Virtual Representation Theory
"Chapter 5"
Conclusion
During the end of the seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth centuries in Europe, images of African women were fetishized and became a site for primitive fantasy; these images were displayed by a British imperialist culture on maps, in sketches, and in narratives. Once these images were public and replicated, they connected in the spectator's mind with the words which the British culture had ascribed to the African woman's body. With a historical context the images gained cultural primacy and value. When these images gained cultural value, then, as Kuhn claims, "they also have exchange value: they circulate as commodities in a social/economic system. This further conditions, or over determines, the meanings available from representations" (Kuhn 6). The value of the African woman's image solidifies the image's dominance, its accuracy and its internalization in the British culture. Not only do the images of the African woman and her body have cultural and economic value, but the African woman also has exchange and use value; therefore, she is a commercial commodity. However, she has no power when a sytem of violence and exploitation, first, marginalizes and they uses her image and body for its economic and sexual desires.
Primary Sources for Texts and Maps
Atkins, John. A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil, and The West Indies in His Majesty's Ships, The Swallow and Weymouth(1735). London: Frank Cass, 1970.
Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko, or, the Royal Slave (1688) in Aphra Behn: Oroonoko and Other Writings, ed. Paul Salzman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.
TO BE CONTINUED.....
BIBLIOGRAPHIC LINKS:
Slavery and AntiSlavery: A Bibliography of Recent Works in English
This page was last updated on Dec. 7, 1998 by Lauren Kane
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