Afro-American Women

Writers in Subaltern Studies

D r. A . P a d m a s h i n i ,
Assistant Professor of English,
Sri S.R.N.M College,
Sattur – 626 203.
TONY MORRISON
Disparate Afro-American Society
Introduction – Afro-American literature
African-American Literature throws light on the literary
production of the African people, who are migrated to
America.
In America(South)-Lower status of Afro-Americans.
Social, Historical events pushed them to be writers.
Their travel exists from the Colonial period-till date.
They express their own feelings of isolation, social
injustice, & slavery in their writings.
 They raise their voiceless slogans through their writings to
get liberation socially, politically, economically, &
psychologically.
 Subaltern

‘Subaltern’-Latin roots, ‘Sub’ alternus-'all others’.

Subaltern-describes the people who are sub-ordinate
in terms of rank, class, caste, gender, race etc.
It means somebody who has been marginalised or
oppressed.
In Critical theory & Post colonialism-the term
“Subaltern” assigns the people who are socially,
politically & geographically outside of the hegemonic
power structure of their colonial homeland.
‘Subaltern consciousness’ is one of the characteristics
of Subalternity.
 Gayatri Spivak

Gayatri Spivak used the term ‘Subaltern’ for the

Colonised & the Oppressed people, Working class,
Gender & the Women whose voice has been muted.
The Concept of Sub-altern studies is derived from
Marxism & Post-Colonialism.
One of the most recent sub-divisions of Post-colonial
theory is the Subaltern studies.
Subaltern literature covers the themes such as the
masses, Dalits, the deprived, unrecognized,
marginalized, neglected & Indigenous sections of society.
 Inequality in Afro-American Society

 All the colonised nations of the world have a Subaltern

identity.
 Afro-American literature mainly concentrates on freedom &
abolition of slavery.
 Main themes of their writings are segregation, lynching,
migration & the women’s suffragette movement.
 African American Lit - dominated by Autobiographical,
Spiritual narratives.
 It explores the issues of freedom & equality long denied to
blacks in the U.S.
 Martha Southgate

 Popular African-American novelist.

 Her works are Another way to Dance,
The fall of Rome: A Novel, Third Girl from the left, The
Taste of Salt.
 The Taste of salt is about the young African-American
marine biologist Josie Henderson.
 The novel describes the struggles & sufferings faced by
the members of black family in contemporary
American society.
 Hybridity in Culture

 Afro-Americans are caught between the dual identities. They are able
to follow neither their black culture nor fit into the white practices.

There are still people long for their own sense of belonging in
Colonised nations.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Argues that an understanding of African

mythology is an important backdrop against reading Afro-American
Writing.

Mythical elements root the novels from the African tradition and
provide a cultural bridge between the history of their origination and
the reality of their life in USA.
 American Civil – rights Movement

 American Civil rights movement - Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks- wrote about
Racial segregation & Black nationalism.
 Hardship of depression and the World War-II refocused African-American Literature and
art towards Social Criticism.
 Ann Petry’s novel “The Street” highlighted the struggles of working class black women in
Harlem.
 Gwendolyn Brooks – works dealt with every day life in black urban communities – first
to receive the Pulitzer Prize.
 Lorraine Hansberry ‘s “ A Raisin in the Sun” brought a broad outlook of the struggles of
black people in the United States.
 To abolish the institution of Slavery,the Civil rights movement had been started.
 Black female Writers started to emerge throughout the Civil War and the Reconstruction
of eras appeared before entering into the mainstream of American Culture.
 Black women started to produce their creative work of art ,after involving in the Civil
rights movement and Woment’s movement in late 20th century and early 21 st century.
 Dolan Perkins Valdez

o ‘Wrench’-popular novel
o Four enslaved Women-act as mistresses to their masters.
o Degradation of Women – abused by their masters.
o Protagonist-Lizzie
o Falls in love with her master, emotionally.
o Women slaves were treated as wild beasts by their masters.
o Lizzie never likes to give up her affection towards her
master.
o Other Slave Women have much hatred on their master.
They wanted to escape from that worse situation.
 Double Marginalisation

