"The Body is a Bloody Battlefield": Jackie Kay and the Body in Flux

Abstract

This article focuses on the poetry and short stories of the Scottish writer Jackie Kay and seeks to investigate possible reasons why the black feminine body in Kay's texts is often represented as either diseased or in a state of conflict. Thompson demonstrates how a longstanding mythical association between blackness and disease may have affected black subjectivity. Her claim is that the mental and physical states of dysfunction that Kay utilises may be read as a metaphor for a bifurcation of the mind and body due to a damaging discourse that has designated her body as "other." Thompson argues furthermore that, because black women may experience their environment differently from white women (due to prejudice and ostracism for example), such a rift could be due to living in a largely racist society.