A discourse on double jeopardy in P. Sivakami’s A Grip of Change

The word ‘jeopardy’ stands for any danger of loss, harm, or failure which can in turn become a brutal experience as a human being. This deadlocked phenomenological nightmarish existence has the potential to make people experience a psychological turmoil. The term ‘double jeopardy’ was first used by Frances M. Beal in To Be Black and Female to denote the oppressive agents on women.

In a typical Indian context, ‘double jeopardy’ works at various levels, viz., identity, gender, race, caste, and class. Tamil society treats woman as guardian of tradition and relegates her in many formative decision-making issues. Simone de Beauvoir rightly states that “The laws of Manu defined woman - vile being to be held in slavery” (The Second Sex 91). Women experience the disadvantage of being a secondary gender. The double jeopardy possesses two stigmatized components in dealing women in subordinate position. In legal terms, it stands for dual punishment of a person accused. Women as an individual undergoes two unlegalized threats as subaltern and as female. In domestic environment, the typical Indian Tamil women face double jeopardy in their regular course of life. This paper aims to highlight how women are doubly jeopardised in terms of female and dalit in P. Sivakami’s A Grip of Change.

Keywords: jeopardy, phenomenology, stigma, Dalit, ‘double jeopardy’.