Fever

In the book The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life by Frankie Lennon we meet a young black girl who is the narrator. At this time there has been some form of integration in which black people and white people were allowed to go to the same college. All of this brings us to the story “Fever” in which the narrator brings another character into the book called Stacey. In this story Stacey and Frankie become great friends and Frankie begins to fall in love with Stacey. The more these two characters spend time with each other they begin to share more and then one day Stacey finally expresses the feelings that she has for Frankie. In this story we have seen conflicts between people, between a person and a force, and internal conflicts as well.

As the story progresses we notice that these two characters face conflicts. One form of conflict that comes out is internal because Frankie is afraid to speak out and tell Stacey how she feels. This happens when Stacey is telling Frankie that they should meet boys and she does not say anything because she does not want to make matters worse. Stacey also has an internal conflict because she feels that they cannot act like other couples do because they are different. Stacey shows this when she tells Frankie that they cannot be like them because if they will try to act like them they will be bull deaggers. This leads to show how social norms and society have an effect on her decisions. Frankie also begins to worry about whether or not the relationship that they have will last forever. Frankie shows this because she is afraid that Stacey will never come back if she dates Ned.

Another conflict that is faced in this story is between people because of the conflicts that Frankie and Stacey have together. They face a conflict in not being able to spend a lot of time together because they are not a normal couple since they are lesbians. This comes into consideration when they are almost caught by Lynn and so they stop acting like a couple. The last kind of conflict that we see in this story is between a person and a force because of the homophobia that people have. This brings conflict to the narrator because it makes Stacey and her begin to separate from each other. So we also that with this they have to begin to date boys again because they do not want anyone to find out that they are lesbians. This is how the society has a lot to do with this conflict because it was taught that only a man and a woman could have a relationship.

I find that with this it brings the narrator to really learn from her experiences and notice that even though some things were changing the expectations of the society were always going to be around her. These conflicts were what dealt with a lot of the relationship that she had because they were the leading cause. I am really curious to learn what other things the narrator begins to face in her journey to develop more as a person.