Proper Library (Criticism)

Criticism

Laura Pryor

Pryor has a bachelor of arts from University of Michigan and twenty years experience in professional and creative writing with special interest in fiction. In this essay, Pryor examine how Lorrie's homosexuality actually benefits him in his inner-city neighborhood.

Millions of gay and lesbian teens have found that their sexual orientation makes them the subject of ridicule, cruelty, and persecution. This is certainly the case for Lorrie Adams in Carolyn Ferrell's "Proper Library." From the minute he steps onto the bus in the morning until he returns home in the afternoon, Lorrie is constantly on his guard, reminding himself to "keep moving." He can feel the hostility of his schoolmates, and he knows they are watching his every move; he can even "feel the ears" on him when he engages in innocent conversation with his friend Joe. Even before his wood-working classmates begin to harass him, he knows what is coming: "I'm feeling the rest of the ears on us, latching, readying. I pause to heaven. I am thinking I wish Ma had taught me how to pray."

Because Lorrie is a black teen living in the inner city, however, his homosexuality is a source not just of persecution, but also protection. For instance, Rakeem escapes some gang members by telling them he has AIDS; because Rakeem is gay, they believe him and run away. Clearly in Lorrie's neighborhood the image of AIDS as a "gay disease" still persists (though, in fact, the two people in the story who actually are HIV positive are heterosexual).

Lorrie's homosexuality gives him an advantage greater than just protection from physical violence; the greatest benefit Lorrie gains from being gay is freedom from the strict code of behavior adhered to by the heterosexual men in his world. The other men and boys in "Proper Library" have been taught to deny any tenderness, vulnerability, or need; in their relationships with women the goal is to avoid any commitment or dependence. Lorrie's father, in his complete absence from the story, is an example by omission: he is never mentioned. Women are seen primarily as potential sexual conquests, and sex is the primary preoccupation of Lorrie's classmates. A boy named Franklin in Lorrie's shop class sums it up this way: "Hey, Lorrie, man, tell me what you think about, then? What can be better than thinking about how you going to get to that hole, man?"

For Lorrie, the sheer impossibility of conforming to the neighborhood standard of machismo frees him from those limiting gender boundaries. Because the men in his community would prefer to deny the existence of homosexual black men, no comparable code of behavior or social role exists for them, and Lorrie is free to invent himself as he goes along, feeling connected to the children and caring about others. Many critics cite this denial of homosexuality in the black community as a reason for the neglect of AIDS issues by black leaders and politicians (especially male black leaders).

Homosexuality seems to be a greater advantage for Lorrie than it is for Rakeem, perhaps because Lorrie is more effeminate. There are some cues that this is the case. For instance, Aunt Estine, speaking of her past in the South, tells Lorrie that if he had "twitched [his] ass down there like [he does] here, they woulda hung [him] up just by [his] black balls." Rakeem, being less effeminate, still feels it is possible for him to fit in. As he tells Lorrie, "I got to get people to like me and to stop seeing me. So I got to hide me for a while. Then you watch, Lorrie, man: much people will be on my side!" Unlike Rakeem, Lorrie has accepted the fact that fitting in at school is not possible for him; he is satisfied to fit in at home, with his mother and the kids. Rakeem also seems to attach greater importance to sex than Lorrie does. When they have sex under the expressway, Rakeem tells Lorrie, "This is where your real world begins, man." Lorrie, however, considers his desire for Rakeem only another "flavor of the pie."

Being gay, Lorrie avoids not just the expectations and stereotypes for men in his community, but also the roles adhered to by the women. Ironically, Lorrie has more of the positive qualities one normally associates with femininity than the girls in the story do. He is more maternal, nurturing, and protective towards the children in the story than their own mothers. Yet because Lorrie is a boy, he escapes the low expectations his community has for women. For instance, Lorrie's mother takes the time to coach him on his vocabulary words, make sure he has all his books in order before he goes to school, and exhorts him to do things "the proper way." There is no indication that she has ever done any of this for her daughters, and the fact that her house is full of their children on a daily basis implies that doing things "the proper way" was not made a high priority for the girls in the house. Their choice of men is another example of these low expectations; of the two husbands mentioned in the story, one is unfaithful, and the other is physically abusive. With the exception of Layla Jackson, who struggles to continue her education with Tee Tee in tow and the specter of AIDS following her, none of the girls in the story appears to have goals greater than getting a man and hanging onto him (the latter being something all the men have been taught to avoid). Given the men they choose, these goals are not very high.

