|
|
LITR
5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature Sample
Student Essay, 1996 John Eberhart Professor Craig White LITR 5734: Cross-Cultural Texts in Dialogue 25 July 1996 Abstract -- Return to Personal
Spirit The personal search for meaning in primitive nature
religions is explored from a psychological perspective in The Plumed Serpent (1926)
by D. H. Lawrence, and House Made of Dawn (1968) by N. Scott Momaday.
These novels convey the sense of emptiness and artificiality found in modern
industrial societies and the ever-increasing separation of human consciousness
from nature. The Christian Church is depicted as inadequate and at times
oppressive in its attempts to provide a spiritual structure to replace native
religions. The authors detail the ambivalence of two characters of opposite
cultures, as they reject white Western mores and discover spiritual direction in
traditional ethnic religions. The authors call for renewing the awareness of our
attachment to nature, and suggest that when modern society obscures that
relationship, cross-cultural tensions in individuals are created. The
unbreakable link between a native culture and its natural surroundings is
portrayed through vivid descriptions of the land, the sky, and other natural
processes that contribute heavily to the foundation of a native culture. The
importance of ancient and ingrained human characteristics i s also
developed in the paper by references to several contemporary post-colonial
writers. John Eberhart Professor Craig White LITR 5734: Cross-Cultural Texts in Dialogue 25 July 1996 Return to Personal Spirit When two cultures are thrown together, tensions can be
created within the people of each culture. This disruption can cause unconscious
forces to surface that create anxiety, pull people together, or push them in
unexpected directions. The genesis and consequences of those psychological
forces are examined in D. H. Lawrence's The Plumed Serpent and N. Scott
Momaday's House Made of Dawn. In addition to the unfamiliarities and
adjustments that might be expected to arise between a primitive native culture
and an industrialized urban culture, these novels suggest that individuals in
cultural conflict may also be struggling with fundamental spiritual questions
that are lurking beneath the consciousness of all people. Reading these two novels together reveals several similar
points of view shared by two authors of widely differing backgrounds. These
points of agreement surface as a result of the strains between cultures, and
they gain strength and value in that they are products of two perspectives: the
dominant European culture and the oppressed native culture. In this way the two
books refer to each other often and sympathetically. In The Plumed Serpent, a sophisticated middle-aged
Irish woman struggles to reconcile her loathing for all things Mexican with her
unexpected attraction to the leaders of a resurrected pagan Aztec religion. In
House Made of Dawn, a Native American veteran of World War II dangles
between his inability to fit in successfully with white America and his
ambivalent attachment to his Kiowa religious traditions. It is rough sailing for
both characters, and at the center of the storm is the uncertainty of how an
individual finds a satisfying sense of place and meaning in a brief and
turbulent life. From the start, both novels express strong dissatisfaction
with European-American industrialized society. Native American Abel can't get
his life established and on track in a white world of machines and processes
that are separated from nature. Kate, who has been comfortable in the modern
world all her life, has now become thoroughly disgusted with pretentious and
predictable European-American customs and manners. There is a strong sense of
oppression felt by the natives in both novels, which creates an atmosphere of
resentment and antagonism against the dominant culture. Fear and retribution is
pervasive, finding expression in Abel's friend who has fantasies of slaughtering
a wagon train of whites, and also in the dark, seething eyes of the Mexican
natives. Both authors also suggest that the mental-spiritual life of the white
race is sterile and withering. Abel and Kate, two people living in the
borderland between two cultures, are feeling the tension and are in serious need
of something new, something different. That "something" definitely isn't Christianity.
A second point of agreement between these novels is that there is no meaningful
spiritual support to be found in the Christian Church, and Christian traditions
are &-eept-as either rejected outright or only superficially observed. When
not actually attending a church service or interacting with its priests, the
native peoples of Mexico are depicted by Lawrence as secretly and longingly
attached to their traditional ethnic gods as sources of spiritual satisfaction
and meaning. When the high priest of the, Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (the plumed
serpent) seals the doors of the local Catholic church and burns its relics,
"The (native) crowd scattered in the wind . . . Sayula was empty of God,
and, at heart, they were glad" (Lawrence 285). Lawrence believed that
Christianity destroyed the passionate inner life by denying the sanctity of the
body and celebrating death; in contrast, the religion of Quetzalcoatl elevated
the individual and celebrated a passionate physical life (Kubal 4768). With
similar sentiments, Momaday observes that, 11 . . . after four centuries of
Christianity, they (Native American townfolk) still pray in Tanoan to the old
deities of the earth and sky . . . they have held on to their own secret souls .
