Selfhood by means of Sisterhood in Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place

Abstract

This paper maintains that The Women of Brewster Place is a novel that celebrates women’s communion and its impact on the fulfillment of their quest of selfhood. It explains the way the novel rejects the restrictive sense of selfhood and calls for a more inclusive selfhood merged in collective experience. Despite the fact that the seven main female characters are totally different, they have shared memories and dreams. The latter plays a central role in women’s unity and fulfillment of selfhood. Shared memories and dreams function as a healing device and a mechanism that activates their collective consciousness and enable them to challenge pain, accomplish communal alliance, and fulfill their quest of selfhood and emancipation.. The women of the novel come to understand the power of their communion stemming initially from their shared memories and dreams. They also come to understand that only a selfhood born within a communal frame can survive and challenge the cycle of abuse they are subject to. As a result, the paper concludes with asserting that the women in the novel collectively break the wall that stands for their seclusion and misery.