The Construction Of Cultural Confidence In African American Literature

African American literature is vibrant and fruitful,and now has become a major school in the world literature.This thesis tries to study how African American writers construct the cultural confidence in literary works.Black Americans,also known as African Americans,were descendants of African black slaves who were transported to the New World by European settlers in history.Unlike the black African literature,African American literature created by African Americans cares about both African stories and American life.Through the path of literary creation,African American writers not only reali e the blacks defense of their identity,gradually reduce the negative images of the black people in the world,but also get nutrition from the roots of African culture,confirm the values of African Americans in American society and construct the cultural confidence of the black people.This thesis tries to analy e the ways these African American writers build their confidence in their culture by close reading of the representative writers,such as,Zora Neale Hurston,Langston Hughes,Richard Wright,Ralph Ellison,Maya Angelou,Toni Morrison and Alice Walker,and their representative works from the 1920 s till now.Writing all aspects of the blacks,African American writers finally dig out how African Americans break the “white mythologies” and rebuild their values of “blacks are beautiful”.Also,through finding the African roots,those African Americans re-find their values of “born as human beings” and reali e their changing of identity from “slaves” to “American citi ens” in modern times.The rise of African American literature is based on its confidence in African traditional culture and the combination of it with the American historical reality.In this way,African American literature voices its powerful sound of culture.