Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald

Subjugation and Resistance of Black Women in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Maryse Conde

Adriana Zühlke

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction ... 3

2.0 Subjugation and Resistance of Black Women: Forms of Oppression and their Consequences as depicted in the Novels ... 5

2.1 Historical Subjugation and Resistance in Fiction – a Paradox? ... 5
2.2 Maryse Condé’s: I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem ... 7
2.2.1 Uprooting, Misapprehension and Slavery in Tituba ... 7
2.2.2 “I will not give in!”: Condé’s Women’s Resistance ... 14
2.3 Toni Morrison’s Beloved: Blacks within subjugating Mechanisms of Slavery ... 20
2.3.1 “You got two feet (…) not four”: Self-love versus Dehumanization ... 20
2.3.2 Personal Memory and the Problem of Overcoming the Past ... 26
2.4 The Triple Burden: A Reflection on Black Women’s Particular Status in Slavery ... 29
2.4.1 “Unless carefree, motherlove was a killer”: Motherhood in Slavery and the Tradition of Infanticide ... 34
2.5 Toni Morrison’s Sula: “I want to make my self” ... 40
2.5.1 Subjugation, Female Resistance and Identity in the 20th Century ... 40
2.5.2 A Black Woman’s Otherness as Threat – Sula’s Dilemmas ... 44

3.0 Sources of Strength and Motives for Black Women’s Resistance in the Novels ... 46

3.1 The Meaning of Love and Interpersonal Friendships ... 46
3.1.1 The Meaning of the Relationship between Man and Woman ... 47
3.1.2 Female Friendship, Solidarity and Intimacy ... 53
3.2 The Role of the African Culture, Traditions, Religion and the Supernatural ... 57
3.3 The Black Community and its Ambivalence for Morrison’s and Condé’s Women ... 64

4.0 Morrison’s and Condé’s Women’s Subjugation and Resistance and the Correlation between Present and Past with Regard to Collective Suffering, Memory and Responsibility ... 69

5.0 Conclusion ... 72

6.0 Bibliography ... 75

1.0 Introduction

The present paper is concerned with the depiction of black women’s subjugation and resistance in fiction. It examines the quality of black women’s suffering through racism and sexism, especially within the system of slavery in America from the 17th to the 19th century. Moreover, the paper contrasts black women’s status in and after slavery. This is done, on the one hand, in order to illustrate and underline slavery’s inhuman conditions black women suffered from and, on the other hand, to show the continuation of racism and sexism after slavery. It will be revealed that the assumed changes of conditions for black women nowadays are rather superficial and that discrimination and inequality, compared to men and white people, have been persisting.
The analysis is based on the novels Beloved¹ and Sula² by Toni Morrison and on Maryse Condé’s novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem³ (in the following referred to as Tituba). These three novels are selected as basis for the analysis because they depict black people’s oppression in several forms, intensities and times and focus especially on women’s particular situation. While Beloved and Tituba illustrate the human being’s oppression during and shortly after slavery, Sula reflects black people’s discrimination and black women’s suffering after the abolition, to be precise in the 20th century. It is of particular significance for the study that the novels’ actions are set in different times because this way it is possible to scrutinize similarities or potential changes in black women’s situation over a period of about 300 years. While Tituba stands for the depiction of the mechanisms of the colonial slave trade and slave life in the 17th and 18th century, Beloved displays slavery in America in the 19th century, including issues like slaves’ every-day life, dehumanization and flight. Sula serves as mirror of African-American women’s life and difficulties during the 20th century and must be part of the examination because only a comparison of selected motifs and issues in all three novels will provide a substantiation of the paper’s thesis that black women’s situation in the past was different and particular difficult compared with black men and Whites and has not changed significantly until present.
Even if this paper explicitly deals with black women’s matters, it has to examine black men’s position as well in order to detect and assess similarities and differences of the injustices and crimes done to them. It has to be taken into consideration that with regard to the general human aspect, male misery in the novels corresponds to female suffering. This means exploitation, fear, despair, helplessness and weakness are not exclusively connected with women, as will be shown. In the novels both black men and women are victims of systems of subjugation and discrimination. However, it is striking that in the books women and their particular situation and problems dominate the plot. Concerning this, the paper is based on the view that oppression of black women is a special case of oppression of females in general, which means that the circumstances and quality of white women’s subjugation must be considered as well in order to evaluate and analyze potential differences between white and black female forms of resistance, their motives and consequences. It will be shown that in their suffering, women share a special status connected with their definition of their selves, their universal responsibilities (e.g. as mothers) and, especially, the specific difficulties the female gender evokes. Therefore, the question for black women’s ways of coping with these as well as their motives and sources of resistance in the novels are important matters to be treated. It will be discussed how Blacks, especially women, were capable at all to endure and survive the physical and mental tortures of captivity in slavery or of discrimination and inequality after slavery.
Connected with this question the role of the African culture is debated. Here, attention is turned to the authors’ African roots and the question how (much) these roots inspired the elements of the actions and in what respect African tradition and beliefs are interwoven in the books. Being further backing aspects for the novels’ women, human interpersonal relationships and collectivity are examined connected with a consideration of the novels’ investigation and analysis of human nature, psyche and emotions. These subjects’ special status in Tituba, Beloved and Sula can be indicated by pointing to the novels’ capacity of emotions, relations and individuality. For example, the books’ actions balance fear, hatred, tension, passion and also love, which appears in various forms such as motherly love, physical love or the abstract love of freedom. The analysis of this important and interesting theme focuses on questions that are essential for an entire comprehension of the books, for example: How are feelings (especially love) presented and which special functions do they fulfill? What significance do the various interpersonal relationships have? To what extent are they cores of resistance? What causes the significance of female friendships? What differentiates female suffering from male?

[...]

1 Morrison, Toni, Beloved, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991
2 Morrison, Toni, Sula, London: Pan Books, 1991
3 Condé, Maryse, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Transl. Richard Philcox, New York: Ballantine Books, 1994