Un labyrinthe sentimental : Étude de l'inconscient féminin dans l'œuvre de Calixthe Beyala
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Date
2005
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NEOHELICON ACTA COMPARATIONIS LITTERARUM UNIVERSARUM Institute of Literary Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences NEOHELICON Budapest, Menesi ut 11-13 H-1118 Hungary Fax: (36 J) 385 3876 E-mail: neohelicon@iti.mta.hu
Abstract
Calixthe Beyala was born in Douala, Cameroon in 1958 (61) and would be the first African woman to focus on the sexual violence to which the African woman is subjected. She is resident in France with her two children. She studied in Cameroon, Spain and France. Thus, she got equipped to speak against traditional constraints placed on the woman. In a corrupt society where people live only to satisfy their sexual desires, Beyala adopts a biting and piercing language to exploit the crude, violent and evil reality in which the African woman lives. She postulates that the African woman should emancipate herself in order to find serenity, peace and true love in France. Beyala imagines the African woman in the shanties and low income quarters of Paris. But the suicide committed by Sorraya and Ngaremba, her main characters, at the peak of their success underscores the alienation of African women, the failed love life and the resulting traumatic neurosis. Love for most of them is only a mirage and an unfulfilled hope. The novelist assumes that the option of cooperation would be useful in consoling the abandoned and disoriented African woman by the demeaning culture. The mutual love of women would assist them in their struggle for “Feminitude” (a variant of feminism). Nevertheless, the cooperation of women in Calixthe Beyala’s works does not prevent their humiliation and sorrowful death.
Description
It is an expanded form of a National Journal: Ibadan Journal of European Studies of the same title.
Keywords
African woman, Sexual violence, Subconscious, Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud
Citation
NEOHELICON is indexed/abstracted in Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Current Contents: Arts and Humanities, International Bibliographies IBZ and IBR, MLA International Bibliography. The ISI Alerting Services