In search of sesired selves through theatre: a comparative study of Mexican and Zimbabwean constructions of women's identities in Sabina Berman's "Yankee" and Tsitsi Dangarembga's "She No Longer Weeps"

Abstract

Women in most parts of the world suffer from conditions of subalternity that emanate from (mis)-representation in cultural narratives that are largely defined and dominated by patriarchy. Nevertheless, the exigencies of history and geography entail variations in how women in different parts of the world experience their subjectivities and, as a result, conceive of their identities. Identities of women in Latin America and Africa (just like those of their male counterparts) are largely constructed in the context of the history and effects of slavery and colonialism, though the overarching patriarchal ideology entail diminished spaces from where women can project their own desired identities. Both the effects of slavery and colonialism, as well as patriarchy, are experienced differently. In both regions, written fiction as cultural space has been dominated by men who construct images of women that promote patriarchal interests in different ways, while in both Mexico and Zimbabwe the cultural space of theatre has either largely remained the sphere of men or has restricted women to predetermined roles that do not disturb the patriarchal matrix. This paper seeks to carry out a comparison of how women from these diverse geographical backgrounds imagine and project their own identities through the cultural medium of theatre in environments that are largely shaped by patriarchal ideology.