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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
The history of any struggle has been overwhelmingly male centric. The role of
woman in every religion and every culture remains to be a subordinate one.
Stereotypical images of womanhood as ‗pativirata‘ in Hinduism, ‗yum‘ in Buddhism,
‗yin‘ in Taoism are controlling images those have been designed to formulate racist,
sexism, poverty and varied forms of social injustice which continued to appear as
natural, normal and inherit in every sphere right from time immemorial.
Of all the oppressed and subjugated women in the whole world it is the
African American female who has successfully emerged as a formidable character
which Maya Angelou laments, ―is often met with amazement distaste and even
belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by
survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance‖ ( I Know, 265).
Turdier Harris (1948) the African and American literary and cultural critic in
her work From Mammies to Militants: Domestics in Black American Literature
(1982) points out the images assigned to the black women as,
Called Matriarch, Emasculator and Hot Momma. Sometimes Sister,
Pretty Baby, Auntie, Mammy and Girl. Called Unwed Mother,
Welfare Recipient and Inner City Consumer. The Black American
Woman has had to admit that while nobody knew the troubles she saw,
everybody, his brother and his dog, felt qualified to explain her, even
to herself. (4)
The possibility for expressing or articulating the suppressed agony remains
very limited. The identity of the black women as always been kept out of existence.
They are neither accepted as a separate entity nor considered as distinct from black
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men or as existing as part of a large group The term women is considered
synonymous with white women where as the black female remains to be an essential
commodity.
During the vigorous slave trade, black women were subjugated not only by
white prejudiced perspectives, but also by the patriarchal society. Black women were
held her under the power of both her white masters and her fellow black male slaves.
Carla L. Peterson correctly states,
ignorant like black men of the kinds of lives African women led, and
deeply committed to a belief in the civilizing potential of American
civilization, black women could only envision Africa as a once-noble,
but now degraded, continent. (116)
It took centuries for these women to overcome their enslavement. After a hard
continuous struggle and effort these women had put them in the important roles in the
society.
The beginnings of African-American literature is with the works of late 18thcentury writers such as Phillis Wheatley (1753- 1794). African-American literature
was recorded with the dominance of autobiographical narratives like Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845) by Federick Douglass (1818 –
1895) and Solomon Northup‘s (1805-1875) Twelve Years a Slave (1853). The peak of
African American literature reached with slave narratives only in the end of the
nineteenth century. The Harlem Renaissance that took place during the 1920s gave
space for the budding of literature and the arts of black females. Many female writers
began to write in various genres like poetry, prose, fiction and drama. Many of these
writers were recognized with highest awards, including the Nobel Prize winner Toni
Morrison (1931).
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The themes and issues explored in the African American women literature
were, the role of African Americans especially black women within the larger
American society, African-American culture, racism, slavery, and equality. AfricanAmerican writings incorporated oral forms, that exhibited their tradition such as
spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues, or rap They used a vernacular language
which posed the major quality to disregard the rules of grammar and high style. Zora
Neale Hurston, in her ―Characteristics of Negro Expression‖ (1934), describes
African American vernacular as ‗angular‘ and ‗asymmetrical.‘ Many African
American female writers showed their interest not only in various genres but they also
played their role as socialists, feminist, activists, philosophers and historians.
The first step of empowerment for the African American women was the
beginnings of the Black Feminist Movement which originated as a product of and in
response to the Black Liberation Movement and Women Rights Movement. In both
the movements, black women were degraded sexually and racially. As a result these
black female came out to form a union of their own. In the United States of America,
The Black Feminist Movement began in the early 19th century. The Seneca Falls
Convention of 1948 marks the authentic beginnings of the Black Feminist Movement.
Historians mark this event as the origin of the First Wave Feminist Movement.
Concerned about the denial of basic rights to women, female activist Lucretia Mott
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organized a convention to meet at Seneca Falls, New
York in July 1848. The meeting attracted about 200 women and 40 men. Some of the
contemporaries coincided this convention as a effort by women to gain for themselves
a greater proportion of social, civil and moral rights. Few viewed this as a
revolutionary beginning to the struggle by women for complete equality. Sojourner
Truth (1797- 1883) a black feminist abolitionist and women‘s right activist delivered
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her first speech at this convention. Even this Seneca Falls Convention was related to
white feminism as it focused only a little on black female.
The First Wave of Black Feminism started in the early 1820s and lasted to the
early 1830s. Beverly Guy-Sheftall (1946) a Black American feminist scholar coined
the term ‗Black Feminist Abolitionists‘ to describe the first wave black feminists.
