“Does My Voice Count?” The Reconfiguration of Myth and Gender in Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch

Abstract

The imbrication of depth psychology, textual genealogy, and Postcolonial Studies has not received much attention when healing trauma caused by slavery, colonization, and neocolonialism in the Caribbean. However, the white Trinidadian British author Monique Roffey, who was in Jungian analysis for many years, explores the efficacy of reconfigured myth in recuperating indigenous memory in her novel, The Mermaid of Black Conch (2020). Foregrounding Adrian del Valle’s Cuban version of the oral Taíno (Aycayia) myth from Tradiciones y Leyendas de Cienfuegos (1919), Roffey’s novel re-imagines the representation of patriarchal gender relations by empowering the mermaid through self-determined, conscious sexuality and turning the male gaze through relatedness. At the same time, however, the novel problematizes woman-on-woman envy, jealousy, and implication in androcentric power structures to show the limits of self-realization due to systemic racism. Thus, the novel calls for a reconsideration of psychological growth across gender and color lines in a trans-Caribbean context and beyond.