Socio-Cultural Comparative Study of Women’s Autobiographies: A Case Study of Harriet Jacobe and Baby Kamble

Abstract

The present research paper tries to compare the case study of African- American and Indian Dalit women’s narratives or autobiographies to find out women’s voice, similarity in their stories and common grounds for comparison at various levels. Two distinct and popular memoirs written by Baby Kamble (India) and Harriet Jacobs (USA) have been opted for the comparison firstly because both were written by marginalized women who were victimized due to their skin color in Hariot’s case and caste atrocities in Baby’s case.  The autobiographies of both were inspired by White women who helped the writers with motivation, necessary help and publication. The motto was to present the agonies, exploitations, and atrocities faced by both, eventually overcoming all odds to achieve the sense of moral victory not only for them but an example for all the community. Representing as a woman of marginalized background both opted an extraordinary adventure to put channel for their sufferings, signifies their miserable journey, inhuman systems we live in, discriminatory class exploitations, gender hierarchies, biases of color, caste, gender, race and economic deprivation. The autobiographies share a fact that women in developed modern American are not different from the woman of India, as women are subject to highest traumatic sufferings though the discriminating factor varies. The socio-cultural comparisons of these two texts give us space to investigate differences, similarities of cultural, social- religious and political grounds in distinct geographies. USA and India are very district in their time and space zones, the conditions of women, is the shared thread that connects them, and the comparison seems very natural and necessary.