Филологические науки/3.Теоретические и методологические проблемы исследования языка.

Старший преподаватель Рябикина Елена Викторовна

Ростовский Государственный Экономический Университет (РИНХ), Россия

The Gender Construction in Afro-American Literature

We have always been influenced by the norms and conventions of the society in which we live, and the gender conventions bequeathed to us by our ancestors, relatives and immediate environment are no exception. The predominant gender conventions over the last few centuries, which must be said to reflect an uneven balance of power between the sexes, are suffused into the minds of all members of society.

The African American novelist Toni Morrison is a writer deeply concerned with issues such as race, gender, and sexuality. A Nobel laureate, she is one of the most prominent writers of fiction in contemporary America.

The novels of Toni Morrisson go through cultural/geographical boundaries to expose theie concerns about gender oppression. It has been my endeavour to compare the writter’s cultural responses to the gender issues in her respective patriarchies as manifested in her works. The works of this writer do not unfold radical feminist visions; she interrogates the binaries of male/female, masculine/feminine, black/white, nature/culture, and so on and so forth.

Toni Morrison’s novels voice her concern about racism which oppressed the Black men and women for generations. It has been my attempt to reveal how the works of these writer move beyond the restrictive tenets of representational feminism to envision the concerns of gender and to problematise cultural identity of gender as evasive of stable definitions. Gender is clearly a dominant theme in all of Toni Morrison‟s novels, and shapes her characters’ conflicts.

There are many studies which point out the significance of gender in Morrison’s work will focus primarily on three of her novels, namely “The Bluest Eye”, “Sula” and “Love”. Also, there are of course a number of examples of gender features which are mentioned in Morrison’s work “Beloved”.

In Sula, three generations of women: Sula, Hannah, Eva; they represents economically and sexually independent ladies who gain strength from each other in the absence of male member. Sula is presented as a domineering female, intending to live her life as a free being. She refuses to take any responsibility in the name of marriage and her mother dislikes it. Sula, seems merely to reject the social conventions that are taught to her by the family women’s.

Sula’s grandmother - Eva Peace was left in poverty along with her three children after leaving of her husband. She is able to provide for children by continuing her role as a determined matriarch. She challenges the conventional notion of womanhood as well as of motherhood.

Sula’s mother - Hannah was a single parent known for sexual independence. She was highlighted by Morrison as a faultless woman liked by the social world. It could be argued that black mothers confer as well as destroy the life.

The Bluest Eye is a series of extended tragedy of black women’s life throughout slavery time. Pecola Breedlove is the protagonist of the novel raised in an unkind and uncaring family. Her parents show her no love, no affection and no basic education; therefore trauma and depression fill her life.

Pecola sees herself as ugly, as an object possessing an abject body. However, as Pecola does not have blue eyes, these social symbols of white beauty, she cannot come anywhere near to the ideal of white beauty. She is absorbed and marginalised by the cultural icons portraying physical beauty: movies, billboards, magazines, books, newspapers, window signs, dolls, and drinking cups. In other words, white women may lack something in terms of the gendered body, but due to their white privilege, they are not racialised in the same way.

The Novel “Love” provides a strong example of Morrison’s examination of female African American characters failing to overcome oppression because their identities are inextricably bound within the systems that oppress them. The female characters - Heed, Christine, and Junior are bound to each other in a triangular structure that supports a unity between the three women, and the women are individually bound to Bill Cosey in triangular structures of sexual idenity, within which the consequences of sexism, racism, and classism damage the their self-actualization, and consequently, their relationships with each other. For all three women, Bill Cosey functions the desired object, and is the inactive figure in the middle of shifting triangular relationships. Though he is only an object of obvious sexual fascination for two of the women, he is a paternal figure for all three.

As we can see how Toni Morrison uses features of gender as a means of illustrating how a sick culture breeds sick individuals, and how a patriarchal and sexist society, like the societies in The Bluest Eye, Sula and Love, will determine the development of its members and the trajectory of the relationships between them.

