Intersectional Oppression: A Comparative Analysis of Enslaved Black Women's Experiences in Wench and Yellow Wife

Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(II)| October2025 103 Intersectional Oppression: A Comparative Analysis of Enslaved Black Women’s Experiences in Wench and Yellow Wife D. Dayakar 1, Dr. Mangnale Shivraj Subhanrao 2 1 Research Scholar, Department of English, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, S.R.T.M. University, Nanded, Maharashtra 2Assistant Professor & Head, Research Supervisor, Department of English, S.S.G.M. Mahavidyalaya, Loha, TQ. Loha, Dist. Nanded, Maharashtra Email-dayakardagir[email protected] Manuscript ID: JRD -2025-171023 ISSN: 2230-9578 Volume 17 Issue 10(II) Pp. 103-107 October 2025 Submitted: 02Oct. 2025 Revised: 15 Oct. 2025 Accepted: 20 Oct. 2025 Published: 31 Oct. 2025 Abstract This paper examines the representation of intersectional oppression in Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Wench (2010) and Sadeqa Johnson’s Yellow Wife (2021), two contemporary neo-slave narratives that illuminate the complex experiences of enslaved Black women in antebellum America. Drawing on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectionality framework and Patricia Hill Collins’s concept of the matrix of domination, this comparative analysis explores how race, gender, class, and colourism intersect to create unique systems of oppression and resistance for enslaved women. Both novels centre protagonists who navigate the treacherous terrain of the “fancy trade”—the trafficking of light-skinned enslaved women for sexual exploitation—revealing how enslaved women occupied precarious positions within slavery’s racial and sexual economy. Through close textual analysis supported by historical scholarship on sexual violence, and resistance strategies, this study demonstrates how Perkins-Valdez and Johnson employ neoslave narrative conventions to expose the multidimensional nature of Black women’s oppression while simultaneously highlighting their agency, resilience, and survival strategies. This research contributes to critical conversations about Black feminist literary traditions, historical memory, and the enduring legacy of slavery’s intersectional violence on contemporary understandings of Black womanhood. Keywords: intersectionality, neo-slave narratives, enslaved women, fancy trade, oppression, resistance, agency. Introduction Contemporary African American literature continues to grapple with slavery’s traumatic legacy through neo-slave narratives. Two recent novels, Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Wench (2010) and Sadeqa Johnson’s Yellow Wife (2021), centre the lives of enslaved Black women who navigated intersecting systems of racial, gender, and sexual oppression in antebellum America. These narratives illuminate what legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw identified as intersectionality: the phenomenon whereby multiple systems of oppression— racism, sexism, classism “mutually construct one another to produce unique adversities” for those positioned at the margins of society.The two novels concentrate on light-skinned enslaved women who found themselves in the fancy trade, which was a profitable business where the enslaved women were sold directly into sexual servitude and forced concubinage. The present comparative analysis explores how both novels use intersectional frameworks to shed light on the multidimensional nature of oppression that enslaved Black women face and, at the same time, show how they exercise their agency, exhibit resistance, and employ survival strategies. Research Problem The research problem guiding this analysis is: How do Wench and Yellow Wife represent the intersectional nature of enslaved Black women’s oppression, and what forms of resistance and agency do these novels reveal? Quick Response Code: Website: https://jrdrvb.org/ DOI: Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work noncommercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations ae licensed under the idential terms. Address for correspondence: D Dayakar,Research Scholar,Department of English, School of Language, Literature and Culture,Studies, S.R.T.M. University, Nanded, Maharashtra How to cite this article: D Dayakar , Dr. Mangnale Shivraj Subhanrao,(2025 )Intersectional Oppression: A Comparative Analysis of Enslaved Black Women’s Experiences in Wench and Yellow Wife,Journal of Research & Development, 17(10(II)),103-107 Original Article Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(II)| October2025 104 Literature Review Intersectionality as Analytical Framework Intersectionality emerged from Black feminist scholarship as a critical response to single-axis analyses of oppression that failed to account for the unique experiences of women of colour. Crenshaw introduced the term in her seminal 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” arguing that Black women’s experiences could not be understood through race or gender alone but required examination of how these categories interact to create distinct forms of marginalisation. As Crenshaw notes, discrimination against Black women “cannot be explained as a simple combination of misogyny and racism, but as something more complicated.” Patricia Hill Collins expanded this framework in Black Feminist Thought (1990), conceptualising intersecting oppressions as a “matrix of domination” where race, class, gender, and sexuality function as interlocking systems of power. Collins emphasises that understanding Black women’s experiences requires recognising how “multiple systems of inequality, dominance, and