American Literature (PLEASE IF YOU DONT SPECIALIZE IN LITERATURE DONT BID)

For my essay, I have chosen to write about McKay’s novel Home to Harlem. When I first read the novel, the intersection between gender, race and sex drew my attention. It was the second novel we read for this class after Nella Larson’s Passing. (Pause)

As I was reading Home to Harlem, I couldn’t help drawing parallels between the two novels in terms of gender, race and sex. My initial project for this paper was to explore these issues in both novels. (small pause)

However, when I was reviewing the literature available on the books, I made two realizations. First, I realized that the scope of my project wouldn’t fit in the page limit set in the class requirements. Second, I realized that Home to Harlem offers a more fertile ground to explore the issues of gender, sex and race. This is partly due to the fact that the figure of the prostitute in Home to Harlem embodies all three issues together. With these two realizations, I made up my mind to investigate the changing Ideals of womanhood in the novel Home to Harlem. (Pause)

The Main argument of my paper:

Developing a thesis statement that captures the purpose of my paper was a challenging task in itself. In the beginning, I thought that, by employing the figure of the prostitute, McKay perpetuates the dominant stereotypes of African American women, namely the fact that they are hypersexual sex objects for the lustful white consumer. After some research on the sexual stereotypes of African American women I knew there was something different in this novel. I realized that there is some compassion towards African American women in the novel. It was then that I came to realize that McKay presents the reader of a changing ideal of black womanhood. (Pause)

The reader can feel from the beginning of the novel, that Harlem is the subject of Jake’s admiration. turns off on Lenox Avenue, his admiration of the Harlem community becomes apparent to the reader as he “stopped before an ice-cream parlor to admire girls sipping ice-cream soda” (McKay 10). The meeting with Felice confirms the fact that the narrator is trying to depict a rather positive image of the inhabitants of Harlem. (Pause)

The opening passage of chapter 2 sets the tone for my thesis statement. The meeting with the Felice, a prostitute, seems to bring the issues of gender, race and sex together. Prostitutes, usually rejected by society, are treated less harshly in this novel. Felice’s act of returning the money to Jake before she leaves in the morning can be seen as an act of compassion and an attempt by the narrator to rehabilitate the image of these women in society. Prostitution, he seems to suggest, is nothing to hold against a woman if society has forced her into it for survival. A parallel is drawn between race, gender and sexuality in this passage where all of them contribute to determine the place of the individual in society.

The body of my paper

My essay is built around an introduction, two main parts and a conclusion. The introduction acquaints the reader with the notion of womanhood as a socio-cultural construct rather than a biological reality. This statement seeks to introduce the reader to the fact that the meaning of womanhood is never the same across cultures. (pause)

I decided to divided the essay in two related sections. The first section is a brief presentation of the stereotypes of African American women, and prostitutes in particular. The second section proposes my reading of womanhood in the novel. (pause)

I would like to label the first part as the destructive phase of my essay and the second part as the constructive phase. Destruction and construction are, of course, related to stereotyping. (pause)

The destructive phase exposes the reader to the dominant stereotypes of African American women. The focus of this part is to get the reader to question their socio-cultural foundations. In this part, I use black feminist theory to argue that sexism, class oppression, gender identity and racism make up the essence of female stereotyping. This is how I seek to destroy the reader’s sense of these stereotypes. (pause)

Once the destructive phase is finished, I usher the reader into a new ideal of womanhood where the same issues of sex, race and gender construct a more positive image of Harlem prostitutes. In this part, I focus on the character of Felice to introduce the new ideal of black women. It is here that we can see the figure of the prostitute transforms from a commodity into an active member of society. (Pause)

Relevance of the Paper

According to Kimberley Roberts, McKay uses the figure of the prostitute at a symbolic level. During the Harlem Renaissance, the black female body was seen as commodity that is consumed by the eager white man. This reading denies these women their role as active agents in society. This paper sheds a rehabilitative look at the image of the prostitute in the novel and places it as part of McKay’s new social order.