May Ayim: A Woman in the Margin of German Society |
May Ayim: A Woman in the Margin of German Society
The Florida State University College of Arts and Scienes
Spring Semester, 2005
76 pages
Margaret MacCarroll, Professor of Modern Languages: German Division
Florida State University
A thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
This work explores the life of the Afro-German writer May Ayim by analyzing her writings as well as by discussing the social circumstances in which she lived. Chapter 1 provides a look at the Ayim’s life, with special emphasis on major factors influencing her childhood. The effects of the personal as well as social pressures that Ayim dealt with as a child and young adult are also discussed. Chapter 2 focuses on the history of Afro-German children born shortly after World War II. Chapter 3 includes an explanation of Minor Literature and an examination of May Ayim as an author of such literature. Her importance as such is established. Due to Ayim’s position outside the mainstream of German society, social factors that greatly affected her life as a result of this situation are discussed in Chapter 4. These factors are: identity, culture, and ethnicity. In Chapter 5 Ayim’s attempts to incorporate both the white and black aspects of herself despite the deeply rooted history of racism in Germany are also discussed. Chapter 6 includes an examination of the toll that Ayim’s familial and social experiences played on her feelings of romantic love, especially toward another Afro-German. Chapter 7 examines the exhaustion that Ayim felt toward the end of her life.
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
1. GROWING UP BLACK IN GERMANY
Ayim’s Struggle with “Otherness“
Childhood Pressure
The White World and Ayim’s Black Father
Grasping her Africanness
Desire for Whiteness even in Africa
2. HISTORY OF RACISM IN GERMANY
Recent History of Racism and Mischlingskinder after World War II
3. MAY AYIM, AUTHOR OF MINOR LITERATURE
The Afro-German Minority Represented in Ayim’s Poetry
4. THE IDENTITY, CULTURE AND ETHNICITY OF PEOPLE ON THE FRINGES
5. MINOR RACE IN MAJORITY CULTURE
Racism on the Global Scale
Incorporating Her White and Black Self
6. MAY AYIM’S LOVE LIFE
7. AYIM’S EXHAUSTION ON THE FRINGE OF SOCIETY
CONCLUSION
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Read the entire thesis here.
Tags: Afro-Germans, Germany, Margaret C. MacCarroll, Margaret Catherine MacCarroll, Margaret MacCarroll, May Ayim, World War II