Toni Morrison has written of a literary phenomenon she terms "literary blackness"--the depiction of black characters and blackness in the works of white writers. This dissertation examines the reverse of Morrison's observation, the creation of a similar "literary whiteness" in works by black authors, and posits that black writers often create white characters who function as "majority Others" that enable the creation of round and believable black characters and reinforce differences between blacks and whites. / The first two chapters analyze the nature of the Primary/Other dichotomy as it is manifested in contemporary multicultural literature and supply information concerning the nature of recent scholarship in this field. These chapters also discuss the existence and functions of the majority Other and supply a catalogue of the most frequently recurring conceptions of the majority Other in works by black authors. / Chapters Two through Five address, respectively, selected works of James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison, chosen because each of these writers brings a different conception of the Other to his or her work. While Baldwin often pits black and white in hostile confrontation, Walker accepts that black and white are not always the central issue for her work, and Morrison actually experiments with the removal of all racially coded language from her writing. / The conclusion examines ways in which the majority Other is both similar to and different from the minority Other, and suggests avenues for future critical exploration. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-09, Section: A, page: 2826. / Major Professor: Douglas Fowler. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77231 |
| Contributors | Applegate, Nancy Paula., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 253 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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