Sleeper's Wake Chapter 3 Summary

The tone of chapters 3,4 and 5 of the Sleepers Wake section was frustration at first then the tone changed to a more depressing tone. For example, in chapters 3 and 4 Avey feels like she is frustrated with Jay because all he focused on was studying and getting a new job while she was left to take care of the children and did not really see much of him. There normal routines no longer existed like going out dancing and they would no longer go on trips to Harlem to visit their friends. The passage then changed from being frustrated and angry at Jay, to mourning the death of him. One key point to the first chapter was when Avey mentions, “And the man Jay used to become at home, who was given to his wry jokes and banter, who arms used to surprise

She couldn’t account for the change in any conscious way. Perhaps it was the way that other face she sometimes thought she detected hovering pale and shadowy over his. Or the things he had taken to saying.” The author is referring to the fact that Aveys husband was now saying things that he would have never said before and Avey was no longer seeing him as “Jay”, but as a different man altogether. Another key point of the chapter is when Avey was sobbing on the balcony imagining what life could have been like if Jay had not turn into Jerome, the author writes, “Suddenly, with a cry that again startled the darkness holding the wake with her on the balcony, Avey Johnson was lunging out.” In this scene, Avey is lashing out about Jerome’s death and finally letting all of her feelings out. Avey has changed over the course of the chapters by showing her frustration about her relationship with her husband, to becoming depressed and regretful for what had happened in their relationship. What inspired that change in their relationship was her husband getting a job and their family moving to the North White