MALE ABSENCE AND SINGLE PARENTHOOD IN BLACK WRITING: A STUDY OF RICHARD WRIGHT’S BLACK BOY, TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED, AND LAURETTA NGCOBO’S CROSS OF GOLD

MALE ABSENCE AND SINGLE PARENTHOOD IN BLACK WRITING: A STUDY OF RICHARD WRIGHT’S BLACK BOY, TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED, AND LAURETTA NGCOBO’S CROSS OF GOLD

Abstract:

This study employs Realism as an analytical tool to assess the various dimensions of male absence and single parenthood in Richard Wright‟s Black Boy (1945), Toni Morrison‟s Beloved (1987) and Lauretta Ngcobo‟s Cross of Gold (1981). This research is thus a comparative study of male absence and single parenthood in Black writing in the United States and South Africa. The study posits that the spread of male absence and single parenthood (female-headed homes) among African Americans and Black South Africans are not unconnected with the socio-historical events experienced in the United States and South Africa respectively. Whereas African American men are generally considered and presented as deliberate deserters due to their inability to handle their sole provider responsibility, male absence and single parenthood among Black South Africans largely results from men‟s response to familial needs which usually takes them to the mines in urban areas as well as other governmental policies basically designed to blow especially black families into fragments

MALE ABSENCE AND SINGLE PARENTHOOD IN BLACK WRITING: A STUDY OF RICHARD WRIGHT’S BLACK BOY, TONI MORRISON’S BELOVED, AND LAURETTA NGCOBO’S CROSS OF GOLD