This term arose from the historical events that led to the rise of these feminists during
the slavery also known as the antebellum period. The abolition movement helped
black females of the time to converge and create a movement which would bring light
to their situation of triple jeopardy of race, class and gender. The prominent black
feminist of this period who also published many famous books on black female
oppression were Maria Stewart, Frances E.W. Harper and Sojourner Truth.
Maria W. Stewart (1803 – 1880) was an African-American journalist, lecturer,
abolitionist, and women's rights activist. She is celebrated for being the first American
woman to speak to a medley audience of men and women, whites and black. She is
recognised as the first African- American woman to talk about women‘s rights,
address a public anti-slavery speech and the first African-American woman to deliver
public lectures. Stewart published two pamphlets in the Liberator. In her first
pamphlet entitled ―Religion and Pure Principles of Morality, the Sure Foundation on
Which We Must Build‖ she advocated abolition and black autonomy. Her second
pamphlet titled ―Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart‖ was more
religious-based.
The most famous and recogonised lady of the first wave black feminism was
Sojourner Truth. Truth was born into slavery, but escaped with her infant daughter to
freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she became the first black
woman to win such a case against a white man. Her best-known offhanded speech on
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gender inequalities, ―Ain't I a Woman?‖ was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's
Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much
rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ
come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a
woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. (N page)
A long gap existed between the first wave and the second wave of black
feminism. This gap was fulfilled by many socialist movements like the Harlem
Renaissance and the Black Arts Movements. Though these movements were not all
specialised for women, they also helped in the gradual development of black female
social status.
Though neglected many African American women fought against slavery and
racism. Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813 – 1897) was an African-American writer who
escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. Jacobs' under
the pseudonym Linda Brent, published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, in 1861.
This was one of the first autobiographical narratives. It sketches the struggle for
freedom by female slaves and an account of the sexual harassment and abuse they
endured.
Another famous female personality who was a slave and survived against
struggles was Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818 – 1907). She became a successful
seamstress, civic activist and author in Washington, DC. Keckley after gaining her
freedom for herself and that of her son in St. Louis moved to Washington in 1860.She
started an independent business and her clients were the wives of the government
elite. Her work Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the
White House (1868) proves to be an authentic autobiography of slaves.
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The Republicans passed the Reconstruction Act in 1867 after the abolition of
slavery to protect freed slaves from the white supremacist ideologies and policies
being enacted in the former confederation. Inspite of the Reconstruction Act the
African American authors had more difficulty in getting their work published, so
many turned to the African American press, an institution heavily reliant on African
American church leaders. Many black female writers published songs, poems, fiction,
and autobiographies.
Henreitta Cordellia Ray (1849- 1917) daughter of an abolitionist received
praise for the biography of her, Sketch of the Life of Rev. Charles B. Ray, published in
1887. At the end of the Reconstruction era, Ray's poetry had appeared in several
periodicals, which encouraged her in her efforts to publish a complete collection.
Sonnets was published in 1893, and Poems, which contains Sonnets, came out in
1910.
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862 –1931) was an African-American journalist,
newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist. As an effort to show how lynching it was
often a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites, she started to
document lynching in the United States. As an active woman in the women‘s rights
and the women's suffrage she established several notable women's organizations.
Being a skilled and persuasive rhetorician, she travelled internationally on lecture
tours, to empower her race.
The Harlem Renaissance within the corpus of American cultural history
brought out successfully and clearly the Black experience. Harlem Renaissance
redefined through an explosion of culture and on a sociological level of how America,
and the world, viewed African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance literature
appealed to a mixed audience of the African-American middle class and to whites.
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Magazines such as The Crisis, a monthly journal of the NAACP, and Opportunity, an
official publication of the National Urban League published poetry and short stories
by black writers, and promoted African-American literature through articles, reviews,
and annual literary prizes.
The most well known female writers of this period were Zora Neale Hurston
(1891 -1960) and Maya Angelou (1928 ). A well recognized American folklorist,
anthropologist, and author of the Harlem Renaissance is Zora Neale Hurston. She is
best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God . She has written four
novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays.
Maya Angelou, is an American author and poet. Her publication includes
seven autobiographies, five books of essays, and several books of poetry. She is
credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty
years. She was privileged with dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral
degrees. Angelou was celebrated for her series of autobiographies, which focus on her
childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
(1969), tells of her life up to the age of seventeen, and brought her international
recognition and acclaim.
The Harlem Renaissance bloomed with African American creativity. This era
juxtaposed with avant-garde advances in music, dance, art, and literature, the poverty
and racism which the African Americans faced. Harlem‘s nightclubs and hotspots,
were engaged with Jazz and blues, the black music of the South, that came to the
North with the migrants. As all Americans grew more interested in African American
culture, Harlem was dubbed the Negro capital of the world by James Weldon Johnson
(1871-1938) an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet,
anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist.
