Ntozake Shange, "Indigo," from Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo


1. "Indigo" portrays the artistic coming-of-age of the title character. Explore how the chapter describes the different influences on her development as a violin player. To what extent does nature play a role ("Indigo wanted to sound like the sparrows and wrens")? Regional culture ("The South in her")? Sexuality ("them Romance riffs")? History and political consciousness ("the slaves who were ourselves aided Indigo's mission, connecting soul and song, experience & unremembered rhythms")?

Pretty Man offers a dollar to Indigo every time she learns a new "tune": "if it was Smith's ‘Blues in the Dungeon, ’ that was a tune. Just as Bartok's 2nd movement, andante tranquillo, was a tune." What vision of culture, creativity, and personality is implied by Pretty Man's list of violin pieces and by his desire to have Indigo learn to play all of them?

2. The narrative of "Indigo" is occasionally interrupted by nonnarrative passages: "Numbers for Prosperity & Furthered Independence of the Race by Indigo"; "Emergency Care of Open Wounds/ When It Hurts by Indigo." What is the relationship between these passages and the linear narrative part of the chapter? How does their presence reflect the vision of culture explored in question 1?

3. How does "Indigo" explore generational conflict within the African-American community and within the American community at large? What is the difference between Mabel's "mission to have things the way they used to be" and the Jr. Geechee Capitans' quest to serve "notice that the colored children were manifestations of the twentieth century"? How does Indigo's music change people's lives? Does it affect women differently than it affects men?