SOURCE: “Bambara's ‘Sweet Town,’” in Explicator, Vol. 54, No. 1, Fall, 1995, pp. 51-4.

In the following essay, Comfort considers the mythical allusion in Bambara's “Sweet Town.”

Toni Cade Bambara's “Sweet Town,” published in Vendome magazine in 1959, appears in her first collection of short stories, Gorilla, My Love, published in 1972 and again in 1992. Introducing this account of her first love, Kit remembers a note written by her mother to give her advice: “Take care and paint the fire escape in your leisure” (121). Delighted, Kit says, “And with that in mind and with Penelope splintering through the landscape and the pores secreting animal champagne, I bent my youth to the season's tempo and proceeded to lose my mind” (122). To understand Kit's reaction to the note, it is helpful to consider the implications of her allusion to Penelope.

Kit compares her first love to love “on the printed page or MGM movies” and...