Les dramaturges antillaises: Cruauté, créolité, conscience féminine
Abstract
My research focuses on a redefinition of the West Indian identity through a sample of West Indian drama by female authors. The playwrights of choice are as follows: Maryse Condé (Dieu nous 1'a donné 1972, Mort d'Oluwémi d'Ajumako 1973, Pensions les Alizés 1988), Simone Schwarz-Bart Ton beau capitaine (1987), Michèle Césaire La Nef (1992), and Gerty Dambury Lettres Indiennes (1993). My study first examines drama as a genre as it mainly uses body, music and dance to convey feelings and ideas. This revolutionary and folkloric form of production will be related to Artaud's "cruauté" as well as Glissant's theory of drama as a nation's conscience. Secondly, I situate the plays in the theoretical chronology from Negritude to Diversality. I then tackle some themes in the plays such as geographical reconciliation, exile and lack of representation so as to understand the state of West Indian identity in a postcolonial context and how potential solutions may be analyzed. Thirdly, I analyze Lumina Sophie dite Surprise by Suzanne Dracius by contrasting the references to Antiquity, creole and the modern era. I then look at the representation of History and Exile in some of the plays. Finally, I try to qualify West Indian women writing among other women writers. I label the dramatists as a Feminine Consciousness. By looking at the theme of Woman within each play, I view their writing as a means of double-emancipation: one from colonization and the other from male cultural domination. This appears particularly relevant in the role of the characters within each play as women regain a position of power by challenging male authority. From an analysis of the private sphere as a mirror of the public one, the emergence of a West Indian Identity will be brought to light with a life of its own, one which is independent from peninsular French literature.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Broden, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Caribbean literature|Womens studies|Theater
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