AND Introduction
YOSHINOBUHAKUTANI ROBERTBUTLER
Mo*to* and Lucia White observed in The lntellectual uersus the Cdtythat "For a variety of reasonsour most celebratedthinkers have expressed different degreer of ambivalence and animosity toward the city." Citing an "anti,urtan roar" in "our national literary pantheon" which included writers such as Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Haw, thorne,Melville, Poe, and Henry Adams, they concluded that there is nothing in our national literature like "the Greek attachment to the polis or the French writer's affection for Paris." Examining a wide rangeof American writers who they feel make up "the core of our intellectualhistory," Morton and Lucia White claim that "It would be extremelydifficult to cull from their writings a large anthology of poetryor social philosophy in celebration of American urban life.'t However,a substantial reversalof this anti,urtan drive in American literaturemay be found in African,American writing, a literary tradi, tion which has frequently been critical of the values expressedin mainstream American literature. While one of the central drives in our classicliterature has been a nearly reflexive desire to move away from the complexity and supposedcorruption of cities toward ideal, iaed non,urban settings such as Cooper's West, Thoreau's woods, Melville's seas,Whitman's open road, and Twain's river, very ofren the oppositehas been true in AfricanAmerican letters. To be sure, manyimportant black texts such as Washington's Up from Slauery, Dunbar'sLyrics from Lowly Life, and Alice Walker's The Third Life of Crrange Copeland expressa deep suspicion of city life, but the main tradition of black American literature has been persistently pro,urtan in vision. The Narratiue of the Life of Frederic\Douglass, for example, portraysthe rural South as a plantation culture intent on exploiting and then destroying black people, but it envisions the city as a place of deliverance. E. B. Du Bois, born in a small village in western W. likewise discovered greatlv expanded possibilities for Massachusetts, development cities such as Boston and Atlanta. James Weldon in perceiving New York for the first time in 1899, enthusiasti, Johnson,
10
IvrnooucrroN
hsrn
cally embracedthe modern American city as a place of renewal: "the glimpse of life I caught during our last f,wo or three weeks in New York . . . showed me a new world, an alluring world, a tempting world of greatly lessened restraints,a world of fascinatingperils; bui above all, a world of tremendousartistic potentialities."2 Langston Hughes would later help to fulfrll these potentialities in his celebrations of Harlem, x city which fired his imagination and became the center of his life and art. His first view of New York in 1925 is remarkably similar to Johnson'searlier evocation of that city: "There is no thrill in all the world like entering, for the first time, New York Harbor . . . New York is truly the dream city-city of towers near God, c.ity of hopesand visions."3Richard Wright's vision ofChicago is split between wonder and terror, but it is always prefer, able to the rural alternativesin Mississippiwhich Wright so.caiegori, cally rejected.A "fabulous . . . indescribableciry," Chicago was 6oth a brutally naturalistic environment which could crush Bigger Thomas and also a world of "high idealism"awhich could help to liberate the narrator of Blac\ Boy and American Hunger. Never romanticized, it nevertheless provided Wright with a compellingsymbol of American identity, the larger world for which he hungered. And when Wright despairedof achieving human identity in the United States, he re, newed his search for selfhood in Paris. Much important African,American literature which has emerged since the Depression has also been largely urban in character. Al, though never hesitant to criticize the negative aspectsof American city life, it has only rarely suggestedthat pastoral alternatives to the city exist for black people.This large and significantbody of literature, moreover, contains some surprising celebrationsof city life. James Baldwin's best fiction is rooted in New York, a place of extraordinary beauty as well as pain. Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promise'd Land, which set out to tell the story of "the first urban generationof Negroes," is_careful to point out that black people in the city are "better off"5 than their counterparts in the rural South becausethe city, for all its corruptions and violence, has the vitality and educa, tional possibilities necessary for the "better life' Brown himself achieved.Amiri Baraka's 1981 essay"Black Literature and the Afro, American Nation: The Urban Voice" argues that, from the Harlem Renaissance onward, black literature has been "urban shaped," pro, ducing a uniquely "black utban consciousness." While careful not to glossover the problemsof black peoplein American cities, he predicts that the setting for black liberation will be the city: "But if tie cities represent higher levels of perception and sophistication for us in America, they must be the focal point of yet more advancedlevels of
