LITR / CRCL 5734:
Colonial & Postcolonial Literature
Sample Student Final Exam 2003
Ashley Salter
LITR 5734
Summer 2003
Throughout this class, we posited the
novel as the defining genre of modernity, and the vast majority of the
literature we read – both colonial and postcolonial – was in the form of
novels. Early on we learned that
novels are the best genre for allowing multiple voices to be heard in the
writing. This is mainly a function
of dialogue, which allows for various characters to speak up and present their
view point.
Watt pointed out that literary writing
has shifted away, since classical times, from emphasis on universals or ideals.
Instead, modern writing is concerned with particulars and with “the
autonomous individual” (62).
Novels focus on ordinary people, he explains.
For this to work as a subject of “serious literature,” those people
have to do interesting things and a wide variety of things.
Thus, many voices are crucial to the success of the entire genre.
We looked at a wide range of novels in
terms of style and time period. We
ranged from the very early Robinson Crusoe
with its heroically portrayed title character to Forster’s decorous novel of
manners to the postmodernism of The God of
Small Things to the autobiographical Lucy.
If we look at them in this order (almost chronological), we can see a
pattern of starting with a limited number of viewpoints expressed, adding more
voices to the texts, then coming full circle back to a narrative centered
heavily on a single character.
Dialogue is quite sparse is Robinson Crusoe. There
is a passage where an actual conversation is rendered as we might expect in a
more contemporary work (pp. 154-5), but usually Crusoe offers us conversational
fragments interspersed with commentary. This
limits the reader’s ability to discern voices other than Crusoe’s.
The best example of this is how little we get to know Friday and how
infrequently he gets to express himself in the novel’s pages.
From Crusoe’s first sighting of him, Friday is often more object than
subject – a thing to be acted upon, changed, and molded by Crusoe.
We first get a catalog of Friday’s features and appearance and how
these are pleasing to Crusoe: “straight, strong limbs,” “the sweetness and
softness of an European in his countenance,” and hair and skin that Friday
seems surprised that he doesn’t find distasteful (148-9).
Crusoe is the narrator, and we are stuck rigidly to what he perceives.
Crusoe arbitrarily names the man for
“the Day I sav’d his Life” (149). He
makes no effort to learn Friday’s real name.
An exchange such as tapping himself on the chest and saying “Crusoe,”
then pointing at Friday might have been appropriate here.
But Crusoe, our poster-boy colonist, chooses a name for Friday and
designates himself “Master.”
Crusoe’s efforts to teach Friday his
language and religion supply further evidence that he views Friday as an object
rather than a speaking, acting, individual subject.
He says, “I was greatly delighted with him, and made it my Business to
teach him every Thing that was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful”
(152). This makes Friday sound like
a tool or supply whose only importance is to enhance Crusoe’s life.
When he begins to talk about religion with Friday, Crusoe talks to him of
“the true God” (156). It never occurs to him to consider the possible validity of
Friday’s preexisting religious beliefs.
Crusoe relates that Friday likes the
parts about God and Jesus, but begins to question Crusoe when he explains the
Devil. In this exchange, we
actually see Friday thinking for himself, speaking up, acting like Watt’s
autonomous individual. “But, says
he again, if God much strong, much might as the Devil, why God no kill the
Devil, so make him no more do wicked?” Friday
is not satisfied with Crusoe’s argument that God will eventually punish the
Devil. This dissent is, however, a
rare glimpse of Friday as an active, participating voice in the novel.
Friday is the character we would expect
to have no voice. He is the
colonized. This introduces the
primary reason for reading a text such as Defoe’s in dialogue with a text
written by someone closer to Friday’s perspective.
Sylvia Krzmarzick from the 2001 class made this point quite well when she
pointed out that “Lucy’s voice can actually serve to give Friday a more
valid one.” At least a partial
cause for the silencing of Friday, though, is the early date at which Robinson Crusoe was written. The
novel had yet to develop the reliance on dialogue that characterizes it today.
So, I would expect the later novels to portray many voices with greater
ease.
Forster’s A
Passage to India seems to take a step forward.
What I read in this novel is a series of dichotomies rather than a true
plurality of voices. We see several
oppositions: English v. Indian, Muslim v. Hindu, female v. male, and so on.
Miss Quested’s reaction to Aziz offers an example of the nationalistic
dichotomy. “In her ignorance, she regarded him as ‘India,’ and
never surmised that his outlook was limited and his method inaccurate, and that
no one is India” (76). The
narrator here seems to be arguing that each person is an individual, a
philosophy that would fit nicely with the characteristics of the novel. The narrator continues to show us examples that differentiate
individuals at least in relation to another group.
After Aziz shirks his agreement to
attend the bridge party with Panna Lal, the other doctor questions him about it.
Aziz makes the excuse that he had to go to the post office.
The narrator gives us Aziz’s perspective on the situation and Dr.
Lal’s response. “One of his own
social circle would have accepted this as meaning that he had changed his mind,
an event too common to merit censure. But
Dr. Lal, being of low extraction, was not sure whether an insult had been
intended” (61). This explanation
of social class is one example of much “us v. them” framing within the book. Aziz also uses such a frame when speaking of Hindus.
