Intersection of racial and sexual tension in McMillan's Waiting to Exhale

Abstract

The present research in Terry McMillan’s novel Waiting to Exhale deals with the negative impact of gender and race upon characters. It moves around the life of the four professional African American female characters, and their search for love, identity and empowerment. All these characters are guided by passion for finding “Mr. right” man in manmade society. These ladies are suffering from personal and professional life. They have to maintain their family and individual problems equally. Similarly, black male’s imitation of white values is equally important aspect of the novel. John imbibes the culture and customs of whites in order to show the superiority of whites in him. His desires to send his children to the school run by whites, makes his family environment like that of white and later getting married with white girl clearly shows his imitative nature.