“Unlike Odysseus, however, both Charicleia and Reuel return to a place they never knew; in Ethiopia, they are native and alien at the same time. Torn between who they seem to be and who they are, both lay claim to a dual racial/ethnic inheritance. Charicleia has to prove that, despite appearances to the contrary, she is the Ethiopian princess, but Reuel must learn of his true identity—as an Ethiopian prince—from others. The multicultural marriages that conclude both novels may be read as conciliatory, but like most fictional endings, they leave unanswered questions and ambivalent messages,” Marla Harris, “Not Black and/or White: Reading Racial Difference in Heliodorus’s Ethiopica and Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood,” African American Review 35.3 (2001) 375-390 (388).
Do you agree that Of One Blood leaves “unanswered questions”? Discuss these “ambivalent messages”, and what their significance is.
