58 pages • 1 hour read
Fannie FlaggFried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Section 3 (Pages 203-294)Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Summary: Pages 203-233
Flashbacks and newspaper articles from 1930 depict the aftermath of Ruth’s decision to leave Frank. In November, several KKK members appear outside the Whistle Stop Cafe, and Ruth realizes one of them is Frank when she recognizes his shoes. Grady warns them off, but an article from the Valdosta Gazette reveals that Frank went missing a couple of weeks later. In mid-December, Grady and two Georgia detectives visit the cafe and ask Idgie and Smokey whether they’ve seen Frank around Whistle Stop, which they deny. A few days later, one of the detectives returns and speaks to Idgie privately. He tells her he knows she once threatened Frank, and says, “just hypothetically speaking, of course, if it was [him] in [her] shoes, why, [he’d] figure it would do [him] a whole lot of good if that body didn’t show up at all” (213). By January 1931, the authorities presume Frank is dead, although his body and his truck are still missing.
Other flashbacks center on Artis Peavey, who leaves Birmingham for Chicago in 1940. The Slagtown News notes that Artis is “sorely missed by the female population.” In fact, it was Artis’s womanizing that forced him to leave the city, since one of his many lovers, Electra Green, was threatening to kill him (224). Nevertheless, he misses Birmingham so much that he decides to return, and in 1950, he and Electra marry.
Back in the novel’s present, Evelyn is on a diet and brings carrots and celery to her May 11 visit with Mrs. Threadgoode. Mrs. Threadgoode insists that Evelyn is beautiful as she is: “You don’t have a wrinkle on you. […] [Y]ou ought to think about selling some of that Mary Kay cosmetics. With your skin and personality, I bet you could get yourself a pink Cadillac in no time” (219). Evelyn feels she’s too old for this idea but does feel more attractive since beginning her diet. However, while at the supermarket buying groceries one day, she accidentally runs into a “beady-eyed, mean-mouthed boy” (232). He swears at her and when she attempts to calm him down, hits and threatens her: “Don’t fool with me, bitch, or I’ll knock your fucking head off—you fat, stupid cunt!” (232, 233).
Summary: Pages 234-269
Evelyn’s shock and shame over the incident at the store quickly gives way to anger. She begins to consider how widespread sexism is and fantasizes about becoming a superhero called “Towanda,” who travels around the world avenging the oppressed. She admits to Mrs. Threadgoode that she sometimes thinks about “hit[ting] [Ed] in the head with a baseball bat, for no reason” (255). Mrs. Threadgoode echoes Evelyn’s sense that the world has become a crueler place: “Back when Mrs. Otis was driving, before she hit that stack of grocery carts, people would run up behind us and blow their horns something awful, and when they passed us, some of them would give us the finger. I never saw such behavior” (249). She doesn’t consider Evelyn’s feelings towards Ed unusual in the context of a long-term relationship and at one point tells a story about Ruth kicking Idgie out of the house.
In a flashback to 1946, Flagg expands on the scene. Idgie tells Eva that at times she feels “trapped” by her life at home and has lied to Ruth to secure some time alone. Eva points out what total “freedom” looks like: a woman who regularly gets drunk, sleeps around, and has no one who cares for her. Idgie returns home, recommitted to family life. In a 1947 flashback, Idgie talks with the now-teenaged Stump about turning down Peggy’s invitation to a dance. He admits that he’s afraid of dating and sex because of his disability. Idgie takes him to Eva to bolster his confidence.
Other flashbacks and newspaper clippings revolve around World War II. Big George’s son Willie Boy is the first black man from town to enlist. In 1944, Willie Boy hits a fellow soldier for calling Big George an “Uncle Tom,” and the man murders him in response. Willie Boy’s body is returned home for burial, and Artis tracks down the murderer: “Three days later, Winstone Lewis’s heart was found in a paper sack” (245). Other editions of the Weems Weekly describe Dot Weems’s husband, Wilbur, falling into a vat of lacquer, and Stump becoming a star quarterback and leading the local team to a string of victories.
Summary: Pages 270-294
Evelyn continues to struggle with feelings of anger and frustration. When Ed complains about a female coworker he calls a “ball breaker,” Evelyn muses, “No wonder she [Evelyn] had always felt like a car in traffic without a horn […] Those two little balls opened the door to everything. They were the credit cards she needed to get ahead, to be listened to, to be taken seriously” (276–277). One day at the grocery store, a teenage girl pulls into the parking spot Evelyn has been waiting for and then taunts her for being old and slow. In response, Evelyn rams her car, saying, “Let’s face it, honey, I’m older than you are and have more insurance than you do” (291).
