The Politics of Subaltern and Alterity: Constructing Third-world Femininities in Ru Freeman's A Disobedient Girl

As a classic post-colonial text, A Disobedient Girl by Ru Freeman is set in post-independence Sri Lanka that is still largely ravaged by various social conflicts. In the absence of direct colonial rule, the colonial political, legal and educational systems still exert their palpable influences on Sri Lankan life. When this problem is unsettlingly complicated by gender and class, the situation becomes increasingly complex for Sri Lankan women, who unfortunately get trapped in multiple dilemmas and have to respond in a more radical and intelligent manner. In the novel, Freeman manages to narrate the struggles of a mother and her daughter against these dominant forces in their life, as well as their eventual triumph in defying their arbitrarily defined status as "subaltern" and "alterity" and constructing alternative, more authentic femininities.