The Downstairs Girl

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-9

Chapters 10-18

Chapters 19-27

Chapters 28-36

Chapter 37-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Importance of Intersectionality for Political Change

One of the most emphatic points the narrative makes is that sexism is experienced differently by different groups of women. The novel exposes a variety of factors—such as economic or social class, as well as racial identity—that can further complicate the lives of marginalized groups like women. Throughout the novel, it is emphasized that true social and political change depends on recognizing and uplifting all women equally.

For upper-class white women like Mrs. Payne, the experience of sexism involves a narrowing of choices and a hardening of roles. Mrs. Payne has to choose between a life on the margins of society and living in a golden cage. In her golden cage, she appears to stay in a loveless arranged marriage. She has to give up a daughter and live a life of pretense. Yet her experience is very different from that of a poor white woman without male backing, such as the likes of Madame Delilah, the madam at Riggs’s brothel. Women without money and patronage are often forced into dangerous or dubious positions in Mrs. Payne’s society.

However, even the experiences of such women are different from the experience of Chinese American Jo, who is routinely gawked at for her Chinese features, fired from a job because of racial bias, and called racist slurs. Jo’s experience varies in turn from Noemi’s, who is not allowed to sit in the front of the streetcar, the only warm place on the bus, and can be jumped by a “gang of white hoods” (114) if she refuses to step off a sidewalk.

Discrimination has many shades, and for poor Black women who occupy the intersecting space between racial, gender, and class-based biases, prejudice and violence are experienced at their worst. In this scenario, any call for human rights or women’s rights must accommodate nuances of race, class, gender, and other identities. Though the text is set in a time when the word “intersectionality” was not yet coined, an intersectional approach is very much on the minds of characters like Noemi and Jo. When Noemi asks Jo to attend the Suffragette meeting, Jo is skeptical because she has little in common with “reform-minded women of the middle class, their starched skirts dragging the pavement” (162). The starched, stiff skirts of the women are symbolic of their inflexible definition of women’s rights. Jo reminds herself that even if women get the right to vote, she, as a Chinese woman, will still not be able to cast the ballot, as Chinese individuals are not even considered citizens. Thus, calls for suffrage have to be more holistic. At the suffragist meeting, Noemi wants all women to be able to pay the same for whole eggs, instead of the usual custom of selling cracked eggs to Black women (and men) for regular prices. Mrs. Bullis calls this a “colored concern” (248), but Noemi notes that since the issue affects women, it is equally a human and women’s concern.

The division in the women’s movement of the 19th century, as apparent through the incident of the Suffragist meeting and Noemi’s founding of the Atlanta Bluebells, is based on historical events. When the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed in 1870, it still excluded women from the vote. Feminist foremothers like Susan B. Anthony could not therefore support the amendment; Black activists argued that the need of formerly enslaved people to gain a right to vote was stronger than that of women. Afterward, the schism in the women’s movement continued to grow. White Suffragists resisted accommodating minority concerns, while Black feminists continued to press for suffrage through separate channels. In the text, Mrs. Bullis bluntly accuses Jo and those like her of trying to “pin their causes onto ours” (243). Emblematic of attitudes of the period, she refuses to see the simple truth: “our” cause and “their” cause exist in a continuum. What needs to be undone in the first place is the system that creates hierarchies of class, race, and gender in the first place.

Being Heard Versus Being Invisible

Visibility and invisibility, voice and voicelessness, are pressing concerns for Jo, who initially wants to be heard much more than she wants to be seen. However, Jo’s stance on visibility evolves throughout the narrative, reflecting how she navigates social biases and challenges. In learning how to embrace her voice, Jo learns the importance of speaking up for oneself and taking control of one’s destiny.

From the very onset, Jo has a very strong voice which clamors to be expressed. This voice is inconvenient for people like her employer Mrs. English, who claims Jo is a “saucebox” (6) who doesn’t “know when to keep [her] opinions to [her]self” (6). A saucebox implies an impudent person, a patronizing definition often applied to children, young women, and racial minorities. Jo astutely gauges that Mrs. English’s subtext is that she is a saucebox despite being poor and Chinese, which is a big social taboo. The other assistant, Lizzie Crump, is also opinionated, but happens to be white and from a middle-class family. Lizzie works for Mrs. English because she enjoys making hats, not because she has to make money as well, like Jo. Thus, Jo is better seen than heard.

