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Title: SOUTH AFRICAN ANALOGUE TO "ABSALOM, ABSALOM|" (FAULKNER, PATON).
Creator: BLANTON, JERRY CAIN, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Literature is influenced by the society in which it is written. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner and Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton have many similarities because the societies which produced them have similarities. The Old South and the Afrikaner society of South Africa have many historical occurrences and cultural attitudes in common, among them: former slave societies, wars with aborigenes, an agrarian-industrial conflict in which they were defeated, racial segregation,...
Show moreLiterature is influenced by the society in which it is written. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner and Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton have many similarities because the societies which produced them have similarities. The Old South and the Afrikaner society of South Africa have many historical occurrences and cultural attitudes in common, among them: former slave societies, wars with aborigenes, an agrarian-industrial conflict in which they were defeated, racial segregation, Calvinist religion, and an intermingling of the past and the present. Absalom, Absalom! and Too Late the Phalarope have the following in common: tone, titles of despair, character types, function of setting, qualities of Greek tragedy, Biblical allusions and syntax. A sociological literary study may help to understand how a society influences its literature.
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Date Issued: 1977
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13850
Subject Headings: Literature, Modern, Literature, African
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Imaginative integration in four novels by Doris Lessing.
Creator: Blondin, Brian Gerard, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Within the remarkable diversity of Doris Lessing's fiction, the author's interest in the interrelation between the individual and the collective remains a constant. Her early works pursued this theme within a socio-political framework; however, her continued explorations have evolved an apolitical ethos which unfolds progressively in all of her work since The Golden Notebook. The impetus of this development, which has encouraged Lessing's experiments with various narrative techniques, is her...
Show moreWithin the remarkable diversity of Doris Lessing's fiction, the author's interest in the interrelation between the individual and the collective remains a constant. Her early works pursued this theme within a socio-political framework; however, her continued explorations have evolved an apolitical ethos which unfolds progressively in all of her work since The Golden Notebook. The impetus of this development, which has encouraged Lessing's experiments with various narrative techniques, is her desire to articulate a formula integrating the self with society; in one form or another, the catalyst of this integration is the creative imagination. By tracing related thematic and aesthetic courses of development in four novels--The Golden Notebook, The Four-Gated City, The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight, and The Good Terrorist--this thesis will demonstrate how Lessing's quest for integration has shaped her present apolitical ethos.
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Date Issued: 1989
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14508
Subject Headings: Literature, Modern, Literature, African, Literature, English
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: NEGRO WOMEN AS SEEN BY WHITE AMERICAN NOVELISTS, 1925-1935.
Creator: DOHNER, ELLEN H., Florida Atlantic University, Coyle, William
Date Issued: 1970
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13421
Subject Headings: African Americans in literature, African American women
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Dramatic deception and black identity in 'The First One' and 'Riding the Goat'.
Creator: Hagood, Taylor, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Date Issued: 2005-01
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/11498
Subject Headings: African Americans--Drama, African Americans--Fiction, American literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The poetics of the affective-expressive in the novels of Chinua Achebe.
Creator: Brown-McDonald, Patricia Rena., Florida Atlantic University, Lewis, Krishnakali
Abstract/Description: Chinua Achebe is one of Africa's most renowned writers. However, the excellence of his work is compromised by the assumptions of Western poetics, that is, mimesis. European critics contend African writing suffers from the prevalent use of proverbs, and obtrusive authorship, among others. But, Earl Miner, through his discourse on the poetics of the affective-expressive, challenges mimesis. He shows that only Western poetics is rooted in drama, all others are rooted in lyric. This fact reverses...
