Voice of the Oppressed in the Language of the Oppressor: A Discussion of Selected Postcolonial Literature from Ireland, Africa and America (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)

LITERARYCRITICISM AND CULTURAL THEORY

Edited by

William E. Cain Professor of English Wellesley College

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

WILLIAM E. CAIN.General Editor A COIACIDENCE OF WAATS The Novel anrl Neoclmsical Economics Charles Lewis MODER\PRI\~ITIT~ES Race and Language in Ger t r d e Stein, Ernest H e m i n p a y , and Zora Neale Hiir ston Susanna Pavloska AND UGLY JAAES PLAIA The Rise of the Ugly W o m a n in Contempormy American Fiction Charlotte M. Wright

DISSENTISG FICTIOSS Identity and Resistance in the Contemporary American A70vel Cathy Moses PERFORMAG LAMESTIZA Textual Representations of Lesbims of Color anrl the Negotiation of Identities Ellen M. Gil-Gomez FRO\IGOODMATO WELFARE QUEEN A Genealogy of the Poor Woman in American Literature, Photogaphy and Cliltwe Vivyan C. Adair ARTFUL ITINERARIES European Art and American Careers in High Cliltlire, 1865-1 920 Paul Fisher POST~IODERS TALES OF SLAVERY IN THE A~IERICAS FROhI ALEJO CARPENTER TO CHARLES JOHSSON Timothy J. Cox

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

EMBODYIAGBEAUTY Twentieth-Centwy American Women's Writers' Aesthetics Malin Pereira IN THE WEST/ISDIES MAKISGHOLIES Constructions of Subjectivity in the Writings of lhfichelle Cliff and Jamaica Kiizcaid Antonia MacDonald-Smythe

MASQUERADES POSTCOLONIAL Cziltlire and Politics in Literature, Film, Video, anrl Photography Niti Sampat Pate1 OF SELF AND STORY DIALECTIC Reading and Storytelling in Contemporary American Fiction Robert Durante

ALLEGORIES OF VIOLENCE Tracing the Writings of Wc2r in Late Twentieth-Centwy Fiction Lidia Yuknavitch I S THE THEVOICEOF THE OPPRESSED LASGUAGE OF THE OPPRESSOR A Discussion of Selected Postcolonial Literatme from Ireland, Africa and America Patsy J. Daniels

THEVOICEOF THE OPPRESSED IN THE LANGUAGEOF THE OPPRESSOR A Discussion of Selected Postcolonial Literature from Ireland, Africa a n d America

Patsy J. Daniels

Routledge New York & London Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Published in 2001 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE

Routledge is ari irriprirzt of the Taylor & Frarzcis G r o q Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Copyright O 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daniels, Patsy J., The voice of the oppressed in the language of the oppressor : a discussion of selected postcolonial literature from Ireland, Africa, and America / Patsy J. Daniels. p. cm. - (Literary theory and cultural criticism) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-415-93691-8 1. American fiction-Minority authors-History and criticism. 2. Yeats, W.B. (William Butler), 1865-1939-Political and social views. 3. American fictionWomen authors-History and criticism. 4. American fiction-20th centuryHistory and criticism. 5. Joyce, James, 1882-1941-Political and social views. 6. Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924-Views on imperialism. 7. Achebe, ChinuaPolitical and social views. 8. Minority women in literature. 9. Decolonization in literature. 10. Imperialism in literature. 11. Postcolonialism. I. Title. 11. Series PS153.M56 D36 2001 810.9'920693-dc21 2001019964

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Contents

Acknowledgments Preface I CHAPTER Introduction: Making Connections Ireland Africa America

CHAPTER I1 Yeats: Recovering History CHAPTER I11 Joyce: Voicing Paralysis CHAPTER IV Conrad: Questioning The Empire CHAPTER V Achebe: Revising History CHAPTER VI Kingston And Tan: Inventing One's Own Culture, Making One's Own Luck CHAPTER VII Morrison And Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing A Voice CHAPTER VIII Cisneros And Castillo: Resisting The Oppressor, Writing A Liberation

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER I)< Erdrich And Silko: Joining Heaven And Earth, Changing The Ceremony X CHAPTER Conclusion: Slicing The Pie The Construction Of Identity A New Model The Role Of Language And Literature The Role Of The Reader

Works Cited

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Acknowledgments

T SEEMS 4PPROPRI4TE TO OFFER SOME VERBAL APPRECI4TION FOR THE HELP

1 HAVE

received while working on this project. Professors Jim Cahalan, Ron Emerick, and Karen Dandurand have generously offered me their expertise, their advice, and their support. My husband, Jerry Jackson, deserves thanks for his emotional support; in addition, both he and my mother-inlaw, Dorothy Jackson, have provided ongoing assistance by giving me relief from other responsibilities during this endeavor. My daughter, Danielle Jackson, has inspired me. My friend and colleague Janet Lane has been my email cheering squad, which I needed at times in order to get back to work. My mother, Retha Daniels, was my first teacher, of course, and she instilled in me the importance of education. Without that belief, I never would have gone this far. Therefore, she receives primary acknowledgment. Finally, to all my teachers-past, present, and future-in all their many guises-I am grateful.

vii Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Preface

A

COLLE4GUE 4SI<ED lLrHY

1 1L1A\T

TO CO\NECT lLrHITE MALE MODERNISTS lLrlTH

colored female postmodernists i n literature. T h e quick answer, o f course, is that I'm using what I've already read. But that's n o t t h e whole story. As I was reading Yeats, Conrad, Achebe, and Joyce; Erdrich, Silko, Morrison, Castillo, Kingston, and Tan, I was making connections i n m y m i n d . I think one o f m y students has been t h e inspiration. She is biracial and female, standing at t h e edges o f t w o cultures but belonging fully t o neither, and since she started life w i t h a n expressive language delay, having n o voice o f her o w n , I o f t e n think about her future. So everything I read is through her eyes and t h e eyes o f others like her. In order for this student, and others like her, t o b e fully functioning members o f whatever world t h e y will inherit, despite race, gender, or voice, a multicultural society seems necessary; and, as her teacher and advisor, I naturally want only t h e best for her. M y experience as a white teacher at a historically black university and a historically black college has given m e even more inspiration, as I work w i t h students for w h o m m a n y doors have n o t opened. For seven years I myself have experienced being i n t h e minority o n campus. Reportedly, t h e Buddha, w h e n asked, " H o w can I learn t o love m y enemies?" replied that w e should start w i t h something easy-our children-and m o v e outward f r o m there. Representatives o f other cultures or viewpoints are certainly n o t enemies, but I , and others, m a y have been guilty o f a n indifference based o n ignorance. Seeing t h e world through literature (since I profess t o b e a literary critic) and through t h e eyes o f m y students has actually opened m y eyes t o t h e need for a n attempt b y people o f all backgrounds and cultures t o cross boundaries and reach out t o others. I believe that m y students will d o that-and I believe that each o f t h e writers i n this study has done just that.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER I

Introduction: Making Connections

T

HE LITERATURE THAT \ \ E HA\D DO\\ \ TO FUTURE GE\ERATIONS IS THE LITERATURE

that we value, usually because it has something important to tell us, some universal truth. While they started from marginalized positions, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and Joseph Conrad have now long been considered authors whose works say something that is important for us to understand, remember, and pass on to our offspring. With the recent opening up of the literary canon, other postcolonial works, such as Chinua Achebe's novels, have become literature that is deemed important. Even though Conrad and Yeats wrote a hundred years ago, Joyce eighty years ago, and Achebe fifty years ago, academics still consider what they had to say valuable enough to teach to the next generation. But what is the connection between their writings and contemporary American literature? The connection is similar to a postcolonial genealogy: Yeats looked into the past and prophesied the future and, with Joyce and other Irish writers, invented a unified Irish society that could then resist English oppression; Conrad, even as he was also implicated in it, revealed the brutality of European colonization of Africa; and Achebe revised the history that he read in Conrad's work. Contemporary American literature, especially that written by women and especially that written by female members of a minority ethnic group, follows the examples that these earlier writers provided. Writing also in English, contemporary American minority women writers stand-like Yeats, Joyce, Conrad, and Achebe-on the edges of two cultures, belonging fully to neither. They have recovered the past and revised it to suit their purposes of inventing a cultural space from which to speak, as did Yeats and Joyce; they have revealed the oppression they have experienced at the hands of both the dominant culture and male members of their own culture, as did Conrad; and they have spoken to the world to revise their own history, as did Achebe.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

4

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

But Yeats, Joyce, and Conrad have been appropriated by English literature as "British" modernists, a literary movement that was dominated by white males, leaving many other types of people out of the picture. When Achebe attempted to correct this situation by speaking up for Africans, he left out African women. Contemporary American minority women writers have followed their examples, but with one difference: since they are in the lowest category of existing power structures in the United States, there is no one left to exclude. These women suggest a harmony among ethnicities that was lacking in the work of the earlier males. Even as they reveal their double oppression of race and gender, these women writers anticipate a blending of cultures that the men did not foresee. Further, each oppressed group represented by the writers examined here has been forced to use the language and ideology of the dominant culture. In each case, the language is English, but the Irish writers had to speak from the patriarchal and imperialist ideology that they lived in and by which they were appropriated. Conrad invented himself as a member of the white male elite of England and criticized the colonization of Africa with the language and through the ideology of imperialism. In addition, Achebe had to use the platform of imperialist literature in order to revise the history of Africans as written in literature in English. And contemporary American minority women writers have had to speak from the milieu of patriarchy and dominance in order to have their postmodern voices heard. About a hundred years ago, William Butler Yeats and James Joyce were Irish writers who deeply felt their marginalization by the colonizing English; Joseph Conrad, a contemporary of Yeats and Joyce, was a Polish writer who was similarly oppressed by the Russians; Chinua Achebe, a twentieth-century Nigerian writer, is from another culture oppressed by English imperialism, the Igbo culture, or a "Third-World" culture, as former colonies are sometimes called. Yeats, Joyce, and Conrad are considered "modernist" writers; it was in reading these modernists that Achebe found that he was further marginalized, even though Nigeria had gained its independence from England, and "wrote back" to "the empire." Further, in the United States today, we have what some call an "internal Third World," citizens who have won civil rights, but who are nonetheless marginalized by the dominant culture. This internal Third World comprises four major groups: Asian Americans, African Americans, Americans from a Spanish-speaking culture designated by the United States as Hispanics, and the American Natives, who occupied this continent before the Europeans invaded. In this study these groups are represented respectively by writers Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo, and Louise Erdrich and Leslie Marmon Silko. What do these writers, from such widely varied backgrounds, covering a hundred years, have in common? Each of these writers has used a public voice to critique the hegemonic culture, to "invent" a culture that straddles or blurs boundaries in order to find a space

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

5

from which to speak. Each has used a public voice issuing from that space to "write back" to the "empire" which has kept them marginalized. Their connection has several strands: each writer uses the language of the oppressor to manufacture or invent a cultural space for himself or herself from which to speak. Each writer uses that space to find a voice with which to critique the oppressive culture. When Yeats, Joyce, and Conrad found such a space for themselves, it was swallowed up by the hegemonic culture, closing the door, so to speak, against persons of color. When Achebe found such a space for himself, it was not swallowed up by the dominant culture, but his work has been increasingly included in the canon of Anglophone literature; however, Achebe, in inventing his culture of overlapping or blurred boundaries, did not do justice to half of his people: the women. Contemporary women writers of color are now seeking such a speaking voice and space for themselves. In the recent debate over the literary canon and reaction against the white, male view of New Criticism, several ideologies have arisen, predominantly poststructuralism. Under poststructuralism are subsumed other ideologies: postcolonialism, feminism, and postmodernism, to name a few. According to Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson, if poststr~ict~iralist ideologies have "a summarising idea it is the theme of the absent centre" (178). These three ideologies in particular-postcolonialism, feminism, and postmodernism-overlap, and a major point of intersection among them is that each is complicitous in the hegemonic system that it critiques. For example, the modernism of Yeats, Joyce, and Conrad critiqued the imperial position even as it spoke from that system; postcolonialism springs from the literature of empire and speaks its language; feminism uses patriarchy as a platform from which to speak against the patriarchy; postmodernism is based on modernism, but takes its tenets a step further. To refer to Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas of speech genres, it is easy to compare each successive ideology to an utterance in a chain of communication and to show that, basically, each ideology uses the "language" of the oppressing ideology to speak in the voice of the oppressed, just as each individual author has done in using English, the language of the oppressor. Another connecting strand is the shift from the modernist "individual" to the postmodernist "subject." This subject is doubled as subject-agent in the postmodernism of the women writers considered here, and their particular brand of postmodernism includes other doublings: of voice, of vision, of consciousness. Some of their texts resist interpretation of a reader from outside the culture of the text, but this can be useful in promoting community. These women take some of their cues from the earlier male writers. But contemporary women of color extend the groundwork laid by the earlier men, to an idea of community. A further connection is the fact that there have been so many public quarrels among and about these writers. For instance, Joyce disagreed with Yeats's idea that art should be used in the service of politics; Achebe respond-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

6

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

ed directly to Conrad's Heart of Darkness and titled his first novel self-consciously after a Yeats poem. Some Asian American men have questioned whether the Asian American women writers considered in this study were honest in their portrayals of Asian and Asian American culture. Likewise, some African American men feel that they have been impugned in the writings of African American women, and some Latinos feel that they have been castigated by the writings of Latinas. There are further quarrels between Third-World women writers and the women writers of the internal Third World of the United States. In addition, some women of color reject feminism as an ideology because, they say, it is a practice for white women only. There seems to be a progression among these postcolonial authors, moving from modernism to postmodernism. In his early writing Yeats searched for the ancient legends and folktales of his people and wrote them into his literature, providing a body of literature that made the people into a community with a shared history in order to resist together the oppression of England. In his later years, Yeats became what is known as a "modern" writer, not abandoning his folklore, but striking out in new directions. James Joyce, too, is one of the "high modern" writers who looked for new forms of expression and rejected the traditional. Joseph Conrad is considered one of the great modernists, too, who seems to have anticipated many of the concerns of Yeats in Yeats's later, more prophetic writing. Chinua Achebe reacted vigorously to Conrad and connected his first novel self-conscio~islyto a Yeats poem, although his postcolonial style of writing is more like nineteenth-century realism than like modernism. While Achebe's work has come to be included more and more in the literary canon, he would never be considered, as a man of color, a part of the elite group of "high" modernists. In addition, since Achebe is significantly later than Yeats, Joyce, and Conrad and can be seen as both postmodern and postcolonial, he may well provide a link between the modernist men and the contemporary minority women writers. What these writers and their works have in common is their underlying concern with changing the world. Yeats wanted to consolidate the Irish people; Joyce wanted to show the paralysis of the psyche, society, and politics of Ireland; Conrad wanted to expose imperialism as brutal; and Achebe wanted to rewrite the history of his people for the eyes and ears of the world. While of course not singlehandedly, I believe that each of these writers, at least to some extent, accomplished his goal. Each of these writers found a space in the hegemonic culture by using the language of the oppressor. But the "radical conservation" of "arch-modernist T. S. Eliot," according to Selden and Widdowson, "hardened . . . into the hegemony of a self-incorporated modernism" (176). As each of these groups gradually attained a voice, other voices have begun to become heard, voices of women, "other" to half the world, and especially women of the so-called Third World. While Declan Kiberd shows that the Irish experience of resistance through literature and words has provided a model for Third World writers in decolonizing their own cultures, vis-a-vis Chinua Achebe, Fredric Jameson claims that there is an "interizal

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

7

Third World [with] . . . internal Third World voices" within the society of the United States; the examples he gives are "black women's literature or Chicano literature" (49). Other examples are Asian American and Native American literatures. Terry Dehay agrees that women of color have been marginalized by the dominant culture "in at least two important ways: as members of marginalized 'minority' groups and as women in a dominant white male culture" (27 ) . These two kinds of marginalization may be the lowest common denominators for these women writers of color. It is important to keep in mind that not all African Americans have the same cultural background or experience, but that they do have similar histories of enslavement and oppression within the dominant white culture of the United States. Similarly, Native Americans are not from identical cultural backgrounds or experiences; but they do have in common the experience of being shoved aside, their lands taken, their people decimated by disease, warfare, and other cruelties perpetrated by the European invaders. Asian Americans, too, are not all the same, being from cultures as diverse as Indian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and many others. But they, too, share the experience of being excluded by law and by practice from the hegemonic white culture of the United States. Latinas have the dubious distinction of being twice marginalized by the Europeans: first by the Spanish invaders, and later by the political interactions between Mexico and the United States. What these groups have in common within their group and with other marginalized groups is the experience of being "other" to the dominant culture in some form and, in some cases, being "other" within their own traditions. What these contemporary minority American women writers have in common with the earlier male writers is the search for roots (Yeats), the demonstration of oppression (Joyce), the exposure of imperialism (Conrad), and the rewriting of their own history (Achebe). In their struggle to manufacture a space for themselves from which to speak, they straddle the boundary between modernism and postmodernism, between patriarchy and feminism, and provide a multiplicity of perspectives or voices within each work. Even though Larry McCaffrey identifies it as November 22, 1963 (Ousby), most critics do not agree on an exact time and place for the ending of modernism and the beginning of postmodernism, nor do they even agree that postmodernism is essentially different from modernism, some holding the opinion that postmodernism is a continuance of or an intensification of modernism. But W. Lawrence Hogue explains it this way: TWOof the most common features of literary modernism are the radical rejection of history and the hostility between high art and mass culture. A writer imbued with the modernist spirit will be predisposed toward experiment, if only because he or she needs to make visibly dramatic his or her break from tradition . . . wants emancipation from all traditional social roles and traditional modes of servitude because

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

they keep the self stifled and imprisoned . . . aspires to save the dignity and autonomy of art and life from the culture of everyday life, from the vulgarities and contaminations of mass culture, and from the constraints of traditional culture, which denies individuality. (75) Hogue writes, too, that the "individual" is an invention of modernity. One feature of postmodernity, according to Hogue, is a "conscious effort to show how historical truths are socially and ideologically conditioned" (145), an effort to be found in each of the works considered here. He goes on to define postmodern literature as That literature which consciously exposes those narrative strategies, or the process, which would lead to totality, that would advocate an essence, a metaphysics, or a meta-narrative. . . . [Tlhat literature which constructs the subject as decentered, as possessing various subjective positions, or as a network of desires. . . . [Tlhe postmodern subject is free from all metaphysical narratives. . . . The trickster, who exists as a marginal figure in Native American, African American, and Asian American histories and cultures is a postmodern subject, with his multiple identities existing without a conflict. (152) While modernist writing frequently alludes to classical literature and other "high art," providing within itself the sense of an ordered universe that it professes to reject, postmodernism attempts to close the gap between the elite culture and the mass culture. While the white male modernists closed ranks and incorporated the body of modernist writing into literature for the elite, making modernism culturally specific, they also invented the idea of the individual. The difference between the modernist "individual" and the postmodernist "subject" is simply the difference between dominator and dominated. As Paul Smith explains in his Discerizirg the Subject, "The 'individual' is that which is undivided and whole, and understood to be the source and agent of conscious action or meaning which is consistent with it" (xxxiii-xxxiv). This definition is completely consistent with the views of the modernists. The postmodernism of the women considered here, however, moves from the modernist "individual" to "subject." Smith goes on to define the subject, too; he believes that it "is not self-contained, as it were, but is immediately cast into a conflict with forces that dominate it in some way or another-social formations, language, political apparatuses, and so on. The 'subject,' then, is determined-the object of determinant forces; whereas the 'individual' is assumed to be determining" (xxxiv). The subject is the female in a patriarchal system, while the individual would be the male in the same system. So women have had to critique the patriarchy first in regard to the agency of the subject female. Feminist ideology has provided the means for this critique, and Josette Feral believes that the feminist demand for equality

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

9

"is no doubt a necessmy precondition for a profound transformation of structures" (qtd. in P. Smith 141). In other words, women must first demand the right to be individuals before they are able to change the world. Smith believes that the feminist critique of the patriarchy has been effective; he writes, "Feminism. . . has been able to recognize the operations of subjectivity and ideology in a way at once more sophisticated and more appropriate to contemporary conditions than most of the other discourses or oppositional movements which have arisen" (152). Within the ideology of feminism, the "subject" is seen not just as dominated, but "also as an active and contestatory social agent" (152), providing a doubled aspect, "a view which counters the long and continuing history of (phallocratic) cerning of the 'subject"' (152). Smith goes on to explain that feminism comes from patriarchy and speaks the language of that oppressor: What's important here is that this paired subject-and-agent in feminism derives from the subject"'^ obeying the logic of its own oppression. That is, the interpellation of the "subject" into oppressed positions is not complete and monolithic; rathel; interpellation also produces contradiction and negativity. The necessary existence of various and different subject-positionsin the interpellated "subject" produces resistance to the logic of domination while still being in a sense part of, or a by-product of, that logic. (152) Negativity, according to Smith, carries heterogeneity. The feminist ideology has allowed the "subject" to become, in addition, agent, and has allowed that doubled subject-agent to resist the "individual" of the patriarchal hegemony from within the patriarchal framework. In his discussion of Julia Kristeva's work, Smith writes about her elaboration of "the relations between language, the 'subject,' and material process" and sums up, "The link of negativity which she establishes to carry, as it were, heterogeneity and to negotiate the finally 'indissoluble relation' between self and other, identity and difference, guarantees a simultaneous movement or negotiation between them" (160). In this simultaneous movement, we can find transformation. Feminism uses the patriarchal system as a vantage point or a "language" from which to critique and transform the system. The language trope here is useful; it allows us to consider feminism as an utterance, a link in the chain of communication, in Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of "speech genres." Bakhtin writes, "an utterance is a link in the chain of speech communication, and it cannot be broken off from the preceding links that determine it both from within and without, giving rise within it to unmediated responsive reactions and dialogic reverberations" (94). Modernism and postcolonialism, feminism and postmodernism can be seen as utterances in this chain of communications, with each mode of writing speaking the language of its previous oppressor.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

10

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Postmodern women of color write works that are inclusive of both high and low art and that reinforce the idea of community; postmodernism allows for multiculturalism, but many of the texts resist the reader's understanding. While white male modernists' texts required the active participation of the reader, the postmodernist texts of women of color resist the reader and require even more effort from the reader. When the reader is forced to seek an understanding of another culture or respect the boundaries of the text, a multic~ilt~iral attitude can be developed which can extend to an understanding of, or at least a respect for, additional cultures. The relationship between the writer and the reader, then, also undergoes transformation. Bakhtin writes that he always considers his audience when speaking: "the extent to which he is familiar with the situation, whether he has special knowledge of the given cultural area of communication, his views and convictions, his prejudices (from my viewpoint), his sympathies and antipathies-because all this will determine his active responsive understanding of my utterance" (95-96). He claims that "traditional stylistics" attempt to "understand and define style solely from the standpoint of the semantic and thematic content of speech and the speaker's expressive attitude towards this content" (97). But, he continues, if one wants to understand either the genre or the style of the communication, one must account for "the speaker's attitude toward the other and his utterances (existing or anticipated)" (97). Using our language trope for ideologies, we might see that Bakhtin is advocating multic~ilturalism when he writes: "A stylistic analysis that embraces all aspects of style is possible only as an analysis of the whole utterance, and only in that chain of speech communion of which the utterance is an inseparable link" (100). Postmodernism is subsumed under the poststructuralist ideology of the decenteredness of the subject, as are postcolonialism and feminism, with overlapping boundaries among the three. The major intersection among postmodernism, postcolonialism, and feminism is the idea that each is complicitous in the hegemonic system that it critiques. Postmodernism springs from modernism; postcolonialism has its roots in the literature of empire; and feminism must operate from within the patriarchy. Each of these three modes of writing uses the language of the oppressor, so to speak, but speaks in the voice of the oppressed. Each writer must begin with a history inherited from the white, male, elite voices and revise it to include herself, because the white male modernists struggled to include themselves but then closed the doors, and because a postcolonial writer like Achebe struggled to revise the history of his own people but left women foundering. The difference is that the women writers have not closed the doors to others, have not left others foundering; they have presented an ideology of inclusion. In using the language of the oppressor, they make themselves understood, not just amongst their own adherents, but also by the rest of the world. These women writers have not just joined the hegemonic culture; they are hard at work transforming it. The male writers considered earlier wanted to change the world, and they had a great degree of success for themselves; but the female

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

11

writers considered here, taking a cue from the earlier male writers, are busily transforming the world for themselves and for others. Yeats, Joyce, and Conrad did, indeed, manufacture a space for themselves i n the literary traditions o f the western world, but these traditions were elitist and culturally specific. In response, Achebe made great strides i n providing a realistic, postcolonial view o f Nigeria that successfully revised its history; Achebe's works have n o w joined the literary canon o f works considered b y the dominant culture t o be worthwhile t o preserve and pass o n t o the next generation. Tlzirgs Fall Apart can certainly be listed among postcolonial works as it brings "an awareness o f power relations between Western and 'Third-World' cultures" (Selden and Widdowson 187), even as it finds its source i n Western intellectual traditions, seeking t o "undermine the imperialist subject" (188). In this discussion, Chapter Two looks at Yeats's life and works from the viewpoint that h e initiated a process o f decolonization o f the mind through his recovery o f ancient Celtic traditions, his establishment o f a literary society, and his use o f creative writing t o bring about a political end. In Chapter Three, James Joyce, w h o disagreed with Yeats about the use o f literature i n the service o f politics, is shown t o speak t o the world about the paralyzed and dependent situation o f the Irish people under English oppression through his stories i n Diibliners. Joseph Conrad and his Heart of Darkness are discussed i n Chapter Four as representing a n e w and singular voice against the European colonization o f Africa. In Chapter Five, we see that Chinua Achebe provides a different view o f the same imperial situation i n Africa that Conrad's novel exposes as brutal oppression i n Achebe's response to Conrad, Things Fc211 Apart. One aspect o f postmodernity is the shift from the "individual" o f modernity t o the "subject." Another aspect is use o f the trickster figure found i n m a n y texts b y writers from minority cultures. Amritjit Singh, Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr., and Robert E. Hogan focus o n Ba'al Shem Tov's idea o f memory as "the secret o f redemption" for ethnic authors ( qtd. i n Singh, Skerrett and Hogan 3 ) . Examples o f a postmodernist move from individual to subject and use o f the trickster and the memory to claim a space from which to speak can be found i n works o f Asian American, African American, Latina, and Native American authors. In Chapter Six, a look at Maxine Hong Kingston's Tlze Woinar~Warrior shows h o w Kingston invents her o w n cultural space and finds her o w n voice; some o f the characters i n Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Clzib find voices and reconcile their cultural space, while some o f t h e m are denied a voice. Chapter Seven explores fiction o f two African American women. Toni Morrison's Pecola i n The Blziest Eye never finds a voice nor a space from which t o speak, and Morrison shows us why; o n the other hand, Alice Walker's Celie i n The Color Purple not only finds a voice, but also finds a writing voice. Chapter Eight explores novels b y two Chicana writers. Sandra Cisneros's Esperanza i n The House on M m g o Street finds her redemption through writing; Ana Castillo's protagonist i n So Far From God, Sofia, loses all Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

12

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

her daughters but gains a voice. The Native American is represented in Chapter Nine. Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine examines attempts at syncretism, and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony demonstrates how cultural change and empowerment can be brought about. The cultures that each of these women writers springs from are very different, and each writer must be considered an individual who tells her own story within the framework of her traditional background as well as her contemporary American experience. Even within each writer's ethnic group, there is not as much homogeneity as the grouping and labeling might suggest. While both Kingston and Tan are considered Asian American writers, in truth they are both Chinese Americans; the label of Asian American also includes Americans whose roots are in Japan, Korea, India, or any of the other Asian countries, each of which is distinct from the others. Therefore, Kingston and Tan cannot be considered as representing all Asian cultures. Indeed, there has been some question among Chinese Americans of whether either writer can represent the Chinese American community. But they both have the United States Chinese Exclusion Laws in their tradition, laws which allowed Chinese men into the United States to build railroads and other necessities of modern civilization but excluded their women, preventing them from establishing families or much of a community. Their experience includes the "other"ing of Asians in a Caucasian society. The common denominator is the oppression they have both experienced at the hands of the dominant culture. Similarly, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker cannot be thought of as representing all African Americans. The Africans who were brought to the North American continent in chains were gathered from many different African cultures, cultures which perhaps had little in common besides being on the same continent. Since they didn't know each other's language, they were forced to learn to communicate with each other in the language of the dominant culture. Because families were frequently separated, it has been difficult if not impossible for descendants of African slaves to know anything about their kinship with each other, but they all had the common experience of being traded as commodities and used as animals. After slavery in the United States was abolished, after Reconstruction, after the Jim Crow laws, these people still had no voice in society, were not allowed to vote for their representatives or to hold any position of leadership except within their own oppressed group. It took the protest movement in the 1960s that resulted in the Civil Rights Act to give them a toehold from which to climb upward into the dominant culture. But again, we must see these writers as individuals who share some experiences, but certainly not all. The Latina writers Ana Castillo and Sandra Cisneros again cannot be considered representatives of a single culture. We encounter some difficulty and disagreement about what label to attach to this group, some of whom became United States citizens only because of a political act: the moving of the border between Mexico and the United States. One day they were citizens

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

13

of a Spanish-speaking country at war with their northern neighbor, and the next they were citizens of an English-speaking country, having done nothing themselves to bring about the change. According to Lynn V. Foster, in 1835 "General Santa Anna . . . promised that all hostilities would cease and the Mexican army would withdraw south of the Rio Bravo (as the Rio Grande is known in Mexico)," signing also a secret agreement providing for his personal freedom (120). Foster continues, "An outraged Mexico refused to recognize either treaty" (120), but it was too late. The Mexicans who suddenly found themselves Americans naturally resented being forced into their new citizenship, and one wonders, based on the treatment of Mexican Americans by other Americans, whether the other Americans really welcomed the new citizens. In addition, the United States government has created the label "Hispanic" to cover anyone who has a Spanish-speaking background, including those descended directly from Spanish settlers in the United States, and the ChicanoiChicana labels created by a political group in the 1960s carry the connotation of a certain political stance and therefore cannot apply to all. In addition, Castillo writes about rural areas of the southwestern United States, while Cisneros's stories are set in the urban area of Chicago. Again, what Latinas have in common is their oppression by the dominant culture. While African Americans have been able to gain a place in the American culture, even to the point of being represented in television programs five times as often as one would expect from their proportion to all Americans (as reported by Diane Sawyer on ABC's "Prime Time Live," May 6, 1998), Asian Americans and Latinolas have very little representation in contemporary American mass culture. But Native Americans have none. They are almost completely silent in the dominant culture. They did not come to this continent to find a better life or to make money to send home, they were not brought here in chains, and they were not part of a political compromise between two governments. They were here first, before any European set foot on this land. But the natives of the North American continent were not all the same; a diversity of cultures existed before the Europeans arrived. Indeed, just the title of Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.5 book, 500 Natioizs: Aiz Illustrated History of A70rth Ainericaiz Imlians, suggests the extent of the cultural diversity of the people who were mistakenly called "Indians" by the invaders from Europe. These invaders depended on the generosity of the Native Americans to help them survive in a strange environment, but brought with them diseases alien to this continent that decimated whole communities of native peoples (Calloway 5). At first the Europeans colonized this continent, but later the settlers wanted independence from England. The American Indians fought for their independence from the oppressor, too, but without a great deal of success. According to Colin G. Calloway, "The [American] Revolution was an anticolonial war of liberation for Indian peoples too, but the threat to their freedom often came from colonial neighbors rather than distant capitals, and their colonial experience did not end with American independence" (xiii). Indeed, as the American government expanded its territories, it was at the

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

14

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

expense of the Native Americans. They were sometimes killed in battles over land or relocated to less desirable lands, and finally they were shunted off to reservations, or ghettos, to be excluded from and forgotten by the dominant culture. Louise Erdrich, half Chippewa and half German, writes about her Chippewa heritage and contemporary Chippewas in North Dakota; Leslie Marmon Silko, part Laguna Pueblo, writes about contemporary Pueblos in New Mexico. Their characters are very different, but they have this in common: they are all marginalized by the dominant culture. The postmodernism of the ethnic women writers considered here seeks to undermine the elitist view of the earlier modernists; it, too, brings an awareness of power relations, not just between the West and the Third World, but also between men and women. The works of Kingston and Tan have generated a debate among the Chinese American community centered on whether these authors have altered Chinese history and traditions and whether they speak for the entire Chinese American community. Similarly, the works of Morrison and Walker have been considered as not speaking for their entire community; some African American men feel that they have been shown to the world, in these works, in a very unflattering light. Castillo and Cisneros both must consider the colonization within of the women in their Latina culture by their men. Only Erdrich and Silko, in the presentation of Native American cultures in their works, seem not to have sparked a quarrel with their male counterparts. Finally, a word about my use of the place names "Ireland," "Africa," and "America": I am aware that I am using the names given by the colonizer. i ire" is the Irish-language name of the southern state, while "Ireland" is its English name. According to Dierdre McMahon, the "Republic of Ireland," although referred to in the constitution, is "the description but not the name of the state as defined in the 1937 constitution" (482). "Northern Ireland" is a province created by the Government Act of 1920 (Hepburn 390). That both are parts of the island that was colonized by the English more than 800 years ago is not in question. That both Yeats, whose roots were Anglo-Irish, and Joyce, whose roots were in the Catholic southern state, were colonized is not in question. However, that a small island is placed in a coordinate position with the continent of Africa and the United States of America may seem problematic, but, because they all refer to land masses, there is a sense of balance. When Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness, he never mentioned the Belgian Congo or the Congo river by name; he referred instead to "Africa," which is the place name used by the colonizers, who did not differentiate between tribes or communities on that continent but lumped them all together. When the part of the African continent that Conrad wrote about achieved its independence in 1960, its name was changed to "Zaire," which it retained until the end of the 1996-97 civil war; it is now officially the "Democratic Republic of Congo." Conrad, of course, would have recognized neither of these names. By the same token, Achebe never refers to Africa in Thiizgs Fall

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

15

Apart; instead, h e writes about the Igbo culture from the point o f view o f the

colonized. And w h e n England instituted its government i n the area, many cultures, i n all their diversity, were crushed together under a single government and called "Nigeria." But, instead o f calling the section that discusses these authors and works "Zaire and Nigeria," it makes sense t o find an inclusive name, which seems t o be the "Africa" o f the colonizers. "America," too, w h e n it means "United States o f America," can itself seem imperialistic and chauvinistic. But, since I a m referring t o land masses i n the first two instances, the term seems t o provide ease and balance. O f course, the world over, w h e n "America" is mentioned, everyone takes it to mean the United States o f America, n o matter that there are two continents which both bear the name. As Thomas Beltzer writes, b y calling itself the name o f the continent, the United States has, effectively, n o name at all: "America is America from Alaska t o Argentina and everyone knows this but the United States, m y poor country without a name" ( 6 5 ) . But calling it the "United States" could itself be ambiguous, since there is another United States o n this continent: The United Mexican States, Estarlos Unirlos Mexicanos i n Spanish. And, "America," which citizens o f the United States o f America hold u p as the ideal, with its promise o f democracy and a voice for everyone, seems t o be an appropriate term that includes all its minority groups. It is this inclusion that I argue for. IRELAND

In literature written i n English, William Butler Yeats was the initiator o f postcolonial reading and writing w h o has provided an example for later writers. James Joyce, too, was a postcolonial writer, although o f a different ilk from Yeats's. Joyce was writing, not just t o the Irish people, but also t o the world. Whereas Yeats was inspired b y ancient Celtic m y t h and folklore, Joyce wanted t o wake the Irish people u p and show t h e m what was wrong with their colonized society. Together they formed a postcolonial example for future writers. In order to show Yeats as an original, it is necessary to summarize important points i n Irish history, explain h o w Yeats was doubly marginalized, which marginalization inspired h i m t o desire a change, and explain h o w h e attempted t o bring about change through the interface o f literature and politics. He wrote i n the company o f other modernist writers, including Joyce, and his poem "The Second Coming" spoke directly t o both Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe. Joyce experienced his o w n marginalization, which led h i m t o describe the colonized condition o f his counterparts i n the lower middle class o f Catholic Dubliners. However, Joyce disdained politics as the instrument o f change, insisting instead that literature could make the difference.Joyce, as another modernist writer, has provided, through Dubliners, an example for later writers o f colonized cultures, including contemporary minority

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

16

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

American women writers. Irish men had been feminized, and there is a direct connection between the feminine "other" of the Irish male writers and the feminine "other" of the later American women. William Butler Yeats and James Joyce are part of the same history and culture; they are linked through their experiences as colonized and decolonized, through their positions as representatives of a marginalized culture who truly know what it means to stand at the edge of more than one culture while belonging to neither. But, as writers, they found the voice to form their own identity and to create and translate their own culture; it is the narrative voice that brings about this liberation. And William Butler Yeats is a prime example of a writer who is able to make this change. In order to show the marginalization of the Irish, it would be helpful here to summarize the major points of Ireland's history of oppression by Eng1and.l After Henry 11's 1171 invasion of Ireland, an aristocracy evolved, consisting of the invading Anglo-Normans who had intermarried with the Irish and their offspring. Some English legal practices and civil administration were introduced, and a parliament modeled on the English one was created, although it served only the Anglo-Irish colony. In the late fifteenth century, Henry VII forced the Irish parliament to accept a law which gave the English Privy Council veto power over the Irish parliament. Later Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I all sent military expeditions to reconquer the AngloNormans who had "become Irish"; all three monarchs also established plantations of English settlers. But Henry VIII complicated matters when he broke from the Roman Catholic Church to establish his own, Protestant, Anglican Church. The Catholicism that Henry I1 had tried to bring back into line with the Roman Church was highly resistant to the Protestantism of Henry VIII four hundred years later. Protestantism was "rejected by the overwhelming majority of the population," but the Church of Ireland was "legally transformed into a Protestant church" despite their feelings. Henry VIII outlawed the Gaelic language, the language whose attempted revival was a project contemporary with Yeats's literary society three hundred years later. Ulster made the greatest resistance to being reconquered, but, around the time Shakespeare was writing plays and Europeans were invading the Americas, English forces "devastated the Ulster countryside" but allowed the Gaelic chieftains to retain their ancestral lands as long as they gave up their "old Gaelic social system" and lived as "English-style nobles." They declined and fled to the European continent (an event that became known as "the flight of the earls"), "allowing the English crown a pretext to confiscate their vast lands and sponsor. . . the Ulster Plantation" of British Protestants. Later confiscations and settlements led to a "small propertied elite" of Protestants in Ulster. This is the lineage to which Yeats belonged.

1. The information for this summary is gleaned from David W. Miller's cogent essay o n the history of Ireland written for the New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

17

It was not just the English monarchy that oppressed the Irish. When Oliver Cromwell ascended to power after the beheading of Charles I, he "quickly imposed English authority on Ireland," paying his soldiers "with land confiscated largely from the Anglo-Irish Catholics" who had tried "to defend themselves against Puritan policies" (Miller). When England's Catholic king, James 11, was defeated by William I11 in 1690, Irish Catholics, who had supported James, were punished by being excluded from property and power by the Penal Laws enacted by the Irish Protestant elite, who had supported William. By 1782 the Irish Parliament had gained legislative independence, and in 1793 Catholics gained the right to vote (Connolly 78). In 1800 the Act of Union was passed, an act which provided for a "single Parliament for the British Isles"; members of the Irish Parliament had been "cajoled and bribed" in order to bring the union about. Catholics had been led to believe that the united Parliament would allow them to hold seats in Parliament, and they were allowed this right, but not until twenty-nine years later, with the passage of the last Catholic Relief Act (78). This is the lineage to which Joyce belonged. Belfast was growing in prosperity as "an outpost of industrializing Britain" and was committed to the union with Britain, but other parts of Ireland, which were mostly Catholic and mostly economically undeveloped, were not. During the decade of the 1840s, several successive crop failures devastated the agriculturally based economy of these undeveloped areas and delayed the growth of nationalistic feeling in Catholic Ireland there. Between 1845 and 1851, for example, a million Irish people died during The Great Famine, and more than another million emigrated. During this time the secret revolutionary society of Fenians was organized as a popular demand for self-government. But in the late 1870s, Charles Stewart Parnell "harnessed" the "agrarian discontent" to "emerging nationalist aspirations." Parnell was a great influence on both Yeats and Joyce. Under Parnell's leadership, Catholics supported demands for "home rule," or a separate Irish Parliament within the British Union. His party "was able to win every parliamentary seat having a Catholic majority. This solid bloc of votes gave Parnell . . . powerful leverage in British politics whenever neither British party had a clear majority in the House of Commons," a leverage which allowed the party to force home rule in 1914. But when World War I broke out, home rule was suspended until the end of the war. This was the Irish political milieu in which both Yeats and Joyce wrote. In the second half of the nineteenth century, many radical changes occurred, not just in Ireland, but all over the world. The first women's movement for equality had made an impression on the rather smug view those in positions of power had before this time had of their world. As people of the world read and understood, or misunderstood, Darwin's theory of evolution, they came to have doubts about all that they had believed in up until this time, beginning with the idea that the species of plants and animals, including humans, were not static categories: they had an origin and, presumably,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

18

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

an end. Whereas the world had been thought of as making progress on a continuum toward perfection, suddenly all stability disappeared. Freud, too, changed the world's view of itself as he divided the human psyche into the id, the ego, and the superego. Individuals started to see themselves as individuals, recognizing their own inner selves, rather than just as a part of a society. The end of the century did not bring complete turmoil, but there was a new sense of unease that had not existed before, an unease that found expression in modernist writings. By the time the Great War ended, the world was shocked and staggered at what it had wrought. All of the maps had changed: geographical and political boundaries were different; governments had fallen and risen. And the world was revolted at the enormous waste: ". . . the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens . . . described in a tone of horrified amazement the strange interaction of man and nature he had witnessed . . ." (Sanders 505). Both soldiers and civilians had been "sacrificed to the unfeeling might of the machines devised and exploited by human ingenuity" (505). The progress humans had made in forming governments and societies, the progress humans had made in perfecting themselves, the progress humans had made in technology, was seen to be a lie as the technology had been used for the basest of actions and for the destruction of societies. There was a feeling that "a new start ought to be made, in politics and society as much as in art, [a feeling which] was accentuated rather than initiated by the war . . ." (505). All this cultural questioning led to an active rejection of the ideas and values of the past. If Darwin had taught the world that humans had not sprung full-grown from the forehead of God, and if Freud had taught the world that there was a dark side to human nature, then the world could not continue its acceptance of old beliefs and old forms of expression. Humans were not what they had thought they were, and writers set about attempting to express these new beliefs with new literary forms, which they had to invent. The new literary forms of expression came to be known as modernism in literature and included the expression of such feelings as discontinuity, ambiguity, and fragmentation. This was the world milieu in which both Yeats and Joyce wrote. AFRICA

From the European perspective, Africa had been an enigma since the Middle Ages, when, as Thomas Pakenham writes in his Tlze Scrainble for Africa: The White M m ' s Coizquest of tlze Dark Coiztiizer~tfrom 1876 to 1912, "two-thirds of the world's gold supply . . . came from West Africa" (16). In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Portuguese sailors sailed along the coast of Africa, stopping to trade at various ports (17). But Africa "demanded no European interference in the mysterious affairs of the interior" and was neglected by Europe while "European investors plunged into cotton and sugar planting all over the New World" of the Americas, trading for African slaves to work their

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

19

plantations (17). Europeans were never required t o visit t h e interior o f t h e African continent, since, as Pakenham reports, "Africans needed n o persuasion t o enslave their fellows" and brought t h e m t o t h e coast t o meet t h e European slave ships (17-18). But an anti-slavery movement began i n t h e early part o f the nineteenth century, and it became illegal t o trade i n slaves (18). Soon afterwards the steamboat "revolutionized t h e transport o f goods b y sea," allowing "legitimate trade" i n palm oil, ivory, and rubber and allowed ventures into the African interior (18). Quinine, too, played a role i n the exploration o f Africa's interior (18). After its development, Europeans could fight o f f t h e tropical illnesses o f malaria, dysentery, and sleeping sickness that had earlier been fatal t o t h e m . As travel t o and within the African continent became easier, t h e European nations scrambled t o get what Leopold I1 o f Belgium called "'a slice o f this magnificent African cake"' (qtd. i n Pakenham 22). Even though an illegal trade i n slaves had started again, "organized b y Swahili and Arabs i n East Africa," there was another movement afoot t o "civilize" Africa (xxii).As the doctor, scientist, explorer, and missionary David Livingstone put it, Africa could be "liberated" through his " ' 3 Cs': Commerce, Christianity and Civilization" (xxii). But, according t o Pakenham, "That was not t h e way t h e Africans perceived the Scramble. There was a fourth 'C'-conquest-and it gradually predominated" (xxiii).As explorers and traders invaded Africa from Belgium, England, France, Germany, and Portugal, they variously made treaties with and traded with t h e local tribal officials, and competed with each other for territory. Many o f t h e m were aggressive and brutal, punishing Africans b y atrocities or death for not trading or for n o t producing enough goods for trade (Pakenham 28; 34; 598). Pakenham describes i n great detail t h e deceptions and manipulations that Leopold I1 o f Belgium devised i n order t o claim t h e Congo basin as his o w n personal possession. Leopold called it an "Independent State" and willed it t o t h e Belgian people i n 1895 (Rice 132). U p o n his death i n 1908, it became the "Belgian Congo," but not until 1960 did t h e area gain its independence f r o m Belgium (132). This is t h e area that Joseph Conrad wrote about i n his Heart of Darkizess, where his character Kurtz was writing a report for t h e "International Society for the Suppression o f Savage Customs" (Conrad 50). A few hundred miles away, i n what is n o w k n o w n as Nigeria, the British lumped together m a n y neighboring cultures under one colonial administration, cultures that m a y have had little i n c o m m o n as far as customs and language (Wren 39). O n e o f these cultures was t h e Igbo, t h e culture o f Chinua Achebe. In Things Fa11 Apart, Achebe also h a s one o f his characters write a book; t h e colonial District Commissioner is writing The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger (Things 209), the area inhabited b y the Igbo and t h e area Achebe writes about i n his novel. W h i l e Declan Kiberd relates t h e Irish struggle for independence from England t o the American struggle for independence from England, h e also sees connections between the Irish situation and other "Third-World"

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

20

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

colonies, particularly in Africa and India. Edward W. Said agrees, as do Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. In fact, Yeats's line "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold," in his poem "The Second Coming," can be directly linked to Joseph Conrad, who wrote about hollow centers twenty years before the Yeats poem, and to Chinua Achebe, who titled his first novel, Things Fa11 Apart (1959), after the Yeats poem forty years later. Both Conrad and Achebe were from oppressed and colonized cultures. But Conrad invented himself as an Englishman and spoke from the viewpoint of the colonizer in his novel Heart of Darkness (1899), and Achebe is of a hybrid background, syncretizing in his novel his traditional Igbo cultural traditions and values with those of his English-speaking, Christian colonizers. Conrad uses the language and the patriarchal, imperialist ideology of the colonizer to critique imperialism, but he does not fully represent the Africans nor the women that he writes about. And while Achebe uses the language and the patriarchal ideology of the colonizer to critique and revise the "history" that the colonizer had written of Africa and Africans, he does not fully represent African women. But each of these novelists was a pioneer, breaking new ground for later postcolonial writers, and brought the world a step forward on a path toward valorizing more than one culture. In addition, Conrad provides a connection between the writings of early decolonizers and later ones. Robert F. Haugh finds Conrad's epiphanies like Joyce's (242), and Marlow's quest is like the boy's quest in Joyce's "Araby." Conrad shows the hollow morality at the "centre" of the imperialist enterprise that "cannot hold." In this vein, Wilson Harris likens Conrad to African American writer Jean Toomer. He says that an "example of possible transition through and beyond post-Conradian legacies is a remarkable asymmetric American fiction by the black writer Jean Toomer in his book Cane, published in 1923" (266). A hundred years ago, Conrad's fiction initiated a transformation of the world, as it, according to Andrea White, "destabilized the authority of that exclusively European telling of the world's story, even before it was challenged by the independence movements of the 1950s and 1960s, before the colonized themselves started 'writing back"' (197). White shows a direct connection between Conrad's work and that of later writers; she writes, "These post-colonial writers have found that Conrad anticipated them in 'writing back' at 'fine words' and claim him as 'one of us"' (198). These writers, too, have found themselves on the border between cultures and are able to transform or invent to accommodate their borderline positions. When Joseph Conrad went to Africa, he already had an idea of what Africa was like. According to Andrea White, "As Said has characterized the mythical production of 'Orientalism,' so 'Africa' too already existed in the minds of first-time travellers to it. . . . By the time he [Conrad] found himself aboard a Congo steamer, he was at least partially a victim of [what Brantlinger calls] 'the Victorian myth of the Dark Continent"' (181). But, when Conrad's expectations were not met by reality, he attempted to change not only himself, but also others. White explains Conrad's audience: "Heart

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

21

of Darkness clearly aimed its scepticism at a much wider, more international target [than did 'An Outpost']: no imperial power escapes blame" (192). On the other hand, Conrad pinpoints the financial backers of the enterprise through his narrator, the Englishman Marlow: "Marlow, aboard the Nellie in the Thames-another of 'the dark places of the earth1-tells his story to an Accountant, a Lawyer, and a Company Director, English stockholders all, the investors that made empire possible" (White 192). Conrad not only manufactured a position for himself to speak from-a position of power, he being a white European male-he also brought to light the predicament of those colonized peoples who had previously been ignored in English fiction. So we may read Heart of Darkr~essas the voice of the colonizer expressing the views of both the colonizer and the colonized. And this novella proves that words do have power: E. D. Morel, who was at the time attempting to reform colonial conditions in Africa (Pakenham 589), was inspired by the story, as was Roger Casement, an Irishman attempting to abolish the Arab slave trade in the area (Murfin 11). According to Cedric Watts, Morel stated that "Heart ofDmkness was 'the most powerful thing ever written on the subject"' (qtd. in Watts 56). Conrad spoke from the modern sensibility, reinventing himself as an Englishman in his narrator Marlow, crossing linguistic and cultural as well as ideological boundaries, and he is known for viewing the world through irony and paradox. Like Joyce, he was an exile and a man of many languages. His writing is like Joyce's in its use of myth (Haugh 241), epiphany (242), and stages of maturity (Kimbrough 406), like Yeats's in its connection to political ideology. Like Yeats, he was a man of his times; yet he also seemed to anticipate the future. He was influenced by Darwin and Freud and connected to other modernist writers of the time and to Third World writers of a later era. In the words of one biographer, Frederick Karl, Conrad is "our representative modern man and artist" (Joseph Conrad xiv). Sixty years after Conrad's Heart of Darkness first appeared in print, Chinua Achebe published his first novel, Tlzirgs Fall Apart (1959), at least partly in response to Conrad's novel. Conrad's novel was based on his experiences in the Belgian Congo, within five hundred miles of Nigeria. Nigeria had been under British colonial rule since the late nineteenth century, about the same time that the Belgian King Leopold colonized the neighboring Congo region, situations close enough in geography and in time to be the same in many essentials. As a native of Nigeria, Achebe received his education from the colonizers, an education that included learning the English language and reading English literature. By Achebe's time, Conrad had been appropriated as a "British" modernist writer, his work considered essential reading for an educated English-speaking person. Achebe, as an educated English-speaking person, read Heart of Darkness from the viewpoint of the colonizer. It was only much later that he realized that he was one of the Africans that Conrad represents in his novel (Chiizila Aclzebe). As he responded in his own novel to what he came to

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

22

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

believe was Conrad's racism, he exhibited a fuller, more civilized view of Africans than had Conrad. Achebe became an early postcolonial African writer, writing about Africa from an "insider's" viewpoint. He is one of the later writers that Conrad's work influenced so greatly. AMERICA

The literature of America is important for several reasons: the United States has become the major world power politically and culturally; the English that it is written in has become the major language of world business affairs; the United States has traditionally attracted immigrants from other countries who want to share in the American wealth and culture; and the democracy that is promised in the United States offers a voice to everyone. But the promise of democracy has always been an ideal, never a complete reality, as the Eurocentric, hegemonic culture excludes in many ways members of groups whose origins are not in Europe. The oppression of "other" groups began when the first Europeans invaded this continent and has continued to the present. While the Civil Rights Act, which became law in 1964, makes discrimination on the basis of race illegal, racial discrimination is still practiced among many members of the hegemonic culture. The organized protests of African Americans against such discrimination in the 1960s were directly responsible for the enactment of civil rights laws, and other oppressed American groups, seeing the success of these protests, have also demanded a voice in society. And, while change comes slowly, much of contemporary American literature represents the viewpoints of these oppressed peoples. Since the opening up of the literary canon after mid-century to include authors other than white males, many works of literature have been "recovered''-works that were not read and disseminated by the dominant culture when they were new and fresh because they were written by writers of color and were presumably of no interest to anyone else. These recovered texts, much like the ancient myths and legends that Yeats recovered to unite the Irish, have inspired contemporary writers of color in America. And, like Yeats and Joyce, Conrad and Achebe, these creative minds have given a voice to groups that were heretofore silenced and have been influential in expanding the literary canon. At this point a reminder of some of the events in America's past that have marginalized so many of its citizens seems to be in order. We have all heard the story of how the Puritans came to this continent in search of religious freedom and gave thanks with the native inhabitants for their first good crop. But this is a "cleaned-up" version of the true story, one told from a Eurocentric viewpoint. The true story, if told from the viewpoints of Native Americans, African Americans, Latinas, or Asian Americans, would not be a story of good intentions and complete harmony. There are many shameful events in the history of America, and it is not only in the second half of the twentieth century that they have been openly discussed and decried. While

