African American women authors have become dominant forces in creating and contributing to the larger tradition after many decades of being virtually silenced by outright neglect from publishers who considered them irrelevant. As with so much literature by and about women, that silence has been broken, giving voice to the infinite complexities of African American women’s lives, including women’s role as leaders, creators of culture, mothers, and lovers, among many others.
-Dickson- Carr
The twentieth century has proved to be a period of intense literary activity for African-American women writers. African American women writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry, Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and many others have created a deep impact on African-American writing. These writers are known for their self-expression. They work for canonical status. While doing so, these writers write not only about themselves but also for the sake of African-American women. Mary Helen Washington observes African-American women in the following manner:
When I think of how essentially alone black women have been—alone because of our bodies, over which we have had so little control; alone because the damage done to our men has prevented their closeness and protection; and alone because we have had no one to tell us stories about ourselves; I realize that black women writers are an important and comforting presence in my life. Only they know my story. It is absolutely necessary that they be permitted to discover and interpret the entire range and spectrum of the experience of black women and not be stymied by preconceived conclusions. Because of these writers, there are more models of how it is possible for us to live, there are more choices for black women to make, and there is a larger space in the universe for us. (p.9-21)
African-American writers work undoubtedly to project their struggle, growth, and accomplishment through fiction, non-fiction, poetry, stories, essays, and autobiographies. Also, these writers express themselves truly with their minds of creativity. According to Traylor:
It explores first the interiority of an in-the-head, the heart, the gut region of a discovery called the self. It tests the desires, the longings, the aspirations of this discovered self with and against its possibilities for respect, growth, fulfillment, and accomplishments. (p.71)
The hallmark of African-American writers can be seen when they give the readers powerful insights into issues such as race, gender, and class. At this point, it is apt to quote Margaret Walker, who says:
It is necessary as always when approaching Afro-American literature in any form-poetry, prose, fiction, or drama-to give a background of the socio-economics’ and political forces and the historical context before proceeding to literary analysis or synthesis. Then we will have the necessary tools with which to examine the strange phenomena found in American and Afro-American literature. (p .02)
While writing African-American women writers try to bring their unhappy past. In fact, the predecessors had been brought to America from Africa as slaves. As a result, African-American men and women were tortured, brutalized, oppressed, and exploited beyond imagination in America. So African men, women, and children have been ‘robbed of their humanity’. Especially, African-American women in America have been the worst sufferers, when they lose their respect, dignity, and identity. The violence at the hands of the white master has been very severe coupled with sexual harassment. The raping of these women by white masters adds to their woos. This scenario is observed by Harihar Kulkarni when he puts it in the following manner:
The brutal treatment that black women received during slavery invariably left profound scars on their psyche. Their physical bondage ultimately turned into psychological bondage, causing mutation and mutilations of their world. The external forces operating at the socio-economic levels came to bear an unmistakable relationship to the internal fears, worries, anxieties, and feelings of inadequacy and frustration. The poisonous fangs of slavery manifested themselves in innumerable ways and finally determined the behavioral pattern of black women. (p.59)
The slavery system of the American on African women has a bad effect on them, which has an impact on their psyche also. Based on this, HariharKulkarni further writes:
“ The peculiar institution that exploited black women for productive and reproductive ends viewed them not as human beings, but as mere objects. The black woman was not a person, but a thing-a thing whose personality had no claim to basic human dignity. She was a household drudge, a means of getting distasteful work done. She was an animated agricultural implement to augment the services of mules and plows in cultivating and harvesting cane and cotton crops. Then she was a breeding machine, a producer of human livestock, and potential laborers, who on being bred and brought up, would be lynched, flogged, branded, and even murdered at the will and pleasure of the master. (p.57)
One of the most important themes in twentieth-century African-American women‘s literature is that of growing up black and female. Major women writers have delved deep into this issue. For example, Toni Morrison in The Bluest Eyes, Maya Angelou in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Louise Meri Whether in Daddy Was a Number Runner, Paule Marshall in Brown Girl, Brownstones, and many other works all deal with the experiences of a black girl growing up in a hostile environment. These writers show how African American girls develop a self-resilient spirit in order to cope with the adverse external environment.