subordination intersect and co-constitute one another.” Recent scholarship has applied intersectionality to historical analyses of slavery, revealing how enslaved Black women occupied unique positions within slavery’s political economy that subjected them to racialised, gendered, and sexualised violence simultaneously. The Fancy Trade and Sexual Economy of Slavery Gordon defines the fancy trade as “the sale of light-skinned black women for the exclusive purpose of prostitution and concubinage,” arguing that it represented “the marketing of hybrid whiteness, or ‘whiteness made salable by the presence of Blackness.” Alexandra J. Finley’s An Intimate Economy (2020) demonstrates how slave traders categorised women as “types”—fancy, seamstress, concubine, housekeeper—as part of capitalism’s technologies of standardisation, processes that fundamentally “disregard[ed] personal and bodily integrity and sanctity.” Neo-Slave Narratives and Literary Resistance Neo-slave narratives emerged in the late twentieth century as contemporary writers reimagined slavery through modern storytelling techniques. Ashraf Rushdy emphasises that these works “assume the form and adopt the conventions, and take on the first-person voice of antebellum slave narrative,” creating bridges between historical testimony and contemporary interpretation. These narratives challenge historical erasures by imagining what Marisa Fuentes calls the problem of “archival power to narrate the experiences or recover the voices of enslaved people,” using fiction to access emotional and psychological truths unavailable in official records. Rationale of the Study In the traditional historical and literary representations of the slavery the plight of enslaved Black women has been often overshadowed. Contemporary African American neo-slave narratives reclaim this suppressed past and give voice to the marginalized. The present study throws light on intersectional oppression in the contemporary neo-slave narratives Wench: A novel and Yellow Wife and compares analytically. Objectives To examine the depiction of enslaved Black women’s lived experiences in the select novels. To explore how intersectionality of race, gender, class and sexuality cause to the oppression of Black women in the novels. To compare and contrast the strategies of resistance, survival and agency of the Black women employed by the authors in the novels. Hypothesis The select novels Wench and Yellow Wife are expected to portray the pathetic experiences of the Black women characters as products of intersectional oppression. It is further assumed that both the authors of the novels Dolen Perkins Valdez and Sadeqa Johnson reclaim the voices and identities of historically silenced enslaved Black women by revealing their agency, resistance and resilience within the slavery. Methodology The qualitative research methodology is adopted for this comparative textual analysis. An intersectional feminist framework is employed to examine how Wench and Yellow Wife represent enslaved Black women’s experiences. The analysis proceeds through close reading of both novels, identifying key themes related to intersectional oppression, agency, and resistance. These textual insights are then placed in dialogue with historical scholarship on the fancy trade, sexual violence, and women’s resistance strategies. The paper relies on both primary and secondary sources such as scholarly articles, historical monographs, and critical race theory to build upon a complex vision of the topic. Data Analysis The Intersectionality Both Wench and Yellow Wife illustrate how intersectionality worked in antebellum slavery through the experiences of their main characters at the intersection of two or more oppressive systems. Lizzie in Wench and Pheby in Yellow Wife take up a place that throws light on what Collins terms interlocking systems of oppression in which race, gender, class, and sexuality lead to distinct kinds of vulnerability and exploitation. Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(II)| October2025 105 Gender and Sexual Vulnerability Gender creates specific forms of vulnerability for enslaved women that differ from those of enslaved men. Both novels unflinchingly depict the sexual violence endemic to slavery. In Wench, Lizzie’s relationship with her enslaver, Drayle, involves what historians would classify as rape. However, the novel explores her complicated emotional responses to a man who exercises absolute power over her. In Yellow Wife, Pheby experiences repeated sexual assault from the Jailer, violence euphemistically described through his claims to “love” her. Class and Colourism within Slavery Both novels explore class hierarchies within enslaved communities, particularly how light skin created an ambiguous position of relative privilege that nonetheless remained fundamentally unfree. In Wench, Lizzie’s position as Drayle’s mistress grants her better clothing, lighter labour, and protection from the worst plantation violence—advantages that create tensions with darker-skinned enslaved people who labour in the fields. In Yellow Wife, Pheby’s early life on the plantation involves education and relative comfort, setting her apart from field labourers until her sale into the fancy trade strips away these precarious benefits. This internal stratification reveals what Gordon identifies as colourism’s role in creating “a whole Fancy Trade” where “women of light-skinned complexions were sold into that trade.” However, as both novels demonstrate, any privileges associated with lighter skin within slavery remained contingent and exploitative, tied directly to white men’s racialised sexual