Offensive and Defensive Female Resistance as Subversion in Literature of the Marginalized

Abstract

Subjugation and resistance are indispensable to each other in marginalized societies. Subjugation precipitates the desire for normalizing the society among the participants of the subjugated class. The desire to eliminate the power structure and to bring an equal distribution of power resources becomes constant and perpetual menace to the authority of elevated class. An ideology of resistance that comes out of utmost anguish, adopts various strategies to defy and overturn the oppression. Feministic post-colonial theory is primarily concerned with the representation of women resistance and struggle in the western colonized societies. This article analyzes the strong and courageous modes of female resistance: offensive and defensive, in the Black-American societies where they face ‘double colonization’. This research also aims to explore the effects of two different strategic ways of female resistance in the Afro-American novels Born a Crime (2016) by Trevor Noah and The Underground Railroad (2016) by Colson Whitehead respectively.