I'm Not Your Superwoman: Examining the Black Woman's Superhero Schema in Octavia Butler's Parable Series
White, Tamara, Clark Atlanta University
2023-05
2020-2029
This dissertation evaluates the concepts of the Strong Black Woman and fractured psyche and its adverse impact on the psychological and sometimes physical health of Black women. Through analyses of Octavia E. Butler's speculative texts, Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents (Parable Series), this research presents the concepts of the Strong Black Woman and the fractured psyche as problematic for the emotional and physical well-being of Black women. The problems associated with the concepts are grounded in the argument that negative caricatures and constructs of Black women by popular culture perpetuate this psychological phenomenon. This dissertation offers speculative fiction Black woman novelist Octavia E. Butler and her characters' rejection of the Strong Black Woman idea to combat social and political constructions of womanhood, specifically, Black womanhood. The novels present a space for wholeness that places each novel in the conversation for healing the trauma. The research also presents a Black Woman's imagination of Black women protagonists who accesses safe spaces where they can exist in their whole selves effectively.
text
application/pdf
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Atlanta University and Clark Atlanta University Theses and Dissertations
dissertation
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Clark Atlanta University
Department of Humanities
Sears, Stephanie M.
Georgia--Atlanta
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:2023_white_tamara
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
