Research Paper on:
Terry McMillan's Mama and Mildred Peacock

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Inc. By Susan A. Nelson - August 2001 paper properly! Terry McMillan  is the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of five novels: Mama, Disappearing Acts, Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, A Day Late and a Dollar Short, and the  editor of Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction. Originally from Port Huron, Michigan McMillan has become one of the most important American novelists writing today. Her  first novel, Mama, published in 1987, received a National Book Award by the Before Columbus Foundation, and in 1988 Mc Millan was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship  in literature, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and the Doubleday/Columbia University Literary Fellowship. She was a three-time fellow at Yaddo Artist Colony and The MacDowell Colony.  Focusing on the African-American womans experience, Mama reflects on children, men, money, loneliness and alcoholism through Mildred Peacocks life and family. As men enter and exit her life Mildred, a  feisty, funny survivor, is staunchly determined to raise her five children into strong adults. This essay examines this protagonists personal life struggles, while learning about the binding power of  love (Speakers Worldwide, Inc. - Terry McMillan, 2001 and See Also McMillan, 1987). At first glance Mildred Peacock to many may not  seem a protagonist with which we can empathize. Ostensibly and throughout, she seems to spend the entire book drinking, and looking for a man who will supply her  with material things, and also take over her financial responsibilities. In light of the fact that she had children for whom she was responsible, it may be difficult to see