The Role Of The Mammy In Gone With The Wind

1820 Words4 Pages

The Mammy
The mammy role can be attributed to Hattie McDaniel’s character in Gone with the Wind (1939) that shares the same name. This role shows a black woman whose only purpose was to “appease the racial sensibilities of whites” (Boyd, pg. 70). She was “the faithful servant to the white family”(Boyd, pg. 71), always willing to service without compliant. It was a direct relation to what was happening in life at the time; not many jobs were available to African American women besides being a nanny or maid. In fact McDaniels once stated, after getting much backlash from the black community over the Mammy roles she constantly took, “Why should I complain about making seven thousand dollars week playing a maid? If I didn’t, I’d be making seven …show more content…

This character tends to be the best friend of the white main character, yet the friendship is always one-sided. The character’s whole world seems to revolve around this white character; they never have a life of their own, aspirations, or even family. Their sole purpose is to be a prop to advance the characterization of the white character. The character Bonnie Bennett from CW show The Vampire Dairies exhibits these traits perfectly. In blog’s critique of the lack-luster portrayal of People of Color in the series the writer …show more content…

She is the ultimate token black girl/magical negro. She is always put in a position of servitude and is ultimately a walking-talking plot device. If you watch seasons 1 through 5, Bonnie gets very little screen time, and the little she does get is only to cast spells, not because it is what she wants to do, but because she is asked, or mostly ordered or threatened into by her white friends and enemies. Bonnie is always the loophole: when the plot requires it, she is brought out of the shadows, and just as soon, shoved right back in” (SHANNONJEANNA, The problematic treatment of People of Color on The Vampire Diaries, 2015).
The submissive and sacrificial role, that the only canonical non-white character inhabits, paints a clear picture on how the writers view the role of black female

Show More
Related

  • Emotion and Culture in Secret Life of Bees

    492 Words  | 1 Pages

    Although the main character in the book was white, the author, Sue Kidd, does a great job of depicting the African American culture during the time. Whether it was Rosaleen getting beat up in jail, or Zach dreaming of being a lawyer, this book showed you what it was like being a minority during a time when rights where still being fought for. One of the smaller conflicts in the story was a man verses man conflict, when Lily and Zach started to like each other. Though they knew that a colored man, and a white girl could never be together, they both were attracted to each other. Were they not from different cultures, people would have been fine with them dating, but because Zach was black, it couldn?t work out.

    Read More

  • Comparing the Role of Women in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Go Tell It On the Mountain

    2317 Words  | 5 Pages

    Historically, the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother in African-American culture is one of guidance, love, and wisdom; quite often the mother is the shaping and driving force of African-American children. This is reflected in the literature of the African-American as a special bond of love and loyalty to the mother figure. Just as the role of motherhood in African-American culture is magnified and elevated, so is the role of the wife. The literature reflects this by showing the African-American man struggling to make a living for himself and his family with his wife either being emotionally or physically submissive. Understanding the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining the roles of women in African-American literature. Because literature is a reflection of the community from which it comes, the portrayal of women in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain (1952) is consistent with the roles mentioned above.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of In Ar 'N' T I A Woman By Deborah Gray White

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    emphasizes the concept that colored women had been oppressed and time after time did not receive any sort of reconciliation. White explains how it is quite difficult to find specific facts on what colored women withstood at the time but when you look actively enough, you will surely find it. White clarifies the two major archetypes that colored women were forced to identify with. The first being Jezebel, the highly inappropriate and submissive character, was created from the white man’s distorted view on colored women’s clothing choice which women chose in order to comfortably work in the most efficient way. Many of the women worked in the outdoor heat which led to them rolling up their tops and bottoms in order to avoid overheating which would lead to the slowing down of their work. The second archetype, that of Mammy, was created to comfort white women in a way. The slave owners wanted to be reassured that the slaves were equipped and efficient. White indicates that the Mammy slaves were not liked for long as they were contracting the notion that white women were of any use in their own

    Read More

  • The Invention Of Wings Novel

    1842 Words  | 4 Pages

    Another very important character is Hetty Handful Grimke; Handful is a slave that is given to Sarah as a gift for her birthday. Handful, just like Sarah is a very opinionated and intelligent woman but she’s a slave. Handful doesn’t obey the rules that are set out for her; Handful learns how to read and write even though she’s not allowed to, and she has such pride in herself that she shows her owners that she can do it. That she is capable of doing anything they can, she has the courage to defy her masters even though she knows it will lead to her being severely punished.

    Read More

  • The Negro Question & Suffrage of Female Slaves: Through the Analysis of Dianthe Lusk

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel Dianthe can be seen as both a black and a white character. At the beginning of the novel Dianthe is a beautiful black women of fair complexion who sings in the African American choir. However, after her train accident and “reanimation” she suffers from retrograde amnesia, and forgets her identity. Upon her awakening Rauel and Aubrey are there to impose the identity of Felice Adams (a white women) upon her. After imposing this racial identity change Rauel and Aubrey observe Dianthe, “they noted her perfect manners, the ease and good breeding displayed in all her intercourse with those socially above the level to which they knew this girl was born. She accepted the luxury of her surrounding as one of the manner born.” Dianthe a black women who performs stereotypical black female activities through the example of choral

