masarykuniversity.docVIP

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies Jana Dre?erová Canary Petunias in Bloom: Black Feminism in Poetry of Alice Walker and Rita Dove Magisterská diplomová práce Supervisor: Mgr. Kate?ina Prajznerová, PhD. Brno 2006 Author’s Statement: I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. Jana Dre?erová Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Mgr. Kate?ina Prajznerová, PhD. for her kind help, useful advice and revision of my dissertation. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction……………………………………………………...……………...…4 I.1. African American Women’s Literary Movement and the Revival of Poetry……………………………………………………………………6 I.2. Purple to Lavender: Black Feminism and Womanism………………….….11 I.3. Alice Walker and Rita Dove………………………………………………..15 Her Brown Embrace Eternal: Being Black and Woman………………………24 II.1. Women with the Blessed Dark Skin: Self-definition of African American Women……………………………………………………………………..25 II.1.a. Prisoners of the “Other”…...25 II.1.b. Importance and Nonimportance of Race……………………...……29 II.1.c. To Be a Woman…………………………………………………36 II.2. Council between Equals: The Theme of Marriage………………………...39 II.3. Even As I Hold You, I Am Letting Go: The Theme of Motherhood……...50 One of Many, Each of Us: Black Women’s Oppression………………………...58 III.1. “Mulification”: The Social Dimension of Black Women’s Oppression…58 III.2. On the Same Bus: The Political Dimension of Black Women’s Oppression66 III.3. Brown Venus: The Ideological Dimension of Black Women’s Oppression……………………………………………………………….78 Complicated Balance: Conclusion………………………………………………..88 Works Cited and Used….……………………………………………………………..96 Introduction In my thesis I examine a phenomenon of the post-Civil Rights Movement—Black feminism. To explore the core themes of Black feminist thought—racism, sexism and classism—I use the poetry