. . and in this is a resistance . . . a long outwaiting" (Momaday 58).
Father Olguin, a Catholic priest living in Abel's Indian community, meets only
with isolation and failure because he cannot understand the Indian (Lattin 320).
This tie to ethnic roots is also expressed by the African writer Chinua Achebe
who recalls this memory from his childhood: "Those (heathen) idols had a
strange pull on me in spite of my being such a thorough little Christian . . .
What I do remember was a fascination for the ritual and the life on the other
(heathen) arm of the crossroads" (Achebe 191). In the dissatisfaction with advanced society and
Christianity, a convincing perspective is gained from the way in which there
appear to be important points of agreement between Kate, who is white,
educated, and privileged, and Abel, who has always been a native outsider --
dissolute and relatively limited in abilities. Although the outward conditions
and experiences of their lives differ greatly, Kate and Abel both find
themselves bumped and battered into a search for relief from their economic,
psychological, and social anxieties. However, the most troubling and important questions for
Kate and Abel are spiritual in nature. These questions probe the mystery of how
humans are an inseparable part of nature and how they may suffer when losing a
sense of being directly connected to nature and their own instincts.
Christianity and capitalism can not remedy that sense of loss, and it is in the
search for genuine spiritual understanding and nourishment that these two novels
offer the alternative of turning to a spirituality based on an ingrained natural
religion strongly linked to nature. Lawrence felt that the re-birth of primitive religion that
might have come about in Mexico could have been an example for all cultures, in
that each culture must return to its own roots and nurture what it finds there.
The universal source of existence must be rediscovered by all cultures in order
to realize both a sensual and a spiritual being more fully (Niven, Novels 167-172). This primordial religion, which may vary in details from
culture to culture, is a religion set primarily in the context of nature and the
oneness of a person with nature. Nature's power can become an individual's
personal strength if it is possible to discard the inhibitions imposed by
artificial authorities such as remote moral constructs, dominating colonialists,
and economic necessity. All of these factors come into play for both Kate and
Abel as they question their personal motives and actions; both characters are
marked bv social withdrawal and loss of articulation as they drift closer to their spiritual
roots. Again, comparing the two characters is instructive in that
an individual's orientation and progress toward a natural religion can differ.
In Abel we observe a drifting Native American being drawn to a traditional
nature religion that haunts him from buried or half-remembered ethnic memories.
The attraction to nature is understandable for him, since he is full of native
stories, recollections and traditions centered on nature. Ultimately, upon the
death of his grandfather he adopts the Kiowa ways to spiritual strength and
endurance, warding off fear and evil by becoming a participant in the Dawn
Runner ritual. On the other hand, Kate has no internal discourse with a
personal native heritage, yet she is unexplainably attracted to an ancient blood
religion that is totally foreign to her previous life. Kate is not returning to
a lost faith or ethnic tradition, but is finding a new source of spiritual
strength by becoming more aware of her individual primal attraction to power,
dominance, and sexuality. She has discarded her conventional religion, social
standing, and considerable comforts, and has become alienated from people and
apathetic. For her, there is little prospect of attaining a sense of meaning in
life on her own, and the religion of Quetzalcoatl fills the void.
