Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling Of My Home

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This critical article review will focus on Anh Hua's proposal that the text of Audre Lorde's bio-mythography Zami: A New Spelling of My Name depicts erotic, traumatic, and homeland embodied memories. Hua's argues that Lorde reflecting on these memories and revealing them to the audience encourages women, in particular, to be vocal instead of suppressing the events that contributed to their development. Covering these experiences during the time when her race, gender, and sexuality were looked down upon allow Lorde to heal and gain a sense of ownership. All in all, Hua highlight that the author's language encourages the audience to embrace and voice the oppressed events that people expect one to hold back. Speaking of these erotic, traumatic, …show more content…

Hua highlights that Lorde’s voicing these oppressed memories allows an African-American lesbian as herself to recall these events as powerful moments that contributed to her development. From there, the text claims that “embodied memories are place specific” which is crucial to remembering events that take place in a person’s life (114-5). The erotic body memory projects the experience of possible than reality “reflecting the indefinite and underdetermined” (115). Hua highlights this notion by targeting a scene where Lorde recalls pounding spices to make a traditional West Indian dish to celebrate her first menstrual cycle. This scene exhibits Lorde’s sexual awakening with the imagery of her mother’s female body. The author informing the audience about her erotic embodied memory is important for it subverts the “patriarchal heterosexist culture” that most readers have grown up to know (116). This experience of discovering her desire for the same-sex allows others to reflect and embrace their sexuality. Hua stresses that the erotic is a tool to empower and reclaim the body. All in all, narrating this event in particular over to the audience enhances the authority she has over her sexuality as an African-American lesbian. This moment becomes powerful since Lorde’s erotic embodied memory reclaims the “the black lesbian body” instead of remaining silent

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