Paule Marshall's Cultural Memory Writing And Cultural Identity Construction

Paule Marshall(1929-)is a pioneer of contemporary black women writers.As a second-generation Barbados immigrant,she is unique for her writing on Caribbean traditions in black women writers.Brown Girl,Brownstones and Praisesong for the Widow are representative works of Marshall.Both novels embody Marshall?s writing of cultural memory.The aim of this thesis is to examine how Marshall writes characters? cultural memory and constructs their cultural identity.This thesis will employ Jan Assmann?s cultural memory theory to discuss the problem of cultural identity.This thesis is divided into five parts.The Introduction briefly presents the life of Paule Marshall and the main works of her,the literature review at home and abroad,as well as the interpretation of cultural memory theory.Chapter One examines the plight of protagonists? cultural memory and cultural identity.A regular experience for Marshall?s protagonists is their initial repression of memory and final confrontation with the painful memory.This part analyses the manifestations and causes for losing cultural memory and cultural identity.Chapter Two analyzes the strategies Marshall has used in writing cultural memory and constructing cultural identity.Carriers of cultural memory in the two novels are responsible for inheriting and awakening the cultural memory of the characters.Rituals in the novels,including music,dance,Beg Pardon ceremony,bathing and myth also play great roles in the recovery of cultural memory and the cultural identity.Moreover,Marshall uses the Middle Passage and meaningful objects as the spatial frames,which provides reference points for the construction and restoration of cultural memory and cultural identity.Chapter Three concerns the restoration of cultural memory and cultural identity.The recovery of cultural memory helps to solve the cultural identity plight of Caribbean Americans.At the same time,through the writing of Caribbean American history,Marshall illustrates the miserable history from the perspective of the characters in the novels.The characters in the novels are responsible for inheriting ancestral cultural heritage.The Conclusion summarizes the previously mentioned chapters.This part points out that Marshall?s emphasis on the past and history reflects her considerations on the relationship between memory and identity.Through the construction of cultural memory and cultural identity,Marshall tries to write the common past of Caribbean Americans,and warn them not to forget cultural memory and cultural identity when they pursue fortune.