Rachel is an African American play written and produced in 1916 by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and published in printed form 4 years later. Rachel, the main character, is a young black woman with a special talent for caring for children and who, as suggested in the first act, would one day like to have children of her own. Her strong desire to become a mother (a literary trope amply explored in the works of the Harlem Renaissance, the artistic movement to which Grimké also belonged), however, shifts radically by the end of the story, when Rachel becomes fully conscious of the difficulties that black children face in American society. Rachel’s family knows all about this …
1570 words
Citation: Ciamparella, Anna. "Rachel". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 June 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38962, accessed 23 November 2024.]
