Ann Petry's Mrs. Hedges from The Streer

Throughout The Street Ann Petry thematically examines the possibility of coexistence between the maintenance of personal virtue and morality with the achievement of the capitalistic successes of the American Dream. This is evident in Lutie’s vice grip onto virtue and her dualistic violent slaying of Boots, but is especially poignant the prostitution profiteer Mrs. Hedges. She is constantly portrayed in a dual manner, as she is the embodiment of the achievement of the American dream and the degradation of women, virtue and community. Remaining in Petry’s neutrality as to the morality of prostitution, Mrs. Hedges presents herself as a denunciator and deconstructionist to the ideal that feminine success is reliant upon an overwhelming presence of corporeal beauty with an absence of strength and determination.

Mrs. Hedges is presented from the onset of the novel as a persistent, resourceful, “snake eyed”, “very black”, and an “enormous bulk of a woman.”(Petry 5-6) She is the antithesis of the slim, European pedagogue of beauty of white America exposed through Lutie’s former employer, Mrs. Chandler. Her lack of conformation

to the unattainable and unmistakably white ideal of physical attractiveness is most tangible in the scene in which she reveals the history of her physical aberrations. In escaping though the window of her flame engulfed apartment Mrs. Hedges secured sever burns over most of her dark bulky body. During her plight she was however most concerned with protecting her beauty and attractiveness, as “she tried to keep her face covered with her hands, so that she couldn’t see what she was heading into, so that she could keep the flame from her face.” (Petry 244) It is tempting to interpret her face covering as an attempt to keep smoke from her eyes, but it is apparent that she recognized the societal importance of retaining a shared of physical attractiveness for “even though she struggled she kept thinking that …never as long as she lived would any man look at her and want her.” (Petry 244) Even thorough losing her physical attractiveness through the permanent loss of her hair as well as the severe burning and scarring of her body, she not only maintains but increases her value in the eyes of white America that is articulated through the gray eyes of Junto. It is in fact Mrs. Hedge’s disfigurement that marks Junto’s acknowledgement of her as a worthy long-term economic investment, as well as a woman of bravery and courage and ultimately a woman worthy of capitalistic success.

Mrs. Hedges’ lucrative success in conjunction with her money-lending partner Junto is unmistakable within the community and she has therefore attained the economic aspiration intrinsic upon achievement of the American Dream. However, it is most notable that in the presence of success she is devoid of the external beauty that society mandates for su

Some topics in this essay:
Remaining Petry’s, Junto Boots, Junto Hedge’s, Female Subject”, American Dream, Thomson Hedges, Mary Hedges, European American, Chandler Hedges’, Ann Petry, american dream, physical attractiveness, petry 244, achievement american dream, achievement american, gift wig, hedges escape, fellow women, characterization hedges, strength determination, white america,