Winesburg, Woolf, and Women

I see some striking similarities between the two texts in terms of setting. In both cases civilization implies order, an order which often isn't roomy enough for the individual who stands alone. Silindhu and his family are outcasts, in large part, because they/he refuse to adhere to the social customs of the village. Their intimacy with the jungle, specifically his daughters', casts the family as savages and Hinnihami and Punchi Menikha are seen as betrayers of the villages codes of womanhood.

If the village offers order and safety in numbers it also relegates women to cooks, childbearers, and perhaps even less flattering, gossips. A failure to comply with social norms leads to a virtual banishment and subjectification by other villagers.

The jungle, on the other hand, serves as the unkown and offers opportunity for experience beyond the toil of daily chores and links woman/man to the mysteries surrounding the village while teaching survival in and respect for the natural world.

In this novel it seems as if Mankind's laws are much more susceptible to corruption than those of nature, as the opportunity to hunt or be hunted seems more democratic than the constant levying of interest by the headsman upon fellow villagers. Furthermore, the jungle provides much of the mythological sustenance of this community and as readers we witness a gradual dissipation of such as modernity begins to infiltrate the region.