“You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy ”: The Violence of Language in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

• Autorzy: Kouadio Germain N’Guessan
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple dramatizes African American women’s plight through the experience of a black girl, Celie, caught in the turmoil of the patriarchal system of her community. Leaning on the epistolary form and also choosing to address the black woman’s oppression first within the black community itself, the author detaches herself from the mainstream African American literary tradition to create a personal style. One of the characteristic traits of the novel is language as a communicative tool in the characters’ interrelation. In the narrative, this tool is mostly used to oppress the female protagonists, demonstrating thus its violent aspect. But sometimes, even though very rarely in the novel, it helps the oppressed subject to claim a voice. Finally, the epistolary form serves to create more emotion in the readers and consequently produces more reaction in them.

Słowa kluczowe

EN

Violence; Language; Communication; Subject; Male; Female; Oppression

• Wydawca: Sciendo
• Czasopismo: Human and Social Studies
• Rocznik: 2015
• Tom: 4
• Numer: 1
• Strony: 72-87

Daty

wydano

2015-03-01

online

2015-04-10

Twórcy

autor

Kouadio Germain N’Guessan

• University Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Côte d’Ivoire

Bibliografia

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• Collins, Patricia Hills. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York” Routledge, 1991.
• Evans, Marie, ed. Black Women Writers: 1950-1980. A Critical Evaluation. New York: Anchor Press. 1984
• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. and K. A. Appiah. Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad, 1993.
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• Kristeva, Julia. Desire in Language : A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, trans.
• Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
• Lecercle, Jean-Jacques. La Violence du langage, Paris: PUF, 1996.
• Sîrghi, Alexandra. « L’insécurité linguistique des femmes dans l’espace public » in Annales de l’Université de Craïova, Vol : VII, No. 1/2011, Actes du colloque international « Langue, Culture, Civilisation » 24-26 Mars 2011, pp. 308-322.
• Walker, Walker. The Color Purple. New York: Pocket Book, 1982

Identyfikatory

DOI

10.2478/hssr-2013-0040