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Fig 1
Upload.wikimedia.org
Contributiors of harlem renissance
The Second Wave Black Feminism that began at the end of World War II
preceded the second wave white feminism and survived till the mid 1960s. This
secondary movement concentrated particularly on the black woman's role in the
society. It also analyzed the ways these women were represented within the social
structure. This movement also examined with the exploitation of black female
domestic workers, who were underpaid and overworked and were subservient to their
white masters.
This period forced the black feminists to play a very crucial role in spite of
them being ignored for their efforts. The black women of this period predominantly
discussed further issues of male dominance within the black community during the
civil rights and black power movements. Literary critics like Lorainne Hansberry
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(1930- 1965), Audre Geraldine Lorde (1934– 1992) and Mary Elizabeath Vroman
(1925-1967) came out with their contributions.
Black Arts Movement is dated back to 1960s and is rooted in civil rights
movements. African American artists of this movement were engaged in creating
work that explored the African American cultural and historical experience. The
Black Arts movement, sometimes criticized as misogynist, homophobic, anti-semitic,
and racially exclusive, was also credited with motivating a new generation of poets,
writers and artists.
The Black Art Movement marks the beginning of a new aesthetics which
brought new aspect in art and literature and created a social landscape for the black
artist as they have been excluded from the conventional art world. This decade
provided ways for new ideas that led to the invention of new cultural norms
nationwide. The induction of the early hip-hop expressions that has become common
practice in terms of style, vernacular and music also developed during this period. The
poets of this decade were heavily influenced by the blues and jazz.
The female Poets of the Black Arts Movement to name a few are Rita Frances
Dove (1952), Sonia Sanchez (1934) and Maria Evans (1923). Rita Frances Dove, the
first poetess to serve at the Poet Laureate Consultancy of Poetry to The Library of
Congress from 1993-1995 also served as the poet laureate of Virginia from 20042006. Sonia Sanchez (1934), an African-American poet most often associated with
the Black Arts Movement has authored over a dozen books of poetry, as well as plays
and children's books. Sanchez mastered melding of musical formats—like the blues—
and traditional poetic formats like haiku and tanka. She also developed an art of using
incorrect spelling as the exact sound of the term.
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Maria Evans was a famous poet of the Black Art Movement who majored
fashion design in 1939. She is known for her poems in spite of being the authour of
short fiction stories, children‘s books and theatre piece, a part of the black art
movements. She spread the message of black culture, psychological and economical
liberation through her poems. Evans‘ poems converse the need to formulate blackness
both beautiful and powerful. Some of her famous poems are Night Star 1973-1978
(1981); Where is the Music (1968) and I am a Black Woman (1970).
The community of the African-American thought the writers to develop their
own literary criticism. There were also some differences of opinion that black people
are portrayed negatively. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868- 1963) insists that their art and
propaganda should be one. He further states that literature must be used as a tool in
the struggle for African-American political liberation. He believes that in the novel
Home to Harlem 1928 by Claude McKay (1889 – 1948) there is an open portrayal of
sexuality and the nightlife in Harlem pleasing only to the ‗prurient demand[s]‘ of
white readers and publishers looking for portrayals of Black ‗licentiousness.‘ A
similar another example of criticism is found in Wallace Thurman's (1902–1934)
novel The Blacker the Berry (1929).
Many African-American writers recognized that their literature should
confront the full truth about life and people. Langston Hughes ( 1902 –1967) an
African American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist in his
essay ―The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain‖ (1926) exhibited the attitude of
black artist who refuses to express themselves freely with the botheration of the
public opinion of both black and white. On critiquing the idea of African American
literature, Robert Hayden (1913 –1980) the first African-American Poet Laureate
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Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, says ―There is no such thing as Black
literature. There's good literature and bad. And that's all‖ (qtd. in Goldstein 67).
An alternative reading is provided in, Karla F.C. Holloway's Legal Fictions
(forthcoming from Duke University Press, 2014) that argues the social imagination of
race is particularly represented in law and is expressively symbolized through the
imaginative composition of literary fictions. As long as US law specifies a black body
as ‗discrete and insular‘. US fictions use that legal identity to construct narratives-from neo-slave narratives to contemporary novels like Walter Mosley's (1952) The
Man in My Basement (2004) that take constitutional fictions of race and their frames
to compose the narratives that cohere the tradition.
