Book Review on Harriet's Daughter Sat Oct 27, 2007 4:52 PM EDT entertainment, book-review, sec-706, harriets-daughter, marlene-nourbese-philip

By hmair advertisement

It is not often that one comes across a book reflects the multicultural society that we are a part of. The novel, Harriet's Daughter is written by Marlene Nourbese Philip who is known for experimenting with literary forms and for her commitment to social justice. Harriet's Daughter deals in a lively, highly readable way with homesickness, responsibility, family ties, and the specific problems faced by young adults in a multi-racial city. The dialogue comes right off the page. At times you'll even find yourself reading it aloud. Harriet's Daughter, centers around Margaret, a fourteen year old black girl of West Indian parentage and her friendship with Zulma. Zulma has recently migrated from Tobago and now desparetely misses her former life there. When Margaret realizes that Zulma's happiness depends on her returning to her grandmother's care in Tobago, Margaret decides to get enough money for her friend's ticket back home.She approached this endevour with earnesty and dedication like her nemesis Harriet Tubman. Harriet's Daughter raises difficult issues around gender and power without resorting to protest. In her first novel, Philip embarks on a feminist approach whereby the women shows empowerment after facing catastrophic experiences. Like her hero, Harriet Tubman, Margaret was able to go all out and strategically plan an escape for the troubled women in her immediate surroundings - her best friend Zulma, and her mother. This novel successfully challenges stereotypical notions of both strong matriarchial black mothers and of poor abused black women. There is focus on Margaret's relationship with her parents and her desire to help her mother stand up toher father's dominance. Margaret's father insists that a woman's place is in the home. She should be there to wash, cook, and raise the children. On the other hand, it was the man's duty to be the breadwinner, and when he coes home, he should sit back, read the paper, or play dominoes with his frends.Margaret loaths this. She openly defies her father on numerous occassions. She broke her mother's financial dependance on her father by tricking her into gettng a job at her school. Harriet's Daughter deals with real emotions, talks of real events, and asks the sort of questions about parents that many children dying to ask but dare not.The language of the novel is a vivid intermingling of standard English and dialect. Readers who are not familiar with the Tobagonian dialect would benefit from the audio version of the novel. Margaret's success in accomplishing her goals by emancipating both her mother and Zulma from the pangs of oppression caused by the powerful and abusive men in their lives, earned her the respect of being called "Harriet's Daughter". The universal themes that are being portrayed in the novel and how they are presented make it one of the most remarkable books I have ever read.