Still the Master’s House?
Still the Master’s House?
This chapter examines novels that revisit slavery: Kindred (1979) by Octavia Butler and Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison. These texts exemplify black women’s attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to create spaces of empowerment for modern women and places of honor for women ancestors at a time when Alex Haley’s Roots and Kunta Kinte had overtaken the community conversation. Butler and Morrison expose the damage done when African Americans assume female forebears had functioned primarily as race traitors and matriarchs. Their novels suggest that black success requires more nuanced understandings of how the past affects the present. [97 of 125]
Keywords: Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison, Alex Haley, Roots, Kunta Kinte, race traitors, matriarchs, success, community conversation, African Americans, slavery
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