Another reason Lorrie is less affected by the expectations and stereotypes of his community is that few of the people who ascribe to these rules of behavior are willing to spend time with Lorrie. Lorrie's companions are either too young to have internalized these attitudes (the kids) or are compassionate enough to ignore them (Joe Smalls, Layla Jackson). His own kind and compassionate nature is supported by their friendship.

Though most teens would not volunteer for the persecution Lorrie endures each day, his inability to conform to his peers' standards of behavior may well be his means for one day rising above them. Without being coerced into living within the dominant code, Lorrie is able to think and feel for himself, which in the long run is the ultimate freedom.

Source: Laura Pryor, Critical Essay on "Proper Library," in Short Stories for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.

Sheldon Goldfarb

Goldfarb has a Ph.D. in English and has published two books on the Victorian author William Makepeace Thackeray. In the following essay, he discusses the way the protagonist copes with adversity in "Proper Library" and compares the story to modernist works such as Ulysses and The Great Gatsby.

Towards the end of Carolyn Ferrell's "Proper Library," the schoolboy protagonist, Lorrie, decides to learn three new words to impress his mother. The words themselves are interesting, in that they seem to relate to Lorrie's situation as described in the story. The first is "soliloquy," a word that implies being alone and unheard, among the most famous soliloquies being the sad solitary speeches made by Hamlet in William Shakespeare's famous play of that name. The word "soliloquy" means talking to oneself, and the whole story is one in which the reader enters Lorrie's thoughts and in effect overhears him talking to himself about his lonely, unhappy life.

The second word is "disenfranchise," meaning to deprive someone of rights and power, which certainly seems to be Lorrie's situation: he seems trapped in a world full of responsibility without rights. He is responsible for taking care of numerous children and must endure all sorts of abuse from schoolmates, and also from at least one teacher, because he is gay. At times he feels totally isolated and alone, and his only recourse is to "keep moving," a refrain of his, which means not just physical moving, though he does that to escape some unpleasant situations, but also psychological or metaphorical moving, to escape in his head by remembering something pleasant while nasty things are happening.

The third word is "catechism," perhaps the most interesting one of all. Narrowly the word means an instructional book about the principles of religion. Lorrie, however, has no religion, something he regrets when he is caught in a difficult situation and wishes he could pray. At least, he has no orthodox religion; he does have some mystical moments concerning words and numbers which seem almost religious, and so the word is relevant not just in pointing out the lack of religion in Lorrie's life but also in reminding the reader that Lorrie does have a form of religion of an unorthodox kind, something he perhaps needs to sustain him.

The word "catechism" can also be taken in a more general sense, simply to mean any book of instruction in principles and rules. In this sense it makes an ironic contrast with Lorrie's approach to life, because Lorrie is the antithesis of rule-following. Even setting out to learn three words at this moment is in a way breaking a rule. He goes on to say that his mother had promised him a big turkey dinner if he learned four new words. Four words, not three, but Lorrie decides to learn three. It is as if he cannot do what is expected of him; he cannot bring himself to follow the rules. He follows his own path, most notably in his sexuality. So while his schoolfellows are all talking about pursuing girls, he has no interest in that, being gay, and he suffers because they mock him and call him names as a result.

Lorrie's inability to follow the rules can be seen as well in his approach to math. He seems to love math. He teaches math to the other children, and yet he keeps failing the math tests and is held back as a result. The problem is that his love of math seems to be a love of the feel of the numbers. At least, when he teaches math to the others, they "like the feel of the numbers and seeing them on a piece of paper." This response is an example of the religious feeling Lorrie seems to bring to the world or at least an example of how he is more interested in feeling than in reasoning and abstraction. However, reasoning and abstraction and getting the right answer are needed to pass the math tests and that is why he keeps failing. He seems to be almost mystically in tune with numbers; he can give "real live explanations" of them, but on the tests he is not given a chance to provide these explanations: "the people don't ask any questions: they just hold me back." He fails and as a result is in danger of not fulfilling his dream of going to college.

