Marriage Is a Green Apple

Abstract

This chapter recounts how, even though most of her time was spent going to meetings, working, reading, writing, and studying with Richard Wright, Margaret Walker had begun to respond to the advances of a young minister James Russell Brown sometime during 1936. She struggled with her feelings from the beginning: a strong sexual attraction demanding fulfillment and the need for restraint required by custom. She had to weigh these impulses against everything else that was occupying her time. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) job was going well, and she was writing constantly, experiencing success and support. But she saw herself falling hopelessly in love with Brown. She confided the private, inner story of the relationship with Brown in a thirty-two-page journal entry, in which she speaks honestly about her own sexual urges and the corresponding impact of sexual repression. The chapter then looks at Walker’s refusal of Brown’s marriage proposal because of her growing awareness of the limitations and expectations for women of her generation. The knowledge that marriage would go hand in hand with suppression of her creativity trumped all other knowledge and all feeling.