Plum Bun: A Novel With A Moral
Jessie Redmon Fauset's novel, Plum Bun, is a story of African American self-hatred told through the life of the protagonist, Angela Murray and her family, who are divided by color.
Plum Bun was set in the 1920s, which was a time of tremendous change in America in many areas including technology, economics, and civil rights. During that decade, people were moving from farms and rural areas into cities where they began to focus on education in the school systems and civil rights. Cities like New York became filled with men and women seeking to educate themselves, thus developing into one of the most important civil rights movements - the Harlem Renaissance, or the "New Negro Movement." In this movement African Americans, for the first time, began to focus their energies on celebrating their own culture and challenging racism. This celebration was the critical first step required for African Americans to attempt to overcome racism and self-hatred within their own community.
Fauset sets the stage for these issues in Plum Bun by creating a family in which one daughter is extremely light skinned and the other is dark skinned. Angela Murray, the light skinned daughter, is able to "pass" in society as being white. At first "passing" is a lighthearted act, but later it becomes a way of life for her when she leaves her friends and family in Philadelphia and moves to New York to live life as a white woman. "Passing" was common in America and was a manifestation of many problems within the African American society. African Americans were "…from the day they are (were) born, bombarded with images to reinforce the "black bad, white good" paradigm. From intellect to beauty to passion to charm to grace to femininity to strength to power we are portrayed as the losers, the lessers, the lamented, unable to shake the "beasts of burden" status we were branded with when we got off the boat in shackles" (Belton). Because of this oppression stemming from the slave era, African
Plum Bun was set in the 1920s, which was a time of tremendous change in America in many areas including technology, economics, and civil rights. During that decade, people were moving from farms and rural areas into cities where they began to focus on education in the school systems and civil rights. Cities like New York became filled with men and women seeking to educate themselves, thus developing into one of the most important civil rights movements - the Harlem Renaissance, or the "New Negro Movement." In this movement African Americans, for the first time, began to focus their energies on celebrating their own culture and challenging racism. This celebration was the critical first step required for African Americans to attempt to overcome racism and self-hatred within their own community.
Fauset sets the stage for these issues in Plum Bun by creating a family in which one daughter is extremely light skinned and the other is dark skinned. Angela Murray, the light skinned daughter, is able to "pass" in society as being white. At first "passing" is a lighthearted act, but later it becomes a way of life for her when she leaves her friends and family in Philadelphia and moves to New York to live life as a white woman. "Passing" was common in America and was a manifestation of many problems within the African American society. African Americans were "…from the day they are (were) born, bombarded with images to reinforce the "black bad, white good" paradigm. From intellect to beauty to passion to charm to grace to femininity to strength to power we are portrayed as the losers, the lessers, the lamented, unable to shake the "beasts of burden" status we were branded with when we got off the boat in shackles" (Belton). Because of this oppression stemming from the slave era, African
Bibliography: elton, Danielle. "Fear and Self-Loathing in Black America." The Black Snob. Blogspot.com. 9 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2009. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York: Penguin Group, 1994. Print. Fauset, Jessie Redmon. Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral. Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1990. Print. McDowell, Deborah. Introduction. Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral. By Jessie Redmon Fauset.1992. Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1990. ix-xxxiii. Print. Hurston, Zora Neale. Novels and Stories : Jonah 's Gourd Vine / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Moses, Man of the Mountain / Seraph on the Suwanee / Selected Stories. New York: Library of America, 1995. Print. McKay, Claude. Home to Harlem. Massachusetts: Northeastern, 1987. Print.