Location, Female Autonomy, and Identity in Pauline Hopkins’s Contending Forces

Pratibha Parma claims that the appropriation and use of space are political acts. This chapter argues that Pauline Hopkins's novel Contending Forces (1900) makes an important contribution to black feminist practices by utilizing space as political and transient sites for African American women's transformation and autonomy. The importance of her contribution comes from her exploration of a crucial set of issues that band together around the question of black female identity and position. These include the relationship between black women's identity and their marginalization, the meaning of their marginalization from their positions in dominant society, and the relationship of their identity by the interconnection of race and gender.KeywordsBlack WomanAfrican American WomanFemale CharacterRape VictimSafe SpaceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.