For Abel and Kate it is the feeling of helplessness and disconnectedness
that signals the need to shift away from complex society toward a religion of
nature and individuality, and it is the confrontation with another culture that
brings this conflict into focus for them. Kate finds herself isolated and
disinterested in the activities of her former friends, and Abel's situation is
symbolically compared to tiny fish stranded on the beach at low tide. The
contrast in characters illustrates that this psychological condition can affect persons of vastly
differing cultures, which serves to underline the common cause: spiritual
emptiness. In this, all peoples share a spiritual need that must be filled by a
sense of oneness with nature -- an attachment to something near and accessible,
not a myth or ethic superimposed from a foreign culture. Lawrence writes, In other words, if each
community in the world, led by the inspiration of great leaders, could resurrect
what is true to its culture, temperament, and climate, then no one religion
would be more important than any other, yet all would be part of a global
renewal of the
spirit. This is no more than a plea for the coming together of mankind in
common resistance to the age of
the machine and the tyranny of materialism" (,Niven, British 110). For both the Kiowas and the followers of Quetzalcoatl,
religion centers on the sun and its place in nature as the giver of life and
strength and as the great regulator of the days and the seasons. The
ultimate mystery of the cosmos for both native cultures is expressed in
amazingly similar terms: an even greater power lies behind the sun, a power that
can't be seen, but that must be there as the giver of all things. This much
mystery is acceptable to both cultures; there is no need to posit the ultimate
giver's details of form and purpose. Extending from the sun, and sharing the
sacredness, are the visible aspects of nature -- ever-present and available to
the senses. Both novels are heavily textured by the natural processes of sky,
water, wind, mountains, plants, and animals -- the evoking of the moods and
character of nature may be the most memorable aspect of both novels. The
emphasis on man's small but integrated part in the overall state of nature, and
the contrast with imperfect and destructive man-made conventions, is a profound
and shared message transmitted by these two authors of disparate cultures. The recurrence of symbols is evident in both books, for
example, the eagle and the serpent. Abel is fascinated with the vision of
"an eagle overhead with its talons closed upon a snake. It was an awful,
holy sight, full of magic and meaning" (Momaday 14). The eagle and the
serpent are also chosen as the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl's icon to replace the
Christian cross. The image is one of natural drama and power, and for
Quetzalcoatl, it also represents a coming together of the spirits of the sky and
the earth. The use of ceremonies in both books speaks to the natural
urge for all groups of people to feel strong, youthful, and unoppressed. Abel,
his fellows, and their own pathetic Priest of the Sun, utilize the narcotic
effects of peyote, "the vegetal representation of the sun," to feel
"young and whole and powerful" while gazing at dancing flames and
listening to drums (Momaday 110-112). Unfortunately, the exhilaration is
short-lived. Similarly, in Kate's marriage ceremony, her "flame', is joined
in oneness with her husband, and she feels as if the "years reeled away
from her," and she "refinds her virginity" (Lawrence 392). Kate
also undergoes a total reorientation to life during the ceremony, rationalizing
away the worldly emotional and ethical conflicts that had previously haunted
her. The residual message of these novels is the destruction
caused by the separation of spirit and body. Each culture has its own ties to
its surroundings and its traditions, and to impose a colonial domination of the
native body by destroying traditional customs creates a separation from the past
for the local culture. This separation is not easily reconciled, in fact it may
be impossible. Lawrence and Momaday both speak to the resentment and the
vengeance that is built up in the oppressed native people. The outer trappings
of submission may be adopted, but the old customs and beliefs are lying just
underneath the surface. Also crossing all cultures is the individual's tie to
nature. that is cut or damaged with the advent of foreign scientific and
commercial advances. The primordial human tie to nature is too ingrained to be
denied. All life, religion, and culture developed, and was interpreted in the
context of, a surrounding and meaningful nature, and those ancient genetic
truths cih not be eliminated in modern man without penalty. When
human destiny is felt to be tied to external agents, such as commercial
interests, there is clear disconnect from being at one with the land and the
processes of nature. As Chinua Achebe remarks of his African childhood,
"The folk-stories my mother and elder sister told me had the immemorial
quality of the sky and the forests and the rivers" (Achebe 192). Jacques Monod writes that, "Every living being is
also a fossil . . . all the way down to the microscopic structure of its
proteins, it bears the traces . . . of its ancestry. This is even truer of man
than of any other animal species because of the dual evolution -- physical and
ideational -- to which he is heir." Wilson Harris believes that we are in
fact much closer to the savage mind than we think or would like to admit, and he
agrees with Monod when he says that each living person is a fossil in so far as
each man carries within himself remnants of deep-seated antecedents. By entering
into a fruitful dialogue with the past one becomes able to revive the fossils
that are buried within oneself and are part of one's ancestors (Petersen 185). In his paper on the Marvellous Realism of the Haitians,
Jacques Alexis remarks: that modern life with its stern
rates of production . . . concentration of great masses of men into industrial
armies . . . inadequate leisure . . . mechanized life slows down the production
of legends and a living folk lore. Under-developed populations . . . live in
contact with Nature . . . sharpen their eyes, their hearing, their sense of
touch. (They) know a blend of mechanical civilization and "natural"
life . . . and it is beyond dispute that they have feelings of special
liveliness. can one, in effect, strip a human being of all his antecedents, of
all the unconditioned reflexes born of the conditioned reflexes transmitted by
heredity? A human being cannot be the son of no man, the
past and history cannot be denied . . . (194-5). D. H. Lawrence wrote: Americans must take up life
where the Red Indian, the Aztec,
the Maya, the Incas, left it off. They must pick up the thread where the
mysterious Red race let it fall.
