1. Prologue (g)
  2. Analysis
  3. Visualizations
  4. Bibliography

Prologue

Themes are “central unifying ideas in a story” that examine the character’s personality, philosophy, and morality as the story progresses.

Themes allow the reader to relate to the characters and their struggles, allowing them to root for them and become invested in the outcome. For writers, themes are how they share their stories and explain why they wrote their literary work. Moreover, it enables them to provide more depth to the characters and events.

In the article “Gender and Literature” by Pázámy Péter Catholic University, the author argues that in the early 18th and 19th centuries, gender roles influenced the roles, codes of behavior, morality, and feelings and thoughts of men and women, thus influencing how these individuals wrote literary pieces. Furthermore, the author states that the moral consequences, as well as the lack of financial benefits that women who expressed certain matters in their writing would receive, restricted them or forced them to use male or gender-neutral aliases for their and their families’ protection.

However, as society has progressed, people have become more open-minded and these predetermined gender roles and gender idenity have had less of an effect on these authors, as the gap between men and women has decreased due to social movements like the Feminist Movement and greater societal acceptance.

One of my early observations made when working in the time period 1971–1980 for the Writers, Readers, and Scenes, which I documented in my course blog, was female writers in this time period usually wrote books about gender and sexuality and family relations, whereas male writers wrote about social injustice, politics, and war.

However, upon reflection, I realized that female authors such as Jamaica Kincaid have written novels about colonialism and its effects on her home country, Antigua. Thus, I began to question if there was a significant disparity in the thematic expression of books authored by male or female authors and if the gender roles still heavily trapped Caribbean authors in the mid-20th centruy.

Some common themes of Caribbean Literature include:

  1. Adolescence
  2. Classism
  3. Colonialism
  4. Coming of age
  5. Education
  6. Family relationships (Mother-daughter relationships)
  7. Gender and Sexuality
  8. Identity
  9. Migration
  10. Mythology and folk
  11. Nature
  12. Neo-colonialism
  13. Politics
  14. Postcolonialism
  15. Poverty
  16. Power
  17. Racism
  18. Slavery
  19. Young boys growing up
  20. Young girls growing up


Analysis

(h)

Theme Male (1961-1970) Female (1961-1970) Male (1971-1980 Female (1971-1980 Male (1981-1990 Female (1981-1990 Total
Adolescence 4 2 5 3 10 13 37
Classism 7 1 5 5 9 6 33
Colonialism 10 4 11 7 22 9 63
Coming of age 4 5 3 6 6 10 34
Education 4 1 3 5 7 10 30
Family relationships (Mother-daughter) 2 0 3 8 5 4 32
Gender and Sexuality 4 6 8 6 5 13 42
Identity 4 3 16 8 25 18 74
Migration 3 2 7 3 15 12 42
Mythology and folk 7 2 11 6 10 10 46
Nature 6 1 6 3 6 8 30
Neo-colonialism 2 2 4 4 12 5 29
Politics 9 1 8 5 17 15 55
Postcolonialism 1 5 6 1 10 7 30
Poverty 8 0 8 2 13 4 35
Power 11 1 18 8 15 14 67
Racism 8 4 10 8 12 11 53
Slavery 5 0 9 3 9 7 33
Young boys growing up 4 2 7 4 12 4 33
Young girls growing up 2 3 4 8 9 11 37
Total 105 45 52 103 229 201 835

The data from this table can also be visualized as a stacked bar chart, which allows the audience to easily compare the categories of themes to author’s gender.

Visualizations

From this visualization, it can be concluded that as we progressed to the latter end of this time period, more published literary works by women explored themes such as classism, colonialism, politics, poverty, and slavery.

This could be due to social and historical events that occurred within the Caribbean or the Caribbean diaspora that these authors felt should be documented so that present and future generations can be informed or to speak to these audiences about their own or others’ experiences with these subject matters.

Another possibility for the increase in female-written publications that explore these themes is the empowerment women felt owing to the “Feminist Movement” in the 1970s and 1980s. The Femist Movement was aimed at confronting the skewed hierarchy that shaped relations between men and women. One of the biggest achievements stemming from this revolution is increased access to resources and goods for women. Thus, it can be assumed that more female writers not only felt that they were capable of sharing their complex and convoluted thoughts on these focal points, whether as a source of stress release or to satirize this condition, but they were also given the opportunity to, whether financially or through the support of local and regional markets.

Furthermore, it can be seen that literary works that explore the theme of “identity,” such as Carnival, which is a unique fusion of cultures in the Caribbean, indigenous cultures, and religions within the Caribbean region, and having difficulties accepting these, or a blend of cultures and identities, were most frequent in this data set. The second most popular theme is “power”. The most common expression of power in this sample are authors writing about their experiences living under authoritarian governments such as the regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba or François Duvalier’s regime in Haiti, as well as under the World Wars. Thirdly, colonialism was a highly popular theme present in the works published by Caribbean male and female authors from 1961-1990, as a lot of these countries were still colonies of European countries such as England, who were exploting them and forcing their cultural values upon these countries.

Themes in published literary works by Male Caribbean authors vs Female Caribbean authors from 1961–1990

Comparative Visualization

Male Caribben Authors Themes

VERSUS

Female Caribben Authors Themes

(i)


Moreover, comparing the themes in published literary works by male Caribbean authors to those by female Caribbean authors, it can be concluded that stark differences exist in some themes. For instance, the most common theme in male-authored works is power, which represents 10.5% of this sample set. However, for female-written literary pieces, the most common theme is gender and sexuality, which represents 13.3%.

Stark differences also exist in the themes of coming of age, identity, and post-colonialism, which have a higher percentage of females in this sample range. In contrast, themes such as power, politics, and poverty are more frequent in male-authored literary works than female-authored ones.

Themes that do not have a significant difference in their recurrences in male and female-authored books include adolescence, migration, and colonialism.


Bibliography

Letourneau, S. (2014, November 17). What is Theme, and Why is it Important? DIY MFA. Retrieved March 29, 2022, from https://diymfa.com/writing/theme-important

PÁZMÁNY PÉTER CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. (n.d.). Literature and Gender. Retrieved May 4, 2022, from https://btk.ppke.hu/uploads/articles/135505/file/introduction/satellite/literature_and_gender.html

Smith, N. (2021, November 5). Importance of Themes in Literature. Pen and the Pad. Retrieved March 29, 2022, from https://penandthepad.com/importance-themes-literature-8462481.html

Wikipedia contributors. (2022, April 21). Feminism in the Caribbean. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 1, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_the_Caribbean#:%7E:text=Feminism%20in%20the%20Caribbean%20refers,for%20women%20in%20the%20Caribbean.