Blackness and Role Assignment

Blackness has continued to grow in meaning such that its meaning can be described as ambiguous. A black person in a racist environment is a sulbalternized person whose identity is defined by another; a person denied of self. This imposed or constructed definition of blackness leads to stereotyping and role assignment. This work examines what blackness means to the characters and the consequent role assignment as contained in Andrea Levy's Fruit of the Lemon and Small Island.