Going back home: Homelands and futurelands in Paule Marshall's praisesong for the widow

Resumen

To reconstruct the experience of the African diaspora and shape a new conception of diasporic self, it is necessary to effect a "spiritual return" to Africa, the homeland. Marshall provides a forceful illustration of this spiritual journey in Praisesong for the Widow, where she stresses cultural continuity in the African diaspora by means of a complete reversal of Western categories, especially the notion of home. Gallego contends that Marshall envisions the geographical location of the Caribbean islands as an alternative center for spiritual recovery and cultural linkage which replaces the dominant image of the United States. This subversion of the center/margin concepts helps to highlight both the reality of displacement in the protagonist Avey's fragmented and inherently diasporic consciousness and the transcendence of placing Avey's true home down South, in the physical setting of the Caribbean islands and in the psychic terrain of South Carolina. By reestablishing the lost links with the South, Avey reconnects back to her African roots and to a wider sense of community, the diasporic community. But the movement back to the homeland also implies a reconceptualization of a futureland, in which this diasporic community finds the suitable home for future generations and ensures cultural and spiritual survival.