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

23

it would be too simplistic to say that the civil rights movement of the 1960s alone brought a new hegemonic position on such matters, I suggest that the protests of the 1960s played a great part in the development of a new attitude by the majority of the dominant culture, as well as on the part of minority groups. Recently, new hegemonic versions of history have begun to include events in our nation's past that were less than honorable. The new version of America's history starts with the native inhabitants, in whose many languages they usually referred to themselves as something like "the people," or "our people." The back cover of Josephy's 500 A7ations explains in a quote from Tall Oak, a Narragansett "Indian": When the first Europeans arrived, Columbus and his crew, he came and he called us Indians, because of the obvious reason, he thought he was lost in India. But what did we call ourselves before Columbus came? That's the question so often asked. And the thing is in every single tribe, even today, when you translate the word that we each had for ourselves, without knowledge of each other, it was always something that translated to basically the same thing. In our language it's Ninuog, or the people, the human beings. That's what we called ourselves. So when the pilgrims arrived here, we knew who we were, but we didn't know who they were. So we called them Awaunageesuck, or the strangers, because they were the ones that we didn't know, but we knew each other. And we were the human beings. The generosity and compassion that these people expressed toward the invading Europeans, teaching them how to survive on this continent, came to naught as the Europeans gradually took over the land and killed or enslaved the people, shuffling the remainder off to undesirable land, land that yielded neither rich agricultural crops nor valuable minerals or animal life. The colonization of the native inhabitants of this continent was carried out by both force and trickery. As the English colonies gained their independence from the mother country and established their own government, modeled on the democracy that they had discovered among the Iroquois (Nies 184-85), this government negotiated with the natives to gain everything of value that the settlers had not already stolen, giving the tribes autonomy only on their own poor reservations. There they languished, forgotten by the dominant culture unless it was to draft the men into the United States Army or to line the pockets of unscrupulous businessmen. In this study, Louise Erdrich's 1993 novel Love Medicine and Leslie Marmon Silko's 1977 novel Ceremony show how this oppressed group has been able to bridge the gap between the two cultures. Africans were captured by or sold to European traders by other Africans or Arabs; they were then transported to the "new world" in conditions under which many of them died before reaching the Americas. Because they were

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

24

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

from so many different cultures and spoke such a variety o f languages, they were unable t o communicate with each other or their captors. As they were sold for labor, relatives were routinely separated; thus it was almost impossible t o establish a family or a stable community among themselves. Lack o f education was another form o f oppression; it was illegal t o teach the slaves t o read and write. They lived o n this continent under these conditions for about four hundred years i n both colonies and the United States. As states were added t o the union, the question o f legal slavery divided the country, leading t o four years o f the bloodiest war i n the history o f the country. Slavery was legally abolished i n the United States after that war. And not only did slaves receive their freedom; many o f t h e m also gained government positions i n the occupied states which had formed the Confederate States o f America. Many former slaveholders thus found their former slaves i n positions o f authority over them. Their positions were granted b y the United States government and protected b y the guns and bayonets o f United States soldiers; during this twelve-year period o f Reconstruction, the southern states, which had been devastated b y war, were to be rebuilt. W h e n the occupying troops withdrew i n 1877, there was an immediate backlash b y the white majority, w h o instituted J i m Crow laws which took away most o f the rights o f the former slaves. It was almost a hundred years later that African Americans gained the legal rights o f the majority. Representatives o f this oppressed group include Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, whose first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), demonstrates the self-loathing that the hegem o n y produces i n persons o f a different culture and its effects through generations, and Alice Walker, w h o demonstrates i n The Color Purple (1982) similar self-destructive tendencies i n members o f a minority group, but also imagines that the situation can be transformed. Pre-Columbian civilizations i n the southern part o f this continent were devastated b y invading Spaniards m u c h as the cultures o f the northern part were devastated b y invading English, French, and Dutch-through enslavement, killing, and nefarious trading. One notable difference,however, is that the Spaniards freely intermarried with the natives, and later social classes came about based o n one's proportion o f Spanish t o "Indian" ancestry. According to one historian, after "three centuries o f Spanish domination," the Spanish left "a poorly developed economy, a class structure based primarily o n racism, and a too-common belief among officialsthat the governance o f Mexico is an opportunity to enhance personal wealth" (Foster 78). The United States declared war o n Mexico i n 1846, and, b y the time the fighting stopped almost two years later, "Mexico [had] lost its vast northern territories. . . . As something o f a compensation, the loss included less than 2 percent o f the population and n o k n o w n natural resources (until the San Francisco gold rush only months later corrected this misimpression)" (Foster 123). It was this two percent o f the Mexican population w h o became reluctant Americans overnight, finding themselves a Spanish-speaking minority i n an English-speaking country. Later Mexicans would enter the United States Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Introduction: Making Connections

25

both legally and illegally in order to provide a better life for themselves and their relatives at home. The illegal aliens proved to be a valuable source of seasonal labor for American farmers, crossing the border to harvest the crops and returning to Mexico when the harvest was over. These migrant workers, both citizens and aliens, lived and worked in deplorable conditions, and it was not until the 1960s that they began to speak up for themselves. According to United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez, "In 1965, our infant farm workers' union led a major strike. . . . In 1967, the farm workers dramatically [made] a powerful statement against unfairness and injustice" (165). Ana Castillo's So Far From God (1993) highlights some of the other difficulties of being Mexican American in the rural southwestern United States; Sandra Cisneros's The House oil M a ~ g oStreet (1984) relates the difficulties of being Mexican American in the urban midwestern United States. Like the Mexicans who willingly crossed the border into the United States, the Chinese, from the 1840s on, also sought a better life in this country, a country they called "Gold Mountain," where they expected to escape widespread poverty in China and attain some measure of wealth. Many of them sent money back to relatives in Asia, and "these first Chinese Americans contributed substantially, through both their labor and the taxes they paid, to the growth of the American West-a fact that is still generally neglected in the history of this nation" (Lin 37). And, like the Mexicans, the Chinese were welcomed as a source of cheap labor, especially when the transcontinental railroad was being built. But, like the Africans, the Chinese were not allowed to have a family. Except for the wives of the merchant class, women were not allowed by law to immigrate, and so the Chinese American communities that were established were bachelor communities, not families. While Chinese men were exploited as cheap labor for American industrialists, Chinese women were considered no better than prostitutes by the dominant culture. Harsh laws "restricted the kind of work the Chinese could perform and prohibited those of Chinese ancestry from becoming American citizens and from owning property, while antimiscegenation legislation in the American West specifically forbade marriage between Americans and the Chinese" (Lin 38). The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Law was not repealed until 1943 (Li 322). This law, which codified "racist attitudes" and consisted of "legislative measures against the Chinese [,I also affected other Asian groups who emigrated later to the United States" (Lin 38). Shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Americans were rounded up and confined to concentration camps until the end of the war, and all their property, homes, and businesses were confiscated, another event that has been neglected in this nation's history until recently. Asian Americans have been said to be the "model minority" in America, because they quietly work, save, obey the laws, and cause no trouble for the dominant population. But recently, Asian American writers have begun to create a space for themselves in literature, a space from which they are able to criticize the hegemony. In this study,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

26

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Maxine Hong Kingston's The Womm Warrior (1976) and Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club (1989) represent two attempts by creative Asian Americans to straddle the two cultures. Together these contemporary minority American women writers have followed the examples set by the earlier anti-colonialist writers Yeats, Joyce, Conrad, and Achebe. They have searched for and discovered traditions that are not part of the hegemonic culture, and they have demonstrated the selfloathing that results from colonization of the mind. They have exposed the brutality of their oppression by both the dominant culture and by men in their own traditions, and they have revised their own histories through their novels. These women have had the imagination to create a hybrid culture from which to voice their ideas. Together these writers all point to a multicultural blending of traditions, leading to an ideology of inclusion that grows out of the less inclusive nature of the earlier men's writing.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER I1

Yeats: Recovering History

W

BUTLERYEATSSTARTED \ \ 1TH A \ AGENDA: TO LIBERATE AND U\ITE THE Irish people through use o f literature. He looked into ancient history for motifs and reinvented himself t o fit t h e m . Although there was a political debate about what language Irish literature should be written i n , part o f the liberation was t o be based o n t h e outcome o f this debate. Yeats not only looked into antiquity; h e also used universal themes. He wrote about peasants as being close, n o t only t o the land, but also t o t h e old ways. He reread Shakespeare through postcolonial eyes and saw that words had been used as weapons against t h e Irish; h e saw also h o w t o use words as weapons turned against t h e colonizer and h o w t o use words t o "invent" Ireland. At t h e same time that h e was implicated i n Anglo-Irish colonialism, h e also developed a system o f symbols that h e believed explained cycles o f history and would transcend contemporary quarrels. In m a n y ways, contemporary postcolonial writers take their cue from Yeats. At t h e time o f Yeats's birth, t h e Irish had lived for almost 700 years under English oppression, since at least 1 1 7 1 w h e n Pope Adrian IV had given England's Henry I 1 authority t o rule Ireland " i n order t o bring the Irish church more into line w i t h Roman standards" (Miller).Yet as a writer Yeats was able t o use his imagination t o help raise t h e conscio~isnesso f his people, t o give t h e m a n e w view o f themselves, and t o enable their liberation from the oppressor. Yeats himself was doubly marginalized: as a member o f the Irish "other" t o England and as a member o f the Anglo-Irish "other" t o t h e majority o f Irish Catholics i n Ireland. Actually, these t w o forms o f "otherness" were opposite i n terms o f power: t o be Irish i n England was t o be inferior; i n Catholic Ireland, h e was Protestant, which was t o be superior. W h i l e it is useless t o speculate about what kinds o f writing Yeats would have produced i n a ILLIAM

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

28

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

different situation, the fact is that his experiences as "other" influenced his life's work, that of freeing himself and the Irish people from oppression through his writing. In order to demonstrate that the Irish were more than substandard Englishmen, in order to provide a basis for "asserting [an authentic] difference from the imperial centre" which is one of the "project[~]"of postcolonial literatures (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 5), Yeats turned to the ancient myths and legends of the Celts, which "offered an alternative way of seeing and representing the world, a non-classical, antiurban, anti-mechanical, and anti-material intermixture of the physical and the metaphysical and of the sensual and the spiritual" (Sanders 495). We begin with Yeats because we can trace a line of postcolonial genealogy from contemporary writers back to his work. Even though he was a national poet, his voice spoke across cultures to the world; even though he wrote a hundred years ago, he still speaks to contemporary writers. His voice was the beginning of postcolonialism in literature written in English. According to Edward W. Said, Yeats presents a fascinating aspect: that of the indisputably great iltrtioilal poet who during a period of anti-imperialist resistance articulates the experiences, the aspirations, and the restorative vision of a people suffering under the dominion of an offshore power. . . . [He] belongs in a tradition not usually considered his, that of the colonial world ruled by European imperialism during a climactic insurrectionary stage. If this is not a customary way of interpreting Yeats, then we need to say that he also belongs naturally to the cultural domain, his by virtue of Ireland's colonial status, which it shares with a host of non-European re regions: cultural dependency and antagonism together. ( C ~ ~ l t l l220) Writers from many cultures have taken a leaf from Yeats's notebook, so to speak. According to M. L. Rosenthal, Yeats was also "the poet who, while very much of his own day in Ireland, spoke best to the people of all countries. He began as a sometimes effete post-Romantic, heir to the pre-Raphaelites, and then, quite naturally, became a leading British Symbolist; but he grew at last into the boldest, most vigorous voice of this century" (xv). We begin with Yeats because he is generally recognized as "a leading figure in the primitivist's search for the roots and origins of cultures" (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 158). In his attempt to get at the origins of Irish culture, "his themes are most clearly the general ones of life and death, love and hate, man's condition, and history's meanings" (Rosenthal xv). According to Richard Ellmann, "By couching his feelings in the framework of the elements [earth, air, fire, and water], he anchored them in universal forces and lent them added dignity and sanction" (35). His rereading of English literature, especially Shakespeare's The Tempest, was the beginning of postcolonial criticism, whose definition is reported by Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin: "Some contemporary critics have suggested that post-colonialism is more than a

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Yents: Recovering History

29

body of texts produced within post-colonial societies, and that it is best conceived of as a reading practice" (193). The practice continues: Post-colonial criticism appears to be following two major paths at present: on the one hand, via the reading of specific post-colonial texts and the effects of their production in and on specific social and historical contexts, and on the other, via the "revisioning" of received tropes and modes such as allegory, irony, and metaphor and the rereading of "canonical" texts in the light of post-colonial discursive practices. (194) These discursive practices i n t h e process of decolonization have been and are now followed by writers from many other cultures. Yeats also began to use his writing for political purposes. Seamus Deane, i n his definition of "Imperialism / Nationalism," says that Yeats h a d a "rather Augustan desire to balance the claims of individual a n d state, of freedom and necessity" (324). The political tension i n Ireland at the time may have encouraged him to look toward mysticism. In his Culture a i d Imperialism, Edward W. Said says, "For Yeats the overlapping h e knew existed of his Irish nationalism with the English cultural heritage . . . was bound to cause tension, and . . . it was t h e pressure of this urgently political and secular tension that caused him to try to resolve it o n a 'higher,' that is, non-political level . . ." (Cultwe 227). Said says, "A Vision and the later quasi-religious poems elevate the tension to a n extra-worldly level" (227). Yeats's involvement with t h e Irish Literary Renaissance was t h e beginning of his attempts at decolonizing the minds of the Irish. Said describes important steps i n decolonization: One of the first tasks of the culture of resistance was to reclaim, rename, and reinhabit the land. . . . The search for authenticity, for a more congenial national origin than that provided by colonial history, for a new pantheon of heroes and (occasionally) heroines, myths, and religions-these too are made possible by a sense of the land reappropriated by its people. And along with these nationalistic adumbrations of the decolonized identity, there always goes an almost magically inspired, quasi-alchemical redevelopment of the native language. (226-27) Yeats took all these steps, although i n his day they had not yet been described. Yeats used Irish places and Irish myth a n d folklore i n his poetry, from "The Stolen Child" i n 1886, with its tone of longing for a better world, to his 1893 volume The Rose, which announces Yeats as a n Irish poet, and The Comtess Catlzleen, the play that "inaugurated the Irish Literary Theatre i n 1899," in which t h e heroine sells "her soul to t h e devil i n order to obtain bread for Ireland's starving population" (Manganiello 27). Around t h e begin-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

30

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

ning of World War I, Yeats shifted from ancient mythology to a more systematic mythology that he had invented himself, based on the famous interpenetrating gyres. It is possible that Yeats found not only myths and legends in the ancient lore, but also perhaps the beginnings of his system of symbols. Thomas Cahill traces the spiral of ancient Irish history, finding that the spiral goes back at least as far as "the megalithic tombs of the Boyne Valley" (166). Cahill says these tombs are "Ireland's earliest architecture and are faced by the indecipherable spirals, zigzags, and lozenges of Ireland's earliest art" (167). These same figures, he says, are also found in the magnificent metal jewelery [sic] and other objects that were being made at the outset of the Patrician period by smiths, who, in Irish society, had the status of seers. But this intricate riot of metalwork, allowing for subtleties impossible in stone, is like a series of riffs on the original theme. What was that theme? Balance in imbalance. It seems to say, with the spirals of Newgrange, "There is no circle; there is only the spiral, the endlessly reconfigurable spiral. There are no straight lines, only curved ones." (167) Yeats continued the use of the ancient spiral shape in his theories of world history, in the form of the interpenetrating gyres, and his writing allowed for subtleties impossible in either stone or metal. But Yeats also persistently used and interacted with Irish political and historical leaders. He names many of the political figures in much of his writing and uses historical events as subjects. Not only does his writing overtly interact with historical figures; in at least some of his poetry, Yeats makes subtle allusions to Irish leaders of the past. In "Easter 1916," for example, Yeats writes the whole poem about specific individuals without calling them by name until the very end. "The Hawk" may be another poem about a real individual, but one who is never named at all; this poem provides an example of art that, upon closer inspection, serves politic^.^ Since the literary history of Ireland is so closely intertwined with the political and cultural histories of Ireland, inventing as it does the idea of an independent Ireland which was necessary to unify the struggle against English rule (Kiberd 4), it is difficult to read Irish literature without reference to actual events and historical figures. Yeats's poem "The Hawk" can be read as not only symbolizing the subjective Ireland but also as alluding to a real political activist, James Stephens, the founder of the Fenian movement. According to M. L. Rosenthal, "Yeats wove his symbolic effects into his writing subtly, at times almost invisibly," and the figure he used "to illuminate a subject is itself inevitably illuminated by the subject" (xxii). The figure of the hawk that Yeats brings in to illuminate the subject, then, is reciprocally 2. My discussion of Yeats's poem "The Hawk" was first published as an essay in Notes or] Motlern Irish Literclture. Used by permission. Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Yents: Recovering History

31

illuminated by the subject. "The Hawk" seems to be one of those places where Yeats wove his symbolic effects into his writing almost invisibly. The poem not only shows the political relationship between the Fenians and the English government, but it also introduces an element of the mystical; as Yeats uses the hawk as a symbol of the Fenian resistance in the poem to illuminate the political situation, with which he was thoroughly familiar, so the founder of the Fenians, the Hawk, throws light also upon the poem itself. James Stephens, the veteran of the failed uprising of Young Ireland in 1848 who founded the Fenians in 1858, led a life notable for at least two other adventures: his "ramble" through Ireland and his escape from an "escape-proof" jail (Costigan 210-11). Stephens's ramble was his "three-thousand-mile walk" through Ireland in 1856 "to take the country's temperature" and to bolster the newly-organized Irish Republican Brotherhood in New York: "They must have a sign . . . they must know that the country is not dead" (Flanagan 158; 159). Douglas Hyde later characterized the condition of Ireland that Stephens measured as "like a corpse on a dissecting table" (qtd. in Kiberd 144); Ireland needed both inspiration and a hero. Stephens disguised himself variously as a beggar, laborer, and "commercial traveler" (Flanagan 158) and tramped around the countryside, meeting discreetly with individuals and small groups. Always in hiding, always buttoned up, in this surreptitious way he was able to recruit for the Fenians and to organize the group almost single-handedly. During his recruiting ramble, he became known by the Gaelic-speaking people as aiz seabhac, the hawk, perhaps because of his independence and his ability to glide quietly in and out of the towns. The English-speaking policemen, who merely heard rumors about him, misunderstood the Gaelic term to be "shook"; they marked this elusive character down in their police reports as "Mr. Shook" and remained ignorant of the real meaning of his nickname (Flanagan 159). But the organization had been put together quietly, and it needed an openly acknowledged hero it could follow. Stephens, the Hawk, became that hero in 1865 when he was arrested and thrown into Dublin's Richmond Prison, supposedly escape-proof, and in 1866 when he escaped from it with the help of his Irish jailers (Costigan 211). It is these events that "illuminate the subject" of Yeats's poem. Thomas Flanagan's historical novel Tlze Teizaizts of Time is another fictional account of the event, but one that jibes with the historian Giovanni Costigan's nonfictional account. In the novel the Fenian character Hugh MacMahon describes the scene as Stephens is jailed: "It was the talk of all Ireland, and London as well, I have no doubt. Man, it was prodigious. There they had him caught at last, on the very eve of the Rising, as we then believed, the Hawk netted. The government made great play of it, and the lackey newspapers, as we called them. They had drawings of it, to drive home the point: James Stephens with shirt collar unfastened, manacled wrist and ankle,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

being led through the entranceway of sombre stone. Dame Street was thronged for his arraignment, and all the gentlemen and ladies were down from the viceregal lodge to get a look at him. 'I deliberately repudiate the existence of British law in Ireland,' he said, 'and I defy any punishment it can inflict on me. I have spoken."' MacMahon's laugh ended in a dry cough. "'I have spoken.' Brave words, by God, but they put us in a panic . . . Bob rode home in a fury. 'Never fear,' Jackie Keegan had said to him. 'They have not yet built a cage strong enough to hold the Hawk'. . . . They arraigned Stephens, but they never tried him. Two weeks later he was free as a bird. It was a great sensation, and the effect upon the movement was prodigious." (159-60) And another of Flanagan's characters says of t h e escape, "'John, we have tonight witnessed t h e greatest event i n history.' So much for the Crucifixion" (160). Stephens's ramble a n d t h e scene of his arraignment seem to appear in Yeats's poem. In the poem's trialogue, t h e first speaker says, 'Call down the hawk from the air; Let him be hooded or caged Till the yellow eye has grown mild, For larder and spit are bare, The old cook enraged, The scullion gone wild.' This speaker gives t h e point of view of t h e government, which looks for t h e Hawk but finds only thin air; t h e police want to jail him a n d then feed upon h i m politically. They have nothing else u p o n which to feed, and they are in a frenzy to catch t h e Hawk. But t h e Hawk responds as Stephens did at his arraignment, 'I will not be clapped in a hood, Nor a cage, nor alight upon wrist, Now I have learnt to be proud Hovering over the wood In the broken mist Or tumbling cloud.' Rosenthal says that t h e mutual illumination of subject a n d object in Yeats's poetry "is not a matter of logic but of transferred association, as i n t h e subconscious life of the mind a n d emotions" (xxii). So t h e hawk of the poem could represent n o t only t h e Fenian leader but also Ireland itself, as t h e political leader speaks for his country. This transferred association is clearly found

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Yents: Recovering History

33

in the third stanza as the last speaker looks for something more elusive, more intuitive, to learn from the Hawk's experiences: 'What tumbling cloud did you cleave, Yellow-eyed hawk of the mind, Last evening? that I, who had sat Dumbfounded before a knave, Should give to my friend A pretence of wit.' This third speaker realizes that the Hawk has more significance than his mere physical actions of eluding the police for a time and then escaping from jail. The final speaker wants to discover the inspiration that the Hawk's escapades have given to the movement, the emotional appeal that his actions have for the subject Irish people. The third stanza of the poem moves into the realm of the mystical, and the "cleav[ing]" of the "tumbling cloud" by the "hawk of the mind" stands for an experience that ordinary, earth-bound humans cannot have. Since the hawk in ancient Egypt represented the soul and implied transfiguration (Cirlot 140), one could read this stanza as a transfiguration of the soul of Ireland, something that had to be accomplished in order to gain independence for the country. The Hawk, then, could come back to earth after his miraculous flight from prison and share the secret with the Irish people. Yeats undoubtedly knew, through his long association with the O'Learys, of the Fenian movement and its founder as well as stories of the Hawk's recruiting ramble and later escape from prison. One of the men that Stephens had recruited for the Fenians was John O'Leary, who became an editor of the Fenian Irish People and who "once confessed himself puzzled that the Fenians seemed unable to produce stirring ballad poetry" that would inspire the movement (Costigan 212). O'Leary had been recruited for the Fenians by Stephens himself, who, according to Yeats, "discovered him searching the second-hand bookstalls for rare editions, and enrolled him in his organization" (Az~tobioymphies212). Yeats had ample opportunity to hear stories such as those of the Hawk from O'Leary, because O'Leary not only was a former Fenian leader, but he also became the President of Yeats's Young Ireland Society (209). Yeats's father had painted O'Leary's portrait, and O'Leary had spent time with the Yeats family; O'Leary eventually came to "share . . . lodging" with Yeats when O'Leary "was an old man" (209). It was O'Leary who introduced Yeats to Maude Gonne (123), the woman who figures so prominently in his writing; O'Leary counted Yeats as one of his three followers (423) and supported Yeats's literary efforts by signing up "almost all the subscribers" (212) to Yeats's first book of poetry. It was through his association with O'Leary that Yeats drew "the attention of a group of men who at that time controlled what remained of the old Fenian movement"; they even asked Yeats to represent them at "some convention in the United States"

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

34

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

(308). It was from the debates of the Young Ireland Society, as well as, in Yeats's own words, "from O'Leary's conversation, and from the Irish books he lent or gave me" that "has come all I have set my hand to since" (101). Yeats's poem "The Hawk" is a condensed and dramatic narrative told in action and dialogue; these are some of the characteristics of the popular ballad. Since Yeats was associated with the remnant of the Fenians as well as a poet, one could even speculate that "The Hawk" represents the poet's belated attempt at providing the inspiring ballad that his friend O'Leary desired, especially since it was written in 1916, the year of the Easter Rising. Yeats also had knowledge of the old Fenian movement from John O'Leary's sister, Ellen O'Leary, who kept house for her brother. Yeats says, "She told me of her brother's life, of the foundation of the Fenian movement, and of the arrests that followed . . ." (95). Yeats also recalls, in his Az~tobiogmphies,a story of the supernatural that he heard from Miss O'Leary, in which "one of the MacManus brothers, well known in the politics of Young Ireland" was "watching by the bed where the other lay dying and saw a strange hawk-like bird fly through the open window and alight upon the breast of the dying man. He did not dare to drive it away and it remained there, as it seemed, looking into his brother's eyes until death came, and then it flew out of the window" (98). The supernatural element of this story must have caught Yeats's attention because of the poet's well-known interest in the occult and his "idea of self-liberation from conventional habits of thought and . . . [his] pursuits which might well lead one into mystical paths" (Rosenthal xxviii). "The Hawk," then, can be read not merely as the Fenian founder, but also as a mystical creature with occult knowledge that brings to the movement the inspiration that O'Leary had found lacking. Yeats, having heard the stories of the founding of the Fenian movement from the O'Learys, may have been using James Stephens's adventures as "Mr. Shook" to illuminate the political situation of Ireland through the symbolic use of the Hawk as political leader and as the transfigured soul of Irish independence. If he did not consciously make the Hawk of the Fenian movement into the hawk of the poem, he certainly presents the reader with a striking parallel; and he binds together history, politics, culture, spirituality, and poetry into the configuration of his famous interpenetrating gyres. Yeats said, "Politics are, indeed, the forge in which nations are made . . . (qtd. in Manganiello 214), but he also believed that literary art could sway the people. He asked, "Can we not unite literature to the great passion of patriotism and ennoble both thereby?" (qtd. in Manganiello 24). But Yeats was able to write great literature in the service of nationalism and never demoted his art to mere propaganda. Yeats believed that a "literary movement would emancipate Ireland from English cultural domination" (24), and so he founded the National Literary Society. Yeats had a greater faith in literature than in religion as a vehicle for change. Yeats had no quarrel with the Catholic church, as did James Joyce.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Yents: Recovering History

35

Although his background is Protestant, he seems to have been indifferent to organized religion and to have made art his religion. And his art shows his feelings of being pulled in different directions. For example, the poems in the 1919 volume T h e W i l d Swans at Coole are all dominated by opposites that can possibly be linked to the postcolonial notions of "one" and "other" and their interdependent relationship. Rosenthal says, "That no one can choose absolutely between opposites is one of the major motifs of the whole of Yeats's poetry, and so is the further complication that the two realms depend on one another for whatever it is they signify" (xxi). In one of these poems, "The Fisherman," Yeats imagines a new Irish man, "wise and simple," and expresses his desire "To write for my own race" (Yeats 61). Also in this volume appears a poem, "The Scholars," that Yeats wrote in response to his unsuccessful attempt to gain admission to Trinity College. He characterizes their closed society in these lines: "All think what other people think; / All know the man their neighbour knows" (58). While "Yeats was famously detached from the British cause and British sympathies" and "felt no moral obligation to be a combatant" (Sanders 498), he wrote "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" about Robert Gregory (son of Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory), who died in World War I, a poem which was, according to Andrew Sanders, a particularly impressive war poem, if one that expresses an indifference to other men's causes while still indulging in an exhilaration for "this tumult in the clouds." From the spring of 1916 he was properly preoccupied with the consequences of the "terrible beauty" born of the Easter Rising in Dublin and not with the interminable slaughter on the Somme or at the Ypres Salient. (498) In this poem, Yeats allows death to define life as art. Art, spiritually based on his gyre system from ancient Ireland, seems to have become a religion for Yeats. Apparently the war fit easily into Yeats's system of cycles of history; according to Said, Yeats could use its [Ireland's] backwardness as a source for a radically disturbing, disruptive return to spiritual ideals lost in an over-developed modern Europe . . . . Yeats also saw the breaking of a cycle of endless, perhaps finally meaningless recurrence . . . . Deane's theory is that the birth of an Irish national identity coincides for Yeats with the break227). ing of the cycle. . . . (Cz~ltz~re Yeats's view of art as the instrument of change differed from Joyce's. Rather than showing the Irish people their images in a mirror, he drew their attention to their displaced heritage and used language to bind the people together. In Yeats's own words,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

In 1891 I had founded i n London the Irish Literary Society, joined b y most London journalists o f Irish birth, a couple o f years later i n Dublin, the National Literary Society; these societies had given, as I intended, opportunity t o a new generation o f critics and writers t o denounce the propagandist verse and prose that had gone b y the name o f Irish literature, and t o substitute for it certain neglected [Irish]writers. (Autobiographies 395-96) At about t h e same t i m e , i n 1893, Douglas Hyde founded t h e Gaelic League t o "rekindle interest i n Ireland's cultural past and particularly i n Gaelic language and literature" ("Irish"), b e g i n n i n g w i t h a lecture called " T h e DeAnglicisation o f Ireland" (Yeats, Autobiogap/plzies 396). As other branches o f t h e Gaelic League were founded and people began t o learn Gaelic, Yeats says, " m e n began t o k n o w t h e n a m e o f t h e poet whose songs t h e y had heard for years" (438-39). Even t h o u g h it was Yeats's initiative t o start t h e society and h e was its m o s t prominent figure, others joined and were active i n t h e m o v e m e n t . In 1899, Yeats, George Moore, Lady Gregory, and Edward Martyn established t h e Irish Literary Theatre, a forerunner o f t h e Abbey Theatre, where t h e plays o f t h e m o v e m e n t were presented. T h e writers o f t h e society wrote i n English, despite t h e m o v e m e n t t o learn Gaelic, because t h e y needed a n audience; t o o f e w people could read i n Gaelic. Indeed, f e w people wanted t o read at all. Yeats says, "Irishmen w h o wrote i n t h e English language were read b y t h e Irish i n England, b y t h e general public there, nothing was read i n Ireland except newspapers, prayerbooks, popular novels; b u t i f Ireland would n o t read literature it m i g h t listen t o it, for politics and t h e Church had created listeners" (Az~tobiographies396). T h e need for a n audience was also t h e reason for t h e establishment o f a theater. T h e m o v e m e n t needed a playhouse i n order t o speak t o those non-readers w h o had b e e n trained t o listen. T h e literary m o v e m e n t k n o w n variously as t h e Irish Literary Renaissance, t h e Irish Revival, and t h e Celtic Renaissance marked a n increasing awareness o f a Celtic identity distinct f r o m t h e English and was linked w i t h Ireland's struggle for independence f r o m England, b o t h culturally and politically. Based o n ancient Irish m y t h o l o g y and legends kept alive b y peasants, it acknowledged a Celtic literary past and allowed t h e creation o f a contemporary Irish literature. According t o David H. Greene, t h e t i m e was right for t h e Irish t o b e united i n their literary and artistic heritage separate f r o m t h e influence o f t h e English, and t h e m o v e m e n t was enormously successful. Yeats appealed t o talented people, " s o m e indeed w i t h genius" (Greene). Ireland, like other European countries, was responding t o a nationalist impetus, was " m o v i n g toward revolution and t h e establishment o f its political independence" (Greene). According t o Declan Kiberd, "'Easter 1916' is, i n truth, t h e foundational p o e m o f t h e emerging Irish nation-state" (114),but t h e p o e m also shows evidence o f modernist ambiguity: t h e poet questions t h e sacrifice o f t h e patriots

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Yents: Recovering History

37

in the Dublin Post Office at the same time that he celebrates their sacrifice. The last two lines are not just particular to Ireland but can be universalized to the World War milieu in 1916: ". . . changed, changed utterly: / A terrible beauty is born" (Yeats, Selected Poems 85). It was during this time that Yeats's poetry changed, too, from poems with an other-worldly quality to a more direct reality, a directness reflected also in the writings of other modernists. In his earlier, neo-Romantic years, Yeats wrote several poems about his unrequited love for Maude Gonne, who, according to Declan Kiberd, "epitomized [the] manly woman" involved in the national movement (182). These poems could represent Yeats's early fascination with ancient Irish lore. In his later, modernist period, he wrote poems about a female martyr of the Easter Rising, and another about his hopes for his daughter. And he wrote at least one powerful poem about Ireland as a woman wronged by England. In his 1891 poem "A Dream of Death," Yeats seems to kill off the beloved woman because he cannot have her; in "The Cap and Bells (1894)," a heavyhanded Freudian poem about not having his love returned by Maud Gonne, the poet, unable to claim his beloved in reality, dreams that he can have her. Again in 1898, in "He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead," the poet wants to kill his beloved off if he cannot have her. After Gonne married, Yeats's poetry is generally acknowledged to have changed to a new, bitter tone of experience: in "Easter 1916" Yeats refers to her husband, who died as a result of that event, as "A drunken, vainglorious lout." He seems to have made the transition from neo-Romantic to modernist at about the same time, and began to use his art as a tool for nationalism or a weapon for decolonization, not abandoning ancient Irish lore, but incorporating it into his writing about current politics. Another "manly woman" who appears in a Yeats poem was the Countess Markievicz, who participated in the Easter Rising; she was incarcerated but, because of her gender, not executed. Yeats describes her in "On a Political Prisoner" (1920) and again in "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz" (1929). In the earlier poem, she is described as she was before her imprisonment: "Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird." But in her prison cell she is no longer the free gull. Instead, she must learn the patience to befriend a gull who is free to alight on her windowsill. In the later poem she has been both condemned to death and pardoned and now she "drags out lonely years / Conspiring among the ignorant." If death defines life as an art, as in "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," Yeats would have perhaps had a better opinion of the Countess Markievicz if she had indeed been executed along with the male participants in the Easter Rising. It is possible that he is expressing a preference for the destruction of Ireland rather than her continued colonization. In his 1919 poem "A Prayer for my Daughter," Yeats ponders his daughter's (Ireland's) future and prays about it "Because of the great gloom that is in my mind" in anticipating her future, possibly because of what Declan Kiberd calls the "misogynistic streak" in the national movement (363). The

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

38

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

poet wants his daughter to be beautiful, but not too beautiful; he wants her to be kind and courteous and to stay in one place with a husband. The poet wishes for her to have ". . . beauty and yet not / Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught"; he doesn't want beauty to cause her to "Lose natural kindness." "In courtesy," he says, "I'd have her chiefly learned"; he wishes, ". . . may she live like some green laurel / Rooted in one dear perpetual place." He wants for "her bridegroom [to] bring her to a house /Where all's accustomed, ceremonious / . . . . [for] How but in custom and in ceremony / Are innocence and beauty born?" He seems to want a life for his daughter, and his country, that is simpler, less challenging, than the ones lived by the manly women of the national movement. Other women in other Yeats poems can be read as Ireland. For example, a powerful poem of colonization, the 1924 poem "Leda and the Swan," shows what Terence Brown calls "the image of Ireland as a wronged woman" (xxiv). Here Yeats takes a fresh view of a story from classical Greek mythology, the story of Leda, a mortal woman whose name means both "lady" and "darkness" (Room 184), who is "visited" by Zeus, "supreme ruler of the Greek gods," whose "name is 'god' itself" (308). Zeus was "disguised as a swan and coupled with her" (184). Rather than Leda's being honored by such an intimate relationship with a god, Yeats reads the event as a rape. The "visit," and the poem, both begin with "A sudden blow." The poet describes Leda as "the staggering girl . . . / . . . her nape caught in his bill, / . . . helpless . . . ." The girl is "terrified," but her thighs are "loosening"; she is "caught up" not only in the bill of the bird but also in the thrill of the event as her body responds: "And how can body, laid in that white rush, / But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?" The coupling is likened to the fall of Troy: "And Agamemnon dead." Agamemnon, the name, means "very resolute" (Room 31); and all the steadfast resolve of the girl is overcome. She is "mastered by the brute blood of the air." And then "the indifferent beak . . . let her drop." Ireland has been raped by England in a way similar to Leda's rape by Zeus. Ireland is "staggering . . . caught . . . helpless . . . terrified." But how can Ireland/Leda deny the thrill of being overcome by England/Zeus (God) before she is allowed to "drop"? "A shudder in the loins" seems to implicate Ireland in her own rape: Did she wear provocative clothing? Did she flirt with him, look at him a certain way? Was she askirg for it? Did she er~joyit? But Yeats asks a much more provocative question in this poem: "Did she put on his knowledge with his power / Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?" What has Ireland learned from the forced intimacy of the encounter with the colonizing power? Has Ireland been able to take something valuable from England before England has been able to disengage? I suggest that Ireland has found the language that has been forced upon her to be a valuable weapon against oppression.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER I11

Joyce: Voicing Paralysis

J

ames Joyce was a schoolboy when Yeats started the National Literary Society; having been born in 1882, Joyce was seventeen years younger than Yeats. Age was not their only difference. While Yeats was a member of the Protestant minority, the ruling elite who controlled "entry to the major professions of Law and Medicine" and who "reserved for poorer Protestants many of the better-paid jobs in the government" (Brown xxii), the Joyce family was a part of the Catholic majority and "reckoned their future as intimately bound up with Parnell's skilfully fought parliamentary campaign for Irish Home Rule which would have allowed the country. . . a significant degree of legislative independence" (xii). In other words, Yeats, being Protestant, had greater access to government, business, and the professions, while Joyce, being Catholic, had little to hope for in terms of entry into those institutions of society. Joyce would have been excluded, for example, from entering medical school, while Yeats would have been excluded from University College, a Catholic institution. Because Catholics made up about 83% of the Dublin population at the time (Brown xxi), Catholics would undoubtedly have had a greater voice in affairs if Parnell's campaign had been successf~il. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Not only was Parnell unsuccessful at obtaining home rule for the Irish, but it was the Catholics themselves who brought his career to an ignominious end. At the same time, the Joyce family's fortunes took a major turn for the worse, and the young James Joyce found his family suddenly no longer able to pay for his private Catholic schooling, and also forced to descend into the lower-middle-class society of Dublin, a group who lived on the "wrong side" of the river Liffey. Joyce thus had first-hand knowledge of the Dublin peopled with the kinds of characters that he later wrote into his collection of stories Dilbliners. The betrayal of

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

40

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Parnell by Irish Catholics and the inability of the Irish Catholics to bring about a positive change in their lives are major themes of these stories. The destruction of Parnell and with him the hopes of Irish Catholics for a fuller participation in society colored Joyce's thinking for the rest of his life. Joyce was nine years old in 1891 when Parnell died and the Irish Renaissance began. Dominic Manganiello says of this period, While parliamentarians at Westminster were engaged in political backbiting, at home small groups of Irishmen were forming literary societies to revive the national consciousness. Literature was to fill the political vacuum left by Parnell's death. The key figure in this new literary movement was William Butler Yeats. It was the literary and cultural aspect of the same nationalistic impulse [as Parnell's]. (23) In Iiwentirg Ireland, Declan Kiberd reads Irish literature through postcolonial eyes, linking it to the cultural and political history, and then psychoanalyzes that history as it is expressed in the literature. For example, he begins his discussion with two notions: that Ireland was used by Victorian England as its own "id" which complemented the "ego" of the English surface, and that Ireland was forced to take on the feminine characteristics of "other" in relation to the masculine "one" of England. Ireland was therefore "invented" by England. This kind of colonization of the cultural psyche resulted in colonization of the individual psyche as well. It led the whole of Ireland to be dependent and childlike, it reversed the roles in the usual rebellion of son against father, and it required the mothers and daughters to bear the familial and cultural burdens of both sexes, displacing the man of the house, who was found helpless in the grip of despair and alcoholism. The Irish citizen, lacking parents, was forced to give birth to him- or herself, inventing the individual self as he or she invented the Irish past and the Irish nation. In addition, Kiberd shows how the struggle for Irish independence is rooted in this dysfunctional cultural psyche. The literature, therefore, logically preceded physical attempts at independence from England as the Irish poets and playwrights, especially those in exile, manufactured an idea of Ireland that was necessary to the physical struggle. A major difference between Joyce and Yeats was the matter of using art in the service of politics. Manganiello says, "As a young man Joyce questioned Yeats's method in his endeavour to define the national soul. . . . In his first meeting with the poet in 1902 Joyce objected to Yeats's concern with politics" (215). According to Manganiello, Joyce thought that "Poetry was not to be subservient to nationalism or to be an instrument for Irish politics" (215). In addition, "Joyce felt that to call oneself a nationalist in the Dublin of his day was to demote art, to advance one's country before everything else" (Manganiello 35). But, while Yeats used his art for political purposes, he never subordinated his art to politics as did many of his imitators. According

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Joyce: Voicing Paralysis

41

t o Manganiello, "Yeats's criterion for judging good art was t h e same as Joyce's" (215). While "Nationalism, for Joyce, exemplified political delusion i n the secular sphere" (16),Joyce himself wrote that " I f the Irish programme did not insist o n the Irish language I suppose I could call myself a nationalist. As it is, I a m content t o recognise myself an exile . . ." (qtd. i n Brown xxvi). But "Yeats was not as deceived [by t h e politicians] as Joyce made h i m out to be" (Manganiello 215); as a matter o f fact, as his later work became more mystical, politicians were disappointed because his work could not be used for their purposes. Joyce's reaction t o t h e coincidence o f Parnell's fall and the decline i n his family fortunes never left h i m . Manganiello says, "The Parnell crisis was t h e pivot from which Joyce viewed the rest o f Irish history" ( 8 ) . According to Manganiello, Yeats's play The Countess Cathleen "provided a prime example for Joyce o f h o w artistic consciousness could combat external authorities like the Church" (29), even though h e protested against using literature for politics and even as others "shrewdly recognised t h e play's value as propaganda for t h e Irish cause" (27). For, according t o Manganiello, Joyce believed that "patriotic fervour did not make u p for poor writing, and t o exploit national and racial themes for political propaganda constituted 'a false and mean expression o f a false and mean idea"' (30).But Yeats's writing did not fit into that category, even though t h e writing o f some o f his imitators may have, and eventually even "Yeats . . . protested. . . that there were limits t o nationalism" (31). Both Joyce and Yeats agreed, however, that Ireland's ills were attributable t o England's oppression. So Joyce left Ireland and became an exile. He could not commit himself t o subordinate his art t o politics: " I f a man wants t o be an artist, Joyce asserted, h e must free himself from the mean influences which beleaguer him" (Manganiello 28). He left for t h e sake o f art; Manganiello says that his leaving "was an assertion o f personal freedom, an unwillingness t o reduce t h e role o f t h e artist t o that o f a priest or politician" (2).Joyce, h e says, " i n setting himself against Church, fatherland, family and friends. . . was not being apolitical. Exile did not mean escape but a widening o f political consciousness; it did not mean indifferencebut preserving his intimacy w i t h his country b y intensifying his quarrel with her" (41). Joyce went to continental Europe, and his exile was therefore a "weapon . . . w i t h which t o continually assess his country" (42). Removing himself from Ireland allowed h i m to have greater insight, with a broader, more European vision than h e could have retained i n Dublin. James Joyce wanted t o speak t o t h e Irish people b y holding u p a mirror t o their lives i n Dz~bliners.As a matter o f fact, Joyce wrote now-famous lines t o his publisher about the collection o f stories: "I seriously believe that you will retard the course o f civilisation i n Ireland b y preventing t h e Irish people from having one good look at themselves i n m y nicely polished lookingglass" (qtd. i n Brown xv). Rather than write a ballad t o inspire a political movement, Joyce tried t o describe t h e hopelessness o f the Irish political situ-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

42

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

ation. One of the Dubliners stories, "Ivy Day in the Committee Room," characterizes the Irish political paralysis after the death of Parnell by direct references to Parnell himself, even though Parnell never appears in the story. "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" is the most direct statement in Dubliners about Irish politics, which, since the death of Parnell, have become virtually powerless. As Brown reports, Ivy Day commemorates the anniversary of the funeral of Charles Stewart Parnell, the "uncrowned king of Ireland" (286; n. I), who died after his brilliant and promising political career was abruptly ended because the Catholic church withdrew its support when his adulterous affair with Kitty O'Shea became public. This is the same Parnell who had gained leverage in British politics and, with the support of the Catholic church, held out hope for home rule, which would have given Irish Catholics a greater voice in government. Ivy Day is called so because Parnell's mourners "wore ivy leaves in their lapels picked from the ivy plants in the graveyard" as he was buried (Brown 286; n. 1). The setting of the story is a room where various kinds of local political workers convene, and Joyce describes the different strands of political stances through the characters who gather there. The date is October 6, 1902, the eleventh anniversary of Parnell's funeral; the year is not stated but is calculated by Terence Brown on the basis of the anticipated visit of Edward VII, who visited Ireland in 1903 (287; n. 17). As the story begins, a caretaker fans a small fire in an attempt to warm Mr O'Connor, a political canvasser who has come to get his pay from Mr Tierney, the candidate for whom he is working. Mr Tierney is a candidate for a seat in a local election vacated by "a death or a resignation" (286; n. 3), a situation which makes him seem like a vulture in feeding himself from the demise of someone else. O'Connor shows his politics by the ivy leaf he wears in his lapel, even though he is working for pay for a candidate who "only wants to get some job or other" Uoyce 118). In other words, Tierney has no fervor or passion for leading Ireland, but he does want a municipal job. Tierney never appears in the story, but he is the topic of much conversation, since the men support his candidacy for pay and they have not been paid. His nickname is "Tricky Dicky," and the men are attempting to guess whether Tierney will support the formal welcome of the British monarch to Ireland. Parnell had led his supporters in a move to ignore the monarch's (Victoria's) visit during his lifetime. O'Connor represents that Irishman who remembers Parnell but looks to his own immediate interests: money in return for his support. But Mr Hynes is a Parnellite who actually attempts to continue to follow Parnell. He is the only other character to wear the lapel ivy, and he has written a poem about Parnell, which he recites with little urging. He is an advocate for the working man and is against the formal welcome for the British king. That he is the adversary of Mr Henchy is apparent as, when Henchy comes in and nods curtly to Hynes, Hynes takes his leave.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Joyce: Voicing Paralysis

43

Henchy proceeds to suggest that Hynes may be a "spy" for another candidate, that there is at least something wrong with him: "I'm greatly afraid our friend is not nineteen carat. Damn it, I can understand a fellow being hard up but what I can't understand is a fellow sponging" (121). Ironically, Henchy proves himself to be the sponge, as he insists on a bigger fire and has spent some time cadging twelve bottles of stout from Tierney. When Hynes later returns, Henchy supports the idea of a formal address of welcome for the king because, as he says, "The King's coming here will mean an influx of money into this country. The citizens of Dublin will benefit by it" (128). Henchy seems to support whoever will provide for his immediate needs and to denigrate everyone else. When OIConnor and Hynes protest that the King of England is known as a womanizer, the very thing that has cost them Parnell, Henchy refuses to see an analogy. He actually lies in his argument that Edward VII is coming because his mother, Queen Victoria, had neglected to visit the Irish; in fact, she had visited four times (Brown 291; n. 62). He speaks as one of those whose minds have been colonized; he supports the oppressor and denies his own. He says, "Damn it, can't we Irish play fair?" (Joyce 129). Other characters are Father Keon, a "black sheep" priest who is looking for Fanning, the keeper of Tierney's money (123), having no "attachment to any chapel or church" (124) and therefore no visible means of support, but who is frequently seen with politicians in a local pub, suggesting complicity between the church and the politicians, and Crofton and Lyons, two other canvassers for Tierney. Crofton "considered his companions beneath him" and supports Tierney as the "lesser of two evils," since his own candidate has withdrawn from the race (128). He goes along with another canvasser but says nothing, letting the other worker ask for votes and influence. Lyons actually is the character who reminds Henchy of Edward VII's reputation with women; he seems to disapprove of the formal welcome. He is described as young and perhaps has not fully placed his loyalty. But Henchy seems to epitomize the worst of Irish politics. He supports those who do things for him, even if it means he must tell lies and denigrate his own people. He insists on lighting the way for the priest to leave down the dark stairs, suggesting that he hopes to gain something from the priest. When the beer arrives, Henchy puts on airs and asks for a glass, passing himself off as too good to drink out of a bottle. In actuality, he even knows a "little trick" about opening the bottle without a corkscrew (127). In addition, he is very free with the beer that Tierney has provided and gives one to the seventeen-year-old delivery boy, even as Henchy acknowledges that "that's the way it [alcoholism] begins" (126). Ironically, he speaks against "hillsiders and fenians," Parnell's agrarian supporters, saying that "half of them are in the pay of the Castle" (referring to the seat of the British government in Dublin), and mentions someone "that'd sell his country for fourpence-ay-and go down on his bended knees and thank the Almighty Christ he had a country to sell" (122). Henchy seems to be unwittingly describing himself here.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

44

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

So the company consists of Lyons, a young man with uncertain loyalties; Crofton, a lip-service supporter of his second-choice candidate, who thinks himself better than the others; O'Connor, a supporter of Parnell in name only; Henchy, a "shoneen," who is "always hat in hand before any fellow with a handle to his name" (118); and Hynes, a Parnellite who still attempts to follow Parnell. Hynes may actually represent the best of Irish politics-Parnell himself. He brings light to the situation as he arrives: "What are you doing in the dark? said Mr Hynes, advancing into the light" (117). As other candles are lighted, the emptiness of the situation becomes obvious: the room is "denuded," its "walls . . . bare" (117). He is the one who speaks for Parnell: "-If this man was alive, he said, pointing to the [ivy] leaf [in his lapel], we'd have no talk of an address of welcome" (119). Hynes is the one who has written the poem in memory of "The Death of Parnell" and recites it from memory (131). In the poem, Parnell is Christ-like in his betrayal by so-called friends-the "fawning priests" (132). Henchy, of course, professes great enthusiasm for the performance and encourages Crofton to admire it, too. But Mr. Crofton says only that "it was a very fine piece of writing" (133). The variety of characters demonstrates the array of feelings in Irish politics and the various kinds of petty corruption found there. But, in the end, nothing happens. Irish politics are paralyzed. The paralysis of the Irish political situation is exactly what Joyce wanted to show, not only to the Irish people, but also to the rest of the world. Joyce believed that "the artist and politician seemed doomed to share the same fate in an Ireland 'where Christ and Caesar are hand and glove"' (Manganiello 18).Joyce wanted to show his people how the church oppressed them by taking a strong hand in their politics, by keeping them bound to a strict moral code, and by contributing to their poverty and their subservience to the English. Joyce became embittered toward the Catholic church after its betrayal of Parnell ruined, not only the hopes of the Joyce family, but also the hopes of most of Ireland. In his mind, the church was inextricably bound up with politics. According to Manganiello, the Church to Joyce was one of the "tyrannies that kept the heart prisoner. . . which, through its ministers, imposed a rigid sexual morality" (37), and Joyce regarded Dublin's religion "with singleminded contempt" (Brown xxvi). While Joyce thought that nationalism "exemplified political delusion in the secular sphere," he saw that the church was also an oppressor (Manganiello 16). His bitterness toward the Catholic church appears consistently in his Dz~bliners stories, but the first story, "Sisters," is most directly about the church itself. The story about the death of a priest is told from the viewpoint of a young boy. The priest represents the mysteries of the church or a man who has discovered the meaning of these mysteries. Joyce shows how the priest's two poor sisters have sacrificed to provide for their brother and how they have worked hard to take care of him, a situation which can also be taken to

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Joyce: Voicing Paralysis

45

represent the sacrifices the poor Irish make to support the church. A distinction between laity and church can also be discerned in Joyce's description of the dress of one of the sisters, with her "heels . . . trodden down all to one side," while the dead priest is "vested as for the altar" (6). The priest has befriended the boy and has introduced him to the secret mysteries of the church; the priest has taught him "how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church" (5). The boy's father refers to his son as "that Rosicrucian there" and says that the boy should "take exercise" instead of studying so much (2). The boy feels a sense of freedom when he finds out that the priest has died; instead of going to the priest's home, he chooses to stay outdoors and amuse himself: "I walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street, reading all the theatrical advertisements . . . as I went" (Joyce 4). He has been freed from the priest who would "let his tongue lie upon his lower lip-a habit which had made me feel uneasy" in the boy's words (5, my emphasis). Not only has a sense of oppression been lifted with the death of the priest, but Joyce suggests that the priest or the church spreads untruths. The boy later goes with his mother to the priest's house, where they are welcomed into "the open door of the dead-room" (6). As they kneel at the bedside, the boy "pretend[s] to pray" (6); they are then offered a sacrament of sorts, sherry (wine) and cream crackers (unleavened bread), and they gaze "at the empty fireplace" (7). But the reader finds that there has been something wrong with this priest; there has been something unspoken, perhaps unspeakable, that has made him "mope by himself, talking to no one" until he is found "sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession-box, wideawake and laughing-like softly" (10). He has become "queer" after he has broken a sacred chalice (9), one of the mysteries perhaps, and found it empty, "contain[ing] nothing" (lo), making him "a disappointed man" (9). He apparently has been relieved of his duties, and the boy's mother wonders whether he has even been allowed to receive the last rites of the church before his death. She is assured that "Father OIRourke was in with him a Tuesday and anointed him" (7). According to Terence Brown, last rites "would only be refused in exceptional circumstances. Accordingly, the doubt about Father Flynn's end augments the mystery which surrounds him in the story. For only in the case of something very disgraceful indeed could it be imagined that a dying priest could be refused this last Sacrament of his Church" (243; n. 32). But, in the boy's dream, the priest has come to the boy for confession and begins "to confess to me . . . . As if to absolve the simoniac of his sin" (Joyce 3), as if the child is a higher authority. The whole story mocks the rites of the church, questions its teachings and authority, and demonstrates how one can fall from grace in the church by doing something, the boy says, "that I had always regarded as the simplest acts" (5). This story leaves no doubt that Joyce considered the Catholic church to be complicito~isin the oppression of the Irish.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

