This dissertation assesses rage and its utility for fictional Black girls and adolescents in asserting their humanity, accessing their voices, and developing strategies of resistance that contribute to their identity formation. Through analyses of six novels: 1) God Bless the Child, 2) Breath, Eyes, Memory, 3) The Hate U Give, 4) The Bluest Eye, 5) Daddy Was a Number Runner, and 6) The Poet X, this research presents rage as a canonical theme in Black women’s coming-of-age narratives and presents connections between rage, rights, and resistance. The connections, revealed through stimuli and adaptations associated with rage, frame an argument for North Americas as an arbiter of anger. The novels construct an “arc of anger” that places them in conversation about Black girl rage and presents a tradition of Black women crafting Black girl protagonists who are conduits for counternarratives of rage. This dissertation also examines how history, memory, and culture contribute to Black girls’ frustrations and knowledge bases. By looking to works published between the angry decade (the 1960s) and the age of rage (the 2010s), the research presents ways Black women novelists and their characters return to rage to combat social institutions and critique social constructions of Black girlhood and womanhood.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:auctr.edu/oai:digitalcommons.auctr.edu:cauetds-1378 |
| Date | 31 July 2019 |
| Creators | Perro, Ebony Le'Ann |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center |
| Source Sets | Atlanta University Center |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses & Dissertations Collection for Atlanta University & Clark Atlanta University |
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