CORREGIDORA
Gayl Jones's Corregidora is not your typical response to a long and ratherterrifying history of slavery in the Americas. Instead, it is an attempt tohumanize the ugly experiences of older African-American generations. Whileon the surface, it appears another story focusing on the history of slaveryin Americas; it is nonetheless a deeper and more complex analysis of thatperiod in time. Ursa, is the protagonist of the novel, who is burdened bythe painful history of her family and believes she is responsible forpassing the stories on to the next generation, the way her mother andgrandmother did. However since she has not experienced slavery in the wayher ancestors did, Ursa relives those experiences through her music. ForUrsa, music is her savior. She believes it can help her find the liberationfrom past that she seeks so ardently. However because of the fact that herancestors including her mother and grandmother, constantly remind her of
Ursa's psyche was so negatively affected by her family history that shefelt incapable of enjoying sexual life with her husband and other males. For example, when she becomes infertile andlosing her ability to reproduce, Ursa connects this experience with therobbing of self-esteem and identity that her foremothers encountered whenCorregidora raped them. She would always connect sex with rape of her foremothers and thus couldn'texperience sexual fulfillment. Ursa saw her husband as thevehicle of exploitation and feels that her relationship, despite that thefact that she was not a slave and neither Mutt her master, was stillcharacterized by victimization and oppression. Corregidora has both real and symbolic valuein the book because on the one hand he is the person who destroyed thelives of Gram and Great Gram while on the other, he also symbolizes malelegacy of chauvinism and exploitation that threatens the female freedom andexistence. Music is her sole means of redemption because in the absence ofauthentic records, Ursa felt her blues could the pain and suffering of herancestors to next generations. There'd be plentyI couldn't give back now" (6).
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Acceptance Essays
