The main theme that is analyzed in this thesis is the success of an Afro-American lady which is represented by the main female character, Queen, in Alex Haley's Queen. The writer views Queen's success not through what kind of survival techniques she uses in enduring the hardness of life, either during or after her bondage, instead the writer views it through Queen's ability to fulfill her needs as a healthy personality according to Maslow's Human Motivation Needs' hierarchy, which places self-actualization as the highest need, and with the fulfillment of this need, Queen can be said as a successful person. Since Queen is a mulatto, the writer is curious to know whether Queen finds herself as one of the whites or of the blacks, and whether she can fulfill all of her needs and
achieve her self-actualization based on her self-identity and surrounding. For that reason, the writer wants to prove through the analysis that Queen can not fulfill all of her needs when she chooses to be one of the whites, whereas as one of the blacks in the right society she can; thus she can be considered as a successful Afro-American lady. In order to accomplish this, the writer uses literary tools namely character and conflict to show Queen's attitudes and struggles to gratify all of her needs, and above literary theories, the writer utilizes psychological theory for normal personality that is Maslow's theory of Human Motivation Needs, as her additional theory in order to show why Queen's selfactualization is considered as a success. Finally, the writer concludes that Queen can be considered as a successful Afro-American lady in life by being able to gratify all of her needs and being able to achieve her self-actualization among her family and the black society based on her identity as a black.