46

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Education of the Irish by the English was another aspect of the oppression. Recognizing the "complicity between language, education, and cultural incorporation" (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin S ) , Yeats entered into the debate surrounding the use of Gaelic or English, the debate which English eventually won, but an "English which shall have an indefinable Irish quality of rhythm and style . . . English as it is spoken in Ireland" (Greene), or a hybrid language. Joyce uses this Irish form of English for the dialect of his Dilblir~erscharacters and demonstrates that they actually have no voice. He addresses both the class system that kept Catholics in low-paying jobs and the exclusion of Catholics from political and government activities, tyrannies that kept the people paralyzed and contributed to the psychic colonization of individuals and the culture. About the dysfunctional Irish family Declan Kiberd says that the family is the one social institution that a colonized people can fully participate in and also that "in a colony the revolt by a son against a father is a meaningless gesture, because it can have no social effect" (380) The rebellious son is forced to return to the family as a haven that, in every respect, reflected the disorder of the outside colonial dispensation. The compromised or broken father could provide no convincing image of authority. . . . The space vacated by the ineffectual father was occupied by the all-powerful woman, who became not just "wife and mother in one" but surrogate father as well. . . . But the women could not have achieved such dominance if many husbands had not also abdicated the role of father. . . . (381) Many of these men turned to alcohol for comfort, a situation alluded to in the "Ivy Day" discussion of giving beer to the delivery boy. The impotent husband and the displaced father, who languished in despair and alcoholism, are characterized in another Dubliners story, "Counterparts"; at the same time, Joyce shows the importance of language. In "Counterparts," Farrington is the impotent husband and the displaced father, made so by his marginalization. He is brow-beaten by his boss, Mr. Alleyne, who has "a piercing North of Ireland accent" (Joyce 82); he is snubbed by a London actress; he is beaten in his attempt to "uphold the national honour" in arm-wrestling by an English acrobat. When he talks back to Mr. Alleyne to impress the female Jewish client in his boss's office, he is threatened with the loss of his job, which he has not been performing well. Farrington notices the difference in speech of all these characters and hates them for it; their language marks their power over him. Indeed, the beginning of the animosity between Farrington and Alleyne is Alleyne's overhearing Farrington as he mimics Alleyne's accent to his fellow employees. Farrington swallows his anger and humiliation and washes it down with alcohol, even sneaking away from his job to imbibe. He pawns his watch for a considerable sum in order to drink and to buy drinks for his "friends." One

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Joyce: Voicing Paralysis

47

of his few triumphs is to tc2lk the pawn broker into paying more than his original offer for the watch; his other triumphs are in retelling his story, with himself as hero, to his friends at the bar, who remain his friends as long as his money lasts, and in gaining a smile of approval from Miss Delacour, Alleyne's client, by talking back to Alleyne. These are the only situations in which Farrington gains any self-esteem at all. In every other situation he is subordinated, not allowed a voice. When, having spent his entire sum of money on drink, he returns home, he finds that the fire, the traditional heart of the home, has been allowed to go out, no food has been prepared for him, and his wife has gone to church. The child who gets out of bed to stir the fire and prepare his father's dinner stands in for all the other people who have humiliated Farrington; the boy has a "flat accent" which Farrington also mimics (94). This description may further link the boy in Farrington's mind to his antagonists. Here Farrington does have some power, however, and he uses it to beat the boy. Joyce writes that Farrington's "wife was a little sharp-faced woman who bullied her husband when he was sober and was bullied by him when he was drunk" (93). Not only is she not at home to be bullied by Farrington; she has gone to church, which seems to infuriate Farrington all the more, as if she is attempting to be better than he is or as if she looks to an authority higher than his. The child, too, offers to appeal to this higher authority as an intermediary, a voice, for his father when he offers to "say a Hail Mary for you, pa, if you don't beat me . . ." (94). He wants to speak for his father not only through the church, but also through the mother of Christ, effectively displacing his father's authority not only by himself, a child, but also by a woman, Mary, as well as by the Catholic church. According to Manganiello, Joyce thought that art "would open the doors of the heart, would affirm what was frowned upon" and that writing "required candour and moral courage" (37). Joyce used both the candor and the moral courage that his writing required in creating this description of the paralyzed Irish man attempting to hang on to a tedious, low-paying job which barely supports his family, the paralyzed Irish man whose authority is displaced by the church, his wife, his children, his boss, and strangers in a pub. There are similarities in the writings of Joyce and Yeats, even though Joyce worked in the genres of novel and short stories and Yeats in the realms of poetry and plays; they both experimented with new literary subjects and new literary forms. According to Howard Batchelor, Joyce "gave the novel a new subject and a new style." He writes that The author of Uljmes is not a narrator describing a subject outside himself. He is a recorder of what is sometimes called "the stream of consciousness"-the haphazard progress of reflection, with all its paradoxes, irrelevancies, and abrupt shifts of interest. By this means Jovce made his characters the authors of his work while, as creator of

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

both them and their thoughts, he viewed their actions down the long perspective of history and myth, imposing structure on what, at first, seems merely random. . . . Edmund Wilson called him "the great poet of a new phase of human consciousness." (Batchelor) The Irish Literary Renaissance established an indigenous contemporary literature that Joyce appreciated, but he feared that the Irish would isolate themselves if they looked only inward. Joyce "welcomed Yeats's initiative" (Manganiello 29) and "leapt to the defence of Yeats and the Irish Literary Theatre . . . when their work had encountered opposition" (Brown xxviii); he "recognized Yeats's genius," but Joyce was an "instinctive urban socialist" and Yeats's "idealization of a heroic Celtic past" was not his way (xxviii). And "by 1901 he began to fear that the theatre, in dealing solely with Irish themes and producing only Irish plays, ran the risk of becoming 'all too Irish'. He felt Ireland would cut itself off from the mainstream of European culture" (Manganiello 29). Joyce himself spoke to the rest of the world, too, and not just to the Irish people. While Yeats looked to the past to inspire the Irish to political struggle, Joyce started with the Parnell crisis and looked at the rest of Irish history through the lens of betrayal, especially the betrayal of the Irish people by the Catholic church. Manganiello says, "For Joyce averting betrayal had become the key political factor in revolutionary Irish history" (13). Joyce thought nationalism to be political delusion in the secular sphere, but he knew that "Irishmen were submissive to a spiritual creed as well" (16). Because it was the church that had turned on Parnell, bringing about his defeat, "Joyce was embittered against the Church that smashed Parnell . . ." (17). The moral code that Catholics were held to by the church oppressed all the Irish people, but especially the women. Both Yeats and Joyce write about women, but Joyce acknowledges the additional marginalization of women in terms of gender more strongly than does Yeats. For many of their women, the reader may substitute Ireland. About Joyce's women Terence Brown says, "Although only three of the fifteen [Dz~bliners]stories offer a woman as a central character and although" most of the stories "seem to valorize the masculine viewpoint . . . it is women who suffer the most severe victimage in the narrow confines of this disabling social milieu" (xxiv). He goes on to say that "throughout we hear the accents of female distress, and we witness its terrible silences" (xxv). Joyce understood the marginalization of women in Dublin. In a 1904 letter to Nora Barnacle, he describes his feelings about his own mother's death: "My mother was slowly killed, I think, by my father's ill-treatment, by years of trouble, and by my cynical frankness of conduct. When I looked on her face as she lay in her coffin-a face grey and wasted with cancer-I understood that I was looking on the face of a victim and I cursed the system which had made her a victim" (qtd. in Brown ix). His feelings about the victimization of his

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Joyce: Voicing Paralysis

49

mother are apparently the same feelings he had about the victimization and paralysis of Ireland. In "Eveline," the nineteen-year-old title character's name has an obvious denotation of a genealogy of mothers: Mother "Eve" and "line." In addition, Terence Brown connects the name to a "Victorian pornographic novel . . . in which the heroine has sexual intercourse with her father . . . and whose specialty is fellatio" (253). Indeed, the girl has taken her dead mother's place in every other aspect: she does the cleaning, shopping, and cooking and sees that the younger children are fed and off to school on time. All this is in addition to holding a job as a store clerk, and she dutifully hands her wages to her father at week's end, having to beg him later for grocery money. The story is about Eveline's opportunity to leave home and marry, to have a home of her own. Frank, a sailor, wants Eveline to sail with him to "Buenos Aryes" (Joyce 31), secretly, of course, since her father has forbidden her to see Frank. But when Eveline thinks of home, she immediately thinks about her weekly chore of dusting the familiar objects. Even looking out the window to a world only as wide as her immediate neighborhood, Eveline is reminded, not of liberation, but of the dusty curtains. Eveline has made a deathbed promise to her mother "to keep the home together as long as she could"; in addition she has "prayed to God to direct her" in her choice between a life of her own or a continuance of her mother's duties (33). As Eveline leans against the dusty window curtains, she does not look outward, but inward, to memories of her mother's life: "commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness" (33). The mother's last words, "Derevaun Seraun," have not been fully deciphered; indeed, Brown reports several possible meanings, but also concludes that the words are "possibly mere nonsense" (Brown 255; n. 16). But, in the context that Joyce creates, the reader can positively know what the words mean to Eveline by looking at her next thought: "Escape!" (Joyce 33). Presumably, if the mother had the same choice that Eveline faces, she would leave for South America. But Brown also notes that "The phrase 'Going to Buenos Ayres' was also slang for taking up a life of prostitution" (255). This knowledge casts doubt on Frank's intentions as well, and the reader sees that Eveline has really very little choice indeed. In the end, Eveline chooses the known, even though everything in her life is "hard work," a phrase that Joyce uses three times in his description of Eveline's life. And at the end, Eveline utters her first sound, not even a word, as she clutches the iron railing at the boat dock, as Frank calls to her to follow him: "a cry of anguish" (Joyce 34). She freezes, is paralyzed. Eveline has no choice; Eveline has no voice. As the story closes she is "like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition" (34). As the story ends Eveline has become like her mother on her own deathbed and has carried on the lineage, powerless to make a change. Yeats and Joyce shared the experience of otherness, although different kinds of otherness. Each had a different view of the role of the artist, but both thought that a writer could bring about a change in the oppression of the

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

50

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Irish by England. They had different starting points and different methods, but the same goal. Yeats began with history and looked toward the future, while Joyce began with the present and looked toward the future. Spurred by the modern consciousness, Yeats invented a culture; Joyce dramatized it. Joyce was bitter against the Catholic church, while Yeats's religion was his art. Both saw Ireland as a wronged woman; both wrote about wronged women in Ireland. Both were themselves "feminized" by their oppression and found themselves in the same powerless position that women have found themselves in. Both used the alien language of the colonizer and their own imaginations to provide a voice for Ireland to speak to the world. Having "invented" Ireland, they pointed the way for writers from other oppressed cultures to invent a space for themselves from which to speak, on the overlapping edges of different cultures. Declan Kiberd relates the Irish poets and the Irish struggle for political and cultural independence to Walt Whitman and the American struggle for cultural independence. In addition, he sees parallels between the Irish situation and other situations in the twentieth century, particularly in Africa and India. As a matter of fact, Yeats's prophetic poem "The Second Coming" can be directly tied to two novels about the colonization of Africa, one by the Pole Joseph Conrad, who wrote twenty years before the Yeats poem, the other by the Nigerian Chinua Achebe, who wrote forty years after the poem was published.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER IV

Conrad: Questioning the Empire

Y

1921 POEM "THESECO\D Coming," but another marginalized writer seems to have anticipated his prophecy several years earlier, with the 1899 publication of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. And, whereas Yeats and Joyce spoke for the Irish and to the world, Conrad spoke not for himself but for others. Where Yeats saw the spiral shapes of history, Conrad saw the emptiness at the center of civilization and the atrocities at the margins and gave a voice to those who had previously had none. He, too, wrote in an acquired language. He believed in the power of words to bring about change, and reinvented himself with words. He, like Yeats and Joyce, expressed a modernist sensibility in his writing, and his narrative technique came to be known as "modernist." Through his "impressionistic" writing, he changed the roles of writer and reader. And, even though he has been criticized as both a racist and an anti-feminist, Conrad seems to have "anticipated many twentieth-century preocc~ipations" (Watts 4.51, linking him to even later writers. To show that Conrad lived on the edges of more than one culture while belonging fully to none, it is necessary to look at his early life. As a five-yearold boy, Conrad went into forced exile from Russian-occupied Poland with his mother and his father, who had been exiled for his political activities. His mother died under the hardships of exile in a remote part of Russia and his father four years later, leaving the boy Conrad an orphan at the age of twelve (Sherry). He spent the next few years with his maternal uncle and gained from him a "practical, conservative approach to life" quite different from the "revolutionary fervour of Conrad's father" (Moore 6). When he left landlocked Poland at the age of seventeen, it was to go to sea as well as to escape what he faced as the "son of a political prisoner": "a possible twenty-five years conscription in the Russian army" (Knowles 7). Even though it was sugEATS SPOI<E -\S -\\ EARLY MODERNIST I\ HIS PROPHETIC

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

52

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

gested that he was betraying his homeland by leaving (7), Conrad had no real home and truly had to manufacture a space for himself in the world. He first served as a seaman on a French merchant mariner (French being his third language, according to Norman Sherry, after Russian and Polish), but was forced to leave that service because of "French immigration authorities" (Murfin 4). So Conrad learned his fourth language, English, became an Englishman, and in the service of English vessels visited many colonial ports, where he began to question imperialism (Watts 48). It was on one of these voyages, to the Congo region of Africa, that he gained the knowledge of colonial conditions that appears in Heart of Darkness. Even though, as Ford Madox Ford noted, his pronunciation of English was at times almost unintelligible (Knowles 3), he mastered the written language, going on to report the atrocities he had witnessed in various European colonies through the voice of the fictional Englishman Marlow. From his earliest memories, Conrad thought of himself as "multiple," according to Jocelyn Baines (14); his personal experiences included a sense of isolation and the ethical conflict between his father and his uncle (Watts 48), as well as his sense of being linguistically and culturally "multiple." This unique position is apparent in his writing. According to Gene M. Moore, Conrad is a figure of the crossroads, determined to portray and explore the conflicting loyalties and multiple identities of those who, like him, have been denied their cultural birthright. Conrad writes with the passionate irony of an exile, from the necessarily false position of a cultural colonist who speaks, in a language not quite his own, for both the dispossessed and their dispossessors. (223) In addition, Conrad had a modern consciousness, and his own world of blurred boundaries was becoming true for many others. According to Leonard Woolf, "profound changes were taking place in every direction . . . Freud and Rutherford and Einstein were at work beginning to revolutionize our knowledge of our own minds and the universe" (qtd. in Graham 210). Andrea White writes, "As an early modern, he [Conrad] sensed the current of a world-wide disruption of peoples and ideas, of exiles and rootlessness . . ." (197). He, like others, was influenced by both Darwin and Freud. Darwin's evolutionary model was "greatly elaborated" by anthropologists and sociologists; they believed that "humanity developed from 'barbarism' to 'civilization,' and progress was inevitable and universal" (White 186). It was this idea that other cultures were farther behind the Europeans on the ladder of progress that supported the ideology of imperialism. But Conrad's voyages gave him ample opportunity to observe and ruminate about the human condition, and Heart of Darkness is also about an inner voyage. Frederick Karl notes that "both Conrad and Freud were pioneers in stressing the irrational elements in human behavior which resisted orthodox interpretation" (124), and Brook Thomas shows that, in the writings of both Conrad and Freud,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conmd: Questioning the Empire

53

"the otherness of female sexuality is described i n terms of t h e otherness of the African continent" (243). Conrad's modernist sense and experimental techniques were shared by many of his contemporaries. According to Kenneth Graham, Much of early Pound and Eliot, a great deal of Yeats and Stevens, much of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist (and certainly his poems), early Lawrence and much of Faulkner, and certain central aspects of Woolf's sensibility and language, come straight from the so-called Decadent Movement: above all, from its use of image and symbol, from its conscious blurring of the outlines of things in order to release more spiritual suggestions from within, its view of the artist as having replaced the priest, its sardonic dismissal of the world of action and of morality, its stylization and even denial of 'character,' its love of form, and its basic urge to replace the natural and contemporary world by another, art-generated reality. (207) Conrad's writing employed these characteristics, especially i n his "blurring of the outlines" and use of image and symbol. Cedric Watts links Conrad with later modernists i n another respect: Familiar characteristics of Modernist texts are the sense of absurdity or meaninglessness, of human isolation, and of the problematic nature of communication. Eliot, Kafka, Woolf, and Beckett are among the writers who grappled with these matters, all of which had been sharply depicted in Heart ofDtrrkness. The sense of the defilement of the natural environment by man's technology, another powerful feature of the narrative, was later to be addressed by Eliot, Lawrence, Greene, and numerous subsequent writers. . . . (52) T. S. Eliot made a direct a n d overt connection between Conrad's Heart of Darkness a n d Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" by using a line from t h e novel as a n epigraph for t h e poem: "Mistah Kurtz-he dead" (Eliot 1283; n. 1). Eliot's title connects t h e poem also to Yeats's "the centre cannot hold" (Selected Poerns 89). As the center falls apart, t h e outer part becomes hollow. And Conrad had anticipated them all. Graham says, Yeats's famous figure of the "rough beast" that "slouches toward Bethlehem to be born" while "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world," at the end of "The Second Coming" (1919), is often seen as having struck the keynote of apocalyptic Modernism. But it was long anticipated in Conrad's equally haunting image of Kwtz's open mouth-a long, long way from Bethlehem-railing, pleading, threatening, and devouring all of the earth. (214)

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

54

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

But Conrad himself tells us that he is a modern man. In a 1902 letter he says, "I am morlern" (qtd. in Knowles 13). He has succeeded in transforming himself. He has transformed the relationship between writer and reader. Heart ofDarkkness "unfolds its own mode of understanding, . . . it has redrawn its own boundaries, redescribed its facts, and revaluated its values" (Levenson 391). He has also set about transforming the world. Cedric Watts says that Heart of Darkr~ess"from the outset . . . probes, questions, and subverts familiar contrasts between the far and the near, between the 'savage' and the 'civilized', between the tropical and the urban" (Watts 58). Like Yeats, Conrad obviously uses his experience to critique a political situation in his fiction, a use noted by several other critics. In terms of politics, Karl says that Heart of Darkr~esspresents "the grandest insight into the politics of our time," and further connects the novel to the Yeats poem "The Second Coming." He writes, "Too often power is vested in the chameleon, the politician who claims to be all things to all people. 'The best lack all conviction,' as William Butler Yeats expresses it in 'The Second Coming,' 'while the worst are full of passionate intensity"' ("Introduction" 129). Michael Levenson states that Heart ofDarkkness "discovers a standpoint from which to contest grotesque political abuse," even as it "invents for itself a genre of psychological narrative" (401). Cedric Watts notes that "A literary work may have a diversity of political implications and consequences, but it is not a political manifesto. It is an imaginative work that offers a voluntary and hypothetical experience" (57). Even though Conrad's work is fiction, it is based on his African experience, and it reveals the truth of English politics in Africa. A relationship between ideology and literature can be linked to Conrad's impressionism through Johanna M. Smith, who sees two kinds of ideology. She explains that one sense of ideology is a conscious system of belief, but another sense is "the unconscious grounding of individual experience" (180). She says, "we take for granted what is natural, and hence ideology becomes the unexamined ground of our experience" (180-81). Conrad examines this ground that others take for granted, as does Marlow. Conrad's own personal marginalization and wide experience gave him a different tendency of mind from others; this trait is exemplified in his English counterpart and narrator, Marlow. Marlow is "not typical" and "does not represent his class" of seamen, whose "minds are of the stay-at-home order" (Conrad 9). Where others do not even look, Marlow sees universal meaning in small acts; the frame narrator says that, for another seaman, "a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing" (9). Bruce Johnson explains this unseeing, uncaring attitude as "the result of complex cultural prejudices" (346). Another seaman, then, "begins with what his culture and his aesthetic traditions prepare him and allow him to see" and goes no further (345). Conrad's unique borderline position allows him (and Marlow) to see what others do not; he has "reached back to some kind of original seeing" (349). Whereas

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conmd: Questioning the Empire

55

"The yarns of [other] seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut" (Conrad 9), Marlow's tales are not so straightforward. And, in his attempt to allow the reader to see in this intuitive way, Conrad has effectively changed the role of the reader from a passive to an active one, requiring the reader to find a meaning which is not single or fixed. The reader must extract the meaning in a way different from the traditional: from the surrounding outside, from the nutshell rather than from the kernel, the meaning "enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze" (9). So the role of the artist is also changed, as Conrad writes in a way that reflects "one of the original purposes of impressionism: to return to the most aboriginal sensation before concepts and rational categories are brought to bear" (Johnson 346). Conrad's "unmediated observation" continually forces the reader to actively make sense of events (346), and the reader thus plays an active role in forming the meaning of the story. This necessity may make the reader alert but uneasy, as it does Marlow's listeners on the Nellie. The frame narrator-narratee says, "I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word that would give me the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative" (Conrad 30). Here we may return to Rosenthal's view of Yeats's poetic technique of transferred association because it relates to Conrad's. Conrad's meaning is similarly reciprocal; for example, Marlow explains his Congo experience this way: "It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me-and into my thoughts. It was sombre enough too-and pitiful-not extraordinary in any way-not very clear either. No. Not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light" (Conrad 11). Conrad proves that he is a modernist in Heart ofDarkness through his use of the psychological, irrationality and impressionism, non-logical organization, images, symbols, and paradoxes and contradictions. There is a sense of unreality in several passages, most notably in Marlow's initiation into the Company in the "sepulchral city": there was something ominous in the atmosphere. . . . In the outer room the two women knitted black wool feverishly. People were arriving and the younger one was walking back and forth introducing them. The old woman . . . seemed to know all about them and about me too. An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. (Conrad 14) And again in his physical examination by the company doctor: 'I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,' he said. 'And when they come back too?' I asked. 'Oh, I never see them, he remarked, 'and, moreover the changes take place inside, you know. He smiled as if at some quiet

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

joke. . . . He gave me a searching glance and made another note. 'Eve1 any madness in your family?' (15) His use of impressionism is evident in several places besides the famous "little sticks" episode that Ian Watt elucidates. For example, Marlow says, "Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularised impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares" (Conrad 17). And "I did not see the real significance of that wreck at once . . ." (24). The inner, psychological journey is concurrent with the journey upriver: "But the snags were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fireman nor I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts" (Conrad 39). Because he looks, Marlow begins to notice changes in himself. He has a "queer feeling" that he is "an imposter" before he actually sets out for Africa (16). In a remark reminiscent of the doctor's examination, Marlow says, "I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting" (24). He likens himself to the African natives when he says, "Being hungry, you know, and kept on my feet too, I was getting savage" (25). But he struggles against these changes: "I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back on that station. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life" (26). While in the agent's room, when Marlow allows the agent to believe that Marlow has influence in Europe, his change is complete. Marlow says, "I became in an instant as much of a pretence as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims" (29). But he does not change to the extent that Kurtz has; Marlow says, "But his [Kurtz's] soul was mad. . . . I had . . . to go through the ordeal of looking into it myself" (65); ". . . he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my hesitating foot" (69). Work seems to be Marlow's "hold on the redeeming facts of life" and helps him maintain his psychological balance. He says, "I don't like work-no man does-but I like what is in the work-the chance to find yourself. Your own reality-for yourself-not for others-what no other man can ever know" (31). Another element in Heart of Darkness that came to be known as modernist is the lack of chronological progression. Albert J. Guerard says the story's movement "is sinuously progressive, with much incremental repetition" and likens the narrative's progression to ocean waves: "the narrative advances and withdraws as in a succession of long dark waves borne by an incoming tide"; but, he says, "the random movement of the nightmare is also the controlled movement of a poem . . ." (248). In addition to these modernist elements, Conrad presents several powerful symbols in Heart of Darkness: Kurtz as capitalism; the Manager as bureaucratic inefficiency; Kurtz's oil painting as symbol of the whole perverted enterprise; and lightness and darkness, with frequently reversed meanings. While Kurtz is only a minor representative of the system that he represents, he is an outright symbol of capitalism taken to its extreme. But Kurtz

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conmd: Questioning the Empire

57

makes no effort to put a good face on his activities; he has not attempted to keep up appearances or manufacture an illusion of philanthropy as the others have. His illusion is to make the Africans think he is all-powerful. In his pamphlet he says, "we . . . must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings-we approach them with the might of a deity" (50). But while he is worshiped as a god by the natives and has won the devotion of the Russian, he has also won the jealousy of the Manager, who attempts to destroy him. The physical boat trip and the inner psychological journey follow the evil which moves station by station, victim by victim, up the river to a complete loss of soul in Kurtz. The Manager is a prime example of inefficiency and greed, but his inefficiency is calculating and serves his greed. He does nothing: "He originated nothing, he could keep the routine going-that's all. . . . Perhaps there was nothing within him" (25). His plan to remove Kurtz is to do nothing, to send no supplies or relief staff, to starve Kurtz out. He does nothing to get Marlow any rivets with which to repair the boat so that Marlow can bring relief to Kurtz. The manager's plan has contributed to Kurtz's piracy; since he has sent Kurtz no goods to trade, Kurtz has begun to take ivory from the natives by force. The Manager is the "flabby devil [who] was running that show" (24) and who can actually bring about evil by doing nothing. While with the agent, Marlow sees an oil painting left behind by its painter, Kurtz, a painting that is completely symbolic. Marlow describes it as "representing a woman draped and blindfolded carrying a lighted torch. The background was . . . black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister" (27-28). The torch is clearly a symbol of European enlightenment, civilization, representing all that is good, proper, and necessary. As a torch casts light into darkness, the Europeans have come to Africa to bring enlightenment, civilization, and religion to the "unfortunate souls" destined to damnation, savagery, and ignorance. This torch not only represents European enlightenment, but also represents the justification behind the imperial enterprise. As the torch symbolizes enlightenment and civilization, the woman represents Europe. She, as a woman, also establishes Europe as having the power of creation, so those who represent Europe must surely be gods; but she is wearing a blindfold. The blindfold represents Europeans' lack of insight and knowledge, their ignorance. Because of their inability to see the reality of their idealistic mission, they become open to corruption, greed, and ambition. It is ironic that their own ignorance in their mission reveals the hidden savagery beneath their high ideals, savagery which, in the painting, is represented by the dark backcloth. The backcloth represents savagery of both kinds, African and European; it also represents the secret darkness of European greed and ambition, which is kept hidden; in addition, it represents the darkness of the European soul that is revealed in the imperial enterprise in Africa. Marlow's statement "the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister" shows the true face of Europe and its delegates of enlightenment (28). The dark effect of

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

58

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

the light on the face also represents the loss of the true intention behind it. As I have suggested elsewhere, "The woman in the painting carries a light into the darkness but has herself lost sight of it" (Daniels 164). While the torch-the idea-is pure, those who carry it have lost sight of its purity, and "the gap between . . . initial good intent a n d . . . subsequent action" becomes that which casts the evil on the woman's face (164). The desecration of purpose behind the torch gives rise to the savagery and darkness of the human soul, reducing the torch to an elaborate disguise that, in fact, does the opposite and reveals the greed and ambition that the power of the torch allows the bearer to manipulate for his or her own purpose. Conrad frequently reverses the traditional meanings of light and dark in this way. At one point Marlow says, "I know that the sunlight can be made to lie too" (Conrad 71). Frances B. Singh makes a good point when she says that Heart of Darkness "refers to the evil practices of the colonizers of the Congo, . . . and suggests that the real darkness is not in Africa but in Europe, and that its heart is not in the breasts of black Africans but in all whites who countenance and engage in colonialistic enterprise" (270). The torch of enlightenment, civilization, and religion that the colonizers purport to bring to Africa symbolizes the darkness of ignorance, savagery, and greed that they really bring. Other paradoxes and contradictions that Conrad presents are truth and lies, idealism and hypocrisy, appearance and reality, order and chaos, the individual and society, and the natural and the unnatural. It is true that one agent at least hides the truth of the enterprise with his pen, although he takes no responsibility for the cover-up. He is the agent who is generally called the brickmaker because his job is making bricks even though there are no brickmaking materials, the agent whom Marlow calls a "papier-m8che Mephistopheles" (Conrad 29), the "young aristocrat" who has a whole candle to himself when "the Manager was the only man supposed to have any right to candles" (27). Marlow thinks of him as one of the hollow men who protests his lack of involvement: "'My dear sir,' he cried, 'I write from dictation"' (31). So he claims innocence as long as he hoards light and keeps others in the dark. The Manager, whom we presume dictates what his aspiring assistant writes, is associated with not only control of candles, which give light, but also of sealing-wax (which both seals and affirms), a stick of which he plays with in his first interview with Marlow (25). This man attempts to control truth through light and words. Marlow describes his smile as "something stealthy . . . [which] came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable" (24). According to Marlow, the Manager himself recommends that "'Men who come out here should have no entrails.' [Marlow goes on:] He sealed the utterance with that smile of his as though it had been a door opening into a darkness he had in his keeping. You fancied you had seen things-but the seal was on" (25). When Kurtz's name is mentioned in the interview, the Manager "broke the stick of sealing-wax and seemed

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conmd: Questioning the Empire

59

dumbfounded by the accident" (25). Apparently the Manager has, before Kurtz, been in control of not only light, but also words, dictating what he wants to disseminate and sealing up what he wants to keep hidden. But Kurtz's idealism has been subverted by hypocrisy. Since Kurtz has "taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land," he has the power to name: "You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my . . .' everything belonged to him" (Conrad 49). But Kurtz has more than power over the spoken word; he has also the power of the pen. Marlow says, "'my pamphlet' (he [Kurtz] called it)" (51) is "a beautiful piece of writing . . . . [H]e soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent. . . . It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence-of words-of burning noble words" (50). His report was for the "future guidance" of "the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs" (50). His hypocrisy comes out in his postscriptum: "Exterminate all the brutes!" (51). But Kurtz and the Manager are not the only ones who can use words to good effect. When Kurtz's belated correspondence is brought to him, Marlow finds out that "Somebody had been writing to him about me. These special recommendations were turning up again" (60). Marlow's idealism, too, has been subverted; he allows the belief to continue that he has powerful influences in Europe. And, since the recommendations are from people who do not know Marlow but who suspect that he has good connections in Europe, the letters could only be lies. But words or omissions are not the only means of presenting lies or truth. Appearance and reality are contradictory in Heart ofDarkness. In addition to his many references to hollow men, Conrad shows us a few other things that are not hollow, but rotten at the center. The European city which he calls "sepulchral" is rotten inside even though its outward appearance is contradictory; Conrad makes the same association with a "whited" sepulchre as he describes the "faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence" who "stroll . . . aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard" (26). And of course his whole impressionistic technique of showing the reader the appearance of one thing ("little sticks," knobs on fenceposts, the helmsman's wrenching a cane from someone on shore) and then explaining its reality as something else entirely ("Arrows, by Jove!"; human heads on fenceposts; the helmsman's being hit with a spear) is a presentation of contradiction. Another contradiction is in the behavior of some of the "civilized" Europeans; even though they are presumed to be "orderly," Marlow and the boiler-maker have a wild dance on the boat after they learn that they will have rivets for the repair work (32). In reality however, it is the hungry cannibals of the riverboat crew who show admirable restraint in not killing and eating the Europeans whom they are helping (36). Marlow forms a bond with some of his crew through work. Not only does work help Marlow to maintain his psychological balance, his hold on the "redeeming facts of life," but he also says of work that a man "must meet that truth with his own true

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

60

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

stuff. . . . There was surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man" (38). It is work that connects the fireman and the helmsman to Marlow. The "savage" fireman on the boat is "full of improving knowledge. He was useful because he had been instructed . . ." in firing the boiler (39). Even though his native helmsman has been second-rate, Marlow is not sure that finding Kurtz has been worth the life of the helmsman because "Well, don't you see, he had done something, he had steered; for months I had him at my back-a helpan instrument. It was a kind of partnership. . . . a subtle bond had been created" (51); it is work that has created the bond and given the man his true value. As for Marlow's own truth in work, it comes from the boat. Even though Marlow allows everyone to believe that he has powerful friends in Europe, he knows the truth, that his only influential friend is "the battered, twisted, ruined tin-pot steamboat. . . . I had expended enough hard work on her to make me love her. No influential friend would have served me better. She had given me a chance to come out a bit-to find out what I could do" (31). What Marlow really wants is "To get on with the work-to stop the hole" (30). Work and knowledge, for Marlow, can bring one to the truth. In the story, much is made of the restraints of civilized society on the individual. Marlow mentions public opinion, the police, and "the holy terror of scandal and gallows and lunatic asyl~ims"as the restraining influences in Europe (49), whereas Kurtz has known none at the inner station; he has willingly "turn[ed] his back suddenly on the headquarters" (34). And there is nothing to stop the Manager, either, from killing the Russian at the inner station; the Russian says, "'I had better get out of the way quietly. . . . I can do no more for Kurtz now and they would soon find some excuse. What's to stop them [?I"' (62). Conrad also sets up opposites between what is natural and what is unnatural and personifies Nature. The "voice of the surf . . . was something natural," and the black canoe paddlers "had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there" (17). What is unnatural is that European "men in that lonely ship were dying of fever at the rate of three a day," having contracted diseases in Africa that are alien to them; and now the coast is "bordered by dangerous surf, as if Nature herself had tried to ward off intruders" (17). The native men in the grove of trees, dying from overwork, malnutrition, and mistreatment, are unnatural, and Marlow feels "horror-struck" (21); he immediately turns to another unnatural sight: the chief accountant who has "kept up his appearance" with "high, starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots," as if he is still in Europe (21). It is so unnatural to dress in this way in the jungle that Marlow calls him "amazing" and "a sort of vision" and says, "I shook hands with this miracle" (21). The chief accountant, too, is like a whited sepulchre, outwardly pristine but inwardly containing death and decay. Later, as the riverboat is fogged in, Marlow notes "the contrast of expressions of the white men and of the black" and says, "The whites of

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conmd: Questioning the Empire

61

course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of being painfully shocked. . . . The others had an alert, naturally interested expression . . ." (41-42). He shows that the natives at the inner station are also part of nature as they silently vanish, "as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration" (59). Marlow imagines himself in nature, "living alone and unarmed in the woods to an advanced age" just before he "confound[s] the beat of the drum with the beating of [his own] heart" (64). But Marlow does not understand the language of the Africans, and so he describes their oral communication as "noise," a description that Achebe finds offensive. As far as understanding other languages, Marlow doesn't read Russian, either (even though Conrad does): "'You made notes in Russian?' I asked. He nodded. 'I thought they were written in cipher,' I said" (54). Of course, one reason Marlow can identify with Kurtz is his understanding of Kurtz's language; Marlow says, "This initiated wraith from the back of Nowhere honoured me with its amazing confidence before it vanished altogether. This was because it could speak English to me. The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England" (50). Of the Africans and their speech, on the trip upstream Marlow says, "We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings. . . . It was unearthly and the men were. . . . No[,] they were not inhuman" (37). But Marlow never denies their humanity nor his kinship with them: "'Yes, it was ugly enough, but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you-you so remote from the night of first ages-could comprehend" (38). Singh says of this passage, "the men are human, but they are madmen performing mad rites" (275); however, I believe that when Marlow interprets the men's actions as "mad," he is trying to make the reality of his experience jibe with then-current European social Darwinist thought. Even though Singh believes that Conrad's story has a colonialist bias, she agrees that this passage shows Marlow's limitations. Basing her discussion on "modern views of anthropology," she says, "The colonialist bias of Heart of Darkr~essis a byproduct of this conflation [of anthropologist Eduard von Hartmann's theory of the unconscious with Conrad's belief about Africans]. Insofar as it is a byproduct rather than the intended one of the story, it reveals the limitations of Conrad's notions rather than the existence of a reactionary and racist streak in him" (280). Wilson Harris, from Guyana, also is not convinced by Achebe's charges of racism. He says that Achebe "sees the distortions of imagery and, therefore, of character in the novel as witnessing to horrendous prejudice on Conrad's part in his vision of Africa and Africans," but he thinks Achebe is wrong: "I am convinced his judgement or dismissal of Heart of Darkness-and of Conrad's strange genius-is a profoundly mistaken one" (263). Harris takes no offense at Conrad's portrayal of the Africans' speech; he even likens the sounds coming from Conrad's Africans to song: "The loud cry

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

62

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

and clamor as o f an orchestra at the heart o f the Bush . . . are o f interest i n t h e context o f the h u m a n voice breaking through instruments o f stone and wood and other trance formations t o which t h e h u m a n animal is subject. Indeed it is as i f t h e stone and wood sing. . ." (267- 68). Other African writers, too, dispute Achebe's claims and agree that Conrad's novel is anti-imperialist. C. P. Sarvan reports some other opinions o f Conrad's story: In a conversation with me, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o accepted some o f Achebe's criticisms but felt he had overlooked the positive aspect, namely, Conrad's attack on colonialism. The skulls stuck on poles outside Kurtz's house, Wa Thiong'o said, was the most powerful indictment o f colonialism. No African writer, he continued, had created so ironic, apt, and powerful an image: ironic when one considers that Kurtz and many others like him had come to "civilize" the non-Euorpean world; apt when one recalls what they really did. (285) And Sarvan continues: "Leonard Kibera (Kenyan novelist, short story writer, critic, and teacher) wrote informally t o m e as follows: 'I study Heart of Darkness as an examination o f the West itself and not as a comment o n Africa. . . . i n Conrad there is not that Joyce Cary, Graham Greene pretension o f understanding t h e third world"'(285). Kibera gives Conrad credit for not pretending t o understand what h e does not. Lack o f authentic African voices i n Heart of Darkness, voices which Marlow could not comprehend, is n o basis for a claim o f racism. Achebe is also offended b y t h e different portrayals o f w o m e n i n Heart of Darkness, but other critics are not. C. P. Sarvan writes that t h e African woman is fully human; Robert Kimbrough observes that the African woman has liberated Kurtz sexually; and Albert Guerard likens Conrad's "insistence o n darkness" t o a fear o f the feminine. Sarvan disagrees that Conrad valorizes t h e European w o m e n t o the detriment o f the African woman; i n response t o Achebe, he writes, But the European woman is pale and rather anemic whilst the former, to use Conrad's words, is gorgeous, proud, superb, magnificent, tragic, fierce, and filled with sorrow. She is an impressive figure and, importantly, her human feelings are not denied. . . . The African woman faces the truth and endures the pain o f her dereliction, whilst the illusions o f the two European women are also the fond illusions o f European society. (284) The repression o f sexuality i n Victorian times can be seen i n Kurtz's Intended; t h e African woman, not having been so culturally conditioned, is free to express her sexuality. Robert Kimbrough posits that Kurtz has been sexually liberated b y his African mistress and that Kurtz's Intended is sexual-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conmd: Questioning the Empire

63

ly repressed; h e agrees with Sarvan that the European women cannot fully partake of reality: Because of his full experience of self and sexual knowledge, Kurtz could never go back to his Intended-the agony of this realization informs his doubled expression of "horror." Such as he had become would overwhelm the male-sheltered, carefully cultured, literally manufactured woman. That hers is a repressed sexuality is, further, part of Kwtz's "horror." On the one hand he experienced lust unleashed-through carnal knowledge of Africa coming into selfknowledge of his European hollowness-but she, being European, has been rendered unable to share that knowledge. (Kimbrough 415) One reason that Conrad did n o t fully develop t h e female characters may be that h e feared them. Albert Guerard sees a fear of t h e feminine i n Conrad's story manifested in his "insistence o n darkness": "There is a darkness of passivity, paralysis, immobilization; it is from t h e state of entranced languor rather than from t h e monstrous desires that the double Kurtz, this shadow, must be saved. In Freudian theory, we are told, such preoccupation may indicate fear of the feminine and passive" (Guerard 250). Whether Conrad feared women or not, h e does not give them much of a voice i n Heart of Darkness, a n d Johanna M . Smith discusses at length Conrad's repression of women. While it is not necessary here to repeat her whole argument, one of her examples is important, t h e example of t h e laundress. Smith writes that t h e accountant who has "forced a native woman to become his laundress" uses both "imperialist a n d patriarchal oppression," and goes o n to say, Marlow's response performs a similar function. Although he mocks the accountant for looking like "a hairdresser's dummy," he also expresses a grudging admiration: the accountant's shirts are "achievements of character" which display his "backbone," and he concludes that "thus this man had verily accomplished something." . . . Marlow . . . silence[s] the laundress who provides the backbone's starch, and this silencing evinces his concurrence in the imperialism of patriarchy. Both ideologies operate in this vignette of successful oppression, but only one is mocked; hence a gap opens between the imperialism visible to Marlow and the patriarchal attitude which remains unseen by him because it seems natural. . . . The reader comes to recognize that power as patriarchal imperialism-a hitherto hidden version of the evident ideology Marlow deplores when it sends native men to the grove of death. (183) Conrad as author unveils his own patriarchal ideology by forming a manly connection between t h e narrator Marlow and t h e African crew members, while n o such bond is revealed, or even suggested, between the accounta n t and t h e laundress. Marlow has instructed his African fireman and helmsCopyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

64

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

man, too, and their work promotes a bond between h i m and t h e m , but the laundress has "a distaste for the work" (Conrad 21). The accountant's "starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts" may have been "achievements o f character" (21), but Marlow gives the credit t o the accountant, not t o the laundress, for these achievements. Smith writes that patriarchy seems so natural t o Marlow that h e does not see the reality o f the situation. But this situation is itself a microcosm o f the whole imperialist enterprise: the accountant has instructed the woman, she has learned "duty," and he reaps rewards from her industry. In regard t o the lack o f women's voices, Smith notes, " w e can see the purposes this silencing serves" and refers t o another critic: "As HklPne Cixous puts it, ' [ m e n ]want t o keep woman i n the place o f mystery, consign her t o mystery, as they say "keep her i n her place, keep her at a distance".' As Marlow creates these w o m e n t o symbolize the enigma o f the jungle, his ideologic project is t o distance and control both mysteries" (183-84). Here Smith seems t o agree with Guerard that Marlow has a fear o f the feminine: "Once the savage woman moves, she is n o longer stylized i n Marlow's picture and becomes a sexual and emotional threat; t o defuse this threat, Marlow assigns meanings t o her behavior. . . . Hence Marlow interprets the woman's behavior as he had earlier symbolized her appearance" (184). But we must remember the arrows as little sticks and the h u m a n heads as knobs o n fenceposts here: everything i n Marlow's account is interpreted b y Marlow, whether rightly or wrongly, because Marlow is the storyteller. I agree with Smith that Marlow demonstrates a patriarchal attitude toward the w o m e n i n the story (except, o f course, w h e n it is his o w n interest t o do otherwise, as w h e n h e wants t o use his aunt's influence t o obtain a position). However, I disagree that it is patriarchal for h i m t o assign meanings t o their behavior-he assigns meanings t o everything he encounters, even w h e n his interpretations are erroneous. But Smith goes o n t o discuss the "contradiction between experience and ideology" that constitutes Marlow's whole African experience i n terms o f his need o f the European w o m e n and writes that h e resolves his predicament b y "mocking the[ir]lack o f worldly experience" and recuperating "that experience as a manly encounter with truth" (189),thus undercutting his narrative authority. I disagree that Marlow loses authority here; his view o f w o m e n was the view accepted b y the majority o f Europeans at the time. The nineteenth-century ideology o f separate spheres for m e n and w o m e n is certainly not the same as the early twenty-first-century model o f h o w the genders should interact, but his patriarchal viewpoint does not damage Marlow's credibility; he is being a m a n o f his time. Even though b y this time the "separate spheres" ideology had been widel y questioned, Conrad may have thought it "natural" for w o m e n t o operate i n a sphere separate from that o f men, but h e had begun to see through other "natural" situations: "By the time he started writing, however, Conrad too has begun t o doubt the 'natural' straightforwardness o f 'trade"' (White 183). Andrea W h i t e argues that t h e prevailing European notion o f social Darwinism had begun t o wear thin t o Conrad. She writes, Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conmd: Questioning the Empire That native peoples were at a less evolved stage of human development was rarely contested, and that it was the "duty" of a more developed people to help their "younger" brothers and sisters along was also generally agreed upon and conveniently served arguments of expansion. Such arguments depicted continued expansion and control as not only moral and practical but somehow natural. Conrad's fictions, on the other hand, show the European intrusion as "fantastic." (186) As Ian Watt puts it, "Marlow's story explores how one individual's knowledge of another can mysteriously change the way in which he sees the world as a whole" (Watt 316). Marlow's mind has been changed in regard to imperialism, but not in regard to women. Conrad's narrator Marlow undergoes a change (and many critics, Achebe included, think that Marlow is Conrad's alter ego). About his encounter with Kurtz, Marlow says, "somehow I had been robbed of a belief" (Conrad 48); in other words, after Marlow sees Kurtz in the flesh, he is no longer able to maintain his faith in the ideal that Kurtz has represented to him. But Marlow's change may have come about because of his "feminine position" of powerlessness. Joanna M. Smith argues, "The core of Marlow's feminine predicament [is] the contradiction between beliefs that he feels powerless to reconcile. . ." (188). And, she writes, "his helplessness before this contradiction places Marlow in what Karen Klein calls the feminine predicament, a situation defined by a sense of physical and/or social powerlessness" (188). But it is also a "feminine" trait to have an imagination, to be able to accommodate change. In spite of critics' objections about its reputed racism and feminism, Conrad's Heart of Darkness does expose the colonizer. Heart of Darkness exposes "the machinery behind the apparent naturalness and inevitability of the imperial endeavour and ma[kes] visible the conqueror's face hidden behind the mask of a civilizing mission's protestations of benevolence" (White 198). As Sarvan puts it, "Conrad too was not entirely immune to the infection of the beliefs and attitudes of his age, but he was ahead of most in trying to break free" (285). While Conrad spoke from within the patriarchy, from within his position among the colonizers, it was his intention to expose the brutality and the futility of the imperial enterprise-and he did just that in Heart of Darkness.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER V

Achebe: Revising History

E

CONRAD ~ W SIN THE VASGUARD OF THOSE LVRITERS USING MODERSIST techniques, h e has recently been criticized for the imperialist, racist, and male-chauvinist viewpoints that appear i n Heart of Darkness, perhaps most vigorously b y Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, w h o opened u p a debate among scholars and critics about whether the book is derogatory toward t h e colonial enterprise, Africans, and women-a debate which has itself fueled the adjacent debate about whether Marlow, t h e narrator, expresses his o w n position or the position o f Conrad, the author. At the time o f its first publication, critics were similarly divided. Although n o one at that time questioned Conrad's portrayal o f Africans or w o m e n , Heart of Darkness received mixed reviews i n regard t o Conrad's stance o n imperialism. Variously, " t h e story was taken b y some as an attack u p o n Belgian colonial methods i n t h e Congo; as a moral tract; and as a study i n race relationships" (Haugh 239). But, according t o Andrea W h i t e , one reviewer "assured contemporary readers" that, i n Heart of Darkness, "It must not be supposed that Mr. Conrad makes attack u p o n colonisation, expansion, e v e n u p o n Imperialism" (White 179). Conrad himself states i n his "Author's Note" that stories are "all t h e spoil I brought out from t h e centre o f Africa, where, really, I had n o sort o f business" (4), suggesting that h e is against the interference o f Europeans i n African affairs.And Frances B. Singh writes that "It is a truth universally acknowledged that Heart of Darkness is one o f t h e most powerful indictments o f colonialism ever written" (Singh 268). According t o W h i t e , Peter Nazareth, a Goan-Ugandan writer, similarly argues that "Conrad was the first t o provide some criticism o f imperialism" (197). Heart of Darkness was written for English-speaking Europeans, t h e colonizers. But Conrad's novel seems t o have had some effect also o n the colonized. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Achebe relates t h e story o f his readVEN THOUGH

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

68

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

ing Heart ofDarkness and identifying w i t h t h e colonizers. It was only later, h e recalls, that h e realized that Conrad had thought o f people like Achebe as one o f those frenzied natives howling o n t h e riverbank, that Achebe himself had been supposed t o identify himself w i t h t h e Africans i n t h e story. Achebe wrote Things Fa11 Apart (1959) at least partially as a response t o this colonization o f his mind and attempted t o show the Africans' culture as a culture and from the viewpoint o f an African (Chiizila Aclzebe). W h i t e also maintains that Heart of Darkizess was instrumental i n decolonizing t h e Africans, as Conrad's "fiction was instructive t o colonized peoples, making t h e m conscious i n a n e w way o f what it meant, exactly, t o be colonized and t o live i n the 'glass cage' o f an imposed world-view, t h e first task i n any project that undertakes t h e decolonization o f t h e mind" (198). Zoreh T. Sullivan acknowledges this colonization o f t h e mind; she writes: "historically constructed forms, written literature i n general and t h e African novel i n particular, even as t h e y forge n e w structures o f defiance i n n e w English languages and old African languages, acknowledge their roots i n the writer's psyche colonized b y other texts" (105). Indeed, w h e n Achebe realized that his mind had been colonized and wrote his o w n novel i n response, h e had already taken great leaps i n his o w n decolonization. As h e responded t o the portrayal o f Africans i n Heart of Darkness, Achebe was especially offended b y the lack o f speech, the lack o f voice, o f Conrad's African characters. He says, "But perhaps the most significant difference is the one implied i n t h e author's bestowal o f h u m a n expression t o the one and the withholding o f it from t h e other. It is clearly not part o f Conrad's purpose t o confer language o n t h e 'rudimentary souls' o f Africa" ( " A n Image" 255). But keeping i n mind Conrad's impressionistic technique, his "delayed decoding" (Watt 31 7 ) , I propose that Conrad does n o t allow his Africans t o produce speech because Marlow does not understand their speech. As i n other instances o f his delayed decoding, Marlow reports his immediate sense impression o f the Africans' speech, which does not make sense t o h i m : "I don't understand the dialect o f this tribe" (Conrad 61). Because the Africans' speech is a complex system, Marlow cannot immediately correct his first impression as h e does i n other situations. Marlow tells us time and time again w h e n there is something that h e does n o t understand; apparently the speech o f the Africans is one o f those phenomena that Marlow finds himself at a loss t o explain. It is true that, as Andrea W h i t e writes, "there are n o neutral places f r o m which t o act or observe, t o write or read" (White 180), and Achebe's position is n o different. Like Conrad, Achebe is o f a hybrid culture, standing as h e does at a crossroads position. According t o Zoreh T. Sullivan, "Achebe is h i m self a construct o f colonial power, a missionary education, a Christian family, and a grandfather w h o welcomed t h e earliest missionaries t o Ogidi" (102). Achebe, too, has had t o come t o terms with his multiple heritage. As Rhonda Cobham points out, "Achebe must renegotiate a relation t o traditional Igbo society, a connection his education, religious training, and internalized

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Achebe: Revising History

69

moral standards have made tenuous" (Cobham 94). In addition, finding that his mind had been colonized, Achebe set out to answer what he considers racism in the fictional account of Conrad's African experience. But Achebe had another audience in mind, too: "Achebe has said that his mission in writing Things Fa11 Apart is to teach other Africans that their past was neither so savage nor so benighted as the colonizers have represented it to be" (94). Achebe has decolonized his own mind and wants to assist other Africans in the decolonization of their minds. Sullivan proposes that Things Fall Apart works against what Achebe says is his intent in writing the novel; she writes, "because the novel is a decentralized, centrifugal, and dialogic genre, it works against the cultural norms of society rather than with them; Achebe's novel, therefore, works against what might have been his original intention and desire-the wish to celebrate the tribe's ideology and to commit what he calls 'an act of atonement with my past, the ritual return and homage of a prodigal son"' (Sullivan 105-06). But Achebe does not make a straightforward presentation of traditional Igbo culture in Things Fa11 Apart. In order to help others in their own decolonization, Achebe has to "invent" a culture, a space from which to speak. Cobham says, "Achebe wants to prove to himself that the best values of his Christian upbringing are compatible with the values of traditional Igbo society. Thiizgs Fall Apart selectively incorporates many supposedly Western or Christian values into the celebration of the traditional way of life" (94). Sullivan agrees; she writes that Achebe "is a product of a continuing history whose shape he is trying to change even as he rewrites it into fiction" and that his novel is "a necessarily messy and disappointing crucible of experience" (106). She goes on, "Although Things Fall Apart is no nearer to monolithic 'truth' about Africa or Africans than Joyce Cary's much vilified h4ister Johnson is, it has brought us to a more pluralistic understanding of the modern African novel, of the problems inherent in decolonized discourse, and of Achebe's world" (106). These critics agree that Achebe has attempted to demonstrate that his border world is a valid place from which to view the world and to share that view with the world. So Achebe had at least four goals in writing his first novel: to respond to Conrad's portrayal of Africa and Africans; to show other Africans that their traditions are not savage; to prove to himself that his own multiplicity is valid; and to show the universality of human experience. Achebe himself has written, "In spite of serious cultural differences, it is possible for readers in the West to identify, even deeply, with characters and situations in an African novel" ("Teaching" 22). While the novel is not pedantic by any means, critics and scholars agree that Achebe sees the role of writer as that of teacher; Emmanuel Obiechina writes, "In this novel, Chinua Achebe is quintessentially a teacher. . . . For Achebe, literature is a form of communication requiring the transference of experience from the author to the reader" (31). Thiizgs Fall Apart even "provides its own notes and commentaries" for the reader (31); as a teacher, Obiechina goes on, Achebe "anticipates difficulties for the

