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    A Study Guide for Ntozake Shange's "Betsey Brown"
    A Study Guide for Ntozake Shange's "Betsey Brown"
    A Study Guide for Ntozake Shange's "Betsey Brown"
    Ebook46 pages35 minutes

    A Study Guide for Ntozake Shange's "Betsey Brown"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Ntozake Shange's "Betsey Brown," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535819367
    A Study Guide for Ntozake Shange's "Betsey Brown"

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      A Study Guide for Ntozake Shange's "Betsey Brown" - Gale

      1

      Betsey Brown

      Ntozake Shange

      1985

      Introduction

      Ntozake Shange is best known as the playwright who combined dance, poetry, and music in 1975's groundbreaking sensation for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. In a change of gears and attitude, Shange published a conventional semi-autobiographical novel called Betsey Brown in 1985. Betsey Brown tells the story of a sensitive and thoughtful African-American girl as she struggles to understand her place in the world. While many of Shange's earlier works are both stylistically experimental and politically aggressive, Betsey Brown is accessible and understated. In it, Shange offers a richly descriptive coming-of-age story, taking place in 1959 St. Louis, whose universal themes of sexuality and morality are set against the backdrop of the school desegregation crisis. The novel also portrays the conflicts among family members, centering on the discontent of Betsey's mother, Jane. Like Shange's more radical works, Betsey Brown focuses on the difficulties of coming to terms with racial and feminine identity for black women. It is also often noted for being one of the few novels of its time to focus on black middle-class characters. In this novel Shange portrays the small and large struggles of a thirteen-year-old girl while lovingly sketching the way of life in an all-black middle-class enclave at a time when the incipient Civil Rights Movement agitated for integration. Though many critics find Betsey Brown lacking in literary power, it remains a favorite on high school reading lists.

      Author Biography

      Shange, originally named Paulette Williams, was born on October 18, 1948, in Trenton, New Jersey. She was the oldest of four children growing up in a materially comfortable, intellectually stimulating, and politically aware household. Her father, a surgeon, and her mother, a psychiatric social worker, were friends with some of the most notable African-American artists of the day. Jazz giant Miles Davis and race leader and educator W. E. B. DuBois were among the luminaries who were guests at the Williams home. Shange's parents were what used to be called 'race people.' Life was dedicated to the betterment of the race, Shange explained in an interview with Serena Anderlini in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. However, they were not radicals. Their aspirations for her included going to college and marrying a doctor.

      Shange's family moved from Trenton to St. Louis, Missouri, when Shange was eight. There she was bused to a German-American school, where she faced the rejection of white classmates and gained a new firsthand understanding of racism. Shange fell back on the strength of her family's personal and intellectual support and eventually formed a strong bond with the city. When Shange was thirteen, the family returned to Trenton.

      Shange married young and began Barnard College at age eighteen. The following year, having separated from her law-student husband, she made her first in a series of attempts to commit suicide. During radical times in the country, Shange felt ashamed of

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