Ideology and the representation of black male characters in selected african american literary texts: Bontemps’s Black thunder; Wright’s Black boy; Walker’s The third life of Grange Copeland and Morrison’s Song of Solomon

Abstract

The study explores the enactment of black masculinities as represented across time in Black Thunder, Black Boy, The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Song of Solomon. Two theoretical frameworks have been used, namely Black Marxism and Connell’s masculinity theory. Male writers’ portrayal of black male characters has been analysed using both Black Marxism and Connell’s (1995) theory of masculinity. However, female writers’ representations of black males do not show elements of radicalism that can be linked to Black Marxism. What has been established is that ways of being a ‘man’ and how masculinities are negotiated differ according to history, race, age, culture among other variables. Coupled with ideology, various representations of black males are shown in the selected four African American literary texts. Given that the concept of masculinity has been explored from slavery to the post emancipation era, it has been noted that each different epoch has its own forms of masculinity. Claims of location are also responsible for spawning different masculine identities. Black masculinities exercised in the American Deep South are not necessarily the same as those performed in the North. Interestingly, African American female writers have also had their say on black masculinities, in their various representations of the American male of African descent. These female writers have their different areas of convergence and divergence with male writers in their representation of black masculinities. The black male has been portrayed exercising violent and hyper sexual masculinities. The degree of black men’s misogyny highlighted in the two texts by female writers is unparalleled in Black Thunder and Black Boy. Such phenomena attest to the underlying imprints of ideology in the depiction of the African American male characters.