struggle."6And Toni Morrison, city in general has often inducer writers, nevertheless adds thar with an "affection" for "the vil hoods which are repositoriesfo Gwendolyn Brooks's poetry ol unity within the black neighbc lage" of black life can be found t BrewsterPlace.Despitethe urba details, some hope is affirmed at of community spirit symbolized and the preparations for a blocl One way to explain this surl African,American literature is t black people in America. Fron to denied imaginative access a 1 the institution of slavery did r memory of that world. And the did not permit them the luxur urban settings which are so m Cooper, Melville, and Twain. discover, the territories aheadc people. In the era following the for reinslavement were devised tion and the practice of sharec black people to estabiisha pos serve as a counterbalance to th The black writer, therefore, envision jdealized non'utban s1 urtan living. As Blyden Jackso its beginning has been urban in strongly linked in the black im War forms of racial discriminat portray city life as a way to cot liberating imagesof black exper this is particularly true of Africe is a city novel. It almost alway The city, therefore, has bee and that literature has been re it has used urban settings and African,American literature r( A. neat generalizations. Robert Harlem, stressesthis important
IvrnooucrroN
11
struggle."6 A'rrd Toni Morrison, although stressingthat the American city in generalhas often induced a sense "alienation" in many black of writers, nevertheless adds that modern black literature is suffused with an "affection" for "the village within" the city, black neighbor, hoodswhich are repositoriesfor life,sustaining"community values."7 Gwendolyn Brooks's poetry often celebrates this sense of cultural unity within the black neighborhoods of South Chicago, and a "vil, lage"of black life can be found even in Gloria Naylor's The \Momenof Brewster Place.Despite the urban horrors which that book so painfully details,somehope is affirmed at the end of the novel by the emergence of community spirit symbolized by the tearing down of ghetto walls and the preparations for a block party. One way to explain this surprisingly positive image of the city in African,American literature is to examine the historical experienceof black people in America. From the very outset, black people were deniedimaginativeaccess a pre,urban homeland in Africa because to the institution of slavery did everything possible to stamp out the memory that world. And the actual experience slavesin America of of did not permit them the luxury of romantically imagining the non. urban settings which are so mythically prominent in the fictions of Cooper,Melville, and Twain. As Huckleberry Finn and Jim sadly discover, territories aheadcould be truly liberating only for white the people. the era following the literal end of slavery, new strategies In for reinslavementwere devised in the South where codes of segrega, tion and the practice of sharecroppingwere to make it impossible for blackpeopleto establish a positive image of rural life which could serveas a countertalance to the pull of the cities. The black writer, therefore, has usually found it inappropriate to envisionidealized non,urban space as a relief from the pressuresof urban living. As Blyden Jacksonhas pointed out, black literature from its beginninghas been urban in outlook becauserural life has been so strongly linked in the black imagination with slavery and post.Civil War forms of racial discrimination that black writers were drawn to portraycity life as a way to counter Southern stereotypeswith more liberating imagesof black experiencein the urban North. ForJackson, thisis particularly true of African,American fiction: "The Negro novel is a city novel. It almost always has been."8 The city, therefore, has been a crucial symbol in black literature andthat literature has been remarkable for the rich variety of ways it has used urban settings and themes. Becauseof this, the city in AfricanAmerican literature resists any simple categorizations and neatgeneralizations. Robert Lee, in discussing A. literary portraits of Harlem, stresses this important point:
12
IvrnooucrroN
The only fact aboutHarlem . . . maybe its intractability,its undiminished refusalto be accommodated any singleexplanation. by That, onesupposes and readilycelebrates, accounts why therehavebeensomanyHarlems for in on the mind-be they expressed the novel or in any of the abundant other formsinspiredby the enduringblack First City of America.e LeRoiJones likewise cautioned againstapplying simplistic abstractions to black cities like Harlem when he insisted that Harlem "like any other city . . . must escapeany blank generalizationssimply because it is alive, and changing each second with each breath any of its citizens take."lo This selection of essays,therefore, is not informed by a narrow thesis which would limit one's view of how black writers have pre, sented the city; rather, it contains many different perspectiveson the black city. The impression emerging from this book is that the city has been-and continues to be-a live subject for black American writers, inspiring a rich diversity of literary visions of the city as it is captured by black writers from different times, places,backgrounds, and anglesof perception. For example,the predominantly hopeful im, ages of the city contained in slave narratives contrast sharply with later naturalistic accounts of urban reality expressedin novels such as Willard Motley's Knoc( on Any Door and Ann Petry's The Street. The socially diverse ethnic neighborhood of Marita Bonner's Frye Street and Entsironsis quite different from the teeming ghetto por, trayed in Claude Brown's Mancltild in the PromisedLand. In the sameway, Richard Wright's Chicago is distinct from JamesBaldwin's Harlem. Even when black writers living in similar time periods focus on the samecity, they often develop radically different literary visions of that city. No one, for example,would mistakeEllison's distinctively surrealistic depiction of Harlem for Malcolm X's grittily mimetic por, trait of that sameplace.
