Article: Paule Marshall's 'Brown Girl, Brownstones': reconciling ethnicity and individualism. (African American woman author's semi-autobiographical novel)

Edward Said claims that "students of post-colonial politics have not . . . looked enough at the ideas that minimize orthodoxy and authoritarian or patriarchal thought, that take a severe view of the coercive nature of identity politics" (219). Paule Marshall's Brown Girl, Brownstones does exactly that: It explores the potential of coercion behind the notion of ethnic solidarity. What Carole Boyce Davis has said about autobiographical writings by black women holds true for the semi-autobiographical Brown Girl, Brownstones as well: "The mystified notions of home and family are removed from their romantic, idealized moorings, to speak of pain, movement, difficulty, learning and ...

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