African American
Literature
Harlem Renaissance
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1. The literary tradition of the African
Americans
P503
2. Myth/Key to understanding this literature
P504
3. Term: Harlem Renaissance
P505
The Features
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The most noticeable element of Harlem Renaissance
writing is the use of dialect and folklore and the
identification with the spirit of jazz.
Along with the popularity of jazz, people showed interest
in black culture. Cultural plurality was then celebrated.
African arts were collected. Black intellectuals were
respected and black writers were acclaimed.
The burst of black talent and of white appreciation
embodies the significance of the movement.
Representatives
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Four major writers who established their
reputation during this period were Claude
McKay, Jean Toomer, Countée Cullen and
Langston Hughes (P510).
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
“As I Grow Older”
Black Writers
Richard Wright (1908-1960)
Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)
Toni Morrison (1931- )
Alice Walker (1944- )
Richard Wright (1908-1960)
Native Son (1940)
protest novel
P513
Major character: Bigger Thomas
Tripartite structure: “Fear,” “Flight,” and “Fate”
Plot P513
Set in Chicago
Bigger Thomas is impoverished, angry, and poorly
educated.
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work as chauffeur for the wealthy, white Dalton
family.
On his first evening of work, Bigger drives home
the drunken college-age daughter, Mary, and
carries her to her bedroom. In a brief moment of
panic, Bigger tries to silence Mary with a pillow
and inadvertently smothers her to death.
The final section of the book recounts Bigger’s
trial.
His defense attorney pleads that Bigger is not
responsible for his violent actions because social
forces drove him to crime, while the state’s
prosecutor argues that Bigger is a cold-hearted
criminal who must die as the law requires
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Themes: P514
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classism,
racial prejudice,
poverty,
Criminality
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Character Analysis: Bigger Thomas
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P514
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Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994)
Invisible Man(1952)
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A great classic in American literature
A book on racial discrimination, blackwhite relationship, and the rebellious
stance toward an unjust and repressive
society P516
An archetypal existential story of modern
times
An odyssey of modern man’s quest for
self-realization
Plot:
P515
Major Theme:
Racism as an Obstacle to Individual
Identity
P515
Craft:
P517 Symbolism, style
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook
like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor
am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms.
I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone,
fiber and liquids---and I might even be said to
possess a mind. I am invisible, simply
because people refuse to see me.
Toni Morrison (1931- )
Nobel Prize in Literature 1993
(the first black woman to win
it)
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1988
"who in novels characterized
by visionary force and poetic
import, gives life to an
essential aspect of American
reality."
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a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning
American author, editor, and professor.
Her novels are known for their epic themes,
vivid dialogue, and richly detailed black
characters.
I’m interested in survival ---who survives and
who does not, and why --- and I would like
to chart a course that suggests where the
dangers are and where the safety might be.
Themes in her Novels:
The terror and trauma of racial
oppression
The complex behavior of living
under gender and racial
conflicts
The psychology of survival
Toni Morrison in 2008
Novels
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The Bluest Eye (1970)
Sula (1974)
Song of Solomon (1977) National Book Critics
Circle Award P524-5
Tar Baby (1981)
Beloved (1987) Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the
American Book Award
Jazz (1992)
Paradise (1999)
Love (2003)
A Mercy (2008)
The Bluest Eye (1970)
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It is Morrison's first novel
The story is about a year in the life of a young
black girl in Lorain, Ohio named Pecola.
It takes place against the backdrop of
America's Midwest as well as in the years
following the Great Depression.
The Bluest Eye is told from the perspective
of Claudia MacTeer as a child and an adult, as
well as from a third person omniscient
viewpoint.
Because of the controversial nature of the
book, which deals with racism, incest, and
child molestation, there have been numerous
attempts to ban it from schools and libraries.[
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Claudia and Frieda MacTeer live in Ohio with their
parents. The MacTeer family takes two other people
into their home, Mr. Henry and Pecola.
Pecola is a troubled young girl with a hard life. Her
parents are constantly fighting, both physically and
verbally. Pecola is continually being told and reminded
of what an “ugly” girl she is, thus fueling her desire to
be a girl with blue eyes.
Throughout the novel it is revealed that not only has
Pecola had a life full of hatred and hardships, but her
parents have as well.
Pecola’s mother, Pauline only feels alive and happy
when she is working for a rich white family.
Her father, Cholly, is a drunk who was left with his
aunt when he was young and ran away to find his
father, who wanted nothing to do with him.
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Both Pauline and Cholly eventually lost the love
they once had for one another.
While Pecola is doing dishes, her father rapes her.
His motives are unclear and confusing, seemingly a
combination of both love and hate.
Cholly flees after the second time he rapes Pecola,
leaving her pregnant.
The entire town of Lorain turns against her, except
Claudia and Frieda.
In the end Pecola’s child is born prematurely and
dies.
Claudia and Frieda give up the money they had
been saving and plant flower seeds in hopes that if
the flowers bloom, Pecola's baby will live; the
marigolds never bloom.
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The title The Bluest Eye is based on
Pecola's fervent wishes for beautiful blue
eyes.
Her insanity at the end of the novel is her
only way to escape the world where she
cannot be beautiful and to get the blue eyes
she desires from the beginning of the novel.
Themes
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Ideas of beauty, particularly those that relate
to racial characteristics, are a major theme
in this book.