It means a departure from the old European morality, ethic. It means even a
departure from the old
range of emotions and sensibilities. We must start from Montezuma, not
from St Francis or St Bernard. The
whole life-effort of man was to get his life into contact with the
elemental life of the cosmos,
mountain-life, cloud-life, thunder-life, earth-life, sun-life. To come
into immediate felt contact, and so
derive energy, power, and a dark sort of joy (Qtd. in Sagar,145-9). These words could easily have come directly from Momaday. The value of cross-cultural comparisons of fiction must
not get bogged down in issues of historical accuracy or complete and unbiased
cultural representations, since these carry their own burden of illusion that
will likely never be resolved. For the reader to retain anything of value it is
important to notice and feel the residual impressions created by the author's
work and to judge to what extent those feelings have value. In the case of House
Made of Dawn and The Plumed Serpent, the warnings against the
dehumanizing aspects of civilization and the loss of contact with nature should
be clear. Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. "Named for
Victoria, Queen of England." The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Eds.
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. London: Routledge, 1995.
190193. Alexis, Jacques Stephen.
"Of the Marvellous Realism of the Haitians." The Post-Colonial
Studies Reader. Eds. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.
London: Routledge, 1995. 194-198. Draper, Ronald P. D. H. Lawrence.
Boston: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1964. 102-109. Kubal, David L. Masterplots. Ed. Frank N. Magill.
New Jersey: 1976. 4765-4769. "The Quest for Mythic Vision in Contemporary Native
American and Chicano Fiction." American Literature L (1979):
625-640. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon R. Gunter.
Vol 19. Detroit: Gale Research, 1981. 320-321. Lawrence, D. H. The Plumed Serpent. International,
1992. Momaday, N(avarre) Scott. House Made of Dawn. 1968.
New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Niven, Alastair. "D. H. Lawrence." British
Writers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1984. 109-110. Niven, Alastair. D. H. Lawrence -- The Novels. Cambridge
University Press, 1978.166-174. 1926. Petersen, Kirsten Holst, and
Anna Rutherford. "Fossil and Psyche." The Post-Colonial Studies
Reader. Eds. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. London:
Routledge, 1995. 185-189. Sagar, Keith. The Art of D.
H. Lawrence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. 145-168.
John Eberhart Professor Craig White LITR 5734: Cross-Cultural Texts in Dialogue 11 July 1996
Research Progress Report House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott Momaday -- book
read and notes taken. The Plumed Sergent, by D. H. Lawrence -- 32 pages
read with notes. Several reference books and criticisms have been collected for
each (see Works Cited). There does not appear to be any problem in being able to
develop the two main themes mentioned in my proposal, which were 1) trauma
caused by civilization versus native cultures, and 2) the value of non-Christian
ethnic religion. House Made of Dawn is rich in psychological
expressions of a Native American's disconnectedness from an industrialized
Christian society. Separation from nature and ethnic roots provide significant
trauma for the Native American caught between spiritual traditions and the need
to cope with reality as defined by a white culture with no understanding of
native traditions. Christianity is seen as largely irrelevant to the Native
American, and the search for "something more" to make life fulfilling
and reconciled to ancient traditions may have relevance to readers of all
backgrounds. The Plumed Sergent promises to address many of the
same issues, although in a slightly different context -- that of a life-weary
and sophisticated European woman who becomes involved in the revival of an
ancient Aztec blood religion. The criticism I have read of this novel leads me
to believe many of the issues in House Made of Dawn will surface again
here, although from a non-native perspective. These two novels are of interest in that they posit
philosophies opposed to the abstract constructs of Christianity and the other
major world religions. I suspect most people of my background would not have
given much thought to nature religions, other than a possible exposure to
Freud's Totem and Taboo. The two novels appear to be mapping enough of the same
territory (as listed in detail in the proposal) to provide some worthwhile
insights for the insulated inheritor of Western rationalism. John Eberhart Dr Craig White LITR 5734: Cross-Cultural Texts in Dialogue 18 June 1996
Research Paper Proposal Irish Kate Leslie, in the The Plumed Sergent, by D.
