Titre : VALORIZING BLACK WOMEN IN ERNEST J. GAINES’ A LESSON BEFORE DYING
Auteur.e.s : Emmanuel N’Depo BEDA , .
Résumé :
This paper aims at showing how Black women in Ernest J. Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying through
their unflinching love, moral leadership and sustained persistence craft Grant and Jefferson. Through
Patricia Hill Collins’s feminist theoretical framework particularly her concept of self- definition in Black
Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, this paper explores
how women self-defined identities contribute not only to their own self-worth but also to the
reconfiguration of Grant’s selfhood and renovation of Jefferson’s splintered self. The outcomes of my
study reveal that through women’s actions and behavior, Gaines reconceptualizes resistance, love and
heroism as interrelated practices of care, resilience and dignity.