CORREGIDORA essays

CORREGIDORA essays Gayl Jones's Corregidora is not your typical response to a long and rather terrifying history of slavery in the Americas. Instead, it is an attempt to humanize the ugly experiences of older African-American generations. While on the surface, it appears another story focusing on the history of slavery in Americas; it is nonetheless a deeper and more complex analysis of that period in time. Ursa, is the protagonist of the novel, who is burdened by the painful history of her family and believes she is responsible for passing the stories on to the next generation, the way her mother and grandmother did. However since she has not experienced slavery in the way her ancestors did, Ursa relives those experiences through her music. For Ursa, music is her savior. She believes it can help her find the liberation from past that she seeks so ardently. However because of the fact that her ancestors including her mother and grandmother, constantly remind her of their past, Ursa is perpetually haunted by her family history. Music is important to her as she says in the novel, "I am Ursa Corregidora. I have tears for eyes. I was made to touch my past at an early age ... Let no one pollute my music. I will dig out their trumpets. I will pluck out their eyes" (77). Music is her sole means of redemption because in the absence of authentic records, Ursa felt her blues could the pain and suffering of her ancestors to next generations. Corregidora has both real and symbolic value in the book because on the one hand he is the person who destroyed the lives of Gram and Great Gram while on the other, he also symbolizes male legacy of chauvinism and exploitation that threatens the female freedom and existence. In the novel, Ursa is so intricately connected with her family history thatr everything that happens to her is linked with some past ugly experience of her ancestors. For example, when she becomes infertile ...