A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "Gorilla, My Love"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Toni Cade Bambara's "Gorilla, My Love," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories 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 Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535824088

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Gorilla, My Love

Toni Cade Bambara

1971

Introduction

Gorilla, My Love is the story of Hazel, a young girl who feels that adults do not treat children with respect and honesty. Narrating her own story, she tells of two incidents in which adults demonstrated their untrustworthiness. Hazel comes from the kind of family that the author, Toni Cade Bambara, believed was under-represented in fiction of the 1970s: she is an African American girl living in New York City, in a home with two loving parents who emphasize the values of education and of keeping one's word. Although Bambara herself was a political activist, the story is not primarily political. Hazel's feelings are nearly universal, shared by most adolescents.

Gorilla, My Love was first published in the November 1971 issue of Redbook Magazine with the title I Ain't Playin, I'm Hurtin. A year later, it became the title story in Bambara's first short story collection. Gorilla, My Love is one of several in the collection that feature strong first-person narrators speaking conversationally, rather than in a standard formal English. On the strength of this story and others, Bambara was widely praised for her ability to capture the authentic sounds of adolescence and of African American voices.

Author Biography

Toni Cade Bambara was born Miltona Mirkin Cade on March 25, 1939, in New York City. She and her brother were raised by a single mother in many different homes in New York, and later in Jersey City, New Jersey. Bambara spoke and wrote often about her mother, Helen Brent Henderson Cade, as an example of strength and integrity. Helen saw to it that her children learned about their African American heritage, and encouraged them to trust their own inner voices. In 1959, Toni Cade earned a bachelor's degree in Theater Arts and English from Queen's College. She had already published her first story, Sweet Town, in Vendome magazine. After graduating, she completed a master's degree while working as a social worker for several community organizations.

In the 1960s, Cade was active in both the Civil Rights movement and the feminist movement.