Pearl Cleage’s What I Learned in Paris (Synopsis)

Pearl Cleage’s play, What I Learned in Paris literally changed my life. In a 1973 highly political downtown Atlanta, Georgia, Cleage weaves a story of black love around social change. The main character, Evie, plays a dynamic, powerful and intellectual black woman. While we learn that she has always been intellectual there was a time where she lost her sense of self in the name of love, family and politics. Being married to an attorney and a politician she was always among the fight for change and social equality and she loved ‘that kind of talk’. The turning point in her life however was the realization that she had lost her husband to the discussions of political strategies. She then left for Paris in hopes her husband would join her. All the while, when her husband didn’t show she was just an angry woman in the “city of love”. While in Paris, she has an epiphany of a lifetime as she sees several beautifully tall and well-dressed black women strutting down the streets of France chanting in French. She then looks at her reflection in a nearby glass, having been inspired by the women, and realizes that she is the entire woman she needs to survive.