INTERSECTIONALITY OF RACE, GENDER, AND FRIENDSHIP IN ANGELA FLOURNOY’S THE WILDERNESS: A CRENSHAWIAN ANALYSIS

Abstract

Using transactional theory and Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality, this study explores Angela Flournoy's (2025) The Wilderness. The study examines how multiple identities – race, gender, class, and social location – affect the experience of five black women over a 20-year period. In this paper, this is done by applying Crenshaw's framework of overlapping systemic structures of oppression to create complex types of marginalization that shape character/ways of being, emotional paths and interpersonal dynamics. More specifically, the study looks for ways in which friendship is a key support and a place that also helps to negotiate, reinforce, and sometimes resist intersecting inequalities. The method used in this research is a qualitative textual analysis, in the sense that certain moments in the plot are chosen as key moments in which identity conflict, social pressure, and emotional labor are intertwined. The results show that the protagonists have multiple subjective experiences of race and gender re-negotiate expectations of how they fit in and into themselves. In conclusion this research paper proposes that The Wilderness has the potential to be an essential tool for writing a literary history of the even larger social systems that create intersectional oppression, making Flournoy's fiction an important addition to contemporary African American women's fiction.