Myth smashers, myth makers: (re)visionary techniques in the works of Paula Gunn Allen, Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde.
This paper examines the revisionist mythmaking strategies employed by three lesbian-feminist writers of color: Paula Gunn Allen (Laguna/Sioux/Lebanese/Scottish), Gloria Anzaldúa (Chicana tejana), and Audre Lorde (Caribbean/African/American). By incorporating creatrix figures such as the West African Mawulisa, the pre-Aztec Coatlicue, and the Laguna Pueblo Spider Old Woman/Thought Woman into their works, they challenge the cultural stereotypes that silence women of color by denying their access to language. Their use of nonwestern mythic material destabilizes monolithic definitions of (white heterosexual) female identity, yet their mythmaking goes beyond this challenge to hegemonic concepts of (white) womanhood. As they replace the Judeo-Christian world-view with modes of perception drawn from Native American, Chicana, and African mythic traditions, they offer a far-reaching critique of western culture's binary structures. By displacing the boundaries between inner/outer, subject/object, spirit/matter, and other dichotomous terms, the new myths they create provide radical alternatives to the existing social structures.
Keating
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Department of Languages and Literature, Eastern New Mexico University, Portales 88130.
D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006716:Homosexuality / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern; D008913:Minority Groups / Q000523:psychology*; D009229:Mythology; D011822:Race Relations; D012945:Social Values; D013240:Stereotyping