| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 英文學系 === 103 === Black American women have often been victimized by perpetrators of racism and sexism. They experience existential angst and have no clearer place in society than black men. As outsiders, they are silenced and have few rights to speak for themselves. In their struggle for their rights, the marginalized group must take on racial and sexual forms of oppression. This thesis aims to analyze the racism and the sexism black women suffer in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place (1983) and how they construct their selfhood and survive in a tight corner through the power of community.
The concepts drawn from the black feminism of bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Barbara Christian are adopted to analyze the above-mentioned themes in the novel. Audre Lorde’s theory “lesbianism” is also applied to explore the confinement of lesbians. In the novel, the female characters confront racial and sexual hegemonies which relegate their social status to society’s bottom. To overcome their plight and to assist in the search for their identity, black women tell readers how they were encouraged and empowered through the strength of sisterhood and the unity of the community.
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