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

70

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

reader and attempts to resolve them by using well-chosen strategies of technique and language. . . . He sets out to remove misunderstandings and to restore the truth of a way of life that has been misrepresented over the centuries" (31). Dan Izevbaye agrees: "While the novel is essentially an account of the Igbo past, it acts as a form of education through which the novelist as teacher might correct current misperceptions of African history and the contemporary status of African culture" (45). And his teaching seems to work. Ashton Nichols says that the narrative structure of Thiizgs Fall Apart has the effect of causing students "to question and critique their assumptions about cultures and about literature" (56). On the other hand, another scholar, Wahneema Lubiano, observes that "students . . . unself-consciously valorize what they see as the novel's cultural authenticity" (107), when, in fact, the novel presents an artistic rendering of Igbo culture. Henry Louis Gates sees this tendency as a problem; as Lubiano reports, "Gates's concern about the critical use of African (and African American) texts as unnuanced cultural ethnography speaks to the dilemma of many black writers and critics who argue that such use, deliberate or not, represses the structure and the form of black texts. This repression in turn assists students in their 'lazy' (and culturally parochial) readings of these texts" (Lubiano 107). In order to help American students avoid a culturally parochial attitude, Achebe the teacher writes, "It should be the pleasant task of the teacher, should he or she encounter that attitude, to spend a little time revealing to the class some of the quaint customs and superstitions prevalent in America" ("Teaching" 21). Students seem to want to respond to Achebe's novel as unnuanced cultural ethnography because of its qualities of realism. Unlike Conrad, who used impressionistic techniques, Achebe constructed Things F~7llApart realistically. Realism in postcolonial writing, according to Biodun Jeyifo, is a necessary technique: "Myths and distortions of the vast colonialist literature on Africa made realism in the postcolonial context a historic and ideological necessity" (113). However, Hunt Hawkins notes that "the novel adopts a conventional third-person realism" and "reports events without any intrusion of authorial judgement,"and "behave[s] as if the beliefs of Igbo society are literally true" when actually they are fictionalized (83). About Achebe's success in producing a realistic text, Jeyifo observes that "the characters, situations, and feelings seem so concrete and memorable that social and human conflicts assume a logic of their own, quite independent of any abstract balancing act by the author in the service of objectivity" (115-16). But even this critic admits that "because the novel is 'set in the past,' Achebe cannot 'objectively' avoid interpreting that past" (115). Izevbaye writes that "Achebe recognizes that art can be as much an idealized account of reality as an imaginative record" (47). Even though Achebe attempts to educate his reader, Sullivan, too, points out that the novel is not a straightforward lesson:

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Achebe: Revising History Structuralism contends [that literature] is not a direct communication from one well-meaning heart or one well-wrought urn to another but a form or code produced by the cultural institution o f literature. . . . A look at its [the novel's] structure and some o f its cultural codes may help us see it as a product o f colonization riddled with the contradictions and polarized values o f its cultures. (101) Indeed, Achebe shows t h e Igbo culture without romanticizing it, but h e does propose a revisionist history: " I n rejecting t h e colonialist versions o f history, Achebe . . . elaborate[s] a counterhistory i n which t h e pre-European past-with all its imperfections-'was not one long nightmare o f savagery from which t h e first Europeans acting o n God's behalf delivered [the nonEuropeans]"' (Aizenberg 87). Achebe even writes that "The society itself was already heading toward destruction . . . [but]Europe has a lot o f blame. . . . [Tlhere were internal problems that made it possible for t h e Europeans to come in. Somebody showed t h e m the way. A conflict between t w o brothers enables a stranger to reap their harvest" (qtd. i n Elder 58). Arlene Elder notes that "This dual view o f t h e causes o f colonial destruction provides some o f the most interesting tensions i n Achebe's books" (58).As a matter o f fact, t h e internal problems o f t h e Igbo could be seen as t h e rotten center or the emptiness that Conrad made so m u c h o f and that allowed the society t o "fall apart." That t h e Igbo society's o w n problems contributed to their colonization is one o f the major themes o f t h e novel. Another scholar, Ousseynou Traork, says that t w o major themes o f t h e novel are " t h e crisis o f nationalist leadership at t h e m o m e n t o f colonial conquest and t h e suicidal gender imbalance i n Okonkwo's character that leads to and explains his death" ( 6 9 ) . In producing his version o f an Igbo culture that seems so real, Achebe uses folk tales, proverbs, and, according t o Barbara Harlow, language "which Bernth Lindfors calls an 'African vernacular' and a diction that 'simulates t h e idiom o f Ibo, [Achebe's] native tongue"' (77).The folk tales and proverbs are " t h e symbolic reference o f t h e verbal sign . . . that . . . arises, not from t h e natural and inherent associations o f the object, but from a preestablished body o f ideas, stories, or myths" (Watt 324). Barbara Harlow agrees that Tlzirgs Fall Apart creates a counter-hegemony: "Folklore, then, plays a radically historical role i n t h e unfolding o f t h e novel's plot. That very palm oil [the proverbs that help words go down], t h e substance o f tradition and its transmission, has also become part o f West Africa's integration into an international market economy" (77). Interestingly, though, Achebe presents somewhat the same African view o f whites that Conrad does i n Heart of Darkness, but not exactly t h e same kind o f relationship. Conrad's Africans do not distinguish between whites, and neither d o Achebe's. But Conrad's Africans hate all whites, while Achebe's do not. While Things Fa11 Apart "preserves the essential features o f Igbo history and, b y extension, African history, at the point o f contact with colonizing Europe" (Izevbaye 47), Achebe's characters are "a group o f people

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

72

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

for whom the white race was still a myth" (Nichols 53). But Achebe shows a greater inclination toward communication between the two groups in his portrayal of two "enlightened" characters. Directly opposed to the relationship of hatred between the races that Conrad presents is the relationship between the races that Achebe presents, between the "enlightened missionary Mr. Brown and the enlightened Igbo villager Akunna" (Cobham 95). Andrea White says, "Conrad's fictions . . . represent the native point of view towards [whites] generally, a view that does not distinguish one hated white man from another" (188). But, even though he does not demonstrate a blanket hatred of all whites, Achebe does show where that hate might have come from, in his character Okonkwo. So we may see Achebe's novel as straddling two cultures. As Ousseynou B. Traore points out, the novel "come[s] from the world of Yeats' [sic] cataclysmic vision" but also is a "classic of African writing" (67). It is possible to read the novel in the classical Western mode and also to read it through the viewpoint of African culture; Things Fa11 Apart is certainly a novel of overlapping cultures. While Traor6 agrees, he insists that African traditions not be omitted in a reading of the novel: Teaching and studying Thirzgs Fa11 Apart as a "classic of African writing" in an academic structure governed by the "great books" and their descendants leads one to argue, as Charles Nnolim does, that Thii7ys Fall Aptrrt is "an Igbo National Epic . . . modelled on the celebrated Anglo-Saxon epic, Beotvulf; although it at the same time shows certain basic affinities with other classical epics like Homer's Otljmej~ and Virgil's Aerieid" (55). Nnolim is right about reading or teaching Tliirigs Fall Apart as an Igbo national epic, but the models of the novel must be located in Igbo and African matrices. (67) Achebe invents a culture that represents his own position as an African educated in Western traditions. As Achebe hybridizes two cultures to present an idealized situation, he uses selectively "those aspects of Igbo traditional society that best coincide with Western-Christian social values," to satisfy what Rhonda Cobham calls "his own need to establish a worldview, both modern and traditional, of which he can be a part" (98); he invents a space for himself. Cobham adds that, in his novel, Achebe reinforces parallels between cultures; for example, Abraham's intended sacrifice of Isaac is paralleled with human sacrifice in Igbo culture, even though Abraham's hand is stayed and the Igbos' are not. She writes that Achebe's "thematic strategies in the conversations between" Mr. Brown and Akunna show similarities between their two traditions and says: "We may read their conversations as a metaphor for Achebe's search for a point of convergence between the two codes that inform his ethics" (Cobham 95). The conflict that Achebe shows in Igbo society, the conflict over whether to accept or reject the overtures of the colonizing missionaries from

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Achebe: Revising History

73

the west, can be seen as the same conflict that occurs within the main character Okonkwo. Binary oppositions in Igbo culture are shown to be the "universal and timeless polarities between masculine and feminine, earth and sky, the strong and the weak, and the chiefs and the outcasts" (Sullivan 103). The gender imbalance that Traore calls "suicidal" can be found both within the culture and within Okonkwo: "his deadly conflicts with himself, his people, his chi, and the Igbo male and female principles of life" (72). While Okonkwo is successf~ilat feats of strength and bravery and is productive enough to become one of the wealthiest men in the village, wealthy enough to buy himself honorific ozo titles, he is "ruled by one passion-to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness" (Tlziizgs 13). Okonkwo's father Unoka displays a more "feminine" aspect in his easygoing manner, his love of music, and his facility with language, an aspect that Okonkwo fears. Arlene Elder says, "His fear of idleness leads to his productivity, and his fear of gentleness leads to a brusqueness with less successful men-'Okonkwo knew how to kill a man's spirit1-and to a domination of his household, which he rules 'with a heavy hand.' The subordination of women to men in the Igbo social system is not unique to Okonkwo's compound" (Elder 60-61). Achebe writes, "No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women), he was not really a man" (Things 53). Even though the novel shows that women's roles in running the households and making preparations for feasts are important, they are unable to hold positions of leadership in the village. In addition, Okonkwo beats his wives whenever he needs an outlet for his anger: "Okonkwo, who had been walking about aimlessly in his compound in suppressed anger, suddenly found an outlet" (38). Here he beats his second wife for removing leaves from a banana tree, and the novel goes on: "His anger thus satisfied . . ." (38). It is the women who tell the folktales in the story, as a means of instructing their children. Okonkwo himself has no facility with words. While his father could turn a situation around verbally and literally talk himself out of a difficult position, Okonkwo cannot speak unless it is as the voice of authority demeaning others or nagging his son. He has a stammer, but uses physical force more than words. Achebe tells us that Okonkwo would "pounce on people quite often. He had a slight stammer and whenever he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists" (Things 4). On the other hand, according to Wahneema Lubiano, his father is "a smooth talker indeed. . . . [But Okonkwo has a] problem within the constraints of this rhetorically driven community: he can't speak well enough to disrupt others' narratives or to consistently construct his own counternarrative; thus, he is forced to unambiguous and often deadly action" (109). Okonkwo cannot imagine or invent or use words; instead, he resorts to physical force, which, in the end, proves deadly.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

74

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Okonkwo is responsible for several deaths. W e are told that h e h a s i n t h e past brought h o m e five heads f r o m war (Things 10); h e participates i n t h e ritual killing o f t h e slave Ikemefuna; h e accidentally shoots someone at a funeral; h e impulsively kills t h e court messenger; and h e commits suicide. It is important t o note that, chronologically, these killings begin as the acts o f a courageous man and become less and less courageous, more and more cowardly, until t h e y end with his o w n ignominious suicide. It is t h e very physical acts that Okonkwo has earlier been lauded for that finally bring about his destruction. The five heads from war are the trophies o f a courageous and victorious soldier and help t o propel Okonkwo t o the level o f a respected man. T h e later killing o f Ikemefuna, however, is t h e act o f a less courageous, a fearful, man. Ogbuefi Ezeudu, an old and respected member o f t h e clan, tells Okonkwo that h e should n o t participate i n the ritual because Ikemefuna h a s been living i n Okonkwo's compound as a son for three years and, as the old man says, "He calls you father" (57).Okonkwo, however, feels compelled t o participate i n the slaying because h e fears being thought weak. As the b o y runs t o Okonkwo, calling t o his father for protection from the machetes o f t h e other m e n , it is Okonkwo w h o provides the fatal stroke. This event is indeed the turning point o f t h e story, and Okonkwo becomes less admirable after that. Okonkwo kills Ezeudu's son next, but, unlike his earlier killings, it is accidental. By mistake, Okonkwo shoots the b o y at Ezeudu's funeral celebration, where t h e b o y is "dancing the traditional farewell" t o his father (124). But i n Igbo society, an accidental killing, manslaughter, is considered a "female" crime; Okonkwo is punished b y being sent into exile t o his m o t h er's village for seven years. He goes from fearing that h e will be thought weak t o actually proving t o the village that h e is weak b y committing a "female" crime. After t h e seven years have passed, Okonkwo returns t o find that t h e white man h a s come, h a s , i n his friend Obierika's words, "put a knife o n t h e things that held us together and we have fallen apart" (176).T h e n Okonkwo mourns " f o r t h e clan which h e saw breaking u p and falling apart" and " f o r t h e warlike m e n o f Umuofia, w h o had so unaccountably become soft like women" (183). He is unable t o talk t h e clan elders into resisting the injustices being inflicted u p o n t h e villagers. As the head messenger o f the white man's court comes t o break u p a meeting o f the villagers, Okonkwo impulsively beheads the messenger with his machete, but his fellow villagers allow t h e other messengers t o get away. He has killed t h e man from t h e same impulses that had earlier brought h i m praise, but n o w the other villagers ask, " W h y did h e do it?" (205). T h e y have changed, but Okonkwo h a s not. This is w h e n Okonkwo gives u p hope for the villagers t o ever resist. W i t h o u t hope, h e hangs himself, bringing even further disgrace u p o n himself: bodies o f suicides are not permitted burial but must be cast into t h e Evil Forest. Thus Okonkwo's b o d y finally rests i n the same place that his father's does. An individual's attitude toward change and traditions is always a function o f t h e individual's place i n existing power relations, and w h e n Okonkwo returns

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Achebe: Revising History

75

from exile to find the community changed, he is no longer part of the power structure. And, because he is unable to be flexible, unable to accommodate the change, he is destroyed. In addition to the discrepancies between men's and women's roles in Achebe's Igbo culture, there are also other gaps; for example, the society has another set of binary oppositions: it is divided into the strong and the weak. Robert M. Wren describes the situation: Against the high role of the ozo titles Achebe sets the painf~~l reality of osu. Below both the free citizens and their slaves (the latter only alluded to in chapter 6) were the outcasts, the osu, people dedicated to a god as a kind of living sacrifice. From the moment of their sacrifice, the osu and their descendants became all but untouchable. The osu in the novel are among the first converts to the new church, a church that teaches the unity of all people and offers hope to victims of society's rigid forms. Like the antagonism that Okonkwo feels toward his father, and that Nwoye feels even more strongly toward Okonkwo, the osu represent a weakness, a subtle flaw in the structure of the Igbo world-a flaw that makes it possible for things to fall apart. (44) According to Hunt Hawkins, "Achebe does not directly reveal his feelings" about the customs of ostracizing the o m , the killing of twins, and the murder of Ikemefuna "because the novel adopts a conventional third-person realism" (83). In other words, Achebe seems not to comment on traditions that would be repugnant under Western values. Achebe's representation of women within Igbo society seems as lacking as Conrad's and, again, synthesizes two cultures. According to Cobham, Achebe presents his husbands and wives in relationships that are "almost indistinguishable from those of monogamous couples in Western tradition," even though the Igbo are polygamous. He presents relationships between wives in a polygamous society, she writes, that "are important in constructing female identity, and that is clearly not what Achebe's novel is about" (Cobham 96). Achebe's female characters are not presented in the fuller public roles that they would have played in reality, and these limited female characters also limit the reader. The reader, without getting a sense of the fuller extent of women's roles in Igbo society, is unable to fully appreciate Okonkwo's fear of being seen as feminine. The reader, like Okonkwo, is left to define Igbo masculinity in relation to what Okonkwo's father was not, which, according to Cobham, is misleading (98) . It seems that Achebe, in his attempt to improve on Conrad's characterization of Africans, has under-represented, or misrepresented, half of them-the women. Like Conrad, Achebe has not given women a voice, even though he does show imperialism from another side and provides a more "civilized" view of Africans. In Achebe's Igbo village, men have the power, and Achebe's blurring of the distinctions

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

76

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

between cultures seems to prove Mikhail Bakhtin right when he writes that "Discourse lives, as it were, on the boundary between its own context and another, alien, context" (qtd. in Sullivan 102). But not all Africans writers' portrayal of women is narrow, and not all African writers create a culture from a blending of African and JudeoChristian traditions. Cobham compares Achebe's description of African women with the women created by a contemporary African woman writer, Buchi Emecheta, who offers a "more complete alternative vision of the attitudes of traditional women to their status in the society" (98-99). She goes on to say that Emecheta provides a "partisan and revisionist picture, one committed to challenging Igbo and Judeo-Christian values" (99). Emecheta is now revising the limited female roles "'invented' by Achebe [whose] authority must seem as compelling and as difficult to challenge as the district commissioner's voice must have seemed to Achebe in his time" (99). To sum up, with his internal conflicts, Okonkwo is a "microcosm of the conflicting energies in Igboland, catalyzed by the antagonistic intrusion of the Europeans" (Elder 58), but whereas other characters are able to disrupt or reconstruct the narratives of others, Okonkwo is unable to do so. Okonkwo, like his creator Achebe, stands at a crossroads, but, unlike Achebe, he does not have the imagination to invent, to make a change, nor the voice to reconstruct. Achebe, like Okonkwo, "attempts to carve out a relation to his clan in the absence of an inherited sense of identity" (Cobham 94), but Achebe attains success. Biodun Jeyifo questions what might have happened in Africa had the colonizers not forced their own changes on the Africans; he says, "In addition to the disaffected and marginalized of Umuofia, Achebe's novel includes moral reformers and dissenters like Obierika and Ogbuefi Ezeudu. Could not these two different currents within the precolonial dialectic have eventually coalesced into a powerful river of transformation? Could change have come to Igboland without things falling apart?" Ueyifo 117). European invaders transformed Africa; according to Izevbaye, "All the different European approaches to colonial rule achieved the single historical purpose of transforming traditional African communities into members of the worldwide community created by the expansion of modern European capitalism" (47). Europeans transformed Africa at its "moment of nationalistic awakening" (Aizenberg 87), which Achebe writes was a "nationalist movement [that] brought about a mental revolution which began to reconcile us to ourselves" (qtd. in Aizenberg 87). Yet James Clifford notes that this development made their culture "something complex and hybrid, salvaged from a lost origin, constructed out of a squalid present, articulated within and against a colonial tongue," much like the Irish culture of Yeats and Joyce (qtd. in White 196). African writers in English have used the colonial tongue for their own purposes. Sullivan goes back to Bakhtin to explain: "African writers who use English are aware that their language is already populated with the political, social, and literary intentions of their colonial teachers,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Achebe: Revising History

77

but they compel it 'to serve [their] own new intentions, to serve a second master"' (102). Achebe's Things Fa11 Apart does just that; it gives the world a new view of Africa and Africans. According to Nichols, "While it may be overly optimistic to suggest that Achebe's narrative allows American students to see through new eyes, Things Fa11 Apart does demand that readers widen their perspectives" (57). Aizenberg shows that African writers share experience with other Third World writers; she writes: It is no accident that Chinua Achebe's first novel-a germinative event in modern African writing-is a historical work or that many important novels in Latin America are of the same genre. This homology reflects the shared need of writers to come to terms with a past usurped by a colonial regime-Britain in Nigeria; Spain and its heirs in Spanish- speaking America. To both Africans and Latin Americans, the imaginative re-creation of national history, particularly those portions distorted or censored by the conquerors and their successors, has been directly linked to the concern for national organization. (85) Achebe has come to terms with his multiplicity and has revised the history of Africa that Europeans had presented. In regard to Heart of Darkness, Achebe has said that great literature must be "on the side of man's deliverance and not his enslavement; for the brotherhood and unity of all mankind and not for the doctrines of Hitler's master races or Conrad's 'rudimentary souls"' (qtd. in Sarvan 281). But we may extend this sentiment to the great literature in English that comes after Conrad's 1899 Heart ofDarkizess and after Achebe's 1959 Tlzings Fall Apart, literature written from what Fredric Jameson calls "an interim1 Third World" perspective ("Modernism" 49): the literature of American minority women. While Conrad seems to have neglected to portray Africans realistically, Achebe has neglected to give a voice to African women. As we look at the writings of American women who represent not only an oppressed ethnic group but also an oppressed gender, we find that both Conrad's and Achebe's negligence has been righted.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER VI

Kingston and Tan: Inventing one's Own Culture, ~ a k i n One's g Own Luck

W

HILE I<EEPING IN MIND THAT EACH AUTHOR IS A CREATIVE ARTIST AND SO \ O T

requiring her t o be an exact representative o f her culture, we can still find similarities among the novels o f Asian Americans, African Americans, American Latinas, and Native Americans. These women have used similar strategies and techniques i n their writing. The "feminine" characteristic o f nurturing is a frequent topic i n their works; they show through their characters how mothers affect the lives o f their children b y providing or withholding nurturing. Many o f t h e m use a trickster figure paradoxically composed o f opposite traits i n order t o transform characters and situations. Their double-voiced subjects are "other" t o the modern individual, and some o f their texts are resistant t o the reader. Other similarities are that each novel is created from a female point o f view and, with the exception o f the American Natives, each culture represented has traditionally devalued women. O f course, contemporary Native m e n have emulated the dominant culture, so we may say that each novel depicts an oppressed gender from an oppressed culture. In addition we find that most o f the female protagonists are the nurturers, not just o f children, but also o f traditions, and that most o f t h e m form a bridge between their marginalized culture and the dominant culture. O n the other hand, some o f the women characters have not only accepted their position i n a patriarchal structure; they are actively complicit i n maintaining the patriarchy. But these characters have their role t o play, too, i n showing what can happen t o women w h o do not seek t o be free. And each woman w h o is somehow able t o escape her double oppression always provides nurturing and mentoring t o other women, establishing a community. Maxine Hong Kingston demonstrates an awareness o f power relations, especially between m e n and women, i n her first book, The Woinar~Warrior,as

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

80

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

does Amy Tan in her first book, The Joy Luck C h b . Their feminist views necessarily come out of the ideology, the "language," of patriarchy in order to critique it, and they use the English language to critique the "internal Third World" of Chinese Americans' position in the dominant culture. Kingston's postmodernism revamps the role of the reader, leads to multiculturalism, and demonstrates a shift from individual to subject. She uses the trickster figure in transforming her cultural space, but she begins with the memory of traditional Chinese legends. In The Joy Luck Club, Tan also reaches into the past to provide a voice for her characters and to reconcile both families and cultures, but it is the recent past. Their reconciliations of their contemporary American life with the Chinese heritage that they have experienced only from afar seem to point to multicult~iralismin these novels. Even though both books have been critically acclaimed and commercially successful, both authors have been criticized by members of the Asian American community. Kingston's use of traditional Chinese myths and her revision of them to suit her own purposes caused an outcry among Asian American male writers when Kingston published her fictionalized "autobiography" in 1976. At that time, the Asian American literary community was composed of men who were offended by what they saw as the perversion of their traditions in order to please the white culture. Tan has been accused of writing about only middle-class and s~iccessfulChinese Americans in her 1989 book, Tlze Joy Luck Club, and of not representing an economic cross-section of the community. In an interview with Marilyn Chin, Kingston remarked that the men "say we pander to the white taste for feminist writing" (66). But I propose that the two authors, like Yeats and his fellow Irish Renaissance writers, both needed an audience larger than their own Chinese American community and also had something to say to both Chinese Americans and Caucasians. The commercial success of both books indicates that they have reached a large audience; Tan's book has even been made into a motion picture. Rather than "pander to the white taste for feminist writing," these authors provide something new: the viewpoint of a woman who is also a part of a cultural and racial minority group. Because the women know both sexism and racism, they address both in their writing. Not only did the Asian American men not welcome Kingston into their community of writers, but one of them, Frank Chin, went so far as to call The Wornaiz Warrior a "fake" book (119). It is true that Kingston has allowed the publisher to call her fictionalized work an autobiography, but it is also true that, in doing so, she revises or reinvents the concept of autobiography and crosses another boundary: the boundary between autobiography and novel. Blurring the distinction between autobiography and novel seems to have started the backlash reaction of the male writers, whose view of identity differs from Kingston's; in demonstrating the impossibility of a single viewpoint, Kingston's work has been misunderstood. While the "predominantly male tradition in Asian-American literature . . . stresses a monolithic, unified Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Kingstoll and Tan: Inventing One's Own Culture . . .

81

identity," Kingston's concept o f identity challenges that view and "suggests the impossibility o f a single all-encompassing perspective" (Smith 33, 34), a mark o f the trickster. Her narrations and re-narrations o f t h e same stories from different viewpoints demonstrate this impossibility. Instead o f repeating t h e traditional stories, Kingston revises t h e m ; she "remake[s] her Chineseness, neither quite that o f China nor quite that o f America but a Chineseness o f her o w n making and which can adapt and reshape as necessary" (Lee 157). As t h e protagonist re-narrates some o f t h e sections, readers are required t o give u p their expectations and their learned reading habits and allow Kingston's speaker t o interrupt and revise stories o n t h e spot. As Kingston says, "Readers ought not t o expect reading always t o be as effortless as watching television" ("Cultural Mis-Reading" 64), and it definitely is not. Perhaps because this required change i n reading habits has been overlooked, b o t h Kingston's and Tan's novels have been misunderstood b y reviewers and critics (Kingston, "Cultural Mis-Reading"; McAlister). The protagonist Maxine i n Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior h a s t o reach back into cultural legends t o find strong w o m e n she can emulate i n order t o gain a voice and become a speaking subject. Because her o w n mother seems t o have accepted the notion that females are not valuable, she provides little nurturing for her daughter and certainly n o overt example o f h o w Maxine can make her way i n the dominant culture. Only w h e n Maxine pretends t o be the w o m a n warrior Fa Mu Lan does she obtain the strength she needs t o bridge t h e cultures and gain self-esteem. Maxine herself attempts t o follow i n her mother's footsteps i n at least one scene as she tries t o force another Asian American girl t o behave i n t h e way that Maxine demands: t o speak. W h e n she is unsuccessful, Maxine warns t h e girl, as her mother h a s warned Maxine: "Don't you dare tell anyone I've been bad to you" (181).Maxine is a child w h o h a s n o voice at h o m e , at t h e English-speaking school, or at her job after she grows u p and leaves home. By identifying a community o f strong w o m e n she can emulate, Maxine turns herself into a writer w h o has a powerful voice. She reimagines t h e story o f her "no-name" aunt t o make t h e aunt a hero whose example she can follow. She also, i n t h e end, realizes that her mother, Brave Orchid, is surreptitiously encouraging Maxine t o subvert the male-dominant Chinese culture. Maxine also learns to bridge t h e cultures through another traditional story about a woman w h o is captured b y barbarians but w h o learns t o appreciate t h e music o f the barbarians, even as her o w n children speak t h e barbaric tongue. Maxine's lack o f voice is reinforced b y language, tradition, and biased immigration laws, all o f which leave her with little self-esteem and confusion about her identity. Kingston's protagonist Maxine points out that t h e Chinese language itself debases females: "There is a Chinese word for t h e female I-which is 'slave.' Break t h e w o m e n w i t h their o w n tongues!" (The Woinar~Warrior 47). In other words, every time a Chinese girl or woman refers t o herself, she declares herself to be a slave. During Maxine's childhood, she has n o voice at h o m e i n the Chinese culture that devalues females. She is told

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

82

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

that "'Girls are maggots in the rice.' 'It is more profitable to raise geese than girls"' (43). Villagers would say, "'I would hit her if she were mine. But then there's no use wasting all that discipline o n a girl.' 'When you raise girls, you're raising children for strangers"' (46). Raising children for strangers refers to the tradition that a daughter belongs to her husband's family after she is married. Maxine has been taught silence at home for another, perhaps more urgent, reason: Chinese immigrants feared deportation by immigration officials and therefore lied to their children about their names, occupations, and backgrounds, so that the children could not accidentally give them away: Lie to Americans. Tell them you were born during the San Francisco earthquake. Tell them your birth certificate and your parents were burned up in the fire. Don't report crimes; tell them we have no crimes and no poverty. Give a new name every time you get arrested; the ghosts won't recognize you. Pay the new immigrants twenty-five cents an hour and say we have no unemployment. And, of course, tell them we're against Communism. Ghosts have no memory anyway and poor eyesight. And the Han people won't be pinned down. (184-85) Admonitions like this puzzle the children about their own and their parents' names, occupations, and origins. Maxine becomes confused about what is real and what is fantasy; she asks, "What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?" (6), and she cannot "tell where the stories left off and the dreams began" (19). Maxine says, "I could not figure out what was my village" (45). When Maxine finally gets a chance to tell her mother the things that are important to her, Maxine says, "And I don't want to listen to any more of your stories; they have n o logic. They scramble me up. You lie with stories. You won't tell me a story and then say, 'This is a true story,' or, 'This is just a story.' I can't tell the difference. I don't even know what your real names are. I can't tell what's real and what you make up" (202). It is not surprising that children who do not know their own parents' names or origins would not know "what was my village." At school, as Maxine struggles to learn English among native speakers, she has no voice. She says, "When I went to kindergarten and had to speak English for the first time, I became silent" (The Wornaiz Warrior 165). So instead of speaking, she demonstrates the predicament of her stifled inner imagination, the imagination that is suffocated by her lack of speaking ability, in her paintings at school by painting everything black. She says, My silence was thickest-total-during the three years that I covered my school paintings with black paint. I painted layers of black over houses and flowers and suns, and when I drew on the blackboard, I put a layer of chalk on top. I was making a stage curtain, and it was

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Kingstoll and Tan: Inventing One's Own Culture . . . the moment before the curtain parted or rose. The teachers called my parents to school, and I saw they had been saving my pictures, curling and cracking, all alike and black. The teachers pointed to the pictures and looked serious, talked seriously too, but my parents did not understand English. . . . My parents took the pictures home. I spread them out (so black and full of possibilities) and pretended the cwtains were swinging open, flying up, one after another, sunlight underneath, mighty operas. (165) She is the only one who sees her own possibilities hidden there. Maxine knows that the black paint represents a stage curtain that will open to reveal the "houses and flowers and sun" behind the curtain, but no one else realizes this because she cannot tell them. Instead, she is labeled "retarded" and sent to speech therapy. But she learns more than another language. Maxine says that "I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes" (19). As she gradually learns English, however, and gains a voice, she progresses to being a "straight A" student and, eventually, a writer (49). But, even after she leaves home, Maxine has difficulty speaking out against the overt racism of her employers; when she tries it, she finds her voice unreliable. One employer insists on offending her by calling a certain color "nigger yellow," but, when she protests in a "small-person's voice that makes no impact," he "never deigned to answer" (The Woinaiz Warrior 48). Another employer laughs when she "squeaked" that the restaurant he has chosen for a banquet "is being picketed by CORE and the NAACP" (48). When she protests in an "unreliable voice" (49), he fires her instead of listening to her. Maxine says, "It's not just the stupid racists that I have to do something about, but the tyrants who for whatever reason can deny my family food and work. My job is my only land" (49). But Maxine clearly gets no respect from her employers, the white men she calls "the enemy"; she describes them as "business-suited in their modern American executive guise, each boss two feet taller than I am and impossible to meet eye to eye" (48). Maxine is not heard at home, at school, or in the workplace. She must reach back into Chinese tradition to become a speaking subject. Fa Mu Lan, the legendary Chinese woman who disguises herself as a man in order to do battle for her parents, gives Maxine confidence that she also can use words as revenge and gain a voice. Fa Mu Lan's parents send their daughter into battle to avenge them with all of their grievances literally carved into her back; the warrior daughter gladly bears the pain and uses the words to win her battle. As Maxine remembers the story, she imagines herself in the same role, using words against her oppressors. As the woman warrior, she is able to defeat the powerful tyrants: "By looking into the water gourd I was able to follow the men I would have to execute. Not knowing that I watched, fat men ate meat; fat men drank wine made from the rice; fat men sat on naked little girls. I watched powerful men count their money" (The

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

84

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

W o m a n Warrior 30). After she h a s slain a giant, she imagines h e r parents w a t c h i n g a n d b e i n g proud o f her. As a warrior, she m u s t h i d e h e r f e m a l e i d e n t i t y ; she says, " I n e v e r told t h e m t h e t r u t h . C h i n e s e executed w o m e n who disguised t h e m s e l v e s as soldiers or students, n o m a t t e r how bravely t h e y f o u g h t or h o w h i g h t h e y scored on t h e examinations" (39). As a warrior, she does e v e r y t h i n g right: she f i n d s a h u s b a n d , bears a child, b e h e a d s t h e evil e m p e r o r a n d installs a peasant farmer i n h i s place. Arriving h o m e , she gains revenge on t h e local b a r o n a n d disbands her army. Her soldiers t u r n i n t o " a b a n d o f s w o r d s w o m e n . . . [ w h o ] rode as w o m e n . . . . T h e y b o u g h t u p girl babies. . . . T h e y killed m e n a n d boys" (44-45). Finding h e r " m o t h e r a n d father a n d t h e entire clan . . . living h a p p i l y o n t h e m o n e y I h a d sent t h e m , " she b e c o m e s again t h e d u t i f u l daughter t o her in-laws, saying " ' N o w m y public duties are finished . . . I will stay w i t h y o u , d o i n g f a r m w o r k a n d h o u s e w o r k , a n d giving y o u m o r e sons"' (45). M a x i n e imagines herself as t h e w o m a n warrior who is o b e d i e n t t o a n d generous w i t h h e r proud parents. T h i s m e r g i n g o f t h e identities o f M a x i n e a n d t h e warrior, o f soldier a n d s t u d e n t , is a n o t h e r m a r k o f t h e trickster figure, as is t h e a n d r o g y n o u s nature o f a w o m a n warrior. A n o t h e r story t h a t M a x i n e revises for her own purposes is t h e story o f h e r father's sister, t h e " n o - n a m e aunt" w h o h a s so s h a m e d t h e f a m i l y t h a t h e r n a m e c a n n o t b e s p o k e n aloud. In Maxine's version, t h e a u n t h a s b e e n u n a b l e t o speak o u t against h e r o w n rape, u n a b l e t o speak o u t against h e r rapist; i n h e r s h a m e , she gives b i r t h i g n o m i n i o u s l y to t h e child o f t h e rape i n a pigpen a n d d r o w n s herself a n d t h e i n f a n t i n t h e f a m i l y water supply. M a x i n e i m a g i n e s t h e rapist as a n acquaintance who uses h e r a u n t a n d t h e n t u r n s selfrighteously against her: " H e w a s n o t a stranger because t h e village h o u s e d no strangers. S h e h a d t o h a v e dealings w i t h h i m o t h e r t h a n sex. Perhaps h e w o r k e d a n adjoining field, or h e sold her t h e c l o t h for t h e dress she sewed a n d w o r e . His d e m a n d m u s t h a v e surprised, t h e n terrified her. She obeyed h i m ; she always did as she w a s told" (The Wornan Warrior 6 ) . M a x i n e i m a g i n e s t h e aunt's rapist t o b e v e r y m u c h like t h e aunt's h u s b a n d , because all m e n h a d power over all w o m e n . S h e says, T h e other m a n was n o t , after all, m u c h different f r o m her husband. T h e y b o t h gave orders: she followed. " I f you tell your family, I'll beat you. I'll kill you. Be here again n e x t week." N o o n e talked sex, ever. And she m i g h t have separated t h e rapes f r o m t h e rest o f living i f o n l y she did n o t have t o b u y her oil f r o m h i m or gather wood i n t h e same forest. . . . She told t h e m a n , "I t h i n k I'm pregnant." He organized t h e raid against her. ( 7 ) M a x i n e also imagines h e r aunt's fear a n d realizes t h a t i n sex w o m e n carry t h e greater b u r d e n . Here M a x i n e says, "I w a n t her fear t o h a v e lasted just as l o n g as rape lasted so t h a t t h e fear could h a v e b e e n c o n t a i n e d . N o d r a w n - o u t fear. But w o m e n at sex hazarded b i r t h a n d h e n c e l i f e t i m e s . T h e fear did n o t stop

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Kingstoll and Tan: Inventing One's Own Culture . . .

85

but permeated everywhere" (7). While t h e rapist is neither named nor punished, t h e no-name aunt is punished b y silence: "The real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted b y t h e villagers, but the family's deliberately forgetting her" (16). Maxine says, "But there is more t o this silence: t h e y want m e t o participate i n her punishment. And I have" (16). Thus she implicates herself i n her o w n cultural oppression, blames t h e w o m e n more than t h e outsiders. But rather than see the chain o f events as shameful, Maxine sees the nonconformity o f her aunt as a trait that Maxine should emulate. She says, " m y aunt used a secret voice" (11). However, Maxine's creation will not be an illegitimate child, but a literary work. Maxine's mother, Brave Orchid, is finally seen b y her daughter as also a nonconformist, as Brave Orchid subverts the patriarchal authority b y breaking t h e taboo against telling t h e story o f t h e no-name aunt. Even as Brave Orchid pays lip service t o the male-dominant culture, she slyly demonstrates, b y surreptitiously repeating the story to her daughter, h o w t o subvert it. She prefaces her story about t h e no-name aunt with "'You must not tell anyone . . . what I a m about t o tell you"' (The Wornan Warrior 3). Brave Orchid is a strong woman w h o h a s practiced medicine i n China, an unconventional vocation for a woman at the time, but a w o m a n w h o has been reduced t o a laundress i n America. She could not "practice openly i n t h e United States because t h e training here was so different and because she could never learn English" (149). While medical students i n China, she and t h e other students considered themselves " n e w w o m e n , scientists w h o changed t h e rituals," just as Maxine does i n revising the traditional stories. Brave Orchid is also good at "talk-story," or telling stories (75). She is unlike her sister Moon Orchid, w h o is voiceless w h e n it comes to speaking u p for herself t o her unfaithfulhusband. Brave Orchid plans Moon Orchid's confrontation with t h e husband w h o h a s abandoned her, but his new life i n America cannot include Moon Orchid: "'I don't know,' he said. 'It's as i f I had turned into a different person. The new life around m e was so complete; it pulled m e away. You became people i n a book I had read a long time ago"' (The Wornaiz Warrior 154). And Brave Orchid says that " h e turned into a barbarian" (126). It is Brave Orchid w h o carries out the confrontation because, as Moon Orchid says, "'You can talk louder than I can"' (144). W h e n her husband refuses t o acknowledge t h e validity o f their marriage, Moon Orchid is unable t o speak except for her whispered question i n this passage: "'What about me?' whispered Moon Orchid" (153). Instead, she proves herself t o be voiceless and eventually becomes insane, telling her one story over and over again: "Brave Orchid saw that all variety had gone from her sister. She was indeed mad. 'The differencebetween mad people and sane people,' Brave Orchid explained t o t h e children, 'is that sane people have variety w h e n t h e y talk-story. Mad people have only one story that they talk over and over"' (159). Moon Orchid finally finds a new story i n t h e state mental asylum; she calls the other inmates her "daughters" and says, " W e understand one another here. W e speak the same language" (160).

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

86

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Maxine begins to equate voicelessness with being mentally retarded (as she was thought to be at school) and becoming mad (as Moon Orchid has done) and strengthens her determination to gain a voice. She says, "I thought talking and not talking made the difference between sanity and insanity. Insane people were the ones who couldn't explain themselves. There were many crazy girls and women. . . . Within a few blocks of our house were half a dozen crazy women and girls" (The Wornaiz Warrior 186). Knowledge of these women and girls who are unable to explain themselves perhaps causes Maxine to put more effort into her struggle to attain a voice. Maxine learns to "talk-story" herself by emulating her mother, but changes her mother's stories to fit her intention. Her intention seems to be the intertwining of two cultures, the dominant white culture with the minority Chinese American culture. In the last chapter of the book, "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe," Maxine revises yet another of her mother's traditional Chinese stories, but she says, "The beginning is hers, the ending, mine" (The Wornan Warrior 206). The poetess Ts'ai Yen, the story goes, is captured and kept by barbarians for twelve years, fighting alongside her captors in battle. Her children fathered by her captor speak only the barbarian tongue-a situation much like the language situation between Brave Orchid, who speaks Chinese, and Maxine, who speaks English. When Ts'ai Yen speaks Chinese to her children, "they imitated her with senseless singsong words and laughed" (208). Ts'ai Yen is surprised to find out that the barbarians have music other than their "death sounds" (208). And so Ts'ai Yen is able to transform her negative predicament into something positive and intertwines the two cultures through art as she makes up a song to sing "as if to her babies" to the music of the barbarians, "Eighteen Stanzas for a Barbarian Reed Pipe" (209). The traditional Chinese version of the legend emphasizes her return to her own people (Cheung 171), but Kingston's version emphasizes the music she brings back "from the savage lands" (209). She has opened herself to an understanding of the alien culture. In inventing a song to sing to the savage music, Ts'ai Yen demonstrates harmony between cultures, and The Woinaiz Warrior ends by suggesting the same for present-day America. Ts'ai Yen's song, Kingston writes, "translated well" (209). The protagonist Maxine has to start with legends and stories from the past that she remembers from her mother's "talk-story" and revise them to fit her present situation, even though she is uncertain that she has either received or remembered the "correct" version. In her struggle to make herself heard, Maxine's "self-expression is a heroic act, an offensive with verbal artillery," according to King-kok Cheung (166). By merging herself with the woman warrior and emulating the strong women in her family, Maxine becomes, like Ts'ai Yen, an artist with words and is able to stand in a cultural space that she has invented for herself. As the woman warrior, Maxine inspires her army and feeds them. Like Ts'ai Yen, the warrior "sang to them glorious songs that came out of the sky and into my head" (The Woinar~ Warrior 37). Kingston's stories, like the warrior's songs, can inspire her read-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Kingstoll and Tan: Inventing One's Own Culture

...

87

ers. Even though the protagonist Maxine says, "Nobody in history has conquered and united both North America and Asia" (49), I suggest that that is exactly what Kingston has sought to do. Amy Tan, too, has been able to unite the two cultures; she, too, demonstrates the impossibility of a single perspective through her characters. While some reviewers have misunderstood her novel and some critics have complained that Tan's characters do not represent the entire Chinese American community (McAlister), Amy Tan's characters show great determination to survive by their own efforts, to make their own luck. The stories are by and about four Chinese mothers and their American daughters and their gaining maturity and strength through suffering. The immigrant mothers are survivors of the brutal massacres that occurred in the 1930s when the Japanese army invaded China. They are women who "had unspeakable tragedies they had left behind in China" (The Joy Luck Club 6 ) . They are women who have been marginalized in China because of their gender and in the United States because of their ethnicity. They are women who have lost their voices to a role that their culture has demanded that they play, but Tan shows their determination to survive. Without their voices as a means of expression, they rely upon their American daughters to say who they are. Tan shows not only the contrast between the Chinese and the American cultures; she also shows the contrast between Chinese immigrants to the United States and the American-born next generation, and finally reconciles the cultures. In these tales, too, the mothers attempt to pass their own traditional Chinese culture on to their daughters, who are more eager to assimilate into the dominant culture. The daughters frequently do not understand their mothers, but readers are allowed to learn of the mothers' past lives and so can understand their relations with their daughters and how they are able to pass their strength on to their daughters. The mothers in this novel are "the last human links to the past," which is what Iris Chang calls the survivors of the invasion of Nanking, who have suffered a "double betrayal"-the brutal invasion itself and then the later cover-up of the massacre by the government of the People's Republic of China (Chang 183). The mothers all present different personalities and come from different circumstances, but only one, Ying-ying, fails to gain a voice and feels lost. As a girl in China, Ying-ying St. Clair has been forced to mask her independent nature, made to sit still like a proper girl instead of chasing dragonflies the way boys are allowed to do (The Joy Luck C h b 70). Ying-ying says, "Standing perfectly still like that, I discovered my shadow" (70). And, she says, "I loved my shadow, this dark side of me that had my same restless nature" (71). She forecasts her adult life when, as a little girl temporarily separated from her family on a holiday outing, she says, "I felt I was lost forever" (80). She finds out even more about male-female relationships here as she watches a "shadow play" that keeps men and women in separate spheres (80). The actor who plays the Moon Lady part says, "'For woman is yin, . . . Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

88

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds"' (82). As Ying-ying watches backstage, the actor shows himself to be a man playing a woman's role; this revelation seems to further confuse the little girl's feelings about being forced to hide her independence. For the rest of her life, Ying-ying feels lost, and, in her own words, "I wished to be found" (83). After a first marriage to a brutal man and an abortion after he abandons her during her pregnancy, Ying-ying marries an American who rescues her from the war and brings her to America, reminding her frequently how grateful she should be. Her second husband, Clifford St. Clair, or "Saint," makes her over to be the kind of woman he wants, a very intimate kind of colonization. The reader must wonder which marriage is worse, the first one to an openly abusive husband or the second one to a more obliquely abusive husband. "Saint" not only gives her the American name of his choice, but he also changes her birth date o n the immigration papers, unwittingly changing her future by changing the sign of the Chinese zodiac that coincides with her birth date. Saint expects his wife to learn his language, but he does not attempt to learn hers. He always speaks for her, interpreting not just her words, but later, as she falls silent, even her moods, without ever consulting her, and frequently changes her meaning. As their daughter Lena explains in her own story, My father, who spoke only a few canned Chinese expressions, insisted my mother learn English. So with him, she spoke in moods and gestures, looks and silences, and sometimes a combination of English punctuated by hesitations and Chinese frustration: "Slztvo bz~chz~loi"Words cannot come out. So my father would put words in her mouth. "I think Mom is trying to say she's tired, he would whisper when my mother became moody. "I think she's saying we're the best darn family in the country!" he'd exclaim when she had cooked a wonderfully fragrant meal. But with me, when we were alone, my mother would speak in Chinese, saying things my father could not possibly imagine. I could understand the words perfectly, but not the meanings. One thought led to another without connection. (108-09) As Lena grows up, she too begins to "translate" a more acceptable version of her mother's words this way, not allowing her mother a voice, denying that her mother even has any thoughts of her own. Lena sees herself as having "Chinese parts" (The Joy Luck Club 106), even though most people think that she is English-Irish like her father, and some people mistake Ying-ying for "her maid" (111). Ying-ying says, "I kept my mouth closed"; one of the stories that she does not tell is the one about her abusive first husband and her abortion. As the son of Ying-ying and Saint is born horribly deformed and dies, Ying-ying attributes these events to punishment for her earlier abor-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Kingstoll and Tan: Inventing One's Own Culture . . .

89

tion. When in her grief Ying-ying cries, "I had given no thought to killing my other son! . . . I had given no thought to having this baby!" (117), she is misunderstood. Because she does not know the story of Ying-ying's past, Lena thinks that her mother is crazy, so she translates for her father: "'She says we must all think very hard about having another baby. She says she hopes this baby is very happy on the other side. And she thinks we should leave now and go have dinner"' (117). Neither her daughter nor her husband has any idea of what Ying-ying is really experiencing, and so they leave her and go to dinner, being more sensitive to their own needs than they are to Ying-ying's. Ying-ying says, "because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me" (64). And, like Moon Orchid in Kingston's book, she goes mad, leaving nothing behind but the barest shadow of her former self. Lena elaborates, "After the baby died, my mother fell apart, not all at once, but piece by piece . . . my mother was lying like a statue on her bed" (117). Yingying's own version is that she "willingly gave up my chi," and "became an unseen spirit" (285), never having been "found," as she had wished ever since she was lost as a young girl. An example of a strong woman in Tan's novel is Lindo. Lindo Jong is strong and cunning and passes these traits on to her daughter Waverly. Through use of her wiles, Lindo has been able to extricate herself from her arranged marriage in China, and as she regards her reflection on her wedding day, she sees for the first time that she has her own thoughts, her own mind, her own spirit. Lacking the position in society to voice her own thoughts, she locks them inside with only her face as a window to this awareness of her self. Her countenance shows the strength she has gained. The basis of her strength is that she knows her own worth and refuses to devalue herself. Long after her emigration to America, Lindo returns to China for a visit, only to find that her face belies her as an American, a foreigner in her native country. She now possesses a "Chinese face" in America and an "American face" in China (The Joy Luck Club 291). Her daughter Waverly grows up to be an arrogant American version of her, not just strong, but selfish and self-centered. Lindo explains, "I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?" (289). Lindo learns early on, however, that the Chinese culture as it is represented in America is empty and false: I saw two pagodas, one on each side of the street, as though they were the entrance to a great Buddha temple. But when I looked carefully, I

saw the pagoda was really just a building topped with stacks of tile roofs, no walls, nothing else under its head. I was surprised how they tried to make everything look like an old imperial city or an emperor's tomb. But if you looked on either side of these pretend-pagodas, you could see the streets became narrow and crowded, dark, and

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

dirty. I thought to myself, Why did they choose only the worst Chinese parts for the inside? (297) Because she does not know English, Lindo cannot get a job as a sales girl and must choose between becoming "a Chinese hostess . . . as bad as fourthclass prostitutes in China" and working in a factory as a fortune-cookie folder (298). Lindo does not understand the fortunes in the cookies that she burns her fingers folding all day. Not only are fortune cookies not Chinese, but the paper "fortunes" do not make sense to her. She thinks, "I should study these classical American sayings"; a coworker tells her: "'They are fortunes,' she explained. 'American people think Chinese people write these sayings.' 'But we never say such things!' I said" (299). When Lindo meets her husband in America, they cannot understand each other's Chinese dialects, so they study English together, "speaking to each other in those new words" (The Joy Luck Club 300). At other times they would take "out a piece of paper to write a Chinese character to show what we meant" (300), and sometimes they would act out their meanings to each other. But, even though they gradually learn to understand each other, the husband reverts to the past when Lindo brings up an uncomfortable topic: "I always ask him why he doesn't find a better situation. But he acts as if we were in those old days, when he couldn't understand anything I said" (301). Thus Tan indicates that two cultures, two languages can come together and be mutually coherent with an effort toward understanding, even though her character Lindo thinks that "these two things," Chinese and American cultures, "do not mix" (289) . Even though she becomes dissatisfied with her life, Lindo still wants the best for her children. She tells her daughter, I don't know what caused me to change. Maybe it was my crooked nose that damaged my thinking. Maybe it was seeing you as a baby, how you looked so much like me, and this made me dissatisfied with my life. I wanted everything for you to be better. I wanted you to have the best circumstances, the best character. I didn't want you to regret anything. And that's why I named you Waverly. It was the name of the street we lived on. And I wanted you to think, This is where I belong. But I also knew if I named you after this street, soon you would grow up, leave this place, and take a piece of me with you. (303)

Lindo uses the American face with her daughter, "the face Americans think is Chinese, the one they cannot understand" (291). She has learned, she says, "before I even arrived [in America], I had to hide my true self" (294). She has become so practiced that her face has become a clever mask for her thoughts, and she teaches her daughter this same skill, urging Waverly to "put your feelings behind your face so you can take advantage of hidden

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Kingstoll and Tan: Inventing One's Own Culture . . .

