Portrayal of the Other in Dalit and Aboriginal Women's Writings: A Study of M.M. Vinodini's "Suicide of a Villain" and Jackie Huggins' "Wedmedi, if only you Knew"

Dalit and Australian Aboriginal writers have been writing to dismantle the prejudiced representation by the dominant sections to construct their identities based on their experiences. They not only re-formulate themselves but also re-present the Other. Quite often, this representation shatters the prevalent notions and imaginations and becomes a means of critical inquiry. Be it the construction of history from an Aboriginal woman's perspective or a comment on the contemporary controversies from a Dalit woman's perspective--Aboriginal and Dalit women writers have come up with a new language and thought to understand gender politics. This paper proposes to examine how Dalit and Aboriginal women writers have presented the Other from a different perspective unveiling the hidden histories based on the collective experience and collective memories of their people. It focuses on M.M. Vinodini's short story "Suicide of a Villain" and Jackie Huggins' essay "Wedmedi, if only You Knew" for its analysis.