nineteen thirty seven

Nineteen Thirty Seven is an extremely vivid depiction of her mothers' life in jail, and a brief description of what she had done before she was in jail.  In this story, there is only one narrator, and it is a female.  She carries around something similar to a doll, or little statue, that she calls the Madonna.  It had been owned by her family ever since her great-great-great grandmother had gotten it from a man who kept her as a slave.  It is clearly something that is very symbolic to both her and her mother, Manman.  The Madonna, "cries," when things seem to being going badly.  The girl goes to visit her mother in jail and realizes the horrible conditions that she is living in.  Her mother looks frail, with her skin barely hanging on to her body.  She buys her mother food from a vendor outside the prison, and her mother said that she would save it for months, just chewing it and putting it in her pocket, making it last longer.  Her mother, along with the other prisoners, claim to be able to fly with wings of flames.  All of these women allegedly grew wings made of flames during the Massacre in 1937, and that is why they were arrested.  Perhaps these wings are a symbol of being able to do whatever you want (fly), before the wings burn out (death).  They flew from the river that all of their mothers had passed away in.  Manman gave birth to her the same day as the massacre, and said that her daughter replaced her own mother.  I found this story very hard to follow, but the descriptiveness made it readable.  It also leads me to wonder who the girl is, and if she has any relation to the prior story.