Journal Article

Demythologizing Whiteness in Frank Yerby's The Foxes of Harrow

Watson, Veronica

2011

Overview

[...]African American intellectuals have been astute observers of White America, borne of the need to \"cope and survive in a white supremacist society\" (hooks 38). [...]somewhat predictably, within pages of rejecting the bifurcated consciousness that had structured her identity, Odalie dies giving \"birth to a stillborn child - a daughter\" (237). [...]just before she expires she also cleanses the White home of Stephen's \"dark\" distraction by securing his promise that he will \"never consort\" with his pale mistress, Desiree, again (237). [...]although interesting for the potential she suggests for White womanhood to liberate itself from the lenticular logic of race and to reproduce Whiteness differently, Odalie ultimately chooses to cling to a false consciousness even into death. According to Stephan Thernstrom, editor of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, the term \"Creole\" initially referred to \"Louisianans of French and Spanish descent,\" an ethnically-specifically \"White\" people who sought \"to distinguish themselves from the AngloAmericans who started to move into Louisiana\" after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.

• Publisher: Mississippi Valley State University
• Subject: African American literature / American literature / Brooks, Gwendolyn (1917-2000) / Du Bois, W E B (1868-1963) / Yerby, Frank (1916-1991)