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^Gender Analysis of "The Two Grandmothers"
"The Two Grandmothers" is a short prose narrative that is one of the seven short story collection published in the Arrival of the Snake Woman. The collection is written by the Jamaican author, Olive Senior and published in 1989. The language embodies the combination of mesolect and acrolet with a mixture of Jamaican Creole and Standard English. Senior uses humor to give insights into the character's language, from the protagonist perspective. Senior's anthology tends to evolve around a relax and calm tone to bring across her colonial experiences through race, class, colour and gender. Senior prose and poetic writing is vital to Jamaica's popular culture as her writings mainly challenges the colonial stereotypes and ideologies.

"The Two Grandmothers" can be examined from a gender perspective through analysing the main themes, racial and cultural construction through colonialism and slavery as well as the use of language through [Http://sgba-resource.ca/en/concepts/module-2-gender/objective-identify-gender-experiences-along-a-continuum/ gendered dichotomies]. The protagonist commuting between both grandmothers gives Senior the opportunity to explore issues such as class, colour, gender and language that forms the Caribbean identity. Senior has been a literary voice in Caribbean Literature, specifically to the area of CSEC and CAPE as well as the Caribbean diaspora.

Background

Olive Senior

Olive Marjorie Senior, born on the 23 December 1941 in the rural area of Jamaica, Trelawny. Olive Senior is known for her exceptional contribution to Caribbean linguistics, literature and culture. She uses her creative writing styles to explore her childhood experiences through prose and poetry. Senior's work usually places a young girl as the narrator, this can be viewed as a literary symbol to portray her childhood experiences surrounding racial, classism and gendered standpoint. O'Callaghan and Narain notes a recurrent element within the work of most Anglophone Caribbean women writers which uses a girl narrative perspective, inclusive of Olive Senior. A child, at the narrator's age is normally exploring their gender and self-identity which the protagonist is seeking answers to her questions and unaware of her environment. She is exposed to both colonial and popular culture ideologies that is evoked through her language. With regards, the post-colonial feminist approach would be able to tackle the social inequalities and cultural representation of class through examining the stereotypical colonial ideologies the protagonist experiences during in rural Jamaica.

Senior continues to enjoy a growing international audience with her work also being taught in Caribbean schools as part of an evolving literary curriculum. In the Caribbean, both high schools and universities locally and internationally uses Senior's poetry and prose stories as apart of their curriculum. Senior's use of language, mesolect, is considered to be the ideal language used by the educational system and in the Caribbean as it is associated with being sophisticated and of a high socio-economic class. As a result, many degrade the Jamaican Patois even the educational sector this is clear in the selection of more of Senior's work in the curriculum than even Miss Lou's work that promotes Jamaica's patois. On the other hand, Senior uses a mixture of linguistic change through the protagonist rural and urban transition, with the uses of Jamaican Patois and Standard English. In my opinion, Senior has not gotten the publicity that she deserves and the appreciation for her contribution and influence to Jamaican popular culture.

Senior uses symbols, literary devices, humor and irony to covey her message within different settings through linguistics patterns. Senior uses symbols such as electricity and darkness that represents a comparison of class in the rural and urban area. Also, the colour of one's skin and hair texture are other symbols that represents racial and cultural ideologies. Simile and metaphor in the narrator's language makes comparison and contrast between the rural and urban area. The use of these literary devices shows a mixture of creole and standard english in the narrator grammar. Dramatic irony is portrayed in the way the narrator turns against her rural characters towards the end of the story, this demonstrates her shifts from her charming language to a hostile tone, bringing about her cultural and linguistic changes.

Story Outline

"The Two Grandmothers" is a monologue, through the perspective of a young girl who tells her different experiences of visiting her rural grandmother, Del (paternal) and urban grandmother, Elaine (maternal). The narrator's rural grandmother, Del strives to be more of an traditional culture and is of a lower socio-economic background, this is where the narrator is exposed to the Jamaican Creole. Whereas, grandma Elaine is quite opposite from Grandma Del. Elaine devalues the traditional culture and immerses herself in the popular culture that evolves around wealth and social status. While the narrator gets older, she gradually shifts from here rural grandmother's traditional cultural ideologies and shows more interest in engaging in the popular culture resulting in the narrator's linguistic change.

 Gender Language & Analysis 

Language reflects and creates gender division. Linguistic patterns shapes contemporary beliefs surrounding masculinity and femininity through the way boys and girls are socialised into gendered norms and cultural stereotype resulting in stereotypical linguistic ideologies. Language dialect and tone is a Caribbean stereotype of masculine and feminine vocabulary, by which men and women should speak a certain way. Talbot states that people acquire characteristics which are perceived as masculine or feminine through their language use. Within the Caribbean, women are stereotyped into the perception of being the sole caregivers within the household. There is a cultural ideology that women are the nurturer while men are the breadwinners. However, the language spoken from the narrator's standpoint gives an insight of the other characters linguistic interaction between the rural and urban area.

