also constructs spaces of dreams and realities re-
flected partly in Joanna’s longing for achievement
and fame in spite of her dark color and partly in
the contradictory forces of racist and patriarchal
ideologies, which eventually force Joanna into a
different set of personal and social constraints. The
central irony of the text is that although Joanna
initially struggles to define herself as an indepen-
dent black woman in a world dominated by white
men, she ends by willingly relinquishing her au-
tonomy in order that she might be fully accepted
by the black patriarchs of her community.
This abrupt reversal of Joanna’s ideals might be
at the heart of much criticism of the novel. ERIC
WALROND reviewed Fauset’s novel in the July 9,
1924, issue of The New Republic. He noted that the
book was important because it had been penned
by a black woman but disparaged it because it was
not a “younger generation Negro” work like JEAN
TOOMER’s Cane (1923). Walrond unsympatheti-
cally labeled the narrative “a work of puny, pains-
taking labor.” Later 20th-century critics such as
BARBARA CHRISTIAN (Black Women Novelists, 1980)
and Hazel Carby (Reconstructing Womanhood,
1987) have criticized Fauset’s style, form, and sub-
ject matter. There is, however, much to be gained
in further considering this text, which paints a
portrait of the psychology of racism and its im-
pact on modern society. Claudia Tate, in Domestic
Allegories of Political Desire (1992), points out that
Fauset’s novel contains certain strategies aimed at
not only promoting middle-class values but also
“swelling the ranks of the black middle class and
middle-class aspirants” (113). Fauset biographer
Carolyn Sylvander calls the romantic story plot
“deceptive.” Indeed, while Fauset undertakes a tra-
ditional, almost Victorian style deemed to be out-
side the realms of modernist thought, she presents
a critique of race, class, and gender that demon-
strates clearly her modernist sensibilities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, Carol. Black Women Intellectuals: Strategies of
Nation, Family, and Neighborhood in the Works of
Pauline Hopkins, Jessie Fauset, and Marita Bonner.
New York: Garland Publishing, 1998.
Calloway, Licia Morrow. Black Family (Dys)function
in Novels by Jessie Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Fannie
Hurst. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.
Jones, Sharon L. Rereading the Harlem Renaissance:
Race, Class, and Gender in the Fiction of Jessie Fau-
set, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dorothy West. West-
port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.
Levison, Susan. “Performance and the ‘Strange
Place’ of Jessie Redmon Fauset’s There Is Confu-
sion.” Modern Fiction Studies 46, no. 4 (2000):
825–848.
McDowell, Deborah. “The Neglected Dimension of
Jessie Fauset.” In Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction
and Literary Tradition, edited by Marjorie Pryse
and Hortense Spillers, 86–104. Bloomington: In-
diana University Press, 1985.
Sylvander, Carolyn Wedin. Jessie Redmon Fauset:
Black American Writer. Troy, N.Y.: Whitson, 1981.
Tate, Claudia. Domestic Allegories of Political Desire:
The Black Heroine’s Text at the Turn of the Cen-
tury. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Rebecka R. RutledgeThird Life of Grange Copeland, The
Alice Walker (1970)
Although often overlooked by critics and readers,
ALICE WALKER’s first novel, The Third Life of Grange
Copeland, is a searing look at cycles of violence, rac-
ism, and despair. The story takes place in Georgia
and spans three generations of the Copeland fam-
ily. The main character, Grange Copeland, has an
abusive relationship with his wife. In despair over
grinding poverty and racism, Grange leaves his wife,
son, and tenant farm for the North. His wife com-
mits suicide. His son, Brownfield, while searching
for his father, ends up in a sexual relationship with
Grange’s former mistress, Josie, and her daughter,
Lorene. Brownfield ends up marrying Josie’s niece,
Mem, whom he later shoots to death in one of the
most violent scenes in the African-American literary
tradition. When Grange returns to Georgia, he dis-
covers Brownfield in jail for Mem’s murder. Grange
marries Josie and takes custody of Ruth, Mem and
Brownfield’s daughter. In an attempt to break theThird Life of Grange Copeland, The 491