Show moreChinua Achebe is one of Africa's most renowned writers. However, the excellence of his work is compromised by the assumptions of Western poetics, that is, mimesis. European critics contend African writing suffers from the prevalent use of proverbs, and obtrusive authorship, among others. But, Earl Miner, through his discourse on the poetics of the affective-expressive, challenges mimesis. He shows that only Western poetics is rooted in drama, all others are rooted in lyric. This fact reverses the table. African writing, rather than being an oddity, represents a global poetics. Miner shows new ways of analyzing literature by incorporating monogatari, re-evaluating the relationship between history and fiction, looking at points of attention, and examining a lyrical poetics. By taking another look at Achebe's work, particularly Things and Fall Apart and Anthills of the Savannah in the affective-expressive mode, Achebe's real genius as a writer is all the more evident.
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Date Issued: 1998
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15526
Subject Headings: Achebe, Chinua--Criticism and interpretation, Poetics, African literature (English)
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: RADICAL RETICENCE: QUIETNESS, VISION, AND RESISTANCE IN CONTEMPORARY REPRESENTATIONS OF SLAVERY.
Creator: McGeary, Stephen A., Dagbovie-Mullins, Sika, Florida Atlantic University, Department of English, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Abstract/Description: Throughout the 21st century, some artists, athletes, and politicians began to use their platforms to speak out against the issues of systemic racism and police brutality that continue to affect black Americans to this day. While this outpouring of support for the black community has helped move the needle in terms of equity and inclusion initiatives, critics have often labeled these figures and movements too public or loud, conflating the concepts of talking and loudness with resistance to...
Show moreThroughout the 21st century, some artists, athletes, and politicians began to use their platforms to speak out against the issues of systemic racism and police brutality that continue to affect black Americans to this day. While this outpouring of support for the black community has helped move the needle in terms of equity and inclusion initiatives, critics have often labeled these figures and movements too public or loud, conflating the concepts of talking and loudness with resistance to the status quo. Yet, in an era when “silence is not an option” and “quietness is complicity,” African American authors and artists have taken a subtle and quiet approach to depicting the lives of enslaved men and women. More specifically, novels, films, and art from the past two decades portray resistance as not only a public and physical phenomenon, but a mental and ideological one. This dissertation project comes at the intersection of African American literary, religious, and historical studies to argue that quiet and internal acts, such as surrender, memory, and visions, throughout contemporary representations of slavery provide an effective form of resistance to white hegemonic authority, ideology, and values. It asks readers to look beyond the public and the loud, to think about resistance that is not merely physical, to consider the possibilities present in reticence.
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Date Issued: 2022
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00013935
Subject Headings: African-American studies, Slave narratives, American literature--African American authors
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Bleeding roots: the absence and evidence of the lynched black female body.
Creator: Williams, Tinea., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Scholars of the literary depictions of lynching have given the majority of their attention to the emasculation of the black male, but the representation of the black female lynch victim has been overlooked. My thesis examines the deaths of black women that had the same effect as lynching practices used against men. This specific literary form of lynching will concentrate on two plays: Mary P. Burrill's They That Sit in Darkness (1919) and Marita Bonner's Exit: An Illusion (1929) and two...
Show moreScholars of the literary depictions of lynching have given the majority of their attention to the emasculation of the black male, but the representation of the black female lynch victim has been overlooked. My thesis examines the deaths of black women that had the same effect as lynching practices used against men. This specific literary form of lynching will concentrate on two plays: Mary P. Burrill's They That Sit in Darkness (1919) and Marita Bonner's Exit: An Illusion (1929) and two novels by Toni Morrison, Beloved and Sula. Considering the contours of these black female deaths we can expand the traditional definition of lynching to include the black female lynch victim. The aspects that make her death a lynching are encased in more subtleties than a traditional definition of lynching allows for, and less visible.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/199329
Subject Headings: African Americans, Crimes against, Lynching in literature, African Americans in literature, Race relations, History and criticism
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Multicultural criticism and the problem of critical uniformity: A reading of Gloria Naylor's "Linden Hills".
Creator: Lombard, Cathy Eunice., Florida Atlantic University, Martin, Thomas L.
