Dec 19, 2009
The Shadow Bride | The Shadow Bride
At a glance:
- Author: Roy A. K. Heath
- First Published: 1988
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The 1930’s
- Setting: British Guiana
- Principal Characters: Betta Singh, Mrs. Singh, Meena Singh, Aji, Mulvi Sahib, The Pujaree, Rani, Lahti, Sukrum
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Colonialism, Colonies or colonization, Suicide, Religion, 1930’s, Rape, Immigration or emigration, Guyana or Guyanese people, India or East Indian people, Health, Agriculture, Hindus or Hinduism, Malaria
- Locales: British Guiana
The Novel
Like most of Roy Heath’s novels, The Shadow Bride deals with the disintegration
of a single character. In this case that character is Mrs. Singh, a woman born in India but brought to
British Guiana as a bride when still an adolescent. The novel’s title suggests that Mrs. Singh
has left part of herself back in India and remains a “shadow” of herself throughout her
life. She symbolizes the problems of all East Indian immigrants living in Guiana, and in a certain sense
she symbolizes all first-generation immigrants everywhere, including Heath himself.
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[The entire page is 2229 words long]
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