Abstract: African American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks's Venus, an Obie Award winner, is a highly controversial play. The reason is that some scholars accused Parks of portraying the legendary black woman, Saartjie Baartman, the so called “the Venus Hottentot”, as an “accomplice”, rather than a “victim,” of White colonizers. What ensues from this accusation is a reconsideration of some more profound issues as who has the right to tell the history of black women and how to tell it properly. A close look into Venus and this heated controversy from the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism will reveal that a series of issues that the academia has been following with keen interest all along, such as Parks's theatrical archaeology, the ethical dilemma that black women had to face during the Victorian Era, Baartman's survival ethics, etc., will take on brand new historical and realistic implications. From the perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism, Parks's characterization of Baartman as an “accomplice” is exactly an ethical writing process, in which this “Sable Venus” is not only endowed with human dignity and right, but also enabled to redeem and resurrect herself.

Key words: Parks, Venus, the Venus Hottentot, Ethical Literary Criticism, ethical choice