The mystical approach to numbers can also be seen in Lorrie's approach to words. It turns out that there is no time for him to sit down with the dictionary to study his three chosen words, because "the kids come in and want me to give them a bath and baby Tee Tee has a fever and is throwing up all over the place." His responsibilities intervene; with his mother at work, he is the one who is constantly looking after the children, and at least in this instance that means he cannot take the time to study his dictionary. But not doing so does not seem to matter. "I look at the words," he says, "and suddenly I know I will know them without studying." Now, perhaps the reader is supposed to find this foolish, to see it as a feeble excuse for not studying, but it does seem that Lorrie has an intuitive side that allows him to connect to things such as his words in an unorthodox way. But this intuitiveness or mysticism or emphasis on feelings over rationality often seems to put him at odds with the society around him.

Another problem for Lorrie could be referred to as a clash of desires. He really enjoys taking care of the children. When he is being called names on the bus, he consoles himself by remembering his four-year-old sister, Lasheema, whose hair he braids. He remembers enjoying the feel of her hair and remembers feeling ecstatic when he and Lasheema look at themselves in the mirror. When one of his schoolmates hands him her baby to take care of, he enjoys that too. He says, "Tee Tee likes to be in my arms. I like for him to be there." But as already mentioned, fulfilling his desire to take care of children can interfere with his desire to learn words, with his desire for education. The opening paragraph of the story indicates that the responsibility of taking care of others is not all fun; it seems rather to be an unbearable burden: "it's never-ending, never-stopping," he says.

Another clash of desires involves Lorrie's relationship with his boyfriend, Rakeem. Lorrie feels good around Rakeem, so good that at one point in the past he stayed out of school for six months to be with Rakeem beneath the Bruckner Expressway, sitting in a broken shopping cart while Rakeem comforted him and made love to him. Clearly, the desire for Rakeem interfered with his desire for education. As the story begins Lorrie has sworn off seeing his old boyfriend, and yet just as clearly he misses him. Only with Rakeem, he thinks, can he "be me," and so he decides to see him again behind Rocky's Pizza. He somehow hopes that he can combine his sexual love and his desire for education. Before he gave up seeing Rakeem, he had thought he could bring Rakeem into the world of words, saying, "Hey, wasn't there enough room for him and me and the words?" At the time Rakeem had said, in a very rude way, No. Now Lorrie is hoping that somehow Rakeem may be ready.

It may be a foolish hope, but it is somehow contagious; it infects the reader. Here is a young boy, fourteen years old, who is shunned by almost everyone because he is gay, who is weighed down by almost impossible family responsibilities, who at times feels very depressed and alone, but who somehow by the end of the story is full of positive feeling, making the story itself feel positive. In this way it is somewhat reminiscent of the novel Ulysses by James Joyce, in which the struggles of Leopold and Molly Bloom are somehow overcome in the characters' minds so that the book ends with an affirmation (Molly Bloom's "Yes") rather than anything depressing. Another similarity between Ferrell's story and Joyce's novel is that both use the technique of "stream of consciousness"; that is, the story is narrated through the characters' unedited, free-flowing thoughts.

The ending of "Proper Library" is, it is true, a bit different from the "Yes" at the end of Ulysses. Just before the end of Ferrell's story, there is the uplifting moment in which Lorrie goes off to see Rakeem with the hope that somehow he can integrate his love life and his desire for education. But at the very end of the story, as Lorrie goes out the door, a description is given of his sister, Lula Jean, being angrily berated by her cheating husband. It is a reminder that things are not always pleasant and do not always work out.

It seems unlikely that Lorrie can integrate all his desires and get everything he wants. Here is a gay youth who loves children, who wants to be able to nurture children. "Me, I love me some kids," he says. "I need me some kids." One does wonder how he will get some, being gay. There are also the obstacles of race and class. Lorrie is an African American youth living in a very poor neighborhood. Without explicitly saying so, the story seems to suggest that this background will make life difficult for Lorrie too. Lorrie is a poor, black, gay youth who wants education, love, and family; one can see the problems.

