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Josephine, “Nineteen Thirty-Seven”

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Characters Josephine, “Nineteen Thirty-Seven”

Josephine knows well the painful legacy she has inherited. Her mother had to choose whether to save Josephine’s life or try to save her grandmother’s, so Josephine’s birth depended on her grandmother’s death. She feels a bond with her grandmother and her mother as a result of the rituals her mother made her take part in at Massacre River, even though she has never understood them. Josephine is awed by her mother’s rituals and stories, and she has absorbed them more than she realizes. When Jacqueline visits her, Josephine asks questions that only a fellow performer of the rituals would understand. Despite the strength this tradition gives her, Josephine feels overwhelmed by the depressing world around her and helpless to change it. She doesn’t know how to connect with her mother, perhaps because she is ashamed of her inability to help her. She attempts to be strong by hiding her profound sorrow. Though she cannot express it, Josephine highly values her relationship with her mother and the tradition of which she is part.

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