The Self in Society: Exploring Cultural Embeddedness in Gloria Naylor’s Fiction
“Gloria Naylor is a strong voice, and a compassionate one,” said Brad Leithauser, Emily Dickinson lecturer in the humanities.” she writes-and speaks-with solid decided vigour of someone who has given her subject its thoughtful due.” Naylor believes herself to be a wordsmith and a storyteller. There is a reflection of her personal life and familial past in the form of names, places and even in the stories in her novels.Her novels are “linked” together. She refers to characters and places in one text that becomes significant in the next text. Naylor also draws extensively on the bible, which …show more content…
For her“writing is 99.44100% generalous and race less”. FurthermoreWriting for Naylor is a way of defining identity as Naylor relateswith her 1985 “Conversation” with Tony Morrison, in her creativewriting class she learned that in order to write good literature,one had to read good literature .She is the first black Afro-American writer to read her predecessors .The list included Tillie Olson, Henry Jones and Toni Morrison but it wasMorrison’s The bluest Eye that had a singular significance:“Time has been swallowed except for the moment I opened thatnovel because for my memory that semester is The Bluest Eyeand is the beginning. The presence of the work served two vitalpurposes at that moment in my life. It said to the young poet,struggling to break into prose, that the barriers were flexible; atthe core of it all is language, and if you’re skilled enough withthat, you can create your own genre. And it is said to a youngblack woman, struggling to find a mirror of her worth in thissociety, not only is your story worth telling but it can be told inwords so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song”. Ofrace relations in the United States, Naylor has said, “I think thebest way …show more content…
Ward offers a fine analysis of Naylor’s intenselymoral vision and highlights Naylor’s appropriation of Dantesqueview of hell to launch a devastating attack on the spiritualbarrenness and political vacuity that Naylor sees at the core ofthe African American upper-class life. Sherley Anne Williamsbelieves that Naylor “is a mature literary talent of formidableskill.” Each of the four novels was to be a voice representingsome part of the black community. The Women of BrewsterPlace was meant to “celebrate the female spirit and the abilityto transcend and also to give a microcosm of black women inAmerica- Black women in America who faced by a wall ofracism and sexism.” In this quartet Naylor provides stories inoctaves, themes in refrain, and characters in repetition. Withthe addition of her fifth novel, Naylor’s pattern of character andgeographical connection continues.Told by multiple narrators about vastly different individuals,Naylor’s novel operates on the principle that “there are just toomany sides to the whole story.” Naylor herself has become whatMarjorie Pryse terms a “metaphysical conjure woman,” amedium who, like Morrison, Walker, and others,” makes itpossible for…readers… to recognize their common literaryancestors (gardeners, quilt makers, grandmothers, rootworkers, and women who write autobiographies) and to nameeach other as a
“Gloria Naylor is a strong voice, and a compassionate one,” said Brad Leithauser, Emily Dickinson lecturer in the humanities.” she writes-and speaks-with solid decided vigour of someone who has given her subject its thoughtful due.” Naylor believes herself to be a wordsmith and a storyteller. There is a reflection of her personal life and familial past in the form of names, places and even in the stories in her novels.Her novels are “linked” together. She refers to characters and places in one text that becomes significant in the next text. Naylor also draws extensively on the bible, which …show more content…
For her“writing is 99.44100% generalous and race less”. FurthermoreWriting for Naylor is a way of defining identity as Naylor relateswith her 1985 “Conversation” with Tony Morrison, in her creativewriting class she learned that in order to write good literature,one had to read good literature .She is the first black Afro-American writer to read her predecessors .The list included Tillie Olson, Henry Jones and Toni Morrison but it wasMorrison’s The bluest Eye that had a singular significance:“Time has been swallowed except for the moment I opened thatnovel because for my memory that semester is The Bluest Eyeand is the beginning. The presence of the work served two vitalpurposes at that moment in my life. It said to the young poet,struggling to break into prose, that the barriers were flexible; atthe core of it all is language, and if you’re skilled enough withthat, you can create your own genre. And it is said to a youngblack woman, struggling to find a mirror of her worth in thissociety, not only is your story worth telling but it can be told inwords so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a song”. Ofrace relations in the United States, Naylor has said, “I think thebest way …show more content…
Ward offers a fine analysis of Naylor’s intenselymoral vision and highlights Naylor’s appropriation of Dantesqueview of hell to launch a devastating attack on the spiritualbarrenness and political vacuity that Naylor sees at the core ofthe African American upper-class life. Sherley Anne Williamsbelieves that Naylor “is a mature literary talent of formidableskill.” Each of the four novels was to be a voice representingsome part of the black community. The Women of BrewsterPlace was meant to “celebrate the female spirit and the abilityto transcend and also to give a microcosm of black women inAmerica- Black women in America who faced by a wall ofracism and sexism.” In this quartet Naylor provides stories inoctaves, themes in refrain, and characters in repetition. Withthe addition of her fifth novel, Naylor’s pattern of character andgeographical connection continues.Told by multiple narrators about vastly different individuals,Naylor’s novel operates on the principle that “there are just toomany sides to the whole story.” Naylor herself has become whatMarjorie Pryse terms a “metaphysical conjure woman,” amedium who, like Morrison, Walker, and others,” makes itpossible for…readers… to recognize their common literaryancestors (gardeners, quilt makers, grandmothers, rootworkers, and women who write autobiographies) and to nameeach other as a