Theorizing black feminism was derived by the Anglo- American feminist in
means of racial hegemony and Afro Americanists in means of sexual hegemony
where racial hegemony stands for the racial dominance of the manipulation of the
other social power and sexual hegemony stands for the dominance of the male on the
female body. Anglo-American feminist theorist like Elaine Showalter, Robert Bone,
Darwin Turner, Ellen Moers, and Patricia Meyer Spacks along with Afro-American
theorists like Robert Slepto, Harry Louis Gates and Houston A Baker have been
accused of dismantling the subject they brought contemporary theory to be on their
reading of black texts.
… debates from within feminist and afro americanists discourse
conicded with black feminist changes that the cultural protection of
black women were excluded from both modes of inquire. Audre Lorde,
bell hooks (Gloria Waltkins), Angela Davis, Barbara Smith, Mary
Helen Washington and Deborah McDowell, to name but a few, have
all argued that the experiences of women of color needed to be
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represented if these oppositional discourse were to remain radical.
(Smith Valeire. 315)
The challenge of these black women compelled the impulse among AngloAmerican feminist and Afro –Americanists to rematerialize the core theme of the
theoretical positions. As a result the black feminist writers like Zora Neale Huston,
Philip Wheatley, Alice Walker and Rebecca Cox Jackson had to appear in all of those
texts of Anglo-American Feminist and African-Americanists ―as a historizing
presence testifies to the power of the instituent voices of the black feminist literary
and cultural critics‖ (ibid).‖
Black feminist literary theory proceeded from the assumption that black
women experience a unique form of oppression in discursive along with
nondiscursive practice because they are victims at once of sexism, racism by
extension classism. But with the help of many black female writers of the late 1960‘s
and throughout the 1970‘s like Patricia Hill Collins (1948), Barbara Christian (19432000) and Rosermary Raford Ruether (1936), black feminist theory attained a new
dimension of self-discrimination, self-affirmation which lead to the further
development of various prolific theories.
Patricia Hill Collins is essentially a black feminist theorist who has formulated
theories of empowerment, self-definition, and knowledge for black women and she is
obviously concerned with black women‘s oppression with which she is most
intimately familiar. Collins argues in her Black Feminist Thought, Knowledge,
Consciousness and Political Power (2000) that black women are uniquely situated in
a state of oppression that they stand at the focal point where two exceptionally
powerful and prevalent systems of oppression come together: race and gender.
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Barbara Christian is a black feminist crtic, theologian and professor of
African-American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Among several
books, and over 100 published articles, Christian is most well known for the 1980
study Black Women Novelists: The Development of a Tradition (1980) in which she
articulates the existence and examines the origin of tradition, and trace the
development of stereotypical images imposed on black women.
Rosemary Radford Ruether being a Catholic theologian elaborates her feminist
theology for the uncovering, understanding, and undoing of many forms of oppression
in women, especially sexism. Her theologies question the patriarchal nature of
tradition. She specially raises queries about the theology primarily written by men for
men. Her works informs her strong claims for a theology written by women for
women. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (1993), Gaia and God:
An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing (1994) and The Wrath of Jonah: The
Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2002) are her
famous works.
In the beginning of the twentieth century many black women started to
question the role of sexism and racism within the civil rights movement. The black
women found the triple jeopardy of race, class and gender and so they became
descanted with the white dominant feminist movements. The position of the black
feminist became difficult and most often at odds when compared with that of the
whites. They were also criticized by the black male scholars who were concerned
exclusively with the racial issues.
The history of black women to attain the foothold in academics had recorded
great efforts. In 1862, Mary Jene Patterson became the first black women in the U.S
to receive a college degree, graduating from Obalin College in Ohio.Finding it
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difficult to get a teaching position at her place she moved to Washington D.C where
she taught in a high school for coloured youth. In 1921 the first three doctoral degrees
were awarded to African American women. The first to be awarded a Ph.D was
Georgian Simpson at the University of Chicago, Germany. Eva Beatrice Dykes was
the first women to receive a doctoral degree in English.
Throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, African
Americans were precluded from making inroads into teaching at universities due to
persistence school segregation and racial custom. At the beginning, as concerned by
the U.S. Department of English, only 4.9 percent of all college and university black
academics held the faculty position national wide. As a gradual progress black women
now are awarded more than sixty percent of all doctorates which could explain that
the black women have positive effects on the faculty post. It is clearly evident that
black women had now made one half of all black faculty members at institutions of
higher education. The national college graduation rate according to pullmag.com in
June 2013, for black men is 33.1 percent compared with 44.8 percent for black
women, according to the U.S. Department of Education. The total graduation rate is
57.3 percent. Black men represent 7.9 percent of 18-to-24-year-old in America but
only 2.8 percent of undergraduates at public flagship universities.
