Plaits

In “Plaits” of Mee Street Chronicles by Frankie Lennon all girls including African American girls wanted to have Shirley Temple curls because to them Shirley Temple resembled beauty. Although the narrator wanted the beautiful Shirley Temple curls, her mother seemed to rather put plaits, or braids, in her hair with barrettes and clothespins. The narrator did not like plaits with all the extra accessories and was teased for having them. And because of that the narrator took the situation into her own hands and cut off majority of her hair destroying her idea of being beautiful for her kindergarten play. Plaits is story centered on the narrator who had an internal conflict with her hair.

In this story the little girl was determined to not get plaits or braids.
Her and her friends didn’t like having plaits because it resembled terrible things from the their past heritage. In the story the narrator referred herself to Buckwheat, who was an African American child star (The Little Rascals) whose image looked as if he were a poor rundown kid with nappy hair that did not speak proper English. She also mentioned how she did not want “Topsy-hair”. Topsy was a slave girl in a book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Harriet Beecher Stowe around the 1850’s. Topsy was also known to be a wild and untamed slave, which went the same for her hair. By the end of the story the narrator realized that if she waited a little more she would have had Shirley Temple curls instead of “topsy-hair”.

Shirley Temple was a very famous child star that was presented as one of America’s prettiest girls. The reasons why the Shirley Temple curls were more popular was because one, she was white and two, she also was a young child star whom everyone thought looked adorable. To fit in with everyone else back then certain girls thought that they had to look like her. The narrator wanted Shirley Temple curls but ended up with a lot of plaits, which she called “worm salad” hair. When a person has irony it usually comes with an intention that produces a result. The irony of this situation is that instead of waiting a couple of weeks to get her hair done the way she wanted, she ended up cutting her own hair and being left with hair that was known to draw a lot of attention that she would not want. The narrator mentioned that “there was no way she could be a dew drop fairy with topsy hair” in her kindergarten play.

At the end many would say that the narrator learned a good lesson on being patient and not letting others bring her down. Having nice hair, which meant having hair like Shirley Temple curls or some American beauty star, was very important to the narrator. She did not like being teased for having Buckwheat or Topsy hair­­­­. She just wanted to be pretty. Going through what she went through would make anybody feel as if they were not beautiful enough. But, as many people say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.