Sisterhood Transcending Time

Terry McMillan is a famous contemporary novelist and best-selling author. As an African American woman writer, her works focus on the middle-class black women who live in the cities in the new era and describe their life state as well as psychological growth. Among her works, the Waiting to Exhale and Getting to Happy are the representatives. These two books are not only truly reflect the aspirations of the black women at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in America, but also go across the limitations of nationality and race, arise a strong resonance among female readers from different races. McMillan has achieved a huge commercial success.This thesis is an analysis of the traditional theme of sisterhood in McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale and Getting to Happy. By comparison, induction and analysis, the changeable and unchangeable factors are concluded in the theme of sisterhood. The first part introduces the definition of sisterhood and two important factors of sisterhood. The second part introduces the the traditional theme of sisterhood in the African American women’s literature and sisterhood in the works written by Hurston, Morrison and Walker. The third part is the introduction to the sisterhood in McMillan’s two books. In this part, the background, unchangeable factors and the development of the sisterhood in these two books will be discussed. The last part is the analysis of the reasons for the change of sisterhood. It is divided into two reasons:one is the driving force of social change and the other is the influence of McMillan’s personal experiences.By the description of ways about dealing with the same problems to various difficulties in which confronting the problem together to facing it alone by the sisters, McMillan has constructed the new sisterhood which meets the needs of times on the basis of previous studies. These two works show the life and spirit of the contemporary professional black women. They inherit the literary tradition of African American women’s literature and at the same time develop it by expressing the affirmative attitude.