NARRATIVES OF DESIRE: GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN BUGUL, AIDOO, AND CHIZIANE by MEYRE IVONE SANTANA DA SILVA A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Comparative Literature and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2013 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Meyre Ivone Santana da Silva Title: Narratives of Desire: Gender and Sexuality in Bugul, Aidoo, and Chiziane This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Comparative Literature by: Lisa Gilman Chairperson Karen McPherson Core Member Sangita Gopal Core Member Irmary Reyes-Santos Core Member David Vazquez Institutional Representative and Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research and Innovation; Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2013 ii © 2013 Meyre Ivone Santana da Silva iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Meyre Ivone Santana da Silva Doctor of Philosophy Department of Comparative Literature June 2013 Title: Narratives of Desire: Gender and Sexuality in Bugul, Aidoo, and Chiziane Colonial narratives and nationalist rhetoric in Africa have always associated female sexuality with male desire and consumption, aberrance, or perversion. While historical narratives suggested that native women’s bodies should be tamed and possessed, African nationalist narratives usually equated female bodies with land, nature, and spirituality. In different ways, both colonialists and nationalists appropriated the female body and sexuality to convey ideologies concerning the conquest of distant lands or related to the dignity of the colonized people. This dissertation examines how African women writers’ representation of female desire counternarrates colonialist and nationalist tales while disturbing gender conventions and defying social norms in African contexts. By using feminist theories, cultural studies, and postcolonial theory, I examine the ways that Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story, Paulina Chiziane’s Niketche: Uma Historia de Poligamia, and Ken Bugul’s Le Baobab Fou reveal female sexuality while simultaneously subverting discourses that often define female bodies as sexual objects or as spiritual entities— as the Mother Africa, a trope widespread in the speeches of the Negritude movement. Through the analysis of these literary works, I present how these African women writers have used discursive strategies about female desire to demonstrate the consequences of the colonial encounter and post-independence policies iv on neo-colonial women’s bodies and minds as well as to reveal the exclusion of women’s voices from national affairs. These works not only confront history but also interrogate the role of literature and the work of art. Through their literary works, Bugul, Chiziane, and Aidoo bring to literature characteristics of African arts, reinventing the literary in order to forge a medium that is able to give sense to African women’s experience. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Meyre Ivone Santana da Silva GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Pontificia University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Comparative Literature, 2013, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Social History, 2007, Pontificia Universidade de São Paulo Master of Arts, Literature, 2003, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela Bachelor of Arts, 2004, Universidade do Estado da Bahia AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Postcolonial Literature and Theory Gender in African Literature PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Lecturer, Universidade Federal da Bahia, 2004-2006 Lecturer, Universidade do Estado da Bahia, 1995-2008 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Fulbright, 2008-2012 Capes, Ministry of Education/ Brazil, 2008-2012 Graduate School, University of Oregon, 2012-2013 PUBLICATIONS: Da Silva, Meyre. “The Linguistic Debate in African Literatures.” Revista Africa. Universidade de São Paulo: São Paulo, 2010, 175-186 Da Silva, Meyre. “No Sweetness Here de Ama Ata Aidoo.” Quem tem medo de Feminismos? Braga, Portugal, 2009, 372-379. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the members of my dissertation committee, Professors Lisa Gilman, Karen McPherson, Sangita Gopal, David Vazquez and Irmary Reyes-Santos for their assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. I would like to thank Fulbright and Capes/Brazil for sponsoring my doctoral studies from 2008 to 2012, and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon for granting me an award for the academic year 2012-2013. My gratitude goes to Mia Tuan, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, for her inspiration, patience, thoughtfulness, and generosity. I am indebted to my husband Sergio da Silva, without whom this project would not have been possible. I cannot thank Sergio enough for his self-sacrificing care and support. I also thank my child, Aman, whose smile has always filled my life with joy. vii To Yvone Bispo Santana and Maria dos Santos Bispo (in memoriam) whose spirits and strength have nurtured me over the years. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION: WRITING ALTERNATIVE STORIES, RE-IMAGINING HISTORY ................................................................................................................. 1 Historical Trends: The Female Body in Colonial and Nationalist Discourses ...... 4 Influences and Departures: Feminisms, African Feminisms, the misovire ........... 9 Chapter Summaries ................................................................................................ 16 II. MAIS QUELLE IDENTITE? FEMALE BODY, MEMORY AND IDENTITY IN LE BAOBAB FOU ............................................................................................ 19 Colonized Body/Deteriorated Self ......................................................................... 23 “Ken Bugul se Souvient” ....................................................................................... 36 The Absent Mother ................................................................................................ 50 Returning to the Baobab ........................................................................................ 57 III. ARE YOU AN AFRICAN WOMAN? FEMALE DESIRE AND MODERNITY IN AIDOO’S CHANGES: A LOVE STORY .......................................................... 60 The Impact of Colonial Education on Esi’s Identity ............................................. 62 “But What Is an AfricanWoman?” ........................................................................ 72 Fusena’s Invisibility: The Other Side of Polygamy ............................................... 83 Asexual Opokuya? ................................................................................................. 87 Bittersweet Polygamy ............................................................................................ 96 IV. RETHINKING SEXUALITY AND WOMANHOOD IN CHIZIANE’S NIKETCHE ............................................................................................................ 98 Niketche: A Dance of Freedom .............................................................................. 100 Learning How to Dance ......................................................................................... 104 Reinventing Polygamy ........................................................................................... 116 ix Chapter Page Challenging Colonial Education and Portuguese Language .................................. 123 Rami Inscribes Culture on Her Body ..................................................................... 129 V. CONCLUSION: HEALING THEMSELVES, SOOTHING US ........................... 136 APPENDIX: ADDITIONAL SOURCES CONSULTED ........................................... 142 REFERENCES CITED ................................................................................................ 145 x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: WRITING ALTERNATIVE STORIES, RE-IMAGINING HISTORY If anything I do in the way of writing (or whatever I write) isn’t about the village or the community or about you, then it is not about anything. I am not interested in indulging myself in some private, closed exercise of my imagination that fulfills only the obligation of my personal dreams – which is to say yes, the work must be political. It must have that as its thrust. That’s a pejorative term in critical circles now: If a work of art has any political influence in it, somehow it’s tainted. My feeling is just the opposite: if it has none, it is tainted … It seems to me that the best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time. (Toni Morrison, Rootedness, 345). In her essay “Rootedness: The Ancestor as Foundation,” African American writer, Nobel Laureate, Toni Morrison affirms that her literary work has been directed to a specific community. She suggests that literature not only educates, informs, and soothes the American black community, it also undoes stereotypes created over the course of history. Thus, literature forges new myths through which a people are able to re-imagine themselves. Morrison’s literary works enable Black Americans to see represented their cultural values, their songs and rhythms,