The "Street"

After discussing so much about the effects of living on the street on all the characters in the novel, the passage on page 206 particularly stood out to me. Lutie reflects: "she and Bub had to get out of 116th street. It was a bad street. And then she thought about the other streets. It wasn't just this street that she was afraid of or that was bad. It was any street where people were packed together like sardines in a can". Lutie realizes that there is nothing particularly negative about 116th street, or even this particular city, as she further ponders. The environments we live in effect us no matter where we live, and especially when dealing with the factors of race, gender, and class on top of everything else. It is more than simply 116th street.