This work investigates the representation of domestic servants within mid-twentieth century novels of female development, which are written by middle class women. The comparison is between the following authors: Rosario Castellanos from Mexico, Jean Rhys from the West Indies, and Clarice Lispector from Brazil. Postcolonial women writers have needed to tackle hegemonic structures within their own fiction, as they confront the privilege of the modern writing subject who frames herself in opposition to the silence of colonized female characters. Working to rewrite history, and to develop texts that speak from the margins, there is a conscious effort to incorporate subaltern voices into their narratives. Nevertheless, anxiety arises within those texts of middle-class writers who are preoccupied with the management of differences, stemming from a realization that in fact there is no place within the privileged writing subjects text from which the subaltern can actually speak. Therefore the authors struggle to write within a masculine-centered literary tradition that privileges certain voices over others, while at the same time recognizing their complicity with that system that works through exclusions. While the servant is silenced, the writing also shields her from being appropriated and defined by the mistress who needs her as a caregiver while she pursues a personal growth and awakening. That is, silences are used to form a protective space in which the marginalized woman cannot be merely the embodiment of alterity for the narrators quest for subjectivity. An element of shame is therefore revealed by means of an implied author, which reminds them that they are expressing an ideal that they themselves have not lived up to. The marginal character becomes a negative element that points to the inability of the narrative to adequately represent her. It questions the model of solidarity through shared oppression that readings of womens and postcolonial writings often take, suggesting that new forms of community need to be imagined that take into account inequalities and injustices between women.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04102010-173630 |
| Date | 24 June 2010 |
| Creators | Strobel, Leah |
| Contributors | Susan Andrade, Jerome Branche, Erin Graff Zivin, Bobby Chamberlain |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04102010-173630/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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