Space,Power,and Resistance: A Comparison Between Dessa Rose And The Confessions Of Nat Turner

Sherley Ann Williams’ historical novel Dessa Rose details two women’s fierce strength of will and an unlikely bond between them despite racial barriers in the pre-civil war South.In academic fields at home and abroad,it is often compared with Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.In fact,Dessa Rose was inspired by William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner,which was a 1967 Pulitzer prize-winning novel.What are the similarities they share? How do environment and space reflect power struggles in the two novels? Why did The Confessions of Nat Turner spark outrage in African-American communities? Few articles discussed the above questions.In order to answer the above questions,the thesis tries to examine the two novels and disclose power and resistance from the perspectives of space theory combined with postcolonial theory and feminist theory.By comparing the two novels,the thesis discovers that the novels portray the predicament of slaves.African-Americans obey the white power in the space of domination but resist in the discourse space.There is a heterotopia in both novels.However,the two novels reflect the authors’ subjectivities.Styron,a white male writer,distortedly portrays his hero Nat Turner as a devout but crazy and capricious leader,projecting his prejudice on African Americans.On the contrary,Williams,a black female writer,paints a picture of a simple,genuine,threedimensional figure Dessa Rose.She depicts the genuine life of an African-American female slave and emphasizes African-American women’s power.As a result,the thesis points out that Dessa Rose more truly restores the history of slavery in the South,shows the important roles of African-American women in African-American resistance,and stresses the significance of African-American women’s literature.