Female Identity Quest in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Alice Walker’s Meridian, Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land and Abu Jaber’s Crescent

Abstract

Acknowledgements First and foremost I’d like to thank God for giving me patience and inspiration to complete this dissertation. I encountered my obstacles and challenges during my doctoral journey; however, the support of many people gave me strength and consolidated my determination to carry on and fulfill my objectives. Firstly, I express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Pr. Bouhadiba Malika, for her patience, fruitful advice, and extraordinary guidance that made this work possible. I’d also like to thank her for the confidence she has inculcated in my character and the encouragement she has inspired me with. Her thoughtfulness and open-mindedness will always remain engrained in my mind during my future academic career. I am also thankful to the members of the Board of Examiners for accepting to assess my dissertation and contribute in enriching this study by their feedback and criticism. Secondly, I would like to thank my beloved parents, without whom this doctoral thesis would not have been accomplished. I thank them for their unfailing support and everlasting encouragement which always helped me during the writing process of this study. I am particularly indebted to them for instilling in me a sense of responsibility and passion for pursuing my postgraduate studies.

Abstract Arab-American and Afro American women’s deplorable plight in the American society and their secondary status have sparked much interest and countless debates in political and literary fields. It is worthwhile to mention that man-woman relation became questionable with the dawn of civilization but it became more problematic in the case of Afro-American and Arab American women who have struggled to make sense of their identity. The latter is a recurrent theme in most American literary works including the ones written by American writers of African and Arab descent. The quest for female identity has been a shared preoccupation for African American women and their Arab American counterparts in the United States of America. The two ethnic minorities have suffered from marginalization and stigmatization in a country where whites represent the majority that has dominated the political, social and economic American life. African American women writers along with their Arab American fellows have sought to humanize respectively Americans of African and Arab descent through their adoption of protest literature through which they shed light on the moral flaws that cripple the American society and inhibit the two minorities towards living and realizing the American Dream. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970), Alice Walker’s Meridian(1976), Leila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land (2007) and Diana Abu Jaber’s Crescent(2003) are protest novels in which the novelists try to subvert the stereotypes associated with the two ethnicities, and seek to present a dignified picture of African Americans and Arab Americans. In doing so, they cast light on the American society’s failure to live up to the ideals of the American Constitution which stipulates that all individuals have access to happiness and freedom regardless of their race and faith. Literature seems a cement that consolidate the two minorities’ efforts to triumph over white supremacy and bigotry that have been upheld by American mainstream culture including literature and the mass media. La quête d'identité est un thème récurrent dans la plupart des œuvres littéraires américaines, y compris celles écrites par des écrivains américains d'origine africaine et arabe. Aux États-Unis d'Amérique, la quête de l'identité féminine constituele dénominateur commun principal des femmes afro-américaines et leurs homologues arabo-américaines. Ces deux minorités ethniques ont souffert de marginalisation et de stigmatisation dans un pays où les blancs, qui représentent la majorité,ont dominé la vie politique, sociale et économique. Les écrivaines afro-américaines ainsi que leurs confrères arabo-américains ont cherché à humaniser respectivement les américains d'origine africaine et arabe en adoptant une littérature de protestation par laquelle elles ont mis en lumière les défauts moraux qui paralysent la société américaine et les empêchent de vivre et de réaliser le rêve américain. The Bluest Eye de Toni Morrison, Meridian d'Alice Walker, Once in a Promised Land de Leila Halaby et Crescent de Diana Abu Jaber sont des romans de protestation dans lesquels ces romancières tentent de renverser les stéréotypes associés ces deux ethnies et cherchent à présenter une image digne des afro et arabo-américains. En fait, elles mettent en lumière l'échec de la société américaine à être réellement à la hauteur de la constitution américaine qui stipule que tous les individus ont accès au bonheur et à la liberté, et ceci quelles que soient leurs races et leurs fois. La littérature semble ainsi un ciment qui consolide les efforts de ces deux minorités pour triompher de la suprématie blanche et du sectarisme qui ont été soutenus par la culture dominante américaine, y compris la littérature et les médias de masse.