Making "Our Shattered Faces Whole": The Black Goddess and Audre Lorde's Revision of Patriarchal Myth

Abstract

From title to epilogue, Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name explores the power words give women to redefine themselves and their world. By affirming her ability to rename herself, Lorde makes an important contribution to the growing body of work examining women's use of language.' In both her poetry and her prose, she insists that only those women who can speak for themselves have the authority to control their own lives. Because the traditional male-identified stories silence women by denying their existence, she challenges her female readers to reclaim the power of speech: they must reject the patriarchal names and define reality for themselves; only then can they subvert the existing forms of oppression. Lorde illustrates this vital connection between language, self-identity, and action in Zami. As her description of the novel as a biomythography suggests, she appropriates and transforms conventional modes of discourse. She reclaims her African roots and replaces the Judeo-Christian myth with one validating female experience. As several critics have observed, Zami can be described as a revisionist mythic tale. Often, however, the novel's mythical dimension is equated with a timeless realm and a personal quest. Chinosole, for example, distinguishes between Zami's past-oriented mythical referent and the future-oriented vision she finds in Lorde's later work. Unlike a poem such as Sisters in Arms, which offers a revolutionary call to collective action, Chinosole claims that the novel's