Yet the story has an upbeat feel to it. There is the stark reminder at the very end of the problems in relationships. There are moments earlier on when Lorrie seems quite depressed, most notably in his first class of the day, when a schoolmate mocks his sexual orientation right in class and he thinks: "why does every day start out one way hopeful but then point to the fact that ain't nothing ever going to happen?" Later in that same class, when the teacher springs a surprise quiz on them, Lorrie says that all the students are unhappy as a result, "but no one is more than me, knowing that nothing will ever happen the way I'd like it to."

But this pessimism does not sum up Lorrie's general attitude. Shortly after this low point halfway through the story the pendulum begins to swing the other way. First, there is a low point in shop class when even the teacher joins in the mockery, calling Lorrie a girl; next Lorrie remembers being with Rakeem. In an almost defiant moment, he holds onto his love even though he is mocked for it, and this moment is mixed in with Lorrie's watching two HIV-positive people kiss; in the midst of their disease they can love, just as in the midst of being humiliated, Lorrie can love.

It is instructive in this context to consider Lorrie's attitude to his aunt Estine. Aunt Estine is constantly talking about the past and being depressed about it. Lorrie cannot stand this attitude. He thinks she would be better off escaping by putting on a fancy dress and dancing around rather than dwelling on a horrible moment which occurred years before. "I never want to be like her, ever," he says, and he is not like her, not usually. He keeps looking ahead, not back, and except for occasional moments keeps a positive attitude.

Early in the story, Lorrie, in what seems like a repetition of things his mother has told him, says, "Things got be in place. There has to be order." Later his mother is insistent that he learn "proper words with proper meanings" and that he learn to "say them right." In trying to go along with what his mother wants, he looks up the word "library" and discovers that it is not pronounced "liberry" as he had always thought. Now he is dedicated to saying that word, and other words, correctly.

This dedication sounds admirable, but the reader may have doubts about Lorrie as the devotee of order and doing things right. Lorrie is not someone who follows orders well, and he is not someone who does things right; at least, he is not someone who does things according to social norms. He is gay in a straight world. He approaches numbers through his feelings and words through his intuitions. His cousin Cee Cee tells him he is not "normal," and according to social standards perhaps he is not. He does have talents, though. One of the teachers at school, Mrs. Cabrini, tells him his intelligence will take him far, adding, "Put your mind to your dreams, my dear boy, and you will achieve them."

Indeed maybe he will. Though he wants family and education while at the same time pursuing a homosexual relationship with someone who distrusts learning, though he keeps failing math because he feels the numbers instead of getting the right answers, though he learns only three words when he is supposed to learn four, though his family responsibilities interfere with his studying, maybe somehow it will all work out. After all, his lover Rakeem does go back to school too, suggesting that perhaps Lorrie can bring him into his world of words after all. When his mother comes home at the end of the story, she says she remembers she promised him "that special dinner," as if he will get the dinner without having learned the fourth word. Maybe a person can succeed after all the story seems to be saying. Maybe despite obstacles and adversity there is still hope. Maybe even a person who does not fit in can find his place or at least try.

The story seems to recommend trying, not complaining and brooding, in the manner of Aunt Estine, who at the end of story hits her head on the doorframe, as if the author is punishing her for her negative attitude. The story seems to suggest trying to accomplish things, trying to fulfill one's desires. It is an attitude again reminiscent of Joyce's Ulysses and of one stream of the early twentieth-century modernist movement: though the universe may be hostile or incomprehensible, though it may be impossible to succeed, the point is to try anyway, to "beat on against the current," as F. Scott Fitzgerald puts it at the end of The Great Gatsby. There seems to be a strong current running against Lorrie, but he is beating on against it in a positive way that makes the reader hope he will succeed, whatever doubts there may be.

Source: Sheldon Goldfarb, Critical Essay on "Proper Library," in Short Stories for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.

David Remy

Remy is a freelance writer in Warrington, Florida. In the following essay, he examines the ways in which Ferrell's characters struggle against social norms as they pursue their individual dreams and desires.

