LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 10 October 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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From Margin to Centre: Reading Gloria Naylor’s Bailey’s Café

Anurag Kumar, M.A. and Smita Jha, Ph.D.

Abstract

Bell Hooks begins the preface of her benchmark book, Feminist Theory: from margin to center as “To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body” (Hooks, ix). The statement comprises of the whole lot of black feminist theory which bears the marginality in the overall discourse of feminism as a genre. Though black feminism is a part of mainstream feminist discourse, it has been pushed into the margins because of its peculiar but crucial issues of race and class. Black female writers have contributed to the separation of black feminism from the mainstream white feminism by portraying such characters that are constantly used to question the issues and strategies of white feminism by putting them into a context of racial and class conflict in order to make realize the importance of margin to the center.

The works of Gloria Naylor are quite relevant in this tradition as she carefully chooses her characters from the edge of the world where they have to constantly struggle to support themselves and one another to survive in a racial, communal and sexist world. The present paper makes an in depth analysis of Gloria Naylor’s Bailey’s Café and assess how this novel makes a shift from and resistance against mainstream white feminist concerns. It also explores as how racial and class conflict present in the society further aggravates their problem.

Key Words: Marginality, Resistance, Feminist Discourse, Black Feminism

Valorizing Western Literary Canon?

Karen Schneider in her article, “Gloria Naylor’s Poetics of Emancipation” defends Naylor from the allegations labeled against her as “disparaging representations of black male characters, reliance on Western cultural narratives, and even valorization of Western literary canon” (02). She finds Naylor’s Bailey’s Café as “destabilize[ing] absolute ontological boundaries defined by genre, gender politics, class, and cultural/literary tradition” (03). Thus, she transcends from what Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has called “discursive indenture” (1989, 25).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Anurag Kumar, M.A. and Smita Jha, Ph.D.
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology
Roorkee 247667
Uttarakhand
India
anuragkumar.lko@gmail.com
smitaiitr@gmail.com
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