Color theme is another important theme that can be found in the works of twentieth-century African American women writers. Wishful thinking about white beauty can be found in many major works of these writers. Mary Helen Washington comments:
“If the stories of these writers are to be believed then the color/hair problem has cut deep into the psyche of the black woman. It is that particular aspect of oppression that has affected, for the most part, only women. I could not find a single piece of fiction written by a black male in which he feels ugly or rejected because of the shade of his skin or the texture of his hair. In contrast, the color almost always plays at least a peripheral role more often a significant one in the lives of the women characters created by women writers. (xvii)
By delving deep into the psyche of a black woman as well as out of their own personal experience, these writers have created one of the most poignant characters and stories in American literature. For example, Pecola in Toni Morrison‘s The Bluest Eye wishes for blue eyes as a way to redeem herself. Similarly, the character Mary Ginia Washington in Gwen Brook‘s Maud Martha, emphasizes that black women seem to be offended by their black color. Maya Angelou in her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, divulges her childhood fantasy of being a blonde and a white. Thus, the parameters of beauty as defined by white American society have scarred the psyche and souls of black women, which is often reflected in their works.
The twentieth-century African-American women writers have broken new grounds, created new literary canons, and paved the way for twenty-first-century writers. Today young and dynamic writers, are creating a new upsurge in the literary world. Who are in one way or the other most indebted to these twentieth-century African-American women writers, it would be apt to quote Dana E. Williams who writes about these phenomenal African American women writers:
“Clearly, even as contemporary African American women authors Write to distinguish themselves, they also inevitably enhance the grand tradition of American letters. And they do so by telling their multifaceted stories...What we find in contemporary African American women writers are many 'black girls' singing their own songs, and they sing them bravely, boldly, and remarkably”. (p.85)
Amidst silent suffering, African-American women have been haunted by the thought of their self-respect and self-identity. For African American women, racism, sexism, and classism, the triple oppression, have their celerity on them by atrophying their spirit. Maya Angelou, a Womanist, highlights the plight of African American women in the following lines. She says:
“African American women caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power” (p.65).
The ignominious African –American women face racism from white masters, and gender discrimination by the white, and these have placed them at the point of nadir in society. Gloria Wade Gayleshas brought out the nonplussed existence of African –American women in the following manner:
“America is an oppressive system that divides people into groups on the basis of their race, sex, and class, creating a society in which a few have capital and reality in American society, which reflect degrees of power and powerlessness. There is a large circle in which white people, most of them men, experience, influence, and people regardless of sex, experience uncertainty exploitation, and powerlessness. Hidden in this second circle is a third, a small, dark enclosure in which black women experience pain, isolation, and vulnerability”. (p.3-4)
The oppression of white masters on African –American women has put them on the brink of exploitation, which deteriorates them to the level of ill-will. In spite of this, African and American women tend to be confident. Patricia Collins highlights this when she says:
“Women‘s existence is structured along three interdependent dimensions which all operate through oppression-economy, polity, and ideology. Society has often used the economy as a means to force black women into all-consuming activity so that they have almost no or very few opportunities to do any kind of intellectual work. Similarly, through the dimension of polity, black women have often been excluded from rights and privileges which are readily available to male citizens. Finally, ideology represents the process by which black women have often been associated with certain qualities and it is used to justify the ongoing oppression (p.6-7).
In American society, African-American women have been impaired by disempowerment and disenfranchisement. Along with these, racism is the most powerful oppression they face also. The triple disadvantage has put them as slaves and this continues till today. The color of African –American women has brought them to a level of degradation. In this context Sidney. Mints write:
“The word 'slave' still brings the visual image of blackness to North American minds. This association of forced labor and degradation with peoples of a particular physical type is a powerful symbol of the extent to which social perceptions are historically conditioned. (p.34)
The historical records of America show that the African-American has been emancipated after the commencement of the thirteenth amendment during the Civil War. In spite of this enactment, sexism and racism still continue in American society. These social disadvantages have put African American women as invisible beings. African American women are branded as ‘black pictures, and ‘niggers’. This theory shows that in a racist society, African- American women have become an ‘epitome of abhorrence and detestation’, and contrary to this white women have become a symbol of purity. This mongrel idea is observed by Thomas S. Szase in the following manner: 'Americans have used this blackness and madness as their standards and transcendent symbols of evil, and whiteness and sanity as their standards and transcendent symbols of good'(p.68).
Further, the subjugated existence of African –American women, due to their color and gender, has been explained by Loraine Bethel in the following manner, in order to put their plight of them in a pellucid manner. Bethel says:
“Black women embody by their sheer physical presence two of the most hated identities in this codified into states of being and world views. The codification of Blackness and femaleness by whites and males are contained in the terms 'thinking like a woman' and 'acting like a nigger', both based on the premise that these are typically negative Black and female ways of acting and thinking. Therefore the most pejorative concept in the white male worldview would be thinking and acting like a 'nigger woman'. (p.178)
The repeated raping of the white masters, though the emancipation proclamation exists, shows the outrage still in its prevalence on hoodoo African American women. Also the phallocentric attitude of African- American women have impaired their psyche. This damaging effect is highlighted by Eldridge Cleaver in the following manner:
“I love white women and hate black women. I‘d jump over ten nigger bitches just to get one white woman... A white woman is beautiful, even if she is bald-headed and only has one tooth... There is a softness about white women, something delicate and soft inside. But a nigger bitch seems to be full of steel granite hard and resisting, not soft and submissive like white women. Ain‘t nothing more beautiful than a white woman‘s hair... She is like a goddess, a symbol. (p.159.)
