Indo Caribbean Women Analysis

In childhood a woman must be subject to her father; in youth to her husband; when her husband is dead, to her son. A woman must never be free of subjection. {Laws of Manu, 148}These words epitomize the depiction of the Indo-Caribbean woman in West Indian Literature. A fictional female character designed to serve. Until recently, majority of the literature about Indo-Caribbean women was written by male writers of both Indo-Caribbean and non-Indo-Caribbean descent. The non-Indian authors depicted Indo-Caribbean women characters mainly as oppressed and exploited characters while the Indo-Caribbean male authors idealized the Indo-Caribbean women in marginalized suppressed roles as housewives and mothers. Writers such as Samuel Selvon, V S. Naipaul

Mythologies of the Hindu womanhood and female ideals were constructed upon these epics. Based upon these epics, a woman’s role is to serve; as such her worth is measured in her service to her husband and community. These stories through history have successfully categorized women into domesticated roles where their sole purpose is to the adherence of their male counterparts (fathers, husbands). Dr. Ramashraya Sharma observes that in the epic Ramayana the self-sacrificing Hindu wife is, in fact, the very paradigm of Hindu femininity. The Ramayana presents variety of women who are the ideal example of fidelity to their husband.{7}These women render unwavering service even through privation to their male counterparts. They are vigilant in their readiness to serve their lords and also in their faithful service to their husbands’ every command. This concept is a key strength to Espinet’s argument about women being invisible in society. Women are “invisible” because their positions and roles have already been prewritten, as evident in the Laws of Manu. Women are not seen as individuals, but as personifications of a particular social role thus, making it difficult for the Indian woman to break free of her cultural heritage, thus making her

Through their female protagonists, West Indian female writers try to envisage more plausible representations of womanhood, by removing women from subjective traditional framework and reinventing them in the present. This allows the female characters to transcend their cultural boundaries though the gradual development of self. As Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid observe in their introductory remarks in “Women and Culture” "What can emerge from an analysis of both contemporary and older cultural forms are not merely the suppressed or rebellious self-images of women but the extent of their necessary or voluntary collusion in dominant 'male ' ideologies." ' (52). The Hindu moral code; The Laws of Manu denies woman an existence separate from her husband or his family. Since the dawn of time, Indian women have been portrayed as long-suffering wives, sisters and mothers silenced by their patriarchal society. This concept of the traditional, oppressed woman has persisted in a culture infused by pious images of virtuous goddesses devoted to their husbands; such example is the Hindu goddess Sita serving as a influential cultural ideal of the Hindu