91

opportunities" (289). Like Kingston's Brave Orchid, Lindo Jong subverts her oppressors surreptitiously. Tan shows strength being passed from mother t o daughter through several generations. An-mei Hsu, whose o w n widowed mother had been raped and forced into concubinage i n China, has received her strength directly from that mother, even though the mother has been disowned b y her family because o f her shameful position as concubine. As a child, An-mei is not allowed b y her uncle t o live with her mother i n the h o m e o f the m a n w h o has raped her mother. And An-mei has been taught b y her mother not t o be "weak" and cry, as her mother has done: "'If you cry, your life will always be sad"' (The Joy Luck Club 243). Like Kingston's no-name aunt, An-mei's mother is silent about her rape. As the maid later informs An-mei, "Your mother did not scream or cry w h e n h e fell o n her. . . . [Wlhat choice did she have?" (267). As fourth "wife," An- mei's mother is forced t o give her newborn son t o a more important wife and is treated little better than a servant. She returns t o make a very personal sacrifice w h e n she learns that her o w n mother is dying. The child An-mei watches as her mother cuts a chunk o f flesh from her o w n arm, cooks it u p into a broth, and feeds it t o An-mei's grandmother i n a final, futile effortt o keep her alive. As she leaves t o return t o the "husband" w h o has raped her, An-mei goes with her, but An-mei's uncle tells the child, "'If you follow this woman, you can never lift your head again"' (245). But An-mei finds that h e is wrong. An-mei learns the difference between true and untrue i n a hard lesson. The important wife w h o has taken the b o y baby attempts to "buy" An-mei's affection with a string o f pearls, and it almost works. But An-mei's mother says, "'I will not let her b u y you for such a cheap price"' and demonstrates that the beads are really only glass (The Joy Luck Clzlb 260). An-mei says, "She told m e t o wear the necklace every day for one week so I would remember h o w easy it is t o lose myself to something false. And after I wore those fake pearls long enough t o learn this lesson, she let m e take t h e m off," and t h e n her mother gives her a real jewel and asks, "'Now can you recognize what is true?"' (301).An-mei's mother may be only a concubine, but she understands the value o f things and makes sure that her daughter also understands. Because An-mei's mother fears that her acceptance o f her o w n low station will have a detrimental effecto n her daughter An-mei, the mother eventually commits suicide, making the ultimate sacrifice for her daughter, so that An-mei's chi will be stronger. But she plans "her death so carefully that it became a weapon" against those w h o had caused her "so m u c h suffering" (The Joy Lzlck Clzlb 270). As the maid explains, "And everyone knows that suicide is the only way a woman can escape a marriage and gain revenge, to come back as a ghost and scatter tea leaves and good fortune" (264). But Anmei's mother tells An-mei the real reason for her suicide: " W h e n the poison broke into her body, she whispered to m e that she would rather kill her o w n weak spirit so she could give m e a stronger one. . . . So I shut her eyes with m y fingers and told her with m y heart: I can see the truth, too. I a m strong, Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

92

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

too" (271). This is w h e n An-mei "showed Second W i f e the fake pearl necklace she had given m e and crushed it under m y foot. . . . And o n that day, I learned t o shout" (272).An-mei has gained a voice and her mother's strength i n a very difficult way, and t h e n she teaches her o w n daughter Rose that it is o f the utmost importance t o always listen t o her mother ( t h e traditions); she teaches Rose t o be strong and demand her rights i n a divorce rather t h a n t o settle for what is offered t o her. Thus the strength is passed f r o m generation t o generation. Suyuan W o o , the only mother w h o does n o t tell her o w n story, having died before the novel begins, is voiceless. Because she has had n o voice, she has been killed b y thoughts that she has held in; her American-born daughter speaks for her, the daughter w h o claims not even t o k n o w her, even though An-mei disagrees: "'Not k n o w your o w n mother?' cries Auntie Anmei with disbelief. 'How can you say? Your mother is i n your bones!"' (The Joy Luck Club 31). Suyuan has told her daughter J u n e Uing-mei) that "Once you are born Chinese, you cannot help but feel and think Chinese. . . . It is i n your blood, waiting t o be let go" (306),even though J u n e says, "I've never really k n o w n what it means t o be Chinese" (307). Perhaps June's ignorance o f her o w n "Chineseness" causes her t o believe that she does not k n o w her mother, even though she agrees, after her mother's death, t o take her m o t h er's place as a member o f t h e J o y Luck Club. Some o f Suyuan's unexpressed thoughts are o f her twin daughters, daughters that she abandoned during the 1944 Japanese invasion o f Kweilin because she was unable t o care for t h e m . Whenever Suyuan has mentioned her former life, her daughter June h a s n o t completely believed her. Like Maxine i n Kingston's book, J u n e says, "I never thought m y mother's Kweilin story was anything but a Chinese fairy tale. T h e endings always changed" (The Joy Luck Club 12). And Tan, like Kingston, also gives different narrations o f the same event. Only after her mother's death does June's father retell t h e story, affirming its validity. O f her abandoning t h e twin girls, h e says, "she knew she could n o t bear t o watch her babies die w i t h her" (325).After years o f writing letters t o various people i n China, attempting t o find the girls, Suyuan wants t o plan a trip t o China, but her husband tells her, "it was already too late" (329). He feels some guilt i n Suyuan's death; h e tells June, " I just thought she wanted t o be a tourist! I didn't k n o w she wanted t o go and look for her daughters. So w h e n I said it was too late, that must have put a terrible thought i n her head that her daughters might be dead. And I think this possibility grew bigger and bigger i n her head, until it killed her" (329). Suyuan is also the mother w h o had formed t h e J o y Luck Club i n order t o maintain some glimmer o f hope i n the midst o f t h e terrible uncertainty o f t h e war. T h e idea o f the club, a community o f four w o m e n , survives her emigration t o America, though n o t w i t h its original members, and continues after t h e death o f Suyuan, with her daughter J u n e taking Suyuan's place. As Suyuan has told her daughter about the origin o f t h e J o y Luck Club i n Kweilin, " a city o f leftovers mixed together" (The Joy Luck Club 8 ) , life during

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Kingstoll and Tan: Inventing One's Own Culture . . .

93

the war, with its "damp heat," "unbearable smells from the sewers," and "screaming sounds" (9, lo), was so oppressive that "I thought I needed something to help me move" (10). The other three women she invited into the group were from various backgrounds and circumstances, one "from a lowclass family," one "with very fine manners," and one "an army officer's wife, like myself" (10). Here Tan suggests again that harmony can arise and be maintained among those from different backgrounds. It is the American-born daughter who finally makes the trip to China to meet her twin sisters and, with them, is able to keep their mother's spirit alive. The strongest demonstration of the true Suyuan is found in the meeting between June and her half sisters. These sisters, who have been found because of their striking resemblance to their mother, shock June, for when she first sees them, she sees her mother, "two of her" (The Joy Luck Club 331). Then June looks again and says, "I see no trace of my mother in them. Yet they still look familiar. And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After all these years, it can finally be let go" (331). And finally, in a snapshot taken of all three daughters together, Suyuan appears. According to Walter Shear, "What she Dune] discovers in her reunion with her Chinese half sisters . . . is a renewed sense of her dead mother . . . the feeling Jing-mei has been searching for" (197). June says, "Together we look like our mother" (332). Thus the two cultures are reunited and brought into harmony with each other through the daughters. Amy Tan, herself the daughter of Chinese immigrants, is in a situation similar to that of her characters. As Sau-ling Wong notes, American-born Chinese writers tend to exhibit a "predominance of autobiographical or quasi-autobiographical writing in which the protagonist is shown on the verge of adulthood" (124); while Kingston follows this pattern, Tan does not. But they both show the maturation of girls into women, even though the daughters occupy a new cultural space that their mothers do not share. Autobiographical elements from Tan's life are woven into the fictional fabric of her story-pieces of her life, and her mother's life, and her mother's before her ("Mother Tongue"). All the daughters in the stories learn from the past and ultimately achieve a greater understanding of their respective mothers as they "translate" their mothers' experiences into their contemporary American lives, much as Tan and Kingston "translate" what they know of their Chinese heritage into their American novels. Tan's peer, Maxine Hong Kingston, explains the unique position that the two share as American writers with Chinese heritage. She writes that a reviewer who calls Asian American authors "inscrutable, mysterious, exotic denies us our common humanness" and explains that her "Chinese myth" in The Wornan Warrior has been "transformed by America" ("Cultural Mis-Reading" 57). Tan uses her position to create a novel that is a voice for her unsung mother. As she writes, she envisions her mother as her audience and uses "all the Englishes I grew up with" ("Mother Tongue" 339). Tan says she has, in Tlze Joy Luck Club, captured her mother's "passion, her imagery, the rhythms

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

94

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

of her speech and the nature of her thoughts" (339). The mothers have been silent for several reasons: because they have been trained that females should be silent; because they fear that speaking will endanger their American status with immigration officials; and because the English they speak is "simple," "broken," or "watered down" (339). They have relied upon their daughters to translate for them. Tan's writing gives voice to the silent generations that have come before her, translates their stories through their daughters, and thus bridges two cultures and two generations. Tan seems to promise exactly what June promises about her mother, Suyuan: "'I will remember everything about her and tell them"' (The Joy Luck Club 32). These two writers have been able to reconcile, at least for themselves, two cultures by seeking the past and making sense of it in regard to their present-day lives as part of the American culture. They not only critique the patriarchal ideology of the dominant culture, but they also must come to terms with sexism in the traditional Chinese culture. Even though they have been criticized for it, they have "translated" both ancient myths and recent history to bridge cultures and generations, at the same time voicing a community of strong women who can be emulated. They have created a cultural space for not just themselves to speak from, but also their mothers and previous and future generations of women. The men in the Asian American literary community have castigated them for speaking out against the practice of a double standard, as men in the African American community have rebuked female African American writers for revealing the sexism that exists in that culture.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER VII

Morrison a n d Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

I

\DEED, BOTH THEBLLEST EYEBY TO\I MORRISO\A\D THECOLORPLRPLE BY ALICE Walker reveal n o t just sexism, but sexual abuse o f female children b y adult males. But these t w o authors, t o o , manufacture a speaking platform f r o m t h e midst o f patriarchy and "internal colonization." Morrison shows t h e results o f colonization o f t h e m i n d and h o w it makes people complicit i n their o w n oppression. Her protagonist, Pecola, poor, black, and female, abused w i t h i n her o w n culture, is like Kingston's M o o n Orchid and Tan's Ying-ying i n that she never gains a voice. But Walker's Celie, w h o also starts o u t poor, black, and female, w h o also is abused w i t h i n her o w n tradition, finds empowerment through writing and t h e support and example o f a c o m m u n i t y o f strong w o m e n , t h e c o m m u n i t y that Kingston found i n t h e past and that Tan discovered i n t h e present. In The Bluest Eye Morrison makes t h e individual Pecola represent t h e black c o m m u n i t y i n America and makes t h e reader share responsibility for t h e downfall o f b o t h . According t o Linda Selzer, i n The Color Piuple Walker invites readers t o "resituate her narration [about t h e individuals Celie and Nettie] w i t h i n a larger discourse o f race and class," w h i c h includes sexism and racism i n b o t h America and Africa. Both novels question c o m m u n i t y and kinship: The Bluest Eye shows hierarchy w i t h i n a racial group that attempts t o replicate hegemonic standards o f beauty and normality and demonstrates h o w identity is shaped b y this attempt; The Color Pzlrple suggests that kinship m a y b e found w i t h i n a racial group that crosses national boundaries. Walker shows t w o different kinds o f oppression i n t w o nations; Morrison shows oppression b y t h e dominant culture as well as w i t h i n t h e marginalized group. Walker demonstrates t h e transformative power o f artistic expression, w h i c h allows a n individual t o create her o w n cultural space and t o speak f r o m that space; Morrison delineates t h e e f f e c t o f having n o cre-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

96

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

ative outlet, no imagination with which to define a new cultural position from which to be heard. As stated above, Morrison's character Pecola never attains a voice, and she thus goes mad, much as Moon Orchid does in Kingston's novel and Ying-ying in Tan's novel. Similar to Joyce's community of Irish Catholics in Dz~bliners,Morrison's community is found to be deficient and dysfunctional, and she indicates where this dysfunction originates. Walker's novel provides a view of different kinds of kinship, both across and within cultures; but the kind of kinship that makes a positive difference is the community of strong women that provides strength for her protagonist. Both authors show the overlap of two cultures and its effect on their fictional characters: Morrison writes about Pecola's failure to make sense of her world and to gain a voice; Walker writes about Celie's success in figuring out her world and in gaining an authoritative voice through the creative expression of writing. Both authors reveal the oppression of a minority group by the hegemony; both authors reveal the construction of identity as they attempt to rewrite history to transform the hegemonic system. Both novels have two narrators with differing viewpoints. Both authors revise the role of the reader through their postmodern writing strategies, show the subjectivity of their protagonists, emphasize the importance of nurturing and creativity, reveal the complicity of the oppressed in their own oppression, and discuss kinship, bridging cultures, and race relations. Morrison suggests that oppression and the self-loathing that results from oppression are passed down from generation to generation. Morrison wants to create a community which invites readers to interpret her writings and destroy cultural stereotypes. Morrison takes on the responsibility of recentering discourse, causing both dominant and marginalized cultures to question their definitions of perfection and beauty. An example is when she portrays Claudia as not accepting the symbolic Shirley Temple doll. According to Barbara Christian, young children are led to believe that others are happy because they are white and perhaps they are pretty, are not too noisy, or are living an orderly life, whatever line of demarcation or difference they can perceive as marking their own existence. The more confusing, different, poverty-ridden or depressed that a child's life is, the more she will yearn for the norm the dominant society says provides beauty and happiness. (142) According to Joanne Cornwell-Giles, the changing horizon of literary criticism is "related in a fundamental way to the ongoing process of framing a concept of the 'self'-a process which has had particular significance for Afro-Americans" (87), while Peter Doughty points out that writers try to use their novels as a bridge of understanding. As such a bridge, Morrison's novel describes the relationships in the black community between races and between men and women, relationships that are crucial to the concept of

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

97

self. Like Achebe, Morrison constructs a history for her people to "identify threats to their culture and to personal identity, and to indicate the continuities and disruptions which make up that history" (Doughty 33). The dominant culture has established the norms for beauty, and acceptance of these standards causes the characters to cultivate self-pity, bitterness, anger, resentment, cruelty, and desire for recognition within themselves. Fiction is a vital source of history, and Morrison believes that her novels should "clarify the roles that have become obscured; they ought to identify those things that are useful and those that are not; and they ought to give nourishment" (qtd. in Doughty 29-30). Doughty also quotes Frances Ward and Val Gray Ward as stating that part of the African American project should be "A rejection of the old history and standards which would re-define the meaning of black existence, past and present" (31). Like Yeats, Morrison envisions the reestablishment of a strong village community among her people. She "presents her readers a version of their own historical experience which is derived from the resources and narrative traditions of their own culture" (46). Doughty also cites Chinua Achebe, who writes, "The worst thing that can happen to any people is the loss of their dignity and self-respect. The writer's duty is to help them regain their dignity and self-respect by showing them in human terms what happened to them, what they lost" (32). Morrison not only shows them what happened, but she also implicates both the minority characters and the hegemonic majority, requiring her audience to share in the complicity. The reader becomes part of the community that is the narrator Claudia's audience, making the reader a part of the story; the reader thus comes to "understand and share her guilt" Uamieson 147). Even white readers become part of the community that Claudia addresses as they recognize Pecola's humanity. They also begin to recognize their own complicity, even if it has been expressed only as the ignorance and neglect of a disinterested bystander, in maintaining a societal structure that could so easily dehumanize and demonize a small girl. Morrison "explore[s] the interaction of race and gender in the experience of black women, and offer[s] a critical analysis of the internal relations of 'the entire black community"' (Doughty 30). Morrison uses Pecola as a symbol of the oppression of women and of dark-skinned people and describes the struggles many blacks have gone through as a result of being degraded by their community, family, and friends. She also demonstrates that there is racial discrimination among blacks. When Maureen Peal enters the scene, she is called a "high yellow" girl. She is admired by the other students because of her light skin and her family's economic standing. The students have been raised to believe that lighter skin is better than dark. This idea creates an inferiority complex within blacks and supports the concept of white superiority. The concept of beauty serves as a divider that separates society into the "haves" and the "havenots." The "haves" would be those who possess white beauty, and the "havenots," those who do not, those whose standards of beauty are marginalized and unimportant. Such a racial hierarchy instills a "racial self-loathing" that

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

98

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

deprives blacks of their own uniqueness and pride of culture and race (Morrison 210). Morrison shows how the pressures created by white-defined values as reflected in American culture and in America as a whole can contaminate the relationships within African American families as well as among individuals in the black community. Claudia's idea of white-defined values is reflected in her feelings about Pecola's dead baby: "I felt a need for someone to want the black baby to live-just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley Temples, and Maureen Peals" (Morrison 190). Blacks frequently inflict extreme physical and psychological violence on other blacks, like the Breedloves' neglect and torment of each other. It is clear that Morrison wants her audience to see the most horrible form of evil in the ability of whitedefined values to twist and pervert the human spirit. Pecola wears "a torn, dirty dress," "muddy shoes," and "soiled socks." Her hair is "matted where the plaits had come undone." The hem of her dress is held up by "a safety pin" (92). Geraldine is one adult who mocks Pecola; even though Geraldine is colored, she identifies other colored persons who do not share her values of upward mobility as "niggers." She calls Pecola, "You nasty little black bitch" (93). Pecola wants to be white because, in her mind, whites are superior to blacks. Pecola inherits the wrath of those who have never learned how to propagate love. The self-loathing that is instilled in both of her parents is passed on to the next generation, their children. Neither Pecola's mother, Pauline, nor her father, Cholly, has a creative outlet, an outlet that seems necessary to growth and self-esteem. Pauline and Cholly not only have had similar degrading experiences in their youth, but individually they also pass their hatred on to their daughter Pecola in two very similar kitchen-floor scenes. It is clear that Morrison is attempting to show how society molds and perverts certain societal values. Convinced by her family, classmates, and community that she is ugly, Pecola allows her sense of self to be slowly chipped away. Pecola is composed of "all the waste and beauty of the worldwhich is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave us" (Morrison 205). Melvin Dixon writes, "Both family and community, loved ones and landscape, have banished Pecola. A devastating inertia prevents her from achieving the flight she thought would come with the blue eyes" (147). Pecola has no weapons with which to fight against the sense of worthlessness which is instilled in her every day. She is ignored by store owners, made fun of by classmates and teachers, and used as an instrument of death by Soaphead Church. She accepts this abuse and "In return Pecola simply gave the only beauty she had: her innocence" (Dixon 148). Pecola often wishes that she were invisible; she cannot overcome her circumstances, so she wants to escape. In the scene in which Claudia takes the white dolls apart to find what they are made of and to find what makes them beautiful and desirable, she is turning her destructiveness outward, but Pecola turns it

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

99

inward. Claudia extends her search for the "thing" that makes white dolls beautiful to Shirley Temple and to her light- skinned classmate Maureen Peal, who not only has matching skirts and knee socks, gloves, and pretty, long, "good" hair, but who also draws the attention of the teacher and avoids the harassment of the boys. This "thing" that Claudia is unable to find, the "thing" that makes white dolls, Shirley Temple, and Maureen Peal desirable and that makes darker-skinned children undesirable, the "thing" that Claudia has no name for, is racism. Melvin Dixon sees Tlze Bluest Eye as a "study of Morrison's about the community out of touch with the land and the history that might have saved them" (143). Being homeless, or being put "outdoors," is the worst imaginable situation: "if you are outdoors, there is no place to go" (Morrison 17). Morrison uses her writing to show the "nameless, homeless, landless situation of black Americans in literature and in society" (Dixon 144), and Pecola represents that situation as it occurs in an individual. But identity is the major theme. Pecola would certainly have been a different person if she had gotten support from the community. The people of the community condemn Pecola for being molested by her father. An example of attitudes in the community about Pecola's situation appears here: "Did you hear about that girl?" "What? Pregnant?" "Yas. But guess who?" "Who? I don't know all these little old boys." "That's just it. Ain't no little old boy. They say it's Cholly." "Cholly? Her daddy?" "Uh-huh." . . . "County ain't gone let her keep that baby, is they?" "Don't know." "None of them Breedloves seem right anyhow. That boy is off somewhere every minute, and the girl was always foolish." "Don't nobody know nothing about them anyway. Where they come from or nothing. Don't seem to have no people." "What you reckon make him do a thing like that?" "Beats me. Just nasty." "Well, they ought to take her out of school." "Ought to. She carry some of the blame." . . . "Yeah? You never know." "Well, it probably won't live. They say the way her mama beat her she lucky to be alive herself." (188-89) In Morrison's novel the reader can find an excellent example of a situation in which self-loathing is a way of life and the results of that self-hatred. The situation calls to mind a similar situation in Joyce's "Counterparts" in which Farrington, while constantly chafing against English and Anglo-Irish characters, is filled with a similar self-loathing. Morrison suggests that, if the Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

100

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

people of the marginalized culture could know their own value, perhaps they would not so readily accept the ideal of beauty set forth by the dominant culture. Claudia reminds the reader that the community is not only responsible for Pecola's "descent into madness," but also benefits from it; she states, "We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. . . . We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength" (Morrison 205). Claudia sees Pecola as a victim who is sacrificed. The responsibility for Pecola's victimization lies not just with her family and acquaintances, but also with the entire community. The entire community of characters is allowed to provide reactions, and there are at least three narrative viewpoints in the story. Claudia shares her personal experiences as well as the other characters' from both her vantage points, as an adult and as a child; another, omniscient narrator appears, however, in those instances in which the reader needs to know something that Claudia could not possibly know. Of course, this story could not be told by the protagonist: Pecola is unable to give her perspective on life due to her insanity. Different reactions to their marginalized status appear in different characters, as Barbara Christian points out: "Morrison connects Pecola Breedlove's desire for the bluest eyes to Mrs. Breedlove's restricted spirit and Cholly Breedlove's sense of unworthiness, to Geraldine's fear of funk and Soaphead Church's sterility, to Maureen's fate as an eternal dream child and Claudia's ache to be whole" (152). Christian also mentions other writing strategies that Morrison uses: "the Dick and Jane primer backdrop, the modulated voice of Claudia, and the constant continuum between the mean, precious seasons and the growth of young black girls" (142). Doughty writes that the lack of punctuation marks or separation in the Dick-and-Jane phrases suggests "the stress on literacy as an agency of cultural hegemony" (34). Morrison describes how the "perfect" family, the family of Dick and Jane, gets along, and also shows a comparison to Pecola's family. Pecola, her family, and her community-all have no belief in themselves and believe themselves to be ugly. "Her systematic victimization and unnatural sexual experience . . . form an extreme version of the subjection that all the characters experience in this novel," Doughty writes (34). Pecola is in a world of her own, separated from both the dominant culture and her own marginalized culture: "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs-all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pinkskinned doll was what every girl child treasured" (Morrison 20). And Pecola does not look like this. Both the mother, Pauline, and the daughter, Pecola, suffer with the same desire to be seen as beautiful by white standards. It becomes ironic and even more tragic that, even after Pauline has experienced her own struggle with beauty, she then passes abuse on to Pecola and views her also as ugly. The hospital scene for Pauline is like the first-sex scene for Cholly: it makes her hate the one who should be the object of her love.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

101

Pecola's "ugliness," the violent acts committed against her b y her father and mother, t h e everyday taunting and teasing which she experiences as a child, and her constant desire for blue eyes are some o f t h e reasons that Christian gives t o explain her "descent into madness." The novel analyzes the difficulty for a black w o m a n t o live u p t o the American definition o f beauty. Pecola has a great need for love, and she believes that t h e only way t o receive this love is through t h e beauty that she does not possess. Morrison relates this issue t o " t h e conflict o f artistic and societal values between t h e Anglo-American and Afro-American cultures" (Christian 138). Pecola's desire for blue eyes "encompasses three hundred years o f uns~iccessfulinterface between black and white culture" (138).Pecola's destructive journey parallels the societal destruction o f t h e black community, and n o adult i n Pecola's life recognizes her tremendous need for love nor the longing i n her heart t o be nurtured; thus n o one responds. T h e y are too preoccupied with trying t o erase t h e pain f r o m their o w n childhoods. Pecola believes that she cannot be loved for w h o she is, so she seeks change through prayer. O n e reason that Pecola comes t o believe that she h a s received blue eyes is that, i f she believed otherwise, her unanswered prayers would cause her t o doubt the existence o f God. Every time Pecola is traumatized, t h e reader gains insight into t h e history o f t h e people w h o have done evil things t o her. The entire Breedlove family believe that t h e y are ugly. Pecola finds herself "o~itdoors"i n t h e society i n which she lives. Pecola's confusion about love is apparent i n t h e scene where she lies i n bed with Frieda and Claudia. W h e n t h e conversation arises concerning Pecola's menstrual cycle, Pecola inquires about her ability t o reproduce. "'Oh, . . . somebody has t o love you,"' is Frieda's response (Morrison 32). It is obvious that Pecola does not k n o w h o w t o get someone t o love her w h e n she says, "'How do you d o that? I mean, h o w do you get somebody t o love you?" (32). Pecola is looking for unconditional love and cannot distinguish between that and sexual love. This confusion shows u p i n t h e family name, Breedlove; obviously "breed" refers t o procreation which has little t o d o with love, but Pecola never knows this. Confusion continues as Pecola is never seen as a child; instead, people call her t h e "case" and the "girl w h o had n o place t o go" (16). Pecola searches for her place i n society, but the models she has are inadequate for her situation: Shirley Temple, Mary Janes, Maureen Peal, Geraldine, and the three prostitutes, all o f w h o m do have places t o go. Morrison seems t o attempt t o explain Pecola's parents' treatment o f her b y exposing their o w n individual traumatic experiences, experiences that have caused b o t h Pauline and Cholly t o hate themselves and t o wield their self-hatred against their child, w h o embodies their hated selves. Cholly has neither mother nor creative outlet. In t h e years before h e meets Pauline, Cholly, too, has needed nurturing. His mother throws h i m away o n the garbage heap w h e n h e is an infant; w h e n h e becomes an adolescent, his absent father rejects h i m , too. Morrison writes o f Cholly's situa-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

102

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

tion, "Abandoned in a junk heap by his mother, rejected for a crap game by his father, there was nothing more to lose" (160). In addition, he has been subjected to racism. During Cholly's first sexual encounter, two Caucasian men stand over him and watch him as if he is an animal, and this is the beginning of his hatred of women. This scene also demonstrates the anger Cholly turns toward women rather than at the white men whom he could not defy. And here Cholly becomes the whole African American community who turn their anger and hatred toward themselves and each other because they are powerless in the face of the dominant culture: Cholly, moving faster, looked at Darlene. He hated her. He almost wished he could do it-hard, long, and painfully, he hated her so much. The flashlight wormed its way into his guts and turned the sweet taste of muscadine into rotten fetid bile. He stared at Darlene's hands covering her face in the moon and lamplight. They looked like baby claws. (148) These events are what shape Cholly into a man who has little chance to succeed. He becomes a violent, drunken, and abusive man who displaces his anger and humiliation, heaping them upon all the women who are close to him. In addition, Morrison makes it clear that Cholly could have become a different person had he had some means of expressing a more emotional side of himself. Cholly might have been a musician; if he had, Morrison points out that he could then have made sense of his life: The pieces of Cholly's life could become coherent only in the head of a musician. Only those who talk their talk through the gold of curved metal, or in the touch of black-and-white rectangles and taut skins and strings echoing from wooden corridors, could give true form to his life. . . . Only a musician would sense, know, without even knowing that he knew that Cholly was free. (159) Being able to make sense of his life might have made him a different kind of father to Pecola. Morrison seems to attempt to explain Cholly's lack of parenting skills in this way: "Having no idea of how to raise children, and having never watched any parent raise himself, he could not even comprehend what such a relationship should be" (160). Pauline, too, has had neither nurturing nor any outlet for artistic expression. She lives in a fantasy, accepts the hegemony as reality, and is content to live on the edges, believing herself to be ugly. Pauline has also been subjected to racism; in a scene that is reminiscent of Cholly's first-sex experience, Pauline is treated as if she is an animal that feels no pain when she is in the hospital giving birth to Pecola. The Caucasian doctors say that African

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

1 03

American women deliver babies easier than Caucasian women. Pauline remembers what one of the doctors says: izow these here wonieiz you don't h w e ~117))t ~ o u b l ewith. They deliver right awtrj) trml with izop~iiiz.lust like lzoises. . . . [Pauline continues he1 memory of the doctors:] They riever said rzothirig to rrie. Orily orze looked a t rrie. Looked a t rriy face, I rriearz. I looked riglit back a t Iiirri. He dropped his eyes arzrl turried red. He kriowed, I reckorz, that rnaybe I wereri't rio horse foaling. But thein otheis. The))diitldt know. . . . Besides, thtrt doctoi don't know He inust never seed 170 nitrre f0111. W h o say they whtrt he t ~ i l k i i ~~ibout. g doiz't lztrve 170 pain? Just 'cause she don't ciy? 'Cause she can't say it, they thirzk it airz't there? (124-25)

Pauline is miserable in her family environment. Having felt unloved and isolated herself as a child, she falls prey to self-pity. The child Pauline believes that her plight is due to something beyond her own control, a congenital deformity in her foot. She believes that this deformity is the reason that she alone out of eleven children has had no special attention, no nickname, no teasing. She cultivates her isolation within her mind. The short stint of bliss with Cholly early in their romance is not enough to save Pauline as a young woman from her own destructive self-pity; in her misery, she tries to assuage her own loneliness and poor self-esteem with movies. Later, she also escapes her misery through faithfully serving a white family whose environment fills her need for quiet and order. Thus, she overlooks her own daughter's needs. She possesses the ability to nurture; yet, she chooses to extend it to the white family she works for instead of her own child. Pecola cannot look to her mother for any support. But Pauline, like Pecola, simply has a desire for love and acceptance. She gains these when she involves herself in church organizations and especially when she begins to care for the Fisher family. They appreciate her and even give her a nickname. Dixon points out, "Pauline, who 'never felt at home anywhere, or that she belonged anyplace,' finds a world where her sense of order, arrangement, and privacy can have full reign [sic], working, ironically, as a maid for the white Fisher family" (145). The identity crisis that is expressed in the lives of both Pauline and Pecola ultimately leads to their individual quests for love. Pauline "was still no more than a girl, and still waiting for that plateau of happiness, that hand of a precious Lord who, when her way grew drear, would always linger near" (Morrison 118). Morrison further illustrates that Pauline's desire is to obtain true love in this description of the higher being that Pauline fantasizes about: "He was a simple Presence, an all-embracing tenderness with strength and a promise of rest. It did not matter that she had no idea of what to do or say to the Presence-after the wordless knowing and the soundless touching, her dreams disintegrated. But the Presence would know what to do. She had only to lay her head on his chest and he would lead her away to the sea, to the city, to the woods . . . forever" (Morrison 113).

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

1 04

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Pauline's view of what is beautiful comes from the movie screen. Pauline rejects the reality of her life, first for the fantasy of Hollywood, and then for the imitation of life she lives with her white employers. According to Doughty, Pauline "finds compensation for her loneliness and sense of her own ugliness in the movies, where she learns to read a system of signs that constitute herself and her family as negligible" (36). Because she is led to believe that she and her family are "negligible," Pauline does not learn how to show love to Pecola; instead, she "beat[s] a fear of growing up, fear of other people, and fear of life" into Pecola (Morrison 128). In order to be like her neighbors and therefore to be accepted by them, Pauline attempts to fashion herself in white terms of beauty. When her attempts fail and her children do not look like the white children in the movies, Pauline succumbs to her own self-hatred and sense of ugliness. Morrison suggests that Pauline, too, could have changed her life with a creative outlet; Pauline might have been an artist, perhaps a painter or a sculptor. As a girl, Pauline cultivated quiet and private pleasures. She liked, most of all, to arrange things. To line things up in rows-jars on shelves at canning, peach pits on the step, sticks, stones, leaves-and the members of her family let these arrangements be. When by some accident somebody scattered her rows, they always stopped to retrieve them for her, and she was never angry, for it gave her a change to rearrange them again. Whatever portable plurality she found, she organized into neat lines, according to their size, shape, or gradations of color. Just as she would never align a pine needle with the leaf of a cottonwood tree, she would never put the jars of tomatoes next to the green beans. During all of her four years of going to school, she was enchanted by numbers and depressed by words. She missed-without knowing what she missed-paints and crayons. (111) Perhaps Morrison is not suggesting that Pauline could have become an accomplished artist, but merely that Pauline has missed having any opportunity for creative expression and the state of mind that expression can bring about. Pauline, perhaps, would have been a more compassionate mother to Pecola if she had had some beauty in her life. The only adults who bestow compassion upon Pecola are three prostitutes who "lived in the apartment above [the Breedloves]. . . . Pecola loved them, visited them, and ran their errands. They, in turn, did not despise her" (Morrison 50-51). They take the time to teach her some of the realities of life, even though they also wrongly equate sex with love. Other community members, the McTeers, Claudia's family, seem to be better than the Breedloves' family. Unlike Pauline, Mrs. McTeer pays attention to her daughters and attempts to train them. The biggest difference between Mr. McTeer and Cholly is in their care of the family, represented by the fire, the symbolic heart of the home. Whereas the Breedlove coal stove is cold and Cholly's

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

105

failure to bring coal into the house provides the basis for another fight between Pauline and Cholly, Mr. McTeer is "A Vulcan guarding the flames," giving his daughters "instructions about which doors to keep closed or opened for proper distribution of heat" (61). Mr. McTeer also "lays kindling by, discusses qualities of coal, and teaches us how to rake, feed, and bank the fire" (61). He not only tends his own family, but he also teaches his daughters how to do the same. Pecola is fortunate that she has the opportunity to know how a truly functional family lives. Peter Doughty writes that the story in the child's reader Dick a i d J m e introduces the reader to an environment that defines the characters' humanity by economic, sexual, and racial myths. The myths center around "the ironic relation between the icon and the actual experience of the black families in the narrative, whose lives, in fact, form 'pathological' versions of what the white primer suggests is the norm" (Doughty 34). But Mrs. McTeer seems not to live by the idea that her family is a "pathological" version of the "normal" family. However, the Breedloves may indeed represent the "pathological" version of "normal," especially in the two parallel kitchen-floor scenes mentioned above: in each scene Pecola is violated by one of her parents. "Polly" treats her daughter like an animal in the kitchen of her white employers. Pecola does not belong in this space, Polly's space, the space to which Mrs. Breedlove escapes from the reality of her home and family; Pecola accidentally causes the hot blueberry pie to fall to the kitchen floor and burns her legs. In response, Mrs. Breedlove knocks Pecola to the floor, picks her up, and slaps her in front of not only the little white girl, but also Pecola's friends Frieda and Claudia. Then, instead of tending to her daughter's injury, she looks toward the crying little white girl to soothe her, showing love to her instead of to her own daughter. After Pecola witnesses her mother comforting the little Fisher girl, her longing to be like this girl only grows, because the Fisher girl is allowed to call her mother Polly, but Pecola is required to call her own mother Mrs. Breedlove. Thus Pauline brutalizes her own daughter and offers all her affection to the little Fisher girl. Indeed, Pauline refuses to claim her own daughter; as the Fisher girl asks, "Who were they?" Pauline will not even acknowledge Pecola. Pecola, the embodiment of the "pathological" version of Polly's "normal" life, is not allowed into this Dick-andJane world that Mrs. Breedlove has made herself a part of. But even more devastating is the victimization of Pecola by her father. Cholly is a drunk who believes he has no self-worth, that he is poor, black, and ugly, and he takes his frustrations out on his family. While drunk he victimizes Pecola by raping her on the floor of their kitchen, where she has been washing dishes. Cholly is reminded of a young Pauline, but is also angry at Pecola because she "look[s] so whipped" (161). Morrison gives Cholly's viewpoint: The clear statement of her misery was an accusation. He wanted to break her neck-but tenderly. Guilt and impotence rose in a bilious

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

duet. What could he do for her-ever? . . . What could a burned-out black man say to the hunched back of his eleven-year-olddaughter? If he looked into her face, he would see those haunted, loving eyes. The hauntedness would irritate him-the love would move him to fury. How dare she love him? Hadn't she any sense at all? What was he supposed to do about that? Return it? How? (161) After the rape, Morrison writes, She appeared to have fainted. Cholly stood up and could see only her grayish panties, so sad and limp around her ankles. Again the hatred mixed with tenderness. The hatred would not let him pick her up, the tenderness forced him to cover her. So when the child regained consciousness, she was lying on the kitchen floor under a heavy quilt, trying to connect the pain between her legs with the face of her mother looming over her. (163) Because Pauline does not believe Pecola when she tells of the first rape, Pecola does not bother to tell her mother about the second rape that happens while she is lying on the couch reading. When her father rapes her the second time, he leaves her pregnant, a pregnancy that results in a dead baby. Even though Morrison explains Cholly's actions as the only way he knows to love the girl-Cholly, too, has never known love and therefore has never known how to love-the taking of Pecola's innocence by force in an incestuous relationship is repulsive by any standards. It is after Pecola has to leave school because of her pregnancy that she goes mad. The final contributing factor is the promise by Soaphead Church that she will have blue eyes. But he, too, uses the child, to unwittingly poison an annoying dog. It is only after she "gets" the blue eyes and after she delivers her father's stillborn child that Pecola speaks more than merely to ask a question, but even then she speaks only to her reflection in the mirror. Morrison suggests that the self-loathing of Cholly and Pauline could have been avoided if they had not accepted the hegemonic standard of beauty, if they had had a creative outlet. If Cholly had been able to play his own music, if Pauline had been able to express her need for quiet and order in art, then perhaps they would not have hated their daughter, who also had no creative outlet. In addition to familial abuse, the Dick-and-Jane myth also keeps Pecola from having a voice because she cannot relate to its hegemonic standards. And, like Moon Orchid in Kingston's novel and Ying-ying in Tan's novel, voicelessness results in madness for Pecola. In these ways, Toni Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, demonstrates what happens to the members of an ethnic minority group when they attempt to replace their own demeaned values with the values of the hegemony. Morrison shows what can happen to a people and to an individual when there is no community, no network of support, no nurturing family.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

107

Her protagonist is poor, black, and female, and the community destroys her. On the other hand, in The Color Purple Alice Walker shows her protagonist also as the lowest of the low-poor, black, and female-but shows her a way out of her predicament and gives a prescription for her empowerment. Unlike Morrison's Pecola, Walker's Celie gains a voice because she is able to recognize and overcome her oppression by the patriarchy and is supported by strong women. Celie has at least two creative outlets-writing and sewingwhereas Pecola has none. In addition, Walker demonstrates how the liberation of women also liberates men. Interestingly, both Morrison's novel and Walker's have evoked criticism of their portrayals of black men as predatory: Morrison's characters, Cholly, Soaphead Church, and the McTeersl boarder, Mr. Henry; Walker's characters, Celie's "Pa," who is later discovered to be her stepfather, and Mr. , who later gains the right to be called by his name, Albert. Linda Selzer notes that the "controversy in the popular media over the representation of black men in novel and film" parallels "academic discussions of Celie's point of view." In protesting that readers will mistake Walker's creative writing for a "representative slice of black life," Trudier Harris reports that a male student agrees that Walker "had very deliberately deprived all the black male characters in the novel of any positive identity" and that "this student thought black men had been stripped of their identities and thus their abilities to assume the roles of men" (158). Tlze Color Purple has a definitely feminist outlook, although Walker seems to make distinctions among the various strands of feminism: white American and European feminism, black American feminism, and Third-World feminism. For example, the white missionary Doris Baines has decided to become a missionary to Africa because of her limited choices in England, but Nettie seems to make light of Doris's oppression. According to Nettie, Doris found her life "boring" and wanted to "be her own boss" (Walker 235). Selzer says that Nettie "draws upon fairy-tale rhetoric to parody the woman's upper-class tribulations . . . . From Nettie's perspective as a black woman familiar with the trials of the displaced Olinka, Doris's aristocratic troubles seem small indeed" (I~fotrac). Walker not only provides a feminist perspective in this novel, but she explicitly questions the God of the patriarchy. In one of Celie's letters to Nettie, she writes: "I don't write to God no more, I write to you" (Walker 199), as if Nettie has taken the place of God in Celie's life. Additionally, she ends the letter with "Amen." But, just before she ends the letter, Celie writes about man and his God as well as about the pantheism that she has heard about from Shug: "Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock"

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

108

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

(204). Even in Nettie's position as a Christian missionary, she, too, is learning about pantheism. She writes to Celie, On the day when all the huts had roofs again from the rootleaf [sic], the villagers celebrated by singing and dancing and telling the story of the rootleaf. The rootleaf became the thing they worship. Looking over the heads of the children at the end of this table, I saw coming slowly towards us, a large brown spiky thing as big as a room, with a dozen legs walking slowly and carefully under it. When it reached our canopy, it was presented to us. It was our roof. As it approached, the people bowed down. The white missionary before you would not let us have this ceremony, said Joseph. But the Olinka like it very much. We know a roofleaf is not Jesus Christ, but in its own humble way, is it not God? (160).

Thus the novel allows for a broader view of God. Stacie Lynn Hankinson writes that the novel's movement from a patriarchal God "to a pantheistic outlook parallels the movement from oppression to freedom for Celie." Like Yeats, like Achebe, and like Kingston, Walker does indeed reshape traditions to her own ends. In her discussion of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Wornaiz Warrior and Alice Walker's The Color Purple, King-Kok Cheung writes about similarities between the two novels, between the two authors, and between each author and her protagonist. She argues that Kingston and Walker "are not cultural historians, nor are they committed to a purely realistic fictional form. . . . [Tlhey are feminist writers who seek to 're-vision' history (to borrow Adrienne Rich's word). . . . [Tlhey must learn to reshape recalcitrant myths glorifying patriarchal values" (Chueng 162-63). In doing this, Walker uses many traditional writing strategies, as well as some that are not traditional. In telling Celie's story through personal letters, Walker uses the epistolary form to allow two different viewpoints from two different narrators. Celie herself reveals the oppressive conditions that a poor black woman must live under in the American South; Nettie, more widely traveled, shows conditions oppressive to women in Europe, in colonial Africa, and in the traditions of the Olinka tribe in Africa. In this way, according to Selzer, Walker "undertakes an extended critique of race relations. . . . . [She employs] two important narrative strategies: the development of an embedded narrative line that offers a post-colonial perspective on the action, and the use of 'family relations1-or kinship-as a carefully elaborated textual trope for race relations" (Selzer; n. 2). Each of Walker's narrators represents oppression in a different culture. In her letters, Celie describes the colonization and oppression of minority groups in America and what Selzer calls the "plantation definitions of kinship" found in that culture; on the other hand, in her letters Nettie represents oppression and marginalization in Africa and Selzer's "missionary integration" that is at work on that continent; that is,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

109

the kind of paternalistic integration found between Doris Baines and her adopted African grandson. Neither narrator realizes that she does this; it is the presumed reader who is able to recognize the comparison. Selzer writes that Walker's "implied reader" gains a political vantage point "wider than that of any particular character in the novel, including its primary narrator" (n. 5). In inviting the reader to compare the different brands of oppression, Walker encourages a postcolonial reading. In addition, even though Celie is relatively uneducated and writes in her own idiolect, her sister Nettie is able to use standard American English in her letters, using the oppressor's language to critique the oppressor. Thus the reader of the novel is also encouraged to recognize the two dialects, switching codes as necessary. The scene in which Celie receives Nettie's first letter from Africa clearly shows, to the informed reader, the colonized position of Africa in relation to Europe: "Saturday morning Shug put Nettie letter in my lap. Little fat queen of England stamps on it, plus stamps that got peanuts, coconuts, rubber trees and say Africa. I don't know where England at. Don't know where Africa at either. So I still don't know where Nettie at" (Walker 124). Celie herself knows nothing of this African colonization, but most readers would immediately recognize in this passage the suggestion of imperialism: that the queen of England, along with other European rulers, has control of the products of Africa-the peanuts, coconuts, and rubber trees. According to Selzer, Walker's strategy invites "readers to resituate her narration within a larger discourse of race and class. . . . Africa, mentioned by name for the first time in this passage, enters the novel already situated within the context of colonialism. . . . [Nlarrative features with clear political and historical associations like these complicate the novel's point of view by inviting a post-colonial perspective on the action." Another technique that Walker uses is the trickster figure, who appears in writing by many women writers who are members of a minority group. As Selzer points out, Alphonso, Celie's Step-pa, represents the trickster as he not only pays off whites in order to ensure his economic success, but he also buys "a white boy to work in the dry goods store." In this way he "plays the system for his own benefit" and, in doing so, plays a trick on the whites (Selzer). Some critics decry Walker's use of traditional literary forms, but this use is another instance of appropriating the oppressor's language. Critic bell hooks is one of those who believe that Walker has "sold out" in using the literary forms of the dominant culture. According to Selzer, what hooks specifically objects to is Walker's synthesis of cultures in her writing techniques; hooks writes, "by linking this [slave narrative] form to the sentimental novel as though they served similar functions, Walker strips the slave narrative of its revolutionary ideological intent and content, connecting it to Eurocentral bourgeois literary traditions in such a way as to suggest it was merely derivative and in no way distinct" (465). Trudier Harris also points out Walker's use of "Eurocentral bourgeois literary traditions"; Harris specifically mentions the "element of fantasy" in Walker's novel. Harris writes, "Celie becomes the

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

110

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

ugly duckling w h o will eventually be redeemed through suffering. . . . T h e beginning o f t h e novel also approximates the legendary beginnings o f m a n y heroes similar t o those discussed b y Joseph Campbell i n The Hero With a Thozlsanrl Faces" (159). In addition, Harris writes, t h e novel "affirms,first o f all, patience and long-suffering-perhaps t o a greater degree than that exhibited b y Cinderella" (160). But other critics are not offended b y Walker's use o f European writing techniques; rather t h e y point out the techniques that she adds t o those traditions. Maria V. Johnson writes, for instance, that Walker "signifies":" I n signifying, following Henry Louis Gates's usage, Walker 'repeats w i t h a difference' traditional material, revising and personalizing it, giving . . . a traditional statement about a traditional situation a n e w response" (Johnson).T h e way Johnson sees Walker's combining o f literary traditions is very m u c h like t h e situation that Seamus Deane describes i n his discussion o f imperialism and nationalism; her synthesis "asserts its presence and identity through precisely those categories that had denied them-through race, essence, destiny, language, history-merely adapting these categories t o its o w n purpose" (Deane 360). And i n her discussion o f the Kingston and Walker novels, KingKok Cheung writes, "actually b o t h Walker and Kingston interweave native idiom and standard English: Walker uses t h e t w o alternately through t h e letters o f Celie and Nettie; Kingston combines t h e two b y translating and transliterating Cantonese idioms into English (Cheung 173; n. 13). In this way b o t h the authors and t h e protagonists invent their o w n hybrid culture and create a cultural space from which t o speak. The novel h a s other criticisms t o make, too, o f missionary work and o f complicity i n one's o w n oppression. In addition t o the "political and historical associations" like the stamps o n Nettie's letter, Walker includes some real historical figures i n her story and, through t h e m , implicates t h e oppressed i n their o w n oppression. She changes the spelling o f W . E . B. Du Bois's name t o "DuBoyce," but, again, Walker expects the reader t o make t h e connection. King Leopold o f Belgium is named as t h e presenter o f a medal t o Aunt Theodosia, a medal o f which she is very proud. DuBoyce, however, points out her complicity i n her o w n oppression; Nettie writes that h e says, Madame, . . . do you realize King Leopold cut the hands o f fworkers who . . . did not fulfill their rubber quota? Rather than cherish that medal, Madame, you should regard it as a symbol o f your unwitting complicity with this despot who worked to death and brutalized and eventually exterminated thousands and thousands o f African peoples. (Walker 242- 43) Walker inserts such political allusions so that t h e reader can see Nettie's letter from a historical perspective; i n other words, the reader is expected t o make connections that neither Nettie nor Celie can. In addition, Nettie, i n her role o f missionary, unwittingly participates i n t h e process o f colonization

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

111

of Africans by the missionaries because her view of black missionaries is limited to her personal experience. Thus Walker encourages the reader to see farther than either of the two narrators. While Nettie represents the missionaries in Africa, Doris Baines symbolizes the European colonizers. Doris Baines has left England to escape the oppression of the patriarchy there, but she comes to Africa motivated by her own interests; she, presumably like white feminists in the real world, perpetuates the patriarchy by assuming a paternal role in relation to the Africans. Selzer writes that Doris Baines lays bare the hierarchy of self-interest and paternalism that sets the pattern for race relations in larger Africa. . . . Doris's relationship to the villagers is decidedly paternal from the outset. . . . The fact that she continues to refer to the Olinka as "the heathen" . . . implies that, in spite of her fondness for her grandson, Doris never overcomes a belief in the essential "difference" of the Africans. . . . By promoting a theory of polygenesis opposed to the Olinkan account of racial origins, Doris calls into question her own ability to treat the Akwee as kin. Because philanthropy has always been a stated reason for colonialism, even as far back as the era about which Conrad wrote, Walker is able to use the philanthropy of Doris Baines and her "integrated" family to expose the mechanisms of integration in Africa. Meanwhile, back in America, Native Americans have learned through experience not to support their own oppression and refuse to allow the missionaries to colonize them any further. The way the American Indians treat Shug's son emphasizes their understanding of the colonial function of missionaries. By calling Shug's son the "black white man," the American Indians suggest that race is ultimately defined by the social hegemony. Using kinship as a trope for race relations, as Walker seems to do, the reader can easily perceive the different kinds of kinship apparent in the novel as familial as well as within a race and between races. Walker imagines adoption across racial lines, racial connections across national boundaries, false kinships, denial of real kinships, and connections through shared oppression. Doris Baines has adopted an African boy, but Nettie notices that the boy seems solemn around his adoptive "grandmother" and much more at ease with Adam and Olivia, a situation which seems to demonstrate the ease with which connections are made within, but not across, racial lines. Nettie seems to think that the relationship between Doris Baines and her adopted African grandson is based on a false kinship, a paternal kind of kinship between the independent and the dependent. Here again Walker exposes the way the missionaries operate in Africa. Examples of other transracial relationships occur in America. The relationship of Sofia to Miss Millie, who is dependent upon Sofia, and the rela-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

112

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

tionship between Miss Sophia and Miss Eleanor Jane function as instances of false kinship. But these false kinships conceal, according to Selzer, an "elaborate network of actual kinship connections." The actual connections that Selzer refers to are the blood connections between whites and blacks in America that are mentioned when Squeak attempts to speak with the warden on Sofia's behalf. As the group thinks about how they can help Sofia get out of jail, they decide to appeal to their blood kin for help. Squeak grudgingly admits that her father is the brother of the warden; apparently she is reluctant to report that her biological father is so close to her geographically because that would be an admission that he chooses not to be involved in her life. But genetic connections are so numerous and so frequent that no one questions that the blacks have white relatives in town: "Who the warden's black kinfolks? say Mr. " (Walker 96). As Squeak reveals the identity of her father, Mr. says, "Go see the warden. He your uncle" (97). Squeak's white uncle, the warden, refuses to listen and rapes her instead. Even though he has once admitted that she looks like the Hodges, that he now denies their kinship is apparent in his reasoning: "He say if he was my uncle he wouldn't do it to me. That be a sin. But this just a little fornication. Everybody guilty of that" (101). Thus the warden proves that he is not a relative of Squeak. But his denial of their relationship is perhaps not as cruel as the way Celie's Pa treats her. Unquestionably the most perverted relationship in the novel is the sexual one between the child Celie and her Pa. While this incestuous relationship does not actually involve blood kin, Celie does not know this. Her "Pa" allows Celie to believe that she is actually being raped by her own father. His denial of their true relationship, stepdaughter to stepfather, is exceptionally cruel. But another denied relationship occurs in Africa. The Africans also are unwilling to claim any kinship with the African Americans; they also have the power to control the terms of kinship. In writing to Celie, Nettie first likens the Africans to American whites: "I think Africans are very much like white people back home, in that they think they are the center of the universe and that everything that is done is done for them" (Walker 174). In another letter, Nettie tells Celie that the villagers refuse to take any responsibility for selling their own kin: Tashi "cried when Olivia told how her grandmother had been treated as a slave. No one else in this village wants to hear about slavery, however. They acknowledge no responsibility whatsoever. This is one thing about them that I definitely do not like" (171). In another of Nettie's letters, she tells Celie about an exchange between herself and Samuel in regard to this denial of kinship by the Africans. In response to Samuel's statement that the Africans "hardly seem to care whether missionaries exist," Nettie says, "The Africans never asked us to come, you know. There's no use blaming them if we feel unwelcome." And Samuel replies, "It's worse than unwelcome. . . . The Africans don't even see us. They don't even recognize us as the brothers and sisters they sold" (243). p

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

113

Walker also indicates that a group can be formed out o f a shared sense o f oppression. Even though t h e y come from different tribes, perhaps speak different languages, the mbeles "are said t o live deep i n t h e forest . . . t h e y welcome runaways, and . . . t h e y harass t h e white man's plantations and plan his destruction-or at least for his removal from their continent" (Walker 263). This group "refus[es]t o work for whites or be ruled b y them" (234).This is t h e group that Samuel wants t o join after his encounter w i t h the English bishop: "He said t h e only thing for us t o do, i f w e wanted t o remain i n Africa, was join t h e mbeles and encourage all the Olinka t o do t h e same," writes Nettie (238). Walker suggests here that communities could be formed through other connections than biology or linguistics. She also seems t o suggest that false relationships must first be acknowledged and destroyed before relations between the races can be improved. Patriarchy is roundly condemned i n Walker's novel, as it exists b o t h i n America and i n Africa. Celie's early predicament is t o be oppressed b y t h e patriarchy i n America; i n t h e beginning, she supports t h e system b y encouraging Harpo t o treat Sofia the way Mr. treats Celie. Apparently her advice t o Harpo is her way o f getting back at someone else because o f her o w n ill treatment. W h e n Harpo asks "what h e ought t o d o t o her t o make her call m e , she mind. . . . I think bout h o w every time I jump w h e n Mr. look surprise. And like she pity me. Beat her, I say" (Walker 38). W h e n Sofia confronts Celie about her advice, Celie responds, "I say it cause I'm a fool, I say. I say it cause I'm jealous o f you. I say it cause you d o what I can't. W h a t that? she say. Fight, I say" (42). Indeed, even her husband's sister pities Celie. She says, "You got t o fight t h e m , Celie, she say. I can't d o it for you. You got t o fight t h e m for yourself. I don't say nothing. I think bout Nettie, dead. She fight, she run away. W h a t good it do? I don't fight, I stay where I'm told. But I'm alive" (22).Actually, Celie has intended t o follow Nettie i n escaping her predicament, and she realizes that education is t h e way out; Celie writes t o God: "Us b o t h be hitting Nettie's schoolbooks pretty hard, cause us k n o w w e got t o be smart t o git away. I k n o w I'm not as pretty or as smart as Nettie, but slze say I ain't dumb" (10). Losing Nettie has discouraged Celie from even dreaming o f escape. Celie's unwillingness t o stand u p for herself gradually changes, but it takes m a n y years o f encouragement f r o m w o m e n like Albert's sister Kate and Celie's sister Nettie, m a n y years o f watching Sofia stand u p for herself and fight t h e hegemony that oppresses her, before Celie is able t o put her lessons into practice. Shug Avery is another strong w o m a n w h o n o t only encourages Celie t o stand u p t o Mr. , but also provides daily examples i n her o w n behavior. But it is t h e love between Shug and Celie that provides the courage for Celie t o change. Her relationship with Shug is the only reciprocal relationship she has ever had since Nettie left. She learns from Shug that sex can be an expression o f love, a concept that h a s been totally alien t o Celie. W h i l e the patriarchal system oppresses Celie i n America and Doris i n England, Nettie is learning that a similar system exists i n Africa. Nettie writes,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

There is a way that the men speak to women that reminds me too much of Pa. They listen just long enough to issue instructions. They don't even look at women when women are speaking. They look at the ground and bend their heads toward the ground. The women also do not 'look in a man's face' as they say. . . . And what can I say to this? Again, it is our own behavior around Pa. (Walker 168) But the patriarchy cannot completely oppress Celie. In addition to learning from strong women, Celie, unlike Morrison's characters, has two creative outlets which help her to transform her situation. One is as simple as sewing. Without realizing it, Celie resorts to sewing as a n outlet when she is mistreated or angry, a n d sewing makes her feel good. It is a n activity that she shares with other women and, near the end of t h e book, with men. When Sofia returns Celie's curtains because she is angry that Celie has caused Harpo to beat her, their talk takes a more civil turn; Celie writes, What you do when you git mad? she ast. I think. I can't even remember the last time I felt mad, I say. I used to git mad at my mammy cause she put a lot of work on me. . . . Couldn't stay mad at her. Couldn't be mad at my daddy cause he my daddy. . . . Then after while every time I got mad, or start to feel mad, I got sick. Felt like throwing up. Terrible feeling. Then I start to feel nothing at all. Sofia frown. Nothing at all? . . . Well, sometime Mr. git on me pretty hard. . . . But he my husband. I shrug my shoulders. This life soon be over, I say. Heaven last all ways. head open, she say. Think bout heavYou ought to bash Mr. en later. Not much funny to me. That funny. I laugh. She laugh. Then us both laugh so hard us flop down on the step. Let's make quilt pieces out of these messed up curtains, she say. And I run git my pattern book. I sleeps like a baby now. (Walker 43-44) In this way Celie transforms her anger into something positive. Then she and Sofia become friends and sew together: "Me and Sofia piecing another quilt together. I got bout five squares pieced, spread out o n t h e table by m y knee. My basket full of scraps o n the floor" (58). Later Celie starts to realize that her world is wider t h a n she has previously thought, and she is sewing as she has this revelation: "First time I think about t h e world. What t h e world got to d o with anything, I think. Then I see myself sitting there quilting . Us three set together gainst Tobias a n d his tween Shug Avery a n d Mr. fly speck box of chocolate. For the first time i n m y life, I feel just right" (60). Sewing provides a connection among three women w h o may n o t have anything else i n common: "Me a n d Sofia work o n t h e quilt. Got it frame u p o n

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Morrisoll and Walker: Imposing Silence, Writing a Voice

115

the porch. Shug Avery donate her old yellow dress for scrap, and I work in a piece every chance I get. It a nice pattern call Sister's Choice. If the quilt turn out perfect, maybe I give it to her, if it not perfect, maybe I keep. I want it for myself, just for the little yellow pieces, look like stars, but not" (61). And again, having this creative outlet allows Celie to transform her anger. When Celie finds out that Mr. has been hiding Nettie's letters, she wants to kill him, but she is able to transform her anger into something positive. She writes, "But how come he do it? I ast. He know Nettie mean everything in the world to me. Shug say she don't know, but us gon find out. pocket. . . . I watch Us seal the letter up again and put it back in Mr. him so close, I begin to feel a lightening in the head. Fore I know anything I'm standing hind his chair with his razor open" (Walker 124-25). But Celie does not murder her husband, and later she makes the connection between that decision and her creative sewing: "And everyday we going to read Nettie's letters and sew. A needle and not a razor in my hand, I think" (153). Nettie writes that "The Olinka men make beautiful quilts" (192), and this letter may have inspired Celie to teach her husband to sew. And at the end of the book, when Mr. has regained his name and Celie has become successful as a maker of pants, Albert sews with her, "is busy patterning a shirt for folks to wear with my pants" (290), an activity that demonstrates a completely different relationship between him and Celie. As Albert has grown and learned to sew, he, too, has become liberated. It is at the time that Celie retrieves Nettie's hidden letters and decides against committing murder that she transforms herself from writer to reader. Her first letters, to God, are very short and reveal her desperation, and they go unanswered. After she realizes that Nettie is alive and is writing to her, her letters become much longer and reveal the positive changes that are occurring in her life. And it is through Nettie's letters that she is able to continue her education, learning about other cultures in faraway places and discovering new ways of thinking. Her silence is transformed into a voice and her anguish into strength. Celie, like Pecola Breedlove, has believed that she is ugly; but, unlike Pecola, Celie has found her own beauty through her sewing and writing and through the support of strong women. While Morrison's T h e Bluest Eye ends in the further separation of Pecola from her community, Walker's T h e Color Purple ends with reunions: Celie and Nettie, Celie and Albert, Sophia and Harpo, Shug and her children. Acknowledging and strengthening their respective kinships is important to their happiness. Celie is able to find her own strength, much like Kingston's Maxine. Cheung compares the two characters as they are able to empower themselves and calls attention to the "protagonists' resilience and the authors' determination"; she also sees a similar empowerment in the respective authors. She writes,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

[Bloth authors take in the differences of being female and colored to invent self-expressive styles that bestride literary and oral traditions and project ethnic and national heritages. They venture beyond linguistic norms and perpetuate and revitalize the polyglot strains peculiar to America. . . . These writers dare to be themselves-to listen to their own pains, to report the ravages, and, finally, to persist in finding strengths from sources that have caused inestimable anguish. Their way out of enforced silence is not by dissolving into the mainstream but by rendering their distinctive voices. (Cheung 172) Morrison's Pecola finds n o way out of her enforced silence, while Walker's Celie is able to gain a voice a n d thereby change her world. Contrasting t h e two characters and t h e two stories provides crucial lessons about accepting and resisting colonization of the mind by the hegemony, lessons for members of either t h e minority or t h e dominant group. Further examples of oppression of and resistance by both minority groups and women are found i n writings by Latina authors Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER VIII

Cisneros and Castillo: Resisting the Oppressor, Writing a Liberation

L

-\TINA LITERATURE I\ THE U\ITEDSTATES IS -\TT-\INI\G STATUS IN THE ACADEMY AS a part o f American literature. Latina writers, too, m u c h like t h e Asian American writers and t h e African American writers, are mining their ancestral traditions, exposing oppression, and rewriting history from their o w n point o f view. They, too, are gaining a voice i n America as t h e result o f straddling boundaries and synthesizing cultures. T h e two writers whose works are discussed here, Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo, consider t h e m selves t o be part o f a sub-group o f Latinas that they call Chicanas, a label which came about as t h e result o f political struggles. T h e y speak f r o m their o w n experience, their o w n reality, which is t h e reality o f other American w o m e n o f Latin background, but b y n o means o f all. These t w o authors invent hybrid literary genres and hybrid language, and their protagonists use the power o f t h e word t o provide a space from which t o speak t o the world. And speak they do. Sandra Cisneros, i n The House oil Margo Street, protests against racism and classism, but also against t h e patriarchy's control o f w o m e n and their sexuality. Ana Castillo has been k n o w n as a "protest poet." In her novel So Far From God can be found protests against all o f t h e elements o f the system o f colonization: t h e corporations, the patriarchy o f the church, and t h e government. But b o t h writers do more t h a n simply protest; t h e y suggest a way t o transform t h e world through t h e use o f words. The colonization o f Latinas started i n the fifteenth century with t h e Spanish, the Europeans w h o originally invaded what is n o w k n o w n as Central America. The invaders used the age-old system o f colonization o f first bringing trade goods u n k n o w n t o t h e natives, t h e n presenting a n e w religion, and finally establishing a government. For example, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a foot soldier i n the army o f Cortes near t h e future Vera Cruz, wrote i n 1519 that "almost all t h e soldiers had brought goods for barter" (Diaz 25).

