Rage in Caribbean Women’s Writing

Rage is having a moment. It is everywhere, among men, women and children, but particularly among feminists like us. This Element is a concentrated meditation on women's rage in Bruised Hibiscus (2000) and Negra (2013), two novels by and about Caribbean women. We explore how expressions of rage braided with feminist solidarity figure in these novels and how this mixture produces affective and political responses to racism and gender-based violence. Our focus on the contours of Caribbean women's rage advances feminist thought on rage as a political tool of power. In selected readings of our two novels, we identify feminist solidarity as an essential and shared factor in the discursive expression of Caribbean women's rage: We argue that the female protagonists in Bruised Hibiscus and Negra articulate their rage differently but use it similarly to claim the power to resist if not to eradicate racism, gender-based violence, and sex shaming.