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He speaks for whom?: inscription and reinscription of women in 'Invisible Man' and 'The Salt Eaters.' - Varieties of Ethnic Criticism
MELUS, Summer, 1993 by Ann Folwell Stanford
2. This is underscored in a slightly different way in Byerman's comment that "disintegration is the primary concern of Bambara's only novel, as the black community, the main character, and the book's structure are all decentered" (123).
3. See Trudier Harris, "From Exile to Asylum," for an incisive examination of the role of religious experience in black women writers. Harris points out that writers like Bambara, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and Gloria Naylor "redefine religion as a means of showing devotion toward and communing with the self, with other women, with nature, and with the expansive forces of the universe" (153).
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4. This is somewhat confusing, since the community set forth in The Salt Eaters is politically progressive and collectively committed to social justice. It does, however, suggest sixties Civil Rights activism where women began to see that their position to the movement replicated the oppression they had experienced in their lives prior to Civil Rights. See, for example, in The Salt Eaters, where Velma furiously recounts incidents of the near past:
Like work and no let up and tears in the night. Like being rolled to the
edge of the bed, to extremes, clutching a stingy share of the covers and
about to drop over the side, like getting up and walking, bare feet on cold
floor, round to the other side and climbing in and too mad to snuggle for
warmth, freeze. Like going to jail and being forgotten, forgotten, or at
least deprioritized cause bail was not as pressing as the printer's bill. Like
raising funds and selling some fool to the community with his heart set on
running for public office. Like being called in on five-minute notice after
all the interesting decisions had been made, called in out of personal
loyalty and expected to break her hump pulling off what the men had
decided was crucial for the community good.(25)