Alice Walker’s works have been analyzed from many different perspectives ranging from black feminism, lesbian feminism, Marxist feminism, post feminism, and queer theory to gender. Of great importance is the issue of tradition and racism which paves the way for gender construction in Walker’s three novels, which has been somewhat neglected by most critics. For example, Gönül Pultar’s “Issues of Gender in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple” which provides the reader with some aspects of gender characteristics illustrated in The Color Purple, however, left Walker’s other works untouched.

Walker uses the novel’s epistolary (letter-writing) form to emphasize the power of communication. Celie writes letters to God, and Nettie writes letters to Celie. Both sisters gain strength from their letter writing, but they are saved only when they receive responses to their letters. 

Many characters in the novel break the boundaries of traditional male or female gender roles. Sofia’s strength and sass, Shug’s sexual assertiveness, and Harpo’s insecurity are major examples of such disparity between a character’s gender and the traits he or she displays. This blurring of gender traits and roles sometimes involves sexual ambiguity, as we see in the sexual relationship that develops between Celie and Shug.

Disruption of gender roles sometimes causes problems. Harpo’s insecurity about his masculinity leads to marital problems and his attempts to beat Sofia. Likewise, Shug’s confident sexuality and resistance to male domination cause her to be labeled a tramp. Throughout the novel, Walker wishes to point out that gender and sexuality are not as simple as we may believe. Her novel subverts and defies the traditional ways in which we understand women to be women and men to be men.

In the works of Afro-American writers the great role plays the definition of self. Women are oppressed on multitudes level due to the reason of gender politics. Firstly, women are oppressed by the patriarchal institution of the social world. Secondly, being a black woman is a double burden. Thirdly, the brutal institute of slavery robs them from the right of motherhood as well as womanhood. Woman tried to exist and play their roles in all the possible ways in household and society whereas, men were either absent from the families or shrunk from their responsibilities. Women have strived hard under the institution of slavery to fulfill their roles as mothers. This realization of self identity is the main craving of feminists and it becomes their predicament in societies where woman are taken as an inferior beings, as commodities with a prize tags. In order to come to terms with themselves, black women, fight for their rights and are cherished members of the black societies.

Literature:

1. Alice Walker: The Color Purple, Harvest Book Harcourt Inc., The USA, Fort Washington, 2006

2. Birgit Aas Holm: Sexuality in Toni Morrison’s works Master’s Thesis in English Literature, ENG-3992 Department of Culture and Literature Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education University of Tromsø Autumn Term, Norway, Tromsø, 2010

3. Hira Ali: Gender Analysis in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Sula, Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, University of Sargodha, Pakistan, Sargodha, 2013

4. Jayita Sengupta: Feminist Perspectives in the novels of Toni Morrison, Michele Roberts and Anita Desai Atlantic, India, Delhi, 2006

5. Katharine Lynn Fulton: Female sexual identity in Toni Morrison’s Love, Iowa State University Ames, The USA, Iowa, 2009

6. Pi-Li Hisao: Language, Gender, and Power in The Color Purple: Theories and Approaches, Feng Chia Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Taiwan, Taichung City, 2008

7. Potkina A. P.: The linguistic peculiarities in postmodern prose ( Toni Morrison “Beloved”), The Collection of Scientific Papers “The Modern directions of analyses and interpretation of foreign cultural texts”, Russia, Tomsk, 2013

8. Toni Morrison: Beloved (Everyman’s Library), Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, The USA, New York, 2006

9. Toni Morrison: Love, Random House, The USA, New York, 2003

10. Toni Morrison: Sula, New American Library, The USA, New York, 1973

11. Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye, Penguin, The USA, New York, 1994.

12. Wan Roselezam, Wan Yahya: Gender Representationin Alice Walker’s Selected Novels, The International Journal of Humanities, The USA, Illinois, 2010