Lakshmi Persaud's Archetypal Indo-Trinidadian Women

Camille S. Alexander examines the intersection of traditional Hindu culture and contemporary Trinbagonian (creolized) culture and its influence on Indo-Caribbean female characters in the novels of Lakshmi Persaud, using four traditional Indian archetypes. In traditional Indian cultural, there are four archetypes that represent feminine ideals: the beti (daughter), dulahin (bride), patni (wife), and maan (mother). In her novels, Indo-Trinidadian author Lakshmi Persaud addresses these archetypal roles, noting that, while many of them overlap in traditional Indian communities, they have also undergone a transformation in the diaspora. In this book, Alexander identifies examples of these archetypes in Persaud’s novels and analyzes how these characters demonstrate the pull of traditional Indian Hindu cultural codes and exemplify the divide between tradition and modernity.