Paule Marshall’s 1983 Praisesong for the Widow follows an African American woman on a journey of spiritual discovery after the death of her husband. The novel is widely acclaimed and a receiver of the American Book Award. This study guide relies upon the 1983 Plume edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

In the late 1970s, Avey “Avatara” Johnson embarks on a cruise to the Caribbean with her two companions, Clarice and Thomasina. Avey is a 64-year-old woman from the wealthy neighborhood of White Plains in New York. She begins taking cruises a year after the passing of her husband, Jerome, as a way of coping with his loss.

The novel opens with Avey impulsively packing her six suitcases and deciding to abandon the 17-day cruise only a few days in. This decision is brought upon a series of strange events. First, Avey dreams of her great-aunt Cuney, who urges her to join her on Ibo Landing—the site of the Ibo people’s first arrival to America on a slave ship and a site Avey regularly visited as a child. The second event is a strange and unidentifiable feeling that overpowers Avey as she eats a parfait in the elegant dining hall of the ship.

Avey flees, foregoing the money she spent on the trip and deserting her friends, to the island of Grenada. While seeking a taxi to the airport on the wharf, Avey is surrounded by colorfully dressed and energetic people. She learns they are those going on the Carriacou Excursion—a trip that the people from the small island off Grenada take every year to visit their home. Avey discovers that she has missed the flight to New York, so she takes a room in a nearby resort and plans to fly out the next day.

At the hotel, Avey is assaulted by the memories of Jerome and their life in Brooklyn. She laments their time together over the past three decades because she realizes how unhappy they had been: in pursuing material success, they’d lost touch with each other and with themselves. They abandoned the things they once loved—like poetry, dancing, and spending time together—and eventually grew more emotionally distant. This revelation causes Avey to truly mourn her husband for the first time since his death, grieving the fun and happy man she had known in Harlem who disappeared in order to give them the middle-class life they desired.

Avey tries to escape her thoughts by walking along the resort’s beach. Soon, she finds herself far away from the hotel and in a small rum shop. The owner, Lebert Joseph, tells Avey about Carriacou and its rituals during the excursion. Avey becomes increasingly agitated as he asks her about her heritage. When she cannot answer, he invites her to Carriacou to observe the Big Drum, a tradition of honoring everyone’s ancestors. Avey agrees, and Lebert Joseph makes all the arrangements for her.

While on the schooner to Carriacou, Avey’s childhood memories begin to resurface. The once-severed connection to her culture begins to mend, and Avey is gradually more aware of her cultural sense of self through her ancestral bonds. On the passage to the small island, Avey becomes violently ill. Two older women look after her as she vomits and convulses, eventually swiftly carrying her away as Avey soils herself. Laying barely conscious on the small boat, Avey can sense the presence of others lying next to her; her suffering, she realizes, is a microcosm of the suffering of the Africans on the transatlantic slave ships.

Avey wakes the next day physically and spiritually cleansed. Lebert’s daughter, Rosalie Parvay, washes and massages Avey, bringing life back to her limbs. Feeling better and encouraged by her hosts, Avey joins the Big Drum that night.

At the Big Drum, Avey is profoundly moved by the nation dances and the Beg Pardon—the dance meant to remember one’s ancestors. Her body intuitively responds to the songs and dancing, and she joins in. By doing so, Avey achieves a spiritual awakening and reclaims her cultural identity.

Avey is deeply changed by her journey and resolves to tell everyone she can about her time on Carriacou. Most significantly, she commits to passing along her own cultural inheritance: the story of Ibo Landing transferred to her by her Aunt Cuney.