Fig.2 National College Graduation Rates
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The black female have attained a special position in all the spheres of
American society. On concerning literature black women have surpassed black men
which barbara Christian states in her new feminist christicism.
Of all the contributions by the black female, the black feminist theatre has
considerably contributed to the empowerment of black womanhood. The rise of the
black theatre, and consequently of the black feminist theatre has reacting effect in
awakening the radical potential in the black woman.
Black Theatre Movement was a part of Black Art Movement that developed
under the banner of Black Consciousness Plays. Black Consciousness Plays were
entirely different from Black Revolutionary Plays. Black Consciousness Plays
suggested more positive alternatives and were successfully braving blacks with the
use of dialectical and with the dismissive aspects of their consciousness.
As defined by articles, journals and spokesmen the Black Theatre Movement
serves the following two purposes. First outgrown naturally of civil rights movement
and the black power movement deals with the lives of Black people and functions as a
significant element liberating black people. Secondly it upholds the black
consciousness on the one hand and eradicates the negative Black image on the other,
that has been created by the racist-oriented literature, by creating new and more
positive black images. Carolyn F. Gerald (1976) in his work ―The Black Writer and
his Role‖ (2012) notifies ―We must reject white attempts at portraying black reality‖
(134).
The black theatre movement was highly influenced by the minstrel
phenomenon and the black musicals of 1890‘s and 1920‘s. James Weldon Johnson in
his book Black Manhattan (1930) divides the growth of black theatre into three
phases. The first phase begins with the findings of the Georgia Minstrel by Charles
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Hicks around 1865. This Minstrel was later developed during the 1960‘s and 1970‘s
by creating a big break for the professional American theatre.
The second phase dates from Sam T. Jack‘s 1890 Creole show. The AfroAmerican theatre freed itself from the minstrel tradition and its plantation stigma
during this phase. The third phase could be traced around 1910 , when the Blacks
migrated from the downtown theatres of the Manhattan to the uptown theatres of
Harlem.
The contribution of the male dramatist in the African American theatre was
very few and to name a few were William Henry Brown, James Baldiwn and
Imammu Amiri Baraka. The work of these play writers questioned the fundamental
personal dilemma and complex social and psychological thwarting. They expressed
violence misogyny, phobia and racism. But the works of the female play writes
surpassed the male in the style and thematic exploration.
Of all the contributions rendered by the male and female dramatists, the
literary achievements of Ntozake Shange reigns supreme. Her feminist artistry skill in
the theatrical arts, onliving the past ancient choreography through poetic style has
proved her to be the only black feminist with an exuberant technical skills in the
theatrical forms.
A name means a lot more than just a signature on your MasterCharge.
It‘s who you are. I didn‘t want to ghle defined by a heritage that
infuriates me. I didn‘t want any kind of Angand tho-Saxon name
because European culture has nothing to do with me. And I didn‘t
want my first name because I was named after my father [Paul
T.Williams]-I didn‘t want a man‘s name either. I had a violent
resentment of carrying a slave name Poems and music come from the
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pit of myself, and the pit of myself isn‘t a slave. (qtd in Brown 115)
Shange offers this comment not just to part from her slave past. She brazens
out for being named by a patriarchal and racial manner. This confrontation signifies
her unwavering labour toward self-definition, self-awareness, and a consciousness
embracing her African past and present. Shange starts her attack on eurocentricism
from this ‗revolutionary‘ move through her plays. As Wordsworth describes poetry as
‗a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling… emotions recollected in tranquility‘ so
is the art of Shange‘s. Jack Kroll wrote in a Newsweek review of the Public Theatre
production of for colored girls…
Shange‘s poems aren‘t war cries they‘re out cries filled with a
controlled passion against the brutality that blasts the lives of ―colored
girls‘-a phrase that in her hands vibrates with social irony and poetic
beauty. These poems are political in the deepest sense, but there‘s no
dogma, no sentimentally, no grinding of false mythic axes. (qtd in
Locher 535)
Despite a happy childhood full of culture and art, Shange grew up affected by
racism and sexism. Her father, Paul T. Williams, was a musician and painter as well
as a ringside surgeon, and her mother Eloise Williams, was a psychiatric social
worker and educator. The Williams household was frequently visited by well-known
African American musicians, writers and sports figures.
Born in an affluent family, her childhood was complicated by much of the
civil rights movement and she was forced into an integrated School after the Brown
versus the Broad of Education decision, where she suffered much discrimination both
racially and sexually. The school provided only alienation which Shange could not
endure than after. Shange attended Bernard College in New York City, where she
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earned a bachelor‘s degree in American studies, emphasizing African American
poetry and music, in 1970. Following her parents footstep and to settle down in family
relationship that resulted only a bitter experience and forced her to become a divorcee.