When Jo is seen, it is not in a way she likes, but through a male and orientalist gaze. The text makes several references to men who leer at Jo and catcall her, and even women, such as the landlady who tells Jo, “Y’ar kind is likely to trek in nits” (32). Jo’s Chinese appearance is ridiculed or exoticized; Riggs wants to feel her locks because he has never felt a Chinese woman’s hair. Given all these facts, Jo prefers to be invisible and anonymous. Though she wants to be heard, it is through the safety of Miss Sweetie’s identity. Disguise affords Jo freedom, whether it is the mask of Miss Sweetie, or the physical disguise of men’s clothes. Loving that the Miss Sweetie column allows her to speak the truth, Jo notes that “the best way to deliver the truth, if not posthumously, is anonymously” (39). However, Jo does not like anonymity as much as she portrays. She is a writer and wants feedback. When she sees Miss Sweetie’s column in print, she exults “people will be reading my words, my words” (91). A part of her is bound to wish she could publish her words under the name Jo Kuan.

When Jo adopts Miss Sweetie’s persona before Nathan, she pretends she is an older, white woman. Being older frees her from the pressures that young women face, and pretending to be white saves her from racist prejudice. Adding to Jo’s need for invisibility and disguises is Old Gin’s teaching. As a Chinese man raising his granddaughter in America, Old Gin knows keeping one’s head down is an important part of survival. Jo notes that Old Gin usually dresses in beige not to attract attention and tells Jo that they ought to flow like a river around stones, or gently accommodate challenges. However, Old Gin’s survival tactic may be harming him. In the bid to keep his and Jo’s existence in the basement a secret, Old Gin has compromised his health through eating less and breathing in the dank basement air. Jo notes that he is increasingly becoming “a bag of bones” (52) and feels “birdlike” (52). Old Gin’s physical erasure is a metaphor for his voicelessness and invisibility in society.

As the narrative proceeds and Jo’s worldview opens up through Miss Sweetie and Noemi’s influence, Jo begins to realize that being invisible and disguised has its limitations. Being invisible offers some safety for the individual person, but can lead to the marginalization of the group. Jo begins to move toward visibility, such as when she bravely confronts Billy Riggs, and begins to express her opinions to the Paynes. Noemi imparts to Jo an important lesson about occupying space visually. She asks Jo, “When’s the last time you saw a colored on a bicycle?” (114). Noemi wants to be seen on a bicycle so bicycle-riding becomes normal for Black people. By occupying space visually, she hopes to create physical space for herself.

In the last section of the novel, Jo rides Sweet Potato to victory in a very visible setting, wearing an eye-catching scarlet outfit. Not only is the color assertive, it is also symbolic of Jo’s femininity and her Chinese heritage. Thus, she becomes visible on her own terms. By the end of the novel, Jo has begun to understand that invisibility is useful, but so is occupying visible space while being herself.

The Power of Secrets and Social Etiquette

The Downstairs Girl examines the link between codified, hierarchical social norms and the necessity of gossip and secrets. 1890s Atlanta is a place where every person is supposed to behave according to their station: their race, gender, and class. Appearances are important, and wealth is to be displayed. However, as Jo learns, appearances can be deceptive. As she uncovers the truth about social norms and her own parentage, Jo learns that secrets are tied to society’s hypocrisies and injustices.

This system has engendered an elaborate system of etiquette, in which every social manner expresses a particular meaning. When Mrs. Payne praises bicycles, Caroline exclaims, “bicycles are so vulgar” (58, emphasis added). High-society women still consider bicycles “vulgar” or common because being seen on a bicycle may imply a woman doesn’t have a carriage or wagon to transport her. Even the relatively progressive Mrs. Payne tells Jo that although she and Caroline grew up together, “you are not equals. You understand that, do you not?” (59). Jo has no choice but to wonder: “I hope I have never, er, acted above my station?” (59). The fact that Jo and Caroline are actually half-sisters makes Mrs. Payne’s insistence that they are “not equals” all the more hypocritical and glaring.

With so much invested in social etiquette and appearances, it follows that gossip and scandal can make or break reputations. Caroline hears from Mr. Q. that her mother has an illegitimate daughter, which she assumes is her. As it turns out, the person who has spread the rumor is Miss Saltworth, having learned of Caroline’s affair with Mr. Q. Caroline fears, “if word gets out, no one else will want to marry me, either” (233). When Lizzie learns Jo is Miss Sweetie, Jo too worries the secret may undo her. Thus, secrets carry enormous weight, and can be misused by people like Miss Saltworth and Billy Riggs. One of the ironies is that high-society people assume gossip is spread by house help, but the text shows how the Atlanta ladies are actually the biggest purveyors of gossip.

While some secrets are needed for safety, such as Jo and Old Gin hiding in the basement, other secrets are warranted for social survival. Mrs. Payne could not have kept Jo because that would have sounded a death knell for her socially. Worse, Mr. Payne could have forbidden her from seeing Caroline and Merritt, her other children. Too steeped in the comfort afforded by her class, Mrs. Payne keeps Jo’s existence a secret. In these ways, secrecy is deeply embedded into daily life, complicating human relations and reinforcing social hierarchies that tend to divide and exploit certain groups in various ways.