An Analysis Of Zami: A New Spelling Of My Name By Audre Lorde

The novel Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde describes her exploration and self-refection as a woman coming of age in the 50s, and life from then on. Throughout her journey she encountered numerous women who would change who she was as a person as well as her thoughts about the world in which she lived. They unknowingly forced self-growth and self-reflection on Audre, molding into this woman she had always hoped to become. With each woman she’d care for, came a piece of them that Lorde would carry with her forever. In the novel Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde expresses and links the women who had shaped her into the person, friend, and lover she had always strived to be, Zami. Zami, as Audre Lord explains it, “a Carriacou

Gennie and Audre’s friendship began in high school and she then became her closest friend.

It was only after Gennie’s suicide, and the realization on all of the things they never got to do, did she realized that it was love that she felt for her. This is where the ever-growing attraction to the same sex blossoms into something real and solid. This relationship however did not take sexual form, only strong friendship. “Zami. A Carriacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers.” In this case, Gennie was a friend that Audre loved, the first woman that leaves an impression on her.

Gennie had been the first person in my life I was conscious of loving. And she had died…My mother had turned into a demon intent on destroying me. You loved people and you came to depend on their being there. But people died or changed or went away and it hurt too much…The secret to not being hurt like this again, I decided, was never depending on anyone, never needing, never loving

Each woman she loved slowly shaping her, one by one. Each woman that Lord encountered and loved helped build this person that Audre had been yearning to be her whole life. This quote is crucial to the book, because it is where she begins to explain her full transition to Zami. “The Casing of this place had been my home for seven years, the amount of time it takes for a human body to completely renew itself, cell by living cell. And in those years my life had become increasingly a bridge and field of women. Zami.” This quote is where the title of the novel is explained and is where her journey is defined as complete. I think that this portion of the text was placed at the very end of the story because of the time and lengths it took for Audre and the women around her to shape this new person,