desires and fetishisation of “whiteness made salable by the presence of Blackness.” To understand how these multiple systems of oppression operated simultaneously, the following table synthesises the manifestations of intersectional oppression as depicted in both novels alongside their historical contexts: Table 1: Intersectional Oppressions in the Fancy Trade System of Oppression Manifestation in Both Novels Historical Context Racism One-drop rule; racialisation regardless of appearance; legal categorisation as property Partus sequitur ventrem laws, ensuring children follow their mother’s status; the legal definition of Blackness. Sexism Sexual violence; reproductive exploitation; exclusion from idealised womanhood Enslaved women denied legal protection from rape, forced reproductive labour. Colorism Light-skinned women are trafficked explicitly for sexual purposes; fetishisation of “nearly white” women. Fancy trade specifically targeting light-skinned women; hierarchies within enslaved communities. Class Oppression Position as property; economic value tied to reproductive potential and sexual desirability Women’s bodies commodified through auction; reproductive capacity as capital Sexual Exploitation Forced concubinage; rape disguised as “relationships”; sexual access as enslaver privilege The legal system provides no recourse for sexual violence against enslaved women. Sources: Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”; Gordon, Tiye A. “The Fancy Trade and the Commodification of Rape”; Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought. Representations of the Fancy Trade: Wench: Tawawa House and Contradictory Spaces Perkins-Valdez’s Wench centres on Tawawa House, a historical resort in Free Ohio where Southern plantation owners vacationed with their enslaved mistresses. This setting creates a liminal space where the contradictions of the fancy trade become starkly visible. The women exist in an in-between zone—neither fully enslaved in the traditional sense nor free, neither wives nor prostitutes, neither Black nor white in the eyes of those who fetishise their mixed-race appearance. The novel is a story of four women in slavery, Lizzie, Reenie, Mawu, and Sweet, who develop sisterhood bonds as they negotiate their more complicated relationships with their enslavers. The relationship Lizzie is in with Drayle illustrates a psychological depth of fancy trade relationships: she has given him children, runs his household, and feels what someone would consider affection with him, but is treated as his legal property, which he can sell, rape, or even kill without facing charges. Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(II)| October2025 106 The resort setting in free territory heightens the novel’s exploration of freedom’s meaning. The women walk freely through the town, interact with free Black people, and glimpse possibilities for escape. However, they remain bound by invisible chains—love for children left on plantations, fear of violent punishment, uncertainty about survival as fugitives. Yellow Wife: Devil’s Half Acre and Commodified Bodies Johnson’s Yellow Wife presents a darker vision of the fancy trade through Pheby’s forced bondage at Richmond’s Devil’s Half Acre. In this notorious slave jail, enslaver Rubin Lapier (the Jailer) buys, sells, and breaks enslaved people. Pheby becomes Lapier’s “yellow wife,” a term that encapsulates both her racial categorisation and her forced concubinage. Unlike the mobile space of Tawawa House, the jail represents total confinement and surveillance. The novel explicitly depicts the fancy trade’s violence. Pheby witnesses other light-skinned women being sold to white men who desire them specifically for sexual purposes, their bodies displayed and commodified like merchandise. Johnson describes the grotesque spectacle of slave auctions where women are examined, their teeth checked, their skin colour evaluated, their reproductive potential assessed—processes that Finley identifies as capitalism’s “technologies of standardisation” that fundamentally deny enslaved people’s humanity. Pheby’s position as the Jailer’s forced partner grants her certain powers—she manages his household, influences decisions about which enslaved people to sell, and uses her position to help others occasionally. However, these responsibilities come at the cost of repeated rape, psychological manipulation, and the constant threat that her children will be sold if she disobeys. The novel thus reveals how even positions of relative power within slavery remained fundamentally exploitative, with any “agency” constrained by the ever-present threat of violence. Agency and Resistance Although the two novels portray the brutal oppression of the enslaved people with extraordinary vividness, they also shed light on the multiple ways these women resisted and had agency, even though the system is intended to deny them any power. Everyday Resistance The theory of everyday resistance, as developed by Stephanie Camp, helps to shed light on minor but meaningful ways in which enslaved women asserted control. This is the women of Wench and their nightly parties, their underground dialogue, how they negotiated minor freedoms. The eventual escape of Mawu is the result of such resistance, which is established based on information acquisition, connection creation, and the strength of courage under the support of the community. The everyday resistance manifested in Yellow Wife includes Pheby sheltering other enslaved individuals against the worst violence of the Jailer, the enslaved children learning to read, and her own literacy as a form of mental resistance. She