Portrayal of women in Miguel street

Naipaul's presentation of women characters in Miguel Street is more positive than it is

negative. Naipaul’s women are hardworking, forward looking and caring as well as strong
and domineering. However, some are passive while others are morally depraved and lacking
in business acumen.

To begin with women are portrayed as hardworking. A classic example is that of Popo's
wife who is depicted as a hardworking woman and she is at first the breadwinner of the
family. While she worked to sustain the family, Popo, her husband “made the thing without a
name.” He is little perturbed by this kind of set-up and justifies his idleness by holding that,
“women and them like work Man not made for work” (19). When Popo is imprisoned
however for having stolen things and resold them, Emelda, survives his imprisonment by
going against all the speculations that she would leave Miguel Street and she stays and
doubles up her workload, which in turn proves her an industrious. Evidently, the reader
commiserates with the wife and not the husband. On the same footing, George's wife works
in the house and the yard while he “sat on the front concrete step outside the open door of his
house” (27). Through the use of dialogue, the reader’s sympathy for George's wife is solicited
by the text when Boyee declares that she dies as a result of her husband's brutality.

Some women are forward looking and caring. The narrator's mother is a positive image of
women. She stands on her two feet for her son. She envisages a better life for him and
therefore she is not an escapist. Through her verbal exchange with narrator she points that he
is becoming “too wild”. She is conscious of the culture of escapism flooding Miguel Street
and its dangers in arresting her son’s progressive instincts. The narrator’s mother is the one
who raises him after his father dies and the one who disciplines him, provides for him and
now seeks to lead his future, to prevent him from spiraling downwards into the paralysis and
stagnant foreclosure his environment provides. She is determined to have him escape from
the confines of Miguel Street Though the narrator felt disgusted by the escapism of the street,
it is his mother who suggests that he escape to London. He had awoken to the escapist
mentality of Miguel street residents as he says he “looked critically at the people around
him”. It is his mother though who gets him a scholarship to study “drugs” in London.
Women are also presented as strong and domineering. Though satire, Naipaul is able to
show Mrs Morgan as domineering as she towers over her husband and reduces him to his
level when she finds him with another woman. She stands her ground as a strong woman and
does not retreat when confronted with masculine violence. Whilst her domineering character
should have elicited the ire of the readers it instead calls for the audience’s support and
sympathy while they feel angry with Morgan for his irresponsible behaviour. Again, the
dominance of women is displayed in The Thing Without a Name. Women are not
“domesticated” as the ideal society would have it, and their being in the working world
seemingly undermines the stereotypes of a woman’s ‘place’ and the workings of a patriarchal
society. Her departure epitomizes her liberation from the shackles of male dominance, as it is
only after she leaves Popo that her name, Emelda, is introduced into the story and she is no
longer solely referred to as “Popo’s wife”. In Maternal Instinct, after the birth of her seventh
child, of whom Nathaniel is the father, Laura tries to make him leave, but he is determined on
staying, even after being abused openly and being locked out of the house many a time. She
is adamant however, “you think because you give me one baby, you own me…” and she
threatens to get the police, Nathaniel responds by asking her, “but who go mind your
children?” and Laura displays herself not only as a strong female figure, but also as a self
sufficient individual, with her response, “that is my worry. I don’t want you here. You is only
another mouth to feed. And if you don’t leave me right now I go go call Sergeant Charles for
you” (p. 86-87). Here, Laura is presented as a strong willed and independent woman, who
would rather be alone than be dependent on a man. Laura also reveals her strength when her
daughter Lorna is faced with a pregnancy. Though she cries vehemently after hearing the
news of the pregnancy, when Lorna commits suicide after giving birth, Laura is unmoved by
the occurrence and in fact thought that that fate was better for her daughter, “it good. It good.
It better that way” (p.89). Laura epitomizes the figure of anti-feminism, in that her ability to
raise her children alone has gained her the respect of the street and she literally kicks the men
out of her home and life, not the typical situation of the men walking out. She is strong,
independent, industrious and very capable all characteristics not generally ascribed to
women.

The text also promotes the traditional stereotypical view that women are their worst enemies.
Women in Miguel Street, to a large extent dislike each other. All the women in the text take
an immediate dislike to the women brought to the street by Hat and Edward Mrs Morgan and
Mrs Bhakcu considered Dolly, Hat’s wife “a lazy good-for nothing” (209).
Women are portrayed as not only shallow but also passive. Dolly, George’s daughter, is
portrayed as a shallow character who suffers at the tyranny of her father. She allows herself
to be dictated to without showing any resistance. Her acceptance of her condition is portrayed
through the symbolism of growing fat. The narrator says she seemed to thrive on the blows.
Her fattening clearly shows her acceptance of her domination and her abuse, no wonder her
father marries her off to Razor without raising any eyebrows. Even though she almost throws
gravel at her father in anger. She is more escapist than her brother Elias and succumbs to her
father's brutality unquestionably. She is passive and fits in with stereotypical images of
women. Mrs Hereira adopts at first the stereotypical image of women. She has reconciled
herself in the beginning to masculine invasion as she felt this was what was expected of her
by the society. She, however, undergoes character transformation as the narrative progresses.