RobertButler's"The J,rr;
;;;*
10"." rn Life andrimesof
Frederic\Douglass" considersDouglass'sbook a "paradigmatic" text in African,American literature becauseit sharply challengedthe pastoral vision of much mainstream American literature and suggesteda new direction for black writers which was largely urban in character. Douglass discredits standard pastoral settings such as the farm, the forest, and the small town, while associatingthe city with various forms of human liberation. Although he is careful not to romanticiue the American city, Douglass neverthelessinsists that pastoral dreams have always been at odds with black realities in America and that
the American citY, f space for black peoPl Donald B. Gibsor Illusionary Dimensic space to create man careful to warn readt sance literature cann r lithic generalization place. Instead, Gibso it is a multiplicity or it is as much as imal Harlem Renaissance complex and manY's after the end of the I Nathan Huggins wh because it was prem Gibson argues that writers which endut The next two essa Wright's utban visic Wright's Quest for I ment of black PeoP the pivotal event in people accessto nev to achieve new live pathological feature stresses in Natiue S created the possibil nomic, social, and P "No Street Number chantment with the tain aspectsof mode cities which Wright culty or impossibilit social forces that tr; scheme the city is a it through its own c Essays by Eberha of two Europeancit: macht frei!: African ( veys the resPonses from the I to Berlin, War II, stressingth,
hvrnooucrroN
13
the American city, for all of its limitations, can be a liberating new space black people. for Donald B. Gibson's "The Harlem RenaissanceCity: Its Multi, ilusionary Dimension" stresseshow black writers used this urban space create many new directions in black literature. Gibson is to to in carefi.rl warn readersthat the city which emerges Harlem Renais, literature cannot be adequately graspedin terms of any mono, sance lithic generalization which reducesthe city to either a "good" or "evil" place. Instead,Gibson argues "The city is not just one or cwo things; it is a multiplicity of combinationsof forces,of entities, of alliances; it is as much as imagination will allow." The urban literature of the HarlemRenaissance, thus grounded in a vision of city life that was complex and many,sided,continued to influence black literature long afterthe end of the 1920s.Questioning the assumptionsof writers like Nathan Huggins who claimed that the Harlem Renaissance"failed" because was premised upon ideas which were naive and romantic, it Gibsonargues that the Harlem Renaissanceleft a legacy for black writers which endures to the present. The next fwo essays focus on two very different aspectsof Richard Wright's urban vision. Yoshinobu Hakutani's "The City and Richard Wright's Quest for Freedom" examinesWright's belief that the rroV, mentof black people from the rural South to the urban North was the pivotal event in modern black history, becauseit allowed black people access new forms of freedom which could empower them to to achievenew lives. Although he never hesitates to point out the pathologicalfeatures of American urban life, Wright nevertheless stresses ),Iatiue Son, Blac\ Boy, and The Outsider that the city in created the possibility of not only personal transformation but eco, nomic,social, and political transformation as well. Jack B. Moore's *No Street Numbers in Accra," however, records Wright's disen, chantment with the African city and his subsequentrecoil from cer, tain aspects modern African life. Moore stressesthat the African of which Wright describesin Blac( Power demonstrated diffi, "the cities culty or impossibility of overcoming deterministic environmental and social forces that trap individuals and entire societies.In this hostile the scheme city is a power that seemsto drag humanity down with it through its own disorder and decay." Essays Eberhard Briining and Michel Fabre explore the impact by oftro Europeancities upon major black writers. Briining's "stadtluft macht frei!: African,American Writers and Berlin (1892-1932)" sur, veysthe responsesof various Anglo, and African,American writers to Berlin, from the late,nineteenth century to the beginning of World War II, stressing the particular importance of Berlin for W. E. B. Du
14
INrnooucrroN
