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Part 1, Chapter 3: Brooklyn
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in God Help the Child, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Inherited Trauma
Racism and Colorism
Child Abuse and Healing
Arrested Development and Unconditional Love
Summary
Analysis
Bride starts working from home after the attack. She thinks that Sofia Huxley, based on how quickly she flipped from docile to violent, really is “a freak.” She didn’t even listen to me, Bride thinks. She remembers Sofia’s trial and the other four children who accused Sofia of molestation. Bride says that when one’s life is dominated by fear, obedience is the only survival method. When she was afraid to appear in court at Sofia’s trial, Bride made sure to do exactly what the teacher-psychologists expected of her. After Bride pointed out Sofia on the stand in the courtroom, Bride’s mother, Sweetness, held her hand down the courthouse stairs. Feeling her mother’s touch was the best part of the trial, Bride thinks. Bride is angry at herself because she thinks she reverted to this younger, more afraid, version of herself while Sofia beat her in the motel room.
This section of the novel clarifies some of the ambiguity surrounding Bride’s involvement in Sofia’s incarceration and her decision to visit Sofia when she was released. First, Bride testified against Sofia when Sofia was on trial for sexually abusing children. Bride implies that she learned obedience as a survival method in a fear-ridden childhood. Bride was especially afraid of her mother, Sweetness. Notably, Bride does not say that when she testified in Sofia’s trial, she told the truth. Instead, she says that she did what others expected of her. Bride is then rewarded for this obedience by her mother, who holds her hand down the courthouse stairs, pointing to other motivations, aside from wanting to tell the truth, that might have driven Bride to testify against Sofia. Bride’s decision to bring gifts to Sofia when she was released from prison suggests that Bride continues to feel unresolved emotions, including potential guilt, regarding that testimony.
Themes
At home, Bride looks at herself in the bathroom mirror. Bride thinks of when she met with a stylist, Jeri, before her second interview at Sylvia, Inc. Jeri told Bride not to wear makeup or jewelry and to dress only in white. And it worked, Bride thinks. Everywhere she went after that, people would look at her with adoration. When Bride looks at herself in the mirror now, she thinks she almost looks beautiful again. Bride thinks working from home isn’t too bad—Brooklyn, who is in the office, sometimes overrides her decisions, but Bride is glad someone has her back. Bride gets dressed and goes to a nearby park, where she sits on a bench and looks through the pictures in Elle. Before long, she is overwhelmed by how much she misses Booker.
Bride’s conception of her own beauty is intimately connected to how others view her. For example, she considers Jeri’s makeover successful when others look at her adoringly. In Bride’s eyes, the damage she has sustained diminishes her beauty. That damage is both physical and psychological. Though the physical damage will heal, and Bride will look beautiful again, the psychological damage will remain. Bride’s journey for the rest of the novel can be understood, then, as an attempt to heal not just her physical wounds but also her internal wounds. The novel contends that to do that, Bride must find a sense of inner beauty based on how she sees herself, not how others see her. And she must also understand that her faults and past mistakes do not diminish that inner beauty.
Themes
