American Women Writers
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DEMOCRATIC AND POPULAR REPUBLIC OF ALGERIA MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH MOUSTAPHA BEN BOULAID UNIVERSITY – BATNA FACULTY OF LETTERS AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH The Search for Selfhood in Selected Fiction Written by African- American Women Writers Submitted for the requirements of the degree of Doctorat Science in Literature Submitted by: Mallek BENLAHCENE Supervised by: Mr. Hashemi ABOUBOU (Professor University Batna 2) Co-Supervised by: Mrs. Ghada SASA (Doctor Yarmouk University) Jury members: President: Pr. Amel BEHLOUL Batna 2 University Supervisor: Pr. Hashemi ABOUBOU Batna 2 University Co-Supervisor: Dr. Ghada SASA Yarmouk University Examiner : Pr. Saleh BOUREGBI Annaba University Examiner : Dr. Ahmed Chaouki HOADJLI Biskra University Academic Year 2018/2019 Dedication My dissertation is dedicated to my family whose love, support, and encouragement have nourished me and given me the strength to move forward. I Acknowledgements I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Professor Hashemi Aboubou and co- supervisor Doctor Ghada Sasa for the encouragement they have given me and for the incisive and detailed critiques of my work that they have provided. At every step of the way, their untiring comments and advice helped me to clarify the focus of my study and energized me to move to the next stage. I am grateful to all the members of the jury who, in various ways, contributed to the development and betterment of this project. I would like to show my appreciation to the people who have believed, set an example and helped throughout this process. I am grateful to my friends and colleagues who have helped me to stay sane through these hectic and difficult years. II Abstract This study targets specific works written by Afro-American women writers. It analyses Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928), Toni Morrison’s Sula (1973), and Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place (1982) from a Black feminist perspective. The research work adopts the reader-response theory approach focusing on the necessity of black women’s struggle to challenge and overthrow racial and patriarchal injustices and limitations in order to generate an independent selfhood. The purpose of this thesis is to explore black women’s quest for selfhood and desire to contrive stout identities despite the intersectional obstructions. This work explains the way these women writers highlight the female protagonists’ persistent efforts to overthrow the limited constructions about black womanhood, defy the domineering patriarchal and racial forces, conceive various innovative means to pursue self- fulfillment, and change their state from being objectified and dominated individuals to individuals with a self-determining selfhood. Each woman character approaches her selfhood differently depending on her surrounding and the conditions she is living in. Because these writers focus on underscoring black women’s unique experience, their works not only disrupt the myopic representations of black women, but mostly become the emblem of a rooted tradition that approaches black female women’s selfhood as a rhizomatic rather than an arborescent entity. Though not all the novels are a confirmation of the women’s ultimate victory, they all highlight their maturity, psychological and moral development. After all, the route towards emancipation and self-fulfillment is more important than women’s eventual victory. These are all novels that explore and focus on the growth and maturity of women characters. They are novels of apprenticeship in the way they highlight the changing consciousness, personal growth, and profound comprehension of the female characters’ inner selves and social surrounding. Keywords: Afro-American women writers, black womanhood, black women, black feminism, oppression, patriarchy, selfhood Table of Contents Dedication....................................................................................................................................I Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................................II Abstract .....................................................................................................................................III Table of contents .......................................................................................................................IV Introduction ..............................................................................................................................01 Chapter One: Theoretical Foundations Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….25 I. Feminism and the Feminist Theory…………………………………………………………..26 II. Feminism and the Black Woman…………………………………………………………....29 II.1. The Problem with Feminism: Its Failure to Women of Color ………………......