An Imperative Duty (Broadview Editions) - Softcover

Howells, W.D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551119145 ISBN 13: 9781551119144

Verlag: Broadview Press Ltd, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

This engaging short work by a great American novelist addresses the then-controversial topic of interracial marriage. ""An Imperative Duty"" tells the story of Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman on the verge of marriage who has been raised by her aunt to assume that she is white but who is in fact the descendant of an African-American grandmother. The novel traces the struggles of Rhoda, her aunt, and Edward Olney, the aunt's physician and Rhoda's eventual suitor, to come to terms with the implications of Rhoda's ethnic heritage. Howells employs this stock situation to explore newly urgent questions of identity, morality, and social policy raised by 'miscegenation' in the new, post-Reconstruction situation to which he writes. The novel imagines interracial marriage sympathetically at a time when racist sentiment was on the rise, and does this is one of Howells' most aesthetically economical performances in the short novel form. The novel's appeal is increased by the primary source documents on nineteenth-century scientific race theory, contemporary attitudes toward race and miscegenation, and contemporary responses to the novel included in the appendices to this edition.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Paul R. Petrie is Professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

An Imperative Duty tells the story of Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman on the verge of marriage who has been raised by her aunt to assume that she is white, but who is in fact the descendant of an African-American grandmother. The novel traces the struggles of Rhoda, her family, and her suitor to come to terms with the implications of Rhoda's heritage. Howells employs this stock situation to explore the newly urgent questions of identity, morality, and social policy raised by "miscegenation" in the post-Reconstruction United States. The novel imagines interracial marriage sympathetically at a time when racist sentiment was on the rise, and does this in one of Howells's most aesthetically economical performances in the short novel form.

Appendices to this Broadview Edition include material on the "tragic mulatta" in literature, interracial marriage, the "science" of race in the nineteenth century, and Howells's literary realism.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Broadview Press Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1551119145
• ISBN 13: 9781551119144
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 200
• Herausgeber: Petrie Paul R.
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar