"This fenced-off narrow space": an analysis of race and place in Maud Martha, All They Will Call You, and Owls Don't Have to Mean Death

Abstract

American contemporary and multicultural literature focuses on issues surrounding race. This project analyzes race through differing spaces, places, and environments in three works of 20th and 21st century American literature. Despite their differences in time and place, each novel deals with the restriction or removal of a marginalized group from a space or environment. Because an essential part of one’s identity is rooted in their relationship to the various physical environments or spaces of which they are a part, this project asks questions surrounding identity, heritage, and the creation of self. It also looks at the movement of individuals between spaces, focusing on the different ways an individual’s identity changes within urban and rural environments.