In "Proper Library," Ferrell offers the reader a gritty urban landscape populated by characters who struggle to be free. However, as a result of the social mores that shape the community in which they live, all of the story's characters but one are governed by what they believe they should do, whether it is choosing a particular group of friends, making good grades at school, being faithful to a partner or spouse, or, as in Lorrie's case, upholding the idea of what it is to be a man. Thus, by exploring conventional beliefs about education, relationships, and identity, Ferrell reveals her characters' innermost conflicts and desires, all the while instilling her fictional world with a renewed sense of hope.

An important social pressure the story addresses is the need to belong to a group, especially if a character has been marginalized because of race or sexual orientation. For example, Laura, a white girl whose "blue eyes and red hair" and "thin flippy hair in cornrows" stand out among a bus full of dark African American girls, remains unaware that she is often an object of ridicule by the very group she wishes to join. Nevertheless, she tries to earn her place within it, even though her physical appearance, let alone her personality and temperament, are clearly different from those of the B-Crew Girls. The need to belong to a group that will protect her from isolation is so strong that Laura invents a new identity for herself: she tells her classmates that she is "really a Negro" of southern heritage. Furthermore, in an attempt to prove herself worthy of the group, Laura attacks Lorrie (the similarity in their names may be intentional, as both characters exist in society's margins) by calling him, "Faggot." At best, however, Laura is merely tolerated. She is a "mascot" rather than a member. In the end, her attempts to win favor go unrewarded, for the B-Crew Girls do not bother to wake her when the bus reaches her stop.

Similarly, Lorrie and Rakeem emulate the girls' counterparts, the B-Crew Boys, but only to a point. When meeting for the first time after a few weeks, if not months, Lorrie and Rakeem greet each other with the B-Crew Boy handshake — but that's as far as the association goes, a fact Lorrie acknowledges when he says, "Only we are not B-Crew members, we get run over by the B-Crew." Lorrie is well aware that he is an outsider, a pariah, who, because he is homosexual, will never belong to the neighborhood's main social group of boys. Furthermore, the B-Crew Boys have already threatened Rakeem with physical violence in an attempt to steal his sneakers, yet he was able to scare them away by telling them that he has contracted AIDS from his cousin, a lie that, ironically enough, may have saved him from injury but which confirms his status as an outsider. Unlike Laura, who abandons her identity to belong to a group, Lorrie and Rakeem merely appropriate the B-Crew Boys' rituals to form a brotherhood of two.

Another social norm that exerts itself upon the characters in "Proper Library" is the belief that one can improve one's chances for a better future through education. This value is reinforced, even by those who do not necessarily subscribe to it, as Lorrie teaches his younger brothers and sisters Math 4 concepts with the hope that they will be able to succeed later in life. "It's these numbers that keep them moving and that will keep them moving when I am gone," he observes. In Ferrell's fictional world, there is always hope. For example, Layla, a teenage mother with a chaotic life, becomes upset at the thought of missing her Spanish Discovers test because she cannot find a babysitter. Layla focuses intently on the present so that her past mistake will not interfere with her future. Other students in her situation might have abandoned their studies without making half the effort. Even Rakeem, a streetwise character who once disparaged Lorrie for going to school, wants to make good grades, but only so that he will become popular. "I got to get people to like me and to stop seeing me," he says. Perhaps, if he makes good grades and is thus able to blend in with the majority of students, no one will notice that he is gay. "You really got it in you to move on," Lorrie tells Rakeem. Lorrie does not pass judgment on Rakeem's need to conform; rather, he generously offers his support because he wants his beloved to succeed.

Lorrie, the story's protagonist and narrator, feels more strongly than other characters the need to improve his life through education because, thus far, he has shown the most promise academically. However, at times this promise almost becomes a burden for him. He is smart enough to teach Math 4 to the kids, yet he remains enrolled in a Math 1 class. More important, he fails the city exams every year and is held back. "I know it's no real fault of mine," Lorrie says, but one wonders if he is not purposefully defying his family's and his teachers' expectations of him. "Put your mind to your dreams, my dear boy, and you will achieve them. You are your own universe, you are your own shooting star," one teacher reminds him. Lorrie takes this advice to heart, his narrative voice often shifting from first to second person, as though he is giving himself instructions. Lorrie strives for a better life, yet he knows that his dreams and desires do not necessarily coincide with those of his community.