Evelyn continues to visit Mrs. Threadgoode, once more bringing snacks and sweets now that she’s off her diet. When another nursing home resident claims that “all colored people hate white people,” Mrs. Threadgoode tells Evelyn about how devoted Onzell was to Ruth when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer:
Poor Idgie and Stump, they just sorta fell apart. They’d just sit downstairs in a daze. Ruth went down so fast and, oh, she was in so much pain […] Onzell was right there with her medicine, twenty-four hours a day, and during the last week, Onzell wouldn’t let anybody in to see her but Idgie and Stump. She said that Ruth had begged her not to let anyone see her looking so terrible (283, 285).
In a flashback to 1947, Flagg reveals that Onzell finally gave Ruth an overdose of morphine to put an end to her suffering. The Weems Weekly features an obituary commemorating Ruth’s “sweet ways and smiling face” (289).
Other flashbacks center on Artis’s 1948 imprisonment for threatening two dog catchers with a knife. In reality, he was simply cutting the dog loose because it belonged to a friend of his and he knew he’d never be able to recover it from the pound. He’s sentenced to ten years, but Idgie and Grady manage to get him out after six months. A flashback to 1949 picks up with Stump and Peggy’s relationship; now home from college, Stump reluctantly agrees to take Peggy to her senior dance only to fall in love with her by the end of the night.
Section 3 Analysis
Although Evelyn is becoming more outgoing and interested in the world around her because of her friendship with Mrs. Threadgoode, the attack in the supermarket represents a key turning point in her evolution as a character. It’s the first time Evelyn has allowed herself to experience her own emotions rather than tamping them down in an effort to please everyone around her: “[A]ll of a sudden, she was experiencing a feeling that she had never felt before, and it scared her. And so, twenty years later than most women, Evelyn Couch was angry” (237). What’s equally significant is her realization about why she has gone out of her way to please those around her, “[having] children so she wouldn’t be called barren; [not being] a feminist because she didn’t want to be called queer and a man hater” and so on (236–237). Evelyn has tried to comply with all the demands society places on women only to find that it isn’t possible to avoid sexism by following conventions.
Evelyn’s realization is liberating, as it frees her to act on her own needs and wishes. She is still coming to grips with her repressed, “belated anger,” which is evident in the violence of her “Towanda” fantasies and in the way her fantasies blend trivial and serious concerns. She imagines, for instance, that “Van Johnson would be given a show of his own…he was one of Towanda’s favorites” (239). Still, as insignificant as this particular “injustice” might seem, the fact that Evelyn allows herself to articulate her desires is significant, and would likely not have been possible without Mrs. Threadgoode and the role models in her stories: “Evelyn thought, I wish Idgie had been with me. She would not have let that boy call her names. I’ll bet she would have knocked him down” (237).
Events in Whistle Stop shed light on other major topics in the novel—most notably, race. As Flagg reveals more about the course of Artis’s life, it’s worth questioning the extent to which colorism—that is, prejudice against darker-skinned individuals—has shaped it. As Flagg will later reveal, the success of Artis’s twin brother, Jasper, hinges in part on his fairer skin; the path Jasper follows by marrying into the middle class was never available to Artis. On the other hand, Artis’s immersion in the black culture of Slagtown may allow him to live a freer life than his twin. Outside of run-ins with the law, Artis has little contact with white Birmingham, and consequently doesn’t need to alter his behavior to conform to white people’s expectations. By contrast, Jasper spends much of his life accommodating and working around the racism he encounters, both at his job as a railroad porter and in the integrated neighborhood where he lives.
In the dispute that culminates in Willie Boy’s death, Winston Lewis insists, “any man working for whites, especially in Alabama, [is] nothing but a […] Uncle Tom” (244). Adverse to this opinion, the novel seems to suggest that the loyalty between the Peavey family and their white employers is a good thing. This idea is supported by Onzell’s dedication to Ruth in the days leading up to her death. At the same time, Flagg also notes the psychological toll that this kind of service can take on characters like Jasper, who never complains but often feels “humiliation” at the way he is treated by white passengers and supervisors (319).
