Blossom

"She had the power to see and the power to fight;she had the power to feel pain and the power to heal."

"Blossom" by Dionne Brand is a story of a woman whose distrust of whites is not based on some personal craziness of hers,it is based on historical practice and historical events that place her as a black woman in the world at that point of time.

The figure of a West Indian domestic is treated by Brand in a radically different way,much more militant and politically oriented.In "Blossom"-Priestess of Oya,Goddess of Winds, Storms and Waterfalls,the eponymous character,Blossom, is also a new immigrant in Toronto and works as a domestic in order to survive.She enters a new world where she is jilted by a man,baby sits for whites in oriole,tries to learn to type and also becomes a secretary.She also tries to sell old furniture and so as to earn fast money she also joins the pyramid scheme,but she ultimately gets cheated by her girlfriend Fancy Girl.She finds herself surrounded by loneliness all around.Later,in the story she works for a doctor.Blossom makes her struggle against sexual and racial discrimination heard loud and clear ,following her employer's attempt to rape her.Blossom also frees herself from her exploiting husband,Victor.

Blossom's real struggle however leads her back to ancestral spirits.She is a woman of mighty cresilience and quick action.This is seen when Blossom decides to move out of her employers house and chooses her own dwelling place(in spirituality).She refuses to play the part of the hermit crab,thinking "Living wasn't just for slaving...harder you work,the less you have..."

She has buoyancy.She never thinks of dying and her anger is the anger about silence and injustice...The whites in the story are not Blossom's only antagonists ,though the whites might read the story that way.What Blossom hates is the suffering of black people and her hatred turned her into the priestess of Oya,in whose presence she becomes a" warrior knife" and "not even snarky white people could keep Blossom under".


Archna Olive Toppo
PG I