomes vice president of a major bank, one of the few women of color in a white, male-dominated field. In this way, Carole belongs to the group of characters who challenge oppressive systems lawfully and from within those systems. Though Carole achieves the success her immigrant parents wanted for her, to Bummi’s dismay, this success costs Carole her Nigerian culture. Carole’s story highlights the struggle that second-generation immigrants can experience when they become caught between their parents’ expectations that they succeed in a new country and adhere to cultural traditions.

Carole Williams Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other

The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Carole Williams or refer to Carole Williams. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Diaspora, Culture, and Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2: Carole Quotes

did me and Papa come to this country for a better life only to see our daughter giving up on her opportunities and end up distributing paper hand towels for tips in nightclub toilets or concert venues, as is the fate of too many of our countrywomen?

you must go back to this university in January and stop thinking everybody hates you without giving them a chance, did you even ask them? did you go up to them and say, excuse me, do you hate me?

you must find the people who will want to be your friends even if they are all white people

there is someone for everyone in this world

you must go back and fight the battles that are your British birthright, Carole, as a true Nigerian

Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole Williams, Augustine Williams
Page Number: 133-134
Explanation and Analysis:

Carole amended herself to become not quite them, just a little more like them

she scraped off the concrete foundation plastered on to her face, removed the giraffe-esque eyelashes that weighed down her eyelids, ripped off the glued-on talons that made most daily activities difficult

such as getting dressed, picking things up, most food preparation and using toilet paper

she ditched the weaves sewn into her scalp for months at a time, many months longer than advised because, having saved up to wear the expensive black tresses of women from India or Brazil, she wanted her money’s worth, even when her scalp festered underneath the stinky patch of cloth from which her fake hair flowed

she felt freed when it was unstitched for the very last time, and her scalp made contact with air.

She felt the deliciousness of warm water running directly over it again without the intermediary of a man-made fabric

She then had her tight curls straightened, Marcus said he preferred her hair natural, she told him she’d never get a job if she did that

Related Characters: Carole Williams (speaker)
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2: Bummi Quotes

my point is that you are a Nigerian

no matter how high and mighty you think you are

no matter how English-English your future husband

no matter how English-English you pretend yourself to be

what is more, if you address me as Mother ever again I will beat you until you are dripping wet with blood and then I will hang you upside down over the balcony with the washing to dry

I be your mama

now and forever

never forget that, abi?

Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole Williams
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:

Bummi and Augustine agreed they were wrong to believe that in England, at least, working hard and dreaming big was one step away from achieving it

Augustine joked he was acquiring a second doctorate in shortcuts, bottlenecks, one-way streets and dead ends

while transporting passengers who thought themselves far too superior to talk to him as an equal

Bummi complained that people viewed her through what she did (a cleaner) and not what she was (an educated woman)

they did not know that curled up inside her was a parchment certificate proclaiming her a graduate of the Department of Mathematics, University of Ibadan

just as she did not know that when she strode on to the graduation podium in front of hundreds of people to receive her ribboned scroll, and shake hands with the Chancellor of the University, that her first class degree from a Third World country would mean nothing in her new country

especially with her name and nationality attached to it

Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole Williams, Augustine Williams
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:

Freddy arranged for Bummi to meet his parents in a London restaurant, which she was looking forward to

except he warned her that although they’d warmed to the idea of Carole, once they saw how classy, well-spoken and successful she was (most importantly for his mother, how slim and pretty, too)

they’re still old-fashioned snobs

Freddy’s father, Mark, looked uncomfortable, said little at the dinner, Carole sat there with a fake smile plastered on her face the whole time

Pamela, his mother, smiled at Bummi as if she was a famine victim, when she started explaining the meaning of hors d’oeuvres to her, Freddy told her to stop it, Mommy, just stop it

Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole Williams, Freddy
Page Number: 186
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5: The After-party Quotes

it was so odd seeing a stage full of black women tonight, all of them as dark or darker than her, a first, although rather than feel validated, she felt slightly embarrassed

if only the play was about the first black woman prime minister of Britain, or a Nobel prize-winner for science, or a self-made billionaire, someone who represented legitimate success at the highest levels, instead of lesbian warriors strutting around and falling for each other

during the interval at the bar she noticed a few members of the white audience looking at her different from when they’d all arrived in the lobby earlier, much more friendly, as if she was somehow reflected in the play they were watching and because they approved of the play, they approved of her

there were also more black women in the audience than she’d seen at any other play at the National

at the interval she studied them with their extravagant head-ties, chunky earrings the size of African sculptures, voodoo-type necklaces of beads, bones, leather pouches containing spells (probably), metal bangles as thick as wrist weights, silver rings so large their wingspan spread over several fingers

she kept getting the black sisterhood nod, as if the play somehow connected them together

