Literary Evocations of Violence (Psychic and Physical) in Selected Works by Indo-Trinidadian Women Writers

According to Paula Morgan, many of the social issues facing Caribbean islands today are “bound up with unresolved traumas bequeathed by the violent origins of the New World societies of the Caribbean” (Morgan, 2). The violent legacies of Caribbean peoples continue to pervade the literary creations of imaginative artists from diverse ethnicities and spaces. Gendered experience continues to be a site of exploration for many woman authors, whereby the specific occurrences of violence meted out against the female body are described in unapologetic detail. This chapter will examine literary evocations of violence—both psychic and physical—as elucidated by female, Indian, Trinidadian novelists. While many articles on domestic violence feature intimate partner violence, this chapter will explore another important aspect of domestic abuse among the IndoCaribbean context: within the father/daughter relationship. The chapter explores selected novels which convey thematic patterns revealing how a sense of (and focus on) shame in paternal figures may be likened to an insidious contagion—passed from father to daughter, with a particularly crippling effect on the budding subjectivity of the latter.