{"id":41223,"date":"2015-05-26T01:30:14","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T01:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=41223"},"modified":"2016-06-18T03:46:21","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T03:46:21","slug":"mixed-race-stereotypes-in-south-african-and-american-literature-by-diana-adesola-mafe-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=41223","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature by Diana Adesola Mafe (review)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature by Diana Adesola Mafe (review)<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Research in African Literatures<\/a>
\nVolume 46, Number 2, Summer 2015 <\/a>
\npages 166-168<\/p>\n

Tru Leverette<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of English
\nUniversity of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida<\/em><\/p>\n

Mafe, Diana Adesola, Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature: Coloring Outside the (Black and White) Lines<\/em><\/a> (New York, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In her recently published study, Diana Adesola Mafe<\/a> explores the literary trope of the tragic mulatto<\/a> through a comparative analysis of American and South African novels. Her work is both useful and timely, filling a gap in the literary study of colouredness and the transnational study of mixed race literature. Through this transnational lens, Mafe argues that the advent of the \u201cage of Obama\u201d and the renewed celebration of race mixture in the United States coincide with South Africa\u2019s post-apartheid efforts to imagine itself as a Rainbow Nation. This celebration in both nations, however, overlooks important historical realities that are often explored through the literary figure of the tragic mulatto. Acknowledging that mulattos have often been \u201ccalled upon to embody historic national moments\u201d (1), Mafe asserts \u201ca reading of South African fictions alongside American counterparts reveals the ongoing relevance of the tragic mulatto, which functions not only as a dated clich\u00e9 and cautionary tale but also as a radical embodiment of possibility and a vehicle for social critique\u201d (2). Indeed, Mafe illustrates through her analysis that the tragic mulatto has long functioned as a trope through which American and South African writers have critiqued race, identity, national belonging, and state-sanctioned racism.<\/p>\n

Mafe begins her study with the introduction \u201cTainted Blood: The \u2018Tragic Mulatto\u2019 Tradition,\u201d wherein she introduces the celebration of mixture within the contemporary sociopolitical contexts of the United States and South Africa. She also begins to address the tragic mulatto as a historical type. Acknowledging that, in the United States, the tragic mulatto trope developed as an abolitionist tool, Mafe briefly explores its origins in antebellum and postbellum literature. Additionally, she presents a justification for her comparative study, arguing \u201cthe tragic mulatto is a provocative keystone for analyzing these American and South African texts, which might otherwise have little else in common. When read alongside each other, these fictions expose mutual histories of stigmatization and marginalization for the mulatto<\/a> figure\u201d (14).<\/p>\n

In chapter one, \u201cGod\u2019s Stepchildren: The \u2018Tragedy of Being a Halfbreed\u2019 in South African Literature,\u201d Mafe offers a history of miscegenation<\/a> in South Africa and the United States, allowing her to trace the origins of the coloured and mulatto populations, respectively, in each nation. Having delineated this history, Mafe then turns her attention to the use of colouredness in South African fiction, which, she asserts, was not offered in-depth characterization until the twentieth century: \u201cThis development is inextricable from the emergence of colouredness as a \u2018new\u2019 social identity, mounting national interest in race categorization, and a literary shift from exploring Anglo-Boer relations to exploring black-white relations\u201d (34). Through analyses of Sarah Gertrude Millin\u2019s<\/a> eugenicist novel God\u2019s Step-Children<\/em> and Peter Abrahams\u2019s<\/a> The Path of Thunder<\/em>, Mafe establishes the literary origins and original uses of the tragic mulatto trope in South African literature. Throughout, she draws parallels with and highlights divergences from the use of the trope in American literature, in particular Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> Quicksand<\/a><\/em> and Passing<\/em> <\/a>and James Weldon Johnson\u2019s<\/a> Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In her next chapter, \u201c\u2018An Unlovely Woman\u2019: Bessie Head\u2019s Mulatta (Re) Vision,\u201d Mafe turns her analysis to the life and work of South African writer Bessie Head<\/a>, specifically her novel A Question of Power<\/em>, arguing \u201cthis text is a startling conceptualization of the mulatta that parallels but also challenges the efforts of earlier American writers\u201d (59). Mafe explores the stereotype of the beautiful tragic mulatta and Head\u2019s inversion of it through the presentation of an ugly protagonist, simultaneously exploring the novel\u2019s ironic use of madness and its presentation of female sexuality. Since depictions of the tragic mulatta typically position her between the demands of white female respectability and the stereotype of black female passion, Head\u2019s protagonist \u201cdestabilizes the exotic and erotic iconography of the mulatta, which is remarkably consistent in the American tradition\u201d (63).<\/p>\n

Turning from the tragic mulatta, in chapter three Mafe analyzes presentations of the mulatto man\u2019s sexuality, again torn between \u201c\u2018white\u2019 propriety and \u2018black\u2019 passion\u201d (86) and his filial relationship to his white father. In \u201c\u2018A Little Yellow Bastard Boy\u2019: Arthur Nortje\u2019s Mulatto Manhood,\u201d Mafe reads the father-son dynamic in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature by Diana Adesola Mafe (review) Research in African Literatures Volume 46, Number 2, Summer 2015 pages 166-168 Tru Leverette, Associate Professor of English University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida Mafe, Diana Adesola, Mixed Race Stereotypes in South African and American Literature: Coloring Outside the (Black and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,5,1196,8,520,20],"tags":[14238,2521,1010,3308,3968],"class_list":["post-41223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-south-africa","category-usa","tag-diana-a-mafe","tag-diana-adesola-mafe","tag-diana-mafe","tag-research-in-african-literatures","tag-tru-leverette"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42630,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41223\/revisions\/42630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}