Inscriptions on the African Body: Alice Walker’s 'Possessing the Secret of Joy'

Abstract

The final novel of Alice Walker’s African trilogy, Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), stands out within Walker’s writing as the literary text that comes closest to political activism. This paper aims at analyzing the inscription of/on the African woman’s body in Possessing the Secret of Joy by close reading the major episodes in the novel related to the experience of female circumcision in Africa and the search for psychological healing in Europe and the United States. The analysis suggests that Alice Walker constructs two archetypes of female complicity with patriarchy, “the betraying mother” and “the betrayed daughter”, and has them destroy themselves and each other because of their belief in, and questioning of, ritual female circumcision. The paper highlights that the novel’s campaign against this problematic aspect of traditional African culture represents a serious literary and political challenge, contributing to a demystification of romanticized African-American representations of Africa.