WALLED BLACK WORLD: HOSTILE URBAN ENVIRONMENT IN GLORIA NAYLOR’S THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE

Abstract

Ecocriticism has a short life. It is, according to Cheryll Glotfelty, “the study of the
relationship between literature and the physical environment” (1996, xix). After a first-wave of ecocritics
analyzing the pastoral in literature, a second-wave started including urban environments. Since the
formation of ASLE in the 1990s the ecological movement has gained importance and has evolved from
an initial focus on “nature-oriented literature” to take into account urban as well as rural environments
(Buell 2005, 7). Thus, from the study of the pristine wild woods of America, ecocritics have expanded
their analyses to the gray concrete of American cities represented in its literature. This paper seeks to
analyze hostile urban elements in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place (1982), considering
them from an ecocritic point of view. Brewster Place was “cut off from the central activities of the city”
by a wall, a mass of bricks that represents “segregation and isolation,” key factors of racial inequality in
developed societies (Naylor 1982; Cole 2001). Gloria Naylor links brilliantly race, gender and hazardous
environments in this text.
KEYWORDS: Brewster Place; dead-end street; wal