Abstract/Description: Much of postcolonial and feminist criticisms reflect on how the oppressor-oppressed relationship of the past affects the present. However, possible-worlds theory expands these critical borders and respects the differences existing between textual world and actual world, supplying readers with the interpretive power to recognize that every past and present is complete with "possibilities" not yet explored. The fantastical elements of Gloria Naylor's narrative worlds complement the overall...
Show moreMuch of postcolonial and feminist criticisms reflect on how the oppressor-oppressed relationship of the past affects the present. However, possible-worlds theory expands these critical borders and respects the differences existing between textual world and actual world, supplying readers with the interpretive power to recognize that every past and present is complete with "possibilities" not yet explored. The fantastical elements of Gloria Naylor's narrative worlds complement the overall fiction. Through three conflicting narrative frames, she shows characters negotiating their assigned space in the inverted world of Linden Hills, not a mimetic representation exactly but reminiscent of Dante and Poe and compelling on its own. Forcing the reader to reevaluate settled assumptions about the actual world, in Linden Hills, Naylor presents the generational re-spawning, and ultimately the breaking, of patriarchy concentrated in the figure of Luther Nedeed.
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Date Issued: 2002
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12885
Subject Headings: Naylor, Gloria--Linden Hills, African Americans in literature, Feminist literary criticism, Possibility in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Bingo and other stories.
Creator: Peacock, Richard., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: "Bingo" and Other Stories is a collection of short stories whose individual primary characters are forced to make profound changes in the wake of a discovery that comes about as a result of a tragedy or strained personal relationship or a combination of both. This collection is multigenerational in its collective scope and it reflects influences that come from the African-American and Southern literary traditions. In addition, it uses realism to create the settings for and sensibilities of...
Show more"Bingo" and Other Stories is a collection of short stories whose individual primary characters are forced to make profound changes in the wake of a discovery that comes about as a result of a tragedy or strained personal relationship or a combination of both. This collection is multigenerational in its collective scope and it reflects influences that come from the African-American and Southern literary traditions. In addition, it uses realism to create the settings for and sensibilities of the characters who populate the stories. Stories in the collection are also connected in how they conjure up various geographical locations in Florida, especially regions of Florida that identify with the traditional American South.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/186770
Subject Headings: Symbolism in literature, Short stories, American, Conduct of life, Southern States, In literature, African Americans in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Black woman as an erotic being in Spanish-Caribbean narrative.
Creator: Henry, Marlyn Fay., Florida Atlantic University, Erro-Peralta, Nora
Abstract/Description: Characterization of Black women as erotic beings in Spanish-Caribbean narrative has shifted significantly from 1880 to 1990. Their representation as totally submissive and erotic beings has evolved into that of socially conscious and self accepting Black women. In Villaverde's Cecilia Valdes (1882), Cecilia and Maria de la Regla are depicted as objects of male sexual desires. Diaz's Pascua in Cumboto (1948) and Asturias' Mulata de tal (1963), although eroticized, insinuate an underlying...
Show moreCharacterization of Black women as erotic beings in Spanish-Caribbean narrative has shifted significantly from 1880 to 1990. Their representation as totally submissive and erotic beings has evolved into that of socially conscious and self accepting Black women. In Villaverde's Cecilia Valdes (1882), Cecilia and Maria de la Regla are depicted as objects of male sexual desires. Diaz's Pascua in Cumboto (1948) and Asturias' Mulata de tal (1963), although eroticized, insinuate an underlying androgynous nature which makes them more assertive in their use of sexuality. However, it is contemporary women writers who dismantle the erotic stereotype: Ferre's "Cuando las mujeres quieren a los hombres" (1974) portrays a Black prostitute who, advances socially and economically. Cabrera's Nana in "La tesorera del diablo" (1971) is the bearer of ancestral knowledge and moral values, and Cartagena Portalatin's Aurora, in "La llamaban Aurora," (1978) speaks forcefully on social issues and fully accepts herself as a Black woman.
