Madness in African and African-American Feminist novel: A Journey of Reconciliation

Advisor Information

Pamela Smith

Location

Milo Bail Student Center Gallery Room

Presentation Type

Oral Presentation

Start Date

8-3-2013 2:00 PM

End Date

8-3-2013 2:15 PM

Abstract

To explore madness as a literary topic involves identifying not only the effects of this mental disease in the characters’ psyches but also the articulation of a social and gender discourse. Historically, those suffering from madness have been regarded as a threat to the status quo and, therefore, they have been separated from society. The theme of madness has been widely explored by writers and is especially interesting for women’s studies as one of its manifestations, hysteria, has helped articulating a discourse of gender, class and race during the turn of the century in Western countries. This research project traces the effects and consequences of madness in female characters in four different African and African-American novels. By providing specific examples from the novels, the goal is to connect them in terms of how the African female experience redefines the term madness, in some cases liberating it from its negative connotations. These novels embark us on a journey from Zimbabwe to North America and the Caribbean that features the transformations of madness across space and time. Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions deals with the effects of colonization in the psyche of native women; Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God brings us to Florida, where an African-American woman is in search of her own voice; Heidi W. Durrow explores in The Girl Who Fell From the Sky the struggle of a mulatto girl in a post-racial America and, our route ends with Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow in which the Caribbean becomes a place of discovery and reconciliation for the African-American female experience. All of them introduce the theme of madness differently, underlining that madness cannot be pinned down by only one definition. Madness, as seen in these novels, manifests in a myriad of forms.

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Mar 8th, 2:00 PM Mar 8th, 2:15 PM

Madness in African and African-American Feminist novel: A Journey of Reconciliation

Milo Bail Student Center Gallery Room

To explore madness as a literary topic involves identifying not only the effects of this mental disease in the characters’ psyches but also the articulation of a social and gender discourse. Historically, those suffering from madness have been regarded as a threat to the status quo and, therefore, they have been separated from society. The theme of madness has been widely explored by writers and is especially interesting for women’s studies as one of its manifestations, hysteria, has helped articulating a discourse of gender, class and race during the turn of the century in Western countries. This research project traces the effects and consequences of madness in female characters in four different African and African-American novels. By providing specific examples from the novels, the goal is to connect them in terms of how the African female experience redefines the term madness, in some cases liberating it from its negative connotations. These novels embark us on a journey from Zimbabwe to North America and the Caribbean that features the transformations of madness across space and time. Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions deals with the effects of colonization in the psyche of native women; Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God brings us to Florida, where an African-American woman is in search of her own voice; Heidi W. Durrow explores in The Girl Who Fell From the Sky the struggle of a mulatto girl in a post-racial America and, our route ends with Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow in which the Caribbean becomes a place of discovery and reconciliation for the African-American female experience. All of them introduce the theme of madness differently, underlining that madness cannot be pinned down by only one definition. Madness, as seen in these novels, manifests in a myriad of forms.