Wallis's Sexuality In 'Let It Shine'

of African American women as aberrant from the sexual desires of Caucasian women and, more notably, the sexual desires of men. In “Romancing Reality: The Power of Romance Fiction to Reinforce and Re-Vision the Real”, contemporary romance novelist Jennifer Cruise analyzes how romance fiction such as “Let It Shine” empowers African American women. Cruise affirms that romance fiction heroines such as Wallis reconstruct the African American heroine as a woman who “demonstrates [her] abilities and strengths by…taking active, intelligent control of [her life]” (Cruise). Cole’s delineation of Wallis’ sexuality outlines the sexuality of African American women as “a space for emotional satisfaction rather than a space defined by physical and emotional

Wallis serves as a heroine who, through her actions, assures her audience, particularly African American women, that they can and should "not only feel passion, they can [and should] pursue it; that is, they can be sexually aggressive without seeming evil or pathetic" (Cruise). While Wallis begins as the woman who “accepted etiquette books[,]…sewed her dresses with skirts well below the knee[,]…[always] had her hair pressed straight, or pin-curled, and nodded along” when told to do so, she transforms into a woman who is fearless in admitting and pursuing her desires. Wallis’ initial attitude towards sex and sexual desire epitomizes the “conservative sexual behavior [at] the foundation of the performance of…[African American] womanhood” (Francis 179). At the start of Cole’s novella, Wallis’ ability to make decisions for herself was entirely “governed by fear” (Francis 175) indoctrinated by her father and the conditions for her survival in the midst of the Civil Rights

Wallis’ inner monologue reveals how she feels obligated to fulfill the image of the “nice[,] quiet[, and] docile” (Cole 234) African American woman her father insists she be, and is consistently censoring her thoughts and actions in order to do so, even at the cost of tolerating the racism she faces on a day-to-day basis. Wallis expressed how she “felt like she would combust from the unfairness” (Cole 235) of 1960’s racist American society, but often had to harbor her outrage, as exemplified when “[Wallis] felt a pressure building up in her chest, a burning hot anger that surprised her. She didn’t get mad. Everyone knew that…just like everyone knew that [an African American woman] who sat at the front of the bus deserved whatever she [received] for causing trouble" (Cole 234). Friedman, at the outset, perceives Wallis to have the demeanor of a "dormouse" (Cole 247), but eventually, he falls in love with the resilient spirit she finally reveals sees. Friedman confesses to Wallis that he wants her because she is "smart and sexy and strong as hell", combatting the stigma that African American women are as undesirable as history made them out to