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    A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "The Salt Eaters"
    A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "The Salt Eaters"
    A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "The Salt Eaters"
    Ebook45 pages32 minutes

    A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "The Salt Eaters"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "The Salt Eaters," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535839389
    A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "The Salt Eaters"

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      A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "The Salt Eaters" - Gale

      13

      The Salt Eaters

      Toni Cade Bambara

      1980

      Introduction

      Toni Cade Bambara's debut novel The Salt Eaters was published in 1980. Among students and critics it has garnered a reputation for being somewhat inaccessible because it is written in a fragmented style that jumps abruptly back and forth between an array of characters with little explanation or exposition. At the same time it is known for being a beautifully written, highly lyrical, and emotionally powerful book. Bambara has stated that her intention in writing it was to produce a work that demonstrated how the spiritual, psychic, and political forces in a community could all exist in harmony with one another. To this end, the work involves themes of community, connectedness, and healing. The title of the work itself is a reference to healing, as salt is a natural antiseptic and is often used to help heal wounds. Bambara uses the story of the healing of Velma Henry, a troubled woman who has attempted suicide, to demonstrate how these three forces can work together to create healthy and whole individuals and, in turn, a healthy and whole community.

      Author Biography

      Bambara was born Miltona Mirkin Cade on March 25, 1939, to Helen Brent Henderson Cade in New York City. For the first ten years of her life the family lived in Harlem, New York. Afterwards, the family lived in different locations around New York and New Jersey. She has stated that the environment she grew up in had a great influence on her writing style, and also that her mother, with whom she was very close, was her greatest influence and inspiration. She changed her name from Miltona to Toni when she was around the age of five, and in 1970 she added Bambara, the name of a West African ethnic group.

      In 1959, Toni Cade graduated from Queens College with a BA in theater arts and English. In the same year, her first published story, Sweet Town, was released and was awarded the John Golden Award for Fiction. After her graduation from Queen's College, Bambara spent some time traveling and studying in Italy and France before returning to further her studies in the United States. Bambara completed her master's degree in American Studies at City College, New York, in 1965, and taught in the Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) program at City College until 1969. It was during this phase in her life that Bambara began to embrace activism and became involved in many social and political causes such as the civil rights and women's movements. She was a major figure in the black arts movement. Her 1970 anthology The Black Woman featured work by Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Paule Marshall, and others,

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