Group 4 Plum Bun review, 2/25

Major Themes:

• Freedom
• Identity
• Frustration
• Community
• Objectification of women
• Power
• Social constructs/confines of race
• Gender roles
• Monetarial status -- as a form of power

In Jessie Fauset’s Plum Bun, Angela struggles with identity and self-love due to the social constructs that deprive her from the life that she has envisioned for herself during the Harlem Renaissance. In an attempt to escape the many struggles involved with racism and to embrace freedom, Angela attempts to pass as a white woman. However, Angela is extremely oppressed due to the blatant racism of the white world in which she attempts to live in. For example, Angela experienced racism in the white community of Philadelphia when one of her peers discovered that Angela was actually black. As soon as Angela’s peer discovers this, Angela loses the respect that she was receiving when she was perceived to be white.  

Out of frustration, she fails to embrace her heritage as the rest of her family so graciously does because of the racial ideologies that uplift white supremacy, therefore tearing down the black race. Due to this societal influence, she feels as though she will never have the life she deserves because of her “blackness”.  As the novel sheds insight on her thoughts it describes; “to feel that coloured people were to be considered fortunate only in the proportion in which they measured up to the physical standards of white people” (Fauset, 18).  Ultimately, the definement of her worth being left in the hands of her white counterparts proved detrimental to her growth as the prevailing stigmas for African - Americans in that time period were extremely negative.  She developed an unfavorable view of herself and decided to flee from her reality, escaping to her fantasy as she leaves home and decides to pass for white.

After fleeing home in search of “equality” she finds herself in the middle of a bustling New York City. Expecting the place to be an oasis for her, in light of her new white identity, she soon realizes that it is an entirely different world than she is used to. Once she entered Harlem, she saw the allure of black life unfettered, bursting with creativity and movement. In this, Angela experiences the allure of the black community in New York and begins to question whether white is truly the thing to be, or does she simply want to feel equal. This is only beginning of her wrestling with her identity throughout the novel.