Devu or The Unsuitable Girl

Abstract

This is a book length narrative of a young girl, Devu, growing up in British India, set between 1922, when she is born, and 1945 when she gives birth to her daughter. Devu is not special. But like everyone she holds her own happiness paramount; unfortunately, there are not a few impediments to achieving this happiness. Poor, fatherless, and practically brotherless, she has grown up on the fringes of her sisters’ homes, a poor relative working herself to the bone to be valued. And in a society where the only prospect for a young woman is to be married off before she is fifteen, it looks like Devu is on her way to being permanently shelved. She has no recourse – this is caste-riven India, the land of arranged marriages and crippling marriage costs. It is enjoined upon Hindu parents to have their daughters married off, but what is one to do with unsuitable girls? The thesis represents Part IV, namely Chapter 35-45 of ‘Devu’ or ‘The Unsuitable Girl,’ and is set between 1939 and 1945. It begins with Devu slipping into a private dreamworld as she starts to suspect she will never be married. Chapters 36-45 show the events and experiences that shape her character as she comes of age. Devu’s birth forms the prologue of the novel. It is mirrored by the epilogue which is the birth of Devu’s daughter.