 Subaltern Feminist reading of Alice Walker’s Fiction

explores the cultural, national and linguistic backgrounds
with a view to arriving at a transnational and transcultural
Subaltern feminist aesthetics.
 Most of the Women, irrespective of race, caste,sex,
nationality and religion are victims of marginalisation. It
deprives their dignity as human beings.
 They consequently suffer with oppression, denial, erasure,
and persecution from patriarchal dominance.
 ‘Double marginalisation’ is a grotesque phenomenon faced
by subaltern Women - Women who belong to certain
ethnic groups, races & castes which are demarcated as
terribly inferior.
Maya Angelou
 Maya Angelou

 Maya Angelou – As an American feminist Poet

 Her famous poem Phenomenal Women talks about liberal feminism.
 The poetry shows her confidence towards her appearance as black
woman.
 ‘‘It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth,the swing in my
waist,And the joy in my feet’’[Phenomenal Woman]
 “Still I Rise” – Best poem –Describes the difficulties of Blacks living
amidst the Whites. It explains Second Wave Feminism{radical feminism}
 “Just lie suns,with the certainity of tides,Just like hopes springing
high,Still I’ll rise.”[Still I Rise 3rd stanza]
 Maya Angelou

 She also says, “ You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with
your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll
rise[Still I Rise,6th stanza]
 In her another poem “Caged Bird”, she analyzes how the tradition and the
history of the black people tied them to be submissive. She longs for
freedom in the poem as, ‘‘But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams,
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream, his wings are clipped and his feet
are tied, so he opens his throat to sing.”
 Angelou’s poems are platform to champion the cause of all black women.
They are known for the empowerment of black women.
 She utilizes her writing as a tool for resisting against ideologies,
hegemonies and methodologies that have silenced and marginalised black
women.
 She illuminated the lives of so many black people with her incandescent
words using her poetical lines.
 Post Colonial view

 Can the Subaltern Speak

 It is a critique of Western models of Class
Consciousness & Subjectivity.
 Gayatri juxtaposes the thinking of the French
intellectuals & the 20th century intellectuals such as
Michael Foucault and Gilles Delouse.
 This juxtaposition is to emphasize how the Western
intellectuals silence the voices of the Subaltern by
claiming to speak for their experience.
 Colonial discourse

 In the same way, the Colonialists silenced the voice

of the widow by saying that they chose to die on their
husbands funeral pyre.
 Political representation of the Subaltern may seem
like an escape from the exploitation.
 The structural system and historical condition do
not assure their liberation.
 In 21st century, the entire Subaltern Studies have
moved into issues that are most specifically Post-
Colonial.
 Karl Marx on Subaltern

Karl Mark-’Eighteenth Brumare of Louis Bona Patre’.

It is a description of Peasant proprietors in French
Peasant society in the 19th century.
According to him, the socio-economic life of the
oppressed prevents them from acting as a unified class
conscious society.
When aesthetic representation and political realm are
applied to the third world nations, the gap is wider.
Spivak emphasizes that the application of European
theories of representation for the third world women
cannot be justified.
 Spivak’s opinion on Subaltern

 Spivak expands the original definition of the

“Subaltern” coined by Subaltern studies.
 She interpreted the ideas of the scholars like
Ranajit Guha who opined on middle and upper
class women not on lower class connotation.
 Her argument is that the plight of the woman has
been excluded in the anti-colonial insurgency.
 Spivak’s representation of Women is substantially
supported by any historical approach.
Alice Walker
 Alice Walker

Walker is a respected figure in the liberal political

community for her support of unconventional &
unpopular views as a matter of principle.
She is an open bisexual and sympathetic of people of all
sexualities, ethnicities and races.
The color purple is the best-known work of her.
It is the story of a young black woman fighting her way
through not only racist white culture, but also patriarchal
black culture.
 The Color Purple is a feministic work of an abused and
uneducated African American Woman’s struggle for
empowerment.
 Alice Walker-as a Feminist

