This thesis explores the problem of self-empowerment for the French Caribbean Black woman as presented in the novels Moi, Tituba, sorcière...Noire de Salem and Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle. The respective authors, Maryse Condé and Simone Schwarz- Bart, use fiction to convey the plight of women in the French Caribbean. They successfully create characters who refuse marginalization imposed by their patriarchal and oppressive societies. Condé’s novel, set in the 17th century first in Barbados, and then in Puritan New England depicts the challenges Tituba overcomes in reaching liberation. Schwarz-Bart presents the story of Télumée, set in Guadeloupe at the beginning of the 20th century. My study focuses specifically on the characters of Tituba and Télumée to show ways that they thwart the dominant social structures and norms that seek to disempower them. It reveals ways that Condé and Schwarz-Bart make use of literature to reverse European perceptions of gender and race. Consequently, the literary fictions they create suggest possible ways of escaping marginalization and refusing racial and gendered subjugation. / Master of Arts

French colonial regimes in West Africa and the Caribbean left the diverse populations fragmented without a central set of cultural values to unify them. The search for identity permeates postcolonial francophone literature with the mother symbol at its center. Coinciding with popular ideologies, the portrayal of motherhood has evolved from the source of ancient roots in traditional African society to the enterprise of the future by cultivating their own mores. By analyzing the mother symbol in a variety of texts from West Africa and the Caribbean and by situating them in their historical and social context, I will assess the role of the mother in the quest for a new identity. The earlier works written by male authors in the l 940s and 1950s tend to associate the mother figure with nostalgia for the native land and tradition, and gave her stereotypical characterizations of femininity such as docility, smothering sentimentality, and dependence. The more contemporary works show mothering outside of the conventional practices, especially the female authors who include a variety of mother figures in their texts in an attempt to dispel repressive definitions. Nevertheless, all of the literary works in the study equate mothering with a prospect of hope.

In this qualitative study, I examine the utilization of electronic publication and electronic writing systems to provide new possibilities for the translation of French Caribbean literary texts. Using Simone Schwarz‐Bart's 1972 novel Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle specifically for analysis and exploration, I investigate the potential of digital technology to aid in the production of literary translations that are mindful not only of the dynamics of language, but of French Caribbean women's discourse as well. Since the cultural turn of translation studies, translators need not only be bilingual but bicultural as well, having a discerning knowledge and familiarity of the culture that they render. Cultural translation scholars, therefore, have argued that translators should make the reasons for their translation choices known through annotations, prefaces, introductions, or footnotes. Advancing this established claim through critical and theoretical analysis and the construction of hypermediated textual translation samples from Pluie et Vent, I argue that translators can make their choices known by utilizing digital writing and hypermedia tools, such as TEI‐conformant XML, for computer assisted translation (CAT) and electronic publication. By moving a new translation of Schwarz‐Bart's text to a digital space, translators have more options in how they present their renderings including what information to include for better textual interpretation and analysis. The role, thus, of the translator has expanded. This person is not just a translator of language and culture, but an editor who provides scholarly information for critical interpretation. She is also a programmer who is skilled in new media iv writing and editing tools and uses those tools rhetorically to invent new methods for the electronic translation of literature.