Survival through second-person narration in Kristen Gentry’s Mama Said (2023) Wôkoudo Marcel MASSIMBO

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Résumé

Unlike many authors who employ first or third person narrations, Kristen Gentry makes significant use of the unusual second-person perspective ‘you’ in two short stories from her collection Mama Said. The present research, one of the earliest critiques of the work, addresses its ambiguous use of the second person narration. Through the lenses of narratology and racial resilience theory, I suggest that such a use goes beyond a simple stylistic choice and acts as a tool for (re)building resilience in the African American community. The article first demonstrates that the author’s narrative ambiguity helps cure fragmented mental states and failed relationships between the protagonist and her mother. It then discovers that Gentry’s second person narration transforms individual experiences into collective experiences and thus facilitates the dissipation of African Americans’ traumas. Finally, the research establishes that Gentry’s second person narration is a political choice aiming at highlighting the racial, gender, and class discriminations African Americans are victims of in the USA.

Mots-clés

African, American, Resilience, Survival, You.