 The Color Purple documents the traumas & gradual triumph

of Celie, an Afro-American teenager raised in rural isolation
in Georgia.
 Some of the notable poems are ‘Gray', 'The old man’, ‘Before
you knew you owned it’ & ‘Coming Apart’.
 In Walker’s works, the relationship between her activism and
her art is clear, as she frequently examines and exposes
oppression.
 In Possessing the Secret of Joy, Walker explores her physical
and emotional pain around the traditional, cultural African
practice.
 Her novel is treated as an Americanized condemnation of
African culture.
 Alice Walker

 Walker crafts her poem as a call for a new Womanist

order.
 As mentioned in her poem, she wants Democratic
Womanism.
 Alice examines her choice to use the word ‘dark’.
 Everyone can imagine that Walker is calling for the
wisdom of Women of Color.
 She strongly criticised the controversial, animalistic
and cruel stereotypes of black masculinity in her novel
The Color Purple.
 Democratic Womanism

‘Democratic Womanism’-Poem
“ You ask me why I smile
when you tell me you intend
in the coming national elections
to hold your nose..........
.........................................
.........................................
I am thinking of Democratic, and
Socialist, Womanism, perhaps
For who else knows so deeply
 Poem on Democracy

how to share but mothers

and Grandmothers? Big Sisters
and Aunts?
To Love
and adore
both female and male?
Not to mention those in between.
To work at keeping
the entire community
fed, educated
 Womanism

and safe?
Democratic Womanism,
Democratic Socialist Womanism....
(The poem was read by Walker during the election of
2012 in America).
 Womanism is a social theory - the concept created
based on history and experiences of Women of
color,especially black Women.
 Womanism says that the culture of Women is not an
element of her femininity.
 Tony Morrison
 To n y M o r r i s o n i s t h e t o w e r i n g n o v e l i s t o f t h e
B l a c k Wo m e n wr i t e r s .
 S h e h a s w r i t t e n m a n y n o v e l s ‘ Be l o v e d ’ , ‘ a
M e rc y ' , ‘ H o m e ’ , ‘ B l u e s t Ey e ’ , ‘ S u l a ’ , ‘ S o n g o f
S ol o m o n ’ , ‘ Ta r B a b y ’ , ‘ J az z ’ , a n d ‘ P a r a d i s e ’ are
s o m e o f t h e no ve l s w r i t t e n b y h e r. .
 The Bluest Eyes

o The Source of Self-Regard; Selected Essays, Speeches and

Meditations is the last book of Tony Morrison, it is published in
2019.
o The bluest Eye is one of the most inspiring works of Morrison.
o The title of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye is significant because
it relates directly to the themes of the novel.
o Protagonist Pecola a (Black-American) believes that having blue
eyes is the key to being beautiful and finding social acceptance.
o She prays for the ‘Bluest eyes’ because it represents the answer to
the mystery of her life. When she is granted her wish for ‘Blue
eyes’,Pecola can able to obtain it by losing her identity.
 Identity Crisis

 Apartheid and gender bias are the most defining

factors in the novel, The Bluest Eyes.
 In her last book The Source of Self-Regard: Selected
Essays, Speeches and Meditations , she says,
“It is this rattling I believe that affects the second point
our uneasiness with our own feelings of foreignness,
our own rapidly fraying sense of belonging. To what do
we pay greatest allegiance? Family, language group,
culture, country, gender? Religion, race? And if none
of these matter, are we urbane, cosmopolitan, or simply
lonely?
 Sense of Alienation

In other words, how do we decide where we belong?

What convinces us that we do? Or put another way, what
is the matter with foreignness?”-Morrison
 The book reveals the in-depth thinking and philosophical
regard for the world that made it possible for Toni
Morrison to create scintillating effect in her literary works.
 Morrison was the first black Woman to receive the Nobel
Prize in literature.
 Toni Morrison was a ‘guiding light’ and ‘moral spirit’ for
the entire black generations.