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Dividing Lines : Class Anxiety and Postbellum Black Fiction /
The author explores how African American literature in the late 19th century represents class divisions among Black Americans. By portraying complex, highly stratified communities with a growing Black middle class, authors dispelled popular notions that Black Americans were uniformly poor or uncivil...
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| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | Inglés |
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Ann Arbor :
University of Michigan Press,
[2012]
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| Series: | Book collections on Project MUSE.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Texto completo |
| Summary: | The author explores how African American literature in the late 19th century represents class divisions among Black Americans. By portraying complex, highly stratified communities with a growing Black middle class, authors dispelled popular notions that Black Americans were uniformly poor or uncivilized. But even as the writers highlighted middle-class achievement, they worried over whether class distinctions would help or sabotage collective Black protest against racial prejudice. The author argues that the signs of class anxiety are embedded in postbellum fiction: from the verbal stammer or prim speech of class-conscious characters to fissures in the fiction's form. In these telling moments, authors innovatively dared to address the sensitive topic of class differences - a topic inextricably related to American civil rights and social opportunity. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (232 pages). |
| ISBN: | 9780472028900 |