Male Dominance In Blues Literature

What does it mean to have the blues? It can be described as a feeling of grief or loneliness and having internal despair. Having the blues can be temporary, just due to having a bad day. One can feel permanent blues due to emotional baggage from the past or outside forces causing stress to a person. Nevertheless, the feeling of blues was first expressed through various worksongs and spirituals sung by displaced Africans during the American slavery period. Black writers soon expressed the blues emotion through blues literature. Famous novels such as Richard Wright 's Native Son (1940), Gayl Jones ' Corregidora (1974), and Toni Morrison 's Jazz helped to put blues literature on the map for all to receive a taste of the black struggle. A blues novel can be defined by a African-American protagonist who is negatively affected by the effects of ancestors and a male dominant environment, which leads to the usage of a blues …show more content…
The woman are thought of as collateral damage to the storyline.This theme is important because it sets the toll for females characters to suffer from low self-esteem, thus developing the blues. In Corregidora, Mutt serves as another example of male dominance over Ursa. He has difficulty dealing with the fact that Ursa sings in a cafe with an audience of majority man. He feels that the woman is exposed and should be at home doing motherly duties. Like Ursa 's ancestors, she is expected to sacrifice her sexual organs to Mutt without question. There is even a story where Ursa’s vagina has visible scars, representing her rough forced sexual activity. Mutt represents a present-day Simon Corregidora. There are recurring instances where Mutt is waiting outside buildings for Ursa to speak to him. Even though Ursa demands for Mutt to be removed from her life, Mutt is always in reach, waiting for the day that Ursa will give in to