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An Outcast of the People is a novella written by Bithia Mary Croker which first appeared in her anthology Jungle Tales (1913)[1]

Historical Context

This story primarily deals with the role of widows within Indian culture during the turn of the twentieth century. The main character is a young girl who loses her husband and is in turn, ostracized. While she constantly contemplates the act of sati (

suttee), she is unable to commit to the practice because of internal conflict as well as the act being made illegal across the whole of India by Queen Victoria
in 1861. British colonists had been trying to regulate and limit the amount of sati for nearly one hundred years with little success until the queen’s law went into effect. Widows are often treated as “untouchables” the lowest level of the
caste system
. They face lives of begging and destitution with little to no outside aid.

Bithia Mary Croker spent fourteen years of her life in India and Burma while married to a lieutenant colonel of the Royal Scots Navy. During these years (1877-1892) she recorded her experiences and interactions with the local culture. She began writing romance novels which were engulfed with foreign culture and landscapes.[2]

Plot Summary

Jasoda is a seventeen year old beautiful girl living by the

Rohilcund. She lives a privileged life because she is married to the young heir of a rich Thakur
, Sapona. While Jasoda appears completely content to the rest of the village, she is secretly harassed and beat behind closed doors by her abusive husband. When the rainy season comes and Sapona falls quite ill, Jasoda is not at all saddened. He eventually succumbs to his illness and dies, leaving Jasoda a widow. Indian culture does not look favorably upon widows and Jasoda’s life is abruptly reduced to nothing. She has her head shaved, her grandiose clothes removed, her jewelry is seized and even her own grandmother laments her. ““The shadow of a widow is to be dreaded, and – it is the custom, it is our religion,” muttered the old woman, as if speaking to herself.” Jasoda reflects on how the days of suttee must have been better. She believes dying instantly and in an honorable way would be better than subjecting herself to years of torment and abuse at the hands of society as well as her own family. Jasoda romantically daydreams about going up in flames with a crowd loudly cheering her on as to muffle her screams.

Jasoda is taken in by her brother, Padooram, the richest man in the entire

pergunnah. There she lives with him as well as her father and stepmother, both of their married daughters, and all of their children. Jasoda is forced to be a servant to all of her family. She arises each day at dawn to start drawing water from the wells and grounding meal. She does all of the laundry while tending the children, even milks the buffalo and herds the cattle. One day, one of the families’ bulls falls ill and is unable to plough the fields. Padooram places the yoke
on Jasoda’s shoulders and forces her to plough the fields with the oxen. She is hardly kept from starvation and receives only rags to wear. The one source of compensation Jasoda receives comes in the form of lustrous looks and comments from the other men in the village. Her ill-tempered sister-in-law, Jooplee, hates her for this reason and treats Jasoda especially poorly.

As the days go on, Jasoda’s mood starts to turn darker. “…she oscillated between fits of hot passion, and moods of cold obstinacy.” She begins to hate her own family and feels cursed for having been born with such misfortune. Jasoda cannot understand why uglier girls in the village have husbands and property of their own while she is half starved and wearing rags. Her morale reaches an all-time low, and Jasoda is now on the verge of doing something drastic. While napping in the sugar cane fields one afternoon, Jasoda is rudely awakened by Jooplee’s young daughter, Taramonnee, who warns Jasoda to get back to work or else face her parent’s wrath. With a nudge of her foot, Taramonnee sets Jasoda off who quickly grasps a nearby stone and throws it at Taramonnee striking the child in her head. When Jasoda realizes Taramonnee is dead, she drags the body to a nearby well and tosses it down. Jasoda returns home that evening and cooks dinner for the family as usual, while Jooplee begins to inquire about Taramonnee. Inquiry turns to panic, and by nightfall all of the neighbors have formed a search party. Jasoda knows she is doomed, and decides to stay and await her fate rather than run away. Jasoda has become “weary of life” and does not see a reason to prolong it.

The next morning, Taramonnee’s body is discovered and the village Hakim rules her death a murder. After a brief trial, Jasoda is sentenced to be hanged, a fate much more shameful than sati. News spreads fast to neighboring villages that a girl will soon be hanged, and many come from miles away to view the spectacle which is described as a grand tamasha. Jasoda gives her final unforgiving words to the crowd before she is executed. After the body is cut down, Jasoda’s grandmother refuses to touch it because of her social class and does not want it prepared for a proper funeral. The family goes on to live miserably without Jasoda because she had once taken care of every chore around the house, and Jasoda is only remembered as the girl who was hanged by the rest of the village.

Characters

Jasoda – The protagonist of the story. A beautiful young girl who loses her husband at an early age, and faces an extremely difficult life as a result.

Sapona – Jasoda’s husband. Although he is the son of a rich man who provides his wife with elegant clothing and jewelry, his death results in Jasoda becoming the most hated woman in the village.

Padooram – Jasoda’s brother and owner of the house where the entire family lives. He is the richest man around yet treats his sister like a slave, subjecting her to physical and emotional abuse.

Jooplee – Padooram’s wife and Jasoda’s sister in law. Jooplee is extremely jealous of Jasoda’s good looks as well as the attention they draw from neighboring men. It is because of her own jealousy that Jooplee treats Jasoda especially cruelly.

Taramonnee – Jooplee’s daughter. She is an evil spirited child that takes joy in watching Jasoda be tied and beaten. After years of torment, it does not take much for Taramonnee to push Jasoda over the edge, a mistake that would prove to be fatal for her.

Themes

Widows – Jasoda is made a widow from an early age and lives a life of destitution because of it. She consistently mocked and physically abused all, including her own family. This type of behavior would not be uncommon for widows to endure in India at the turn of the century.[3]

Suttee – In India and the surrounding areas, including some Asian countries, the practice of Sati was an honorable act of loyalty. Many would rather be remembered in an honorable way than bring years of shame to themselves and their families alike.[4]

The New Woman – Jasoda’s strong willpower and drive to be something “more” is reminiscent of the idea of the

new woman, a popular theme among romance novels of the nineteenth and twentieth century. While adhering to her own customary patriarchal role, Jasoda’s radical change of behavior at the end of the story indicates the turn she’s taken towards becoming a “new woman.”[5]


Critical Reception

As with many of her stories, this novel deals with romantic struggles in and around India. Many of the themes within her stories were native to her own life but taking place in a foreign land. Croker’s writings were considered highly insightful at the time of their publications and her romantic jungle stories became quite popular. Having spent so much of her life in India herself, there was an authenticity to Croker’s stories that could not be found anywhere else. [6] This story in particular follows Croker's common trend of a young girl facing trials and tribulations resulting from her relationship to a local.

  1. ^ http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007656531?type%5B%5D=all&lookfor%5B%5D=bithia%20mary%20croker&filter%5B%5D=authorStr%3ACroker%2C%20B.%20M.%20d.%201920&ft=ft
  2. ^ http://www.academia.edu/1856429/_Bithia_Mary_Croker_and_the_Ghosts_of_India_
  3. ^ http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/the-ongoing-tragedy-of-indias-widows
  4. ^ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/575795/suttee
  5. ^ http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/diniejko1.html
  6. ^ http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.mul.missouri.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f4dd85c5-0cab-4d23-8e10-7a5c9a9b2e86%40sessionmgr4005&vid=3&hid=4104
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