From the 1930s to the 1950s, African-American literature took many twists and turns, increasing its scope and horizons. The tumultuous events of these decades (depression, war, etc.) helped give birth to many advances in ethnic literature.

The Harlem Renaissance, lasting from the end of World War I to around 1935, was a complete renewal of all facets of African-American culture, including music, art and dance, as well as literature. This post-war era gave rise to the literary styles of realism and primitivism among black writers. Primitivism stresses the innate goodness of man and often portrays civilization as an evil entity crushing the human spirit. The style often depicts a "noble savage," one who has not been poisoned by the civilized world. In terms of African-American culture, it often focuses on the events of the lower class who retain its inherent goodness by remaining untainted by white and/or wealthy society. A huge contributor to the primitivism movement was author Zora Neale Hurston. A native of Haiti, Hurston was raised by her minister father, and she was raised as a Baptist but later became a pagan. She embraced paganism in her writing because it could free her from conventional writing styles. Her best-known work, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published in 1937. Another noted primitivist was poet Claude McKay. Born and educated in Jamaica, he wrote such poems as "If We Must Die" and "Harlem Dancer."

Certainly the best known writer of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. Hughes’s poetry acted as a voice of both frustration and hope for African-Americans. Some of his best known works include "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and "A Dream Deferred."

In the years from 1935 to the 1950s, African Americans began to take more pride in their accomplishments and advances. They began taking more pride in themselves and spoke out against the social injustices they were forced to endure for so long. The first stirrings of the civil rights movement were also seen during this period. This gave rise to the style of naturalism, emphasizing the nature of mankind in his daily actions. The character is usually a type of "tragic hero," who is controlled by his circumstances and his biology, not by his own free will. The characters are portrayed without moral judgement, only as products of their environment and heredity. The archetypal naturalism novel is Native Son by Richard Wright. Other works by Wright include the autobiographical Black Boy as well as The Outsider and The Long Dream.

The changes in African-American literature from the Great Depression through the post-WW II years parallels the many changes going on in America at that same time. It was a time of rich cultural development often overshadowed by the significant historical events taking place at the same time.

African-American literature bloomed with the Harlem Renaissance. Before this period, the literature had been divided into the following two sections: the period up to the Civil War and the period from the Civil War to World War I. The African-American writers of the Harlem Renaissance to the present day differed from the writers of the other two groups; the past sought freedom and identity as slaves and newly freed citizens while the writers since the 1930s dealt with self-discovery and black power. Although both groups studied the themes of equality and race, one suffered to belong while the other sought to be an individual.

The theme of individualism emerged slowly; it existed in pre-Civil War times but grabbed the attention of readers in the 1940s and 1950s. Individualism flowed along the theme of realism which was the basis of most African-American novels. The novel, Black Boy, by Richard Wright reinforces "the image of the black man as victim of his environment" (Collier and Long 442). Wright's Native Son was published in 1940; the success of that novel led to the appearance of similar themes in Ralph Waldo Ellison's novel, Invisible Man. The novels dealt with the theme of individuality and identity during a time period when success of life was marked by possessions of a house, car, T.V., home appliances, and a white face. Although Ellison clearly deals with racism in his novel, his overall theme explores the effect of the blinding power of prejudice of all people.

James Baldwin also wrote about the African-American life of the 1950s. Some of his novels such as The Fire Next Time seek for equality while his autobiographical novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain, deals more with the issues of self-knowledge and Christianity. Baldwin and Ellison both included racial issues in their novels, but their novels included elements and messages than were beyond the basic cry for equality.

The 1960s arrived with the Civil Rights movement. It was an era filled with the shouts of "We Shall Overcome" and "Black Power." Along with the many speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the 1960s was an era of novels such as Confrontations in Black and White by Lerone Bennett. The novels followed the feminism and the minority activism of the time period.

The racial issues of the 1960s decreased in severity with the 1970s and 1980s. Larger social issues tended to be forgotten, and African-American writers such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Maya Angelou produced novels dealing with African-American women. These novels touched upon racism, but it was not their central theme. Their central theme was the discovery of inner strength which reaches a group far greater than those who only seek racial justice.

Most black writers depicted the struggles and conflicts of racial issues because "...otherwise they risk being totally useless to their race or worse, serving the interests of the white oppressor" (Popkin N. pag.), but the role of racism in African-American novels changed over the years. They began as essays which denounced slavery but slowly became novels with universal themes of identity and love. African-American authors, like authors of any other color, write about their experiences, and therefore many of their novels include elements dealing strictly with the African-American lifestyle because, in the words of Addison Gayle Jr., "To evaluate the life and culture of black people, it is necessary that one live the black experience" (Popkin N. pag.). The greatest change of African-American writers is in the way they seek the answers to their questions. No longer are questions directed toward the white man; the quest for knowledge and wisdom is within. Each man and woman searches him or herself to find the reasons for one's existence.

When Invisible Man finds himself descending into a basement several floors underground, he seems to be searching for a job. This job search leads him into a search for his identity which, throughout the novel, Invisible Man is determined to find. By his descending into the satanic basement of the jealous Lucius Brockway, the reader can relate this descending into a hellish place to Dante's Inferno where the main character deals with evil as he ventures into the depths of hell. Because of this feeling of paranoid apprehension that grips Invisible Man while Lucius attacks him for trespassing, the feeling of a 1984 way of life surfaces. 1984 ideology occurs when Invisible Man speaks of having the feeling of being under constant surveillance and of the Brotherhood's requiring him to have only certain views on how to live; these events support his paranoia. These feelings of apprehension are only temporary as the novel progresses because of the fact that Invisible Man is becoming less and less blind to his own naiveté.

This blindness, a major theme in the novel, shows only the naiveté of Invisible Man. Just like in The Iliad and The Odyssey, the theme of blindness is evident as blindness only prevents the truth from getting out as is the case in Invisible Man. As the novel progresses, Invisible Man takes off one blindfold right after the other and becomes aware of who he is, his identity, and what the real motives of the Brotherhood are. Jack the Bear, in fairy tales, also suggests that life in New York is like a fairy tale, and this appears later in the novel when Invisible Man begins to realize his new freedom. Therefore, his life becomes, in a sense, almost like a dream or fairy tale, questing for his lost identity.

A page about The Harlem Renaissance

African and African American Classics

The Vintage Library

Literature and History written by and on African Americans

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