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Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Satire
Explanation and Analysis—The Black Power Movement:
With the characters Dee (Wangero) and Hakim-a-barber, Walker is satirizing certain aspects of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Walker, who was deeply involved in activist work herself, likely supported many aspects of the Black Power movement but also likely noticed some of its contradictions.
One of the movement’s contradictions that Walker explores in this story is how Black nationalists spoke of Black unity and empowerment while simultaneously alienating and judging the most oppressed members of the Black community (such as impoverished Black people living in the American South, like Mama and Maggie). The following passage captures how Dee’s embrace of Black Power ideology alienates and confuses her mother (who is narrating the scene):
“Well,” I say. “Dee.”
“No, Mama,” she says. “Not ‘Dee,’ Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!”
“What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know.
“She’s dead,” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer, being named after the people who oppress me.”
“You know as well as me you was named after your aunt Dicie,” I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee.
Dee demands that her mother refer to her by an African name that she has chosen for herself and only explains her thought process after her mother earnestly enquires about it (as seen in the simple phrase “I wanted to know”). When explaining herself, Dee clearly recites something she has learned from the Black Power movement about how Black people are all “named after the people who oppress” them.
Here, Dee either misinterprets or mis-explains the Black Power movement’s well-known call for Black Americans to change their last names, since many had been forced to take on the last names of the white people who had enslaved them. Either way, she speaks to her mother about this choice in a condescending manner, and her mother responds with kindness and curiosity, simply explaining that she named Dee after her sister Dicie. The humor in this scene indicates that Walker is intentionally satirizing this dynamic to encourage her readers to question some of the complex and contradictory elements of the Black Power movement.
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