The expectations Lorrie feels most strongly, however, are those expressed at home. Lorrie's mother appreciates his efforts to become a better student, yet she believes that his success depends upon his meeting an acknowledged standard rather than on his fulfilling his individual promise by virtue of his own means. "Lawrence, My Fine Boy," Lorrie recalls his mother saying, "[y]ou are on your way to good things. You just got to do things the proper way." Lorrie concentrates on learning his vocabulary words not to please his mother but because he knows that words, not numbers, are instruments of persuasion, for it is through words that he will eventually communicate his heart's desire. Words represent the future, in as much as they can express the unknown, yet they also express hope and fulfillment, especially with regard to the search for love. "I'm about doing things, you see, finally doing things right," Lorrie says. Defying expectation, Lorrie vows to become the person he wants to be, according to his own criteria and in his own time.

Cultural ideas and traditions are often so imbedded within a society that they dictate how relationships should be conducted in both life and death. For instance, Aunt Estine never mentions the good times she shared with her husband, David, who was lynched by a mob; instead, she keeps her husband's memory alive by evoking his death. In the end, nothing remains but a grim reminder that death is stronger than love. (Layla and Tyrone, the couple purported to have AIDS, also echo this theme, though they openly demonstrate their love for each other as if time has stood still.) Estine keeps herself alive by constantly reminding everyone that she is alone. She wears her widowhood like a badge of honor, yet the memory of her marriage does not provide her with solace.

Lorrie observes that Aunt Estine has turned her back on life and embraced death, an existential perspective symbolized by the blue evening gown that hangs in the closet. The dress represents what Estine once was — a vivacious young woman who enjoyed parties, dances, the nightlife — and not the bitter crone she has become. Lorrie sees Aunt Estine as living in the past. For him, her words represent her inability to escape the past. "If you can escape, why don't you all the time?" he wonders. "You could dance and fling your arms and maybe even feel love from some direction. You would not perish. You could be free." He concludes that "Estine Smith is not someone but a walking hainted house." Her identity has become synonymous with the past, a past which she inhabits like a ghost.

Tommy and Lula, by contrast, struggle with mores concerning fidelity and the responsibilities a man should fulfill for his family. Though Tommy expresses his love for Lula like a dreamy newlywed, saying, "This is what love should be," whenever he gazes into her eyes, he also sees other women on the side. When Lorrie catches Tommy with another woman, Lorrie, usually an understanding and forgiving person, immediately hates him for betraying Lula. Tommy justifies his philandering by telling Lorrie, "Man, you don't know these [b―]es out here nowadays. You want to show them love, a good time, and a real deep part of yourself and all they do is not appreciate it and try to make your life miserable." Lorrie knows that Tommy's words cannot justify his infidelity, especially when Tommy espouses his love for Lula: "Well, at least I got Lula," he says. "Now that's some woman." Does the search for true love extend beyond society's moral boundaries? In Tommy's case, definitely not, but Ferrell allows the reader to decide if Lorrie's quest for love and identity does not transcend what would otherwise be obstacles to his happiness.

In the community, fidelity is not only a man's chief responsibility to his wife and family but also a measure of his worth. When Lula finds out about Tommy's latest peccadillo, Lorrie's mother tells her son-in-law, "You are a stupid heel. Learn how to be a man." In her eyes, a "man" is steadfast and faithful. A "man" does not take his wife for granted and run around with other women — in broad daylight, no less! Aunt Estine expresses the frustration the women in the community feel when their men refuse to abide by the social code: "Why do we women feel we always need to teach them? They ain't going to learn the right way. They ain't going to learn s―t. That's why we always so alone." Tommy's hypocritical words and actions have a positive effect on Lorrie, however. He sees the possessive side of love and decides that his love must be given freely to Rakeem, without expecting anything in return.

