The Evolution of African American Literature - Research Paper Example

Feminism has also played a strong role in the evolution of African American literature, as feminists had to confront not only issues of gender, but also race and often poverty. Finally, African American literature has begun to move away from always considering aspects of race and injustice towards other examinations and considerations. African American literature has evolved and developed from American and European traditions, but also from distinctive aspects of oral and aural forms of communication within African American culture.

Oral stories have a complexity of form and narrative that is not present in written literature, and as such, can be used to inform and develop literature (Jones, 1991, pp. 1-5). This has been a prominent feature throughout the evolution of African American literature and is one aspect that differentiates it from white American literature. In the early 20th century, emancipation had occurred, but prejudice was still a significant factor within many Americans. This resulted in an environment of strong racial injustice, where violence remained common against African Americans.

In this time, writers often focused on trying to recapture some of the fervor for justice present in the antislavery era and to examine the differences between races within the United States. One aspect of this was the development of feminism in African American women. This was a significant contributor to African American literature. Feminism within African American women was complicated by the fact that they had to confront issues of gender and of race. In many cases these perspectives overlapped, so African American rights writers often also considered aspects of feminism, although they may never had identified with the term, and feminist writers had to also confront significant issues of race (Guy-Sheftall, 1995, pp. 1-3). Slavery is perhaps the most important historical event for African American writers, and had significant effects on African Americans.

African American literature commonly focused on slave narrative during the time of the emancipation, however, the importance of slavery began to be re-expressed in literature around the 1970s. An example of the role of slavery literature is Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987). This poignant piece of writing focuses on the boundaries of memory and the past, and provides an examination of the impact that slavery has had on African Americans. The novel strongly focuses on painful memories of events that occurred around the time of the emancipation, and provides a sharp reminder of the importance of history, and the fact that some scares are emotional or mental rather than physical (Koolish, 2001).

It was also a strong example of feminist writing, where the protagonist attempted to gain some control over her child’s fate (Guy-Sheftall, 1995, p. 3). Racial oppression and slavery is a prominent aspect of African American literature, so much so that many readers expect all African American literature to contain this undertone. This perception was so strong that any African American writing that did not consider this confounded readers and were sometimes ignored because of this. Yet, breaking away from the trends of slavery and repression has been a key component of some pieces of African American writing.

One example of this is Outsider, by Richard Wright, in which the author refused to focus on racial paradigms and instead examined a domestic conflict