VOICES OF RESISTANCE: GENDER AND IDENTITY IN PAULE MARSHALL’S NOVELS

This article examines the self Identity and Gender discrimination in the works of Paule Marshall: Brown Girl, Brownstones (1959), The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969), Praise Song for the Widow (1983), and Daughters (1991). Using the scope of postcolonial feminism, this research highlights the impact of Marshall’s narratives on black women’s lives across various cultures and histories, particularly in the context of their personal and collective encounters with power structures. Her main characters are Selina Boyce, Merle Kinbona, Avey Johnson, and Ursa McKenzie illustrate diverse generational experiences of women coping with transgenerational trauma, prescribed social roles, and the diaspora. Every character experiences reconfiguring transformations that are facets of a deeper struggle for acceptance, self-definition, and belonging