Lorrie also feels pressure to be a "man," someone who will provide for his family. He routinely prepares meals when Aunt Estine or his mother is too busy, and he makes sure the kids know their math lessons before he undertakes his own studies. Without Lorrie, the house would no longer be a refuge for his immediate family and even for members of the community. However, his homosexuality threatens the family's home life, as transitory as it is, because he is often the target of aggression. His absence, for whatever reason, would endanger the family's security because he takes on so many of the responsibilities that the "man of the house" traditionally would perform. "Lorrie," his mother reminds him, "you are my only son, the only real man I got. I don't want them boys to get you from me." Aunt Estine issues a more stern warning, telling Lorrie that, if he behaved in the South the way he does here, he would be hung by his "black balls" from a tree. His sister Anita is also aware of the violent responses Lorrie's sexuality arouses in other people. "You are my best man, remember that," she tells Lorrie, giving him a letter opener with which he can defend himself.

Outside the home, Lorrie must prove that he is a man by withstanding the taunts and jeers of his classmates, many of whom are cruel and merciless in making fun of his homosexuality. On the bus, his classmates call "[f]aggot," and "tight-ass homo" while in woodworking class, the most masculine subject offered at school, Lorrie's classmates tease him because he does not have a girlfriend. Even the instructor joins in, saying, "Class, don't mess with the only girl we got in here!" Whenever these assaults occur, Lorrie steels himself by reminding himself to "Keep moving, keep moving." He proves that he is a man by refusing to fight back. Lorrie remains true to himself, refusing to let the cruelty of his classmates deter him from becoming his own person, and in order to do this he must make others' expectations secondary to his own.

Lorrie refers to his struggle for identity when he says that his mother named him "for someone else," not the person he has become. He confers the name Lorrie upon himself because it best suits his personality, his idea of himself. His given name, "Lawrence Lincoln Jefferson Adams," recalls two of the greatest U.S. emancipators, and Ferrell establishes the association to remind readers that Lorrie yearns to be free. He wants to find love and express the love he feels within himself, even though that love contradicts dominant social mores. Lorrie's growing sense of who he is remains tied to movement, though this concept is not expressed consciously or in clear terms, for Lorrie often finds himself in survival mode. "Keep moving" suffices. Lorrie prods himself to move forward, if ever so slowly, for stasis, such as that embodied by Aunt Estine, means psychic death. Always a moving target, Lorrie knows that both his sense of self and his ability to love will die if he ceases moving toward his ideals of what both can be.

For Lorrie, conforming to social expectations by acting macho or by dating girls is never a question. Rather, his problem is whether he should indulge his desire to be with Rakeem. In Lorrie's view, his love for Rakeem can coexist with his other dreams and desires. "I could welcome him into my world if he wanted me to," Lorrie thinks. "Hey, wasn't there enough room for him and me and the words?" Words from his vocabulary list such as "independence" and "soliloquy," which he learns at his mother's bidding, encapsulate Lorrie's attempt to become an individual in spite of his family's and his community's assumptions about him. Before long, Lorrie no longer needs to remind himself of his goal, for he has already decided his fate: "I look at the words and suddenly I know I will know them without studying," he says. The words exist within him. He embodies their meaning; therefore, he is able to act upon his desires, yet he knows that he will also return home. He will not repudiate his family or the values his mother has instilled in him, all of which have brought him to this profound moment of realization — this epiphany — that makes him announce, clearly and unequivocally, his intention to see Rakeem.

Ferrell's "Proper Library" reveals the ways in which social expectations mold the members of a community through established ideas regarding education, relationships, and identity. However, Lorrie, the story's hero, defies these expectations to create his own destiny and, with it, a proper life.

Source: David Remy, Critical Essay on "Proper Library," in Short Stories for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.

What Do I Read Next?

• "Proper Library" appears in Ferrell's award-winning collection of short stories entitled Don't Erase Me (1997). Most of the stories in the collection portray the lives of poor back girls and women; the title story tells of a young woman whose stepfather has infected her with the HIV virus.
• Streetlights: Illuminating Tales of the Urban Black Experience (1996) is a short story collection that includes both a story from Carolyn Ferrell and one from her late mentor, journalist Doris Jean Austin.
• Doris Jean Austin's After the Garden (1988) follows the lives of a black family living in New Jersey in the 1940s and 1950s. Austin was known primarily as a journalist, and this novel was her fiction debut.
• Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers (2000) includes Ferrell's story "Can You Say My Name?" as well as stories by noted authors Edwidge Danticat, Danzy Senna, and Randall Kenan.