Pecola Breedlove ---The protagonist of the
novel, a poor black girl who believes she is
ugly because she and her community base
their ideals of beauty on "whiteness".
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Claudia is given a white baby doll to play
with and is constantly told how lovely it is.
Insults to physical appearance are often
given in racial terms;
a light skinned student named Maureen is
shown favoritism at school.
Most chapters' titles are extracts from a
Dick and Jane reading book, presenting a
happy white family. This family is
contrasted with Pecola's existence.
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a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The novel, her fifth, is loosely based on the life
and legal case of the slave Margaret Garner,
The book's epigraph reads: "Sixty Million and
more," by which Morrison refers to the estimated
number of slaves who died in the slave trade.
A survey of writers and literary critics conducted
by The New York Times found Beloved the best
work of American fiction of the past 25 years;
Time Magazine included the novel in its TIME 100
Best English-language Novels from 1923 to
2005
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In this tale set in Reconstruction Ohio,
Morrison paints a dark and powerful portrait
of the dehumanizing effects of slavery.
Inspired by an actual historical incident,
Beloved tells the story of a woman (Sethe)
haunted by the daughter she murdered
rather than have returned to slavery.
Plot P525
Part ghost story, part realistic narrative,
the novel examines the mental and physical
trauma caused by slavery as well as the
lingering damage inflicted on its survivors.
Magic Realism P526
Themes
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In prose both stark and lyrical, Morrison
addresses several of her enduring themes:
the importance of family and community,
the quest for individual and cultural identity,
and the very nature of humanity.
Style
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experimental structure.
It is not a linear tale,
It is a story encompassing levels of past,
from the slave ship to Sweet home, as well as
the present.
Sometimes the past is told in flashbacks,
sometimes in stories, and sometimes it is
plainly told, as if it were happening in the
present (with highly unusual use of the
present tense).
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The novel is, in essence, written in
fragments, pieces shattered and left for the
reader to place together.
The juxtaposition of past with present
serves to reinforce the idea that the past is
alive in the present, and by giving us
fragments to work with Morrison melds the
entire story into one inseparable piece to be
gazed at.
From a stylistic perspective, Morrison's
artistry in this regard is nothing short of
breathtaking.
Alice Walker (1944- )
A feminist black writer
The black woman struggling
towards self-realization in a hostile
environment is a theme in much of
her work.
The Color Purple (1982)
American Book Award
Pulitzer Prize 1983
An epistolary Novel
A great book both in
thematic and formal
terms
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The novel was adapted into a film of the
same name in 1985.
It was directed by Steven Spielberg and
stars Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, and
Oprah Winfrey as Sofia.
nominated for 11 Academy Awards,
Thematically: P529
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1. African American women’s growth
against the backdrop of social and
familial oppression
---Feminism
2. Black men’s change and growth as
well
In formal terms: P531
1. The narrative scheme and the suspense
2. The language
3. The symbolism:
the color purple,
God, letters, pants
Jewish Writers
“to portray the dilemmas of misfit heroes
yearning for meaningful lives and moral
regeneration”
Saul Bellow (1915-2005 )
Bernard Malamud (1914-1986)
Saul Bellow (1915-2005 )
Winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature
the voice of the
modern intellectual
for the human
understanding and subtle
analysis of contemporary
culture that are combined
in his work.
• awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel
Prize for Literature, and the National
Medal of Arts.
• He is the only writer to have won the
National Book Award three times,
• and the only writer to have been
nominated for it six times.
Novels and novellas P413
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Dangling Man (1944)
The Victim (1947)
The Adventures of Augie March (1953) National Book Award
Seize the Day (1956)
Henderson the Rain King (1959)
Herzog (1964) four awards
Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970) National Book Award
Humboldt's Gift (1975), 1976 Pulitzer Prize
The Dean's December (1982)
More Die of Heartbreak (1987)
A Theft (1989)
The Bellarosa Connection (1989)
The Actual (1997)
Ravelstein (2000)
Themes P413
• the disorienting nature of modern civilization,
and the countervailing ability of humans to
overcome their frailty and achieve greatness (or
at least awareness).
• Bellow saw many flaws in modern civilization,
and its ability to foster madness, materialism and
misleading knowledge.
• Principal characters in Bellow's fiction have
heroic potential, and many times they stand in
contrast to the negative forces of society.
• Often these characters are Jewish and have a
sense of alienation or otherness.
HERZOG (1964)
a man seeking balance,
trying to regain a foothold
on his life
P415
• three levels of meaning in Herzog:
• the protagonist plays the role of the innocent in
the age-old plight of illusion versus reality, of
naivety versus worldliness;
• he assumes the figure of the intellectual who is
suffering from self-doubts concerning his own
social relevance;
• he acts as a symbol of human conditions.
• Themes:
• 1. Alienation
• 2. Quest
• Evaluation of Bellow P418-9
Bernard Malamud (1914-1986)
The effects of suffering are central to Malamud's fiction.
His Jews symbolize all victims.
The Assistant (1957) P428
man's struggle to survive
against all odds, and the
ethical underpinnings of
recent Jewish immigrants.
Morris Bober
Ida Bober
Helen Bober
Frank Alpine
Thematic Issues
1. Suffering and Endurance
2. Father and Son Relationships