exploits her post to get information, assist her fellow humans in escape attempts, and retain her identity amid dehumanising circumstances. The wide variety of approaches towards resistance taken by enslaved women in both novels can be grouped to demonstrate the patterns of agency in response to oppression: Table 2: Forms of Enslaved Women’s Resistance Type of Resistance Examples from Wench Examples from Yellow Wife Historical Documentation Everyday Resistance Secret gatherings; information sharing; negotiating small freedoms Teaching literacy; protecting others; strategic compliance Camp, Stephanie. Closer to Freedom Reproductive Control Knowledge of contraceptive herbs; discussions of pregnancy prevention Using plants for contraception/abortion; delaying pregnancy Perrin, Liese. “Resisting Reproduction” Community Building Bonds among four women; mutual support; shared planning Information networks; communal care despite isolation Holden, Vanessa. Surviving Southampton Strategic Negotiation Lizzie’s careful management of the relationship with Drayle Pheby’s manipulation of the Jailer’s emotions for children’s protection West, Emily. Enslaved Women in America Sources: Camp, Stephanie. Closer to Freedom; West, Emily. Enslaved Women in America; Holden, Vanessa. Surviving Southampton; Perrin, Liese. “Resisting Reproduction in the Old South.” Conclusion The examples of Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez and Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson demonstrate that the neo-slave stories of the 21st century use intersectional theories to show a multidimensional experience of oppression and resistance of enslaved Black women. Focusing on protagonists trapped in the fancy trade--that vicious meeting point of Journal of Research and Development Peer Reviewed International, Open Access Journal. ISSN : 2230-9578 | Website: https://jrdrvb.org Volume-17, Issue-10(II)| October2025 107 racialised sexual violence, reproductive exploitation and economic commodification--both novels demonstrate that individual axis approaches are insufficient to comprehend the lives of enslaved women. Their lives cannot be described as mere racism or mere sexism, but have to be interpreted through what Crenshaw termed as the varied manifestations of marginalisation that occur when several oppressive regimes interact. The comparative analysis has shown that these texts share some experiences and have different representations. The two novels portray the psychological depth of relationships between enslavers and enslaved women, rejecting all simple classifications but making it clear that power imbalances do not allow for any real consent. Both portray the different kinds of resistance to show that enslaved women were agents even in a system where they were denied all their power. Wench emphasises a liminal space of free territory to allow possibilities of imagining freedom that are blocked in the claustrophobic environment of Yellow Wife in jail. Wench focuses on community and slavery among women, whereas Yellow Wife explores the psychological impact of isolation. The constricted time frame of Wench leads up to a dramatic escape, whereas the decades-long story of Yellow Wife portrays the lifetime trauma of being a slave. These novels are part of the continuing academic and cultural debate of the legacies of slavery. They reveal the benefits of intersectional analysis to historical knowledge by showing how multiply marginalised groups raise specific concerns. They focus on the interior lives of black women, their thoughts, feelings, desires, and choices in a manner that archival records would hardly provide. Recommendations In prospect, the novels suggest further discussion of some important questions. What is the duty of the writers when speculating on the inside life of the enslaved people when there are no detailed historical records about it? What does fiction bring to historical studies to form fuller ideas about the multidimensional violence of slavery? What are the implications of neo-slave narratives in the modern-day struggle against racism, sexism, and other forms of intersectional oppression? References 1. Camp, Stephanie M. Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South. University of North Carolina Press, 2004. 2. Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2000. 3. ---. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Duke University Press, 2019. 4. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum, vol. 1989, no. 1, 1989, pp. 139-167. 5. ---. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Colour.” Stanford Law Review, vol. 43, no. 6, 1991, pp. 1241-1299. 6. Finley, Alexandra J. An Intimate Economy: Enslaved Women, Work, and America’s Domestic Slave Trade. University of North Carolina Press, 2020. 7. Fuentes, Marisa J. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. 8. Gordon, Tiye A. “The Fancy Trade and the Commodification of Rape in the Sexual Economy of 19th Century U.S. Slavery.” Master’s thesis, University of South Carolina, 2015. https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3636. 9. Holden, Vanessa M. Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community. University of Illinois Press, 2021. 10. Johnson, Sadeqa. Yellow Wife: A Novel. Simon & Schuster, 2021. 11. Morgan, Jennifer L. Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. 12. ---. “Partus Sequitur Ventrem: Law, Race, and Reproduction in Colonial Slavery.” Small Axe, vol. 55, March 2018, pp. 1-17. 13. Perkins-Valdez, Dolen. Wench: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2010. 14. 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