Whereas most of the women characters in this text exhibit positive characteristics, some are
escapist. Laura remains an escapist character throughout the story. She is in the direction of
the author’s satirical barbs. The reader sees in Laura, a woman who has turned her back to the
harsh reality of her life. She does not do anything to prevent herself from falling into a moral
and economic abyss. She rejoices in child bearing and interprets her entanglements with
different men as a sign of strength. Her life remains a mystery to the little narrator. The
author's position, it appears, is that Laura is a woman crippled by her own escapism and
therefore succumbs to the deceptive skills of men to gam her sustenance. She escapes from
her own reality instead of doing something to arrest her fall. However, the author, in a way,
sympathises with Laura as he asks: “But who could Laura look to for money to keep her
children?” The rhetorical question makes the readers share in the writer’s sympathy but not in
a simplistic way given that she could have been more responsible with her sexuality. Some
readers may frown on her escapist attitude as it borders on immorality and carelessness. Her
actions taint the young Lorna thus creating a vicious circle of moral depravity in the family.

Despite this positive presentation, the image of women as sex objects still looms large in the
text. A number of women, presumably prostitutes, occupy George’s house with the
Americans after his wife’s exit. Eddoes brings in a stray woman to Bogart's house in the
latter’s absence. Laura is a sex symbol Mrs Hereira, Mrs Popo, Edward's woman, Eddoes'
and Hat's are portrayed as having loose moral values and therefore run away from their
husbands. These women are presented as emotionally unstable people whose lives are
directionless within the text.
Naipaul confines his women characters, though, to a large extent strong, to reproductive
duties. Popo's wife works in a house. Though she is a redeemable image of a woman, she is
later portrayed as a morally loose woman who elopes with the gardener of the “big house”.
She is shown to put material considerations before love and thus returns to Popo when he
appears to be doing well economically. Mrs Morgan may have been stronger than her
husband, Morgan, but truth remains that she has borne 10 children even though Morgan
suspects their paternity. The narrator uses graphic description of how he watched Laura’s
stomach grow for months before it became flat for some and the cycle is repeated 8 times. As
if that is all,

Nevertheless women are also resigned to their subservient role in the text. Mrs Bhakcu lives
in reverence of her husband. She is seen sometimes to engage in a war of words with Mrs
Morgan. She has willingly receded to her subordinate position and has reconciled herself to
masculine violence. Through the symbol of the cricket bat, the writer shows that she seems to
have subscribed to the assumptions of a male-dominated culture that sanctions wife beating.
She is seen to keep the cricket bat Bhakcu usually beats her with “clean and well-oiled” and
cannot lend it to Boyee (154).

Women are also portrayed as greedy and materialistic. When Popo‟s wife returns to Miguel
Street, Hat is disgusted; “You see the sort of thing woman is…You see the sort of thing they like.
Not the man. But the new house paint up, and all the new furniture inside it. I bet you if the man
in Arima had a new house and new furnitures, she wouldnta come back with Popo.”

Women in Miguel Street are portrayed as lacking “business minds”. Mrs Bhakcu’s idea of
the lorry which she “made the husband to buy” (157) does not bear any fruit. The taxis she
consequently buys do not have any economic returns. Her other business ventures also fail:
rearing of hens, selling of bananas and oranges. Through the child narration, the author
reveals that she embarked on these business projects “for her own enjoyment than for the
little money it brought in” (163).

Apparently, Naipaul's treatment of Laura's case seems to limit the possibilities for women to
attain economic breakthroughs. Implicit in this portrayal is the patriarchal feeling that a
woman does not have other alternatives when pushed to the fringe of society. Lorna, commits
suicide when she falls into the same trap Laura does not reconcile herself to her daughter’s
predicament and drives Loma to her death. While men who reach a dead end in their lives
within the text have many options, for instance, leaving the street, Lorna does not have. She
is excommunicated by the mother Men have resources to escape to more enabling
environments, while women in this text do not have. Because of the way she was socialized
within the society, Lorna could not see escape to other lands as a solution like Morgan, Big
Foot, Edward and the narrator.

Furthermore, their illiteracy made them to be more naïve encountering the social happenings.
They did not have the right to study or to be educated their roles were to work hard inside or
outside house even sometimes instead of their husbands and bear them offspring. For a good
instance in chapter five it is evident that Man-Man who went mad mentioned that he had
spoken with God previous night and who called himself new Messiah which by this
domination wanted to crucify himself in the street the same as the Jesus most of the women
had accepted him and cried for him. “When Man-Man appeared, looking very thin and very
holy, women cried and rushed to touch his gown.” (P. 53)

In conclusion, it can be noted that Naipaul presents women characters in his first work,
Miguel Street, more positively than men. The writer, it is arguable, raises the consciousness
of women to the vulnerability of men. The women characters generally stand above men and
at times play stereotypical men's roles. Though a patriarchal attitude looms large in the
background of the text, Naipaul laughs at the escapism of men and therefore destroys the
myth of their superiority status over women. Though both sexes are seen to be conservative
and escapist, he is more on the side of women than that of men. He, however operates from a
patriarchal orientation as he depicts women whose locus of activity is the home.