| Black women characters as presented in the literature of some black male and white writers, have often been portrayed as one-dimensional figures: the patient, the long-suffering servant, the matriarch, the religious fanatic, and the "nigger wench." Black women writers, on the other hand, have sought to destroy the many stereotyped myths and images of the black women by probing deeply into her own psyche and describing how she has learned to cope with living in a racially and sexually oppressive society. This dissertation seeks to prove that black women writers have created black women characters who are full-dimensional and more realistically drawn than other writers have done.; Using selected novels, poetry, and short stories by writers such as Nella Larsen, Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry, Sarah Wright, Paule Marshall, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, Carolyn Rodgers, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Wallace Thurman, and Rudolph Fisher, it can be found that black women as literary characters can be generally classified as Suspended, Color-Conscious, Assimilated, and Emergent-Assertive. The Suspended woman is heavily burdened, and is trapped in time and space because the pressures of life are so great against her. As a way of coping, she may become destructive to herself or to others. Lutie Johnson in The Street by Ann Petry, is an example of a Suspended woman who commits murder as a means of fighting her enclosed existence. The Color-Conscious black woman is either very dark or fair-skinned. She feels rejected because of her extreme skin color and suffers psychologically as a result. For example, dark-skinned Maud Martha in Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks is overly concerned and sensitive about her blackness and never feels completely accepted by others. Angela Murray in Plum Bun by Jessie Fauset is a fair-skinned woman who rejects her sister and her race when she briefly passes as white in order to gain acceptance in the white world. The Assimilated woman, on the other hand, adopts and consumes the values of white society and can be ruthless in her determination to succeed. Silla Boyce in Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall is a example of the Assimilated woman who alienates her family in her efforts to advance. Finally, the Emergent-Assertive woman is independent, self-confident, and often politically astute. She is a traveler, takes risks, ends relationships with men, if necessary, and develops definite ideas about the direction she wants her life to follow. In the novel Meridian by Alice Walker, the major character, Meridian, is a strong political activist who defiantly carries a drowned child's body to a town meeting in a small, Alabama community, to force city officials to end seasonal flooding which is killing black people.; Black women writers have been successful in presenting black female characters with a variety of personalities and dimensions that are not stereotyped as servants or bossy, domineering matriarchs. Instead they have virtues and faults, and are basically concerned with developing their own identities as black women. In contrast, most other writers have tended to portray black women as one-dimensional characters who are extreme in their behavior, unrealistic or inadequately drawn. Black women writers are continuing to explore the many dimensions of the black women and capture the essence of her being. |
