Drama: Crumbs From The Table Of Joy

Question 1

Ernestine: escaping through romanticising, like movies

Answer 1

Prologue, p10
Describes basement apartment as “kind of romantic, like a Parisian artist’s flat”

Question 2

Ernestine: showing defiance and independence

Answer 2

Epilogue, p.82
“I’m not Darling Angel, I’m Ernestine Crump”
Talking about her future (job at bakery but she wants to follow Lily)

Question 3

Ernestine: showing her own ideas

Answer 3

Final monologue, p.85
“I feel very strongly about the status of the Negro in this country. We can’t just sit idly by, right?”
Talking to bartender in Harlem

Question 4

Godfrey: disappointment in faith

Answer 4

Act 2, Scene 1
When Father Divine fails to show up to the feast

Question 5

Godfrey: obsession with appearance

Answer 5

P.63
Gente notes “he dresses very finely to go and bake bread”
Also seen in shoe shining motif
Lily: “Godfrey don’t like anything he can’t control”

Question 6

Godfrey: past/present

Answer 6

P.44
Talking to Lily: “I left Florida for a reason, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could do nothing but go to work (and) drink’

Question 7

Godfrey: escapism through letters

Answer 7

P.76, Gerte wants Godfrey to ask Lily to leave (make a decision)
Gerte: “If you paid attention to the world around you, you wouldn’t have so many questions to ask”
Godfrey’s neglect to children, why ask when he can just talk?

Question 8

Ermina: realism and defiance. TWO

Answer 8

Prologue, p10
In response to Ernestine’s comment: “if Parisian mean ugly”

Scene 2, act 1, banquet p54
“If he God, why don’t he sprout wings and fly here?”

Question 9

Ermina: escapism and anxiety

Answer 9

Leg shakes violently at tense moments during the play
She also recites slang she learns in the streets, indulging in modern, black culture is her escape
“Scat cat, hip, jive, cool baby, dip dive”

Question 10

Lily: uses beauty as a weapon

Answer 10

P.34, straightening Ermina’ hair
“I’m not trying to kill ya, I’m trying to make you beautiful enough to kill others”

Question 11

Lily: realism/cynicism

Answer 11

p.70, hungover
“The world gives nothing, Ernie. It takes”
Shows why she is cynical, she has suffered

Question 12

Lily: maternal instincts

Answer 12

Last thing she does on p81:
Rips lace off bottom of her own dress and sews it around Ernestine’s graduation dress’ collar

Question 13

Gerte: food anxiety

Answer 13

Act 2, scene 1, p54 banquet
“There are starving children in Europe”

Act 2, scene 2, p61
“Periodically shoves cabbage into her mouth” stage directions when Ernestine isn’t looking

Question 14

Gerte: trying hard to be accepted into family

Answer 14

Trying to show she is not racist, p64
“When I see you, I see no colour. I see Lily” (shows ignorance and privilege)
Even after she moves in, Ernestine calls her “ma’am” repeatedly (even after being asked not to)

Question 15

Gerte: defying Godfrey’s beliefs

Answer 15

Act 2, scene 1, p55
After FD doesn’t show up: “I’ve been to speaker’s corner, there are a half-dozen messiahs waiting to replace him”

Question 16

RACE

Answer 16

• Prologue, p15: Ernestine: ”We sit and listen to all the white laughter”
• P.62: Gerte repeats: “A coloured man”, Lily “Yeah, you said that”
• P.64: Gerte asks Ernestine for a bowl. Lily: “You’re not a servant, and I didn’t hear her say ‘please’.”
  -p.72 after racist attack, dummy “topples over” -> racist reality pushes down Ernestine’s dreams

Question 17

ESCAPE AND FREEDOM

Answer 17

Act 2, scene 1: p54
Godfrey: “I need this answers now, I need him to help me move on”

Final monologue, p85: “(We will) realise we all escape somewhere”
“I’ll ride the Freedom bus back home”
Dynamic, movie-like ending full of music connoting freedom: show’s Ernestine finally got her escape

ERNESTINE BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL DEPICTS HER DREAMS OF ESCAPING AND HER OBSERVANT ROLE

Question 18

RELIGION

Answer 18

Prologue, p13: Ernestine: “He vowed to move nearer to Divine, to be close to God”

P.22 after receiving a letter: Godfrey: “We’re now part of his flock”

P.77: Ernestine reading Godfrey’s ripped up questions: “Sweet Father, this city confuse me (…) Will you help me calm my rage?”

Question 19

DREAMS / FANTASY

Answer 19

p.54, Ernestine wants her life to be different: Nottage describes Gerte singing on the table in a “slinky white cocktail dress”
Ernestine then says, “Well, at least I wish she had”

p.76, after Gerte rips up Godfrey’s questions: “blue, flickering light” engulfs them and they “kiss passionately, like film stars”

Question 20

LOSS AND SUFFERING

Answer 20

Prologue, p9: Ernestine: “Death nearly crippled my father” -> anaphora in next lines shows intensified of impact

P.28, Ermina giggles at Lily for saying she’s a communist: “I suppose ya happy with what ya got, a bit of nothing”

P.62: Gerte: “Then it got difficult, the nazis, the war…”