24. Mukulika Dattagupta

Abstract 24. Mukulika Dattagupta

‘RE-PRESENTATION’ OF THE ‘NEGRO’ IN THE ‘BLACK’ CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: A STUDY OF THE WORKS OF ARNA BONTEMPS AND LANGSTON HUGHES

Abstract

‘Blacks’ were just the stupid slaves in the stories of most of the white writers. This stereo typicality is also true in case of the children’s literature produced before the abolition of Slavery and in the early years after the official abolition of slavery. ‘Negro’ was always allotted the role of ‘bad guys’ in such works. My paper will be dealing with the change which came in the presentation of the ‘Negro’ characters in children’s literature during Harlem Renaissance.

Children’s literature produced during Harlem Renaissance not only tried to reverse the role of the ‘Negro’ in it but also tried to use it as a tool for the development and upliftment of such a race which was striving to place itself properly in the ‘Democracy’ of United States of America. It was a race which was living in a country which does not have any law to safe guard the ‘Negro’ from the injustice based on color. It was a community which was fighting a battle to settle down with one identity of the proper citizen of United States of America instead of being identified as an ‘African American’. It was a race who seems to be absolutely silent in the ‘history’ of United States of America and just had one identity there, the identity of a slave. Such community when got freedom from slavery, had to fight a lot of battle to reach where it is today in the present United States of America, and that is what my paper is going to highlight.

The newly freed ‘Negro’ community in the United States of America took up several goals to achieve and adapted various ways to solve this purpose. One such method was to take up the task of re-building of a community through creating a new well equipped generation of ‘Negro’ children with the help of ‘Negro’ children’s literature. My paper will deal with this issue in detail. I have chosen Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes for my reading because they were the first among the independent ‘Negro’ authors to get publications from the ‘mainstream’ well known publishers during the Harlem Renaissance.