The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou Faculty of Letters and Humanities Department of English Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Magister Speciality : English Option: Literature Presented by: BENNAI Kahina Subject Assia Djebar’s Fantasia, an Algerian Cavalcade (1985) and Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins (2002): A Comparative Study Panel of Examiners: MAOUI Hocine, MCA, Université Badji Mokhtar d’Annaba, Président. RICHE Bouteldja, Professeur, Université Mouloud Mammeri de Tizi-Ouzou, Rapporteur. ZERAR Sabrina, MCA, Université Mouloud Mammeri de Tizi-Ouzou, Examinatrice. GUENDOUZI Amar, MCB, Université Mouloud Mammeri de Tizi-Ouzou, Examinateur. Academic Year: 2010-2011 Dedication To my father Madjid , my mother Ghania, my uncle Rachid and my aunt Sakina Acknowledgements I would like to express my indebtedness and gratitude to my supervisor Professor RICHE Bouteldja for his guidance and sense of duty. I also express my thanks to Dr. Guendouzi Amar and Mrs. Gada Nadia who provided me with the necessary hints that helped me a great deal for the completion of the present work. i Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………..…………………………i Contents…………………………………………………………………………..………………… ii Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..………….... iii General Introduction……………………………………………………………………..…… 1 Review of the Literature ………………………………………………………………..…………3 Issue and Working Hypotheses …………………………………………………………………5 Method and Materials……………………………………………………………………..…........ 7 Chapter One: Assia Djebar and Yvonne Vera: Times, Life and Influences Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….…… 10 Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………………. 11 Assia Djebar and Yvonne Vera: Biographical Similarities..........................………….......... 39 Conclusion..................................................................................................…………....................... 44 Chapter Two: Assia Djebar and Yvonne Vera: Similar Style, Language and Subalternity 46 Introduction...................................................................................................…………................... Discussion..…………....................................................................................................................... 49 Conclusion....................................................................................................………….................... 69 Chapter Three: Writing the Postcolonial Female Body: Women and the Discourse of History in Assia Djebar’s Fantasia, an Algerian Cavalcade and Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins Introduction................................................................................................………….................... 72 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………..………… 73 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..………97 General Conclusion..................................................................................………….................. 100 Selected Bibliography.................................................................................………….............. 103 ii Abstract This dissertation is concerned with the issue of feminism in two novels belonging to the postcolonial literature, by exploring feminine enunciation in the works of the Algerian writer Assia Djebar’s Fantasia, an Algerian Cavalcade (1985) and the Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins (2002). It postulates that even though the lives of Algerian and Zimbabwean women were shaped by different historical forces and social traditions, common themes exist in their writings because of their common postcolonial background. Both Djebar and Vera examine the relations of women to history in a postcolonial setting, and disclose the double oppression women experienced during colonial and postcolonial times as colonized and gendered subjects. In exploring feminine enunciation in the two novels, we intend to compare the events evoked by the two writers, and to draw some similarities between the two struggles for independence provoked by the French and British colonial invaders and next, by the discourse of neo-nationalism in the two countries Algeria and Zimbabwe, respectively. This study also explores the two authors’ respective language and style. The colonial language and poetic style engaged in Djebar’s and Vera’s selected narratives negotiate the liberation of the subaltern in accordance with the basic ideas of postcolonial gendered subaltern, as articulated by Gayatri Spivak, in particular. One of the main themes in the works of Djebar and Vera is that of women’s body. Both writers impose the materiality of the female body and experience it within the contexts of colonialism, oppositional nationalism, and feminist discourses through details of sexual violence that the women of the colonized nation endured in colonial and post-independence periods. iii General Introduction The issue of gendered practices and resistance still holds the centre of the stage in feminist scholarship. Despite recent gains made by women in many fields and the relative openness of African countries to progress, no one can deny how critical laws regulating marriage, divorce, polygamy, and inheritance could be in defining women’s life choices. This can be explained by the fact that African societies still perpetuate rigid gender-based standards for behaviour urging women to act modestly and unselfishly to avoid promoting her personal interests. The woman who rebels against the common social and cultural beliefs by pushing more overtly on their own behalf often risks severe punishment and a complete rejection by the family as well as the society for her acts. Working from this foundation, the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar and the Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera discuss their respective societies’ placement of women in a subordinate status by giving power to men as husbands and as male relatives. Literature provides for both authors a discursive space for subjects otherwise silenced by dominant socio-political practice. As feminist writers, they reflect, in particular, the patriarchal values which have a strong hold on African women who, without power to govern, often have no platform for expressing their disapproval other than their literary texts. Charlotte Bruner suggests that African women authors were influenced by different historical and social forces, discourses and traditions. Though the woman’s position is subject to male domination from father, brother, and son, the woman remains the transmitter of historic values and art. In their writings, African women writers portray their African backgrounds as well as female experience (Bruner, 1994: 177). They express common themes because of their common colonial background. Literature is an ideological site for the representation of women as agents of social change. Their work is a reconstruction of history from woman’s point of view, with an attempt to evoke the mood - 1 - of the times and capture the repression of colonial conquest and authoritarian nationalism with the righteous resistance against it. However, a specific attention is given to that of women’s writing from Algeria, for it is in most cases accurately those women who in some way break away from the provision of their sisters through wealth, education, or expatriation who are the fictional chroniclers of the condition of women. In Algeria, the novel is the literary form for the Algerian women through which they represent what was formerly silenced and absent from representation. The participation of Algerian women in resistance struggles against the French colonization of their country has been ignored and often effaced in the historical accounts of revolution, though they have played the same roles as their male counterparts in the struggle for independence. As Algeria’s leading female literary figure, Assia Djebar examines the relations of women to the history of Algeria and the postcolonial setting, the problem of inscribing women into history, and the double oppression women experienced during colonial and postcolonial times as colonized as well as gendered subjects. Djebar’s writing is known for portrayals of female subjugation and is set against the historical backdrop of Algeria’s struggle for independence which focuses on the intricate lives and experiences of ordinary Algerian women who strive to liberate themselves from the oppressive traditional family regulations and social norms. In addition to female writing in French language, there emerged a similar one in English expression. One of the representatives of this trend in Zimbabwean postcolonial literature is Yvonne Vera. Since 1980 her writing has been the subject of a number of studies, especially those conducted on the effect of patriarchy on gender relations. Like Assia Djebar, Vera’s writings are dominated by the historical and hence the nationalist themes. The power of her novels derives, not from the description of events as such, or, from the pace and pulls of narrative realism, but from the mental worlds that open up about - 2 - the effects of colonial and postcolonial political and patriarchal violence on women’s minds and bodies (Zeleza, 2007: 14). The works of Assia Djebar’s Fantasia, an Algerian Cavalcade (1985) and Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins (2002) unite the discourses of history, pain, and female body. The experience unacknowledged before by their African male fellow writers is expressed through details