Наслеђе 56 (2023) (стр. 183-191)
АУТОР(И) / AUTHOR(S): Sanja J. Ignjatović
Е-АДРЕСА / E-MAIL: sanja.ignjatovic@filfak.ni.ac.rs
DOI: 10.46793/NasKg2356.183I
САЖЕТАК / ABSTRACT:
Drawing on the idea that the exploration of female identity and race necessarily relies on the subversion of the mainstream discourse and the economic, social, and cultural context, this paper deals with instances of irony as socio-political criticism in the short story collec- tion Shut Up You’re Pretty (2019), authored by Téa Mutonji, a Cana- dian award-winning poet and writer. Inspired by her African origins and the transgenerational wounds she has witnessed in the immigrant community, Mutonji’s stories offer a defamiliarizing rawness to the characters’ discoveries of their own femininity, womanhood, and iden- tity in a bildungsroman form of sorts, but the subversive note, as illus- trated in the paper, belongs to the storyteller’s own finding an authen- tic and uncompromising voice relating a collective experience. Humor is explored against its ironic edge, perhaps a typically Canadian one, and the analysis of stories provides insight into how this contemporary author, as a Black woman, critically assesses the historically inherited values pertaining to femininity and womanhood, but also claims her space in the tradition of female writing characterized by political and critical humor.
КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS:
Téa Mutonji, irony, contemporary literature, gender, race, immigration, Canadian literature
ЛИТЕРАТУРА / REFERENCES:
- Brooks Bouson, J. 2009. Embodied Shame: Uncovering Female Shame in Contempo– rary Women’s Writings. State University of New York Press.
- Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. Routledge. Carroll, Rachel. 2012. Rereading Heterosexuality: Feminism, Queer Theory and Contemporary Fiction. Edinburgh University Press.
- Choquette Éléna. 2020. “Canadian Liberalism and Gender Equality: Between Oppression and Emancipation.” The Palgrave Handbook of Gender, Sexual– ity, and Canadian Politics, Tremblay, Manon. Joanna Everitt, Eds. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Dworkin, Andrea. 1991. Pornography: Men Possessing Women. Plume, Penguin Group USA.
- Hutcheon, Linda. 1994. Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. Routledge. Kocić Stanković, Ana. 2021. The African American Experience: An Introduction. Niš: Faculty of Philosophy. doi.org/10.46630/aae.2021
- Mutonji, Téa. 2020. Shut Up You’re Pretty. Vancouver: VS. BOOKS, Arsenal Pulp Press.
- Walker, Nancy A. 1990. Feminist Alternatives: Irony and Fantasy in the Contemporary Novel by Women. University Press of Mississippi.
- Wolf, Naomi. 2002. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. HarperCollins e-Books, 2008.