She married a lawyer and the depression over his leaving her, prompted her to several
suicide attempts.
Shange‘s life struggles provided much of an inspiration to write. She pulled
herself to go out on her own. She underwent a spiritual transformation and baptized
herself from Paulette Williams to the Zulu Ntozake (she who comes with her own
things) Shange (who walk with (or like) a lion) in 1971. In this aspect Shange was
similar to that of Horswitha (930 A.D) the first female dramatist who lived up to her
name meaning ‗strong voice‘ she called herself ‗the mighty voice.‘ Her persistent,
labour made her to attain a triple career as an educator, a performer/director and a
writer. Shange mastered French, Spanish and Portuguese. In one of her interview she
says ―…. My mother told us that we could go anywhere in the world if we spoke
French, which is truly particularly in Africa‖ (Palmisano, 29).
Shange taught women studies program residing in Oakland, California. She
broke out on her own after college that proved difficult for the roles that she chose
herself one after the other including war correspondent and jazz musician were
dismissed by her parents as ―no good for women‖ and ―there was nothing left‖ but to
become a writer which she revealed to Stella Dong in one of the publishers‘ weekly
interview. She revised her poems often collaborating with dancer Paula Moss, who
developed dances based on poems. They also collaborated with musicians on
occasions which gave development to the theatrical text for colored girls who have
considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf (1975). Shange and Moss performed the
work in a number of venues in the New York City. They were ultimately attracted
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towards theatrical producers like Woodie King a preeminent producer in New York
City and Joseph Papp owner of New York Shakespeare Festival. Shange joined with
Papp to produce the play at the festival‘s public theatre which was transferred to
commercial theatre in 1976, where it enjoyed a two-run.
for colored girls…, catapulted Shange into the public eye which was followed
by a photograph: still life with shadow; a photograph: a study of cruelty (1977) was
published as a photograph: lovers in motion in 1981. Subsequent plays include
boogie woogie landscapes (first produced in 1979) and spell # 7: geechee jibara quick
magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people (1979). Shange
adapted Bertolt Brech‘s Mutter Courage und ihre kinder (1941) mother courage and
her children) was produced at the public theatre in 1980. In 1985 she adapted her
novel betsey brown for the musical stage in collaboration with playwright Emily
Mann and composer Baikida Carroll; the musical premiered in 1989.
A part from performing in for colored girls… Shange continued to write
poems. Her first published collections were nappy edges (1978) and natural disasters
and other festival occasions (1979). Shange‘s first effort at writing fiction was the
novella sassafrass (1976), which she expanded into the novel sassafrass, cypress and
indigo (1982). Her major publication of the 1980‘s includes a daughter’s geography
(1983) a collection of poems and see no evil: prefaces, essays, and accounts, 19761984, a collection of prose pieces. Returning to an interest in the visual art inspired by
her father‘s as a painter, Shange collaborated with visual artist Wopo Holup for From
Okra to Green (1984), a collection of poems and illustrations based on a piece first
performed in 1978, and wrote ridin’ the moon in texas: word paintings (1987), a
collection of responses in prose and poetry to works of visual art by a variety of
artists. Her works those came out in 1990‘s received good recognitions.
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The love space demands: a continuing saga was published in 1991 and
produced in 1992. She came out with her long fiction liliane: resurrection of the
daughter in 1994. Kaiama L.Glover in her article to The New York Times exhibits
about Shange‘s exposition as a novelist.
Now Ntozake Shange (of ―For Colored Girls Who Have Considered
Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf‖ fame) and her playwright sister,
Ifa Bayeza, have staked their own place in this tradition with their
novel, ―Some Sing, Some Cry.‖ A rich mix of storytelling and AfricanAmerican history, it follows seven generations of black women who,
largely through music, are able to survive the violence of their national
and personal histories even as they find themselves too battle-scarred
to mother their children with real joy.(59)
A non fiction if i can cook, you know god can was released in 1998. Her
children‘s literature includes whitewash (1997), muhammad ali: the man who could
float like a butterfly and who could sing like a bee (2002), daddy says (2003) later on
produced as a drama, ellinton was not a street (2004). Shange‘s poetry has received
more consistently favorable critical response than her work in other forms. She wrote
in i live in music in 1994 and the sweet breath of life: a poetic narrative of the African
American family in 2004.