Of Dr. Lal attending Professor Godbole, he says, “Oh yes, both Hindus;
there we have it; they hang together like flies and keep everything dark”
(112).
For the most part, Forster’s narrator
strikes me as having evolved past the narrow view point of Crusoe.
(Much of this could be attributed to Crusoe
being first person and India third
person.) But, in a few
places, I wonder if the narrator isn’t a colonial Englishman through and
through. When Aziz falls ill, we
learn, “It was Sunday, always an equivocal day in the East, and an excuse for
slacking.” I tried to fit this in
as being part of Aziz’s thoughts as he lies in bed, but I kept returning to
the conclusion that it is strictly the voice of the narrator.
A view such as that hardly indicates a narrator willing to portray many
voices with equal respect or to paint many characters as autonomous, thinking
individuals. And, again, the
problem seems to fall, at least partially, into a conflict between colonizers
and colonized. When the colonizers
are writing the story, it may simply be impossible for the colonized
perspectives to be aired.
That’s why we read each of these
novels paired off with a later work by a postcolonial writer.
When I first reviewed The God of
Small Things, thinking of whether it succeeded or failed at presenting many
voices, I thought it would be the exemplary text. After sorting out some of the evidence, I realize that,
though it does give voices to many of the characters, it’s not in the way I
was looking for.
We learn very quickly in The
God of Small Things that voice and identity are fiercely limited by the
society’s rules. The text builds
our sympathy for several characters who aren’t allowed to speak up and voice
their opinions. Foremost among
these are Rahel and Estha because they are children, Ammu because she is a
woman, and Velutha because he is a Paravan.
Much of the story is colored by a
childlike perspective. Words and
sentences read backwards appear several times.
This is a game of Rahel and Estha’s.
We get narrative fragments such as “Lay. Ter,” and “Boot was a lovely word. Sturdy
was a terrible word,” (146) that
take us right into how the children see the world.
Also, we get characterizations of them such as Ambassadors E. Pelvis and
S. Insect and the Airport Fairy that have a childlike quality.
This sensibility is given free rein in the narrative, but other
characters in the novel always seem to be trying to shut down the children’s
exuberance. The airport scene when
Sophie Mol arrives is a good example. Rahel
and Estha as well as Sophie Mol are all expected by the adults to say certain
things and behave certain ways.
If Estha and Rahel are denied expression
because of their age, Ammu is denied it because of her gender.
Pappachi doesn’t even believe her story about what happened with her
husband (42). Later, she is simply
locked in her room when she acts in a way that is unacceptable.
This is quite similar to the way a naughty child would be punished.
Velutha’s voice is perhaps most stifled by his society because of his
status as a Paravan or untouchable. The
scene where he goes to Comrade Pillai illustrates this in a clever manner (271).
We are told that Velutha speaks, but we are never given his words, merely
a summary of what he says. In
contrast, Pillai’s actual dialogue is rendered in quotation marks.
The touchable’s voice is heard clearly; the untouchable’s is barely
heard.
Overall, The
God of Small Things does a good job of broadcasting these marginalized
voices. The problem is that none of
that marginalization has to do with the colonial/postcolonial dialogue.
As was pointed out a few times in class, Roy seems thematically concerned
with the Love Laws within Indian society rather than with the lingering
influences of colonialism. All four of our sympathetic characters are involved with
breaking these rules. Ammu and
Velutha do so first. Many years
later, Estha and Rahel repeat the violation.
“Once again they broke the Love Laws.
That lay down who should be loved. And
how. And how much” (311).
We had some wonderful readings where
colonial/postcolonial themes were read into the book – the best was probably
Charley’s interpretation of the spider on the last few pages – but the novel
simply doesn’t have colonialism as its primary concern.
Therefore, it’s not the best material for working out how well voices
on both sides of colonialism are heard within the literature.
Lucy,
however, has colonialism as an obvious topic.
It’s impossible not to see Lucy as the third wave of colonialism and to
pursue analogies of the colonizer and colonized relationship to the relationship
between Lucy and Mariah.
Dialogue is as rare in Lucy
as it is in Robinson Crusoe. The
narrators sometimes tell us what other people say, but not frequently or at
length. Both are first person
accounts that attach the reader to the narrator’s perspective.
In Crusoe, this meant that we were excluded from the thoughts of the
colonized person – Friday. In the
later novel, the colonized person is our guide and she shapes the values and
perspective of the story as Crusoe did before.
Much of what Lucy voices is the need to
find her own identity in the world. Lucy
struggles to create an identity separate from her mother. She tells us, “I had come to feel my mother’s love for me
was designed to make me into an echo of her; and I didn’t know why, but I
would rather be dead than just become an echo of someone” (36).
It occurred to me that Crusoe essentially tries to make Friday an echo of
himself – his language, his religious beliefs, hid manner of dress.
