Selina Boyce Sparknotes

Throughout the novel we come in contact with the various methods that these displaced individuals employ to overcome their identity crises. The coping mechanisms range from Silla’s formidable, domineering, practical state, to Deighton’s farfetched dreams and ambitions that to the outsider appeared to be crazy delusions. Deighton's ambitions are typically get-rich-quick schemes, he is often more interested in fantasizing about their outcomes than putting the necessary time and dedication into getting these dreams realized. From these conflicting characters stem Selina Boyce, a combination of the two that is lethal and still able to realize the real way to resolve the identity crises that they are all facing. The couple has three children,

Ina can be described as weak and demure, she submits and follows through with the mother’s ambitious dreams and desire to ascend the societal ladder. She conforms, unlike Selina to the expectations of Society and is for the most part the antithesis of Selina. Selina is wild, determined and independent, from a young age she was her own person and she fought to maintain this independence to the end. Silla's formidable presence scares Ina into a state of perpetual withdrawal. As the book progresses, Ina's character seems to disappear into almost non-existence, she was from the start characterized as weak, and her character never out grows this characteristic, she basically embraces it and hide under its shell. Another noteworthy character, is the flirtatious Miss Suggie, “a concubine” as Silla regards her. Suggie was one of Selina’s encouragement, she shows Selina that you can have your own life, and make your own decisions even if the majority rejects you for it, as long as you were happy that was all that matters. This therefore makes Suggie a vital character, and we can see that her approach was to embrace the alienation as it came, and not

In his ground breaking book The Souls of Black Folk, DuBois writes: “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, － an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn as under”. This concept that DuBois coins is the same struggle that Marshall and others like her were forced to face during her lifetime. It is reincarnated in her writing as she strives to show the different manners in which one can cope with this issue. Each of the aforementioned characters are all pivotal to this discovery since they all in turn show readers the various means and of course by making Selina the protagonist she illuminates the prescribed method of combating the issue of double consciousness that we as displaced individuals imminently