Beyond Miranda's Meanings": Contemporary Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Women's Literatures (original) (raw)
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In 1991, looking bac k o n th e litera ry product ion of Caribbean wo men in the preceding two decades as I d rafted the introduction to Green Cane and Juicy Flotsam: Short Stories by Caribbean Women, I was struck above all by th e 've ritab le explosion' in women 's writing th at had mark ed the 1970s and 1980s, a develop ment that Ca rmen Esteves and I had so ught to showcase in tha t collection. It had been o ur ai m, above all, to chronicle ho w women 's voices had moved into the mai nstream of liter ar y act ivity in th e regio n af ter decades of silence and neglect. In selecti ng the stories that wo uld form pa rt of th at an tho logy, we had been mos t concerned with how wo men writers sought to a rtic ulate their gen de red posi tio n in Caribbean socie ties th rou gh narratives tha t to ld of their search fo r 'agency' in their perso na l and soc ial lives.
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I N SETTING O UT TO STUDY the w ork of contemp o ra ry Ca r ib bea n women w riters, it w oul d be helpful to co nsid er t he cri tical framework that enters d iscussions of the w riting of a utho rs who are both w omen a nd Carib bea n . The p r evalent cri tical p erspective on Caribbean literatu re demand s that it shed Eurocen tri c views and stress se lf-determination. Thus, the ma in themes of Car ib bean liter atu r e (rootlessness, the d efinitio n of a Ca r ib bean aesthet ic, race and colo r, decolonization of culture a nd la ng uage) are lin ked to the Ca ribb ea n writers' p re scribe d rol e of articulating the need for a ch a nge in d ire c tion. Likewise, the p r evalent feminist persp ective on women's w r iting dem ands that it shed male-centered views a nd stress female self determination. Wo me n 's w r iting sh ould show fem al e character s in th e process of emancip ation fro m patriarchal in stit ution s and values, a nd poin t the way towards sim ilar emancipat ion ou tside of fic tion .
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There is a continuing discourse on the engendering of history of the Caribbean. As a part of that discourse, leading historians such as Bridget Brereton and Blanca Silvestrini suggest that the process should include the texts and testimonies of women 1. In this way the writers of Caribbean history can move beyond using a feminist construct to analyze traditional sources. Such sources are usually about men's lives and what they did in the public sphere. Examination of those sources invariably limits the findings to what amounts to contribution history 2 ; women's role in society will continue to be judged according to the male derived instruments of analysis. Thus women's perception of their society is needed to give balance to the androcentric approach to the study of Caribbean history. 1