Professional Documents
Culture Documents
relationships.
With reference to Paule Marshall Brown Girl, Brownstones, discuss the extent to
which you agree to the statement.
"Brown Girl, Brownstones" is the first novel by the internationally recognised
writer Paule Marshall, published in 1959. It is about Barbadian immigrants in
Brooklyn, New York. The New Yorker magazine comments on the novel as
Remarkable for its courage, its colour, and its natural control. Brown Girl,
Brownstones is also one of the first African American novels to accurately
portray the complexities of African American mother-daughter relationship.
Marshall does not limit her narrative to the exploration of one specific theme;
however, is deployed in the treatment of other specific concerns such as the
searching for identity, love relationships, the effects of poverty, religion and war.
She also uses the literary and structural devices to reinforce and deploy her
themes and concerns.
Brown Girl, Brownstones is a bildungsroman, a novel about the creation of a
person's identity, in this case, young Selina Boyce is followed from the time she's
about 10 until her early twenties. Marshall engages in the third person
omniscient narrative technique which allows the reader to glimpse inside the
minds of all the various characters. Marshall organises the novel into four Books;
namely, A Long Day and a Long Night, Pastoral, The War and Selina. Within
each book, expect for Pastoral there is a minimum of 6 chapters. Such chapter
organisation systematically shows the development of problematic love
relationships between Selina and Silla, Deighton and Silla, and Selina and Clive.
Selina Boyce, born to Deighton and Silla Boyce is caught between a rock and a
hard place as she searches for her individual solidarity. Essentially, through this
technique were allowed to enter her mind to understand the factors that cause
her such a search for her solidarity. They also have an older daughter, Ina Boyce
who is much of a flat character to the narrative. Selina fears her mother and as a
child did not get much attention because was always working and coming in late.
In an interview with Melody Graudlich and Lisa Sisco where Marshall was
questioned about her works she mentioned Daughters and made reference to
Brown Girl, Brownstones as both narrative share a protagonist who receives
insufficient mother-daughter love and seeks it elsewhere. In Selinas case she
received motherly guidance from Miss. Thompson the lady who rents a room in
the Brownstones house she lives in. Miss. Thompson is the character that
supplies unconditional love to the protagonist who has derived from Marshalls
own experience as a child. Also during Sillas absence Selina looks to her father
for love .Silla wishes nothing but the best for her children, especially Selina as
she wants her to become a doctor. However, Selina refuses this dream her
mother has and it causes problems between her and Sillas, surpassingly mother
to daughter love relationship.