Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Éva Miklódy: Redefining the "Other ": Race, Gender, Class, and Violence in Gloria Nay lor's Bailey's Café

pregnancy, Mariam, according to the Beta Israel customs, undergoes female circumcision. Her son, George, born of the still virgin Mariam, serves as a Christ figure, a redeemer for the forlorn customers of Bailey's café: "[...]maybe it's meant for this baby to bring in a whole new area. Maybe when it gets here, it'll be like an explosion of new hope or something, and we'll just fade away" (160). One critical opinion holds that George also "embodies the connection between African past and American future because of conceptual geographic history" (Wood 390). It is, in fact, the entire scene of George's birth as well as the naming ceremony and the ritual of circumcision following it that testify to the possibility of a synthesis of racial, gender and cultural differences, with all of the book's outcasts present. There is Gabe, the Jew, an embodiment of the messenger angel, Gabriel, because it is he who directs Mariam and all of the social outcasts of the book to the Café; Bailey, the main narrator of the book, whose real name remains unknown and who assumes the name of the Café out of convenience

— for not having to change the sign on the Café—a war veteran from Brooklyn; his wife, Nadine, a prototype of African beauty; Miss Maple with his highly mixed racial, ethnic and even sexual background. There is also Eve from the Lousiana delta, who dismisses her sexual identity altogether and claims to have created herself sexless out of the mud of the delta. By acting as midwife at George's birth, she actually lives up to what her name means. There is Mary(Take One) alias Peaches, a lightskinned beauty from Kansas City, as well as Jesse Bell from the docks of Manhattan Island and Esther, a coal-black woman. Despite their differences, they are capable of celebrating George's birth in unison by singing a popular Christmas carol which can be considered as the cultural code of their newly established community of outcasts. This underlines the idea that "there [can be] harmony between opposing rituals and traditions drawn from a multicultural background" (Montgomery 32). Naylor also expands the category of gender as a significant component of otherness by changing the all-women-community of Brewster Place into one of both sexes. She even shows that there are instances in which it is not one's sexual identity that makes one eligible to be the "other." In one case, sex is shown as interchangeable and is completely eliminated, in another. Stanley or Miss Maple assumes a double sexual identity, when he willingly accepts his female nickname, 60