The use of the body

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The Use of Body as Text in the Book of Night Women and Cracking India
Introduction
The use of body as text in the book of Night Women by Marlon James and Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa since time in memorial, the body in itself has been used as a mode of communication between people across gender, social status or even ethnic background. In fact the body has been used for communication eighty percent of the time whereas text or dialogue has been used only about ten percent of the time when people are communicating. This is clearly depicted in the two books, the book of Night women and Cracking India by Marlon James and Bapsi Sidhwa respectively.
The book of night women
In his "the book of Night Women," Marlon James employs the use of imagery and body language more than he uses text to communicate both among the characters and to the readers. The very first instant of the suffering that the slaves go through is communicated through the use of Lilith`s mother who is raped at a tender age of 14 just because the punishers wanted to teach her a lesson and as a form of punishment. Further still, the narrator choses to use Lilith`s life as the stage on which to narrate the harshness of life and the cruel society when Lilith is brought up in the arms of a whore and a somewhat crazy man, or rather, mad man.
In addition to her many troubles, homer also was tortured and underwent a lot of suffering because of her mistress who, being very cruel, made her undergo very many unbearable things including being discriminated upon because of her skin color and her black origin. There was also the instance in which the the people lashed out themselves and tare themselves apart because of the desire to outdo each other in the sacred voodoo like culture which was also known as Obeah. Apart form being a very bad system, the Obeah culture made it very horrible for the people who have to undergo a lot of suffering as well as exploit the people for no apparent good reason, thus making people more and more evil in nature.
The writer narrates how a child is born by a very mother who instantly dies during delivery. This paints to the mind of the reader a child who kills her mother at birth. The description of the child`s body complexion also shows that she has bad omen when the narrator says that her "skin is darker than midnight." The fear that is seen in the eyes of the witnesses at the child`s birth also depicts that there`s something sinister with the child.
As a method of identification the author has made sure that each child born between a black woman and a white man has green eyes that resemble those of their paternal parentage and their quick wit makes them quick learners when they learn how to read and write ahead of their age mates. In addition to their green eyes and quick wit, the women also had symbolic names which depicted the names of the Greek gods such as atlas, Lilith, Gorgon among others which make them somehow superstitious and hide their African origin.
The author James also depicts through his imagery a feminine perspective in which he portrays women as the weaker sex who are however striving to break free from the york of bondage and slavery by their schemes in the middle of night. He shows how the women are put through a lot of pain and their body is tortured, brutalized and severed. However the narrator is unable to capture fully the thoughts of Lilith the protagonist of the book since he has opted to use Lilith`s daughter as the narrator. In this sense the author can therefore not depict Lilith`s inner intentions and reasons for revolting against fellow colleagues who are plotting to escape the misery of slavery from the hands of their masters. James further uses the body of the woman as stage to show how history has badly treated the woman and made her subordinate in all aspects of life including abusing her sex, sexuality and feminine nature.
Cracking india
Similarly, Bapsi Sidhwa in her Novel Cracking India depicts fairly well the use of...