Brown Girl, Brownstones(Going Home again)

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Going Home Again

In Paule Marshall's novel Brown Girl, Brownstones the story takes place in the America of the 150ties where union with the ideals, values and traditions that declare one an "American" is only possible beneath one skin, the white skin. Every other skin exists in a fractured double consciousness; lost in duality, vainly seeking a unification which endlessly eludes the non-white experience. W.E.B Dubois wrote in his paper The Souls of Black Folk "Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?" Selina, the central character of Brown Girl, Brownstones, is an outcast and a stranger in two worlds; the Bajan world of her mother and the American world of her birth but this is a choice that Selina makes as she seeks an identity that is her own.

A child's identity is obtained through the union of their parents; Selina's small soul cannot take root in the war torn home of her parents. The constant struggle between her parents destroys her sense of wholeness by dividing her consciousness between them. In contrast to the placid and unquestioning countenance of her friend Beryl, Selina is a fiercely independent thinker. At Beryl's party Selina questions Beryl "I mean what do you say about anything? You begin everything with 'My father says this or that' or 'my father's gonna give me this or that '___ but what do you say, what do you want?"(Marshall 17). Beryl's willingness to be led by her father and the Bajan group fills Selina with an apprehension she does not understand. Selina is drawn to the security of Beryl's father directed life but also repelled by her total acquiescence to the authority of the group. Selina's rejection of what she cannot have (the committed unified family) makes an outsider of her.

It is this obeisance to the group that Selina's father was also unable to tolerate. But his reasons are very different from Selina's because his need to be important is the impetus behind his rejection of the Bajan community and its values. When Deighton spitefully shops away the $00.00 that Silla wants to use as a down payment for the brownstone she makes sure the entire Bajan Community knows. At the wedding Deighton becomes aware of the power of the group when they mock him with their song "Small Island go back where you come from" (Marshall 150). It is at this point that Selina also awakens to the power of her mother's community as she tries unsuccessfully to reach her father Marshall states, "My father's here. Lemme go" and again she struggled without success. Not only Beryl but the glaring lights, the loud song and the others dancers seemed to be holding her from him". (Marshall 14). When Deighton loses the use of his arm in an accident he gives up everything that is of value to him including his family and his identity and becomes whatever Father Peace requires of him. Sensing his weakness, Selina is unable to hold her father accountable for anything and instead she blames her mother and the Bajan community for the loss of her father. Her rejection of the entire Bajan community and its ideals is a means of punishing her larger than life mother who Selina sees as "the mother" rather than "my mother".

Unable to choose between her father's world and her mother's she rejects the Bajan world that represents them both and for a time assimilates into the American world through living the American experience. Life at the University that Selina attends becomes a vehicle for the "American experience" but the university life unwittingly deceives Selina simply by its focus on intellectual learning and creative expression. The University, as well as Selina's protected Bajan community, cannot prepare her to deal with the racism that is fundamental to the real world of the "American experience". When confronted with the hurtful prejudiced of the white American world Selina's spirit is for a time shattered. Marshall states "It would intrude in every corner of her life, tainting her small triumphs�as it had tonight and exulting at her defeats." (Marshall 1). At the core of this destructive sense of powerlessness is the belief that her blackness is bad Marshall writes "the part of her that had long hated her for her blackness and thus begrudged her each small success like the one tonight". (Marshall 8) This self-hatred reveals a dual consciousness common to the African American reality and thus declares Selina an American not a Bajan.

. Selina's inability to reconcile the opposing philosophies of her parents causes a dual consciousness in Selina that makes her susceptible to the double standards of American life. This double consciousness is revealed under the attack of Meg's mother forcing Selina to acknowledge her own internalized self-hate. However Selina's rejection of the Bajan world and the perceived rejection of Selina by white America forces Selina to seek a new identity in her parent's homeland. It is the first act of true independence for Selina; when she gives permission to herself to pursue her father's dream of going home again.

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