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Brigham Young University

English Language and Literature

2018

African American Literature

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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Three Books, Three Stereotypes: Mothers And The Ghosts Of Mammy, Jezebel, And Sapphire In Contemporary African American Literature, Christine E. Eck Apr 2018

Three Books, Three Stereotypes: Mothers And The Ghosts Of Mammy, Jezebel, And Sapphire In Contemporary African American Literature, Christine E. Eck

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

The stereotypes of Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire are still being dealt with in contemporary African American literature. In the representation of black mothers, nonfiction is ideal to portray mothers who do not represent these stereotypes; fiction is ideal to favorably represent mothers who embody some aspects of these stereotypes. Jezmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones, Margo Jefferson's Negroland, and Tracy K. Smith's Ordinary Light are used as case studies.