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

118

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

When native leaders approached Cortes, Diaz says, they "brought us a present of gold worth more than two thousand pesos; and Cortes thanked them heartily for it, and he showed them great kindness, telling them through our interpreters something about our holy faith, and declaring to them the great power of our lord the Emperor" (27-28). This sixteenth century soldier describes a real example of the system of colonization: first the trade, then the conversion. And, of course, then the law. Wayne Franklin writes that by 1500 "Europe was present . . . in the institutions of the church and state (slavery being the most obvious example) that had begun to reshape the identities and reorganize the lives of Native American peoples" ("Literature" 2). Franklin also writes: "In 1497, as part of an outline of Columbus's powers by the Crown" he was empowered to distribute "land grants to settlers," but Columbus later reinterpreted his power to apply to a "distribution of whole Taino Indian communities-as a source of labor-to" his Spanish rivals, who "would lay down their arms only if such awards were made to them" ("Bartolome" 14-15). Among the Spanish slaveholders was Bartolome de las Casas, a Catholic priest who was named "protector of the Indians" in 1515 by the Spanish government and who served as bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, from 1544 to 1547. Casas "was particularly concerned with the legality and morality of enslavement," and he saw cruelties on every hand: "It was a general rule among Spaniards to be cruel, not just cruel, but extraordinarily cruel so that harsh and bitter treatment would prevent Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings" (15). Casas "wrote of his moral blindness . . . noting that he 'went about his concerns like the others, sending his share of Indians to work fields and gold mines, taking advantage of them as much as he could"' (15). In 1514 he "relinquished his slaves secretly" and exhorted others to do the same, but other Spaniards "refused to give up their lucrative slave-hunting raids" (15). Casas returned to political activity in the 1530s when "in 1537 Pope Paul I11 forbade all further enslavement; in 1542 Emperor Charles V followed suit in the New Laws of the Indies" (IS), which Casas was influential in bringing about. "As bishop of Chiapas, Casas sought to enforce the new laws" (16), but riots and great resistance from the Spanish colonists did not allow it. He wrote about the "chilling effect [of] the destruction visited on Native Americans by conquistadors and colonizers in pursuit of wealth" (16), intending to influence a change for the better. He says, "This was the first land in the New World to be destroyed and depopulated by the Christians. . . . [A] Christian eats and consumes in one day an amount of food that would suffice to feed three houses inhabited by ten Indians for one month" (16), always requiring more than the Indians offered of their own free will. Some Indians, he says, in order to avoid "acts of force and violence and oppression" hid their food, wives, and children; others fled to the mountains to avoid the terrible transactions of the Christians. . . . And the Christians attacked them with buffets and

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

119

beatings, until finally they laid hands on the nobles. . . . [Tlhe most powerf~ulrruler of the islands had to see his own wife raped by a Christian officer. . . . And the Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes[,] began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against them. . . . They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim's feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer, and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive. (16-17)

After three hundred years of Spanish control and intermarriage between the Spaniards and the natives, social classes had been established based on racism, on one's proportion of Spanish to "Indian" ancestry. When the Spanish left, the mixed-blood people had, besides their class structure, a poorly developed economy that resulted in widespread poverty. When the United States gained control of part of Mexico and as Mexicans immigrated to the north, the culture brought north changed from the culture that stayed in Mexico. In his "The Folk Base of Chicano Literature," Amkrico Paredes presents the concept of "two Mexicos"; one of them is "found within the boundaries of the Mexican Republic. The second Mexico-the 'Mkxico de Afuera,' (Mexico abroad) as Mexicans call it-is composed of all the persons of Mexican origin in the United States" (Paredes 6). After the United States annexed parts of Mexico in 1848, changing tens of thousands of Spanishspeaking Mexicans into citizens of an English-speaking country overnight, Mexicans who crossed and recrossed the border depending on the demand for cheap labor found themselves in a situation "little superior to that of the former slaves, with whom they competed for work" (11). But there were no large numbers of immigrants from Mexico to the United States until the "Mexican Revolution, that is from 1911 on. With the Revolution comes another type of Mexican immigrant: the refugee from fratricidal wars and the political exiles, among whom were many of Mexico's intellect~ials"(11). The Mexican culture in the United States has been growing ever since. Latina culture in the United States is not only growing, but it is also changing. Joseph Sommers and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, in their introduction to h4odern Chicano Writers: A Collection of Critical Essays, explain that "for several decades, Mexican Americans have been the most rapidly growing minority in the nation, a fact which is explained not only by internal demographic growth, but also by the constant arrival . . . of new immigrants. . . . Thus Chicano culture is subject to constant modification" (1). They describe Chicano literature as the "literature of a people whose presence and role on the cultural stage of the United States have often been denied and certainly never recognized adequately" and as a "form of cultural expression by a people who have survived and grown through responding to conditions of domination" (1).

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

120

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Latina culture i n the United States is already a hybrid culture. The term Latina itself encompasses groups w h o have roots i n Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Central American communities, and "each o f these groups h a s [had] one or several periods o f migration t o the United States" (Ortega and Sternbach 6 ) . Eliana Ortega and Nancy Saporta Sternbach decry the use o f t h e term "Hispanic" t o categorize Latinos because it distorts the origin and roots o f these populations, preventing and excusing the dominant culture from understanding, respecting, and taking into account all the complexities o f a culture other than its own. . . . [Tlhe presupposition that all peoples o f Latino origin are "Hispanic" fails to take into account the ethnic components o f Latin America. Even when that ethnicity is considered, it is presumed to be the only feature o f that group; that is, race, class, and gender are not examined. (7-8)

In an interview with Elsa Saeta, Ana Castillo clarifies her statement that "Mexican-Indianw o m e n writers have become 'excavators o f our culture mining our o w n metaphors, legends, folklore, myths"' b y saying that, just as " a n American writer" studies Chaucer and Homer as a way o f preparing t o write " i n t h e 21st century," Chicana writers have been "looking for our link because definitely we didn't have a direct link t o Europe i n that sense. Since we're from t h e Americas, we looked for our parallels [there].Once we got into college and we were dealing with this great opposition t o our presence, t h e n we . . . started digging u p ' W h o does speak to me? I f this model doesn't speak t o m e , where is t h e one that does?"' (qtd. i n Saeta). Eliana Ortega and Nancy Saporta Sternbach offer a further clarification o f Latina writing: "Since Latina literature is written primarily within t h e sociopolitical sphere o f the U . S., it is classified as U . S . literature b y t h e Library o f Congress" ( 6 ) .Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano writes that, for Latinas, t h e "political movement is inseparable from t h e historical experience . . . [there has been] since 1848, an experience marked b y economic exploitation as a class and systematic racial, social and linguistic discrimination designed t o keep Chicanos at the b o t t o m as a reserve pool o f cheap labor" (139).In addition, t h e hegemonic culture lumps all Latinas together as "Hispanics." Ortega and Sternbach write that " t h e same errors applied t o t h e categorization o f Latinos are also apparent i n reference t o Latina women, w h o are essentialized as a single nationality, race, and class" (8). But Werner Sollors writes that "modern ethnicity" has an "invented character" and that a "variety o f approaches" t o literary analysis would not only clarify that nature but also "reveal the extent t o which various ethnic literatures . . . share a repertoire o f available literary language" (303). T h e "invented character o f ethnicity" that Sollors discusses is clarified w h e n we take a closer look at t h e various sub-groups o f t h e Latina group. Even though, according t o Juan Gomez-Quifiones, "Culture, ethnicity, identity, language,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

121

history, nationhood, nationality are all related . . . each . . . as a part or as encompassing the others" (55), other critics make finer distinctions. According to Ana Castillo, the term "Chicana" is "already a political term" because it denotes Latinas who struggle against the racism and classism of the dominant culture, whereas "Hispanic" refers to someone from the same background who wants to assimilate into the dominant culture. Castillo maintains that "Chicano(a)" as a group designation was an attempt in the last twenty years to label or categorize a politically conscious person of Mexican descent and sometimes of Latino descent in the U. S. . . . The advantage of it is that it attempts to bring together what might be loosely described as the Chicano or Chicana Diaspora on this land. . . . [Tlhe term Chicana or Chicano that came out of the late '60s to mid '70s had political connotations. Today in 1993, when we have what is called Chicana literature, the term has become much broader. Chicana literature is something that we as Chicanas . . . define as part of U. S. North American literature. That literature has to do with our reality, our perceptions of reality, and our perceptions of society in the United States as women of Mexican descent or Mexican background or Latina background. . . . I think we have had the unfortunate experience in our history during the 1980s in which . . . [a] whole lot of people, mostly under the age of thirty, who, having bought the Republican administration's ideals of assimilation into American society, reject the term Chicana and call themselves Hispanic. (qtd. in Saeta) While Castillo indicates that the term "Chicana" has become more inclusive, Ortega and Sternbach write that the term "Latina" has also become more inclusive: "By 'Latina writing,' we not only mean the literature of Chicanas and Puertorriquefias but also the literary production of those women from other groups who identify with them and their struggle" (Ortega and Sternbach 11). The Chicana writer, or politically conscious Latina, to use Castillo's definition, not only seeks a voice for herself, but also for her community; she protests not only against oppression by the outer hegemonic culture, but also against oppression by the inner patriarchal culture. She "seeks self-empowerment through writing, while recognizing her commitment to a community of Chicanas" (Yarbro-Bejarano 143). Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano explains the inner and outer oppressions: "The tongues of fire of the Chicana writers . . . exposed oppression from without as well as from within the culture, denouncing exploitation and racism but also the subordination of Chicanas through their culture's rigid gender roles and negative attitudes towards female sexuality" (143). She continues,"The exclusion of Chicanas from literary authority is intimately linked to the exclusion of Chicanas from other kinds of power monopolized by privileged white males" (139). One of the projects of Chicana literature is to undermine the elitist view, but, according Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

122

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

t o Ramon Saldivar, these challenges are "aimed not exclusively at t h e dominant Anglo culture. They also speak t o the h a r s h oppressiveness, an oppression within oppression, that w o m e n face i n the day-to-day world o f malecentered Mexican American society as they live . . . between worlds, cultures, and histories" (175).Norma Alarc6n writes that the term "Chicana" denotes t h e struggle against these oppressions; she continues, "Despite the social reaccommodation o f m a n y as 'Hispanics' or 'Mexican-Americans,' it is t h e consideration o f t h e excluded, as evoked b y the name Chicana, that provides t h e position for multiple cultural critiques-between and within, inside and outside, centers and margins" (97). Yarbro-Bejarano writes that t h e "task [ o f t h e Chicana feminist critic] is t o show h o w i n works b y Chicanas, elements o f gender, race, culture and class coalesce. The very term 'Chicana' or 'mestiza' communicates t h e multiple connotations o f color and femaleness" (140). Like t h e protest writing o f Yeats's literary society, Latina texts need an audience. Since t h e y speak t o b o t h Latinas and Anglos, t h e y are written i n t h e English language so that they m a y reach a larger audience. Asunci6n Horno-Delgado and her fellow editors o f Breaking Boundaries: Latin67 Writing and Critical Readings explain w h y t h e y provide translations i n their footnotes: "The very need for these translations underscores t h e unfortunate monolingual nature o f U . S . society. . . . However, as we are dealing with a literature produced i n t h e U . S., we chose English as the means t o make this work available t o an Anglo audience w h o would not otherwise have access t o it" (xii). Latina writers want t o make their "literature less . . . marginal, to give it visibility and accessibility so that a larger audience can come t o know it" (xi). They want to make their writing "completely accessible t o a non-Spanishspeaking reader" (xii). This kind o f accommodation represents what Ellen McCracken calls "the repositioning o f t h e Other i n t h e discourse for b o t h male and female, Latino and non-Latino audiences i n t h e U . S. Here, ' t h e Other' represents anyone w h o h a s heretofore been understood only superficially, from the outside; it functions as a floating signifier . . . so that diverse elements o f the audience fix its meanings differently,depending u p o n w h o m t h e y are i n relation o f alterity to" ("Latina" 203). She says that this repositioning is "crucial t o t h e process o f reclaiming t h e power o f signification" (203).Castillo herself seems t o have done some repositioning i n terms o f her intended audience. In answer t o a question about her imagined readers, she has said, W h e n I think about who I would like to read what I write[,]I think about another Chicana very similar to me. I said in the introduction [to Mtrsstrcre of the Dreanzers] that when I spoke o f men and women, I was specifically talking about Mexican men and Mexican women unless otherwise specified. My editor, m y agent, and m y publisherall said, 'You know, Ana, although you are directing yourself to this woman, there are a lot o f people who are interested and will be using that work.' I would like to think that anybody in m y time right now

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

123

will pick up m y work and say 'there's something in there for me.' So now I'm much clearer on the importance o f acknowledging that there is a wider audience in the country and abroad. In fact, I welcome it because by welcoming it . . . we are communicating as a culture to other people. That's making it acceptable to other people instead o f historically being foreign and strange and therefore something they could reject. (qtd. in Saeta) "Communicating as a culture" t o other people is just what La Malinche, Cortks's translator i n t h e New World, was doing i n t h e sixteenth century. She is a historical figure w h o has become a legend and considered b y some t o be a traitor w h o betrayed her people, b y others as t h e mother o f their mixed race (Appiah and Gates). Both Cisneros and Castillo write i n English, but not i n standard American English. And there are other ways that Castillo and Cisneros blend cultures, straddle boundaries, and speak from the overlap o f cultures. Both authors are concerned with providing a voice for not only individuals but also t h e community; b o t h authors create hybrid literary genres and use a hybrid language. Both authors use myths and legends freely from b o t h o f their cultures i n their writing. And Chicana writers use words to make themselves the subject o f discourse, rather than its object. According t o Ram6n Saldivar, the Chicana subjective identity. . . tends to be complexly dialectical, without coalescence or synthesis. It establishes itself continuously on the unstable borderline o f difference between Mexican and American social ideologies and expresses itself as the historical working out o f the contradictions implicit in both the Mexican and the American ethical, cultural, and political economies. Chicano subjectivity. . . is both Mexican and American and also neither one nor the other, completely. It remains on that precarious utopian margin between the two. (Saldivar 174) Chicana writing is important for defining the "individual subjectivity o f t h e Chicana writer" and also allows, vis-a-vis La Malinche, " t h e articulation o f collective experience and identity" (Yarbro-Bejarano 143-44). Being b o t h Mexican and American, b o t h but not completely either, results i n a complex identity. But, according t o Yarbro-Bejarano, i f she "assert[s]herself as a Chicana or mestizo," t h e Chicana writer's "damaging fragmentation o f her identity into components at war with each other" can be resolved (140).By recognizing herself as t h e offspring o f t w o differentcultures, " t h e Chicana writer finds that t h e self she seeks t o define and love is not merely an individual self, but a collective one" (141). It is " t h e theme o f writing itself" which mediates "between individual and collective identity i n works b y Chicanas" (142).

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

124

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

It is the "oral tradition of her community" which is behind the Chicana writer's committing to paper the stories that have been told "for over a century. . . . The Chicana writer derives literary authority from this oral tradition, which in turn empowers her to commit her stories to writing," and YarbroBejarano is not surprised "that writing that explores the Chicana-as-subject is often accompanied by formal and linguistic innovation" (141-42). Julian Olivares quotes Sandra Cisneros as wanting to "'write stories that were a cross between poetry and fiction"' (qtd. in Olivares 160); Olivares himself observes that some of her stories "had been poems redone as stories or constructed from the debris of unfinished poems" (160-61). Ellen McCracken has attempted to describe Cisneros's hybrid genre in Tlze House oiz Maizgo Street; she writes that "the volume falls between traditional genre distinctions," even though the book "has been classified as a novel by some because . . . there is character and plot development throughout the episodes." But, she notes, "I prefer to classify Cisneros' text as a collection, a hybrid genre midway between the novel and the short story. . . . [with the] intensity of the short story and the discursive length of the novel within a single volume" ("Sandra" 64). And Cisneros herself has called the stories "vignettes . . . hovering in that grey area between two genres" (qtd. in Olivares 161). Castillo's novel comes closer to fitting into the novel genre, although the stories in it can stand alone and some have been published separately. Even though the Chicanas' use of English accommodates non-Spanish speakers, "The search is for a language that consciously opposes the dominant culture," according to Yarbro-Bejarano (142). Ortega and Sternbach describe a blended language: "For Juan Bruce-Novoa, there is a synthesis of two languages into a third that he has called 'interlingual.' This third language, like all other languages, has its own rules of expression, albeit in noncompliance with the grammatical structures or the linguistic codes of the Spanish and English from which it derives" (15). Like Joyce, Latina writers use English, but an English that is spoken in their communities. Even though Castillo indicates that, as a beginning writer, she was afraid that she "didn't write English well enough, that [she] didn't write Spanish well enough," she is now able to challenge the dominant culture with language. She says, Obviously, one does not only undermine the status quo by stating it, but you undermine it by virtue of the language that you're [sic] chosen to write in, and by your acts. . . . I have always had Spanish in my works-so I think that I've been an insurgent structurally, but also in terms of the language that I use. My language is not white standard English. It doesn't matter if you claim to be Chinese American or Mexican American or African American and put in all the familiar cultural motifs if you're still using the language that is acceptable by the status quo. And I've not done that. In S o For F r o m God, one of the

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

125

important aspects o f the narrative, o f the story that is being told, is the narrator. (qtd. in Seata) Another important aspect is the narrator's language. Castillo is able to shift between English and Spanish and "sometimes turn[s]an English word into a Spanish- sounding one, like t h e substitution o f 'Nuyorkquina' for New Yorker [in The Mixquiahz~alaLetters]" (Bennett). Ellen McCracken fears that "Cisneros' text is likely t o continue t o be excluded from t h e canon because it 'speaks another language altogether,' one t o which the critics o f the literary establishment 'remain blind"' ("Sandra" 63), although b o t h Cisneros and Castillo explain their language within t h e text, i n a manner that recalls Achebe's and Morrison's in-text explanations. Even though Achebe uses Igbo words i n Thiizgs Fall Apart, he is careful t o provide a context which explains their meanings. And Sandra Jamieson could have said the same thing about Cisneros and Castillo w h e n she commends Toni Morrison for providing such excellent in-text interpretation for her readers. Jamieson writes, "As t h e woman tells her story, she teaches her listener h o w to understand it, and i n so doing creates an interpretive community which is t h e n a model for her reader and for t h e actual community" (140). Chicana writers use their everyday experiences i n their writing. Cisneros "discovered t h e voice I'd been suppressing all along without realizing it" w h e n she realized that she could write about what she knows: " t h e metaphor o f a house, a house, a hozlse" (qtd. i n Olivares 160). Ortega and Sternbach write that "literature b y Latina w o m e n will depict, but not limit itself to, t h e reality, experiences, and everyday life o f a people whose working-class origin serves as a springboard t o understanding" (11).These w o m e n writers look at not only t h e individual, but also the community; Yarbro-Bejarano writes that " t h e love o f Chicanas for themselves and each other is at the heart o f Chicana writing, for without this love they could never make t h e courageous move t o place Chicana subjectivity i n t h e center o f literary representation, or depict pivotal relationships among w o m e n past and present, or even obey the first audacious impulse t o put pen t o paper" (144).Ellen McCracken sees that move from individual t o community i n Cisneros's house image: "Cisneros socializes the motif o f t h e house, showing it t o be a basic h u m a n need left unsatisfied for m a n y o f t h e minority population under capitalism. . . . The desire for a house is not a sign o f individualistic acquisitiveness but rather represents the satisfaction o f a basic h u m a n need" ("Sandra" 64). And t h e "political movement" is still "inseparable from the historical experience." Yarbro-Bejarano writes, "Even as that act [writing] o f necessity distances t h e Chicana writer from her oral tradition and not so literate sisters, the continuing commitment t o the political situation o f all Chicanas creates a community i n which readers, critics and writers alike participate" (144). Ram611 Saldivar writes that "Cisneros helps create an alternate space for t h e Chicana subject," a space not controlled b y t h e

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

contemporary patriarchal culture. Put in the overtly political context o f women's oppression, Cisneros' . . . stories emphasize that living space and writing time are, as Jacqueline Rose suggests, "not marginal issues in relation to the question o f political change, but are terms through which the issue o f marginality-of how a political critique should best place itself in relation to the dominant institutions-is being played out." (186) America's unfulfilled promise o f democracy, according t o Castillo, is what Chicanas "are reexamining." She says, "we are questioning, we are subverting, we are reinforcing the values o f the American ideal-democracy. But what we're doing is we are also giving first voice witness t o our particular dilemmas and our particular perspective" (qtd. i n Saeta). As b o t h Cisneros and Castillo freely mingle their o w n experiences with t h e values o f democracy, t h e y also freely mingle t h e use o f myths and legends w i t h either or b o t h Mexican and classical origins. Cisneros uses t h e Roman goddess o f wisdom as Esperanza's partner i n their community o f writers; as well, she uses the Rapunzel fairy tale for t h e woman whose husband locks her i n . The three Roman deities w h o supervise fate appear as "The Three Sisters," but t h e y also represent t h e briljas or witches o f Southwestern origin. And Cisneros uses the figure o f t h e Virgin o f Guadalupe, a passive figure o f failure, for Esperanza's Aunt Lupe, w h o has k n o w n t h e freedom o f being a swimmer, but w h o is n o w bedridden. This Mestiza Virgin is " a n important symbol o f syncretism. . . . Moreover, t h e Virgin o f Guadalupe represents t h e merging o f European and Indian culture since she is . . . a transformation or 'rebirth' o f t h e native goddesses" (Rebolledo 50). The Virgin is used as a role model for young Catholic w o m e n and "represents characteristics considered positive for women." But she "has failed t o intercede politically for her people i n t h e United States; she is powerless . . . and she advocates acceptance and endurance, not action" (53). Even though Esperanza's Aunt Lupe, w h o h a s been an athlete, encourages Esperanza t o "remember t o keep writing," t h e girl says, " W e forgot. Maybe she was ashamed. Maybe she was embarrassed it took so m a n y years" (Cisneros 61). After Aunt Lupe dies, Esperanza says, " w e began t o dream the dreams" (61). Opposing the figure o f t h e Virgin o f Guadalupe is Eve, w h o has been "syncretized into the MalincheILa Llorona figure i n Mexican as well as Chicano culture" (Rebolledo 62). Not only was La Malinche Cortks's translator, but she "later became Cortes's mistress. Her name became so closely identified with that o f t h e conqueror (and his w i t h hers) that i n Mexico, b y t h e twentieth century, the word 'Malinche' or 'Malinchista' became synonymous w i t h a person w h o betrays her or his country" (Rebolledo 62). La Malinche represents b o t h t h e "native Indian w o m a n 'conquered' b y t h e SpanishiEuropean male [and] the subordination o f the Indian race t o t h e European white race" (64).She is t h e "symbolic mother o f a new race" (64), t h e mestiza. Malinche was able t o

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

127

translate for Cortks, giving him knowledge and power over the native tribes. Chicana writers do not view La Malinche as the passive victim of rape and conquest but instead believe her to be a woman who had and made choices. Because she possessed the power of language and political knowledge, for them La Malinche is a woman who deliberately chose to be a survivor-a woman with a clairvoyant sense who cast her lot with the Spaniards in order to ensure survival of the race. (Rebolledo 64) Like today's Chicana writers, La Malinche had a complex identity which included opposing forces, opposing loyalties, but she was able to make choices. Castillo uses the myth of La Llorona, or t h e weeping woman who looks for her drowned children, as the other-worldly entity who tells Sofia's daughter La Loca that her older sister Esperanza is dead. Castillo herself tells t h e origin of t h e protagonist i n So Far From God: In the mythology, the early Christian medieval mythology, they've taken Sofia[,] who is the Greek goddess, and her daughters and turned them into martyrs. At the very ending of that story, Sofia is on the grave crying for her three martyred daughters. So that's how I originally ended my story. But my agent who was reading the manuscript commented that "Well, this is very depressing. You know, you promised Norton a happy ending." So I thought, "what would she [Sofia] do to change that, particularly as a religious figure. What would she do?" She takes over. She doesn't submit to that point in history when patriarchy took over her authority. (qtd. in Saeta) Castillo, through Sofia, like Kingston's Maxine, Walker's Celie, and, as we shall see, Silko's Tayo, changes t h e ending of t h e story, changes her reality through her own efforts. Ironically, i n changing t h e ending to comply with market pressures, the ending becomes truer to her purpose. And i n doing so, she changes reality for her readers a n d thus affects t h e world outside of her fictional world. Both Castillo and Cisneros want to change the world. Cisneros's characters i n Tlze House oil M a ~ g oStreet, however, have submitted to the patriarchy. Cisneros writes with a narrower view, exposing racism a n d classism as well as the sexual appropriation of women by men through t h e patriarchal structure, while Castillo exposes oppression by corporate America, t h e church, a n d t h e state. Cisneros, i n t h e novel, speaks of transforming oneself first a n d then moving out into the community to assist others in making changes, and Castillo speaks personally about making the world a clean and safe place for her children. In a n interview with Elsa Saeta, Castillo elaborates: [Hlopefully the value is to lead a life in which you're not suffering physically, where you can eat well, where your children get a Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

"decent" education, where you can live in a clean environment. So I think all of us in the United States share the same values. I think that as a mother, for example, I share the same values that a white woman in Tennessee who is a mother. . . has: she wants her child to grow up in a safe and clean world and to have a decent education and then hopefully to have a fulfilling life. That's the kind of life we can all have. (qtd. in Saeta) Maria Elena de Valdes suggests that these changes could come about through "Naomi Black's social feminism . . . define[d] as 'the argumentation and process in which feminism is able to use the doctrine of difference not to obliterate differences of kind, but to change a society that uses difference as a basis for exclusion"' (56). Cisneros makes clear the need for a change in society. As Cisneros's adolescent protagonist Esperanza grows up, she learns that there is a difference between appearance and reality. The patriarchal system she and her community live under covers up the truth and romanticizes women's roles so that the women will accept their roles as either whores or wives. For example, the system romanticizes sex, but Esperanza finds out through her violent and humiliating initiation to sexual intercourse that there is nothing romantic about sex. Esperanza blames her rude awakening not only on her individual friend Sally, who knows about sex already and who has failed to either inform or rescue her, but also the whole system: "Sally, you lied. It wasn't what you said at all. . . . The way they said it, the way it's supposed to be, all the storybooks and movies, why did you lie to me?" (Cisneros 99). Later, Esperanza continues her diatribe: "I waited my whole life. You're a liar. They all lied. All the books and magazines, everything that told it wrong" (100). Sally isn't there to save Esperanza the way Esperanza has attempted to save Sally when Sally disappears with Tito and his buddies. Then Esperanza excitedly runs to Tito's mother for help, but the mother has a calm reaction: "Those kids, she said, not looking up from her ironing. . . . What do you want me to do, she said, call the cops? And kept on ironing" (97). Tito's mother has accepted women's place in a male-centered society many years before. But Sally has also accepted the same role; Sally doesn't want to be saved. Sally probably believes that Esperanza doesn't really want to be rescued either. In addition, the women are taught that there is romantic love and a happily-ever-after life for them when they marry, but they soon find out the truth about their role in marriage and about the drudgery, the violence, and the loneliness that they must endure. Esperanza is gradually coming to the realization that "boys make the rules" and decides to break their rules by leaving her dishes on the table "like a man" (Cisneros 89). Dianne Klein looks at Esperanza's growing awareness as a typical coming-of-age story, but with a twist. She writes.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

129

Esperanza's rites o f passage speak not through myth and dreams, but through the political realities o f Mango Street. She faces pain and experiences violence in a very differentway. Her major loss o f innocence h a s to do with gender and with being sexually appropriated by men. . . . Perhaps Esperanza's "descent into darkness"' occurs in the story "Red Clowns." Unlike the traditional bildungsroman, the knowledge with which she emerges is not that o f regeneration, but o f p a i n f ~ ~knowledge, l the knowledge o f betrayal and physical violation. . . . [Tlhrough books and magazines and the talk o f women she h a s been led to believe the myth o f romantic love. (25) Klein writes that Maria Herrera-Sobek calls "The Red Clowns" a "'diatribe' that is directed not only at Sally, 'but at the community o f w o m e n i n a conspiracy o f silence . . . silence i n not denouncing t h e "real" facts o f life about sex and its negative aspects i n violent sexual encounters, and complicity i n romanticizing and idealizing unrealistic sexual relations"' (qtd. i n Klein 25). Other lies that m e n use t o keep w o m e n i n their place include t h e "imaginary" mice that Alicia sees. Her father tells her that she does not really see mice i n the kitchen as she studies at night, that it is "all i n her head," but Alicia knows t h e y are real; she trusts her o w n experience and sees through her father's lies. That's w h y she is taking steps t o leave her father's house. Even though she is afraid o f her father, she studies and endures hardships to prepare herself for another life. Like Joyce's Eveline i n Dz~bliners,Alicia has inherited her dead mother's responsibilities toward her father. She is able to fulfill these responsibilities i n addition t o doing her school work; unlike Eveline, she is able t o take positive action t o improve her situation i n life. Alicia sees through her father's attempts t o cover u p reality. But t h e biggest difference between appearance and reality is t h e one between Esperanza's dream house and t h e real house o n Mango Street. Even though her parents have described the dream house, they have been able to provide only the house o n Mango Street, which falls far short o f t h e dream house, just as marriage falls short o f its romantic ideal. Esperanza equates t h e house with herself;it is t h e outward representation o f her identity. She knows that she does not belong t o such a substandard house, which has been built and left behind b y Cathy's white family as they move u p o n t h e socio-economic ladder. Esperanza does not want t o accept this house as her station i n life. Instead, she intends t o be like the house o f her dreams. She already knows that she is, o n t h e inside, but n o one else can tell because all they can see is t h e outside, where she doesn't fit into t h e hegemonic cultural trappings. Esperanza and her friends and neighbors make several attempts t o fit into the dominant society that t h e y live in, but each time t h e y pay a heavy price. W h e n the children attempt t o imitate Tarzan, a cultural icon, they jump from a tree and Meme breaks b o t h arms. T h e moral o f this story is that

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

130

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

it is painful to try to emulate Hollywood images; they are not reality. Louie's "other cousin" also pays a heavy price for his joyride in a Cadillac. He takes the children for a ride, and for a while they enjoy the cultural trappings of capitalism, but it quickly ends. The price Louie's other cousin pays is a beating from the police when they arrest him. Esperanza herself ends up paying heavily for her attempt to be like the "others." She wants to eat her lunch at school like the children do whose mothers are not at home at lunchtime, but she leaves herself open to humiliation as the nun questions why Esperanza does not eat at her home, which is close by. When the nun points out a house even worse than the one Esperanza lives in and makes Esperanza claim it, Esperanza realizes that she must live farther away if she wants to change her situation. She must live farther away in order to eat lunch at school; she must live farther away in order to improve her opportunities. For a real change in her life, it is not enough to break the rules at home; at home she must still choose between a father and a husband. And the nun has demonstrated that she must live farther away. Sally, too, pays dearly for her freedom from her father. She marries before eighth grade and has material things like Sofia's daughter Fe in Castillo's novel, but finds, like Fe, that the price is steep. Her husband sometimes gives her money, but he commits violence against her, won't let her talk on the phone or look out the window, and won't allow her friends to visit when he is at home. Sally has discovered the reality beneath the fantasy. When the young girls have their high-heel adventure, they, too, pay the price for looking "beautif~il."They discover that a pillar of the community, the grocer, will threaten them with the police to control them, that a boy will make cat-calls at them to exploit them, that other girls will actively ignore them to compete with them, and that a bum will attempt to entice them with money for "a kiss," representing either prostitution or marriage. This is the legacy that one of the mothers passes on to them when she hands them the bag of shoes to play with. She asks, "Do you want it?" as if the girls actually have a choice. When the girls have grown "tired of being beautif~il"(Cisneros 42), Lucy's mother throws the shoes away, a sign that gender roles could change, that the girls could have more choices than their mothers have had. Esperanza's mother counsels her daughter, too, about staying in school, telling her not to be discouraged enough to quit school for a superficial reason the way the mother has done-because she was ashamed of her clothes. The idea is, of course, that Esperanza's mother could still have gained an education, even in poor clothing, that Esperanza can still grow up to become a writer in the Mango Street house, even if it is humble. Esperanza realizes early on that boys and girls have separate worlds and that she has responsibilities to those who come after her as seen in the story "Boys & Girls." Her brothers refuse to acknowledge Esperanza and her sister Nenny outside of the house; the brothers have a separate life outside, and it is the "boys [who] invented the rules" (Cisneros 96). It is in this story, too, that Esperanza realizes that she can help her little sister. In other words,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

131

Esperanza has a responsibility not only to herself to grow individually, but also to those who come after her to help the community to grow collectively. Cisneros's stories have some intersections with Walker's and Morrison's. For example, at one point, Cisneros writes that Esperanza believes that she is ugly, a belief that connects her to both Walker's Celie and Morrison's Pecola; this situation brings up and questions the hegemonic standard of beauty. Cisneros's Sally has her longing for love in common with Morrison's characters Pecola, Pauline, and Cholly; and like them, she does not know how to find it nor where to look for it. Sally's father, like Squeak's uncle in Walker's novel, denies their blood kinship in order to justify his raping her. As he begins to unbuckle his belt to beat Sally with it once again, her father becomes sexually excited by the violence and by the control he has over his beautiful daughter, the daughter who is so "beautiful [that it] is trouble" (Cisneros 81). Cisneros writes that "he just went crazy, he just forgot he was her father between the buckle and the belt" (93). It is then that he denies that she is his daughter and "then he broke into his hands" (93). In this scene Sally's father either breaks into tears of horror when he realizes his lust for his own daughter or else his lust leads to an orgasm. Thus the story ends ambiguously, but either interpretation acknowledges the father's sexual desire for his daughter that occurs "between the buckle and the belt." Cisneros, like Castillo, uses both European and Latina myths freely. Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom, is the other half of Esperanza's community of writers: they read each other's poems. Cisneros uses the Western motif of Rapunzel for Rafaela, whose husband locks her in because she is "too beautiful to look at" (Cisneros 79). As stated above, Esperanza's Aunt Guadalupe, the incapacitated former athlete, represents the Virgin of Guadalupe, the first mestiza Virgin, a passive figure, possibly of failure. And "The Three Sisters" are the three Fates of Western mythology. At the same time, however, they represent the Latina bmja, or witch, thus synthesizing myths and legends from two cultures. The old women demonstrate their supernatural powers by reading Esperanza's mind after she has made her wish and by promising her that it will be granted. Esperanza is embarrassed that her wish has been so selfish; this is when the old women remind her to return for the others, to close the circle. She also receives a prediction from her friend Alicia that Esperanza will return to Mango Street, and Esperanza realizes that she must return, for she is the one who must "make it better" (107). She has earlier decided that, when she does attain her dream house, she will not be selfish like those who "sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth" (86). She says, "I know how it is to be without a house" (87). She will go "away to come back" (110), to gain a new perspective. In order to attain her dream Esperanza must do something dangerous: she must violate the patriarchal taboos against strong, independent women by going away on her own, with neither father nor husband to "protect" her.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

132

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Ana Castillo is known as a "protest poet" who also challenges patriarchal authority. In So F~2rFrom God there is textual evidence that religious oppression by the patriarchy, in the form of the Catholic church, is inextricable from political oppression and is ongoing. Castillo reviles the Church throughout the novel, beginning with the first chapter, as the three-year-old La Loca is resurrected and informs the priest that it is her intention to pray for him, and ending with the unusual Stations of the Cross Procession that combines a religious with a political culpability. Castillo shows how men's abuse of women comes from the church and how the people's lives, especially the women's, are changed for the worse by the religion that came from Europe. As Castillo shows how her male characters mistreat her female characters, she demonstrates that the men's notions of women come directly from the Church. For example, Tom fears women the way he has been taught to fear the devil. Castillo says: "something about giving himself over to a woman was worse than having lunch with the devil" (32). Francisco el Penitente, or el Franky, is also afraid of women and quotes from Ecclesiastes: "'More bitter than death I find the woman who is a hunter's trap, whose heart is a snare and whose hands are prison bonds,' Francisco el Penitente recited. 'He who is pleasing to God will escape her, but the sinner will be entrapped by her"' (Castillo 191). He tells Sullivan, "'God is going to strike you dead if you commit adultery"' (196). But it is difficult for the characters to give up Catholicism. For example, Esperanza, the oldest of Sofia's daughters and the one who strays farthest from her upbringing, finds it difficult to leave the church: "In high school, although a rebel, she was Catholic heart and soul. In college, she had a romance with Marxism, but was still Catholic" (38). The title of Chapter 3, "On the Subject of Dofia Felicia's Remedios, Which in and of Themselves are Worthless without Unwavering Faith; and a Brief Sampling of Common Ailments Along with Cures Which Have Earned Our Curandera Respect and Devotion throughout War and Peace" (59), underscores the fact that the Church has imposed its views on another culture. The implication is that dofia Felicia's cures may be completely effective in and of themselves, without the intervention of faith; but she is forced to pay lip service to the church in order to avoid its sanctions as she continues her traditional healing. The title of chapter 5, "An Interlude: On Francisco el Penitente's First Becoming a Santero and Thereby Sealing His Fate" (94), is a further indictment of the Church; Castillo here lets us know that el Franky is doomed once he becomes a holy man. He will now be unable to acknowledge his sexuality or express his love for Caridad. He will become like the other santeros, who "prayed all the while as they worked together in silence-like their Spanish ancestors had done for nearly three hundred years on that strange land they felt was so far from God" (102). After three hundred years of pious activity, they still feel that they are far from God. As a religious practice, Francisco mixes ashes with his food. When he falls in love with Caridad, he watches his beloved from a

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

133

hiding place; since she does not notice him and since he feels "powerless to his desire," he "got it into his head" that "it would bring his torment some relief if he could at least stay close to her" (198). Observing these unusual activities, Francisco's aunt nevertheless knows that "it would do no good to laugh nor cry about what she saw the men in her husband's family do in the name of God" (191). The Church is definitely not o n the side of women. Not only does the Church interfere in dofia Felicia's cures, but when she asks a Catholic saint for help in locating Caridad, she gets no cooperation: "St. Anthony kept silent . . . she turned his small statue upside down to persuade him to cooperate." She concludes that "St. Anthony probably just didn't know where Caridad went" (82), another indication of the Church's failure. The Christ Child is no help to her, either: [DIoAa Felicia and El Santo NiAo had had a falling out, so she no longer entrusted her prayers to the child Jesus who once saved Christians from Muslims in conquered Spain and in North America saved conquering Catholics from pagan Indians. (This was part of dona Felicia's problem with the little saint in Spanish regal dress, trying to accept that he saved souls or abandoned them depending on their nationalistic faith.) (82) Here Castillo again questions the authority of the Church and aligns the Church closely with politics and colonization. While Esperanza leaves home but can't escape Catholicism, Fe stays at home but realizes that her religion is inadequate: she says she can't bring Caridad back, "no matter how much you sat on your ankles before your candles and incense and prayed for a word, a sign, no matter what you did" (205). La Loca not only places herself above the church by praying for the priest, but she completely rejects the church as a part of her life: [She] never went to Mass . . . did not take her First Holy Communion . . . nor the Holy Sacrament of Confirmation. . . because Loca had flatly refused it. Loca would have been . . . getting excommunicated herself, insisting that she could tell Father Jerome a thing or two about the wishes of God, but Father Jerome took pity on her and finally dismissed Loca as a person who was really not responsible for her mind. (221) Castillo offers a heavy indictment of the Church for its role in the subordination of women in the description of Caridad's attacker: [I]t wasn't a man with a face and a name who had attacked and left Caridad mangled like a run-down rabbit. Nor two or three men . . . . It was not a stray and desperate coyote either, but a thing, both tangible and amorphous . . . made of sharp metal and splintered wood, Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

of limestone, gold, and brittle parchment. It held the weight of a continent and was indelible as ink, centuries old and yet as strong as a young wolf. It had no shape and was darker than the dark night, and mostly, as Caridad would never ever forget, it was pure force. (77) The "sharp metal and splintered wood" represent t h e crucifix; t h e "limestone" a n d "gold" are the buildings and statues; the "brittle parchment" and "ink" symbolize the proclamations and doctrines of the Church; the "continent" is Europe; the Church is "centuries old" and "strong as a young wolf"; but "mostly . . . it was pure force." From this description we can infer that Castillo holds t h e Church responsible for not only t h e abuse of women, but also t h e abuse of la gente, the people, a n d of t h e environment. When Castillo describes the unusual Way of t h e Cross Procession, we can understand that she is indeed making a statement of causality: "This Procession . . . did not flagellate itself with horsehair whips" but sang songs not in the least religious in nature but about workers and women strikers. . . . No brother was elected to carry a life-size cross. . . n o "Mary" to meet her son . . . at each station along their route, the crowd stopped and prayed and people spoke on the so many things that were killing their land and turning the people of those lands into an endangered species. . . . [Tlhe spokesperson for the committee working to protest dumping radioactive waste in the sewer addressed the crowd. . . . [A] man declared that most of the Native and hispano families throughout the land were living below poverty level. . . . [Pleople all over the land were dying from toxic exposure in factories. . . . [Tlhree Navajo women talked about uranium contamination on the reservation. . . . Livestock drank and swam in contaminated water. . . . Children also played in those open disease-ridden canals. . . . The air was contaminated by the pollutants coming from the factories. . . . Deadly pesticides were sprayed directly and from helicopters above on the vegetables and fruits and on the people who picked them. . . . (241-43) The Church is responsible for the abuse of the women, t h e people, a n d t h e land, but t h e combined efforts of the corporations a n d t h e government are also killing the land and the people. The activities that go o n at Acme International demonstrate their exploitation of women of color and the larger community, t h e environment, i n terms of economics. Classism is apparent as "some of the women w h o worked there did n o t have a high school diploma like Fe, several spoke Spanish, Tewa, Tiwa, or some other pueblo dialect as a first language" (Castillo 179). Women i n low socioeconomic classes will give u p their health in order to provide for their families; it is not difficult to entice a n uneducated woman with a high-paying job. And later she learns, like Fe, that she is working i n a n environment that will kill her. Some of t h e ways the working women are abused show u p i n their bodies. Fe herself has Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

135

a miscarriage; some of the women have had hysterectomies at an early age; they all have headaches and lethargy. Fe has chronic indigestion and dry spots on her legs. Fe's breath begins to smell like glue because of the deadly chemicals she has absorbed into her body. The masks and gloves provided by Acme are not effective protection; the ventilation is inadequate. Fe's fingernails dissolve in the chemicals she uses to clean parts of military weapons for Acme, a corporation which has contracted with the government of the United States. As a working-class woman, Fe prides herself on doing such a good job that she frequently receives bonuses and raises in pay. But it turns out that Fe has sold her health and eventually her life to pay for the "American Dream" of a tract home, a new car, the "long-dreamed-of automatic dishwasher, microwave, Cuisinart, and the VCR" (171), to "have a life like people do on T. V." (189). Castillo indicts the Acme foremen, who keep hidden from the workers the Materials Safety Data Sheet required by the government, as well as the company nurse, who attributes all the women's symptoms to "pre-menopause and the dropping of estrogen levels in women over thirty, and [who] pretty much [said] that [their complaints were] just about being a woman and had nothing to do with working with chemicals" (178). Castillo shows how the irresponsible actions of a corporation can harm not only poor women who are forced to earn a living but also the whole community's and the whole world's ecological system, as they dump the used chemicals down the drain into the community's sewer system, where it "worked its way into people's septic tanks, vegetable gardens, kitchen taps, and sun-made tea" (188). The government, too, is directly implicated through the "two men from the U. S. Attorney General's Office," who intimidate Fe (184), and the representatives of the FBI who blame Fe herself for having used illegal chemicals that "actually glowed in the dark" (181). In addition, because she has already had skin cancer before she has come to work for the company, Fe "would not be able to sue Acme International for the other cancer she had undoubtedly gotten from her chemical joyride at Acme International, which was eating her insides like acid" (186). Castillo not only links government to industry, but she also links industry to the Church. She likens Fe's situation at Acme to the Stations of the Cross Procession through her choice of words to describe the workplace: "Every morning [Fe] went to a little desk that was called a 'station.' . . . She had the same station every day" (180). When Fe returns to Acme to get the data sheet from the foreman, she notices changes: "And all the stations, not just the foreman's, which used to be open to everybody and everything, were partitioned off. Nobody and nothing able to know what was going on around them no more" (189). In this description Castillo shows that the Church is intricately intertwined with economic and political forces and therefore is also culpable. Through its close association with the corporations and the government, the Church encourages or upholds economic and political abuse of women, of la gente, the people, and of the environ-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

136

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

m e n t , which is itself used t o further abuse la gente. All o f these kinds o f abuse are demonstrated i n the unusual Stations o f the Cross Procession. In reference t o her writing about t h e Church, Castillo has said, "'One o f m y goals i n life is t o get an encyclical from t h e church-if not from t h e pope, t h e n from t h e bishops-to ban t h e book [a collection o f essays she was editing, Goddess of the Americas]. I think that would be t h e best advertisement for t h e book, i f a cardinal or someone would say that it definitely should n o t be read b y any good Catholic i n t h e world"' (qtd. i n Baker). By the conclusion o f So Far From God, Castillo's Sofia has lost all o f her daughters, Fe, Esperanza, and Caridad (Faith, Hope, and Charity), as well as La Loca (The Crazy [One]).Fe has suffered with cancer and died within a year o f gaining all the outward signs o f the American Dream; Esperanza has been lost i n war; and Caridad, w h o healed herself miraculously after being viciousl y attacked, has flown f r o m t h e t o p o f a mesa t o be guided b y the spirit deity Tsichtinako "deep within the soft, moist dark earth [to]be safe and live forever" (Castillo 211), never t o be seen o n earth again. Even though she h a s never left h o m e i n her short life except for t w o trips t o Albuquerque, La Loca dies o f AIDS i n the arms o f a mysterious n u n w h o is possibly a spirit and w h o sings her t o her final sleep. But, instead o f crying o n her daughters' graves, Sofia, according t o Samuel Baker, "turns her bereavements t o positive account b y organizing the community politically and b y working t o reconfigure the Catholic religion." Cisneros's Esperanza, too, has transformed herself and has promised t o help her people transform themselves, m u c h as La Malinche is said t o have saved her people. La Malinche could be an effectivefigure for Chicana writers; as Tey Diana Rebolledo writes, Because Chicana writers identifywith the act o f interpretation as they consciously shift from one language and culture to another, and because i n the power structure they always have to consider their relation to the dominant culture, it is not surprising that many feel closely aligned with the figure o f La Malinche. This ability to translate is seen also as the ability to move easily between multiple cultures as well as languages. (64) Ana Castillo and her protagonist, Sofia, and Sandra Cisneros with her protagonist, Esperanza, use their voices t o protest, t o challenge, and t o stand o n t h e edges and translate for their people, becoming intermediaries like t h e Virgin, but mostly translators like La Malinche, t h e historical figure w h o grew into a legend for using her voice as a bridge between cultures. There seems t o be a special place for the mestizas or half-breeds i n a multicultural society. Because t h e y stand o n t h e edges, t h e y have a unique perspective o n b o t h or, perhaps, all o f the cultures i n their backgrounds, a complex perspective which is certain t o bring about mixed loyalties and m u c h questioning. Many times parts o f different cultures are syncretized, making a

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Cisneros and Cnstillo: Resisting the Oppressor

...

