Everything That Rises Must Converge

“Two wings of gray hair protruded on either side of her florid face, but her eyes, sky-blue, were as innocent and untouched by experience as they must have been when she was ten.”

Julian’s mother is an elderly woman, but she is often described as innocent and even childlike. This implies her tendency to live in the past and her inability to accept the changes associated with the modern world. With her views on race and class, she is essentially still living in the world of her childhood.

“Since this had been a fashionable neighborhood forty years ago, his mother persisted in thinking they did well to have an apartment in it.”

The neighborhood that Julian and his mother live in is another example of their diminished social standing and Julian’s mother’s refusal to acknowledge the change. She continues to believe they are well-off even though they live in a shabby neighborhood, take the bus, and have little money. Julian sees this as “insensitivity” (187) on his mother’s part; she has lost her appreciation for nice things, while Julian believes that he deserves better because he sees their value.

“‘Most of them in it are not our kind of people,’ she said, ‘but I can be gracious to anybody. I know who I am.’”

While Julian’s mother doesn’t specify what she means by “our kind of people,” one can assume that she is referring to the fact that the other women in her exercise class are poor, lower-class, or maybe even Black. Julian’s mother derives a sense of pride from her ability to treat those she perceives as her inferiors with kindness. She believes this makes her a good person. She fails to see her condescension and the irony that she is no different from the other women in the class.

“It’s ridiculous. It’s simply not realistic. They should rise, yes, but on their own side of the fence.”

Julian’s mother’s racism is always caged in the Southern manners she values so highly. She holds on to a Jim Crow, separate-but-equal mentality in which she convinces herself that it would be better for everyone if the races were kept separate.

“He never spoke of it without contempt or thought of it without longing.”

Here, Julian refers to his family’s now-lost plantation mansion. Despite his alleged support for integration and his constant annoyance with his mother’s romanticization of the past, he too longs for his family’s former wealth and prestige. Out loud, he speaks up against his mother’s racism, but inside, his convictions are much weaker.

“When he got on a bus by himself, he made it a point to sit down beside a Negro, in reparation as it were for his mother’s sins.”

Julian despises his mother’s racism and classism, but his actions to stand up for desegregation seem motivated by a desire to offend his mother rather than true moral conviction. He uses his interactions with Black people to prove his own superiority in a way that is just as condescending as his mother’s.

“She was holding herself very erect under the preposterous hat wearing it like a banner of her imaginary dignity.”

Julian’s mother’s hat illustrates the gulf between appearances and reality. She believes she is a dignified Southern lady and that the hat supports this vision. In reality, the hat is ridiculous. Furthermore, the dignity it implies is now also available to Carver’s mother.

“‘True culture is in the mind, the mind,’ he said, and tapped his head, ‘the mind.’

‘It’s in the heart,’ she said, ‘and in how you do things and how you do things is because of who you are.’”

This quote illustrates the central conflict between Julian and his mother. She prides herself on her manners and heritage, while Julian believes his intellectual prowess sets him apart. Both believe themselves superior to others, making them not so different from one another after all.

“Behind the newspaper Julian was withdrawing into the inner compartment of his mind where he spent most of his time.”

For all his claims of objectivity and living in the real world, Julian admits to spending most of his time in this “mental bubble” (189), intentionally shutting out the world and observing but not participating. While there, he often enters his own fantasy world, dreaming up ways to teach his mother a lesson.

“It gave him a certain satisfaction to see injustice in daily operation. It confirmed his view that with a few exceptions there was no one worth knowing within a radius of three hundred miles.”

Seeing injustice in action confirms Julian’s pessimistic worldview but also his sense of superiority. He believes that he is one of the few who sees the world the way it really is, making him special. He uses his support for integration to set himself apart from the other white people around him.

“[H]e had never been successful at making any Negro friends. He had tried to strike up an acquaintance on the bus with some of the better types, with ones that looked like professors or ministers or lawyers.”

Julian’s hypocrisy is that he is just as classist and racist as his mother. He, too, judges people based on the way they look and only wants to associate with Black people who look like they could be his peers and could elevate his status. He has no interest in developing genuine friendships.

“His mother lumped all children, black and white, into the common category, ‘cute,’ and she thought little Negroes were on the whole cuter than little white children.”

Julian’s mother’s love of children is one of her more sympathetic attributes. There are, apparently, some instances where she does suspend her racism, and she manages to have an interaction with little Carver, while Julian cannot connect with a Black passenger no matter how hard he tries.

“‘Don’t think that was just an uppity Negro woman,’ he said. ‘That was the whole colored race which will no longer take your condescending pennies. That was your black double. She can wear the same hat as you, and to be sure,’ he added gratuitously (because he thought it was funny), ‘it looked better on her than it did on you. What all this means,’ he said, ‘is that the old world is gone. The old manners are obsolete and your graciousness is not worth a damn.’ He thought bitterly of the house that had been lost for him. ‘You aren’t who you think you are,’ he said.”

This is the grand lesson that Julian hoped to impart to his mother. With her attempt at a gracious gesture so violently rejected, he tries to make it clear that she and Carver’s mother are equals in this new world. However, he also thinks “bitterly” of the family’s lost mansion, revealing that he is not necessarily happy about this turn of events.