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Date Issued: 1994
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15115
Subject Headings: Latin American literature--History and criticism, Caribbean literature (Spanish), African American women in literature, Sex symbolism, Sex role in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Establishing the Bondmother: Examining the Categorization of Maternal Figures in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Paradise.
Creator: Tisdale, Ashely, Hagood, Taylor, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Literary scholars have been examining and recreating the experiences of “bonded” female characters within Toni Morrison’s novels for decades. However, the distinct experiences of these enslaved women, that are also mothers have not been astutely examined by scholars and deserves more attention. My thesis fleshes out the characterization of several of Morrison’s bonded-mothers and identifies them as a part of a developing controlling image and theory, called the bondmother. Situating these...
Show moreLiterary scholars have been examining and recreating the experiences of “bonded” female characters within Toni Morrison’s novels for decades. However, the distinct experiences of these enslaved women, that are also mothers have not been astutely examined by scholars and deserves more attention. My thesis fleshes out the characterization of several of Morrison’s bonded-mothers and identifies them as a part of a developing controlling image and theory, called the bondmother. Situating these characters within this category allows readers to trace their journeys towards freedom and personal redemption. This character tracing will occur by examining the following Toni Morrison novels: Beloved (1987) and Paradise (1997). In order to fully examine the experiences of these characters it will be necessary for me to expand the definition of bondage and mother.
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Date Issued: 2016
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004696, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004696
Subject Headings: African American families in literature, African American women in literature, Morrison, Toni -- Beloved -- Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni -- Characters -- Mothers, Morrison, Toni -- Paradise -- Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni -- Political and social views, Motherhood in literature, Slavery in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Toni Morrison's "Beloved": From the middle realm to apocalyptic visions.
Creator: King, Natalie, Florida Atlantic University, Paton, Priscilla
Abstract/Description: Toni Morrison's black characters in her novel Beloved dwell in a middle realm between slavery and a life full of responsibility. This middle realm or "safe" haven enables them to "disremember" past injustices. However, it also renders them disabled when trying to resolve moral issues, and allows them to exist blindly within the confines of an isolated illusion of almost pubescent security. In this state, characters have the certainty of the horrors of slavery behind them, but they have the...
Show moreToni Morrison's black characters in her novel Beloved dwell in a middle realm between slavery and a life full of responsibility. This middle realm or "safe" haven enables them to "disremember" past injustices. However, it also renders them disabled when trying to resolve moral issues, and allows them to exist blindly within the confines of an isolated illusion of almost pubescent security. In this state, characters have the certainty of the horrors of slavery behind them, but they have the uncertainty of the future ahead. Morrison's characters require the motivation of an apocalyptic upheaval (revelation or unveiling) as a catalyst to move them from that area of stasis and emotional impasse to the next level of their development and finally toward a sense of community. This movement from the middle realm to the apocalypse is conveyed by Morrison through myths drawn from several cultures. Her ability to manipulate and meld these myths provides the link to humanity's quest for control in an illusory world, and growth initiated by apocalyptic awakenings.
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Date Issued: 1994
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15036
Subject Headings: Morrison, Toni--Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni--Beloved, African Americans in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Silence and sympathy: Race in the early short fiction of William Faulkner.
Creator: Gifford, Sheryl C., Florida Atlantic University, Blakemore, Steven
Abstract/Description: Much critical debate has surrounded William Faulkner's treatment of race relations in the South; indeed, it is difficult to believe that a white Southern male could transcend the psychosocial realities that led to racial divisions in the post-Civil War South. However, Faulkner, as the "well-endowed" Aristotelian poet, was able to involve himself in the emotions he sought to imitate, and thus was able to transcend racial issues in the compact fictive space he established. Intent upon mastering...
