Individual and Society in the novel of Paule Marshall’s The Chosen Place and The Timeless People

Abstract

Paule Marshall"s The Chosen Place, The Timeless People examines Caribbean historical and socio-economic development by presenting a relationship between two women, one Black, one White, whose legacies and destinies are bound by the peculiar history of gender relationships, characteristics of slavery and the plantation. The novel links the Caribbean historical experience to the racialist ideology of the American South and the northern entrepreneurial sprit that profited from the slave trade. The Chosen Place, The Timeless People is a complex novel, rich in varied characters and situations. It is set in Bournehills, a small village in the fictional Caribbean territory of Bourne Island, which is home to a people whose courage to struggle against their poverty and misfortunes rests on their deep roots in the Caribbean landscape and its history.