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Elizabeth
Gabriel’s sister, Rachel’s daughter, and Frank’s wife. Florence grows up resenting her brother and all men because her mother gives Gabriel preferential treatment. Rachel gives Gabriel better food and better clothes, and he even gets to go to school. Rachel assumes that Florence will grow up to be a housewife, which means she doesn’t need an education, but Florence rejects this sexist, limiting plan for her life. She wants to move North where there is more opportunity, find a better job, and maybe go to school. Florence eventually moves North, where she marries Frank, a man who “drinks too much” and “sings the blues,” and she never finds happiness. She rejects her brother’s religion and struggles with this decision, and she is plagued by internalized racism. She refers to her husband as a “common [n_____]” and bleaches her dark skin. Despite this, Florence is active in Uplift meetings and advocates for the betterment of African Americans. She listens to “prominent Negros” speak, and she encourages Frank to do the same. Their marriage, however, doesn’t last, and Frank leaves her after ten years of marriage. Florence lives the rest of her life alone and bitter, and by the time she finds her way to John’s Harlem church on the night of his fourteenth birthday, she is already dying. Florence fears what will come of her soul when she dies, and she comes to church to get her spiritual “house in order.” Florence also goes to church to confront Gabriel and finally hold him accountable for his sins and poor treatment of every single person in his life. Florence has been holding a letter from Gabriel’s first wife, Deborah, for over thirty years, and she believes it to be an “instrument” for Gabriel’s “destruction.” Florence finally confronts Gabriel and condemns him as a sinner, reaching some level of closure before leaving him for the last time.
Florence Quotes in Go Tell It on the Mountain
The Go Tell It on the Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Florence or refer to Florence. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 2: The Prayers of the Saints: Florence’s Prayer
Quotes
She had always seemed to Florence the oldest woman in the world, for she often spoke of Florence and Gabriel as the children of her old age, and she had been born, innumerable years ago, during slavery, on a plantation in another state. On this plantation she had grown up as one of the field workers, for she was very tall and strong; and by and by she had married and raised children, all of whom had been taken from her, one by sickness and two by auction; and one, whom she had not been allowed to call her own, had been raised in the master’s house.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Gabriel was the apple of his mother’s eye. […] With the birth of Gabriel, which occurred when [Florence] was five, her future was swallowed up. There was only one future in that house, and it was Gabriel’s—to which, since Gabriel was a manchild, all else must be sacrificed. Her mother did not, indeed, think of it as sacrifice, but as logic: Florence was a girl, and would by and by be married, and have children of her own, and all the duties of a woman; and this being so, her life in the cabin was the best possible preparation for her future life. But Gabriel was a man; he would go out one day into the world to do a man’s work, and he needed, therefore, meat, when there was any in the house, and clothes, whenever clothes could be bought, and the strong indulgence of his womenfolk, so that he would know how to be with women when he had a wife.
When men looked at Deborah they saw no further than her unlovely and violated body. In their eyes lived perpetually a lewd, uneasy wonder concerning the night she had been taken in the fields. That night had robbed her of the right to be considered a woman. No man would approach her in honor because she was a living reproach, to herself and to all black women and to all black men. […] Since she could not be considered a woman, she could only be looked on as a harlot, a source of delight more bestial and mysteries more shaking than any a proper woman could provide. Lust stirred in the eyes of men when they looked at Deborah, lust that could not be endured because it was so impersonal, limiting communion to the area of her shame. And Florence, who was beautiful but did not look with favor on any of the black men who lusted after her, […] reinforced in Deborah the terrible belief against which no evidence had ever presented itself: that all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs.
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Florence Quotes in Go Tell It on the Mountain
The Go Tell It on the Mountain quotes below are all either spoken by Florence or refer to Florence. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 2: The Prayers of the Saints: Florence’s Prayer
Quotes
She had always seemed to Florence the oldest woman in the world, for she often spoke of Florence and Gabriel as the children of her old age, and she had been born, innumerable years ago, during slavery, on a plantation in another state. On this plantation she had grown up as one of the field workers, for she was very tall and strong; and by and by she had married and raised children, all of whom had been taken from her, one by sickness and two by auction; and one, whom she had not been allowed to call her own, had been raised in the master’s house.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Gabriel was the apple of his mother’s eye. […] With the birth of Gabriel, which occurred when [Florence] was five, her future was swallowed up. There was only one future in that house, and it was Gabriel’s—to which, since Gabriel was a manchild, all else must be sacrificed. Her mother did not, indeed, think of it as sacrifice, but as logic: Florence was a girl, and would by and by be married, and have children of her own, and all the duties of a woman; and this being so, her life in the cabin was the best possible preparation for her future life. But Gabriel was a man; he would go out one day into the world to do a man’s work, and he needed, therefore, meat, when there was any in the house, and clothes, whenever clothes could be bought, and the strong indulgence of his womenfolk, so that he would know how to be with women when he had a wife.
When men looked at Deborah they saw no further than her unlovely and violated body. In their eyes lived perpetually a lewd, uneasy wonder concerning the night she had been taken in the fields. That night had robbed her of the right to be considered a woman. No man would approach her in honor because she was a living reproach, to herself and to all black women and to all black men. […] Since she could not be considered a woman, she could only be looked on as a harlot, a source of delight more bestial and mysteries more shaking than any a proper woman could provide. Lust stirred in the eyes of men when they looked at Deborah, lust that could not be endured because it was so impersonal, limiting communion to the area of her shame. And Florence, who was beautiful but did not look with favor on any of the black men who lusted after her, […] reinforced in Deborah the terrible belief against which no evidence had ever presented itself: that all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their brutal and humiliating needs.
