The "Walking Wounded": Rethinking Black Women's Identity in Ann Petry's The Street

Abstract

"Face," writes Gloria Anzaldua, "is the surface of the body that is the most noticeably inscribed by social structures, marked with instructions on how to be mujer, macho, working class, Chicana. As mestizas--biologically and/or culturally mixed--we have different surfaces for each [End Page 849] aspect of identity, each inscribed by a particular subculture. We are 'written' all over, or should I say, carved and tattooed with the sharp needles of experience" (xv). Here, Anzaldua speaks of the body as a patchwork of integral parts, a maze of topographical signifiers that represent the intimate aspects of our identity. This is the landscape through which we view our human experience.