Bois, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes. For each of these black writers, Berlin was a symbol of a better life, as Briining says, "an alternative to the restrictions and narrowness of the rural south of the United States." Fabre's "Richard Wright's Paris" likewise stresses how a European city functioned mainly as a positive environment for an important black writer. Like many expatriates, Wright often felt at home in Paris, for "in his eyes Paris represented French culture, and he could admire it and, within time, enjoy the beauty of age,old monuments without being awed by them." But becauseWright was severely critical of French colonial policies in Africa, he felt uncom, fortable with certain aspectsof Parisian life and never fully accommo, dated himself to that city. Like his fictional characterFishbelly Tucker, Wright "lived in Paris but he was not really of it." As Fabre stresses, Wright "'was satisfied with celebrating the better aspectsof Parisian life . . . while limiting his use of Paris as a setting to what he was most conversant with-the circles and groups, mostly American and black" which could provide him with "his alien home outside his homeland." JamesBaldwin also fled the American city to live in Paris and, like Wright, presented a complexly split view of urban life in America. Fred L. Standley's"'But the City Was Real':JamesBaldwin's Literary Milieu" carefully explores this ambivalence.On the one hand, Bald, win viewed Harlem as "one of the only places I'm really at home in the world" becauseit was a rich embodiment of his own personal and cultural history, providing him with a senseof identity as an African. American man. But, on the other hand, he envisioned Harlem as a powerful emblem of how black citizens have been systematically ex, cluded from the promises of American life and trapped into a ghetto which he described as "some enormous, cunning, and murderous beast, ready to devour, impossibleto escape."Unlike most critics who have either ignored the city in Baldwin's work or minimized its impor, tance, Standley argues that Baldwin himself was "the product of an urban environment" and that the city is of central importance in Baldwin's work. Like James Baldwin, John A. Williams saw the city as a vivid reflector of the historical experience of African,American people in 'John the rwentieth century. Priscilla Ramsey's A. Williams: The Black American Narrative and the City" examines Williams's por, trayal of the American city as a "nightmare world" which reduces black people to lives of isolation, fragmentation,and entrapment. Re, sisting the temptation to posit a hopeful alternative in pastoral space which often characteriaes mainstreamAmerican fiction, Williams pro, vides his oppressedheroes with a viable alternative to American ur,
ban life in Paris that t of freedom In contr and Willia William A issues arisi describea. in the Sout says, that " ing the unc dered therr Conder, M, way focuse depicted. lv which blac the northe: scribes Ital generic no'' man is ofte importantl; cludes, "if c iaation appr achieving s Robert E lison's Invis also empha for black pe ally came tr which he h' becomes fot to selFdisc existential r itless fronti Cross ultim ing her lim ment. For b is in mains creating tl achieving g If Ellison offering thr voices a p
IvrnooucrroN
15
ban life in the European city, for it is in places like Amsterdam and that they can find what Ramseydescribesas "their greatestsense Paris and unconstricted movement." of freedom In contrastto African,American writers such as Wright, Baldwin, andWilliams, who dealt with city life at home as well as abroad, William Attaway and Willard Motley restricted themselvesto social issues arising from black life in American cities. Attaway's novels a describe historical reality, focusing on the migration of black people in the South to the industrial North. Attaway shows, asJohn Conder says, that "racial conflict, a reality in the South, is but a mask conceal, ingthe underlyingreality of classconflict in the North, a battle engen, deredthere by economic forces spawned by industrialization." For Motley's Knoc\on Any Door treats the problemswhich Atta, Conder, way focuses Chicago is a duplicate of the Pittsburgh Attaway has on: Motley's fiction thus portrays the social problems in Chicago depicted. which black people in the South inevitably face when they settle in the northern cities. Even though Motley's Knoc\ on Arry Door de. ltalian,Americans living in Chicago, the theme applies to a scribes genericnovel of the city: Motley suggeststhat, regardlessof race, manis often destroyed or damagedby the urban environment. More importantly,however, Motley's fiction suggeststhat, as Conder con, "if cludes, conditions make victims of us all, the conditions for victim, iaation appearin rural areas as well as cities," but that "the odds for achieving self,realizationare on the side of cities, not rural areas." Robert Butler's "The City as Psychological Frontier in Ralph