Scarlet Sister Mary is a 1928 novel by Julia Peterkin.
The time setting is vague but appears to be approximately the first two decades of the 20th century (it's definitely 20 years, and by the end, people are getting automobiles). The setting is the Gullah
region, namely the Sea Islands of South Carolina. The Gullah are all descendants of slaves, but the plantations were abandoned during the Civil War and the remote, isolated nature of the area have allowed the inhabitants to exist mostly independently, free of interference from or persecution by white people. As a result they have a distinctive English dialect and a culture that has retained more of their African heritage.
The heroine is Mary Pinesett. She begins the story as a spirited, energetic teenaged girl. Mary has two warring impulses within her. She has a deep religious belief and fear of God, but she also loves dancing and having fun and taking pleasure, something that the town's church strongly disapproves of. In fact, when Mary gives in to temptation on her wedding night, and dances, she's excommunicated.
Mary's bigger mistake is getting married to begin with. She marries a man named July, who is handsome and charming and free-spirited, but obviously a terrible prospect for a husband. Sure enough, he starts openly cheating on her, and eventually abandons her, disappearing for parts unknown. A bitter Mary decides to cast conventional morality behind. As the years go by Mary has seven illegitimate children, and she absolutely refuses to feel shame despite the disapproval of the Moral Guardians in her community.
Tropes:
- Abandoned Area: The old plantation house, once the home of white slaveowners, now a crumbling ruin. The Gullah locals think there are ghosts there.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Maum Hannah and Budda Ben are desperate for Mary to get married to June, who is responsible and dependable and loves her. Instead she goes for July, who shoots craps and plays poker and dances and plays guitar and uses bad words. Why? Because she's more sexually attracted to July, that's why.
- Ambiguous Ending: Mary's son Unex dies of some infectious disease. That, and a dream Mary has of Unex telling her that it was punishment for her sexually liberated ways, causes Mary to have a religious conversion. She repents her sins, rejoins the church, and gets re-baptized. However, at the very end of the book Daddy Cudjoe asks for the love-charm back, assuming that Mary won't need it. She refuses, and in the very last line says "I couldn' gi way my love-charm. E's all I got now to keep me young." So, did Mary repent of her Ethical Slut ways, or not?
- An Arm and a Leg: Mary's son Keepsie gets too close to a hay-press, and loses a leg. Maum Hannah suggests it's God's punishment for Mary's sinful ways.
- Book Ends: In Chapter II teenaged Mary has a dream of Jesus telling her to go forth and sin no more. This is what prompts her to join the local church. At the end she has a dream of her dead son appearing to her and telling her that Jesus has born the scars of all her sinful children; this motivates her to rejoin the church.
- Brick Joke: Andrew complains about how his Ms. Red Ink wife is pushing him to buy a car. Quite a bit later Andrew's son Big Boy says "we got a automobile now", so Mary can borrow the buggy.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Maum Hannah actually makes Mary do this, giving her a pipe and telling her to learn how to smoke, when Mary is in despair after July leaves her. Mary becomes a lifelong pipe smoker like her aunt.
- Domestic Abuse: As Mary and July's marriage deteriorates, he beats the heck out her one night. He's remorseful after, but it doesn't stop him from soon leaving for good.
- Doorstop Baby: Mary comes back home after delivering twins at the church, only to be surprised to discover a third baby in the house. It's not hard to figure out that the child is actually Seraphine's baby, but Mary agrees to raise the child and pretend that she had triplets instead of twins.
- Ethical Slut: Played with. After her husband abandons her, Mary quite deliberately decides to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. When asked when she will stop sinning, Mary says "When I get tired seein pleasure." She likes sex and she doesn't care who knows it. The "played with" part comes with the use of Daddy Cudjoe's Love Potion charm, which is hardly ethical.
- Foreshadowing: If it wasn't already clear that Mary and July's marriage is not a good idea, the scene on the day of the wedding when a rat gets into the wedding cake removes all doubt.
- Funetik Aksent: How Julia Peterkin attempted to render the Gullah language, which is recognized as a distinctive English creole.Maum Hannah: Gawd promised to be a mudder to the mudderless, honey. You run jump in de bed an' get warm.
- I'm Cold... So Cold...: Unex, dying of something unspecified (malaria? yellow fever?), says "I'm cold" and that it's "gettin dark", before he croaks.
- Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!: A heavily pregnant Mary is walking home from the general store when she is racked with pains. She then gives birth right there in the middle of the road.
- Love Potion: Daddy Cudjoe the witch doctor makes Mary a "love-charm". She spends the next 20 years using it on various men in the community.
- Love Triangle: A local woman named Cinder succeeds in seducing July away from Mary (in fairness, Cinder doesn't have to try that hard).
- Moral Guardians: The local church congregation. Sins as trivial as dancing get one excommunicated. Budda Ben is excommunicated for cursing at some kids—they were Deacon Andrew's kids, who were making fun of him for being handicapped. The church condemns Mary's free love ways, but she doesn't care. When Andrew's wife Doll starts insulting Mary for her promiscuous ways, Mary shoots back with "When did Gawd appint you to run His house, Doll?"
- Ms. Red Ink: Deacon Andrew complains about his wife Doll, who refuses to save but instead spends all the money he makes, and is pestering him to buy a car."Money burned Doll."
- Never Learned to Read: Most people in the community never learned to read. When Unex goes away to find work Mary realizes she'll never hear from him simply because he can't write her. Mary is nervous and distrustful when her eldest daughter Seraphim insists on going to school.
- No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me: When July makes his return, Mary just stares at him. He says "You ain' know me—Si May-e? Is you forgot you July?" In fact he hasn't changed all that much, and Mary is displeased to find that he's still lean and strong and handsome.
- Noodle Incident: July makes his return after 20 years, but the story never relates what he did in that time, except that he abandoned Cinder as well, and whatever he did, he made a pretty good amount of money. Mary sends him packing before he can explain.
- Sibling Triangle: June loves Mary, but she only has eyes for June's irresponsible brother July.
- A Storm Is Coming: A violent storm rolls into the island. That night, Mary winds up delivering twins, and her daughter Seraphine drops her own Doorstop Baby in her mother's house.
- Theme Naming: Mary marries a man named July. The fun-loving, high-spirited July has a far more sober and responsible brother named...June.
- Time Skip: "Fifteen years" finds Mary an unapologetic single mother with a half-dozen kids from different fathers that she's not the least bit ashamed of. Then approximately five years to the last act of the story, and the separate returns of July and Unex.
- Title Drop: Mary is called "Sister Mary"—or "Si May-e" in the local Funetik Aksent—after she joins the church. Then later, her sins are called "scarlet".
- Witch Doctor: Daddy Cudjoe, the "conjure doctor" who practices traditional African shamanism. He makes her a "love charm" to win July back. She never gets the chance to use it on July, as he literally disappears for 20 years, but she does use it on other men in the community.
