| Women of color use writing as a de-colonization site, a political act that dismantles the master-narrative and retrieves a long-lost, distorted or erased history. Their oeuvres tackle oppressions---gender, racial, economic---intertwined issues to be confronted prior to achieving any freedom. This resistance literature questions patriarchal assumptions and benefits humanity. The protagonists, in spite of social and cultural differences, share alienation and exile, either psychological and/or physical. This work seeks not to discredit the oppressive experiences incurred by women of color, but rather to highlight the subjugation these women share, whether due to colonialism, imperialism, or slavery.;This research follows the journey these women of color and their fictional characters undertake. Undergoing a rite-of-passage to overcome a self-hatred enforced by dominant, oppressive ideological systems, these oppressed women seek to understand their misery and to reach independence. The shared themes include feelings of fragmentation and displacement, needing grand/mother figures or bonding with other women to find self-love, experiencing the erotic for sexual/spiritual healing, and realizing the vitality of political commitment/revolution to achieve total freedom for all oppressed. All these characters are torn by externally imposed divisions. The thematic threads connecting novels written by women of color attest to similar experiences of marginalization.;Chapter one explores the theoretical background of post-colonial and radical feminist discourse in terms of identity politics. Themes of alienation in Cliff's Abeng and No Telephone to Heaven, Hanan al-Shaykh's The Story of Zahra, Fadia Faqir's Pillars of Salt, and Sahar Khalifa's Bab al-Saha are highlighted in Chapter two. The common theme of Chapter three is mother/daughter bonding connecting them to female ancestors as shown in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Jamaica Kincaid's My Brother. Chapter four continues the bonding relationship integrally connected with "othermothers" who provide spiritual nurturing in the absence of a loving, nurturing mother, as seen in Hanan al-Shaykh's Women of Sand and Myrrh and Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow. The final chapter analyzes the novels' endings. The journey ends as a new, politicized and whole female character emerges, marking the beginning of a new journey where the woman commits herself towards creating both a new society and a new ideological system that dictates the equality of all humans. |