It is clear that the tyrannical attitude of African American men toward African American women has the same intensity as that of white masters, which is in the form of aversion and mutilation. In such a scenario, the beginning of the twentieth century has become a groundbreaking era for African –American writers. In this era, African American women have tried to come out of the shadows of racism and sexism. In fact, the earlier African –American writers had erected a platform, which has been conducive for twentieth-century writers. This is observed by Foster and Davis, who have observed in the following lines:
“It was something that should not have happened, but did. Almost from descent were creating literature. Before the United States came into being, African American women were published in a variety of genres and on many topics”. (p.15)
Frances Author has been the first African- American, who challenged white masters for their repression of African women. Alice Ruth Dunbar Nelson, along with her, has spoken vociferously for their equal right. They have created a strong background for twentieth-century African –American women writers, who have been taken to the path of ‘new self-awakening. Their new insight breaks the barriers of racism, sexism, and classism in a white patriarchal society. Barbara Christian discusses the twentieth century African –American women's literature in the following lines:
“One, of course, might say that any literature, at the core, is concerned With the definition and discovery of self in relation to the society in Which one lives. But for Afro-American women, this natural desire has been powerfully opposed, repressed, and distorted by this society‘s restriction. For in defining ourselves, Afro-American women writers have necessarily had to confront the interaction between restrictions of racism, sexism, and class that characterize our existence Yet the struggle is not won. Our vision is still seen, even by many progressives, as secondary, issues or women‘s complaints, our stance is sometimes characterized by others as divisive. But there is a deep philosophical reordering that is occurring in this literature that is already having its effect on so many of us whose lives and expressions are an increasing revelation of the intimate face of universal struggle. (p.159-163)
The twentieth-century African-American women's literature has been divided broadly with unique themes and approaches. The early few decades of the twentieth century have been called the Harlem renaissance, which has its characteristic based on cultural phenomena. Sharon L. Jones writes about the Harlem renaissance in the following manner:
The Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement, began in the early 1900 and ended around 1940. Coinciding with modernist trends, the Harlem Renaissance was an interdisciplinary cultural movement that reflected literary, musical, dance, artistic, and dramatic developments in African American expression. Additionally, the civil rights movement and the rise of organizations for social justice also brought much to bear upon the Harlem Renaissance. This movement would have a wide-ranging impact on American literature, changing the growth and direction of what was valued and what was not. (p.227)
Writes like Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Marita Bonner, Angelina Weld Grimke, Ann Spencer, and Georgia Douglas Johnson have been the commanders of the Harlem renaissance. These writers have done their best to break ‘stereotype images of black women prevailing in mainstream white American society ’. Among Harlem renaissance writers Jessie Fauset, who has been known as the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance, has shaped other writers like Nella Larsen, Jessie Fauset, and Zora Neale Hurston. Through her four novels entitled” There is Confusion (1924), Plum Bun (1929), The Chinaberry Tree (1931), and Comedy American Style (1933, Faucet has explored the theme of identity for African –American women in terms of race and gender. Nella Larsen has been another important novelist of the Harlem renaissance. Her two novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929) have helped to break negative stereotype images of African –American women. She discusses ‘mulatto women and their dulosis due to racism, sexism as well as classicism in American society’. However, Zora Neale Hurston has been the most influential artist of the Harlem renaissance through her works Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Hurston has brought out the aesthetic sense of the black folk with the backdrop of southern black culture. Katie Geneva Cannon writes about Hurston:
Of all the women in the Black women‘s literary tradition who have contributed to the concrete depiction of Black life, Zora Neale Hurston (1901-1960) is -a par exemplar. As an outstanding novelist, journalist, folklorist, anthropologist, and critic, Hurston possessed a sharp accuracy in reporting the positive sense of self that exists among poor, marginal Blacks, - the Negro farthest down. The primary impetus for all her writings was to capture the density of simple values inherent in the provincialism of Blacks who worked on railroads, lived in sawmill camps, and toiled in phosphate mines, earning their keep as common laborers Hurston‘s extreme closeness to the sensibilities of her unlettered characters along with her meticulous collection of folklore, legends, superstitions, music, and dance of the common people, enabled her work to serve as a rich repository of resources helpful in delineating the moral counsel cultivated throughout the various periods of Black history in the United States.