Now and Then: Spaces of Oppression in Un Plat de porc aux bananes vertes

This study examines the system of oppression depicted by Andre and Simone Schwarz-Bart's Un Plat de porc aux bananes vertes. Through the journals of the elderly narrator, the authors recount the miseries of life in the nursing home, including the symbolic violence exerted upon the narrator by caretakers and fellow residents. In addition, the internal space of the narrator's mind sheds light on the submissive and derogatory behaviors that she learned in her childhood. A study of the distinct spaces inhabited by the narrator, representing the present and the past, attests to numerous aspects of her subjugation that can be attributed to her race and gender. Although the act of writing often empowers women in postcolonial contexts, the narrator's notebooks seem to provide her no relief or liberation. Rather, they depict the thread of oppression spanning her life without offering an escape from her unhappy circumstances. Even though she criticizes the masculine social orders of her youth and her old age, her w...