TEMPORAL INTERSECTIONALITY: AGE, MEMORY, AND FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS ACROSS THREE LITERARY TRADITIONS

Abstract

This paper examines the intersections of age, gender, and memory in shaping feminist consciousness across three literary traditions, focusing on the works of Alice Munro, Angela Carter, and C.S. Lakshmi (Ambai). Through a comparative lens, the study analyzes how different life stages influence women’s experiences of intersectionality. Munro’s older women protagonists demonstrate retrospective awareness, where memory becomes a means of negotiating past gendered constraints and asserting agency in later life. In contrast, Carter’s narratives often center on young women whose journeys toward self-discovery and resistance highlight the early formation of intersectional consciousness in the face of patriarchal and cultural structures. Ambai’s multi-generational narratives present a layered view, showing how feminist subjectivity evolves across time, with each generation negotiating new forms of vulnerability and strength. By situating these authors side by side, the paper argues that temporal positioning—youth, adulthood, and old age—significantly shapes the modes through which feminist awareness is articulated. The analysis underscores how memory, age, and intergenerational dialogue enrich our understanding of intersectionality as a dynamic, temporal process rather than a static condition. This comparative study contributes to feminist literary criticism by highlighting the temporal dimensions of intersectional experience and by demonstrating how diverse traditions engage with the complexities of gendered lives across time.