Postcolonial Feminist Theory: An Overview - Igcollege.org

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Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, NandedConstructive Alternatives of Community and Space in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day andWomen of Brewster Place: A Case in Feminist Discourse--Professor Rambhau BadodeDepartment of EnglishUniversity of MumbaiDiscourse on the importance of community isa central one in contemporary AfricanAmerican literature. Power of communalbond has been foregrounded in the works ofBlack women writers such as Toni Morrison,Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor. This paperis an attempt to trace the alternate communitypatterns, which Gloria Naylor proposes inMama Day and Women of Brewster Place.Attempts are also made to see how Naylordevelops community paradigms, which resistthe enclosed community structures ofpatriarchy and capitalism. Using the tools ofBlack Cultural Feminism, the paper will alsoanalyze how Gloria Naylor locatesalternative spaces in the community inMama Day and Women of Brewster Placeas a site of ploy vocal expression andinterpersonal subjectivity. The basicargument of the study is that the alternatecommunity in Naylor's works, which is oftenlead by strong culture-bearing women,demands a surrender of short term personalobjectives in the larger interest of collectivesurvival.IAfrican American Women's writings arenegotiations with space as much they areconcerned with issues like race, gender andclass. Novelists like Toni Morrison, AliceWalker and Gloria Naylor are aware of theneed of negotiating space, creating itwhenever possible in the act of writing.These novelists make attempts to locate newfeminist spaces both within and outside thecommunity. They are also aware that blackwomen are made to feel inferior, by theagencies of patriarchy and racism. Theyhave no space for themselves and they haveto occupy the space granted to them by theseagencies. This haunting sense of not havingone's space within the home, family orsociety affects largely the self-image of ablack woman. It also adds the agony ofdependence and a feeling of dispossession, tothe already exploited life of a black woman.The definitions of space by the domineeringagencies, however, are on the basis ofphysical barriers such as walls, doors andfences or on the basis of logical binaries suchas self / other and presence / absence. Blackwomen writers, the ones mentioned abovesubvert and alter these patriarchal parametersof space and community in their works.This paper is a study of strategies employedby Gloria Naylor in Mama Day and Womenof Brewster to create alternatives forcommunity and black female space. It is alsoan attempt to find how Naylor debunks theconventional, patriarchal images anddimensions of space. Further, Naylor'screation of alternative spaces can beconsidered as an effort to valorise the use ofimagination, parody and the gendered actsuch as birth giving and nurturance. Theseblack feminist techniques tear apart thepatriarchal definition of space. The binarylogic can be traced in abundance in Naylor'sworks. Naylor's creation of alternative spacesand community could also be considered asan act of placing black women in oppressor'world and oppressor's language, but withgreater mobility and subversive power.Willow Springs, the island setting of MamaDay itself is a space that is located outsidethe American mainland. Naylor stresses theessential otherness of Willow Springs withits vagrant weather and magic. In this specialspace, she places black women who becomeimages of female identity and positive selfimage.Willow Springs aligns itself with anAfrican heritage rather than an Americanone. it reminds one of West Africanlandscape and the women who live there alsoinvoke the spirituality and strength of womenof the African heritage. To disengageWillow Springs from the mainland cultures,Naylor emphasizes the dissimilarities289 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1
Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, Nandedbetween the island and American – both ingeographical features and cultural practices.Mama Day is a novel that tells the story ofMiranda Day and her niece Ophelia Day(Cocoa), two black women of WillowSprings, an island located between SouthCarolina and Georgia. Miranda is the healerof the island and Ruby, a root doctorcompetes with her. Ruby casts a spell onOphelia and Mama Day has to cure her niece.As an important step in Ophelia's cure,Mama Day asks George, Ophelia's lover, toabandon his city lifestyle and live accordingto the traditional ways of Willow Spring.George does so and dies before Opheliaregains her strength fully. George dies butOphelia undergoes a symbolic rebirth.Mama Day also marks Willow Springs as amaternal space, totally different from thepatriarchal, capitalist spaces of Americancities. George dies, but not before realizingthe healing effects of Mama Day's maternalspace.Willow Springs is a small island and hence itis a small space as compared to the Americanmainland. Yet Naylor keeps it free ofracism, sexism and colonial subjugation.Willow Springs is symbolic of the personalspace that an African American needs whichwould give her a world free of maleinterference. Mama Day's small islandnurtures healthy social life through its healthisolation from the conflicting world-views ofAmerican mainland.IIThe Women of Brewster Place is acollection of six interwoven stories. Itforegrounds a network of marginalizedfemales, with Mattie Michael playing the roleof the healer. Brewster Place is the dead endof a street, which symbolizes theconfinement and the condition of the blackwomen. Mattie, however, helps otherwomen to locate new spaces within this deadend. She offers a sympathetic ear to EttaMae and words to build up her selfconfidence.Thus Mattie finds space andfreedom in words and by extension, inlanguage. She understands, from her verbalinteraction with Etta Mai, that words havehealing effect and they can also help blackwomen to transcend the dead-end ofBrewster Place. To Lucielia, Mattie becomesthe mother-surrogate. While Lucielia ismourning the death of her child, Mattieoffers the soothing touch of words. She alsowashes Lucielia in the symbolic mode ofbaptism. Naylor renders Mattie's healing ofLucielia in a language loaded with myths. Byplacing myths in language, Naylor createsmore spaces within language. Myths enableNaylor to transport her characters throughtime. Lucielia enters a trance during herchild's funeral and Mattie restores her to theworld of the living. Mattie's act of healingLucielia is also an act of creating alternatespace. She transports Lucielia beyond theroom where she lives, to the vastness ofhealing sky:Mattie rocked her out of that bed, outof that room, into a blue vastness justunderneath the sun and above time ...she rocked her on and on (Naylor, p-103).Mattie heals Lucielia by extracting a splinterfrom her body. What Mattie achieves, ineffect for Lucielia, is a restorative connectionwith the past and an alternative community.Mattie helps Lucielia to enter a new life byextracting the splinter of slavery and sexualoppression from her body. By doing soMattie enables Lucielia, to connect herself toan Afro-centric community and its legacy ofpain and suffering:She rocked her into her childhood andlet her see murdered dream. And sherocked her back, back into the womb,to the nadir of her hurt, and they foundit – a slight silver splinter embeddedjust below the surface of the skin. AndMattie rocked and pulled – and thesplinter gave way, but its roots weredeep, gigantic, ragged, and they toreup flesh ... They left a huge ole, whichwas already starting to pus over, butMattie was satisfied. It would heal.(Naylor, pp - 103-04).Bereft of the house she had owned when herson Basil absconds in bail, Mattie must290 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1
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