Introduction

Abstract

Taking Flight takes a closer look at the immigrant experience in contemporary Caribbean women’s writing and considers the effects of restrictive social mores. This introduction outlines aims of the book. One of these aims is to better understand the complex relationship between social norms and trauma. This approach is based on a close reading of literary representations of Caribbean women with particular attention to how female bodies are policed, how moral, racial, and sexual codes are linked, and how the enforcement of social norms can function as a form of trauma. The argument defines trauma as a “powerful indicator of oppressive cultural institutions and practices” and hinges on the idea that body and sexual politics operate as sources of trauma in the works under study (Vickroy 4). Taking Flight examines a selection of Caribbean women’s writing published since 1984. This introduction offers an overview of how the study is ordered. The chapters therein explore how diverse forms of trauma are related to the characters’ responses to societal pressures and focus on trauma stemming from the social control of sexuality, the navigation of racial identity, and the distress that follows migration, disease, and the violation of gender and sexual norms.