Tempy's House explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Racial Identity and Oppression

  Tempy's internalized racism and desire to emulate white culture illustrate the psychological impact of racial oppression. She believes that by dressing, speaking, and thinking like white people, African Americans can escape being called 'niggers.' Her rejection of blues, spirituals, and watermelon reflects a painful attempt to distance herself from stereotypes.

• Family and Generational Conflict

  Tempy's shame about her mother Aunt Hager and her sister Harriett creates a deep rift within the family. She imposes strict, assimilationist values on Sandy, contrasting with the more relaxed, expressive environment of his previous home. The chapter explores how upward mobility can lead to estrangement from one's roots.

Characters to notice

• Sandy

  Sandy moves in with Tempy and Mr. Siles after his grandmother's death. He is given his own room and a bathroom with running water for the first time. Tempy corrects his speech and manners, and she outfits him with new clothes from a major department store.

• Tempy

  Tempy is Sandy's aunt and new guardian. She is obsessed with respectability, social status, and distancing herself from her family's past. She admires white culture, rejects blues and spirituals, and insists on proper speech and behavior. She manages her own and her husband's rental properties and takes pride in being the only colored woman with a charge account at Wertheimer's.

• Annjee

  Annjee, Sandy's mother, writes a tearful letter from Toledo explaining she cannot afford to send for Sandy due to scarce work and a small apartment. Tempy replies, criticizing Annjee's choices and insisting Sandy stay in Stanton for a proper education.

• Aunt Hager Williams

  Aunt Hager is deceased, but her memory haunts Tempy, who is ashamed of her mother's apron-wearing and humble ways. Tempy recalls how Hager was barred from entering the hospital through the front door, and she wishes Hager had dressed more respectably.

• Harriett

  Harriett is Tempy's sister, living in the Bottoms. Tempy never mentions her and is deeply ashamed of her, viewing her as a 'hidden cancer.' Harriett's wild lifestyle contrasts sharply with Tempy's respectability.

Key passages

• “Tempy thought of her mother then and wished that black Aunt Hager had not always worn her apron in the streets, uptown and everywhere! Of course, it was clean and white and seemed to suit the old lady, but aprons weren’t worn by the best people.”

  Tempy felt embarrassed that her mother, Aunt Hager, always wore an apron in public, even though it was clean and practical, because she believed respectable people did not dress that way.

  This illustrates Tempy's obsession with social respectability and her shame about her mother's working-class habits.

• “Colored people certainly needed to come up in the world, Tempy thought, up to the level of white people—dress like white people, talk like white people, think like white people—and then they would no longer be called 'niggers.'”

  Tempy believed that African Americans could only gain respect and avoid racial slurs by fully assimilating into white culture, adopting their appearance, speech, and mindset.

  This reveals Tempy's internalized racism and her belief that racial equality requires abandoning Black cultural identity.

• “Blues and spirituals Tempy and her husband hated because they were too Negro. In their house Sandy dared not sing a word of 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,' for what had darky slave songs to do with respectable people?”

  Tempy and Mr. Siles despised blues and spirituals, considering them too closely associated with Blackness and slavery, and forbade Sandy from singing such songs in their home.

  This highlights the rejection of African American cultural heritage in favor of assimilation into white middle-class norms.