African American Studies Commons^™

Harriet Jacobs And Toni Morrison: A Tradition Of Narrative Resistance, Allyson L. Molloy

Theses and Dissertations

This article considers historical constructions of power and the narrative as a mode of resistance. Working in different centuries, under extremely disparate circumstances, Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Toni Morrison in her novel The Bluest Eye, utilize specific narrative strategies to challenge and question institutionalized power which is evidenced through their deliberate employment of narrative strategies not only to challenge the institution of slavery or the hegemonic ideal, but also to question the racial and gender oppression systemic to those institutions of power.