Trudier Harris: From Mammies to Militants

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#CC0000" alink="#CC0000"><center><hr width="350" size="1" align="center" noshade>Rich in psychological insight, Harris shows how black authors use stereotypes in their fiction<hr width="350" size="1" align="center" noshade><p><a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/ChicagoBook.aspx?ISBN=9780877222798&&PRESS=temple" target="_top">Buy this book!</a> | <a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/Cart.aspx?PRESS=temple" target="_top">View Cart</a> | <a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/Cart.aspx?PRESS=temple" target="_top">Check Out</a></p><p><img src="276_reg.gif" height=200 border=1 vspace=4></p></center><h1>From Mammies to Militants</h1> <H2>Domestics in Black American Literature</H2> <h3>Trudier Harris</h3> <P>cloth 0-87722-279-7 $34.95, Nov 82, <FONT COLOR=#990033>Out of Print</FONT> <BR> 248 pp </P><BLOCKQUOTE><I>"There are no Dilseys here. If white authors had the luxury to canonize long-suffering blacks, the black author has had a more complex and more painful relation the subject. One cannot but wince to learn how many of these authors worked as maids, sometimes even after they had achieved a degree of literary success."</I> <br>&#151<b><I>The New York Times Book Review</I></b><I></I></BLOCKQUOTE> <p>The maid, like the matriarch, the hot mamma, or the tragic mulatto, is a stereotype of the black woman. From Charles Chesnutt's <I>The Marrow of Tradition</I> to Toni Morrison's <I>The Bluest Eye</I>, black writers, some of whom worked as domestics themselves, have developed the stereotype in a special way as a figure to comment on black-white relations or to dramatize the conflicts of the black protagonists. In fact, the characters themselves, like real-life maids, often use the stereotype to their advantage or to trick their oppressors. <p>Granny Huggs, in Kristin Hunter's <I>God Bless the Child</I>, Amy tragically give her soul to her white family and put on airs with her own kind, but most of the characters develop powerful strategies for coping with the mistress' tests of their honesty and the master's sexual advances. The stories and plays discussed here are rich in psychological insight. When Carl, the "Man of All Work," in Richard Wright's story, disguises himself as his wife when she can't go to work, he is suddenly thrust into the maid's world. The mistress of the house insists that "she" sponge her down in the bath, the master tries to make love to "her," and the whole racial history of intimacy and oppression flashes through Carl's mind. <p>Relationships between people are not the only battleground. The house itself is a place where the servant who "knows her place" uses <I>her</I> door or <I>her</I> water glass and enters a room only in a <I>certain</I> way. As the maids become more militant, they flaunt these rules to torment their employers and then to overthrow them altogether. <p>Professor Harris explores the differences between Northern and Southern maids and between "mammy" and "militant." She touches on nearly all black American writers of the twentieth century, but gives extended discussions of works by Charles Chesnutt, Kristin Hunter, Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, William Melvin Kelley, Alice Childress, John A. Williams, Douglas Turner Ward, Barbara Woods, Ted Shine, and Ed Bullins. <BR> <H2>About the Author(s)</H2> <P><b>Trudier Harris</b> is on leave from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she teaches English. She is currently a fellow at the Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College.</P> <BR><H2>Subject Categories</H2> <p><A HREF="/tempress/african.html" TARGET="_top">African American Studies</a> <BR><A HREF="/tempress/literature.html" TARGET="_top">Literature and Drama</a> <BR><A HREF="/tempress/women.html" TARGET="_top">Women's Studies</a> </p> <p align="center"><a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/ChicagoBook.aspx?ISBN=9780877222798&&PRESS=temple" target="_top">Buy this book!</a> | <a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/Cart.aspx?PRESS=temple" target="_top">View Cart</a> | <a href="https://cdcshoppingcart.uchicago.edu/Cart/Cart.aspx?PRESS=temple" target="_top">Check Out</a></p><p><font face="Arial" size="1"><a href="copyright.html" onMouseOver="window.status='Web Copyright Policy';return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''" title="Web Copyright Policy">©</a> 2015 <a href="http://www.temple.edu" target="new" onMouseOver="window.status='Link to Temple University home page';return true;" onMouseOut="window.status=''" title="Link to Temple University home page">Temple University</a>. All Rights Reserved. http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/276_reg.html</font></p>