Toni Morrison and Susan Abulhawa Writing Female Characters Amidst Conflict and Warzones: Towards a Literary Matrilineal Lineage
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1207.14Keywords:
the female pen, sexual violence, madwoman, trifecta jeopardy, literary matrilinealityAbstract
The present article examines cases of sexual violence that are projected from wars and conflicts on women in Morrison’s Beloved (1997) and Abulhawa’s The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015). As we intend to study the violence projected on some female characters and trace the connection between Morrison’s Sethe and Ella and Abulhawa’s Nazmiyeh and Nur in light of Gilbert and Gubar’s theory “The Anxiety of Authorship” (2000), we endeavour as well to trace the connection between Morrison and Abulhawa’s treatment of “high themes” such as sexual harassment which, in return, helps ascertain their “artful foliage” as Gilbert and Gubar argue and overcome the hierarchical literary tradition of their forefathers to establish a literary matriarchal tradition that is inclusive of ethnic diversity.
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