The works of Shange does not fall into the traditional categories of drama,
poetry and fiction. She won the Los Angeles times book prize for poetry in 1981 for
three pieces (1981), actually a collection of plays in poetry. She has received a
number of other prestigious literary and theatrical awards, including two Obie (offbroadway) awards and the pushcart prize. Although her recent work for the theatre
has not attracted the attention lavished on for colored girls…, Shange has continued to
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write plays and to direct her own plays and those of others, often in experimental
theatre spaces or outside New York. She serves on the faculty in the department of
drama at the University of Houston, which made her a permanent resident in
Philadelphia.
A woman who has her eye on Broadway success- and who achieve it
over
a long period of time- had to disguise her ardor for a feminist
message. She puts critics off guard at times by giving them the
polished comedies that Broadway audiences wanted, and interesting
into them some questions about woman‘s position in American society.
She took time- worn themes and breathed new life into them by
approaching questions a bit differently, always from a woman‘s point
of view. Her popularity in her own time should not keep us from
acknowledging her contribution to American theater. (Schlueter 58)
As a child, Shange attempted to develop herself as a writer. Often times her
writing was uploaded by racist backlash that discouraged her from continuing. As a
result, Shange‘s writing was labelled as ‗too black,‘ but despite her disappointment
she continued her academic career by studying and writing about American culture
and history. She managed to graduate with honors from Barnard. In the early nineteen
seventies, Shange found courage, and the cloud of past failure began to dissolve as
she started living with people who encouraged her art. It was during this time that
Shange began to develop herself as an artist, and changed her name to Ntozake
Shange.
Shange studied dance, art, religion, writing, culture and music. Her childhood
was filled with music, literature and art. Dizzy Gillepie, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry,
and W.E.B. Du Bois were among the frequent guests at her parent‘s house. On
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Sunday afternoons Shange‘s family held variety shows. She recalled them in a selfinterview published in Contemporary Literary Criticism where Palmisano states
my mama wd read from dunbar, Shakespeare, Countee Cullen, T.S.
Eliot. my dad wd play congas & do magic tricks. my to sisters & my
brother & i wd do soft-shoe & then pick up the instruments for a
quartet of some sort: a violin, a cello, flute & saxophone. we all read
constantly. anything. anywhere. we also tore the prints outta art books
to carry around with us. sounds/images, any explorations of personal
visions waz the focus of my world. (74)
During this time she began, in earnest, to explore her life, identity and
experiences and incorporate them into her art. An article chronicling great African
American writers states, ―by discovering in movement some of the intricacies and
strengths of her identity as a black woman, Shange found that she was also
discovering her voice as a poet‖ (Baechler 381). Shange also worked with different
dance troupes, especially Halifu Osumare‘s ‗The Spirit of Dance‘ were she picked up
experience of working and producing followed by her collaboration with ‗the sound
clinic‘ in 1974 which eventually gave way to for colored girls who have considered
suicide/when thee rainbow is enuf. Brown- guillory states
I began not only reading my poetry in women‘s bars. Not lesbian bars,
necessarily, but women‘s bars, where they can go without being
hassled or having someone try to pick them up Anyhow those were the
places that would hire me and when I was there‘ I realized I was where
I belonged (116).
Shange does want to stop with performance, she necessitated the sharing of
consciousness. The soul of her work has not only the experiences of an individual but
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an experience of African American women. The performance was picked up by the
audience as a ―must see‖ that forced for a change of venue. Shange brought the show,
as it had no name at this point, to New York and the performance has changed and
developed. Oz Scott was brought in to help with the production to provide advice and
support. There had never been a need for the work to be structured and consisted until
then. As a step forward, the performance opened Off-Broadway and then Broadway,
in the booth theatre. It was commissioned by Joseph Papp who was the art director at
the time.
Regarding the success on Broadway of Shange, took the play apart from the
black woman on which Lester claims ―Lost was the intended intimacy metaphorically
with young black girls that Shange sought as she unraveled some of the mysteries of
her own experience as an adolescent‖ (23).
The study entitled ‗Black Feminist Altruism: The Radical Potential in the
Gamut of Ntozake Shange‘s Choreo Drama‘ analyses the five plays for colored girls
who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf; spell # 7: geechee jibara
quick magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people; a
phtgraph lovers in motion;boogie woogie landscape and From Okra to Green:a
different kinda love story/ a play with music and dance from a black feminist
perspective. It has been broadly divided into five chapters which includes
‗Introduction,‘ ‗Dancing the Body Malaise,‘ ‗Cognitive Configurations,‘ ‗Black
Theatre Dramaturgies,‘ and ‗Conclusion.‘ The study is based on the hypothesis that,
the black female has undergone a legacy of historical oppression. Despite the agony
encountered in body mind and soul, she has unearthed her potential by her cognitive
configurations in her ‗self‘ and in unison with others and has danced her body malaise
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with her cultural heritage thereby continuous to emerge as a radical potential
altruistically.
