| These two novels are divergent in regards to time | | | | violence. This depicts the world of the African |
| frame, family relationship, and class. The female | | | | American ghetto. The style also gives the sense of a |
| protagonists are both young, African Americans but | | | | jungle, full of animal imagery (such as Chink being |
| their lives are complete opposites. Before reading | | | | called an ape or tiger). The reader also sees people |
| these texts, the only African American literature that | | | | as predators, economically and sexually. Chink earns |
| I had read and studied have been slave narratives, | | | | his living by preying on other people's addictions and |
| such as Frederick Douglas' and Celia, A Slave. These | | | | Sandra is preyed upon sexually by two black men. |
| texts showed me that even after emancipation, | | | | One also gets a picture of the jungle in Sandra's |
| African Americans were still oppressed, first with | | | | relationship with her mother. Sandra has to fight her |
| segregation and then poverty.Baby of the Family is a | | | | mother in order to survive. An example of this is |
| story of assimilation. Lena's family, even though they | | | | when Sandra gets some food from Sammy after |
| live in a segregated society, are joining the white | | | | working in his store. Sandra was eating the food |
| culture as much as possible. They are definitely middle | | | | when her mother came home. She hurriedly ate the |
| class. In spite of being forced to live in the Black part | | | | rest of the sandwiches but the cake and pop were |
| of town, which is the poorest section, Lena's family | | | | still there when her mother entered the kitchen. Her |
| owns a very nice house and have many luxury items, | | | | mother snatches up the cake and eats it and then |
| such as two sewing machines, appliances, and a | | | | demands that Sandra give her the bottle of pop. |
| piano. They are working hard and striving to achieve | | | | Sandra runs around the table to stay away from her |
| the dominant culture's "Dream." Lena and her family | | | | mother as she downs the soda. This struggle over |
| have created their own world that exists separate | | | | food between Sandra and her mother reminds the |
| from the white world. In the novel, white people are | | | | reader of how the animals in the jungle fight over a |
| almost non-existent and there is little confrontation | | | | fresh kill.From reading these two texts together, the |
| with racism. The style of the novel is very mellow; it | | | | picture that emerges of African American literature is |
| practically lulls the reader to sleep. One is given the | | | | that of the various ways African Americans have |
| feeling that assimilation is good and that the message | | | | been oppressed and are still being oppressed. Lena is |
| to African Americans is not to "buck the system." | | | | oppressed by segregation; Sandra by poverty. In |
| The only example of resistance in Baby comes from | | | | both of these novels, women are subjugated to |
| the slave Rachel, who tells of her suicide to escape | | | | men. This is shown in Sandra's rape and her |
| oppression. Before this, Lena did not know much | | | | deference to Chink and also in Nellie's submission to |
| about the lives of slaves; this lack of knowledge | | | | her husband and his numerous |
| indicates her parents' desire to let the past be the | | | | affairs.ReferencesAnsa, Tina McElroy. Baby of the |
| past.Black Girl Lost is a novel of resistance to the | | | | Family. Harcourt, 1991.Goines, Donald. Black Girl Lost. |
| dominant culture. The literary style of this novel is | | | | Lushena Publishing, 2006.Mary Arnold is an author on |
| very fast-paced, action-packed, and full of animal | | | | which is a site for Fiction Writing. |