LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:12 December 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Ramification of the Anguished African American Community in
Gloria Naylor’s Linden Hills

K. Valli, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Candidate


Abstract

Slavery is a thing of the past yet their past suffering might not be wiped out completely from their minds. The African Americans had begun to realise that they have to fix their roots in America even though they are Africans. They cannot return to Africa, their native land and America is their homeland. They are conscious about the fact that they are neither Americans nor Africans. Now they have a new identity as African Americans. With this new identity, they want to forget their ancestors’ past lives as slaves and aspire to attain social status in the American society. At present they have improved a lot and racial discrimination has been diminishing slowly. At the same time there appears class discrimination among the blacks. Gloria Naylor, in the novel Linden Hills, vividly describes the class distinction of black people, examining the fact that the class distinction results in losing their self-identity. This paper delves deep into the idea of how the aspiration of the African Americans to shine as an American, might end in the loss of their self-identity.

Keywords: Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills, Self-Identity, Racial Discrimination, Class Discrimination, African American, Social Status

Gloria Naylor

The well-known, African American writer, Gloria Naylor was born on 25th of January, 1950 in New York City as the daughter of Roosevelt, the master framer, a telephone operator and Alberta Mcalpin Naylor. Naylor’s writings are universally acknowledged, praised and earned a commercial success too. Her writings comprise of The Women of Brewster Place(1982), Linden Hills(1985), Mama Day (1988), Bailey’s Café (1992), Children of the Night: The Best Short stories by Black writers, 1967 to the present [editor,1995] and The Men of Brewster place (1998) and 1996 (2005) . Most of her novels are in a way related and relevant with one another. It highlights the black community with their own colours, flavours and shades. Her accreditations include an American Book Award for first fiction (1983), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1985), the Candace Award of the National coalition of One hundred Black women (1986), a Guggenheim Fellowship(1988) and the Lillian Smith Award (1989). She died on 28th September, 2016.

The Formation of Linden Hills

Linden Hills, the v-shaped land bordered Putney Wayne’s fields, sloping down a rock of bushes and linden trees, and curved through the graveyard and ended before Patterson’s apple orchard as a sharp point. The whites saved a lot of money by selling the worthless land to Luther Nedeed in 1820. They expected him to return the land as he might be afraid to live near the graveyard. They believed that he would fight against death or starving since the land wasn’t suitable for farming. But Nedeed shattered their expectations, survived there and surprised everyone. He built a cabin of two rooms at the bottom of the hill and after seven days of deep thought, he planned to survive there. He bought a wagon and a box of horses and took the undertaker business knowing that the whites would never mind if they were buried near the blacks. Then he built shacks up on the hill from first to fifth crescent drive and the poor blacks start coming to live there.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

K. Valli, M.A., M.Phil.
Ph.D. Candidate
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University
Abhisekapatti
Tirunelveli-627012
Tamilnadu
India
vallivisu@ymail.com

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