    Read More

  • Gender Slavery And Freedom Essay

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the eighteenth and nineteenth-century, notions of freedom for Black slaves and White women were distinctively different than they are now. Slavery was a form of exploitation of black slaves, whom through enslavement, lost their humanity and freedom, and were subjected to dehumanizing conditions. African women and men were often mistreated through similar ways, especially when induced to labor, they would eventually become a genderless individual in the sight of the master. Despite being considered “genderless” for labor, female slaves suddenly became women who endured sexual violence. Although a white woman was superior to the slaves, she had little power over the household, and was restricted to perform additional actions without the consent of their husbands. The enslaved women’s notion to conceive freedom was different, yet similar to the way enslaved men and white women conceived freedom. Black women during slavery fought to resist oppression in order to gain their freedom by running away, rebel against the slaveholders, or by slowing down work. Although that didn’t guarantee them absolute freedom from slavery, it helped them preserve the autonomy and a bare minimum of their human rights that otherwise, would’ve been taken away from them. Black

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Awakening And Their Eyes Were Watching God

    1604 Words  | 4 Pages

    Males have always fiddled with the lives of women for years, they play it well and society is the audience asking for an encore, it is society that says it’s okay. They take advantage of their circumstances and the other gender has to endure the harsh results from that. Janie, a black woman in Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God and Edna, a white woman in Chopin’s “The Awakening” live in two

    Read More

  • Mr. Gaudet From Property By Harriet Jacobs Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl?

    1361 Words  | 3 Pages

    Oppression of African American men and women in the United States is largely responsible for the well-known stereotype of white male owners in the late decades of slavery. Wide spread racial supremacy modeled character traits for both fictional and historical characters in American literary history. Mr. Gaudet from property by Valerie Martin and Dr. Flint from Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs share three main character traits typical of that for a white slave owner in America: unmerciful, domineering and amoral.

    Read More

  • Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman?

    1623 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...

    Read More

  • Sexism In Kimberle Crenshaw's 'Black Girls Matter'

    718 Words  | 2 Pages

    She creates an ideology about how black girls face barriers that undermine their well-being. They are completely ignored by national initiatives, unlike white females who have an upper hand because of power and privilege, simply because of their whiteness. In America, people of power should help young girls of color, overcome discrimination and sexism against them through the use of national initiatives. They need to focus more or equally on initiatives for girls of color rather than just for boys or global programs like ‘Let Girls

    Read More

  • The Trial Of Girlhood And A Perilous Passage In The Slave Girl's Life Analysis

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    As female slaves such as Harriet Jacob continually were fighting to protect their self respect, and purity. Harriet Jacob in her narrative, the readers get an understanding of she was trying to rebel against her aggressive master, who sexually harassed her at young age. She wasn’t protected by the law, and the slaveholders did as they pleased and were left unpunished. Jacobs knew that the social group,who were“the white women”, would see her not as a virtuous woman but hypersexual. She states “I wanted to keep myself pure, - and I tried hard to preserve my self-respect, but I was struggling alone in the grasp of the demon slavery.” (Harriet 290)The majority of the white women seemed to criticize her, but failed to understand her conditions and she did not have the free will. She simply did not have that freedom of choice. It was the institution of slavery that failed to recognize her and give her the basic freedoms of individual rights and basic protection. Harriet Jacobs was determined to reveal to the white Americans the sexual exploitations that female slaves constantly fa...

    Read More

  • Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl And Frederick Douglass

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first topic found in these books is the difference in the roles of women and men slaves. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl gives us the women 's point of view, their lifestyle and their slave duties and roles. On the other hand, The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass shows us the male side of slavery; the duties and role of men slaves and their way of living their situation. Both books state clearly the roles of both men and women slaves. We can easily observe the fact that slaves’ roles were based on their gender, and the different duties they had based on these roles. This gender role idea was based on American society’s idea of assigning roles based only on gender. Slave men’s role was most of the time simple. Their purpose was mainly physical work. In

    Read More

  • What Is Michelle Obama Essay

    1436 Words  | 3 Pages

    A female belonging to a particular category defines a woman and being black is a member of a dark-skinned people, especially one of African or Australian Aboriginal ancestry. A black woman is just a category belonging to a community of color that is the “opposite white”. White the symbol of purity meaning no harm determining that a white woman is a pure female, the opposite of a black woman. There is not a fine line between white and black women. They are both a part of the same “category”, but so different described in dictionaries, media, and society. Black women are angry, fierce, erotic, and curvy. They are the Welfare Queens of human civilization. White woman can be best described as Starbucks lovers, housewives, consisting of a dumb

    Read More

  • Slave Women In Caribbean Society Summary

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    Author Clare Johnson starts the review of the literature by explaining to the reader that when she was in middle and high school, the only areas of black history that she was taught was about captives running away from the harsh and inhumane treatment of their oppressors while working in the fields. She also explains to the reader that her none of her educators or any of the other literatures that she read in junior or high school ever discussed or even briefly introduced various approaches of resistance to enslavement that were done by both genders of slaves who were being held captive. It was not uncommon for black women slaves to commit murder against their white captors. Women have also been found to figure prominently in such events as

    Read More

  • The Bluest Eye Research Paper

    882 Words  | 2 Pages

    Nearly all of the black characters in the book have underlying “whiteness” are obsessed with cleanliness. This ongoing need to be clean extends to the woman's moral and emotional want for purity. They are so

    Read More

More about The Role Of The Mammy In Gone With The Wind

Open Document