Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Éva Miklódy: Redefining the "Other ": Race, Gender, Class, and Violence in Gloria Nay lor's Bailey's Café

never resisted" unlike the Mexican kid, "who made the mistake of being too pretty and to unwilling" (193). The ritual of circumcision, in itself an act of violence, becomes even more dreadful as soon as is done out of material interest. When Mariam, in Ethiopia, is prepared for her future marriage by being circumcised, the village midwives sew her up tighter than usual to raise her value as a wife. It is interesting to note though that when George' circumcision takes place we cannot think of it as an act of violence any more since the emphasis shifts onto the act as a ritual of male initiation done quickly and properly. Mary, a beautiful nymphomaniac, performs a violent act on her own body because she cannot cope with the discrepancy between her external image as a sexual object to be savored by men and her internal image as an innocent child. When she realizes that her external image has overpowered her internal image, and that she actually enjoys being the whore that she has become, she cuts up her face in order to take control of that image and to reconcile her appearance with her damaged selfconcept. On the basis of the examples discussed above, I suggest that Naylor's characters, in Bailey's Café, define themselves as "other" through their common experience of violence, which is not limited to physical violence only, but implies mental and emotional violence as well. Ledbetter argues that "the most intimate act of naming, knowing and experiencing is through metaphors of the human body," and thus "body metaphor lays claim to the world and narrows the distance between who we are and the experiences we have, by describing the world with the most personal terms we have, ourselves" (Ledbetter 12). Violence is, therefore, such a metaphor, by which we can fathom the specific experience of the "other." It can be, thus, concluded that Naylor revises and reconceptualizes the notion of the "other" by shifting the emphasis from gender, race, and class, onto the "violated body." Anyone who suffers violence becomes a victim, thus Naylor adds another oppositional relation to the already existing ones of male/female, black/white, lower-class/middle-class, that of victim/victimizer. Since all of us have experienced or will experience some form of violence during our lifetime and therefore, at such moments become the "other," I find such approach to the definiton of the "other" a more humanistic and universalistic one. In Bailey's Café 63