Listening To The Subaltern’s Voice

This thesis will analyze The Help from the perspective of postcolonialfeminism to point out that the black maid, who belongs to the position of subaltern inAmerican main culture, has no right to speak for themselves under patriarchaloppression and imperial oppression and expound the novel’s spiritual connotation-the author tries to call up the society to listen to the subaltern’s voice. This thesis iscomposed of an introduction, three main chapters and a conclusion. The first partintroduces the author and her work The Help, and presents the literature reviewabout the studies of The Help and gives an introduction to the theory of postcolonialfeminism as well as Spivak’s postcolonial feminism.“Can the Subaltern Speak?” isone of the most influential critiques of Spivak’s postcolonial feminism. Her theoryopposes both the imperial colonial discourse and patriarchy centered discourse. As apostcolonial critic, Spivak opposes the essentialism of the western feminism theorybecause it regards women as a homogeneous group and ignores the existence ofnational and racial difference between the first world women and the third worldwomen. Chapter one attempts to analyze the cultural hegemony in American society.The white regard themselves as the superior, their culture become the main streamculture. They intend to control the black’s ideology through establishing institutionalhegemony and brainwashing the black’s spirit. Chapter two focuses on the analysisof African American women’s “Silence” as “subaltern” in the white world. It gives acomprehensive analysis of reasons which cause them to be “subaltern” and“marginalization”, including the inner reason and the external reason. Chapter threediscusses the novel’s spiritual connotation. The author point out how the blackwomen go out of the dilemma. Firstly the black women must have a hope forfreedom; secondly they should fully inherit and use their own culture－the Africantraditional culture; Thirdly they should speak out all kinds of demands bravely andfreely. The last part is the conclusion of this thesis. It comments that the author’s life experience has influenced a lot on her creation view, and it also concludes the mainargument of this thesis.