Springer, Jennifer ThoringtonMorguson, AlisunFox, Stephen L.Henry Anthony, Ronda C.2013-01-302013-01-302013-01-30https://hdl.handle.net/1805/3218http://dx.doi.org/10.7912/C2/394Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)The fragmented bodies and lives of postcolonial Caribbean women examined in Caribbean literature beget struggle and psychological ruin. The characters portrayed in novels by postcolonial Caribbean writers Edwidge Danticat, Michelle Cliff, and Shani Mootoo are marginalized as “Other” by a Western patriarchal discourse that works to silence them because of their gender, color, class, and sexuality. Marginalization participates in the act of fragmentation of these characters because it challenges their sense of identity. Fragmentation means fractured; in terms of these fictive characters, fragmentation results from multiple traumas, each trauma causing another break in their wholeness. Postcolonial scholars have identified the causes and effects of fragmentation on the postcolonial subject, and they argue one’s need to heal because of it. Danticat, Cliff, and Mootoo prove that wholeness is not possible for the postcolonial Caribbean woman, so rather than ruminate on that truth, they examine the journey of the postcolonial Caribbean woman as a way of making meaning of the pieces of her life. This project contends that fragmentation – and the fracture it produces – does not bind these women to negative existences; in fact, the female subjects of Danticat, Cliff, and Mootoo locate power in their fragmentation. The texts studied include Danticat’s "Breath, Eyes, Memory" (1994) and "The Farming of Bones" (1999), Cliff’s "Abeng" (1984) and "No Telephone to Heaven" (1987), and Mootoo’s "Cereus Blooms at Night" (1996) and "He Drown She in the Sea" (2005).en-USCaribbeandiasporaLiteratureFeministIdentityFragmentationPostcolonialCultureEdwidge DanticatMichelle CliffShani MootooDanticat, Edwidge, 1969- -- Breath, eyes, memory -- Criticism and interpretationDanticat, Edwidge, 1969- -- Farming of bones -- Criticism and interpretationCliff, Michelle -- Abeng -- Criticism and interpretationCliff, Michelle -- No telephone to heaven -- Criticism and interpretationMootoo, Shani -- Cereus blooms at night -- Criticism and interpretationMootoo, Shani -- He drown she in the sea -- Criticism and interpretationFeminist literary criticismGender identity in literatureIdentity (Psychology) in literatureIdentity (Philosophical concept) in literatureCaribbean literature (English) -- Women authors -- History and criticismViolence in literatureWomen and literature -- Caribbean AreaPower (Philosophy) in literatureSelf-consciousness (Awareness) in literatureSelf in literatureWomen -- IdentityWomen -- Caribbean Area -- Social conditionsSex role -- Caribbean AreaThesis