El, InuisibleMan and CharlesJohnson's Faith and the Good Thing" lison's alsoemphasizes that the city offers the possibility of self,realization people. forblack Ellison himself,like the hero of InuisibleMan, eventu, allycameto seethe city in existential terms as a rite of initiation for whichhe had to be his own guide and instructor. Similarly, New York becomes Ellison's invisible man a journey without a map leading for to self.discovery and self,creation. This eventually brings him to an existential underground, which is an extraordinary symbol of the lim, frontiers of the mind. In the sameway, Charles Johnson's Faith itless ultimately experiencesthe northern city as an open space offer. Cross ingher limitless possibilities for personal growth and social develop, For ment. both Ellison and Johnsonthe modern city is what the West is in mainstreamAmerican literature, an indeterminate open space creatingthe independence, freedom, and mobility necessary for genuine selfhood. achieving If Ellison and Johnson imagine the city as a psychological frontier offeringthe possibility of renewal for black people, Gloria Naylor voices persistent worry that the city may be a trap for African, a
16
INrnooucrroN
Americans. Michael F. Lynch's "The Wall and the Mirror in the Promised Land: The City in the Novels of Gloria Naylor" arguesrhat Naylor's black characterscan raise their standards of living in indus, trial cities, but they often become, in turn, victims of miterialism. Black citizens of Linden Hills, as Lynch notes, "fail to develop a strong senseof self because. . . they dismissknowledge of self in the interesi of acquisition and advancement." Some of Naylor's characters, how, ever, succeedin achieving identity and self,knowledge.Like Tish and Fonnyin Baldwin's IfBeale StreetCouldTalk" they rejectthe romantic quest for innocence and seek interdependence,love, and understand, ing. Ann Petry's The Street also deals with the social and economic forces of the city as does Naylor's The Vomen of Brewster Place, but Petry's novel is more than a roman a thdse.It strikes the reader, as Larry R. Andrews observes, "above all as an act of imagination and literary art" seldom seen in a naturalistic novel. Petry is supert in depicting "the powerful physical way in which the city assaultsthe characters' senses through concrete detail." For Andrews, Petry's sur, realistic technique is reminiscent of "the urtan evocations of Poe and Dickens . . . the great modern porrrayals of the city-the St. Perers, burg of Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Bely . . . and the Harlem of Ellison's lnuisible Man." Whether through naturalism or surrealism, the portrayal of black life in the city is often focusedon one's quest for identity and freedom. It is hardly surprising, then, that science fiction by black American writers also treat such themes.The cityscapesdescribedby Samuel R. Delany are characterued by their flexibility, variery, and futurity. As Donald M. Hasslersays,"thesecities are, indeed,multiplex." Delany's Triton, for example, is a contemporary city where "variety, even devi, ant behavior flourishes." What is remarkable about Delany's science fiction is that while Delany is a relentlessrealist iather than a fantasist, he remains a pastoral poet who "acknowledges that both the issues and the answers . . . carry within them a large portion of mystery that can never be teased out either tentatively orlaboriously." And, at times, Delany's writing reminds one that many black American writers have had in their careera strong affinity for Manrism. While a majority of the African,American writers discussedin this book seek, and often find, identity and humanity in the city for their fictive characters, others also seek but do not find such values. The writers of the Harlem Renaissanceport rayed the urtan world with exuberanceand hope, but the black dramatists of the American sixties described it with violence and frustration. The cityscapesof Ed Bul, lins, Amiri Baraka, and Adrienne Kennedy, as Rob ertL. Tener shows, imply that "there is even the sense that the city is some diabolical
instrument ants sets ou
Although outlook, sut ans and crit book on the studies on t Harlem Rer naissance,t and Jamesd ary lmagint literature hi written on ture. We a black wom and Paule I Larsen and ambivalencr New York a ful studies c portrayal ol This sele range of fur erature. As has been a focused mor ' literature. produced z American c cal and urb ance in Af sustained s1 Many pe to thank pa and Canisir
1. Mortor vard Universi
hvrnooucrroN
L7
instrument machine for killing that even as it possesses inhabit, or its antssetsout to destroy them."
