The Importance Of Family In African American Literature

Who in your life would you find the most valuable? In African American literature writing, a theme that is found throughout is the importance of family. In many of the stories, poems and films we were introduced to, a common theme shared was family, with them either being away from them or how important they are to them. The works that best showed how family was important to either the author or a character were: The Song of Solomon, 12 years a slave, The Narrative life of Frederick Douglass and poems written during the Harlem Renaissance. The theme importance of family is shown in many different ways for a character through African American writing, poetry and film. The normalcy of an average family was absent in Milkmans family but even through the circumstances, family is still a key theme. Growing up rich made Milkman a selfish and very unappreciative of what he had in his life, especially his family and what they did for him. His odd relationship with his mother started when he was young when she breastfeeds him until he was four or five years old. Ruth

Frederick is a man who didn 't know what it was like having a family, but when he was he taught to read by his slave masters wife he made her a mother figure. " She very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters." (Douglass 237) Unaware a mistress could be so kind, Frederick had very strong feelings about Mrs Auld and how she cared for him. That shows a way that having something close to a family is important to him. " My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant-before I knew her as my mother." (Douglass 233) Douglass shows how he didn 't know anything about his mother or even that she was his mother. Leading how later in the story when his mother dies he isn 't sad like one would