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Anger, Genre Bending, and Space in Kincaid, Ferré, and Vilar City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 6-2020 Anger, Genre Bending, and Space in Kincaid, Ferré, and Vilar Suzanne M. Uzzilia The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3813 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] ANGER, GENRE BENDING, AND SPACE IN KINCAID, FERRÉ, AND VILAR by SUZANNE UZZILIA A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2020 © 2020 SUZANNE UZZILIA All Rights Reserved ii Anger, Genre Bending, and Space in Kincaid, Ferré, and Vilar by Suzanne Uzzilia This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ____________________ __________________________________ Date Lyn Di Iorio Chair of Examining Committee ____________________ __________________________________ Date Kandice Chuh Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Robert Reid-Pharr Barbara Webb THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Anger, Genre Bending, and Space in Kincaid, Ferré, and Vilar by Suzanne Uzzilia Advisor: Lyn Di Iorio This dissertation examines how women’s anger sparks the bending of genre, which ultimately leads to the development of space in the work of three Caribbean-American authors: Jamaica Kincaid, Rosario Ferré, and Irene Vilar. Women often occupy subject positions that restrict them, and women writers harness the anger provoked by such limitations to test the traditional borders of genre and create new forms that better reflect their realities. These three writers represent Anglophone and Hispanophone Caribbean literary traditions and are united by their interest in addressing feminist issues in their work. Accordingly, my research is guided by the feminist theoretical frameworks provided by Sylvia Wynter, Virginia Woolf, Audre Lorde, Sara Ahmed, and Aurora Levins Morales. I examine novels and memoirs by these authors from the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries, utilizing close reading to examine the deployment of themes mentioned above. Kincaid, Ferré, and Vilar write and re-write on the same content, often related to familial topics, across works and across genres and subgenres. They will, for example, tell the same story both fictionally and nonfictionally, shift the narrative focus from one character to another, or even re-write as a corrective for initial omissions. This revisiting of material over several publications is itself another way these authors take up space with their writing. iv Though this process of anger leading to genre bending and resulting in the creation of space occurs with all three authors, each chapter focuses on one step and the author who best exemplifies that step. Chapter 1 examines anger and Jamaica Kincaid, Chapter 2 studies genre bending and Rosario Ferré, and Chapter 3 explores space and Irene Vilar. In its totality, this dissertation shows how coping with constraints can lead to the formation of creative and enlivening new writing and writing styles. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation was written with the enduring support of Lyn Di Iorio, my dissertation supervisor, who has introduced me to many of the authors I now study and fostered my academic development for over a decade. Thank you to my dissertation committee, Robert Reid-Pharr and Barbara Webb, for their steady encouragement and thoughtful guidance throughout my writing process. Thanks also to Al Coppola, who served on my orals committee and introduced me to the principle of “generosity of spirit” that continues to guide my scholarship. I am grateful to my colleagues and classmates at CUNY, including those with whom I shared my writing in various writing workshops. I am especially inspired by the work of C. Christina Lam, Trace Peterson, Christopher Ian Foster, and Alison Klein. Thank you to Karen Starr, who talked me through every aspect of this process. I appreciate the everlasting generosity of my dear friends Jodie Ruck, Angela Scardina and Aldo Mauro, Christina Juva, Brianna Goff, and Brendan McDonald. Finally, thank you to my family for always listening: my parents; Richard and Patricia; and my siblings; Lisa, Jenn, and Jeff. vi CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………….viii INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER 1: Anger and Jamaica Kincaid…………………………………..34 CHAPTER 2: Genre Bending and Rosario Ferré ……………………….…..76 CHAPTER 3: Space and Irene Vilar………………………………………..125 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………..167 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………….173 vii FIGURES Page Fig. 1. Introductory graphics for Autobiography…………………..…………….38 Fig. 2. Family tree(s) of Lagoon. …………………………...……..…………….87 viii INTRODUCTION All writers must contend with the weight of tradition, not only that of their own culture but of those writers who have come before them. The fact that many women can write, despite the additional burden of heteropatriarchal restrictions, speaks to their fortitude, creativity, and resourcefulness. These women writers pursue their craft within the confines of their respective subject positions, the limitations of which can create anger. Writer of poetry and prose Audre Lorde speaks often of anger. In her June 1981 keynote presentation at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in Storrs, Connecticut, she stated, “Every woman has a well- stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change” (“Anger” 127). When women writers harness the anger that builds up because of their oppression, they turn that oppression into creation. They experience friction when they encounter boundaries and push against constraints until they form a space in which to work. Many women writers use their struggle with and against cultural constructs as a wellspring for altering existing genres; such genre bending creates exciting new writing forms. Lorde’s keynote, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,” concentrated on the specific oppression of racism and thus was more directly addressing women of color than white women. Like Lorde, the three women writers whose work are examined in this study are Caribbean-American women of color, and the intersections of their various identities multiply and complicate the pressures affecting their work. This study examines contemporary authors Jamaica Kincaid, Rosario Ferré, and Irene Vilar and how their works engage with anger, genre bending, and space. 1 Jamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan-American author known for anger in her work. Her early works were published in The New Yorker; she later expanded into longer works like novels and memoirs as well. Like Kincaid, Puerto Rican author Rosario Ferré was also known for writing across genres, including short stories, poems, novels, and essays. She often experimented with form, bending the genres in which she wrote. Like Ferré, Irene Vilar is also Puerto Rican, and her memoirs employ multiple memoir subgenres to create space for examining her own experience. Besides being contemporary Caribbean-American women writers, these three authors likewise revisit content from one work to the next, often that which relates to their families, and engage with feminist themes in their work.1 These similarities support their inclusion in this examination. All three authors write autobiographically; Kincaid and Ferré also write fictionally. These areas of writing have been traditionally dominated by men. In their definitive study in the field, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson identify the more traditional concept of autobiography as predating the Western Enlightenment period and privileging “the concept of the self-interested individual of property” (2). Because this focus on “the autonomous individual and the universal life story” does not account for more recent autobiographical subjects and styles, particularly in a postcolonial context, they use instead the broader term “life writing” to recognize the evolution of this genre into a variety of additional forms (3). Fiction, too, has traditionally centered a similar perspective as autobiography. For example, Keja Valens examines the fictional subgenre of the bildungsroman: “The classic bildungsroman traces the singular account of a universal (read: white, male) protagonist who 1 Ferré and Vilar specifically identify as feminists, while Kincaid does not. As a self-described “singular beast,” Kincaid does not claim associations with various movements (Buckner 464); in terms of the feminist movement, she states, “I don’t mind if people put me in it, but I don’t claim to be in it” (Cudjoe 221). See Ch. 1. 2 progresses from childhood into adulthood, where marriage consummates his self-realization in community” (123). Given this definition, it is easy to see how a postcolonial subject like Jamaica Kincaid could not produce a work in this genre. The bildungsroman does not allow for the story of a woman, much less a woman of color.2 However, Valens argues that Kincaid’s novella Annie John (1985) both is and is not
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