Brown Girl, Brownstones (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Paule Marshall
- First Published: 1959
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Bildungsroman
- Time of Work: 1939 to the late 1940’s
- Setting: Brooklyn, New York
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism, Bildungsroman, Domestic realism
- Subjects: African Americans, Girls, Maturation or coming of age, Family or family life, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., Self-discovery, United States or Americans, Parents and children, Caribbean, Blacks, New York City, 1940’s, 1930’s, Ethnic groups, Ethnic relations, Immigration or emigration, Inner cities or inner-city life
- Locales: Brooklyn, NY
Characters Discussed
Selina Boyce, a young black girl growing up among Barbadian immigrants in a section of Brooklyn. Selina is a sensitive, intelligent child, extremely attached to her free- spirited father and at fierce odds with her strong-willed, practical mother, both recent immigrants from Barbados. Throughout most of the novel, Selina attempts to act as mediator between her beloved but hopelessly idealistic father and her hard, manipulating mother, whose only dream is to buy a home of her own, rather than run the boardinghouse in which the Boyce family lives. The...
[The entire page is 2168 words long]
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