137

third tradition or language or legend out of two, the third having connections with the two while retaining a distinction from them. Both Cisneros and Castillo translate the everyday experiences of Latinas for the rest of the world. As La Malinche became the mother of a new, hybrid, people, they are also giving birth to something new and different-writing that blends languages and combines genres into hybrid literary forms. Similarly, in the Native American tradition, we shall see that other "mestizas," Louise Erdrich, of German and Chippewa extraction, and Leslie Marmon Silko, half Laguna Pueblo, use their imaginations and creativity to demonstrate both failed and completed attempts at syncretism.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER IX

Erdrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth, Changing the Ceremonv

T

ODAY'SAMERICAN MINORITY LITERATURE CO\\ECTS TO LITERATURE FROM O T H E R colonized writers about life i n other colonized countries. In looking at contemporary novels written b y women from cultural minority groups, we have seen h o w Chinese Americans could reinvent the Asian culture i n their backgrounds i n order to come t o some sense o f unity between that culture and the dominant culture i n which they live i n the United States. African American authors have both described the results o f a colonized mind and offered a solution for the self-loathing that comes with that colonization o f the mind. Latina writers have challenged the patriarchy supported b y the Catholic Church and protested the racism and classism i n contemporary America, demonstrating the oppression both o f women and the environment. Contemporary Native American women writers are following the same formula; they have had similar oppressive experiences and have similar things t o say. Not only do they recommend a return t o the old values, expose the brutality o f oppression that they have lived under, and revise their history as written b y the hegemony, but they also challenge the reader t o take a different view o f the world i n order to bridge the gaps among cultures. The Native Americans have not only suffered at the hands o f the dominant culture, but they have also turned against their traditional ways i n emulating the whites t o oppress the women within their community. Louise Erdrich demonstrates, i n a very personal way, the loss o f dignity o f the Native Americans through Nector's loss o f dignity as he poses naked for a white woman t o paint h i m i n a picture ironically called "The Plunge o f the Brave." In addition, some o f the younger men, like Gordie, emulate the dominant culture i n their treatment o f women, as Gordie physically abuses June and threatens his own mother. Both June and Albertine go t o the city and become sexually promisc~ious;their counterparts i n Leslie Marmon Silko's novel are

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

140

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Helen Jean, who cuts her hair, dresses like a white woman, and finds men in bars to help her pay her bills, and the women who live in the arroyo in Gallup, raising their illegitimate children under the tables of bars and taking men back to their shelters under the bridge. Thus the Native American women have been degraded. Since the land is the same as the people, it requires little imagination to extend the degradation of women to the degradation of nature. According to Kathleen M. Sands, "Land and nature, myth and ritual, cyclic patterns and continuum, ceremony and the sacredness of storytelling are all basic elements that distinguish the Indian mode of literature from any other" (4). In addition to these elements, both Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and Leslie Marmon Silko's Cereinor~yoffer solutions to healing the rift between cultures. They challenge the reader to see from another point of view; this new way of looking at the world is revealed to be not new at all, but is actually a quite ancient spiritual outlook. Silko's novel is in itself a demonstration of changing the world; it is a ceremony that requires the reader's participation and thus changes the reader's view. In addition, the world view that could heal the gap brings us full circle in our discussion of contemporary literature by minority American women writers and connects with ancient traditions of the East. Both Erdrich's and Silko's novels foreground characters who are on a heroic quest, in the Western sense, or searching for the center, in their Native traditions. Erdrich's Lipsha himself is symbolic of the old traditions that are lost or thrown away; as he becomes centered, becomes more synchronized with the old ways, he finds himself able to make a difference to his people. In a similar fashion, Silko's Tayo is both lost and thrown away; he must heal himself in order to heal his people and the earth. As Lipsha gains his maturity and strength, he is able to join heaven and earth; in order for Tayo to become both healed and healer, he must learn and alter the ancient rituals to accommodate contemporary conditions. Both characters develop a spiritual perspective and engage in sacred activities. Erdrich presents several attempts by the characters at syncretism, but these attempts are failures. Rather than a direct confrontation between the Chippewa culture on the reservation and the white culture outside the reservation, Love Medicine presents cultural oppositions within the Native characters as each is colonized or assimilated into the dominant culture to varying degrees throughout the novel. Beginning with the two Kashpaw brothers, Nector and Eli, we see an opposing pair, one brother who ventures out into the dominant culture and one brother who adheres to a traditional way of life. Since they are the youngest of her twelve children, their mother, Margaret or Rushes Bear, makes a decision when the government representative comes to take the boys to school. She hides Eli under the floor in the root cellar and allows Nector to go to the white government school for Indians: "In that way she gained a son on either side of the line. Nector came home from boarding school knowing white reading and writing, while Eli knew the

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

141

woods" (Love Medicine 19). Even though Nector eventually becomes tribal chairman and hobnobs with politicians, when he grows old, his mind "had left" (19). Eli, on the other hand, is said to be the "last man on the reservation that could snare himself a deer" (29), and "Eli was still sharp" (19). Erdrich is making a distinction here between the two value systems and their intrinsic worth. The next generation is not as sharply divided in knowledge or skills. June, like Eli, knows the woods as a girl, but forgets the old ways as she grows up and away from the reservation. Gordie knows some of the old beliefs and some of the old language, but has fallen victim to alcoholism and has lost his way. June's two sons also represent opposites. King, her son with Gordie, is the legitimate son who receives June's insurance money after her death. Lipsha, the illegitimate son, knows the identity of neither his father nor his mother. He is an orphan, a "took-in" in the Kashpaw family, and, as they grow up together, is regularly mistreated by King, who knows that Lipsha really is his brother. However, before the end of the novel, we find that King gets only the dominant culture's idea of a legacy from June: insurance money. On the other hand, Lipsha eventually receives a much richer legacy, one that is priceless. Lipsha stands in opposition to Lyman also. Lulu's son with Nector, Lyman, is jealous of Lipsha's close family relationship with Nector, the relationship which Lyman longs for, and the two present opposing ways of leading their community. Lyman is adept in the white man's ways, but Lipsha operates in a more intuitive way. The other family in the story, whose lives are closely intertwined with the Kashpaws', is the Nanapush family, headed by their matriarch, Lulu. Lulu has also been sent to the government boarding school, but she has resisted the white man's education at every turn. She also spends much time alone in the woods as a girl, and we later find that Lulu has stayed in touch with the old ways. Of her eight sons, none of whom has the same father, the reader grows to know only three of them. Gerry Nanapush is a trickster figure who protests the injustices of the dominant society; Henry, Jr., loses touch with his heritage and commits suicide; and Lyman, son of Nector, becomes adept at making money like his Kashpaw father and attempts to lead the tribe in his father's footsteps. But Lyman is competitive with Lipsha, who is not a blood relative of Nector but who has been raised by Nector and his wife, Marie. In the end, however, when they are forced to choose between Lyman and his progressive programs and Lipsha and his natural strength, it is Lipsha whom the tribe follows. Some critics see Lipsha as triumphant because he is able to cross boundaries. Nora Barry and Mary Prescott claim that the Love Medicine characters who are able to cross boundaries, especially boundaries between past and present and between male and female genders, are "whole" characters, whereas the ones who cannot are fragmented. They write, "survival and continuity depend upon a character's ability to internalize both the masculine and the feminine, the past and the present" (548). The whole characters are

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

142

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Eli, Marie, Lulu and her son Gerry, and finally Lipsha through Lulu and Gerry. These characters are also the ones w h o are not alienated from their traditions. They are all-inclusive and freely cross boundaries between gender roles and across time. It is the characters like Nector, June, Gordie, Beverly, and Lyman w h o have attempted t o assimilate into or compromise with the white culture w h o are not successful. Barry and Prescott conclude that "Characters trapped i n or between gender-based roles are unfulfilled.Those w h o take advantage o f the fluidity between past and present and are free enough to incorporate into their experience rituals complementing the gender-based behavior that is expected o f t h e m will survive and even triumph" (561). Jeanne Smith agrees that the ability to transgress limits is important. She writes that Erdrich's "characters build identity o n transpersonal connections t o community, t o landscape, and t o myth" (563). She posits that it is through these transpersonal connections that the characters "offer a compelling contemporary vision o f the sources o f identity" (564). Nector Kashpaw is identified with the ways o f the white m a n and forgets the old ways. His strategy for success is that h e never says no. Whatever comes along, h e does not resist. In this way he loses his dignity w h e n posing nude for a painter, h e accepts the physical love o f whoever offers it, and h e becomes tribal chairman only because Marie pushes h i m into it. He accepts the many children that Marie raises, the "took-ins" w h o have n o parents t o care for t h e m . Among these children are June, daughter o f Marie's sister, and later Lipsha, son o f June. At first June is seen t o be aligned with the natural world, the old traditions o f living at one with nature. As a child, she has been abandoned i n the woods, and Marie says, "she was more like Eli. The woods were i n June, after all, just like i n h i m , and maybe more. She had sucked o n pine sap and grazed grass and nipped buds like a deer" (Love Medicine 87). But June grows farther and farther away from her unity with the natural world until her estrangement eventually causes her death. June's death is the central event o f the novel t o which all the other characters react, and hers is the first story told i n the novel. That June is a Christ figure is evident i n the opening story; association with this figure aligns her here with the dominant culture. She has been unable t o maintain her closeness t o nature. June has left the reservation and become a prostitute i n Williston. It is the morning before Easter Sunday, which would be the day after Christ's death and the day before his resurrection, indicating that she is entombed i n her Williston life and is ready t o break out o f her shell to return t o the reservation. She undergoes a symbolic rebirth or resurrection i n the cab o f the mud engineer's truck after their sexual encounter: "She felt herself slipping along the smooth plastic seat, slipping away, until she wedged the crown o f her head against the driver's door. . . . June had wedged herself so tight against the door that w h e n she sprang the latch she fell out. Into the cold. It was a shock like being born" (5, 6). T h e n June starts t o walk h o m e t o the reservation, but, as she walks, she misreads the weather because she n o longer is i n touch with the earth: Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

143

The wind was mild and wet. A Chinook wind, she told herself. . . . It was exactly as if she were walking back from a fiddle dance or a friend's house to Uncle Eli's warm, man-smelling kitchen. She crossed the wide fields swinging her purse, stepping carefully to keep her feet dry. Even when it started to snow she did not lose her sense of direction. The heavy winds couldn't blow her off course. She continued. Even when her heart clenched and her skin turned crackling cold it didn't matter, because the pure and naked part of her went on. The snow fell deeper that Easter than it had in forty years, but June walked over it like water and came home. (6-7) The wind is not a warm, snow-eating Chinook, but a snowstorm; "the snow blew in covering the state" ( 7 ) .June's estrangement from nature has been the direct cause of her freezing to death in a snowstorm. Gordie has a fragmented identity, aligning him completely with neither culture but partially with both. His partial knowledge of Chippewa traditions and language serves only to bring about his demise. In his grief over June's death, Gordie forgets himself and transgresses a Chippewa warning not to call upon the dead. As her name escapes his lips, he realizes what he has done and immediately sees and hears June's spirit all around. Attempting to run away, Gordie hits a deer with his car and puts it in the back seat. When in the rear-view mirror he sees the deer raise its head, Gordie kills it with a lug wrench. Horrified that he has killed what he believes is June's spirit, he goes to the Catholic convent for help. A nun comes out to see the woman that Gordie tells her he has killed and finds "herself in the backseat wedged against the animal's body" in a scene which puts her, as a representative of the Catholic Church, in a small, uncomfortable space with the deer, a representative of the Native beliefs. And they do not fit. In his attempt to save himself from the traditional spirit world, Gordie has come seeking help from the white man's religion. He gets n o help, however, and runs away; he stiffened, windmilled his arms, and stumbled backward in a cardboard fright. . . . He whirled to all sides, darting glances, then fled with incredible quickness back along the side of the building to the long yard where there were orchards, planted pines, then the reservation grass and woods. [The nun] followed him, calling now, into the apple trees but lost him there, and all that morning, while they waited for the orderlies and the tribal police to come with cuffs and litters and a court order, they heard him crying like a drowned person, howling in the open fields. (Love Medicine 229) Instead of offering the distraught Gordie some assistance or compassion, the nun calls upon the legal authorities to haul him away to an insane asylum.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

144

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

She cannot imagine what Gordie is upset about because her lack of imagination allows her only a narrow view of the world. Interestingly, Gordie has put the deer into the back seat of his Chevrolet Malibu because he cannot open the car's trunk. Gordie realizes that he has forgotten the key to the trunk and attempts to make do with what he does have. Gordie has another, more important realization, too. If the car is seen as America, it is clear that Gordie does not have full access to American society; there are some places that he cannot enter. The key that he lacks is the white skin that would open doors (or trunks) for him. Erdrich writes, "Everything worked against him. He could not remember when this had started to happen. Probably from the first, always and ever afterward, things had worked against him. . . . He had never really understood before but now, because two keys were made to open his one car, he saw clearly that the setup of life was rigged and he was trappedn3(Love Medicine 220). Gordie, too, dies a terrible death. Gordie has turned to alcohol after June's death and is so dependent on it that, when he cannot find liquor to drink, he drinks a concoction made by straining his mother's Lysol through a loaf of white bread. The substance kills him in a slow and horrible way. But before his death he has fallen so low that he has attempted to steal from his mother, Marie, and has both cajoled her in the old language and threatened her in English in his attempt to get a drink. Marie is aligned with the old religion, especially as she resists the Catholic nun Leopolda. Marie's last visit to the dying Leopolda is ostensibly for the purpose of taking the nuns some apples that she has canned from her own apple tree. But the apples represent more than fruit from the tree or fruit of Marie's labor; Marie's apple tree symbolizes the Garden of Eden that Marie has learned about at the convent as a girl. Marie says, "In my hand I held a jar of fresh-canned crabs. I had planted the tree myself twelve years before, and for a long time it was the only apple tree on the reservation. Then the nuns had planted the two on their hill. But those trees hardly bore yet. Mine was established" (Love Medicine 150). The nuns' apple trees, the same apple trees that Gordie runs through before he is institutionalized, are younger and 3. In "Where I Ought To Be: A Writer's Sense of Place," Erdrich says that her use of brand names in her stories is a kind of cultural shorthand that all her readers can understand. She says, "An author needs his or her characters to have something in common with the reader. . . . We are united by mass culture to the brand names of objects, to symbols like the golden arches, to stories of folk heroes like Ted Turner and Colonel Sanders. . . . These symbols and heroes may annoy us, or comfort us, but when we encounter them in literature, at the very least, they give us context" (488). Because the reader has a common point of reference with the character, the reader knows that, if Gordie drives a Chevrolet, he will have two separate keys, one for the ignition and one for the trunk. Another example of a common cultural symbol that crosses the boundaries of race and tradition is the pickup truck that belongs to Andy, the mud engineer. When Erdrich identifies his truck as a Silverado, the reader irnrnediately understands the class difference that she is pointing out between Andy and June: he drives a top-of-the-line truck; she rides a bus or walks. Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

145

less productive, less established than Marie's. Marie is saying here that her ancient religion is older and more fruitful than the nuns' Catholicism. Lulu is also connected to the old ways. At the age of seven she is accustomed to spend hours in the woods by herself, playing house. It is here that she loses her innocence before she is forced to go away to school: she finds a dead man's body and plays with it, keeping it secret from anyone else. That she is on the verge of something important is apparent in Erdrich's description: "It was just that time of summer before school starts, before the leaves turn yellow and fall off overnight, before I would have to get on the government bus and go off to boarding school. Some children never did come home, I'd heard. It was just that time of summer when your life smarts and itches. When even your clothing hurts. That's why I did it. That's why I did the worst" (Love Medicine 280). Lulu is on the verge of losing her innocence. Exactly what transpires is left to the reader's imagination, but it may have set the tone for the rest of Lulu's life. She describes the scene: Holes, dirt, with nothing but an old red scarf for a pants belt. That was all he had on anyway. At first the cold hard stone of him surprised me. I only grazed him by accident. I did not really want to touch. I untied the knotted scarf, and his pants fell open from the waist. It was so easy I jumped backward. His pants were worn and rotted. I can't remember what I saw, or even how long I stayed. (280) But something has been accomplished, finished, for the next description of the scene is: "But soon after that the leaves came off the trees in yellow drifts, and every time I got close to my secret house a wall of smell rose up. I veered away. Then I went down to school on the government bus" (280). Even though Lulu has been forced to attend the government boarding school, she has run away many times, but is always brought back and punished severely. When she is allowed to go home, however, she recovers her familiarity with the old traditions. As an adult, Lulu is considered "heartless, a shameless man-chaser" by some of the women on the reservation (Love Medicine 277), but Lulu explains her many sexual unions as unions with the universe itself. Lulu says, "I was in love with the whole world and all that lived in its rainy arms. Sometimes I'd look out on my yard and the green leaves would be glowing. I'd see the oil slick on the wing of a grackle. I'd hear the wind rushing, rolling, like the far-off sound of waterfalls. Then I'd open my mouth wide, my ears wide, my heart, and I'd let everything inside" (276). About her numerous lovers, Lulu says, "There were times I let them in just for being part of the world. . . . I'd slip my body to earth, like a heavy sack, and for a few moments I would blend in with all that forced my heart" (277). But the sex is not merely physical; she says, "I loved what I saw" (277). The sex act could be seen as a kind of joining of heaven and earth, or connecting two parts of a whole in a spiritual way. That Lulu is a spiritual person is without question, as she ruminates in another scene:

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

146

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

How come we've got these bodies? They are frail supports for what we feel. There are times I get so hemmed in by my arms and legs I look forward to getting past them. As though death will set me free like a traveling cloud. I'll get past the ragged leaves that dead bum of my youth looked into. I'll be out there as a piece of the endless body of the world feeling pleasures so much larger than skin and bones and blood. (287) The child of one of these unions, Henry, Jr., is like Silko's Tayo i n that h e has a great deal of difficulty seeing Asians as the enemy in their respective wars. They both see similarities all around them. Before his suicide, Henry, Jr., has encountered a young Chippewa woman, Albertine Johnson, i n Fargo a n d thinks of her in terms of the Vietnamese enemy who have held him prisoner i n t h e war h e has just returned from: Her straight brown hair and Indian eyes drew him. . . . She was tall, strong, twice the size of most Vietnamese. It had been a long time since he'd seen any Indian woman, even a breed. . . . She was carrying a knotted bundle. . . . He had seen so many. . . bolting under fire, arms wrapped around small packages. Some of the packages, loosely held the way hers was, exploded. . . . He thought that she might walk off carrying that bundle. . . . Possibility of danger. Contents of bundle that could rip through flesh and strike bone. (Love Medicine 171-72) As Henry, Jr., in his drunkenness, moves back a n d forth i n his mind between Vietnam a n d Fargo, h e finds Albertine cowering i n fear i n the bathroom of t h e hotel room where h e has taken her. Henry, Jr., has another flashback to Vietnam; h e sees Albertine as a Vietnamese woman: On the tiny square of floor, still dressed, the bundle she had carried opened and spread all around her, she crouched low. And he saw her as the woman back there. How the hell could you figure them? She looked at him. They had used a bayonet. She was out of her mind. You, me, same. Same. She pointed to her eyes and his eyes. The Asian, folded eyes of some Chippewas. She was hemorrhaging. Question her. Sir, she is dying, sir. "And anyway, what could I have asked?" (176) Apparently, Henry, Jr., is capable of bridging t h e language gap, a n d h e has been reminded by the Vietnamese woman that they are, indeed, t h e same. Henry, Jr., knows that h e a n d t h e woman are part of the same fabric of t h e universe, and it is incidents such as this o n e that affect him so deeply that h e finally kills himself. Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

147

Whereas Lulu becomes one with the universe through sex and Henry, Jr., sees oneness among people, Lipsha and Albertine, his mixed-blood "cousin," experience the unity of the universe as they drink wine and look at the sky together. Albertine describes it: Northern lights. Something in the cold, wet atmosphere brought them out. . . . We floated into the field and sank down, crushing green wheat. We chewed the sweet grass tips and stared up and were lost. Everything seemed to be one piece. The ail; our faces, all cool, moist, and dark, and the ghostly sky. Pale green licks of light pulsed and faded across it. Living lights. Their fires lobbed over, higher, higher, then died out in blackness. At times the whole sky was ringed in shooting points and puckers of light gathering and falling, pulsing, fading, rhythmical as breathing. All of a piece. As if the sky were a pattern of nerves and our thought and memories traveled across it. As if the sky were one gigantic memory for us all. (Love Medicine 37) Jeanne Smith writes that this vision of Albertine's is "so powerful because it reestablishes her sense of connection to her home landscape, to her family . . . and importantly, to Chippewa myth" (568). And Albertine is already aware of Lipsha's natural wisdom; she says, "Although he never did well in school, Lipsha knew surprising things. He read books about computers and volcanoes and the life cycles of salamanders. Sometimes he used words I had to ask him the meaning of, and other times he didn't make even the simplest sense" (Love Medicir~e39). Lipsha also knows things that are not found in books. Lipsha is the "hinge of bloods" (Love Medicine 318), bringing together genetically all the families of the community, and is the one character who has enough simplicity and directness to save the whole community and reunite the people with each other, their traditions, and even the dominant culture. Lipsha is the one who is able to join heaven and earth. Barry and Prescott agree that this novel presents ordinary events from a spiritual perspective. It is important, they point out, "to recognize the context of native American culture. Erdrich's novel really celebrates native American survival and credits spiritual values with that survival" (547). The joining of heaven and earth is a spiritual experience. In order to fully comprehend the concept of the joining of heaven and earth, it is necessary to understand the principles of heaven, earth, and man (humankind). Tibetan scholar Chogyam Trungpa calls them "principles of natural order" and "basic wisdom" and traces them to "Imperial China [and] Japan" (129). In Shambhala: T h e Sacred Path of the Warrior, he also gives a description of the principles : Heaven, earth, and man can be seen literally as the sky above, the earth below, and human beings standing or sitting between the

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

two. . . . Traditionally, heaven is the realm of the gods, the most sacred space. So, symbolically, the principle of heaven represents any lofty ideal or experience of vastness and sacredness. . . . Earth may seem solid and stubborn, but earth can be penetrated and worked on. . . . Then there is the man principle, which is connected with simplicity, or living in harmony with heaven and earth. (129-30) It is when heaven and earth are joined that something very powerful and magical occurs, a n d they are joined together by man. These principles appear i n many aspects of life. For example, t h e ikebana art of flower arranging utilizes t h e heaven, earth, a n d m a n principles i n t h e same way. This art is considered a meditative art a n d is n o t undertaken lightly. But t h e arrangement always employs three kinds of visual elements, beginning with something rather heavy, dense, a n d low at the bottom of the arrangement, to represent t h e earth, then something more airy and delicate reaching upwards for t h e top of the arrangement, to represent heaven. The last step, which is considered very carefully, is to add t h e third element that represents man, which will bring t h e two together. The desired result of this joining of heaven and earth through m a n is a breath-taking floral arrangement which may or may n o t result i n a glimpse of enlightenment, of satori, for t h e observer. Trungpa offers a further explanation of t h e principles: The grandeur and vision of heaven are what inspire human greatness and creativity. It is the ground that supports and promotes life. Earth can be cultivated. The proper relationship between heaven and earth is what makes the earth principle pliable. You may think of the space of heaven as very dry and conceptual, but warmth and love also come from heaven. Heaven is the source of the rain that falls on the earth, so heaven has a sympathetic connection with earth. When that connection is made, then the earth begins to yield. It becomes gentle and soft and pliable, so that greenery can grow on it, and man can cultivate it. (129-30) Humankind's role i n this arrangement is very powerful, a n d this power, which has been called "ordinary magic," must be used very responsibly. Trungpa's explanation of magic begins with t h e bravery or courage to live in the world without any deception and with tremendous kindness and caring for others. . . . [Tlhis can bring magic into your life. The ordinary idea of magic is that you can conquer the elements. . . . But true magic is the magic of reality, as it is: the earth of earth, the water of water-communicating with the elements so that, in some sense, they become one with you. . . . [Ylou make a connection with the elemental quality of existence . . . [which] begins to heighten your existence, that is, to bring out the brilliant and genuine qualities of your environment and of your own being. So you

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

149

begin to contact the magic of reality-which is already there in some sense. You actually can attract the power and strength and the primordial wisdom that arise from the cosmic mirror. (109) Lipsha has the courage to live without any deception, a n d h e expresses tremendous kindness and caring for others; therefore, h e is able to discover the magic of reality, the power and strength and primordial wisdom that his ancestors have known. The power and strength a n d primordial wisdom are what t h e narrator refers to at t h e beginning of t h e "Resurrection" story as Marie looks at Nector's pipe after his death: Lastly, one night, she came to a long and brittle skin bag. One end was quilled with rawhide strips of pale, washed-to-sand colors, dyed with butternut, wild grapes, ocher, fading sere. A horned man radiating wavering lines of power was beaded onto the other end. Marie drew out the pipe. She held the cool red bowl in her scarred palm, rattled it a bit, but before he'd stored it Nector had cleaned it well. The stem of the pipe was wooden, carved in a spiral, crosshatched and fitted with a tiny cross of myrtle and a string of the oldest white-heart trading beads. The feather of a golden eagle, grown ragged at the tip, dangled as she lifted the stem. She brushed the feather to her cheek, and then returned the pieces of the pipe to their case as they were, for to fit them together, Nector once said, was to connect earth and heaven. She put the pipe away for Lipsha. (Love IVerlicirie 260) That Nector has held this pipe in great esteem is apparent from t h e description of its finely decorated stem, t h e richly ornamented bag it is kept in, and the care h e has given it. Marie keeps the pipe for Lipsha because she realizes that Lipsha is the member of t h e family w h o will be able to fit t h e pieces together again, to make the universe whole again. Interestingly, Erdrich's mention of joining heaven a n d earth comes immediately after she has given us a n example of it. At the end of Lipsha's "Love Medicine" story, h e is doing something quite ordinary but discovers something quite extraordinary, or magic, if you will. As h e digs dandelions out of t h e lawn at t h e Senior Citizens' Center, h e has a n empowering experience: Outside, the sun was hot and heavy as a hand on my back. I felt it flow down my arms, out my fingers, arrowing through the ends of the fork into the earth. With every root I prized up there was return, as if I was kin to its secret lesson. The touch got stronger as I worked through the grassy afternoon. Uncurling from me like a seed out of the blackness where I was lost, the touch spread. (Love IVerlicirie 258)

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

150

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Here Lipsha joins heaven and earth and discovers ordinary magic. We can understand the roots that hold the secret lesson as the ancient traditions; as Lipsha gets closer to the old ways, he becomes more powerful. But he goes on to tell the reader how the plants, and the old ways, are looked upon in the dominant culture: "The spiked leaves full of bitter mother's milk. A buried root. A nuisance people dig up and throw in the sun to wither. A globe of frail seeds that's indestructible" (258). Not only are the plants symbolic of the old traditions, but they also personally represent Lipsha, who has been thrown away by his mother, and who, as he is coming to realize, is gaining "indestructible" power. Even though Lipsha has thought of himself as worthless, like a weed, this scene foreshadows great unknown things in store for him. When Lipsha wants to make up a love potion to keep Nector faithful to Marie, he doesn't know the recipe, so he invents one. His reasoning is very sensible as he looks at the geese who mate for life and realizes that making a medicine for his grandparents from the hearts of the monogamous geese may work. He says, "Wouldn't that work? Maybe it's all invisible, and then maybe again it's magic" (Love ~Werlicine242). Because Lipsha is unable to bag the geese in the wild, he substitutes what is available to him-frozen turkeys from the Red Owl (read Indian Wisdom) supermarket. He asks for the blessing of the Catholic Church for his traditional medicine, but he is refused by both the priest and the nun; his effort at religious syncretism here doesn't work. But Lipsha performs the blessing himself, an act that seems natural to him. The nun has advised him to "just be yourself" (248), advice which unwittingly reflects the same attitude that Trungpa explains is necessary in order to tap into primordial wisdom: One of the keys points . . . is realizing that your own wisdom as a human being is not separate from the power of things as they are. They are both reflections of the unconditioned wisdom of the cosmic mirror. Therefore there is no f~mdamentalseparation or duality between you and your world. When you experience those two things together, as one, so to speak, then you have access to tremendous vision and power in the world-you find that they are inherently connected to your own vision, your own being. (103) And Lipsha's recipe works. Even though it doesn't come about the way Lipsha has planned, the turkey hearts actually do ensure Nector's physical fidelity to Marie and at the same time allow him to love both Marie and Lulu. After Nector chokes on the turkey heart and dies, he comes back as a spirit to visit both Marie and Lulu. Interestingly, the two women, former rivals for Nector, become friends as they could have done years earlier if Nector had married them both. Lydia A. Schultz reports that polygamy is acceptable in the old Chippewa culture; she writes, "Because Western religions and dominant culture demand monogamy, these women have been forced into adversarial roles. The friendship that develops after Nector's death allows us to see

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

151

what might have happened if Nector had been able to marry both women, as Ojibwe culture condoned" (519). As Marie expresses it to Lulu, "There's a pattern of three lines in the wood" (297), one each for herself, Nector, and Lulu. Marie has, in Lulu's words, "help[ed] me get my vision" and becomes the mother figure that Lulu has longed for all her adult life (296). Together these women are so powerful that they are the ones who actually instigate the tomahawk factory rebellion. That Lipsha is a natural leader of his community is evident in the chaotic scene in the factory where the people make cheap plastic souvenirs to sell to tourists. "The Tomahawk Factory" is Lyman's story, and Lyman has obtained government money to build the factory. Old family disputes arise among the workers, and one significant incident occurs between Marie and Lulu, both powerful and influential women. Marie yells "her own private war cry, a wimligo yell that at once paralyzed and mobilized every worker on the line" (Love ~Werlicine318). As the factory comes to a halt and all the workers watch and wait, Lyman reports: "An eerie slow-motion minute of speculation lazed over the group, a minute in which I stepped forward and put up my arms, vainly, as a person does before an avalanche, and then I stopped too, and for some reason, perhaps because he was the hinge of bloods, along with everyone in the room I looked at Lipsha Morrissey" (318). As Lipsha looks around and considers the options, Lyman says, "My stomach clenched. Then Lipsha assumed a judge's solemnity and brought the fake tomahawk down on the table with the crack of a sentencing gavel" (319).Lipsha has made the decision for his people, and they accept it. As Lyman watches while the people "methodically demolished, scattered, smashed to bits, and carried off what was left of the factory, walking around me as if I were just another expensive and obsolete government-inspired mechanism, there was a kind of organized joy to it that I would recognize only many drinks later as the factory running backward" (319-20). The image of the factory running backward is an image of the people recovering their history and their traditions. They destroy the fake tomahawks and imitation rocks and take a step toward regaining their collective dignity. It is Lipsha who has brought about this change; the people recognize him as a natural leader. Lipsha, in his search, on his quest, leaves home and joins the army. He has his vision as he waits among alcoholic veterans to be inducted, and his vision comes out of another ordinary scene: "Ira's favorite brand," said my friend, gazing tenderly at the empty bottle. "What the hell." As he walked away he threw it over his shoulder, and it hit me smack between the eyes. Now as you know, as I have told you, I am sometimes blessed with the talent to touch the sick and heal their individual problems without even knowing what they are. I have some powers which, now that I think of it, was likely come down from Old Man Pillager. And

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

then there is the newfound fact of insight I inherited from Lulu, as well as the familiar teachings of Grandma Kashpaw on visioning what comes to pass within a lump of tinfoil. It was all these connecting threads of power, you see, that gave me the flash of vision when I was knocked in the skull by Ira's favorite brand. (Love Medicine 341) As Lipsha comes of age, gains strength and wisdom, Barry and Prescott predict that the outward appearance of his life will n o t change; they write that "he will probably go back to his sweeping a n d cleaning, unlike t h e traditional culture hero, whose manly power manifests itself i n his honored status" (559). We know that h e does n o t join t h e army, but h e does become a warrior. His father, Gerry, tells him that h e doesn't have to run away a n d hide from t h e army because his Nanapush heart murmur will make him unfit for duty. Then when h e crosses t h e border i n June's car, after his father has acknowledged him as son, Lipsha undergoes a symbolic rebirth and becomes a warrior. As Trungpa puts it, Lipsha has synchronized his body and his mind, and h e offers a further explanation of Lipsha's sense of rebirth: Because you have synchronized your body so beautifully, so immaculately, therefore you provoke tremendous wakefulness, tremendous newness in your state of mind. You actually experience being able to connect yourself to the inconceivable vision and wisdom of the cosmic mirror on the spot. . . . [Tlhis experience of nowness can join together the vastness of primordial wisdom with both the wisdom of past traditions and the realities of contemporary life. . . . [Ylou begin to see how the warrior's world of sacredness can be created altogether. (114-15) Trungpa also offers a definition of t h e "cosmic mirror"; h e writes, "In order to rediscover n o w n e ~ syou , ~ have to look back, back to where you came from, back to t h e original state. . . . It is looking back into your own mind, before history began, before thinking began, before thought ever occurred. When you are i n contact with this original ground, then you are never confused by t h e illusions of past a n d future. You are able to rest continuously in nowness" (100). Lipsha looks back as h e stops o n t h e bridge i n June's car; h e thinks, "I'd heard that this river was the last of a n ancient ocean, miles deep, that once had covered the Dakotas a n d solved all our problems. It was easy to still imagine us beneath them vast unreasonable waves, but the truth is we live o n dry land. I got inside. The morning was clear. A good road led o n . So 4. Trungpa's explanation of "nowness": "This original state of being can be likened to a primordial, or cosmic mirror. By primordial we mean unconditioned, not caused by any circumstances . . . this unconditioned state is likened to a primordial mirror because, like a mirror, it is willing to reflect anything, from the gross level up to the refined level, and it still remains as it is. The basic frame of reference of the cosmic mirror is quite vast, and it is free from any bias: kill or cure, hope or fear" (100).

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

153

there was nothing to do but cross the water, and bring her home" (Love Medicine 367). This is where Lipsha connects the primordial wisdom, that is available to all humans, with past traditions and the realities of contemporary life. As he crosses the border, Lipsha enters into the fullness of his maturity as a strong, powerful, wise leader who is in touch with the sacred and the spiritual context of his community's traditional culture. Here is where Lipsha discovers magic; Trungpa explains: We always have a choice: we can limit our perception so that we close off vastness, or we can allow vastness to touch us. When we draw down the power and depth of vastness into a single perception, then we are discovering and invoking magic. By magic we do not mean unnatural power over the phenomenal world, but rather the discovery of innate or primordial wisdom in the world as it is. The wisdom we are discovering is wisdom without beginning, something naturally wise, the wisdom of the cosmic mirror. . . . It is the self-existingwisdom and power of the cosmic mirror that are reflected both in us and in our world of perception. . . . That is discovering magic. (103) While Lipsha seems to have accidentally or intuitively discovered the magic of a spiritual view of the world, Silko's Tayo must deliberately and methodically search for it. Lipsha starts out as a naive youngster and grows into adulthood during his quest, but Silko's protagonist, Tayo, is an adult at the beginning of Ceremony, a half-breed man who belongs neither to the white culture nor to the Laguna culture. A returning veteran of World War 11, he suffers from battle fatigue, as it was called at the time. And Tayo already knows that he has power: he has cursed the rain in the jungle, and his curse has caused a drought at home. But Tayo doesn't know how to use his power properly: he has been unable to save either Rocky in the jungle or Uncle Josiah at home. When the white man's hospital doesn't help Tayo, his old Grandma sends for a medicine man; when the medicine man cannot help him, Tayo is asked to leave the village. He knows now that he himself must seek a cure. Like Erdrich's Eli and Nector, King and Lipsha, and Lyman and Lipsha, Silko pairs two "brothers" who have opposing views of the dominant culture and the traditional culture. Because Tayo is the offspring of an unknown white man and a Laguna woman-her sister-Tayo's Auntie raises him with his cousin, Rocky, but won't allow the boys to refer to themselves as brothers. Even though Auntie provides for his physical needs, she treats Tayo the same way that the dominant culture treats the Laguna people: "She wanted him close enough to feel excluded, to be aware of the distance between them" (Silko 67). Auntie puts all her energy and all her hopes into Rocky. Rocky is destined to be "the one to leave home, go to college or join the Army" ( 7 2 ) . Rocky "was an A-student and all-state in football and track. He had to win; he said he was always going to win. So he listened to his teach-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

154

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

ers, and he listened to his coaches. They were proud of him. They told him, 'Nothing can stop you now except one thing: don't let the people at home hold you back"' (51). With Auntie's blessing Rocky attempts to assimilate into the white culture and deliberately turns his back on the old traditions. As Josiah and Robert laugh about the advice from a book about how to raise cattle, Rocky speaks to them impudently. Rocky believes in the books and Western science that they find humorous: "Those books are written by scientists. They know everything there is to know about beef cattle. That's the trouble with the way the people around here have always done things-they never knew what they were doing." He went back to reading his book. He did not hesitate to speak like that, to his father and his uncle, because the subject was books and scientific knowledge-those things that Rocky had learned to believe in. (76) Rocky is embarrassed by the ritual of the deer that is conducted after a successf~ildeer hunt, even though all the Laguna, "even the Catholics who went to mass every Sunday" (52), follow this ancient ritual to offer respect for and thanks to the deer. But Auntie, who wants Rocky to succeed in the world, "believed this way was his only chance" (51). When Rocky goes into the army, Tayo goes with him and promises to bring him back safely. But Tayo is unable to save Rocky, so he blames himself; he says, "'It was the one thing I could have done. For all of them, for all those years they kept me . . . for everything that had happened because of me . . ."' (124). And Tayo knows that Auntie would have chosen for Tayo to die in the war and for Rocky to return home. Carol Mitchell writes that "Interspersed through the story of Tayo are the traditional and contemporary myths, legends, and chants" (29). The old men of the village have performed the traditional Scalp Ceremony for all the returning veterans, but it hasn't done them any good. The veterans stay "drunk all the time. . . [because] liquor was medicine for the anger that made them hurt, for the pain of the loss, medicine for tight bellies and choked-up throats" (Silko 40). They gather and drink together, spending their disability checks at the bar, and tell war stories about receiving respect while in uniform, about having all "the cold beer and the blond cunt" they wanted (42), about "damn[ing] those yellow Jap bastards" (43). These stories are "part of the ritual" that they perform together (43), and these stories become part of the tradition. They change the tradition by becoming integrated with it. The traditional stories that are interspersed throughout the narrative are presented visually, on the page, as poems. After the war veterans have told their stories a few times, Silko presents their story in the same poetic format (57-59), adds them to the repertory, thereby changing the store of traditional tales. The plot of the novel is Tayo's quest for wholeness, his search to learn to heal the rupture between his mixed-blood traditions. When medicine men

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

155

from neither culture can help h i m , Tayo's old Grandma sends h i m t o an atypical medicine man, Betonie. Betonie himself is a half-breed; Tayo notices right away that h e has green eyes like Tayo. Possibly because he h a s multiple perspectives o n life, Betonie h a s been able t o synthesize traditions t o some extent. He h a s created a space w i t h an "alternative value system" (Bird 6). Michael Hobbs writes that "People are afraid o f Betonie because, i n order to create his o w n 'internally persuasive discourse,' h e has altered t h e rituals o f the ceremony. But according t o Betonie, such alteration is necessary i n order t o keep t h e ceremony alive" (306). Betonie tells Tayo, "The people nowadays have an idea about the ceremonies. They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done, maybe because one slip-up or mistake and the whole ceremony must be stopped and the sand painting destroyed. That much is true. They think that i f a singer tampers with any part o f the ritual, great harm can be done, great power unleashed." He was quiet for a while, looking up at the sky through the smoke hole. "That much can be true also. But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, i f only in the aging o f the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking o f the skin around the eagle's claw, i f only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the ceremonies have always been changing." (Silko 126) But t h e times are different now, and greater changes are necessary. Betonie explains, "'At one time, the ceremonies as t h e y had been performed were enough for t h e way the world was then. But after the white people came, elements i n this world began t o shift; and it became necessary t o create new ceremonies. I have made changes i n the rituals. The people mistrust this greatly, but only this growth keeps the ceremonies strong"' (126). Tayo is also mistrustful w h e n h e looks around the hogan: The old man smiled. His teeth were big and white. "Take it easy," he said, "don't try to see everything all at once." He laughed. "We've been gathering these things for a long time-hundreds o f years. She was doing it before I was born, and he was working before she came. And on and on back down in time." He stopped, smiling. "Talking like this is just as bad, isn't it? Too big to swallow all at once." (120) Betonie's hogan is built into the earth and looks down o n t h e town. And, like Marie's apple tree, Betonie and his place are older than t h e white man's settlement: "This Betonie didn't talk the way Tayo expected a medicine m a n t o talk. He didn't act like a medicine m a n at all. . . . 'But see, this hogan was here first. Built long before the white people ever came. It is that t o w n down there which is out o f place. Not this old medicine man"' (Silko 118). T h e placement o f t h e hogan h a s been carefully and deliberately thought out: Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

156

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

"The old man pointed to the back of the circular room. 'The west side is built into the hill in the old-style way. Sand and dirt for a roof; just about halfway underground. You can feel it, can't you?"' (119). Betonie speaks "good English" and explains that his grandmother (117), "a remarkable Mexican with green eyes" (119), has made sure that Betonie is educated, sending him away to California to study, because, she said, "'It [witchery] is carried on in all languages now, so you have to know English too"' (122). In the hogan, Betonie has all the traditional trappings of a medicine man and much more; he has telephone books from all the cities he has visited, calendars from many years past, bundles of newspapers, and other items representative of the contemporary world. Tayo begins "to feel another dimension to the old man's room. . . . He wanted to dismiss all of it as an old man's rubbish, debris that had fallen out of the years, but the boxes and trunks, the bundles and stacks were plainly part of the pattern: they followed the concentric shadows of the room" (120). Betonie explains that he has had to keep up with the times: "'In the old days it was simple. A medicine person could get by without all these things. But nowadays . . .' He let his voice trail off and nodded to let Tayo complete the thought for him" (121). When Tayo recognizes the pictures from two of Betonie's calendars as the same ones Uncle Josiah had brought home long ago, they have a common reference point: "'That gives me some place to start,' old Betonie said. . . . 'All these things have stories alive in them"' (121). As Betonie notices Tayo's discomfort, he warns him away: "'If you don't trust me, you better get going before dark. You can't be too careful these days,' Betonie said. . . . 'Anyway, I couldn't help anyone who was afraid of me"' (123). But Tayo is "tired of fighting" and thinks that "If there was no one left to trust, then he had no more reason to live" (122). And, because nothing else has helped, Betonie's altered rituals seem to be Tayo's last hope. So Tayo goes on a quest to find the four things in Betonie's vision: a star pattern, a woman, a mountain, and Uncle Josiah's stolen spotted cattle. Uncle Josiah's dream of cross-breeding cattle represents a bridging of the gap between cultures, a situation in which half-breeds like Tayo and Betonie would be valued. Because the "major trope of Native American literature . . . is the interconnectedness of all things" (Bird 4), the hybrid cattle and the mixed-blood characters would already be valued if it weren't for the witchery. But it is because of the witchery, Night Swan says, that people fear mixedbloods: "'Indians or Mexicans or whites-most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing.' She laughed softly. 'They are fools. They blame us, the ones who look different. That way they don't have to think about what has happened inside themselves"' (Silko 100). Silko obviously has another opinion of mixed-race people. Susan Perez Castillo writes that both Silko and Erdrich, "Rather than depicting . . . gender and ethnicity as airtight compartments or reified concepts," instead "portray them as vital, mutable discursive constructs," and provide "interesting alternatives to the old bina-

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

157

ry divisions o f Aristotelian patriarchal discourse, o f poweripowerlessness, selflother, and masculine feminine" (236). Other situations i n Silko's novel that indicate t h e unity or sameness o f ethnicities involve the Japanese and the Native Americans. It is Uncle Josiah's face that Tayo sees i n the Japanese soldiers w h o are shot down i n t h e war, and it is Rocky's face that Tayo sees i n t h e face o f t h e Japanese b o y after he has collapsed o n the sidewalk. Tayo "doesn't hate t h e Japanese, not even t h e Japanese soldiers w h o were grim-faced watching Tayo and t h e corporal stumble w i t h t h e stretcher. . . . T h e tall one looked like a Navajo" (Silko 43). As Tayo talks to Betonie, h e says, "'My Uncle Josiah was there that day. . . . I feel like h e was there w i t h those Japanese soldiers w h o died. . . . He loved m e , and I didn't do anything t o save him"' (124). In a dream, Tayo sees the Scalp Ceremony used t o "lay t o rest the Japanese souls i n t h e green humid jungles" (169), the same ceremony used b y t h e old m e n o f the village t o aid t h e Laguna veterans. Ts'eh, t h e woman w i t h the cloud blanket, t h e woman o f Betonie's vision, has "eyes [that] slanted up" (177). W h e n Tayo leaves t h e hospital and collapses o n the sidewalk, some Japanese w o m e n with small children try t o help h i m : "They spoke t o h i m i n English, and w h e n h e did not answer, there was a discussion and h e heard t h e Japanese words vividly. He wasn't sure where h e was any more, maybe back i n t h e jungles again" (17).But after they leave, "He could still see the face o f t h e little boy, looking back at h i m , smiling, and h e tried t o vomit that image from his head because it was Rocky's smiling face from a long time before,w h e n t h e y were little kids together" (18).Tayo sees sameness, a commonality, across racial, ethnic, and cultural boundaries, the sameness that Erdrich's Henry, Jr. has seen i n b o t h the mixed-blood Albertine and the Vietnamese woman. Uncle Josiah's cattle will be like the mixed-bloods, possessing the positive traits o f b o t h genetic strains; h e sees that t h e future will need that kind o f boundary-crossing; h e says, "'See, I'm not going t o make the mistake other guys made, buying those Hereford, white-face cattle. I f it's going t o be a drought these next few years, t h e n we need some special breed o f cattle"' (Silko 75). The white man's cattle are meaty, but stupid; t h e Mexican cattle are stringy, but smart: "Herefords would not look for water. . . . I f nobody came [to water t h e m ] t h e n they died there, still waiting. But these Mexican cattle were different," i n that they are self-reliant (79). At first, t h e merits o f Josiah's plan are not apparent: It was difficult to see how these calves would grow according to Josiah's theories. They were the same color as their mothers and they had the same wild eyes. But Robert had to admit that the calves were stocky through the shoulder and hip, showing at least some trace o f the fine registered Hereford bull that Ulibarri had insisted and sworn was their sire. They still ran like antelope in the big corral, bawling to escape the men with ropes. But Josiah said they would grow up heavy and covered with meat like Herefords, but tough too, like the

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Mexican cows, able to withstand hard winters and many dry years. That was his plan. (80) In addition to using the spotted cattle as a n analogy to humans, Silko shows t h e interconnectedness of all humans through the threat of witchery: There was no end to it [witchery]; it knew n o boundaries; and he [Tayo] had arrived at the point of convergence where the fate of all living things, and even the earth, had been laid. From the jungles of his dreaming he recognized why the Japanese voices had merged with Laguna voices, with Josiah's voice and Rocky's voice; the lines of cultures and worlds were drawn in flat dark lines on fine light sand, converging in the middle of witchery's final ceremonial sand painting. From that time on, human beings were one clan again, united by the fate the destroyers planned for all of them, for all living things; united by a circle of death that devoured people in cities twelves thousand miles away, victims who had never known these mesas, who had never seen the delicate colors of the rocks which boiled up their slaughter. (246) The "rocks which boiled u p their slaughter" is a reference to t h e mining of uranium and plutonium with which to make t h e bombs to kill people. Not only are all the people t h e same, but t h e land is intimately connected to t h e people, and, when t h e land is abused, the people are also abused. According to Paula Gunn Allen, "We are the land. To the best of m y understanding, that is t h e fundamental idea of Native American life: the land a n d t h e People are the same. . . . Tayo's illness is a result of separation from t h e ancient unity of person with land, a n d his healing is a result of his recognition of this oneness" (7). Silko demonstrates i n several situations the strong connection Tayo has with the earth a n d t h e blurring of boundaries that h e begins to see. While sitting o n t h e porch steps at Lalo's, where Josiah h a d visited his green-eyed woman, Tayo picked up a fragment of fallen plaster and drew dusty white stripes across the backs of his hands, the way ceremonial dancers sometimes did, except they used white clay, and not old plaster. It was soothing to rub the dust over his hands; he rubbed it caref~dlyacross his light brown skin, the stark white gypsum dust making a spotted pattern, and then he knew why it was done by the dancers: it connected them to the earth. (Silko 104) As Ts'eh cries over t h e witchery's plan to end the story their way, Tayo "wanted to kneel down and put his arms around her and tell her n o t to cry, but his connection with t h e ground was solid" (231). During Betonie's ceremony for Tayo, Tayo starts to see other samenesses; h e "remembered t h e black of t h e sand paintings o n the floor of t h e hogan; the hills a n d mountains were t h e Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

159

mountains and hills they had painted i n sand. He took a deep breath o f cold mountain air: there were n o boundaries; t h e world below and the sand paintings inside became the same that night" (145). W h e n Tayo encounters t h e magical hunter, other boundaries fade: "All h e could see as h e walked d o w n the trail was snow, blurring t h e boundaries between the earth and t h e sky" (207). Tayo's strong connection with the earth and his recognition o f t h e connection between earth and heaven happen as h e begins t o recognize h i m self as a whole person w h o is able t o see t h e connections: "It was a world alive, always changing and moving; and i f you knew where t o look, you could see it, sometimes almost imperceptible, like t h e motion o f t h e stars across the sky" (95). As h e begins t o heal, the unity o f all things becomes more apparent t o Tayo. And, since t h e land is the same as the people, the people have a great responsibility t o care for the land. Lee Schweninger writes that Tayo's search represents his "attempt t o rediscover through his ancestors his responsibility toward the natural environment" (51). Schweninger sees that "Silko uses nature . . . t o relate the very essence o f h u m a n existence" (52). Allen agrees; she writes that "The fragility o f the world is a function o f its nature as thought. Land and h u m a n b o t h participate i n the same kind o f being, for b o t h are thoughts i n t h e mind o f Grandmother Spider. Tayo's illness is a function o f disordered thinking. It causes h i m t o see reality i n a way that is damaging t o him" (11). Tayo's recognition o f his responsibility t o the world begins w i t h t h e words o f old Ku'oosh. Old Grandma has asked the medicine m a n Ku'oosh t o help Tayo; h e begins b y saying, "'But you know, grandson, this world is fragile"' (Silko 35); t h e n h e explains w h y h e must say each word carefully and responsibly, just so. Tayo understands: "The old man only made h i m certain o f something h e had feared all along, something i n t h e old stories. It took only one person t o tear away t h e delicate strands o f the web, spilling the rays o f sun into the sand, and t h e fragile world would be injured" (38). Tayo remembers that his "old Grandma always used t o say, 'Back i n time i m m e morial, things were different, t h e animals could talk t o h u m a n beings and m a n y magical things still happened"' (94-95). But after the logging companies and t h e sport hunters take over, Silko writes, "it was t h e n t h e Laguna people understood that t h e land had been taken, because t h e y couldn't stop these white people from coming t o destroy the animals and t h e land. It was t h e n too that the holy m e n at Laguna and Acoma warned t h e people that t h e balance o f the world had been disturbed and the people could expect droughts and harder days t o come" (186). After Tayo's encounter at t h e cut fence with the t w o white m e n , Tayo lay there and hated them. Not for what they wanted to do with him, but for what they did t o the earth with their machines, and to the animals with their packs o f dogs and their guns. It happened again and again, and the people had to watch, unable to save or t o protect

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

any of the things that were so important to them. . . . [Tayo fears that] the earth and the animals might not know; they might not understand that he was not one of them; he was not one of the destroyers. (203) The earth and the animals might not recognize him because humans and animals n o longer communicate as they had in the old days. And the disturbance of the world has caused drought: it is unnatural for the land at Laguna to be so dry. Erdrich shows another unnatural situation in Love ~Wedicineas nature seems to reflect the unnatural occupation of the people. As Lyman has brought the white culture to the reservation through the souvenir factory and put all the people to work on the assembly line, he notices that the natural world seems strange: [Tlhere was conf~~sion. Spring blew hot, then clamped down cold again. Birch trees put out their leaves in a sudden warm spell and froze dead. Oak held in their buds and stayed bare till June. Cows didn't calve right, and horses and dogs grew thicker fur instead of shedding. People, too, were affected. . . . I felt like the weather: uncertain, a little wild. (314- 15) The disturbance of the balance of the world shows here, too. But digging in the earth for materials to manufacture the atom bomb, testing the bomb on both the earth and the people, and finally destroying part of the world with the bomb is the most perverted use and abuse of the land and the people that the white culture, through witchery, has devised. Silko writes that the white people have been created by American Indians. But according to Carol Mitchell, Silko's story about the white race's creation as the result of a contest among Indian witches is not exactly traditional: "This story seems to be almost entirely a creation of Silko rather than a traditional story, although according to Laguna tradition I'tcts'ity'i is the mother of the white people while A7au'ts'ity'i is the mother of the Indian people, and I'tcts'ity'i is half witch. So there does seem to be a traditional connection between a witch and the creation of the white people" (29-30). Referring to his mixed-blood grandmother, Betonie tells Tayo, "She taught me this above all else: things which don't shift and grow are dead things. They are things the witchery people want. Witchery works to scare people, to make them fear growth. But it has always been necessary, and more than ever now, it is. Otherwise we won't make it. We won't survive. That's what the witchery is counting on; that we will cling to the ceremonies the way they were, and then their power will triumph, and the people will be no more." (Silko 126)

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

161

In addition to creating a story that elaborates on the traditional connection between white people and witchery, in addition to adding the veterans' story to the Laguna's traditional "canon," Silko has retold another traditional Laguna story in this novel. According to Mitchell, Tayo's interaction with Ts'eh "is the contemporary reenactment of the old myth" of "Yellow Woman . . . leader of the Corn Maidens and thus associated with fertility, growth, and summer" (33). With her Tayo learns about plants and herbs, discovers the unconditional love that he has been lacking all his life, and, most important, has a mystical sexual union. During this union, Tayo not only gains self-confidence, but he also dreams about the hybrid cattle scattering like seeds to grow and multiply. At the beginning of Silko's novel, Tayo has lost his connection to heaven and earth, and it is the new, altered ceremonies of Betonie, which set new traditions beside the old, that allow Tayo to regain his connection and triumph over witchery in the end. And by challenging the reader to expand his or her mind and see the world from this new and different perspective, Silko not only revamps the role of the reader, but she also draws the reader into the ceremony and makes the reader a part of the pattern. The novel is an interaction between writer and reader: "The novel itself can and should be viewed as a part of the changing rituals in which the novelist has become the healer or shaman and the readers are the participants in the new ceremony" (Mitchell 27). Gloria Bird writes that Silko's "challenge [to] the reader to view reality through the perceptions of the native Other" is her "strategy for decentering the story" (3). Silko, like Betonie, is not only changing the rituals, but also making the reader part of the ritual, enabling the reader, like Tayo, to "learn how to create an end to his story" (Hobbs 306). Bird writes that creating a different end to the story is "not just envisioning, but creating another future. A space where differences do not have to be a plague" (7). Creating a different ending makes a new story, and Paula Gunn Allen writes that "What Tayo and the People need is a story that takes the entire situation into account, that blesses life and integrity. Such a story is provided by the breed medicine man, Betonie. Betonie makes it possible for Tayo to imagine and experience himself out of a story of fragmentation and despair, and into a story of unification and strength and laughter and belief" (11). And Silko makes it possible for the reader to imagine, and therefore to bring about, the same thing. We can relate this imagination to the expansion of mind that Trungpa discusses. He writes, "When you experience that wisdom [of the cosmic mirror], then you are contacting the . . . source of wisdom. . . . It is the primordial realm that is always available to human beings if they relax and expand their minds" (174). Returning to the heaven, earth, and man principles, we can universalize and apply them to the contemporary world. Trungpa writes,

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

If we apply the perspective of heaven, earth, and man to the situation in the world today, we begin to see that there is a connection between the social and the natural, or environmental, problems that we are facing. When human beings lose their connection to nature, to heaven and earth, then they do not know how to nurture their environment or how to rule their world-which is saying the same thing. Human beings destroy their ecology at the same time that they destroy one another. (130, 132) The half-breed medicine m a n explains that the witchery permeates t h e whole world: "'There are n o limits to this thing,' Betonie said. 'When it was set loose, it ranged everywhere"' (132). Ts'eh tells Tayo how t h e witchery works: "'The destroyers: they work to see how much can be lost, how much can be forgotten. They destroy the feeling people have for each other"' (229). Examples of t h e destruction of feeling people have for each other can be seen i n Auntie's mistreatment of Tayo and Emo's lack of connection with any other person-not t h e Japanese soldiers, not Harley. W h e n humans cannot see t h e common humanity that they share with others, they become tools for t h e destroyers. At first, Tayo fears the witchery: "He knew what they did with strands of hair they found; h e knew what they did with bits of fingernail a n d toenails they found. . . . They didn't want him around. They blamed him. And now they had sent h i m here, a n d this would be t h e e n d of him" (122). As Tayo doubts t h e power of the ceremonies, Betonie explains that it is t h e power of Native American rituals that has created t h e situation: "They want us to believe all evil resides with white people. Then we will look no further to see what is really happening. They want us to separate ourselves from white people, to be ignorant and helpless as we watch our own destruction. But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates; and I tell you, we can deal with white people, with their machines and their beliefs. We can because we invented white people; it was Indian witchery that made white people in the first place." (132) It is through words-stories-that the witchery has set the people against each other. By using the whites as a tool, another lie has been spread: He knew then he had learned the lie by heart-the lie which they had wanted him to learn: only brown-skinned people were thieves; white people didn't steal, because they always had the money to buy whatever they wanted. . . . The liars had fooled everyone, white people and Indians alike; as long as people believed the lies, they would never be able to see what had been done to them or what they were doing to each other. (191)

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Emrich and Silko: Joining Heaven and Earth

...

