Black Feminism In Gloria Naylor's Quartet

Gloria Naylor plays an important role in American literature, who is the most prominent black female writer since Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. Her works, with particular writing style and genuine writing point of view, illustrate actual life and inner mind of black females.Her first work The Women of Brewster Place gains the American Book Award in 1983 when she is granted with annual Distinguished Writer Award. Her quartet The Women of Brewster Place, Mama Day, Linden Hills, Bailey's Cafédraw great attention of the readers, leading to the security of her position in the literary world.This paper aims at revealing the social status and actual life of black female and the course of claiming their own identity by the means of sisterhood and cultural roots as well as the harmonious relationship between female, male and female, female and nature, the crucial elements in Black feminism.This paper could be divided into three parts:The first part is introduction, stating the theory of black feminism, especially the Womanism of Alice Walker as a branch of black feminism, the life experience of Gloria Naylor as well as literary review of this field. The second part is the main body of the paper, consisting of Chapter One, Chapter Two and Chapter Three. The first chapter mainly talks about the miserable life of black female under the racial discrimination related to political, economic as well as the social oppressions as well as patriarchal oppression in the family and society. The second chapter analyses sisterhood existed in the black female community. The third chapter discloses the process of gaining self-recognition of black female. It is the sisterhood, cultural roots as well as harmonious relationship between female, male and female, nature and female that contribute to the claiming of the true recognition of black women.The third part is conclusion. On one hand, it summarizes the main views related to the bewilderment and self-recognition of black female and womanism which holds out the harmony between male and female as well as the harmony among the humankind as a whole; On the other hand, it points out that women could be able to identify themselves and free themselves on the condition that all the human beings including the black females make their efforts to create the environment in harmony.