H. Lawrence (1926), is disillusioned with her life and European ideals
while a visitor in Mexico. She is unexplainably attracted to a primitive
religious sect that worships the Plumed Serpent, Quetzalcoatl, the pre-Christian
Aztec god of the sun, the Morning Star and the wind. Kate is drawn to this cult
as a way to connect her to the primal sources of sensual and spiritual being. Abel, in N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn 0
968) is a modern native American who feels neither a part of his traditional Ind;
i culture nor white industrialized society, thus creating for him an identity
crisis and a spiritual limbo. These two novels contain many common issues. The two most
universal themes, however, may be 1) the disruptions created by the mixture of
civilized and primitive cultures, and 2) the search by the individual for
spiritual reality and fulfillment in a non-Christian, ethnic religion. It will be the purpose of this paper to contrast the two
novels to identify and understand common problems -- to achieve a better
awareness. Some of the potential issues for analysis are listed below: How is the individual connected to the mystery of the
cosmo and the wellsprings of life? How does he know when he is disconnected? How do non-Christian religions, especially primitive
religions, relate to the spiritual consciousness of European civilization? What
problems are created by discarding Christianity for a primitive racial (ethnic)
religion? Does Christianity prevent a passionate (and natural) inner life?
For the colonizer and the colonized, what common issues and interplay
exist regarding deculturization, racial memory, spiritual flux, lack of
self-expression and identity, alienation, decadence, and powerlessness? What can
one culture learn from another about coping with these issues?
How are the problems of evil and suffering treated by coexisting and
widely differing cultures?
Is it possible to truly transmit and negotiate cultural issues in
creative fiction? That is, are texts about culture dominated by fragmented
impressions, corrupted oral traditions, wish fulfillment or illusions? John Eberhart Dear John, You're a good writer, and your intellect throughout this
paper is serious and elaborate, so thanks for the fine work. Regarding your writing, it has substantiality--lots of
wellchosen words with definite meanings or images at hand--but it also is
impressive in the smoothness of the transitions and continuities from part to
part. Altogether this was a pleasure to read. One area you might consider working on in your prose style
is in your use of quotations from your primary and secondary sources. First, to
offer a positive example, your first paragraph on page 8 might serve as a model
for the integration of quotations with your own prose--in other words, you've
got it right there, so try this more often. You don't exactly do anything wrong elsewhere, but your
tendency seems to be either not to quote at all or to quote at length. You use
your Reader sources well, but you almost exclusively paraphrase your Lawrence
critics--use at least a few of their own best words, if only for
"seasoning." In another regard, don't pile long quotes on top of each
other--most readers start skimming pretty fast in such situations, and I had to
remind myself not to; not that they weren't any good, it's just that we're
reading your paper--if we want to read the other guy's writing at length,
we'll go get his book or article. My only other suggestion would have been to do a bit more
with your conclusion, which seems only to concentrate on the last half of your
essay's progress, when in fact the essay as a whole was what needed
summarizing--it would have been worth it! Well, I've written at too great a length regarding
relatively minor problems. In any case, thanks for being such a fine contributor
to our class. You bring the qualities one likes most to see combined in a
student: you can argue and you can listen. (Most students either do one or the
other, with variations.) If I can ever help you with any of your future work,
just call on me. You're good company and a fine writer and thinker. |