Female Force and Mundane Men: Calixthe Beyala’s Writing of Identity From the "Third Space" and in C'est le Soleil qui m'a brûlée
2016 (English)In: Gender Discourse and the Construction of Identity / [ed] N'Guessan, Kouadio Germain, Edilivre, 2016, p. 101-132Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
The novels of the Cameroonian author Calixthe Beyala reveal discourses connected to gender, power and violence, as well from an African as from a diasporal point of view. Her writings review how the woman is defined through eroticism, exoticism and culturalism embedded in language. The aim of this article is to show how Beyala take use of African and Western world values and ideologies to make way for a modern female, unbound of traditional systems and taboos. In this respect, the quest for identity, place and function is at stake in a fragile new world order where the woman, still marginalized in a global context, is among the first to be edged out. The discourse analysis will use theories from the works of Edward Saïd and Homi K Bhabha in order to complete the post-colonial perspective.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Edilivre, 2016. p. 101-132
Keywords [en]
feminism, identity, post-colonialism, Calixthe Beyala
National Category
Humanities
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-16454ISBN: 9782334199476 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-16454DiVA, id: diva2:451546
Note
Abstract of the book
Discourse is a place of construction of identity. If identity discourses sometimes offend social morality and posit the speaker as abject or social pariah, they nevertheless partake in the construction of communities. This book examines gender discourse and the construction of identity from two axes. The first one, “literary discourses”, explores literary works from different geographical, cultural, and political areas to show how discourse helps construct identity and the “universality” of the main theme of this book. The second axis, “discourses from elsewhere”, deals with law and cinema, insisting on how the legal framework of a society and the scenarios of films can help produce discourses and subsequent identities.
2011-10-262011-10-262017-09-29Bibliographically approved