초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Reading Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted(1892) as a foundational text for African American women's literature, this article discusses how Frances Harper(1825-1911) represents the Civil War and the Reconstruction era from the perspective of black women while challenging the dominant discourses of mulatto/a subjects. In doing so, this article explores how the author negotiates the issue of black citizenship in the latter half of the 19th-century America since Emancipation in Iola Leroy. The mulatta/o characters of the novel, Iola and Harry, were raised as "white" and then legally redefined as black; however, they are not represented as "tragic mulatta/o" trapped in the American politics of race. As they claim their belonging to black community and participate in the Union army during the Civil War, they emerge as leading subjects of "racial uplift." The narrative of Iola shows both the possibilities and dilemma of black female citizenship, especially in the 19th-century context of Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to U.S. Constitution. Analyzing the conflicts Iola confronts in her process of establishing black female selfhood, this article also traces how Harper negotiates the possibilities of African Americans from freed people to American citizen since the Civil War.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Frances Harper, Iola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted, African American literature, black citizenship, 19th Century America, freedmen, American slavery, American Constitution, Amendments, the Civil War, Reconstruction Era