1 63

But it is n o t just t h e Native Americans w h o believe t h e lie; witchery has made the white people believe it, too: If the white people never looked beyond the lie, to see that theirs was a nation built on stolen land, then they would never be able to understand how they had been used by the witchery; they would never know that they were still being manipulated by those who knew how to stir the ingredients together: white thievery and injustice boiling up the anger and hatred that would finally destroy the world: the starving against the fat, the colored against the white. (191) Ts'eh challenges Tayo to stop the witchery in this exchange: "'Old Betonie said there was some way to stop-' 'It all depends,' she said. 'How far are you willing to go?"' (230). And she warns Tayo about t h e fate that the destroyers have i n mind for him: "The end of the story. They want to change it. They want it to end here, the way all their stories end, encircling slowly to choke the life away. . . . They have their stories about us-Indian people who are only marking time and waiting for the end. And they would end this story right here, with you fighting to your death alone in these hills." (231-32) As Tayo is hunted by Emo a n d those Emo has called, h e again has doubts and almost succumbs to t h e destroyers. He almost reacts i n t h e expected manner instead of imagining a different way to act: "It was difficult then to call u p the feeling the stories had, the feeling of Ts'eh and old Betonie. It was easier to feel and to believe t h e rumors" (242). But Tayo has the power to change the story by being strong enough and brave enough to react in a different way. He is able to see beyond the dark ritual i n the mountains and change t h e world by changing t h e way h e responds to it: It had been a close call. The witchery had almost ended the story according to its plan; Tayo had almost jammed the screwdriver into Emo's skull the way the witchery had wanted, savoring the yielding bone and membrane as the steel ruptured the brain. Their deadly ritual for the autumn solstice would have been completed by him. He would have been another victim. . . . The white people would shake their heads. . . . At home the people would blame liquor, the Army, and the war, but the blame on the whites would never match the vehemence the people would keep in their own bellies, reserving the greatest bitterness and blame for themselves, for one of themselves they could not save. (253)

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

164

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Here Silko suggests that Native Americans are filled with a similar self-hatred that we have found in African American works. But, rather than being caught up in anger and hatred against himself, Tayo is able to see through the lies and change his behavior; he is able to see a greater picture, have a grander vision, than merely placing blame. As Tayo rests with his head against the earth and his vision reaching up to the stars, he joins heaven and earth through himself, makes a connection with primordial wisdom, and changes the world. We have seen that Erdrich shows that the world can be changed by humans who are able to contact the spiritual power of the universe; Silko not only explains how it is done, but, by drawing the reader into the ceremony that is her novel, Silko teaches the reader, as Betonie has taught Tayo, how to change the world by changing one's reactions. Trungpa assures us that it is possible: "The world is filled with power and wisdom, which we can have, so to speak. In some sense we have them already. . . . [W]e have possibilities of experiencing the sacred world, a world which has self-existing richness and brilliance-and beyond that, possibilities of natural hierarchy, natural order" (133). But, according to Silko, "The only thing is: it has never been easy" (254). Perhaps that is the reason that she has performed her ceremony-to make it easier for others to see.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

CHAPTER X

Conclusion: Slicing the Pie

B

OTH ERDRKHA\D SILI
Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

166

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

Morrison and Walker, too, discuss the reinvention of a protagonist and what it requires. Unfortunately, Morrison's protagonist does not have the familial or community support to find a voice, and Morrison indicts the reader as well for standing by and taking no action, including the reader in her community. While Morrison's characters have neither creative outlets nor supportive families or communities, it is Celie's access to writing that allows her to become a speaking subject in Walker's novel. In addition, she has examples of strong women who show her the way to resist the patriarchy. According to Linda Selzer, " T h e Color Purple has a definitely feminist outlook . . . [and] the novel suggests that progress in race relations is possible." Like the Irish Renaissance writers and like Achebe, both Kingston and Tan need an audience larger than their Chinese American community because they speak to both the dominant and the marginalized cultures. Kingston's Maxine has learned to use words as weapons and as inspiration: by merging her identity with that of the woman warrior, she attacks with words; by merging her identity with the captured Chinese poetess, she blurs boundaries and inspires her readers. Tan tells the stories of the traditional Chinese women, and their American-born daughters come to understand their mothers' stories from the old culture. Thus she bridges two cultures and two generations, providing a voice for the greater community of Asian American women; Maxine Hong Kingston creates a culture for her protagonist that allows her to speak for those who stand on the edges of more than one culture and belong fully to neither. These writers have been able to reconcile two cultures by seeking the past and making sense of it in regard to their present-day lives as part of the American culture. They provide the viewpoint of women who are not merely oppressed by the patriarchy, but who are also oppressed by the hegemony by virtue of their being part of a cultural and racial minority group. These women writers address and challenge all these forms of oppression in their writing. By recovering and revising traditions, resisting oppressions, and rewriting their history, these writers are able to voice a community of strong women who can be emulated, and they are able to create a cultural space for themselves and other women to speak from. Not only have women of all colors provided a communal model, but they have also required the reader to broaden his or her knowledge about new ways of viewing the world. This is apparent in the texts by women that we have considered. They have revealed the double oppression that they have lived with intimately; they have drawn on folk traditions to rewrite their own history. They have provided the reader both an invitation and a challenge to understand something that is perhaps outside the reader's experience. They provide a multiplicity of perspectives, a multiplicity of voices that belie the myth of American individualism. As they explore, they seek to "create literary forms that are more harmonious with their cultural experience" (TuSmith 26). In addition, the multiple perspectives in the literature of

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conclusion: Slicing the Pie

167

contemporary American minority women and that literature's challenge to the reader seem to lead to a new model of multiculturalism. Native American women, Latina women, African American women, and Asian American women are recovering their traditions, speaking out against oppression, and rewriting their own histories. They are crossing boundaries and synthesizing cultures. They speak from their own experience as members of a minority ethnic group and as women within that group. Judging from the commercial success of their books, they also speak to the reality of other American women. These authors invent hybrid literary genres, hybrid language, and hybrid traditions. They follow the examples of Yeats, who used the oppressors' language as ammunition against them, of Joyce, who showed the oppressed Irish people to themselves and to the world, and of Conrad and Achebe, both of whom used the power of the word to provide a space from which to speak to the world. But these contemporary American minority women writers go farther than the earlier male writers; they suggest that there is a way to transform the world through establishing an inclusive community of those with shared experiences. Along these lines, it would be interesting to study similar works of other authors who represent different cultures on a worldwide basis. For example, writers from India, South America, and the Caribbean may express a viewpoint similar to that of the authors examined here. In addition, other "canonical" writers may (or may not) "fit" into the patterns described here. D. H. Lawrence and Sherwood Anderson, for instance, might be paired with James Joyce, at least in their depictions of the social stagnation of the communities in their stories. Jean Toomer, in Cane, used a hybrid literary form which aligns him with the contemporary authors in this study; and Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place may present a pattern similar to that found in the works discussed here. THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY

Yeats brought about the formation of a collective identity among the Irish people, and Joyce demonstrated the lack of individual identity among the Irish. Conrad manufactured an English gentleman's identity for himself, and Achebe helped his Igbo culture present an identity to the world, albeit as a hybrid between Igbo and Christian values. Kingston's Maxine and Tan's daughters are examples of the difficulty of bridging two cultures in forming an individual identity. Morrison's Pecola never forms an identity, but Walker's Celie does, despite the deprivations and hardships she endures. Castillo's characters are caught between the cultures of the United States and Mexico, belonging fully to neither, or as she quotes Porfiro Diaz, Dictator of Mexico during the Mexican Civil War: "So far from God-so near the United States" (So Far From God 15). Cisneros's Esperanza must leave home to find her true identity. Erdrich presents some characters, especially June and Gordie, whose identities have become fragmented between cultures but at

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

168

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

least one, Lipsha, who finds his identity in the old ways. Silko's Tayo, too, must find his identity by successfully integrating the old culture with the new. Many contemporary scholars have written about the formation of identity, both communal and individual. There is also much discussion about the formation of such concepts as "race theory," "race," "ethnicity," and "nationalism." Werner Sollors writes about "ethnicity"; Seamus Deane offers a discussion of "imperialism" and "nationalism"; Kwame Appiah defines "race"; and Thomas F. Gossett traces the history of racism and race as a literary theory in America. All of these concepts seem relevant to this discussion. Sollors writes that identity construction depends a great deal on differences "among peoples, like differences among communities [because they] play a central role in our thinking about who 'we' are, in structuring our values and in determining the identities through which we live" (287). Sollors explains that "[elthnic, racial, or national identifications rest on . . . antitheses," or, to use ethnopsychoanalyst Georges Devereux's term, their "'dissociative' character" (288). On the other hand, the dominant culture seeks to represent itself as a unity. Seamus Deane, in discussing imperialism and nationalism, claims that "Culture, when it is propagated as a canonical system, always asserts its 'monogenealogy,' repressing its internal differences and hybrid origins"; Deane further claims that "Part of the postmodern/ deconstructionist project is to expose these repressions," and suggests that deconstruction is "the historical companion of decolonization" (356). Sollors continues, "The very notion of ethnic purity is a modern invention," but, he writes, "the study of literature is still overwhelmingly organized within national and ethnic boundaries" (303). He suggests that "ethnicity" is a more "neutral" and therefore more acceptable term than "race" since the "National Socialists shaped their genocidal policies" in the name of race in the 1930s and 1940s and says that a "shared interest" among the bourgeois can connect them through literature since literature plays an important role "in sustaining feelings of belonging" (289). This connection rests outside the family ties and the "direct and personal knowledge" by which the aristocracy was organized. Literature, Sollors asserts, has been important in "sustaining feelings of belonging" among those who are separated "by national and linguistic boundaries" (289), even though "nationalism . . . stresses territoriality" (289). Appiah reminds us that, even though there is no basis in biology for such "classifications as Negro, Caucasian and Mongoloid," popular belief in such categories has "profound consequences for human social life" (277). He also makes a case for the idea of "nation" as a link between "race" and "literature," a configuration which comes directly from "eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thought" (282). Appiah believes that the "existence of ethnic groups" as reflected in "American literature and literary study" is the "product of racism," and that, while "much of what is said about races" is scientifically false, it is socially true for minority groups whose "experience of life"

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conclusion: Slicing the Pie

169

and "political relations" are determined b y "racist stereotypes" (285). Like Gossett, Appiah explores t h e history o f race theory and its idea that there might be a "correlation between linguistic and political boundaries," but rejects that notion as ill-fitting, even though attempts i n that direction are still being made (282). The "modern European nationalism," h e says, conceived o f nationalities as "sharing a civilization and, more particularly, a language and literature" (282).T h e nineteenth-century influence o f the natural sciences, h e writes, caused the inevitable identification o f " t h e nation" with " a biological unit, defined b y t h e shared essence that flows from a c o m m o n descent" (282). Race and nation, then, became increasingly identified with each other. Sollors agrees that " a 'people' is held together b y a subliminal culture o f fairy tales, songs, and folk beliefs" (290),m u c h as t h e Irish came together as Yeats revived their ancient traditions. For the purpose o f literary study, "'ethnicity,"' Sollors writes, "evokes the accumulation o f cultural bits that demonstrate t h e original creativity, emotive cohesion, and temporal depth o f a particular collectivity," and literature "plays a central part i n naturalizing t h e modern process o f ethnic dissociation and m a y help t o create t h e illusion o f a group's 'natural' existence from 'time immemorial"' (290). Appiah credits J o h a n n Gottfried Herder with initially articulating t h e "idea o f a national literature i n the development o f a national culture" (283). Not only did Herder believe that language is " t h e sacred essence o f a nationality"; h e also thought that a nation's poetry is " t h e highest point o f t h e nation's language" (284).Appiah writes that t h e "emergence o f nationalism, i n the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, depended u p o n the imaginative recreation o f a c o m m o n cultural past that was, i n n o small part, crafted into a shared tradition b y literary scholars like Herder," and, w e might add, like W. B. Yeats. Appiah goes o n t o say that literary history, "like the collection o f folk culture, served t h e ends o f nation-building" (284). Sollors posits that "modernization and urbanization" weaken families but strengthen other ties i n "more abstract forms o f generalizing identifications such as ethnic and national ones" (289). W h e n cultural groups reach back into history t o reclaim their ancient traditions (as did Yeats and the Irish Literary Society), Deane writes, "It is the metropolitan world . . . from which an escape into an authentically national tradition must be made" (Deane 358). Algeria is an example o f "twentieth-century colonial nationalism" that Deane uses i n his discussion; since "Algeria had been Europeanized but could never be, nor wish t o be, European," h e asks, " i n what sense could it remain Algerian?" (360). He asks the same question that Yeats asked about Ireland's colonization i n "Leda and the Swan": could Algeria "absorb t h e experience o f imperialism and emerge t h e richer thereby, or would it suffer the double impoverishment o f neither realizing its o w n ambitions for the future nor overcoming or profiting f r o m its past?" (360). O n e might also consider these questions i n regard t o the half-breed or the mestiza. Deane asserts that "Nationalism's opposition t o imperialism

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

170

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

is . . . nothing more than a continuation of imperialism by other means. . . . It asserts its presence and identity through precisely those categories that had denied them-through race, essence, destiny, language, history-merely adapting these categories to its own purpose" (Deane 360). In much the same way, postmodernism is a continuation of modernism by other means, and minority authors speak in the language of the oppressor while forcing that language to serve their own ends. Like Ireland in relation to Britain, minority groups in America have become "integral to the imperial power and yet remain . . . a problematic element within it" (363). They speak in the voice of the oppressed, in the language of the oppressor, but with a twist, a difference-similar to Yeats's spirals of history that keep coming around, but not exactly full circle-like the "signifying" that Henry Louis Gates explains in The Siynifiiny Monkey. In similar fashion Deane writes, "Nationalism could not abolish imperialism; it could only redraft for its own purposes the double narrative that was at the heart of the imperialist enterprise-the narrative of a world civilization and that of a national civilization, one enfolding the other" (364). Like the individual in society, like the half-breed, the "story of the nation is the story of the Empire and vice-versa" (366). Or the story of the minority group is the story of America and vice-versa. A NEW MODEL

We have seen that society regularly invents concepts, such as the ideas of individual, ethnicity, nation, culture, and community. The writers examined in this study have all invented a hybrid culture, one that overlaps and bestrides boundaries, and presented it to the world in their creative writing. As each new ideology learns from the previous one, it modifies the hegemonic view for its own purposes. As each starts with the previous and goes a little further, we find more and more boundaries crossed or blurred. The postmodernism of the women writers in this study has stressed the idea of community that crosses more boundaries and leads to a multicultural view of the world. In addition, by requiring more and more interaction between the reader and the text, these writers are able to actually make a change in the world. The American literary canon must become more inclusive, look for different critical models that value more kinds of literature, from more different viewpoints, than before. The democratic ideal of America promises a voice for everyone-it is time that the canon followed this ideal. The writers considered in this study all provide good examples of literature of resistance, literature that questions and subverts the hegemony, whether it be imperialism, patriarchy, racism, or classism. Rather than swallowing up or appropriating the literature that presents the viewpoint of a member of an ethnic minority, the way the canon of English literature appropriated the resistance literature of Yeats, Joyce, and Conrad, the canon of American literature must take seriously the messages found in this literature, must acknowledge without

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conclusion: Slicing the Pie

171

taking over. I propose that we could envision these literatures fitting together like the slices of a pie-some skinny, or some fat, but all meeting at the center. Several critical models have been proposed, but the feminist ideals that promote community and endurance have come into favor, leaving behind the male-centered models of the past. The models of the self as individual that are apparent in the works of the modernists have promoted the system of white male dominance. As new models of the self have arisen, the idea of the community or tribe has become emphasized, but a community that excludes women. Feminism has provided an alternate means of viewing the world, as have literatures written from the perspective of other marginalized groups; these marginalized groups have in common a tribal, or community, perspective, that seems to have been lacking in the male-centered model of criticism but that also is inclusive of both genders. As Singh, Skerrett, and Hogan point out, In recent years, there has been a significant shift in academic discourse from models of the self built on psychological paradigms to those built on social ones. These discourses of the self-sexual, racial, historical, regional, ethnic, cultural, national, and familial-intersect in us to create our individuality and form a net of language that we share with the community. This "collective memory," like individual memory, is a function, not an entity. We "remember" not only things that have actually happened to us personally, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, we "remember" events, language, actions, attitudes, and values that are aspects of our membership in groups. What we study are the traces of memory in language and narrative and the ways individual writers challenge it: opposing to memory its dark shadow, forgetting; reconsidering its relation to history and oral tradition; erasing and revising it; preserving or recovering it. In the process, each writer reorients our sense of both cultural identity and literary form. (16-17) As we reorient our sense of cultural identity and literary form, we must find a cultural and literary model that more closely resembles the new situation. The new model could do away with the center that is occupied by one dominant culture by allowing each section to range from center to margin and would thus exhibit a more nearly equal status of each. Each culture would therefore occupy a slice of the "pie." Sara Sulieri writes that the opposition model of dominant versus marginalized is obsolete, and I agree. Given the situation just delineated, I suggest a model that looks more like a pie chart. The dominant-versus-marginalized view always places the dominant at the center of the circle, with the marginalized hanging on to the hem of the garment, so to speak. Now that these new voices and new perspectives have been granted legitimacy, a circle with pie slices would seem to befit the new relationships. In this model, each slice of the pie would stretch from the Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

172

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

edges to the center; the center would be the point at which the voices or perspectives of each group would come together and meet the others. The voices of the writers, the creative minds of each group, would be at or near the center, especially those voices who have been able to bestride the boundaries and mutate, syncretize, or translate for those making up the rest of the slice. THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE A N D LITERATURE

In Silko's novel, Betonie's grandmother knew that, in order to change his world, he would have to learn English because "she said, 'It is carried on in all languages now, so you have to know English too"' (Silko 122). Yeats and Joyce had to write in English in order to speak to the larger audience. Conrad chose to write in English, even though he was already fluent in Polish, Russian, and French. Achebe also wrote in English, because the dominant culture used English, and he wanted them to hear him. Contemporary minority American women have chosen to write in English, even though, like Joyce, they use an English that is different from the standard. Amy Tan uses all of the Englishes that she knows; Castillo freely intersperses Spanish words and constructions throughout her English. All of the above have found it necessary to appropriate the oppressor's language and turn it to their own use. In this way they also found a broader audience so that they could speak, not just to their own group, but also to the oppressor. Even though they had to go to some trouble to understand the hegemonic language and culture in order to communicate their message, they did so. Therefore, the reader is expected to also go to some trouble to open his or her mind, to attend to historical contexts, to imagine a different way of looking at the world. Literature is about real life, and one reason to read is in order to learn about other cultures. Guy Amirthanayagam sees the study of literature as the best way of understanding a culture, but warns against the loss of objectivity that arises from too close an identification with the culture one studies. Malcolm Bradbury defines an "international culture" and predicts that such a culture would recognize variety which would potentially align the cultural debate and humanism. Said presents a similar concept that he calls "worldliness." He argues that marginality should be ended so that more people can "enjoy the benefits of what has for centuries been denied the victims of race, class, or gender" (153). Paula Gunn Allen explains the tribal perspective and points out that the seven different themes that recur in Native American literature have to do with spirituality, endurance, gynocratic lifestyles, genocide, oral tradition, errors in Western studies of tribal systems, and the similarities between Native American spiritual traditions and those of other cultures, such as Tibet. Patricia Riley suggests that the half-breed can provide a unique viewpoint. And Jeanne Rossier Smith argues for a view of the self as a multiple of perspectives as in the trickster myth. Doris Sommer concludes that the incompetent reader must change his or her way of reading to become competent in interpreting signals based in other cultures. She also

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conclusion: Slicing the Pie

1 73

posits that some texts resist the reader and calls attention to particular markings, that are usually overlooked, that limit the reader's competence or educate the reader in how to read. THE ROLE OF THE READER

There is a crucial need for students of literature to read cultural writings critically if they are to discover a world beyond their own and benefit from their reading. At the same time, the reader may not always be able to rely on the author for adequate circumstantial details that could more fully communicate the author's message to the reader. However, we should remember that each author has offered her creation to the literate world for whatever can be understood from it. And there will certainly be levels of understanding; for example, Maxine Hong Kingston's work has "main, important meanings," but she has also included jokes in The Wornar~Warrior that only she can understand. Her audience, she writes, is very specific. For example, I address Chinese Americans twice. . . . Chinese Americans have written that I explain customs they had not understood. I even write for my old English professors of the new criticism school in Berkeley, by incorporating what they taught about the structure of the novel. I refer to Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shakespeare; but those who are not English majors and don't play literary games will still find in those same sentences the other, main, important meanings. There are puns for Chinese speakers only, and I do not point them out for non-Chinese speakers. There are some visual puns best appreciated by those who write Chinese. I've written jokes in that book so private, only I can get them; I hope I sneaked them in unobtrusively so nobody feels left out. I hope my writing has many layers, as human beings have layers. ("Cultural Misreadings" 65) But the reader must make an effort to comprehend the historical and contextual information that Kingston, Morrison, Walker, or any writer, supplies. Sandra Jamieson writes that readers should take "a more interactive approach to reading and engaging in cultural studies because their own reading both reveals what they need to learn and provides a purpose for learning it" (151). She concludes, "we must integrate our teaching of text and context without removing our focus from the literature" (150-51). Jamieson commends Toni Morrison for providing excellent interpretation for reading and teaching cross-culturally and building an interpretive community whose "members learn to understand the consequences of their lives and accept responsibility for their privileges" (148). As the members of this community learn and accept responsibility, they attain independence, and Sollors suggests that, ironically, movements for independence from suppression "adopt their 'ethnic' strategies . . . from the Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

1 74

The Voice of the Oppressed

ill

the Language of the Oppressor

very entity that they oppose" (289); in other words, the oppressed have learned from their oppressor and speak in the oppressor's language, much as I maintain Ireland does in "Leda and the Swan." Interestingly, Sollors posits that in this way "[elthnicity may spread and become universal precisely through a process of . . . resistance" (289). Gossett concludes that "the subject of race as an idea" cannot be ignored in American literature (ix). He attributes the "greater role of minorities in American life" that has recently come about to both personal and impersonal reasons, giving as a personal reason "widespread intermarriage" and as impersonal reasons the economic expansion and the rise of "a large middle class" who are "more secure in their status and thus less subject to hatred of other groups" (444). Additionally, he writes, America's leading role in international affairs has made Americans "re-evaluate some of their own attitudes" (445). Even though study of the works of ethnic authors may seem to be an attack "upon ethnically exclusive canons of the past," one danger of focusing on the ethnicity of authors is that this approach may "replicate their antagonists' focus" on that ethnicity as "the basis of literary evaluation" (Sollors 303). Sollors concludes that "race will continue to be a preoccupation . . . of future literary production and literary study" (287). He suggests a variety of approaches to literary study which would clarify the "invented character of modern ethnicity"; these approaches could also "reveal the extent to which various ethnic literatures . . . share a repertoire of available literary language" (303). But, he warns, some "professional readers have . . . staked out their current territories in the academic marketplace," and ethnicity "may also bring out the worst in readers of literature" (304). With these warnings in mind, it seems that a multicultural approach to literature involves reaching out and learning about other cultures, leaving home as it were. Exile from one's own culture, Deane writes, "can lead from belonging nowhere to becoming at home everywhere" for readers from every ethnicity; in addition, this idea "owes much to the contemporary belief that there is an essential virtue and gain in escaping from the singularity of one culture into the multiplicity of all, or of all that are available" (Deane 367). As more cross-cultural teaching is provided to students, and as new technologies in communications are developed, it seems possible to broaden one's cultural sensitivity and understanding without physically leaving home. Writers are the ones with the creativity to imagine a different way of viewing the world or interacting with the world. These writers have gone to the trouble to learn and to use the hegemonic system in order to communicate with the rest of the world what their individual and cultural experiences have been. One voice speaks and makes itself heard; as the second voice speaks, they find a common ground. They recognize each other through shared experiences or a common vision. They respond to and inspire each other. They become an inspiration for other voices to speak out, to respond.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Conclusion: Slicing the Pie

1 75

Eventually that inspiration sifts down t o the rest o f us. These first voices must be both imaginative and courageous-creative enough t o imagine a n e w cultural space, brave enough t o be differentand t o encourage others t o share the vision. The American people are a complex multiplicity, like a mixed-blood or a mestiza. Therefore, American literature must be willing t o negotiate a cultural space which would include all o f its creative minds and eloquent voices. The individual author is t o his or her ethnic group as the ethnic group is t o American literature and can inspire change i n the same way. According to both Sollors and Deane, hegemony always wants t o repress its hybridity, but the literary canon must become like the trickster with changing shapes, multiple voices, and varied points o f view and be able t o shift and cross borders at will. Or, as Jeanne Rossier Smith says, we must "laugh at old worlds and invent new ones" (156).

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. " A n Image o f Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." M~2ssachl~setts Review 18 (1977): 782-94. Rpt. i n Kimbrough 251-62. . "Teaching Things Fa11 Apart." Approaclzes to Teaching Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Lindfors 20-24. . Things Fall Apart. 1959. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. Aizenberg, Edna. "The Third World as Counterhistory: Things Fall Apart and Asturia's Men of Maize." Lindfors 85-90. Alarcon, Norma. "Chicana Feminism: In the Tracks o f 'the' Native Woman." Understmding Others: Cdtural and Cross-Cultwal Studies and the Teaching of Literature. Ed. Joseph Trimmer and Tilly Warnock. Urbana: NCTE, 1992. 96-106. Allen, Paula G u n n . "The Psychological Landscape o f Ceremony." Sands 7-12. . The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon, 1992. Amirthanayagam, Guy. "Literature and Cultural Knowledge." Asian and Western Writers in Dialogl~e: New Cldtnral Identities. Ed. G u y Amirthanayagam. London: Macmillan, 1982. 3-12. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. "Race." Critical Terms for Literary S t d y . 2nd ed. Ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: U o f Chicago P, 1995. 274-87. , and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. "Malinche, La." The Dictionary of Global Culture. New York: Borzoi-Knopf, 1997. 428-29. Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen T i f f i n . The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. New York: Routledge, 1989. Baines, Jocelyn. Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1960.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

178

Works Cited

Baker, Samuel. "Ana Castillo: The Protest Poet Goes Mainstream." Pziblishers Weekly 243.33 (Aug. 12, 1996): 59-60. Infotrac. CD-ROM. Expanded Academic ASAP. June 1998. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. "The Problem of Speech Genres." Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Trans. Vern W. McGee. Austin, U of Texas P, 1986. 60-102. Barry, Nora, and Mary Prescott. "The Triumph of the Brave: Love Medicine 's Holistic Vision." Critique: S t d i e s in Contemporary Fiction (Winter 1989): 123-38. Rpt. in Madden and Blake 547-63. Batchelor, Howard. "Joyce, James." The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. CD- ROM. Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1993. Beltzer, Thomas. Antojitos: (Little Cravings). Lewiston: Mellen Poetry Press, 2000. Bennett, Tanya Long. "No Country to Call Home: A Study of Castillo's Mixqziiahliala Letters." Style 30.3 (Fall 1996): 462-78. Infotmc. CD-ROM. Academic ASAP. July 1998. Bird, Gloria. "Towards a Decolonization of the Mind and Text 1: Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony." The Wicazo Review 9.2 (Fall 1993): 1-8. Bradbury, Malcolm. "Notes Towards a Definition of International Culture." Asian and Western Writers in Dialogue: New Cdtural Identities. Ed. Guy Amirthanayagam. London: Macmillan, 1982. 13-25. Brown, Terence. Introduction. Dubliizers. By James Joyce. New York: Penguin, 1992. vii-xlvi. . Notes. Dubliners. By James Joyce. New York: Penguin, 1992. 237-317. Cahill, Thomas. How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role fiom the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. New York: Talese-Doubleday, 1995. Calloway, Colin G. The American Revolfition in Indian Cofintiy: Crisis anrl Diversity in Native American Commlinities. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Castillo, Ana. So Far From God: A Novel. New York: Plume, 1993. Castillo, Susan Perez. "The Construction of Gender and Ethnicity in the Texts of Leslie Silko and Louise Eridrich." Yearbook of English S t d i e s . (1994): 228-36. Chang, Iris. The Rape of A7anking: The Forgotten Holocalist of World War II. New York: Basic, 1997. Chavez, Cesar. "Farm Workers at Risk." Toxic Strliggles: The Theory anrl Practice of Environmental Justice. Ed. Richard Hofrichter. Philadelphia: New Society, 1993. 163-70. Cheung, King-kok. "'Don't Tell': Imposed Silences in The Color Purple and The W o m a n Warrior." PlWLA 103. (1988): 162-74. Chin, Frank. "This Is Not An Autobiography." Genre 18 (1985): 109-30. Chin, Marilyn. "A MELUS Interview: Maxine Hong Kingston." MELUS 16.4 (1989-1990): 57-74.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Works Cited

179

Clzimia Aclzebe. Bill Moyers, interviewer. A World of Ideas ser. Videocassette. Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 1994. Christian, Barbara. "The Contemporary Fables of Toni Morrison." Black W o m e n Novelists: The Development of a Tradition, 1892-1976. Westport: Greenwood, 1980. 137-79. Cirlot, J. D. A Dictionary of Symbols. 2nd ed. Trans. Jack Sage. New York: Philosophical Library, 1974. Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. 1984. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Cobham, Rhonda. "Making Men and History: Achebe and the Politics of Revisionism." Lindfors 91-100. Connolly, S. J., ed. "Catholic Relief Acts." The Oxford Companion to Irish Histoiy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. 77-78. Conrad, Joseph. Heart ofDarkness. 1899. Norton Critical ed. Kimbrough 7-76. Cornwell-Giles, JoAnne. "Afro-American Criticism and Western Consciousness: The Politics of Knowing." Black American Literatwe Forum 24.1 (Spring 1980): 85-98. Costigan, Giovanni. A History of Modern Ireland W i t h a Sketch of Earlier Times. New York: Pegasus, 1969. Daniels, Patsy J. "Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Explicator 54 (1996): 164-65. . "'Mr. Shook' in W. B. Yeats's 'The Hawk."' Notes on Modern Irish Literature 10 (1998): 35-39. Deane, Seamus. "Imperialism / Nationalism." Critical Terms for Literary Study. 2nd ed. Ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995. 354-68. Dehay, Terry. "Narrating Memory." ~Wemory,Narrative, & Identity: New Essays in Ethnic American Litemtlires. Ed. Amritjit Singh, Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr., and Robert E. Hogan. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1994. 26-44. Diaz del Castillo, Bernal. "From The TrfieHistoiy of the C o n p e s t of New Spain." The Norton Anthology ofAmerican Literatzire. 4th ed. vol. 1. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 25-40. Dixon, Melvin. "Like an Eagle in the Air: Toni Morrison." Ride Out the Wilderness: Geography and Identity in Afr-o-American Literature. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1987. 141-49. Doughty, Peter. "A Fiction for the Tribe: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye." The A7ew American Writing: Essays on American Literature since 1970. Ed. Graham Clark. New York: St. Martin's, 1990. 29-46. Elder, Arlene A. "The Paradoxical Characterization of Okonkwo." Lindfors 58-64. Eliot, T.S. "The Hollow Men." The Norton Anthology ofAmerican Literatlire 4th ed., vol. 2. Ed. Nina Baym et al. New York: Norton, 1994. 1283-85. Ellman, Richard. The Identity of Yeats. New York: Oxford UP, 1964. Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. 1984. New and expanded version. New York: Harperperennial, 1993.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

180

Works Cited

. "Where I Ought To Be: A Writer's Sense of Place." The h7ew York Times Book Review (28 July 1985): l + . Rpt. in Madden and Blake 485-91. Flanagan, Thomas. "The Fenian Rebellion Begins." Excerpt from The Tenants of Time. N.p.: Verplanck, 1988. Rpt. in The Irish: A Treaszuy of Art and L i t e m t m . Ed. Leslie Conron Carola. New York: Macmillan, 1993. 158-62. Foster, Lynn V. A Brief Histoiy of lbfexico. New York: Facts on File, 1997. Franklin, Wayne. "Bartolomk De Las Casas." The A70rtoizAizthology ofAmerican Literature. 4th ed. vol. 1. Ed. Nina Baym et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 14-16. . "Literature to 1620." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. vol. 1. Ed. Nina Baym et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 1-8. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. The Sigizifiiizg Moizkey: A Theory of Afr-o-American Litemiy Criticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. G6mez-Quinones, Juan. "Toward a Concept of Culture." Modern Chicano Writers: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Joseph Sommers and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1979. 54-66. Gossett, Thomas F. Race: The History of an Idea in America. New ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. Graham, Kenneth. "Conrad and Modernism." Stape 203-22. Greene, David H. "Irish Literature." The New Grolier Mdtimedia Encyclopedia. CD- ROM. Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1993. Guerard, Albert J. "The Journey Within." Conrad the Novelist. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987. 35-48. Rpt. in Kimbrough 243-50. Hankinson, Stacie Lynn. "From Monotheism to Pantheism: Liberation from Patriarchy in Alice Walker's The Color Purple." The Midwest Qmrterly 38.3 (Spring 1997): 320-28. Infotmc. CD-ROM. Expanded Academic ASAP. June 1998. Harlow, Barbara. "'The Tortoise and the Birds': Strategies of Resistance in Things Fa11 Apart." Lindfors 74-79. Harris, Trudier. "On The Color Purple, Stereotypes, and Silence." Black American Literature Forum 14 (Winter 1984): 155-61. Harris, Wilson. "The Frontier on Which Heart ofDarkness Stands." Research on Afr-icon Literatures 12 (1981): 86-92. Rpt. in Kimbrough 262-68. Haugh, Robert F. "Heart of Darkness: Problem for Critics." Joseph Coizrad: Discovery in Design. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1957. 35-40. Rpt. in Kimbrough 239- 42. Hawkins, Hunt. "Things Fa11 Apart and the Literature of Empire." Lindfors 80-84. Hepburn, A. C. "Northern Ireland." The Oxford Companion to Irish History. Ed. S. J. Connolly. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1998. 390-92. Hobbs, Michael. "Living In-Between: Tayo as Radical Reader in Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony." Western American Literature 28.4 (1994): 301-12.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Works Cited

181

Hogue, W. Lawrence. Race, ~Wodernity,Postmodernity: A Look a t the History and the Litemtzlres of People of Color Since the 1960s. Albany: State U of New York P, 1996. hooks, bell. "Writing the Subject: Reading The Color Purple." Reading Black, Rearling Feminist: A Critical Anthology. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin-Meridian, 1990. 454-70. Horno-Delgado, Asuncih, Eliana Ortega, Nina M. Scott, and Nancy Saporta Sternbach, eds. "Preliminary Considerations." Breaking Boundaries: Latina Writing and Critical Readiizgs. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1989. xi-xiv. "Irish Literary Renaissance." The A7ew Grolier Mdtiinedia Encyclopedia. CDROM. Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1993. Izevbaye, Dan. "The Igbo as Exceptional Colonial Subjects: Fictionalizing an Abnormal Historical Situation." Lindfors 45-51. Jameson, Fredric. "Modernism and Imperialism." Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature. Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, and Edward Said. Ed. Seamus Deane. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 1990. 43-66. Jamieson, Sandra. "Text, Context, and Teaching Literature by African American Women." Understanding Others: Cldtural ~7ndCross-Cz~lt~lral Studies a i d the Teachiizg of Literature. Ed. Joseph Trimmer and Tilly Warnock. Urbana: NCTE, 1992. 139-52. Jeyifo, Biodun. "The Problem of Realism in Thiizgs Fall Apart: A Marxist Exegesis." Lindfors 112-1 7. Johnson, Bruce. "Conrad's Impressionism and Watt's 'Delayed Decoding."' Coizrad Revisited: Essays for the Eighties. Ed. Ross C. Murfin. University: U of Alabama P, 1985. 51-70. Rpt. in Kimbrough 345-57. Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. 5 0 0 Nations: A n Illz~stlz2terlHistoiy of North American Indians. New York: Knopf, 1994. Joyce, Joyce. Dubliners. 1914. Ed. Terence Brown. New York: Penguin, 1992. Karl, Frederick R. "Introduction to the D m s e ~Wacabre:Conrad's Heart of Darkness." ~WodernFiction Studies. West Lafayette: Purdue Research, 1968. Rpt. In Murfin 123-36. . Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives-A Biography. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1979. Kiberd, Declan. Iizventiizg Irelaizd: The Literature of the Modern Nation. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995. Kimbrough, Robert. "Conrad's Youth (1902): An Introduction." Kimbrough 406-18. , ed. Heart ofDarkness. Joseph Conrad. Norton Critical ed. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1988. Kingston, Maxine Hong. "Cultural Mis-Reading by American Reviewers." Asian and Western Writers in Dialogue: New C ~ ~ l t z ~Identities. ral Ed. Guy Amirthanayagam. London: Macmillan, 1982. 55-65. . The Wornaiz Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Ainoizg Ghosts. 1976. New York: Vintage, 1989.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

182

Works Cited

Klein, Dianne. " C o m i n g o f Age i n Novels b y Rudolfo Anaya and Sandra Cisneros." The English Jolirnal 81.5 (September 1992): 21-26. Knowles, O w e n . "Conrad's Life." Stape 1-24. Las Casas, Bartolome de. "From The Very BriefRelation of the Devastation of the Indies." The Norton Anthology of American Literatwe. 4 t h ed. vol. 1. N e w York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 16-19. Lee, A. Robert. "Ethnic Renaissance: Rudolfo Anaya, Louise Erdrich and Maxine Hong Kingston." The New American Writing: Essays on Aizerican Literature Since 1970. Ed. Graham Clarke. N e w York: St. Martin's, 1990. 139-64. Levenson, Michael. " T h e Value o f Facts i n t h e Heart of Darkness." A7iizeteeizt/zCentliry Fiction 40 (1985): 261-80. Rpt. i n Kimbrough 391-405. Lindfors, Bernth, ed. Approaches to Teaching Achebe's Things Fall Apart. N e w York: MLA, 1991. Lubiano, W a h n e e m a . "Narrative, Metacommentary, and Politics i n a 'Simple' Story." Lindfors 107-11. Madden, Janet, and Sara M. Blake, eds. Emerging Voices: Rearlings in the Arnerican Experience. F t . W o r t h : Harcourt Brace, 1993. Manganiello, Dominic. Joyce's Politics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. McAlister, Melanie. "(Mis)Reading The Joy Luck Club." Asian America 1 (1992): 102-18. McCracken, Ellen. "Latina Narrative and Politics o f Signification: Articulation, Antagonism, and Populist Rupture." Critica: A Journal of Critical Essays 2.2 (Fall 1990): 202-07. . "Sandra Cisneros' The H o w on r wan go Street: Community-Oriented Introspection and t h e Demystification o f Patriarchal Violence." Breaking Bolindaries: Latina Writing and Critical Readings. Ed. Eliana Ortega, Nina M . Scott, and Nancy Saporta Sternbach. Amherst: U o f Mass P, 1989. 62-7 1. McMahon, Dierdre. "Republic o f Ireland." The Oxford Coizpanioiz to Irish History. Ed. S . J . Connolly. O x f o r d : Oxford U P, 1998. 482. Miller, David W . "Ireland, History o f . " The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1993. Mitchell, Carol. "Ceremony as Ritual." Sands 27-36. Moore, Gene M . "Conrad's Influence." Stape 223-41. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. 1970. N e w York: Plume, 1994. Murfin, Ross C., ed. Heart o f Darkness: A Case Study in Conternporaiy Criticism. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin's, 1989. . "Introduction: T h e Biographical and Historical Background." M u r f i n 3-16. Nichols, Ashton. " T h e Politics o f Point o f V i e w : Teaching Things Fall Apart." Lindfors 52-5 7. Nies, Judith. A7ative American History: A Clzroizolo~y of a Culture's Vast Achieveizeizts and Their Links to World Events. N e w York: Ballantine, 1996.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Works Cited

183

Obiechina, Emmanuel. "Following t h e Author i n Things Fall Apart." Lindfors 31-37. Olivares, Julian. "Sandra Cisneros' House on wang go Street and t h e Poetics o f Space." The Americas Review: A Review of Hispanic Literatwe and Art of the U.S.A. 15.3-4(Fall-Winter 1987): 160-70. Ortega, Eliana, and Nancy Saporta Sternbach. " A t t h e Threshold o f t h e U n n a m e d : Latina Literary Discourse i n t h e Eighties." Breaking Bollndaries: Latina Writing and Critical Readings. Ed. Asunci6n Horno-Delgado, Eliana Ortega, Nina M . Scott, and Nancy Saporta Sternbach. Amherst: U o f Massachusetts P, 1989. 2- 23. Ousby, Ian, ed. "Post-modernism." The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. N e w ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1993. 752. Pakenham, Thomas. The Scmnble for Apica: The White Man's C o n p e s t of the Dark Continent porn 1876 to 1912. N e w York: Random, 1991. Paredes, Americo. " T h e Folk Base o f Chicano Literature." Modern Chicano Writers: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Joseph Sommers and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto. Englewood Cliffs:Prentice-Hall, 1979. 4-17. ral of Rebolledo, Tey Diana. Wornen Singing in the Snow: A C z ~ l t ~ ~ An1~1ysis Chicana Literature. Tucson: U o f Arizona P, 1995. Rice, Lynne. "Zaire, f r o m C o l o n y t o Nation: A Brief History, 1908 t o 1987." Kimbrough 132-41. Riley, Patricia. " T h e Mixed Blood Writer as Interpreter and Mythmaker." Understmding Others: Cdtural and Cross-Cultm~lStudies and the Teaching of Literature. Ed. Joseph Trimmer and Tilly Warnock. Urbana: NCTE, 1992. 230- 42. Room, Adrian. NTC's Classical Dictionmy: The Origins of the Names of Chalz2ctel-r in Classical lbfythology. Lincolnwood: National Textbook, 1992. Rosenthal, M.L. "Introduction: T h e Poetry o f Yeats." William Butler Yeats. Selected Poems and Three Plays. 3rd ed. Ed. M . L. Rosenthal. N e w York: Collier, 1986. xv-xl. Saeta, Elsa. " A MELUS Interview: Ana Castillo." MELUS 22.3 (Fall 1997): 113-50. Infotrac. CD-ROM. Expanded Academic ASAP. J u l y 1998. Said, Edward W . Culture and Imperialism. N e w York: Vintage Books, 1994. -. " T h e Politics o f Knowledge." 1991. Rpt. Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert C o n Davis and Ronald Schleifer. NY: Longman, 1994. 144-53. Saldivar, Ram6n. Chicano Narrative: The Dialectics of Difference. Madison: U o f Wisconsin P, 1990. Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxfonl Histoiy of English L i t e m t m . O x f o r d : Clarendon, 1994. Sands, Kathleen M . "Preface:A Symposium Issue." Sands 1-6. , guest ed. Arnerican Indian Quarterly: A Jownal of Antlzropologx Historx and Literature 5.1 (Feb. 1979). Sarvan, C . P. "Racism and t h e Heart ofDarkness." International Fiction Review 7 (1980): 6-10. Rpt. i n Kimbrough 280-85.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

184

Works Cited

Schultz, Lydia A. "Fragments and Ojibwe Stories: Narrative Strategies in Louise Erdrich's Love ~Werlicine." College Litemtz~reSpecial issue 18.3 (Oct. 1991): 80-95. Rpt. in Madden and Blake 511-26. Schweninger, Lee. "Writing Nature: Silko and Native Americans as Nature Writers." IWELUS 18.2 (Summer 1993): 47-60. Selden, Raman, and Peter Widdowson. A Reader's Guide to Contempolzuy Literary Theory. 3rd ed. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1993. Selzer, Linda. "Race and Domesticity in The Color Purple." Afr-icon American Review 29.1 (Spring 1995): 67-82. Iizfotrac. CD-ROM. Expanded Academic ASAP. June 1998. Shear, Walter. "Generation Differences and the Diaspora in The Joy Luck Club." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 34 (Spring 1993): 193-99. Sherry, Norman. "Conrad, Joseph." The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. CD- ROM. Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1993. Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. 1977. New York: Penguin, 1986. Singh, Amritjit, Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr., and Robert E. Hogan. "Introduction." ~Wemory,hil7rrative, &Identity: New Essays in Etlmic American Litemtwes. Ed. Amritjit Singh, Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr., and Robert E. Hogan. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1994. 3-25. Singh, Frances B. "The Colonialistic Bias of Heart of Darkness." Coizradiaiza 10 (1978): 41-54. Rpt. in Kimbrough 268-80. Smith, Jeanne. "Transpersonal Selfhood: The Boundaries of Identity in Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine." Studies in American Indian Literature (Winter 1991): 13-26. Rpt. in Madden and Blake 563-75. Smith, Jeanne Rosier. Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Etlmic Litemtl~re.Berkeley: U of California P, 1997. Smith, Johanna M. "'Too Beautiful Altogether': Patriarchal Ideology in Heart of Darkness." Murfin 179-95. Smith, Paul. Discerning the Subject. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 1988. Sollors, Werner. "Ethnicity." Critical Terms for Litelzuy Study. 2nd ed. Ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995. 288-305. Sommer, Doris. "Resistant Texts and Incompetent Readers." Poetics Today 15 (1994): 523-52. ---. "Textual Conquests: On Readerly Competence and 'Minority' Literature." Modern Language Quarterly 54.1 (1993): 141-54. Sommers, Joseph, and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto. "Introduction." Modern Chicano Writers: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Joseph Sommers and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1979. 1-3. Stape, J. H., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Suleri, Sara. "Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition." Critical Inquiry 18 (1992): 756-69. Sullivan, Zoreh T. "The Postcolonial African Novel and the Dialogic Imagination." Lindfors 101-06.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels

Works Cited

185

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. N e w York: Ivy Books, 1989. . "Mother Tongue." Threepenny Review (1990). Rpt. i n Emerging Voices: Rearlings in the American Experience. 2nd ed. Ed. Janet Madden and Sara M . Blake. Ft. W o r t h : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993. 334-39. Thomas, Brook. "Preserving and Keeping Order b y Killing T i m e i n Heart of Darkness." M u r f i n 23 7-55. Traork, Ousseynou B. "Matrical Approach t o Things Fall Apart: A Poetics o f Epic and Mythic Paradigms." Lindfors 65-73. Trungpa, Chogyam. Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. Boulder: Shambhala, 1984. T u S m i t h , Bonnie. All M y Relatives: Comrnuizity iiz Contemporary E t h i c American Literatures. A n n Arbor: U o f Michigan P, 1993. Valdes, Maria Elena de. " I n Search o f Identity i n Cisneros' The House on M~2ngo Street." Camrliarz Review of American Studies 23.1 (Fall 1992): 55-72. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. N e w York: Pocket Books, 1982. W a t t , Ian. "Impressionism and Symbolism i n Heart ofDarkness." Conrad in the Nineteentlz Centmy. Berkeley: U o f California P, 1979. 168-200, 249-53. Rpt. i n Kimbrough 311-36. Watts, Cedric. "Heart of Darkness." Stape 45-62. W h i t e , Andrea. "Conrad and Imperialism." Stape 179-202. W o n g , Sau-ling Cynthia. "Ethnicizing Gender: A n Exploration o f Sexuality as Sign i n Chinese Immigrant Literature." Readirg the Literatures of Asiaiz America. Ed. Shirley Geok-Lin Lim and A m y Ling. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1992. 111-29. W r e n , Robert M . "Things Fa11 Apart i n its T i m e and Place." Lindfors 38-44. Yarbro-Bejarano, Y v o n n e . "Chicana Literature f r o m a Chicana Perspective." The Americas Review: A Review of Hispanic Litesatz~reand Art of the U.S.A. 15.3-4 (Fall-Winter 1987): 139-45. Yeats, William Butler. Autobiographies: ~Wernoriesm r l Reflections. London: Bracken, 1995. . Selected P o e m and Three Plays. 3rd ed. Ed. M . L. Rosenthal. N e w York: Collier, 1986.

Copyright 2001 by Patsy J. Daniels