Atthough African.^-;J' ;r";r;. ;* been targely urtan in outlook, surprisingly little attention has been paid by liierary histori, ans and critics to how the city is portrayed in 6lack writing. No single bookon the_subject exists, although there are several more-specializ"ed studies the Harlem Renaissance,most notably Nathan i{uggins's on HarlemRenaissance, Amritjit singh's fhe Nou elsof the Harlil Re. naissance, Houston Baker's Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, and de James Jongh'sVicious Modernism: Blac\Harlem and the Liter. ary Imagination. But the impact of other important cities in black literaturehas not been examined sufficiently. Much more needsto be written on how Chicago has functioned in African,American litera, ture.We also need to know more about the unique ways in which black women writers have depicted the city: someiit . Vitita Bonner andPauleMarshall recoil from urban reality while others like Nella Larsen and Gloria _Naylor respond to the city in terms of a complex ambivalence. The Southern city, the European city, and pre,Hailem New York also await the sustained attentions of literary critics. Care, ful studies how Anglo, and AfricanAmerican writers differ in their of portrayalof city life also are needed. This selectionof essays, therefore, is intended to encouragea wide range further study in this crucial aspect of AfricanAmJrican lit, of erature. Hazel Carby has observed recently, black urban writing As hasbeen a "neglected tradition" because critics and scholars hav! focused most of their attentions on the "rural folk tradition" in black literature."Contemporary critical theory," Carby suggests,"has . . . produceda discourse that romanticizes the folk iootr of Afro. American culture and deniesthe transformative power of both histori, caland urtan consciousness."ll is time now io addressthis imbal, It ancein African,American literary studies and begin a careful and sustained study of how the city functions in that liierature. Many people helped us in preparing rhis book, but we would like to thankparticularly the ResearchCouncils of Kent State Universitv andCanisiusCollege for giving us granrs,in,aid.
Norrs
L Morton and Lucia White, The lntellectual versw the City (Cambridge: Har, vardUniversity Press, 1962), 1-3.
18
IrvrnonucrroN
2. JamesWeldonJohnson, AlongThisVay O{e* York: Viking Press, 1933), 152. 3. Quoted in Arnold Rampersad,The Life of Langsron Hughes, 1902-1941: I Too Sing America, 7 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 50. 'Bigger' Was Born," \atiue Son Q.,lewYork: Harper, 4. fuchard Wright, "How 1940), xxvi. Michel Fabre in The Unfnished Q3restof Richard \\/right OI"* York: William Morrow, 1973) points out that Chicago, for all the difficulties it created for Wright, still gave him a radically new life which freed his spirit. Characterizing Wright's Chicago as "still the teeming, ever,expanding city that Carl Sandburg had immortalized" (74), Fabre observes that Chicago gave Wright crucially important opportunities not possible in his prior life. 5. Claude Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land Qllew York: New American Library, 1965), vii-viii. In his one trip away from New York when he visits relatives in the rural South, Brown is bored with and alienated by country living. He returns to New York with great relief: "Down South was sure a crazy place and it was good to be going back to New York" (52). 6. Amiri Baraka, "Black Literature and the Afro,American Nation: The Urban Voice," Literature and the Urban Experience: Essays the City and Literature, eds. on Michael C.Jaye and Ann Chalmers Watts (1.{"* Brunswick, NJ.' Rutgers University Press, 1981), 148-58. 7. Toni Morrison, "City Limits, Village Values: Concepts of the Neighborhood in Black Fiction," in Literature and the Urban Experience: Essayson the City and Literature, ed. Michael C. Jaye and Ann Chalmers Watts (1.{"* Brunswick, NJ.' Rutgers University Press, 1981), 37-38. 8. Blyden Jackson, The Vaiting Tears:Essays \egro American Literature (Ba. on ton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976), 180. 9. A. Robert Lee, "Harlem on My Mind: Fictions of a Black Metropolis," rn The American City: Cuhural and Literary Perspectiues, Graham Clarke Qllew York: ed. St. Martin's Press,1988), 83. 10. LeRoi Jones, Home: SocdalEssaysQ.,lewYork: Apollo Press, 1966), 145. 11. Haael Carby, "The Historical Novel of Slavery" in Slavery and the Literary Imagination, ed. Deborah McDowell and Arnold Rampersad(Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 140.