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“Bein Alive & Bein A Woman & Bein Colored”:The Metaphysical Dilemma In Ntozake Shange, Sherley Anne Williams, And Toni Morrison | “Beinalive & Beinawoman & Bein Colored”: Odilemametafísico Em Ntozake Shange, Sherley Anne Williams E Toni Morrison, Flávia Santos De Araújo

Africana Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay is an analysis of three literary works by black women writers from the U.S.: Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Sherley Ann Williams’ novel Dessa Rose, and Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. In my analysis, I use Shange’s trope of the “methaphysical dilemma” to consider the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality in these writers’ textual representations of black women’s bodies. Writing against a historical legacy of colonialism and domination that defined black bodies as “primitive” or “unbridled” (bell hooks 1991), I argue that these works illustrate some …