Women Between Subeltarnity and Rebellion in Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie (1920), Janet Neipris’s The Agreement (1985) and Myriam Warner Vieyra’s Juletane (1982)

Abstract

This dissertation is a case study which compares the situation of women under subeltarn and how they are subversive in America and Africa through the works of Eugene O'Neil's Anna Christie (1921), Janet Neipris's The Agreement (1985) and Myriam Warner-Vieyra Juletane (1982). The aim of this research is to show how the three authors portray women in both American and African literatures. This justifies our appeal to the theory Bell Hooks's Feminism is For Every Body and Judith Butler's theory Gender Troubles (1990). These two theories allow us to study those three literary works in relation to subaltern and subversion. In this analyses we have tried to show that in spite of the fact that the three works are products of different eras share the same issue that characterized these periods. The three authors have portrayed the oppression practiced towards women. They have depicted how women are dominated by men and patriarchal societies. They have described also how these women rebel and seek for independence . This research has been divided into two chapters. The first chapter is entitled women experienced subaltern, where we provided the reader by useful information about the idea of women's oppression and how it is shown through the different female characters of the three works. Then in the second chapter we have studied the same female characters and the way they rebel against the oppression of men. Finally, we come to conclude that women as a subject of oppression are always seeking for rebellion to reach equality with men in different places and periods of time.