…..29 II.2. The Need of a Literature of their Own……………………………………………....31 II.2.1. The Social Movements Leading up to the Intellectual Dynamics of the 1970s..33 II.3. Moving Towards Black Feminism and Black Literary Criticism……………………37 II.3.1. Black Women’s writing: an articulation of their experience …………………...37 II.3.2. Black Feminism and Black Literary Criticism …………………………………41 III. Self, Selfhood, and Black Female Selfhood…………………………………….................44 III.1. The Self and the female Selfhood ………………...………………………..............44 III.1.1. Black women’s selfhood………………………………………………….........47 III.I.2. Finding a Voice: Black Women Resolve the Contradictions ………………….49 III.I.2.1. Double Marginalization/intersectionality, Gender Fluidity, and Black Female Selfhood ……………………………………………………………………51 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………...……………………...54 Chapter Two: From Silence to Voice: The Fight for Self-fulfillment in Alice Walker’s the Color Purple Introduction……………………………………………………………………….………........56 I. Locating the Color Purple……………………………………….………………….….…....58 II. Shug and Nettie: Experiences of Motherhood and Sisterhood………………………..........61 II.1. Celie’s “Soul Murder” ……………………………………………….………………65 II.2. Repossessing the Body and Facing Unspeakable Trauma……………………….......68 II.3. Nettie’s Teachings: Writing Letters Expressing a Hidden Self……………………...73 II.4. Hysteric Transformation through an Embodied Voice ………………………….......75 II.5. From Christianity to a Re-envisioned Spirituality …….………………………….….77 II.6. Economic Self-Sufficiency and Self-assertiveness ………………………….........…81 III. The Color Purple as a Celebration of Walker’s “Womanism” ……………………………86 Conclusion …………………………………………….…………………………………….....89 Chapter Three: From Defiance to Strategic Submission to Emancipation in Their Eyes Were Watching God Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….........91 I. Locating Their Eyes Were Watching God…………………...……………...........................93 II. Janie: An Avant-garde Black Female Protagonist………………………………………......95 III. “Mah Tongue is in Mah Friend’s Mouf”: The Significance of Memory, Personal Recollections, Story Telling, and Sisterhood……………………………….………………….97 VI. “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world: Janie Refusing to be a “Culture Bearer” …...102 V. From Capitalist Subjugation to Strategic Liberation….…………………………………...108 V.1. Logan Killicks’s Work Ethics and Janie’s Lost Dream…. …………………...…....109 V.2. Joe Starks a Monopoly Capital …………………………...…………………….......112 V.3. Tea Cake’s Pathological Narcissism and Janie’s Other Way to Try………..........…118 VI. Janie’s Emergent Selfhood……………………………………………...………………...124 Conclusion………….………………………………………………………...……………….129 Chapter Four: Helga Crane: a Flâneuse in Search for an Intersectional Self Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..131 I. Locating Quicksand………………………...……………………………………………....132 II. The Tragedy of the Mulatta: Helga Crane’s Search for a Safe Liminal Zone…………….134 III. Helga’s Journey an Affirmation of her “Differential Consciousness” and an Attempt to Decoding Essentialism………………………………………………………………………..138 III.1. Familial Uprooting………………………………………………………………....142 III.2. Naxos: “a Big Knife with Cruelly Sharp Edges”……………………………..........144 III.3. Helga’s Misplacement in Chicago………………………………………………....148 III.4. (Be)Longing in Harlem………………………………………………………….....153 III.5. Helga in Denmark: A Transgressive Creature Delineating Unspoken Racialized Paradigms……………………………………………….…………………….…….........156 III.6. The End of a Geographical Journey and the Beginning of a Psychological One: Towards “Dwelling in Possibility” …………………...………………………...……….160 Conclusion…………………………………….……………………………………………....166 Chapter Five: Nel and Sula: Mutually Burgeoning Selves-in-Relation in Toni Morrison’s Sula Introduction……………………………………………………………….………………….169 I. Locating Sula …………………………………………………………...………………….170 II. Daughters of Distant Mother: Sula and Nel Repairing the Damage of Mothers…………..174 III. The Dynamics of Sula and Nel’s Bonding: Support, Solidarity; and (E)Merging Identities……………………………………………………………………………………...179 IV. Shocked into Separateness. ……………………………………………………………....184 IV.1. Jude’s Emasculation and the Need to Adopt “a Man’s Role” …………………….185 IV.2. Nel: A Victim of Marital Confines………………………………...………...…….188 IV.3. Sula: Dangerously Free…………………………………………………………….192 V. Disconnections from Gender Hegemonies: Reconciliation, Redemption, and Healing……………………………………………………………………….…………….…196 V.1. Sula’s Persistence…………………………………………………………………...196 V.2. Nel’s Epiphany…………………………………………………………………...…198 Conclusion……….……………………………………………………………………………203 Chapter