It’s hard to fight for your dreams.
Bebe is trying to follow her passion but her grandmother won’t let her. Building
Bridges, by Andrea Davis Pinkney is a short story about a girl named Bebe and
her relationship with her Grandmother, Mama Lil. Bebe’s parents died when she
was young and so she grew up with her grandmother for most of her life.
Throughout the story, Bebe and Mama Lil's relationship changed. This story
takes place in a time period where racism was still very prevalent. Bebe wants
to be an engineer but Mama Lil says “Ain’t no black woman gonna do a white mans
work.” This story has many symbols and they are what drive this story until the
end.
Mama Lil and Bebe are separated in many
ways throughout the story. One way is the smoking, which symbolizes the uncommunicative
relationship between Mama Lil and Bebe. Whenever Mama Lil is watching TV, she is
always smoking and it seems like she is in another world, to Bebe. On page 30,
Bebe says “Mama Lil sat as still as a statue… ‘if you don’t sign this- if you won’t sign it- I’ll sign it myself.’” I feel like this shows
the separation of Mama Lil and Bebe and also what a lot of kids are
experiencing in the world, therefore it is an important symbol in the story. Mama
Lil turning her back on Bebe is another symbol of their lack of communication.
Mama Lil always turned her back on Bebe because she wanted to avoid the truth.
On page 22, Mama Lil says “‘You get cranky every time we talk about that nasty
job you wanna get.’ Mama Lil turned her back to me and began to fill the sink
with soapy water.” Also, the fact that Bebe notices strong back muscles means
that Mam Lil turns her back to Bebe a lot.
Throughout the story, Bebe wants to
work as an engineer on the bridge project but Mama Lil doesn’t think a ‘black
woman’ should be an engineer. The symbol
of the bridge is one of the most important because it is what drives the story.
At the end of the story, Mama Lil and Bebe have a much better relationship and
the bridge symbolizes the connection between them. On page 34, Pinkney writes
“’Bebe, that bridge is lucky to have you,’ she [Mama Lil] said. I [Bebe] hugged
Mama Lil good and hard, then I got up to go. Just before I left the kitchen, I
turned and smiled big, right at her. ‘Yeah, it is,’ I [Bebe] said.” The bridge also symbolizes the state of their
relationship. The bridge needs fixing and so does their bond. On page 25,
Pinkney writes “She [The Brooklyn Bridge] needed repair. She was some 40 years
older than Mama Lil. As lovely as she was, she had some serious rough
spots”. This concludes, at the end of
the story, Bebe and Mama Lil’s fixed friendship.
“With each scrub, she hunched
further over the sink, giving that pan every bit of strength she had. ‘This
damn grease is stubborn,’ she said, her back muscles tense with effort. This
quote, on page 23, shows the pan as a symbol because Mama Lil thinks that Bebe
is stubborn and she wants to scrub that stubbornness off her. A final symbol, the cigarette pack,
represents Mama Lil at the end of her fight. She smoked throughout the whole
story and at that moment, she wants a cigarette and the pack is empty. On page
30, Pinkney states “Mama Lil reaches for her pack of Carlton’s, which were
resting on the arm of her sofa. She felt for a cigarette, but the pack was
empty.” This is a powerful symbol because
it shows emptiness.
Pinkney shows lots of symbolism through the story. Even the title, Building Bridges, shows what the story is about, building a better relationship. This story shows how people can get
through hard parts of life. Stubbornness, avoidance and giving in are all aspects of life that we have experienced. Many teenagers in the world go through the same stuff that Bebe and her grandmother went
through in the story. It's hard to fight for your dreams, but it is worth it when you try.
