Adversaries

In The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman's Life by Frankie Lennon, the author describes her love and hate, but mostly hates relationship, with her Auntie. Thought out “Adversaries” the narrator, Auntie, keeps herself distant by not bonding and nurturing towards her niece. This is strange because most Aunties love to spend time with their nieces especially if they do not have a child themselves. Its human nature to connect and bond with one’s family members but for some strange reason there is no bonding between the two main characters.
A protagonist is the main character in a story, which, in this case is narrator. An antagonist is the principal character in disagreement to the protagonist, which is the Auntie. This story takes place in the narrator’s first home at Mee Street in a small town, Knoxville, Tennessee. The protagonist is in kindergarten, and the antagonist was born approximately around 1874 and 1884. As a reader, the age difference between the two characters brings conflict and confusion on the narrator. The Auntie has different growing up values and parenting skills than the parents of the narrator.
The main type of conflict in this story is that the protagonist and the antagonist have different childhoods and basically rise differently. Auntie, the antagonist, feels that Frankie, the protagonist is spoiled by her father, and that she needs to be taught a lesson. This conflict between the two is caused by Frankie because she spoke up about playing with marbles, which her father allows. When the protagonist speaks those words, the antagonist, perceives if as a sign of disrespect. This leads to antagonist behavior getting more violent and serious. The antagonist believes that toys and games especially marbles, are devilish objects that no one should be messing with, especially a child.
The present relationship between the protagonist and antagonist is a hate relationship because there is no bond between them. Every time the narrator does something that is not acceptable by her Auntie she gets punished for it, even when it is the littlest thing like playing with marbles. This does affect the narrator because she feels that she can never do right by her Auntie and she does not know how to please her. When the protagonist goes outside for a switch, she starts to remember and goes into detail about her grandmother’s death which makes the protagonist cry more. The past relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist’s was being left at the antagonist house while her mother and father were out of town. The “Alcoa House”, it is more like a hell house for the narrator. No friends, no one to play with, there was nothing narrator could do at her Auntie house besides being still. Her Auntie did not bond with the narrator, and did not even speak to the narrator.
The conflict between the two is caused by an age gap and a difference of values and experiences. Also, the parentings skills between the antagonist and the narrator’s parents are totally different. Auntie had rough childhood experience and she is somewhat pushing her rough childhood experiences on the narrator. During the confrontation, the antagonist sees the strength of her mother inside of the narrator, so she does not punish the narrator. Actually, tells her a story about her mother. The climax of the story is that the Auntie believes that the narrator rebels against her when the narrator speaks up about the legitimate questioning of the narrator’s father. The outcome of the climax is that the antagonist does not tell the narrator’s parents about the conflict between the two, which leaves the narrator puzzled, and wondering why her Auntie did not tell on her. The knowledge that I gained from this story is that some people are close-minded individuals. Also, how others can blame others for their misfortune and bad experiences.
When the narrator lashes out at her Auntie, this is a sign of speaking up for herself and her father. Auntie believes that being tough and hard on the narrator will make her a more respectable child. But in reality Auntie does not know how much she has affected and hurt the narrator with her hateful words. Finally, at the end of the story, Auntie goes back home and never tells the narrator’s parents about the confrontation between her and narrator.