Bird at My Window (Masterplots II: African American Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Rosa Cuthbert
- First Published: 1966
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Naturalism
- Time of Work: The 1920’s to the 1950’s
- Setting: Harlem, New York, and Paris, France
- Principal Characters: Wade Williams, “Big Willie” Williams, Evelyn Williams, Faith, Willie Earl, Uncle Dan, Professor Jones, Clovis Rockford, Jr., Gay Sommers, Gladys
- Genres: Long fiction, Naturalistic literature
- Subjects: African Americans, Maturation or coming of age, Family or family life, Self-discovery, Parents and children, Prisons, Murder or homicide, Twentieth century, Antiheroes, Brothers and sisters, Dreams, Genius, Harlem, Paris
- Locales: Harlem, NY, Paris, France
The Novel
Divided into fifteen chapters, Bird at My Window has a plot that the reader unwraps like the leafy layers of an artichoke, revealing, at last, the heart and soul of the main character, Wade Williams.
As the novel begins, Wade wakes up in a straitjacket in the prison ward of a New York City hospital. The straitjacket is, in some ways, a metaphor for his predicament in life; it foreshadows the evolving restrictions of both heredity and environment that Wade confronts as the novel unfolds.
At first completely disoriented, Wade soon learns that he has...
[The entire page is 2907 words long]
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