and Whitey, keep their identities apart from what they mimic (or in Whitey's case, what mimics him). Perhaps insofar as the assertion/affirmation structure (so dangerously reminiscent of the dominant discourse's reductive structures) remains embedded in a cacophonous atmosphere of heteroglossia, it remains a viable form of mimicry and the African-American church maintains a delicate ecology of inside/outside with alternative structures and voices constantly checking and offsetting the structures of an oppressive discourse. Certainly the scene within the church approximates what Bakhtin identifies as heteroglossia in its fullest playcarnivalin which people's multiple voices play in, around, and against the dominant culture's hierarchical structures. Perhaps insofar as the African-American church remains a world about which Alva can say, ''still I don't believe all," a world where she can be simultaneously inside and outside, it remains a dynamic social unit capable of resisting its own oppressive impulses.
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Those readers who are strangers to the powerful culture of the African-American church cannot be sure how to assess that world and, like Carol, experience an abundance of meaning that approaches silence. In fact, Carol is a very useful point of reference for Olsen's readers. The story is a tangled web of explanations Carol never hears about historical circumstances that have enmeshed her. Carol hears neither Alva's reverie, which partly explains the phenomenon in the church, nor Parialee's account of Rockface. Further, as the story nears its end, Carol in desperation asks Helen a basic question, openly pleading for a response: "Mother, why did they sing and scream like that? At Parry's church?" But in place of a response we find:
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 | | Emotion,
Helen thought of explaining,
a characteristic of the religion of all oppressed peoples, yes your very own greatgrandparents
thought of saying. And discarded.
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| | Aren't you now, haven't you had feelings in yourself so strong they had to come out some way?
("what howls restrained by decorum")thought of saying. And discarded.
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| | Repeat Alva:
hope . . . every word out of their own life. A place to let go. And church is home.
And discarded.
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| | The special history of the Negro peoplehistory?just
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