The first chapter titled ‗Introduction‘ deals with the history of the women in
the past and the present. The rich heritage of the Africans, their poverty, the passing
of the middle passage and their slave life is also discussed in this chapter. The talent,
ability, aptitude and endowment of the black women and the oppression of these
women by the white society in spite of their skills is also elaborated. The movements
that developed in favour of black females, the scholars, academicians, theologiests,
and literarians who worked for the development of African American females are
recogonised by surveying the African American literature. Shange‘s childhood, career
and works are also discussed. A brief introduction to the other chapters are also given.
The second chapter entitled ‗Dancing the Body Malaise‘ deals with the unison
of body and soul which later developed conflict leading to the identity of physical
structure. This resulted in sexual identity as male and female in turn which led to the
suppression of female. The reason for female suppression has also been discussed.
The physical and psychological violence and pains encountered by the black women
which in turn have affected their psyche is also focused. The women characters of all
the five plays are taken for experimentation in this chapter. The degraded status of the
black women amidst the black and the white men, the influence of men in a
patriarchal family and the mindset of the black female in this male dominant sphere is
clearly portrayed.
The third chapter entitled ‗Cognitive Configurations‘ elaborates the sanguine
contemplations and deeds of the female protagonists in all the plays taken for
experimentation. The process of transformation of victims into a self-esteemed
individual, the celebration of blackness and these black women‘s experience as
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exhibited in the plays has been vividly examined. The discourse among these women
of their objective and emotional problems direct them towards the attainment of the
self consciousness.The new pivotal elements of empowering their body and soul
through the dance within this place exhibit varied functions. The two fold functions;
the purpose within the dramatic text and dance helps the women characters to
eradicate their pain and such varied therapeutic functions of dance have been
elaborately discussed.
The dreams of the black female with the ignorance of her social knowledge
are sketched clearly in this chapter. The dream of a single female is carried over to
and becomes the dream of the female counter parts. The body is at rest and the
cognitive visions leading to the awakening of the body, mind and soul has been
examined. After undergoing these transformations the dream of the female is carried
over to male, who though denies in the beginning, accepts it at the end proves Shange
to have transformed her mission of feminism to altruism for a holistic zeal which
would lead to universal harmony.
For the attainment of feminist consciousness in Shange‘s women characters,
the seven women in ‗for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow
is enuf’; lily, natalie, maxine and dahlia in ‗spell # 7’; clarie, nevadha and michael in
‗a photograph: lovers in motion’; layla in ‗boogie woogie landscape‘ and Okra From
Okra to Greens: a different kind of love story with music and dance, the most
influential theories of cognitive development, group therapy, motherhood and grandmotherhood, ethic of care and colour psychology have been appeled for
rationalization. With their ability to represent the female world and perform logical
operations pertaining to the concepts grounded in the world the gradual process of
awakening through cognitive modes have been interpreted.
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The fourth chapter termed ‗Black Theatre Dramaturgies‘ discusses the
rhetorical and ritual elements used by Shange in all the five choreo plays taken for
study. The origin and development of all the theatrical elements, the beginnings of the
African Grove theatre, the development of the African American theatre as an ethic
theatre in spite of the historical conflicts are vibrantly portrayed. The collective ethic
authenticity that has been made use by Shange to draw a magic circle through the
choreo poem to enrich the genre-drama historically within the limited orbit of the
African American discourse is also depicted luminously.
The chapter also focuses on the language of their trauma that has been
articulated. A detail analyses of an attack on the Eurocentric language with the
collaboration of the nonverbal speech acts and dialogic texts that have been utilized to
provide a visual representation has been explicitly interacted. Shange‘s varied use of
indigenous oral, religious, cultural and artistic elements like song, music, dance, myth
and their presentation of black themes, characters, settings, properties and costumes,
the use of black magic in a minstrel show along with various modes of narrations like
soliloquies, monologues and stream of consciousness technique which she has utilized
to exhibit the recovery of traditional past and also to asserts her progression from
feminist to feminist altruism is clearly drawn out.
In the last chapter entitled ‗Conclusion‘ the extracts of each chapter is brought
out and the complete arguments drawn and assumptions derived chapter-wise is
presented. The findings of the study have been vividly depicted. The implications of
the study with the scope for further research have also been suggested.
The next chapter, titled, ‗Dancing the Body Malaise‘ analyses the agonized
black female body with reference to the five play taken for study. The oppressions,
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humiliation which had them to a state of death and with their integrated effort move
towards reconciliation has been examined.