Show moreMuch critical debate has surrounded William Faulkner's treatment of race relations in the South; indeed, it is difficult to believe that a white Southern male could transcend the psychosocial realities that led to racial divisions in the post-Civil War South. However, Faulkner, as the "well-endowed" Aristotelian poet, was able to involve himself in the emotions he sought to imitate, and thus was able to transcend racial issues in the compact fictive space he established. Intent upon mastering the intricacies of the short story, Faulkner, the self-admitted "failed poet," utilizes this genre to construct a subtle yet powerful critique of hypocritical racial divisions common in the postbellum South. The silences and subversive sympathies that abound in such short stories as "Dry September" and "That Evening Sun" are caught up within the confines of this fictive space, provoking the reader to resolve the discrepancies that purposefully exist.
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Date Issued: 1999
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15708
Subject Headings: Faulkner, William,--1897-1962--Political and social views., Race relations in literature., African Americans in literature., Southern States--In literature.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Sentimental spirits: saving the soul while seizing the heart and swaying the mind.
Creator: Rovere, Michelle, Bradford, Adam C., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: During the nineteenth century, African American women like Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, and Julia Foote wrote narratives of their spiritual conversions. Through their efforts and the efforts of others like them, spiritual autobiographies became not only evangelical tools but also a means of shaping African American culture and American society in general. While some black women were working to claim power for their gender and race by writing spiritual narratives, other women, both black and white...
Show moreDuring the nineteenth century, African American women like Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, and Julia Foote wrote narratives of their spiritual conversions. Through their efforts and the efforts of others like them, spiritual autobiographies became not only evangelical tools but also a means of shaping African American culture and American society in general. While some black women were working to claim power for their gender and race by writing spiritual narratives, other women, both black and white, were working with sentimental literature to achieve similar goals.
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Date Issued: 2015
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004463, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004463
Subject Headings: African American aesthetics, African American women authors -- 19th century -- Criticism and interpretation, American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism, American literature -- African American authors, Antislavery movements in literature, Elaw, Zilpha -- approximately 1790- -- Criticism and interpretation, Emotions in literature, Foote, Julia A.J. -- 1823-1900 -- Criticism and interpretation, Lee, Jarena -- 1783- -- Criticism and interpretation, Spirituality in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: "Thick love" vs. "thin love": The maternal role in the African American attainment of individuation in Morrison's "Jazz" and "Beloved".
Creator: Waite, Simone Lora., Florida Atlantic University, Furman, Andrew
Abstract/Description: In Jazz and Beloved Morrison explores the difficulties of the acquisition of selfhood for African Americans. In the novels, Morrison examines these difficulties focussing especially on the maternal role. Offering no facile solutions, these narratives do share characteristics common to individuals attaining individuation. A person's relationship with the mother and ability to confront his history, no matter how painful, are integral elements to any presence of self-worth. Although far from...
Show moreIn Jazz and Beloved Morrison explores the difficulties of the acquisition of selfhood for African Americans. In the novels, Morrison examines these difficulties focussing especially on the maternal role. Offering no facile solutions, these narratives do share characteristics common to individuals attaining individuation. A person's relationship with the mother and ability to confront his history, no matter how painful, are integral elements to any presence of self-worth. Although far from didactic, one truth examined in the novels is the need for Africans in America to create their own definitions of their history. African American figures, maternal and otherwise have been traditionally defined by the oppressive society, using stereotypes inherited from slavery. Jazz and Beloved are reclamations of these definitions. Reclamations Morrison has asserted are necessary for the posterity of her people. How do African Americans attain selfhood when they do not even own themselves? The solutions to this problem are multifaceted. Morrison's novels urge the African American to confront the history and redefine myths that have often undermined the process.
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Date Issued: 1999
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15662
Subject Headings: Morrison, Toni--Criticism and interpretation, Morrison, Toni--Beloved, Morrison, Toni--Jazz, African American women in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Moses, the two-headed doctor.
