A Year Down Yonder

In these chapters, the novel immediately begins to develop the theme of The Effect of Societal Upheaval on Families with Mary Alice’s immediate dislocation from her home and family. The year is 1937, a low point in the Great Depression when many children were temporarily separated from their parents, who could no longer afford to keep them. In its first pages, the Prologue introduces the shift in the status quo of Mary Alice’s life, or the inciting incident that kicks off the novel’s plot: She is uprooted from the world and the people she knows for her grandmother’s house in rural Illinois. Not only will she miss her parents and her older brother, who has also been relocated (in his case, by the Civilian Conservation Corps), but she will also have to adjust to an entirely new way of life. Raised in the city of Chicago, with its modern amenities—department stores, movie houses, telephones, electric fans, soda shops, indoor plumbing, and public transport—Mary Alice will have to endure a whole year in a small rural town, where she must walk everywhere, get water from a pump, and use a “privy” (outhouse). She already knows what is in store for her since she and her brother have visited Grandma’s house many times, but this time, it will be for an entire year, and she will be making the trip alone. 

With her arrival, the theme of The Challenges of Feeling Out of Place is immediately illustrated with Grandma Dowdel’s standoffish greeting at the train station. Although Mary Alice has visited Grandma before, she shudders at the thought of living alone with her, an intimidating woman who seems to exemplify the stoic toughness of America’s early pioneers. She also remembers, from her summer visits, Grandma’s “trigger-happiness” with her shotgun; notably, this refers to the time (recounted in A Long Way From Chicago) when she terrorized a funeral party by pretending to shoot a dead man in his coffin. All the same, there are hints from the author that Mary Alice’s stay in the country will not be nearly as harsh and isolating as she fears. Aside from the gravity of her family situation, the Prologue’s light tone, which slightly mocks its narrator’s primness (“Me, a city girl in a town that didn’t even have a picture show” [2]), hints that a voyage of discovery, and a change of heart, lie ahead. 

Mary Alice’s initial meeting with Grandma at the station, however, seems to confirm her worst fears, setting up living with Grandma, without her older brother’s support, as the first challenge that the protagonist will undertake. Grandma is initially depicted as intimidating: Her looming figure “blot[s]” out the sun, and her “spidery” umbrella adds to her menacing appearance. Her behavior, too, is daunting. She forgoes hugs or any outward warmth and frowns at Mary Alice’s portable radio and pet cat, brought along to mitigate her loneliness. Also, despite her wild reputation around town, Grandma is puritanical about girls’ fashions, making Mary Alice feel even more ill at ease. Mary Alice’s intimidation and sense of dislocation are only heightened when Grandma marches Mary Alice directly to school from the train station without even stopping by the house. This opening scene highlights how alone Mary Alice feels, seemingly without support even from Grandma. 

The novel continues to set up the challenges that Mary Alice will face with the introduction of Mildred Burdick, one of the story’s main antagonists, who immediately confronts her at the school. Mildred is the school bully, and she immediately takes exception to Mary Alice’s shyness and citylike appearance. She derides Mary Alice as a “rich Chicago girl,” which Mary Alice finds ironic, considering the fact that she is staying with Grandma because her parents can’t afford to support her right now. Throughout the novel, Mary Alice will struggle to overcome people’s perceptions of her as a “city girl.” When Mildred waylays Mary Alice after school and no one comes to her defense, she notes that “[e]verybody look[s] the other way” (14), illustrating her total isolation at this point in the novel.

However, the narrative also offers some hope for Mary Alice with a scene that shows that although Grandma may show her love in unconventional ways, she does care for Mary Alice deeply. Mildred marches Mary Alice home like a “bounty hunter,” introducing a pivotal moment of suspense and raising the question of whether the unsentimental Grandma will protect Mary Alice and, if so, how she’ll manage to face down a bullying teen. This scene shows that Grandma truly does care about Mary Alice while simultaneously developing her character’s sly intelligence. She befuddles Mildred with her hospitality, catching her off guard, and then deprives her of both her boots and her ride home, ensuring that she won’t be back in school for a while. Following this scene, she also shows Mary Alice that she has tenderness as well: To keep Bootsie from running away, she has buttered her paws, a folk remedy to help her adjust to her new home. Mary Alice, who just hours earlier was tearful over having to leave Chicago for an antiquated place “as old as Grandma” (2), now sees the virtue in her grandmother’s long life experience and time-honored lore. These chapters span just one day but introduce many of the important players in the plot and develop the challenges that Mary Alice will have to overcome, beginning her character arc.