Motherhood as Resistance: Systemic Injustice and Black Maternal Subjectivity in Tayari Jones's an American Marriage

Abstract

This paper examines Black maternal subjectivity as a site of resistance to systemic injustice in Tayari Jones's An American Marriage (2018), through the lens of Kimberle Crenshaw's theory of intersectionality. Crenshaw argues that Black women's experiences of oppression cannot be understood through race or gender alone, but only through their simultaneous intersection. Applying this framework to the character of Celestial Davenport Hamilton, the study traces how she navigates the overlapping structures of racial injustice, gendered expectation, and class vulnerability that Roy's wrongful conviction sets into motion. Through close reading of key episodes, including Celestial's testimony at trial, her letters to Roy during his imprisonment, her decision to terminate her pregnancy, and her artistic practice as an act of self-constitution, the paper argues that Celestial's motherhood, both actual and deferred, becomes a form of political resistance to the interlocking systems of racial capitalism and carceral state violence. The findings demonstrate that Jones's novel offers a sustained literary interrogation of how Black women bear the compounded costs of intersectional injustice, and how maternal agency, even in its most constrained and ambivalent forms, constitutes a meaningful counter-hegemonic practice.