Abstract

The African Diaspora was born as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade which saw millions of people of African origin displaced and dispossessed of their culture. Working in plantations under dehumanizing conditions, black people were forced to adapt to the New World and to adopt the values of the dominant society However, they were able to retain some aspects of their African culture. This study examines the portrayal of African and Diasporic motherhood through a comparative analysis of mother-daughter relationships in three novels by African and Diasporic writers. In particular, the study is an examination of how women socialize their daughters into their cultural environments. The novels under study are Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus (2003), Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy (1990) and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970). The study argues that although black women in Africa and in the Diaspora were physically and culturally separated by the Middle Passage, and the latter group of women subjected to the horrors of slavery and imposition of the culture of the oppressor, the three authors portray that there are still similarities in black women's ways of mothering. Among others, these similarities include the roles played by mothers in passing on tradition as well as inculcating societal values to their daughters. These issues are analysed in the second chapter of this thesis. In addition, the study argues that race also plays a role in socialization. Women of the black Diaspora exist in an environment which often has contempt for their skin colour and hence subjects them to racial prejudices. Black mothers have to prepare their daughters to face and resist such hostilities. Furthermore, African mothers and daughters, though not directly facing racism, experience the effects of colonialism which was imposed on them. These aspects are explored throughout the thesis. Both groups of women have to contend with shaping their daughters` identities as females in a male-dominated society - a society which marginalizes them on the basis of their sex. The study further argues that the three authors also portray that gender has an influence on the way black mothers socialize their daughters and this aspect is examined in chapters three and four. Adichie, Kincaid and Morrison all portray some of the mothers as conforming to the patriarchal dictates by accepting their "inferiority" to men and consequently socialize their daughters to do the same. Black Feminism has been employed as the main theoretical framework of the study to account for the experiences encountered by black women in the face of racism, sexism and classicism. Postcolonial theory has also been adopted as a lens through which to examine the historical and contemporary experiences of those women in the novels whose lives have been shaped by colonialism and its aftermath

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School	: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Issued Date	: 2012

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