Dr Jean Louis NDAMA
Department of English / UNIVERSITY OF BANGUI
Submitted: 2022-03-07
valued: 2022-06-21
validated: 2022-07-30
ABSTRACT:
The article explores the strategies used by the black protagonist of Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie, to resist the societal and economic restrictions imposed upon her within the black community and her determination to achieve self-realization as a liberated black woman. It is well known that black women in the United States have been heavily affected by the exploitative ideologies of race, gender and class privailing since the slavery era. In the novel, Janie’s grand mother is an embodiment of the plight of the slave woman not only for her labor, but also as a sexual object and a contributor to the increase of the master’s chattel of slaves.
In addition to her identity crisis due to the fact that like her mother, she is a product of rape, Janie undergoes two loveless mariages in which her succesive black husbands expect to expmloit her like a mule. Durring the years of silent rebellion, her exposition to the lying sessions under the store porch of her mayor husband provides her with the liberating potential of black oral traditions that will empower her to chalenge the oppressive authority of Joe Starks in a game of playing the dozens leading to the symbolic death of the latter. His actual death would ultimately mean her liberation and the possibility of achieving the wholness of a black womanhood through a marrriage based on equal partnership to a younger loving husband.
Keywords : Black womanhood, slavery, oppression, oral traditions, signifying, liberation.
RESUME :
Non disponible
Mots clés :
Féminité noire, esclavage, oppression, traditions orales, importance, libération.
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