Discours féministe et postcolonial : stratégies de subversion dans "Les Honneurs perdus" de Calixthe Beyala

• Main Author: Husung, Kirsten
• Format: Others
• Language: French
• Published: Växjö universitet, Institutionen för humaniora 2006
• Subjects: Calixthe Beyala; Les Honneurs perdus; feminism; postcolonialism; identity; hybridity; transculturation.; Specific Languages; Studier av enskilda språk
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:vxu:diva-457

This study focuses on the different strategies that the author uses to subvert the patriarchal and the colonial discourses which are reflected in the novel "Les Honneurs perdus" of Calixthe Beyala. In the introduction a theoretical background is given which includes feminist and postcolonial literary theories and their relation to postmodern theories and deconstruction. The introduction underlines the importance of the constitution of subject in postcolonial and feminist theories in contrast to deconstruction of subject in postmodernism and poststructuralism. The analysis demonstrates that the novel can be seen as a female bildungsroman in the protagonist’s intent to create an autonomous identity. A gynocentric writing and the dialogue with another female character, the heroine’s antagonistic double, which includes the possibility of a female genealogy, as well as the final love to a white man, contribute essentially to transculturation and the construction of the heroine’s hybrid identity. The second chapter of the analysis shows that the dichotomies Europe–Africa and man–woman in the binary system of the western way of thinking are very marked in the novel. Finally the third chapter points out how the different narrative techniques like the mixing of different language levels, the creation of new words, the use of irony and carnivalation, a special form of parody, as well as the intertextuality of magic realism deconstruct and subvert the heritage of colonial and patriarchal values and demonstrate the post-colonial misery both in the protagonist’s native suburb in Cameroun and in Paris.