There is a belief that women should speak Standard English while men should speak the common vernacular, as they are stereotyped as being homosexuals or weak if they chose to speak the Jamaican Standard English within certain Caribbean settings. The language the narrator uses is more of the Standard English, as her language suggest that she is of the upper or middle class in how she describes her home with only "gardeners, maids and people begging and Rastas selling brooms" .She portrays a unfamiliarity with certain creole vernacular, such as "cockroach nuh bizniz inna fowl roos" or "force-ripe" and as well as her language shows literal meaning for creole vernacular where Elaine stated " ....leave me to go to Hell in peace". The narrator is more familiar with the Standard English that surrounds the belief of femininity in the Caribbean, of women speaking properly, that the narrator began to criticise the creole language as she grew older and showed preference for popular culture and would be stereotyped as being vulgar if she speaks loud compared to a male, as Coates examines linguistic gender differences through three socio-linguistics approaches. In Talbot, Language and Gender, William Labov examines language variation through highlighting variation socio-linguistics used among different social groups. As a result, Labov's work can be applied to Senior's story in which we realise there is different use of language used by Grandma Del and Grandma Elaine. As a result, of Grandma Del's traditional culture and Grandma Elaine's interest in popular culture shows that language shapes contemporary differential beliefs of femininity. The narrator masters both languages both of the rural and urban area, in which Carolyn Cooper, highlights the importance of both languages in different spaces in the article Caribbean Airlines and Miss Lou.

 Prominent Themes 

 Traditional vs. Popular Culture 

Senior compares and contrast both cultures through the narrator's language. At the beginning, the narrator gravitated to the traditional culture that her rural grandmother portrays. Grandma Del lives a life that many would classify as "old-fashioned" that is more of colonial era as Grandma Elaine strives more for the materialistic modern culture.The use of vernacular and proverbs in the rural area portrays Caribbean tradition. The narrator enjoyed walking to church on Sundays, and having her clothes home sewn to wear to church and the social lifestyle that Grandma Del had with her neighbours, the narrator made friends, enjoyed their lifestyle and found it interesting. The narrator enjoyed cleaning the night lamps and found it surprising that her grandmother had no television. The complete contradiction was Grandma Elaine who lives in the urban area and is of the upper class in which she shuns the traditional lifestyle Grandma Del lives. Grandma Elaine was more engaged in the popular culture that Senior explores to challenge the colonial system. As a result of different cultural ideologies there is a difference in langauge in which the characters from the rural area used the basilect and the urban characters used the mesloect and acrolect. The narrator being exposed to both the traditional and popular culture resulted in her self-identity crisis.

"The Two Grandmothers" highlights the denoting differences of both cultures, where Grandma Del promotes the social construct of black women being labelled as "jezebels" if they fail to follow certain perceived Biblical norms. She labelled Eulalie and Ermandine as "disgraceful Jezebels" for having children out of marriage, this is a traditional damaging norms. As such, Senior challenges such representation that only the narrator's parents were the only characters in the story that were married. Both cultures creates a class and racial conflict between both grandparents. Bennett notes that the Hegemony Theory explores and explain conflicts involving ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality that are all at different moments engaged in forms of cultural struggle against the homogenizing force of dominant culture.

 Caribbean Femininity & Heterosexuality 

The gender role of women being the caretakers, highlights beliefs surrounding femininity. The narrator mainly highlights the strong relationship with her grandmothers in which she explains her vivid experiences to her mother. The grandmothers subtle and calm language evokes their caring and nurturing characteristics towards the narrators well being. Also, it can be suggested that Grandma Del was the sole caregiver of the narrator's fathers as the narrator language suggest anger when she asked her grandmother about her "daddy's father", the narrator use of creole portrays Eulalie's anger, after the narrator told Eulalie she and her sister are a disgrace for having children out of marriage this could demonstrate that that Grandma Del does not know her son's father. To add, Grandma Del would portray caring for the narrator through sewing church clothing and hats for the narrator and castor oiling the narrator's hair every night. Pearlie being the caretaker of her younger siblings also suggest women being stereotyped as being the caregiver, as the narrator language suggest an absence of her father, in which she stated Pearlie does not know her father. Resulting in her caring for her younger siblings by cooking and supervising them in her mother's absence, as it is likely her mother is the caretaker of Pearlie and her siblings.

Barry Chevannes, states that "fathers abandoned their responsibility resulting in Jamaican women being fathers to their children". Regarding grandma Elaine, the narrators language highlights grandma Elaine having various boyfriends. Male marginalization within the household is dominant throughout the story, as there is a high percent of males being absent from the household.

Heterosexuality is always evident to a lesser extent where there are mostly heterosexual attachments.

 Racial Identity & Class 

The narrator experiences mix reaction of her skin tone and hair texture being criticise and cherish. The social ideology of light-skin complexion is associated with higher social hierarchy whereas dark complexion is associated with lower social mobility.

Senior challenges the stereotypical views surrounding Caribbean womanhood. In the Caribbean culture, women must be submissive to their husband and faithful to one partner. Senior rejects this perception. This stereotype is rejected through Grandma Elaine, in which she has varying boyfriends, in which Sandra Lee critiques notions that surrounds "proper femininity over women and their bodies in patriarchal culture and refuse to live in the traditional culture. As a result, Senior challenges patriarchy through this notion from a cultural and religious standpoint but reinforces hegemony through women dominance throughout the story with both grandmothers having control and being head of their household within the rural and urban area. Senior also reinforces patriarchy to a lesser extent in which the narrator stated that the parson is the only one who comes to church in a car as well as host the church services.