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Women suffered oppression from their fathers or husbands or other fellow men. For one thing, they have no independence and autonomy, and their life is dependent on men, so their value is only limited to the father’s or husband’s property. For another, they have to completely obey men’s orders and authority. For example, Mattie was disciplined that she couldn’t talk to Butch Fuller as her father told her. “Her father would kill her if he heard she had seen walking with Butch Fuller” (Naylor, 1983:10). In the family, she had to be docile and obey what her father said, even dating a man whom her father thought was good enough for her. She herself also internalized the morality and rules stipulated by patriarchy. When Fuller said something wrong with her father, Mattie immediately defended her father. She said, “Papa was right after all.” And her father felt so accustomed to her “unquestioning obedience” that there was no space for doubt. Therefore, when he knew that the baby did not belong to Fred, he became really furious and disappointed. And he even beat his daughter seriously after she refused to tell him about the baby’s father because he thought she defied and contempt his authority. “Mattie’s body contracted in a painful spasm each time the stick smashed down on her legs and back, and she curled into a tight knot, trying to protect her stomach. He would repeat his question with each blow from the stick, and her continued silence caused the blows to come faster and harder” (Naylor, 1983:23). Under the patriarchy, in order to maintain the so-called dignity and male-centered ethics, men do not care about the psychological growth of women at all. This clearly shows the psychological damage that patriarchy has done to black women (Tan, 2016:579). Mattie dares not to speak and resist during the process, being “silenced”. 

Chapter II Awakening of Black Women’s Subjective Consciousness in the Space of Representation

2.1 Awakening of Consciousness Against Patriarchy: Dialectical Perception of the Unhomely Home

In Naylor’s works, black people were oppressed by white people in society, the home should have been a warm and comfortable shelter where they can heal and support each other. But the home black women live in turns out to be a kind of space of representation that patriarchy imposes the power of spatial representations. The home has become a place of oppression for women. Home is to some extent the “unhomely” proposed by Homi Bhabha. Racism, patriarchy, and poverty made them dependent on men and became men’s accessories.

In Naylor’s work, Black women’s homes reflect three characteristics. First, they are located on the margins. “(Social) space is a (social) product” (Lefebvre, 1991: 26). So white people occupy the dominant discourse, and social relations of production determine the dominant position of whites in the space, while blacks can only be in the marginal space of representation. In The Women of Brewster Place, Brewster Street is in racial segregation area, and before they came there, some of them lived in small towns. For example, Mattie’s previous home was located in a small town in the south, which was also on the margin of the main society. Though Linden Hills is a rich community it was originally “just the worthles本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。