IX. Female Creole Identity

By referring to artists such as Hurston and Morrison, Condé also reminds the reader of generations of black women who defeated the stereotypes cast onto them. Although Condé refuses the "feminist" label, she is not indifferent to the Caribbean woman's experience. Her reflection on the topic of the black female started in 1979 with her book entitled: Women's Words . This short book is a study of the many stereotypes that are ascribed to the black female. Condé carefully studied French Caribbean literature and interviewed several women authors on the topic. She found that the black female body was still very much idealized. Black women have been stereotyped by both westerners and by their own countrymen as well.

Whereas the western stereotype (the legacy of imperialism) depicts the Black woman as an hyper sexualized exotic woman, Caribbean men see her as the vessel and pillar of their society, someone who can bear any hardship and many children (this is the legacy of patriarchy). In order to unveil those stereotypes, Condé uses several tricks. While some of her heroines (such as Tituba) expose those stereotypes and ridicule them, others (as Reynalda and Marie-Noëlle in Desirada ) destroy them and depart from them. In both cases, Condé gives voice to the Black woman previously deprived of the freedom and power of speech because mainly seen as a sexual object.

In I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (1986), Condé gives voice to Tituba, a Black woman accused of witch craft during the Salem Witch Trials. She played an important role yet was erased from historical books. In her book, Condé lets her tell us her life before, during and after the Salem Witch Trials, thus casting away the veil that silenced Black women in History. At the same time though, Condé paints Tituba's body exactly as seen through the eyes of the westerner. In fact, Tituba has internalized the stereotype so deeply that she not only plays the hyper sexual Black woman but also sees herself as one.

Displaying the veil that hides the Black woman's sexuality is only the first step towards freedom. Condé also destroys it and reconstructs the Black woman by depicting a new type of female heroine: the Black working or intellectual woman. In Segu or Desirada or in "Three Women in Manhattan " ( Land of Many Colors 1985), we witness the making of a new woman: the Intellectual Black woman who rejects both the imperialistic and the patriarchal clichés. This new woman is often sterile instead of maternal, and skinny instead of voluptuous. Yet this new woman is not necessarily frigid: her sexuality simply becomes her own and not one for the pleasure of the westerner nor one for the use of her own countrymen.

If we go back to the artists than Condé mentioned in "Three women in Manhattan ," we see women in a new light. In Bigaud's paintings, the black woman solely exists through her work and social role. Her body is clearly not hyper sexualized. In fact, it is even cut in half, her lower part disappearing behind her work. In Eliassaint's paintings, the woman represented here is Erzulie Dantor, who is the adaptation of the Virgin Mary to the Caribbean Island . Unlike the Virgin Mary though, Erzulie Dantor can be good and bad. She is indeed more human. Erzulie is an important symbol that frees women from the image of the too-perfect Virgin Mary and from the Western understanding of what a good woman is (that is white and virginal). Erzulie constructs a more human or realistic icon for Black women to look up to.

ARTICLE LINK:	Women in the Caribbean section (4 articles by Springer, Simms, Galvan, Antrobus)
ARTICLE LINK:	Espinal, ‘Migration, Racism and Women in the Caribbean”