Race, gender prejudice and the genesis of the “Womanish” women in selected novels by African american women.

Abstract

This thesis tackles the genesis of “womanish” womanhood as an alternative to the prescribed definitions of black womanhood in Toni Morrison’s Sula and The Bluest Eye, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Possessing the Secret of Joy. The four novels examine black women as they grapple with the difficult circumstances they face in a largely white, racist society. The novels investigate what it meant to be a black woman in the first half of the twentieth century against a backdrop of marginalization, discrimination, and oppression that heavily impacted her femininity. This thesis intends to show how black women in Morrison and Walker’s selected novels give a new meaning to black womanhood within the larger context of racism and sexism. Patricia Hill Collins’ intersectionality and Alice Walker’s womanism are adopted as the basic analytical approaches. The study is divided into four chapters. Chapter one examines the distortion of black femininity due to the superimposition of the controlling images that cast black women as bad mothers, bad wives, immoral, and ugly. Chapter two looks at the role of black patriarchy in further degrading black women’s status through exerting different kinds and levels of physical, emotional, and psychological dominance. Chapter three deals with black women’s defiance of race and gender prejudice through their creativity, bonding, rebellion, and well-being. Chapter four tackles black women’s new conception of femininity, which differs from the hegemonic meaning of both white and black womanhood. The study concludes that black women in Morrison and Walker’s selected novels embrace “womanish” womanhood through their assertive behavior, sexual freedom, self-love, and commitment to both commonweal and empowerment.