Deal Me In Challenge: Her Sweet Jerome by Alice Walker

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Warning: this review will contain spoilers.

My goodness, what a bleak and depressing story. Taken from Alice Walker's collection of short-stories called In Love & Trouble, "Her Sweet Jerome" perfectly embodies the aptly titled subject matter: an overweight black woman is blinded by the unconditional love towards an abusive and manipulative husband, which ultimately leads to her own self-destruction. Walker writes, "Her troubles started noticeably when she fell in love with a studiously quiet schoolteacher, Mr. Jerome Franklin Washington III, who was ten years younger than her." She is never given a first name and is only ever referred to in the story by her gender pronoun or husband's name. This is an important detail to note because the anonymity further reinforces her lack of individualism and damaging co-dependency. As a black woman who does not meet the idealized standards of beauty because of her physical appearance, she suffers from increased self-loathing, insecurity and paranoia to the point where she is utterly convinced that the husband must be cheating on her with another woman. 

Her destructive behavior in tracking down the husband's alleged mistress is presented by Walker as darkly humorous. However, the author is also keen to emphasize the insidious effects of sociocultural forces on the black female's psychological development. The story examines racialized and gendered cultural norms imposed by white hegemony within these various social contexts. The female protagonist is already a vulnerable member of the marginalized group and becomes even more ostracized by the black community for her eccentric and violent behavior. For example, the pernicious gossip about Jerome being a womanizer provokes her to assault random women in the street with a knife who are simply minding their own business and falsely accusing them of sleeping with him. The townspeople obviously try their best to avoid Mrs. Jerome Washington after these incidents occur, further demonizing her as an outcast. The story takes a few unexpected twists and turns as the obsession to find evidence of Jerome's infidelity takes over every aspect of her life. Walker subtly captures the protagonist's vulnerability beneath her hard exterior. At the core, she desperately wants to feel loved and desired as a black woman in a society that is systemically racist and fatphobic. 

The nihilistic ending left me confused and I am still unsure about what Walker intended to achieve here. Is Mrs. Jerome Washington's suicide by fire a heroic act of defiance against black male authority orchestrated by the white power structure or are we suppose to view her as some kind of martyr figure? She also burns all of Jerome's black revolutionary texts before stepping into the flames, which is probably a symbolic gesture of sorts but the meaning eludes me. Perhaps this is her way of getting back at her husband for the years of neglect, abuse and duplicity in marrying just to gain access to her inheritance so that he could fund his left-wing political movement in the fight against racial oppression and anti-black racism. Regardless, her tragic suicide seemed a tad extreme to me. Maybe Walker is suggesting that it was the only option left after struggling for years with mental health issues, a bad marriage, subsequent alienation and low self-worth promulgated by the racist origin of the dominant white standards of beauty. You tell me.