Silent Wounds Intersection of Maternal Estrangement and Social Violence in Suzan Lori Parks’ In the Blood

الملخص

Summary:

       Suzan- Lori Parks' In the Blood (OBIE Award 1999) is considered one of her most influential and profound works in the study of African American society and a landmark in contemporary American theatre. Parks examines the systemic violence and oppression perpetrated against marginalized Black women, particularly single mothers who are expected to rely on government welfare and social and humanitarian care from social institutions. However, the bitter truth is that Hester La Negrita, the play’s protagonist and single black mother from the lower class, suffers from systemic violence in her life, which is embedded in her experience of systemic social structures of racism, sexism, and classism that judge her morally and blame her failures on her own moral deficiency, despite her entrapment in the web of systemic social violence against her as a single mother in society. The systemic social violence against Hester La Negrita gnaws at her black body silently, resulting in her intense alienation as a single mother in society that exercises systemic social violence against her.

       The research highlights Suzan- Lori Parks's creative skill in diagnosing the direct and profound responsibility of governmental institutions such as medicine, religion, and social institutions that are meant to care for and protect marginalized members of society, especially marginalized women. It reveals how these institutions are transformed into instruments of punishment and control against marginalized women through the invisible violence they perpetrate in the name of humanitarianism and social welfare. All representatives of governmental, social, and humanitarian institutions, along with their respective organizations, contributed directly and deliberately to Hester's tragedy exacerbating her suffering. Parks draws attention to the responsibility of society and its institutions, which protect the corruption of their employees by remaining silent about their exploitation of the suffering of poor, Black, single mothers.

       The research is based on intersectional theory, which helps to understand Hester's suffering and how the social wounds caused by social institutions contribute deeply to shaping Hester's suffering and alienation in society instead of alleviating it. Consequently, Hester is branded with a moral judgment, as her suffering is considered the result of an individual failure due to Hester's inability to love and care for her children. However, the actual truth is that Hester's alienation stems from the systematic societal violence practiced against marginalized single mothers, which does not recognize their humanity but rather increases their suffering and makes their wounds from society bleed relentlessly.