101. From Margin to Centre: Reading Gloria Naylor's Bailey's Café.
- Author
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Kumar, Anurag
- Subjects
FEMINISM ,BLACK feminists ,AFRICAN American authors - 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011