Ronald E. McNair Program


Natoria Kennell
 School: University of Mississippi
Major: English
Minor: Gender Studies
Expected Graduation Date: May 2005
Organizations and Honors:
  • Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College
  • McDonnell Barksdale Reading Institute Tutor
  • Chancellor’s Honor Roll Scholar 
  • Dean’s List Scholar
  • National Dean’s List Scholar
  • National Society of Collegiate Scholars (honors organization– member)
  • Golden Key International Honor Society (member)
  • Alpha Lambda Delta National Honor Society
  • Isom Student Advisory Board (2003)


Email: natoriak@hotmail.com
 

 

ABSTRACT

“Throats Too Choked with the Smell of Murdered Flesh to Sing”: The Search for Voice in Alice Walker’s Meridian


The 1960s and the 1970s were a time of American cultural transformation.  Americans were fighting against the long-standing conservatism of the 1950s and demanding to be free: free to choose social paths without having to adhere to traditional values, free to make moral and intellectual choices, and free to define themselves.  Black Americans fought especially diligently for social freedoms, uprising and revolting against decades of discrimination. Black American culture as a whole was transforming into a more challenging and active part of American cultural creation.  

 Within black cultural contexts, black women’s transformation from talked about object to self-defined subject was especially significant and is clearly visible in the writings of this era.  While black women’s writing has a long history that reflects back to the 18th century, the 1960s gave birth to an explosion of black feminist voices that transformed society.  During this time black women called upon others to recognize the lives of oppression many had been subjected to. Black women began to realize that their silence was no longer a defense mechanism but death.   In “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” Audre Lorde explains that silences are not protection, but only a barrier preventing women from forming necessary strengths.  Lorde writes, “My silences had not protected me.  Your silence will not protect you.  But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences” (Lorde 40).  Here, I will examine how the socio-political realities of the 1960s and 1970s worked to suppress black female public voicings and the power gained when they break through their silences to express self.