Creator: LaCrone, Frederick Palmer., Florida Atlantic University, Stover, Johnnie
Abstract/Description: Zora Neale Hurston's novel, Moses, Man of the Mountain, is a metaphor of the African-American striving for liberation. It uses the Exodus story from the Hebrew scriptures as a trope of oppression, struggle, and hope. Hurston uses duality and ambiguity to delineate the issues of struggle, allowing the reader to determine the significance of the narrative. Moses emerges as a "two-headed doctor," an African-American term for a powerful conjurer. Moses is presented as an agent of God and at the...
Show moreZora Neale Hurston's novel, Moses, Man of the Mountain, is a metaphor of the African-American striving for liberation. It uses the Exodus story from the Hebrew scriptures as a trope of oppression, struggle, and hope. Hurston uses duality and ambiguity to delineate the issues of struggle, allowing the reader to determine the significance of the narrative. Moses emerges as a "two-headed doctor," an African-American term for a powerful conjurer. Moses is presented as an agent of God and at the same time a source of power for the benefit of the people.
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Date Issued: 2001
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12755
Subject Headings: Hurston, Zora Neale--Moses, man of the mountain, African Americans in literature, Hurston, Zora Neale--Criticism and interpretation
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The making of a radical: W. E. B. Du Bois's turn to the left.
Creator: Vivian, Johan Donald., Florida Atlantic University, Lewis, Krishnakali
Abstract/Description: During his lifetime, W. E. B. Du Bois grew increasingly leftist. His early writings showed his optimism; his later works showed no such upbeat tone. Several developments fueled this metamorphosis: his controversies with Booker T. Washington; his two acrimonious departures from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; his arrest and trial as an unregistered foreign agent. In his early writings, Du Bois frequently mentions being "above the veil." In later works, the...
Show moreDuring his lifetime, W. E. B. Du Bois grew increasingly leftist. His early writings showed his optimism; his later works showed no such upbeat tone. Several developments fueled this metamorphosis: his controversies with Booker T. Washington; his two acrimonious departures from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; his arrest and trial as an unregistered foreign agent. In his early writings, Du Bois frequently mentions being "above the veil." In later works, the metaphorical garment--when mentioned at all--has become a prison. His early belief that the advancement of Negroes would depend on science and rational discourse was eventually replaced with a conviction that only economic reconstruction would allow his people to rend the veil keeping them in check and permit the working class--black and white--to cast off its chains.
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Date Issued: 1997
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15387
Subject Headings: Du Bois, W E B--(William Edward Burghardt),--1868-1963--Political and social views, African Americans in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Earth, water, and black bodies: elements at work in Toni Morrison's literary landscape.
Creator: Anderson, Pauline P., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: This project focuses on the natural elements earth and water as presented in the works of African American author Toni Morrison. The primary texts analyzed are Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. In the first two novels, Morrison alludes to the abuse of black bodies by drawing parallels between the destruction of trees and the negative effects of urbanization. I argue that environmental destruction and urbanization parallels the disenfranchisement and killing of black bodies. Water in Beloved...
Show moreThis project focuses on the natural elements earth and water as presented in the works of African American author Toni Morrison. The primary texts analyzed are Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved. In the first two novels, Morrison alludes to the abuse of black bodies by drawing parallels between the destruction of trees and the negative effects of urbanization. I argue that environmental destruction and urbanization parallels the disenfranchisement and killing of black bodies. Water in Beloved connotes bondage because of its historical link to the Triangular Trade. However, considering Morrison's frequent mention of water and the fugitives' constant need to drink, I argue that ingesting water symbolizes a need for psychological freedom. All of the novels that I have analyzed emphasize the complex connections between African Americans and nature.
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Date Issued: 2012
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3356892
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, African Americans in literature, African American philosophy, Human ecology in literature, Nature in literature, Ecocriticism
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Color lines: "Passing" and its implications for literary subjectivity in Richard Wright and Boris Vian.
