Dancing the Liberated Lyre

For ages, women have adopted the stereotypically scripted roles of a mother, sister, daughter, wife, daughter-in-law etc. She is blamed for not being able to fulfil any of the above. Cursed and tortured for not being able to set into the slots made by the society and patriarchy. Under slavery, the worst sufferers were women. Sexual exploitation and abuse made women vulnerable to change. In this book I talk about Black women writers and their protagonists who have waged an uphill battle to have their works taken seriously by scholars in the post-slavery period. While this study is about rethinking womanhood by selected Black women writers, the reader should know that within the backgrounds of much of the work of these writers, who have faced trials, as they try to reclaim their identities as writers from men who would control their writing. These Black women writers themselves might have grown by the portrayal of such characters that struggle suffer and ultimately stand triumphant among the dance of all the negative circumstances. The theme, symbolism, style, structure, and characterization of Their Eyes Were Watching God as a narrative combine to impress the reader with the validity and power of this romantic folk vision of what a woman ought to be and ought to do.