Jasmine, and Frances. She must go through a brief and challenging experience of self-awakening in order for her to grow and learn.
Berenice Sadie Brown acts as a mother figure for Frankie. She is a foil for Frankie because she portrays everything that Frankie has to learn and know. She knows about love, relationships, sex, the real world, and the harsh realities of racism and how it divides people. Berenice questions Frankie's decisions and explains her feelings to her. Since this novel was written in the 1940's, it is important to recognize that a strong relationship between a white girl and a black woman would have been provocative. The novel breaks down stereotypes about black people and gives a certain understanding and appreciation for the African American struggle.
John Henry West is an opposite of Frankie. He is calm and serene while Frankie is paranoid and hysterical. The most important difference between the two is that she is a young person trying to grow up and he has an old, wise soul. Frankie uses John Henry as a person whom she can talk to about her fears and problems. His death, due to meningitis, was not a big deal because he often was forgotten. He was really only a shadow of Frankie's character.
The major conflict of this novel is internal. The conflict is Frankie's struggle to end her childhood by connecting with a more adult environment and gaining a more adult frame of mind. Although, she first must get past her childhood fantasies and her jealousy. .
The rising action is the time of anticipation in which Frankie goes through until her brother's wedding. All of this waiting leads up to the climax of the story. The climax is the wedding and the huge disappointment that Frankie faces. When she first heard about Jarvis' wedding, she thought of becoming a member of a unified group by being in the wedding. Her dreams of that happening did not come true because a marriage is made up of two people, and she was not one of those two.