Creator: Guillerm, Celine, Florida Atlantic University, Munson, Marcella L.
Abstract/Description: If mid-twentieth-century African-American authors based discussions of race in America on the theories of prominent Franco-African writers, African-American writers such as Richard Wright were also highly influential in discussions of race in the French literary context. Wright's novel Native Son focuses on protagonist Bigger Thomas, a young black man who accidentally commits murder. After realizing how the white community has interpreted his act, Bigger tries without success to break free of...
Show moreIf mid-twentieth-century African-American authors based discussions of race in America on the theories of prominent Franco-African writers, African-American writers such as Richard Wright were also highly influential in discussions of race in the French literary context. Wright's novel Native Son focuses on protagonist Bigger Thomas, a young black man who accidentally commits murder. After realizing how the white community has interpreted his act, Bigger tries without success to break free of "double consciousness," or fragmented subjectivity, first articulated by W. E. B. DuBois. Boris Vian's text J'irai cracher sur vos tombes problematizes Wright's literary analysis of race through protagonist Lee Anderson, an explicit literary reworking of Bigger. Lee, in deliberately passing as white in order to murder two women, displays a more deliberate subjectivity. The act of passing erodes the legal foundation of black segregation and highlights a more active subjectivity, yet it also displays the limitations encoded in that act.
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Date Issued: 2005
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13262
Subject Headings: Racially mixed people--United States., African Americans--Race identity., African Americans in literature., Passing (Identity) in literature., Group identity in literature., Vian, Boris,--1920-1959.--J'irai cracker sur vos tombes., Wright, Richard,--1908-1960.--Native son.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Negative capability and isolation in James Weldon Johnson's "The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man".
Creator: Iannicelli, Regina., Florida Atlantic University, Coyle, William
Abstract/Description: There is much disagreement and uncertainty among critics over the message in James Weldon Johnson's novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. It has been misconstrued as a "passing novel" or as another novel with the "tragic mulatto" theme. In James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man the double consciousness of the protagonist reveals the central concerns Johnson had about racial identity and individual psychology. The protagonist's choices are between isolation and...
Show moreThere is much disagreement and uncertainty among critics over the message in James Weldon Johnson's novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man. It has been misconstrued as a "passing novel" or as another novel with the "tragic mulatto" theme. In James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man the double consciousness of the protagonist reveals the central concerns Johnson had about racial identity and individual psychology. The protagonist's choices are between isolation and integration, the central issue in Johnson's later published pamphlet Negro Americans What Now? He believed that successful integration could occur through the arts and education. By the protagonist's revealing that he is capable of experiencing negative capability in Europe, Johnson describes the atmosphere to be striven for in America through social change.
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Date Issued: 1992
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14852
Subject Headings: Johnson, James Weldon,--1871-1938--Criticism and interpretation, Johnson, James Weldon,--1871-1938--Autobiography of an ex-coloured man, African Americans in literature, Racism
Format: Document (PDF)

FAU Theses and Dissertations (27)	+ -
Speeches (6)	+ -
FAU College Collections (1)	+ -

African Americans in literature (9)	+ -
Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877) (5)	+ -
Criticism and interpretation (4)	+ -
Postwar reconstruction -- United States -- History -- 19th century -- Sources (4)	+ -
African American women in literature (3)	+ -

African Americans -- Suffrage (3)	+ -
African Americans in literature. (3)	+ -
Grant, Ulysses S. -- (Ulysses Simpson) -- 1822-1885 (3)	+ -
Slavery -- United States (3)	+ -
Slavery in literature (3)	+ -
Symbolism in literature (3)	+ -
African Americans -- Civil rights (2)	+ -
Campaign literature -- 1868 -- Republican (2)	+ -
Democratic Party (U.S.) (2)	+ -
Feminism in literature (2)	+ -
Freedmen -- Suffrage -- United States (2)	+ -
History and criticism (2)	+ -
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