INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard m ar^s, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each orignal is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the orignal manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photogaphic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI Â Bell & Howell Infonnation Company 300 North Zed) Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 TOWARD A TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST WRITING AND READING PRACTICE: VIRGINIA WOOLF, ALICE WALKER, AND ZOÊ WICOMB DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of die Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Constance S. Richards, M. A. **»* The Ohio State University 1996 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Debra Moddelmog, Advisor Professor Barbara Rigney Advisor Professor Valerie Lee Department of English ÜMI Number: 9639338 UMI Microform 9639338 Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Constance S. Richards 1996 ABSTRACT This dissertation rests upon two basic assumptions concerning the industry of literature. First, while hegemonic versions of postmodern theory may claim that the author is dead, writing literature continues to be a 'viable arena for the exploration of the subject, and as such, a radical act for women and for all who have been silenced. Second, this study claims that creating, reading, and writing about literature provide an opportunity to explore ourselves and to build alliances with others. Edward Said insists upon a reciprocal relationship between culture and the maintenance of Wester empire. Chapter One focuses in part on the centrality of Shakespeare's The Tempest as a master narrative of colonial discourse. Postcolonial re­ workings of the play offer one method of investigating the power relations inherent in master narrative forms of literature. Transnational feminism is offered as a method of anti-colonial writing and reading, resisting both binary colonizer/colonized constructions which ignore the ways in which gender collides with race, national origin, and economic class, and the master narrative tendency of Western feminism to privilege gender as a basis for oppression over other markers of identity. A literary practice which grows out of transnational feminism recognizes one's gendered and raced position along with one’s national and class afSliation, but at die same time strives u to break with antagonistic histoiy by focusing on shared experience and genuine feelings of empathy. Chapter Two examines Virginia Woolfs The Voyage Out and Between the Acts as representations of the fragmentation of female identity witiiin tiie "Centre," and Woolfs self-reflexive interrogation of the privilege of this position. Chapter Three claims that Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Temple o f My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret o fJay construct race and gender as transnational identities and criticize the violence perpetrated upon these aspects of identity and played out on the bodies of women by the colonial process with the collusion of indigenous patriarchy. Chapter Four explores my own approach to South African autiior Zoë Wicomb's You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town using a transnational feminist reading practice suggested by the strong sense of "otherness" evoked in my first read of the novel. m Dedicated to Ikechukwu rv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my advisor, Debra Moddehnog, for her close reading, insistence on clarity, push for excellence, challenging questions, and for her unfailing guidance through the many steps of the graduate school process. I am also grateful to die other members of my committee, Barbara Rigney and Valerie Lee, for their valuable advice, patient reading, and kind support at the various stages of this dissertation. I thank Lupenga Mphande, who has served all the valuable functions of a committee member and whose presence at my defense was sorefy missed. I also wish to thank Hampton University' and The Museum for Afiican Art (NYC) for permission to use the photograph of Ernie Wolfe HTs memorial effigies. I am indebted to my fellow students and the excellent instructors and professors in the undergraduate and graduate programs in the Department of Women's Studies for setting me on the path of feminist scholarship. v VTTA September 18, 1948 Bom-Columbus, Ohio March, 1990 B. A. Women's Studies, The Ohio State University March, 1990 B. A. Psychology, The Ohio State University Summer, 1990 Instructor, Basic English Bliss College September, 1990-August, 1992 Graduate Teaching Associate, Women's Studies The Ohio State University August, 1992 M. A. Women's Studies, The Ohio State University’ August, 1992 M. A. English, The Ohio State Universi^' September, 1992-June, 1996 Graduate Teaching Associate, English The Ohio State University Second Semester, 1994 Instructor, English Ohio Dominican College FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................... v Vita................................. vi List of Illustrations...................................................................................................... ix Chapters: 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Decolonizing empire: approaches to postcolonial studies ................... 7 1.2 Decolonizing literature: canons and counter-canons ........................... 23 1.3 When it rains it pours: women o f The Tempest. ................................. 34 1.4 Transnational feminism and anti-colonial reading .............................. 41 1.5 Intervention and invention as transnational feminist practice .............. 50 1.6 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 56 2. Virginia Woolf: a critique from the center of empire ...................................... 60 2.1 "[T]he things people don['t say": silence as a critique of empire in The VqyageOut. ......................................................................................................... 67 2.2 Parody and the critique of the colonial project: Between the Acts 87 2.3 Comic colonials and complicit intellectuals ......................................... 99 vii 2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 108 3. Exoticism to transnational feminism: Alice Walker ...........................................112 3.1 A&ica and Walker's literary imagination. .............................................. 115 3.2 The Color Purple ..................................................................................129 3.3 The Temple o fMy Familiar ................................................................. 143 3.4 Possessing the Secret o f Joy ................................................................ 158 3.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................177 4. Transnational feminist reading: the case of Cepe Town ................................... 180 4.1 "... like living on shifting sands": protest literature in South Africa.... 188 4.2 A novel for a New South Africa .......................................................... 207 4.3 Conclusion ........................................................................................... 222 5. Epilogue ........................................................................................................... 225 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 229 vui USX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1.1 Afiican American Vigango .............................................................................. 55 1.2 Memorial EfiSgies ............................................................................................. 55 K CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The trans-Atlantic slave trade and the projects of exploration and development, or invasion