The black narrator and the two rivers : short fiction

The importance of the narrator and narrative technique has long been ignored in the study of black literature. While many scholars have maintained a biographical or historical approach, few have focused primarily on the art itself. Critics have especially neglected the study of black short fiction; the short story is dwarfed by black novels and poetry. A study of the works of Langston Hughes, Alice Walker and Hal Bennett offers a representative picture of narrative posture in the genre.

The Ways of White Folks (1934) is the work of a young artist who enjoys experimenting with point of view. In this collection, Hughes utilizes seven different narrative postures, ranging from a simple first person retrospective point of view to a dramatic dialogue with an effaced narrator. Using formalistic critical theory, one discovers why Hughes's techniques are successful.

Alice Walker's desire for black women to achieve "spiritual wholeness" controls her narrators in In Love and Trouble (1973). Characters gain wholeness through an awakened racial awareness coupled with self-affirmation. In the stories, third person narrators relate the horrors of black women who either self destruct or are destroyed by others. First person narrators demonstrate the positive traits necessary for survival. Walker's characters evolve from a state of naive blindness, to a partial vision, and finally awareness.

Insanity Runs in Our Family (1977) by Hal Bennett is an extremely successful collection of short stories which draws its strength from the author's preoccupation with history and myth. Bennett creates an imaginary world consisting of southern-agrarian Burnside, Virginia, and northern-industrial Cousinsville, New Jersey. His narrators show the residents of these two cities as they wrestle with the injustices of the past and present. To escape from the forces of history and myth, one narrator steps outside of Bennett's fictional world and apocalyptically explores the future of the race.