ABSTRACT
The purpose of this dissertation is to show the need for language change according to current French feminist criticism and to demonstrate the reappropriation of traditionally phallocentric language to assert female subjectivity in works of Caribbean women writers of the last three decades of the twentieth century. According to French feminist criticism, a key element of oppression is language. Therefore, the use of language is important in examining the writing of these three women authors. In this project, the idea of language reappropriation is seen in the short story, “The Youngest Doll” (1976) by Rosario Ferré; the short story “Solutions, Inc.” (1987) by Ana Lydia Vega (1987); and the novel, I Gave You All I Had (1996) by Zoé Valdés. The French feminist critical framework also serves to show how Caribbean woman writers have used language not to just break through ideological constraints inherent in it, but have found language to be an important instrument to bridge the gap between the masculine and the feminine. Thus, they can supersede the traditional phallocentric word in order to assert their own feminine voice. The continuum of the use of language, as demonstrated in this study, begins in the 1970s with Rosario Ferré using silence in her work as a way to communicate, making what is not written a powerful voice. In the 1980s, Ana Lydia Vega skillfully decodes the patriarchal ideal of the female/wife and uses it as a tool to regain control in order to destabilize societal constructs in her short story “Solutions, Inc.”. It is with Zoé Valdés in the 1990s that one can see that silence and subtlety give way to salacity in her use of the taboo. This project elucidates how contemporary Caribbean women writers, despite their differences in socio-economic, educational, and familial backgrounds, have reappropriated misogynistic language in keeping with their own personal history to privilege the feminine voice that was once hidden in literature. In addition, this study situates these texts in relation to the idea of l’écriture feminine as originated by Hélèn Cixous in French feminist criticism.
