Author: Patton, Venetria K.
Suny Series, Afro-American Studies; Hardcover
Published: November 1999
State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791443434

Looking at the work of such writers as Harriet Wilson, Frances E. W. Harper, Pauline Hopkins, Toni Morrison, Sherley Anne Williams, and Gayl Jones, Patton (English and African-American studies, U. of Nebraska-Lincoln) finds that they repeatedly link slavery with motherhood. She shows that the image of black women by others and themselves is framed and influenced by a portrayal of women slaves as mere breeders and not mothers. These writers, she says, counter the image with that of the mother.