Serving the master: cannibalism and transoceanic representations of cultural identity

use of the term 'cannibale' as a keyword in the titles of Maryse Conde's Histoire de la femme cannibale and Paul Bloc's Les Confidences d'un cannibale attracts attention and solicits immediate images of alterity; the term `cannibal', however, is a product of European imperialism and its implications function as a means of justifying colonialism. Within each text, cannibalism is not an action in which the characters actually engage, but rather a trope of identity assigned to them by their oppressors; the cannibalism is not physical, but rather cultural and is perpetuated by the very people who accuse them of cannibalism. For the protagonists of Bloc's and Conde's novels intimate contact with Europeans is part of daily life, yet these intercultural relationships create difficulties for the two main characters, making them victims of cultural cannibalism. An examination of the complex ironies joining the trope of cannibalism and racial, sexual, and cultural identity within these two novels reveals similarities between the Pacific and the Atlantic colonial experiences, and shows that the literary representation of cannibalism in both works serves as a metaphor not only of cultural and sexual domination, but also of subversion and liberation.