Related Characters: Carole Williams (speaker)
Related Symbols: The National Theatre
Page Number: 418-419
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Girl, Woman, Other LitChart as a printable PDF.
Girl, Woman, Other PDF

Carole Williams Quotes in Girl, Woman, Other

The Girl, Woman, Other quotes below are all either spoken by Carole Williams or refer to Carole Williams. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Diaspora, Culture, and Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2: Carole Quotes

did me and Papa come to this country for a better life only to see our daughter giving up on her opportunities and end up distributing paper hand towels for tips in nightclub toilets or concert venues, as is the fate of too many of our countrywomen?

you must go back to this university in January and stop thinking everybody hates you without giving them a chance, did you even ask them? did you go up to them and say, excuse me, do you hate me?

you must find the people who will want to be your friends even if they are all white people

there is someone for everyone in this world

you must go back and fight the battles that are your British birthright, Carole, as a true Nigerian

Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole Williams, Augustine Williams
Page Number: 133-134
Explanation and Analysis:

Carole amended herself to become not quite them, just a little more like them

she scraped off the concrete foundation plastered on to her face, removed the giraffe-esque eyelashes that weighed down her eyelids, ripped off the glued-on talons that made most daily activities difficult

such as getting dressed, picking things up, most food preparation and using toilet paper

she ditched the weaves sewn into her scalp for months at a time, many months longer than advised because, having saved up to wear the expensive black tresses of women from India or Brazil, she wanted her money’s worth, even when her scalp festered underneath the stinky patch of cloth from which her fake hair flowed

she felt freed when it was unstitched for the very last time, and her scalp made contact with air.

She felt the deliciousness of warm water running directly over it again without the intermediary of a man-made fabric

She then had her tight curls straightened, Marcus said he preferred her hair natural, she told him she’d never get a job if she did that

Related Characters: Carole Williams (speaker)
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2: Bummi Quotes

my point is that you are a Nigerian

no matter how high and mighty you think you are

no matter how English-English your future husband

no matter how English-English you pretend yourself to be

what is more, if you address me as Mother ever again I will beat you until you are dripping wet with blood and then I will hang you upside down over the balcony with the washing to dry

I be your mama

now and forever

never forget that, abi?

Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole Williams
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:

Bummi and Augustine agreed they were wrong to believe that in England, at least, working hard and dreaming big was one step away from achieving it

Augustine joked he was acquiring a second doctorate in shortcuts, bottlenecks, one-way streets and dead ends

while transporting passengers who thought themselves far too superior to talk to him as an equal

Bummi complained that people viewed her through what she did (a cleaner) and not what she was (an educated woman)

they did not know that curled up inside her was a parchment certificate proclaiming her a graduate of the Department of Mathematics, University of Ibadan

just as she did not know that when she strode on to the graduation podium in front of hundreds of people to receive her ribboned scroll, and shake hands with the Chancellor of the University, that her first class degree from a Third World country would mean nothing in her new country

especially with her name and nationality attached to it

Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole Williams, Augustine Williams
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:

Freddy arranged for Bummi to meet his parents in a London restaurant, which she was looking forward to

except he warned her that although they’d warmed to the idea of Carole, once they saw how classy, well-spoken and successful she was (most importantly for his mother, how slim and pretty, too)

they’re still old-fashioned snobs

Freddy’s father, Mark, looked uncomfortable, said little at the dinner, Carole sat there with a fake smile plastered on her face the whole time

Pamela, his mother, smiled at Bummi as if she was a famine victim, when she started explaining the meaning of hors d’oeuvres to her, Freddy told her to stop it, Mommy, just stop it

Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole Williams, Freddy
Page Number: 186
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5: The After-party Quotes

it was so odd seeing a stage full of black women tonight, all of them as dark or darker than her, a first, although rather than feel validated, she felt slightly embarrassed

if only the play was about the first black woman prime minister of Britain, or a Nobel prize-winner for science, or a self-made billionaire, someone who represented legitimate success at the highest levels, instead of lesbian warriors strutting around and falling for each other

during the interval at the bar she noticed a few members of the white audience looking at her different from when they’d all arrived in the lobby earlier, much more friendly, as if she was somehow reflected in the play they were watching and because they approved of the play, they approved of her

there were also more black women in the audience than she’d seen at any other play at the National

at the interval she studied them with their extravagant head-ties, chunky earrings the size of African sculptures, voodoo-type necklaces of beads, bones, leather pouches containing spells (probably), metal bangles as thick as wrist weights, silver rings so large their wingspan spread over several fingers

she kept getting the black sisterhood nod, as if the play somehow connected them together

Related Characters: Carole Williams (speaker)
Related Symbols: The National Theatre
Page Number: 418-419
Explanation and Analysis: