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The Short Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker

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The Short Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker Universidade de São Paulo Michela Rosa Di Candia ‘Signifyin(g)’ Womanhood: The Short Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker São Paulo 2008 UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO FACULDADE DE FILOSOFIA, LETRAS E CIÊNCIAS HUMANAS DEPARTAMENTO DE LETRAS MODERNAS PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM ESTUDOS LINGUÍSTICOS E LITERÁRIOS EM INGLÊS ‘Signifyin(g)’ Womanhood: The Short Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker Michela Rosa Di Candia Tese apresentada ao Departamento de Letras Modernas da Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade de São Paulo, para a obtenção do Título de Doutor em Letras. Orientadora: Profa Dra. Laura P. Zuntini de Izarra São Paulo 2008 ‘Signifyin(g)’ Womanhood: The Short Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker A Dissertation Presented by Michela Rosa Di Candia Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Humanity Sciencies of University of São Paulo for the degree of Doctor of Letters March 2008 Department of Modern Languages To my father and my mother iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all the following individuals and organizations below for all their help, support, advise and friendship during this doctorate experience: • Dr. Laura Izarra, my supervisor at University of Sao Paulo (USP), who encouraged and trusted me throughout my years as a graduate student. I am deeply grateful for all her helpfulness and assistance. • Dr. Tereza Marques for her intellectual and emotional support. I am very appreciative of everything she has done over the years. • Dr. Joseph T. Skerrett who helped define the focus of my doctoral research by suggesting the reading of Zora Neale Hurston’s unpublished story “Under the Bridge” and also the time he took to exchange ideas with me during my postgraduate research at Amherst. • Dr. Sandra Vasconcelos and Dr. Lynn Mario Menezes, professors who were Members of the “Qualification Committee” at USP and took their time to read the initial draft of this work. I express my special thanks to Lynn Mario for his useful comments and the material exchanged. • Dr. Andrea Rushing for accepting me as a student in the course “Representations of Black Women” at Amherst College and furthermore for her critical readings of some of my papers. Moreover, professor Castro of Amherst College who showed me the way to research at Beinecke Library at Yale University. • Still I want to thank all my friends and colleagues of the research group of professor Laura Izarra for their intellectual support over the years. Special thanks to Divanize Carbonieri for being patient and for her advise, Cielo Festino for her inspiration and Marília Borges for the long distant friendship. • To all the participants of the project “English Language Through Literary Texts” and the students of the specialization course on ‘Non-canonical Literature” in 2007 who helped me to articulate many ideas. • Edite, the secretary of the Department for her administrative support when so many forms had to be filled. • Rosana, Magda, Paulinha, Mário and Moysés who are my friends from Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They emboldened me and followed my path during my lifetime as a graduate student. • Nubia and Admar for their emotional support and close friendship. v • Suzi, Maria Ana, Patrícia, Glauco, Jéferson, João and Adrilayne for the companionship and the great moments spent together. • Liane and Elisângela, my roommates, for their care while living at the students’ dorms at USP. I am deeply indebted especially to Jessica for her spiritual and intellectual guidance. • Sada, Jean-Marie, Juni, Bob, Alan, Luccha, Raquel, Kelly, Ildo and Samanta whom I shared my experiences with while living in Amherst, MA. I owe to them. They gave me their time and cooperation. • Pauline for her hospitality and care while I lived in her house in Amherst, MA. Special thanks to Gina as well who carefully read and reviewed my thesis. • Maria Pilar for her generosity, hospitality and the delicious dinners she prepared while I was in Amherst. • Rosana, my cousin, for her calmness and supportive friendship. I am also in debt to my aunt Angelina who prepared delicious food when I visited her and my uncle Anastácio for his sense of humor. • Adriana and Alessandra, my sisters, for their sustaining love and friendship. Without Adriana’s technical/editorial assistance I could not have finished this work. I am thankful to Márcio José for his loyalty and great sense of humor. • My parents Emma and Pietro Antônio for their unconditional love and support over the years away from them. • Afrânio who came to my life in the middle of my doctorate research and gave me his optimism and strength during the difficult moments. For his patience in keeping alive our distant relationship. There are no words to express his love. • Neusa Franzoi, who works for COSEAS at USP, and gave me the opportunity to live in the students’ accommodation during my years as a graduate student. • Capes Foundation for the financial support during this research in