Unlike Friday, Lucy rejects all attempts by others to shape her. She tells us “I had been a girl of whom certain things were
expected, none of them too bad: a career as a nurse, for example; a sense of
duty to my parents; obedience to the law and worship of convention.
But in one year of being away from home, that girl had gone out of
existence” (133). There are
several dynamics at play in Lucy’s story, including a nineteen-year-old
girl’s rebellion against everyone in authority, and a daughter’s animosity
toward her mother. The colonized
person’s reaction to the colonizer is also treated in the novel, however.
Lucy specifically strikes out at
Mariah’s pseudo-colonial attempt to share her culture.
When the woman takes her to see the daffodils, she says, “ ‘Mariah,
do you realize that at ten years of age I had to learn by heart a long poem
about some flowers I would not see in real life until I was nineteen?’ As soon as I said this felt sorry that I had cast her beloved
daffodils in a scene she had never considered, a scene of conquered and
conquests, a scene of brutes masquerading as angels and angels portrayed as
brutes” (30). When she begins
using this language of conquering and brutes, Lucy is solidly on postcolonial
ground. There’s no ambiguity here
about whether colonialism is an actual subject in the writing.
The most striking way I see Lucy
asserting her own voice occurs during other interactions with Mariah.
There’s a recurring pattern of Mariah generalizing Lucy’s experiences
to “everybody” or at least all women, and Lucy demanding that her
experiences are hers alone. Lucy
tells Mariah that before she got the news about her father’s death, she had
never imagined either of her parents dying.
“When I told Mariah this, she said no one ever thinks their parents
will die, and I had to suppress the annoyance I felt at her for once again
telling me about everybody when I told her something about myself” (139).
Another time, Mariah gets out a thick book and starts talking in general
about mothers and daughters and women and culture and society.
“But I couldn’t tell her that my mother was my mother and that
society and history and culture and other women in general were something else
altogether” (131-2).
There is a pattern in these passages of
Lucy feeling strongly about something but not articulating it. For some reason, she often keeps quiet or can’t speak.
So, although as readers we hear her voice loud and clear, she is not
being heard in the situations she finds herself in, particularly, it seems, when
she’s communicating with people who represent the dominant or colonizing
culture.
Unlike Crusoe, Lucy partially succeeds
in perceiving the perspective – or at least the difference in perspectives –
between various people. A clear
example is the scene where Peggy comes to look out the window where Lucy is
already standing. “Was she seeing
the same things as we looked out on the same view?” Lucy wonders.
“Probably not.”
After all my review of whether multiple
voices can be heard in these four novels, the essential check is probably this:
do the narrator and the main character(s) recognize that there are other voices
or opinions? Crusoe doesn’t –
even when Friday speaks up, he – the Master – acts superior and dismisses
the question. The characters in A Passage to India have awareness of differences, but they’re
nowhere close to being able to treat those voices with equal respect.
Roy lets us hear marginalized voices, shows us how little respect they
get from others, but she’s not working within the strict context of
colonial/postcolonial conflicts. Lucy is a toss up – in some ways she throws us back to the
narrowness of viewpoint we find in Crusoe’s tale; then, in this window scene,
she extends the hope that she’s starting to see multiple possibilities, to
hear multiple voices on a given topic.
Crusoe, Miss Quested, Aziz, Fielding,
Ammu, Velutha, Estha, Rahel, Lucy – all of these characters are somehow
individual, ordinary yet interesting, as Watt suggests they must be to appear in
novels. But I’m suddenly struck
by the fact that none of the major characters in these works is a hybrid of
colonizer and colonized. (Estha and
Rahel are half Hindu, half Muslim, but that’s not what I’m looking for.)
Walcott’s poetry deals repeatedly with being a hybrid, being able to
see both sides, trying to reconcile “the divided child.”
That’s not very present in the novels, though.
Class discussions about hybridity led me to believe that cosmopolitan
outlooks and the recognition that people are usually a blend or two or more
identities are growing tendencies among writers on postcolonial subjects.
I think novels that have hybridization as a key element might succeed
further in undermining the “us v. them” mentality that peeks through in
these works. The Zadie Smith novel
mentioned in class – White Teeth, I
think – might be worth looking at in these terms.
Meanwhile, there’s a minor character in Passage to India whose thoughts summarize hybridization quite well – the Nawab Bahadur’s chauffeur. He is described as Eurasian, and standing on the side of the road with his employer, Miss Quested, and Heaslop, he’s unsure who to identify with. Forster describes his confusion: “When English and Indians were both present, he grew self-conscious, because he did not know to whom he belonged. For a little he was vexed by opposite currents in his blood, then they blended, and he belonged to no one but himself.” I feel like that brings me full circle back to Watt’s insistence in the importance of the individual in the development of the novel. The more complicated the identity, the more sorting out that must be done, the more a person is likely to have to carve their own unique niche in the world. And that, of course, makes them worth reading – and writing – about.
Log:
Started at 11:38 pm
Break at 1:03 am – need caffeine!
Returned to writing at 2:04 am
Finished Writing 3:09 am
Revision finished 3:30 am
Total time: about 3 hours
+ 30 minutes organizing notes