A Bronzeville Mothers Analysis

Society’s Role in the Perception of Gender Roles, Sexuality, and Race in A Bronzeville Mother… and Passing In A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi, Meanwhile A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon, Gwendolyn Brooks focuses on the theme of Southern patriarchy and racism, while Nella Larsen's Passing focuses on society’s perception of racial categorization. Just as Molly McKibbin identifies how society’s perception of gender roles and sexuality played a large role in the life of the protagonist in the poem, Johanna Wagner discusses the concept of repressed sexuality as exemplified through the two main characters of the novel. McKibbin goes on to remark how racism in the south at this time was so widespread “that it was not particularly shocking

This colour symbolism is significant because it initiates a consciousness of a break in social norms which challenges society’s expectations. Brooks effectively uses line enjambment to demonstrate how the white woman’s composition is coming apart, which is exemplified through the structure of the poem. The red blood that she sees on her child’s face makes her think about how Emmett must have bled the same shade of red when her husband hurt him. She also sees blood when her husband kisses her, and it is at this point, “the white woman’s opinion about her role and her husband [changes]” (McKibbin 676). Although the woman has now come to an understanding of the injustices in her society, she feels helpless because “nothing could stop Mississippi” and she thinks there is nothing she can do with this new realization since the society she lives in still upholds conservative values (Brooks 328). McKibbin argues that this mentality demonstrates the woman’s connivance with the myth of Southern chivalry and; therefore, the stereotype of a helpless woman. Just as the woman adheres to the social norms in the poem, the characters in Passing have their own ideas of social norms. Although both women are half-white and half-black, they each choose to identify with one aspect of their ethnicity, while repressing the other. Nisetich states that the problem with “the concept of racial passing is that it necessitates placing people of mixed ancestry in one racial category over another” which both supports racial categorization, while undermining it (350). A main point Nisetich makes in her article is how “Clare [cannot] be described fairly and accurately as ‘passing’ at all” because she does not perceive herself to be black (350). Since Clare thinks of herself as white, she is not truly passing since