Brazil and additionally the time I spent at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA. vi “We are a people. A people do not throw their geniuses away. If they do, it is our duty as witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children. If necessary, bone by bone” Alice Walker vii ABSTRACT This doctoral research analyzes from a Brazilian perspective the constructions of black womanhood in Zora Neale Hurston’s unpublished short-story “Under the Bridge” and published short stories “Sweat”, “Spunk”, and “The Gilded Six-Bits”. The Hurston stories are compared to “Roselily”, “Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?”, “Coming Apart” and “Porn”, written by the contemporary author Alice Walker. Taking as a starting point that Alice Walker’s narratives ‘signify’ on the work of Hurston, who wrote during The Harlem Renaissance (1920), this thesis aims to investigate the threads that connect both writers by focusing on the ways in which their female protagonists question or accept the parameters of “the cult of true womanhood”. The conclusion shows that the portrayal of black women characters symbolically questions representations of sexuality and racism in an attempt to make visible the process of liberation from the constraints of American society at the time of each author’s literary production. Thus the authors contribute to the development of black literary criticism as well as to the tradition of black women writers. Key-words: short-fiction, black womanhood, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, black literary criticism. viii RESUMO EXPANDIDO O presente trabalho de doutorado focaliza as construções de feminilidade negra no conto não publicado “Under The Bridge”, de Zora Neale Hurston assim como os já publicados “Sweat”, “Spunk” e “The Gilded Six-Bits” em comparação com “Roselily”, “Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?”, “Coming Apart” e “Porn”, da autora contemporânea Alice Walker. Ao supor que Alice Walker ‘significa’ ou ‘relê’ o trabalho de Hurston, que escreveu durante a época da Renascença no Harlem, a tese tem como objetivo investigar os elos de ligação entre as duas escritoras, focalizando a maneira pela qual suas protagonistas femininas contestam ou aceitam os parâmetros determinantes do “verdadeiro culto de feminilidade”. Conclui-se que a apresentação das personagens femininas pelas escritoras negras simbolicamente questiona a representação da sexualidade e racismo como uma tentativa de tornar visível o processo de libertação das amarras da sociedade americana no momento de cada produção literária, contribuindo desse modo para o desenvolvimento da crítica literária negra. Na introdução desse trabalho, um panorama sobre o desenvolvimento da escrita por mulheres negras é apresentado, considerando-se leitores não pertencentes ao contexto cultural norte-americano, especialmente pelo fato da tese ser desenvolvida no Brasil. Portanto, essa seção focaliza alguns aspectos sobre a vida de Zora Neale Hurston e Alice Walker, assim como os fatores históricos, sociais e ideológicos que influenciaram a formação dessas autoras. No primeiro capítulo , dedicado à análise dos contos de Hurston, é essencial entender como a violência psicológica cometida contra as personagens femininas por seus parceiros é denunciada no gênero do conto, já que a tradicional dicotomia dominação masculina e subordinação feminina é perpetuada. Embora Hurston não desenvolva protagonistas autônomas e independentes, a escritora outorga o poder a essas personagens por meio da ligação com as raízes culturais. O capítulo divide-se em três momentos: o espaço do lar nas relações matrimoniais, o espaço cósmico/ ix simbólico na constituição das personagens e o espaço da linguagem no uso do inglês negro vernacular como meio de afirmação. O segundo capítulo traz a análise dos contos de Alice Walker como “Roselily” e “Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay? , inseridos na coletânea In Love & Trouble- Stories of Black Women e “Coming Apart” e “Porn”, da coletânea You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down . O capítulo demonstra a agência das protagonistas e a maneira pela qual as opressões sofridas por instituições como a família, o casamento, os meios de comunicação por meio das imagens de revistas pornográficas e os estereótipos criados pela tradição branca limitam as possibilidades da agência feminina . Dessa forma, a questão da agência mostra-se relacionada às identidades negociadas a partir do momento em que as normas de feminilidade são (des) construídas. Diferentemente do primeiro capítulo em que as vozes de Vangie, Delia Jones, Lena e Missie May se inter-cruzam na análise, optou-se aqui por uma divisão temática. Logo, “Papéis de Gênero no Espaço das Relações Matrimoniais” e “Questionando Identidades” referem-se aos contos “Roselily” e “Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?” Os contos que abordam a questão da pornografia, “Coming Apart” e “Porn”, são trabalhados nos itens: “Reificação das Mulheres”, “O Espaço Pornográfico” e “Tornando-se Sujeitos” No terceiro capítulo verificam-se as diferenças de agência feminina em resposta aos parâmetros de feminilidade negra assim como analisam-se as estratégias narrativas usadas por ambas escritoras.
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