Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin spoke to me. I related to Mary personally; that was surely part of the intention: we all fail. We are all human. And American stories are always about people who don’t or can’t follow the rules or who do not do things the way others do them. The Gullah culture is interesting, the idea of the overgrown plantation with the Big House, abandoned and decaying; but still there.
Sin, babies, human nature. Mary’s spirit overcoming and really rising above the pettiness and limitations of this rigid church society. Of course this is a 21st century reading. It spoke to me because as I think about my actions and choices I cannot get away from thinking about morals of the past and consequences to society. So many of us today are like Mary but the world we live in does not punish us so absolutely.