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Ursule, an amazing heroine: Dionne Brand’s literary representation of Caribbean women in slavery. Jerome Teelucksingh University of Trinidad and Tobago Dionne Brand, an Afro-Trinidadian, residing in Canada is an award-winning and internationally recognized poet and novelist. Her historical novel "At the Full and Change of the Moon" seeks to present a different perspective of slavery. Caribbean history books have overwhelmingly focused on male slaves involved in riots and rebellions. Brand sought to overturn these patriarchal stereotypes in her unique novel. The story begins in Trinidad in 1824 with the plan of Marie Ursule to lead her fellow plantation slaves in an act of mass suicide. Ursule is portrayed, by Brand, as a natural leader who earns the respect of men and is seen in the slave society as a "queen of rebels" who has lost an ear in a failed rebellion of 1819. The dispersal of Ursule’s relatives is symbolic of the uprootedness caused by slavery. Interestingly, the females portrayed in the novel are able to appreciate and understand their surroundings whilst the male characters are either apathetic or less aware of their surroundings.
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