Burnin' down the house : home in African American literature / Valerie Sweeney Prince.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Prince, Valerie Sweeney.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--African American authors--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Domestic fiction, American--History and criticism.

Domestic fiction, American.

African American families in literature.

African Americans--Intellectual life.

African Americans.

African American women in literature.

African Americans in literature.

Dwellings in literature.

Families in literature.

Home in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (226 p.)

Other Title:

Burning down the house

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Home is a powerful metaphor guiding the literature of African Americans throughout the twentieth century. While scholars have given considerable attention to the Great Migration and the role of the northern city as well as to the place of the South in African American literature, few have given specific notice to the site of "home." And in the twenty years since Houston A. Baker Jr.'s Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature appeared, no one has offered a substantial challenge to his reading of the blues matrix. Burnin' Down the House creates new and sophisticated possibilities for a critical engagement with African American literature by presenting both a meaningful critique of the blues matrix and a careful examination of the place of home in five classic novels: Native Son by Richard Wright, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, and Corregidora by Gayl Jones.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: A House Is Not a Home

1. Living (Just Enough) for the City: Native Son

2. Keep on Moving Don't Stop: Invisible Man

3. Get in the Kitchen and Rattle Them Pots and Pans: The Bluest Eye

4. She's a Brick House: Corregidora

5. God Bless the Child That's Got His Own: Song of Solomon

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780231508797

0231508794

OCLC:

60934860