LITR 5734:
Colonial & Postcolonial Literature
Sample Student Final Exams 2008
Essay 2: Compose a dialogue between our four novels since the midterm. (Objectives 1, 2, and 3 + others)
corey porter!
Under Lock and Key: Why Sacrifice Safety When All is Well and Good? A Survey of Colonial and Postcolonial Interaction
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace.
-Samuel Adams, 1776
Instead of fighting for a theme that might unite our four texts in a dazzling display of wordsmanship, I’m dueling with a recurring conflict (or, the theme is conflict—I don’t know): security v. freedom; inherently, the assumption of one is likely to impede the pursuit of the other, and as is evident in the novels we’ve read this semester, the former is oftentimes rejected in search of the latter.
E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India closes with Fielding visiting his old friend, Aziz. The two ride on horseback across a mountain gap, through which they must pass single-file, rather than together. Throughout their ride, Aziz imagines to Fielding a British-free India, an India united when free of its oppressive keeper. Aziz exclaims, “India shall be a nation! No foreigners of any sort! Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and all shall be one! Hurrah! Hurrah for India!” (361). He considers losing the chains of colonialism for a free India, but is ignorant of the tumult awaiting his countrymen at the hands of the British partition. Aziz fails to acknowledge this possibility when he says to Fielding, “Clear out, you fellows, double quick, I say. We may hate one another, but we hate you most. If I don’t make you go, Ahmed will, Karim will…” (361). Aziz imagines a unified India free from British rule, but fails to realize that same India is united under British rule. It’s only after the British leave that the violence begins en masse. Aziz is (maybe unwittingly) willing to sacrifice what security he has now in favor of a free India.
I spent near an entire highlighter on Train to Pakistan, and two facing pages, heavy with fluorescent stink, gave me the idea for this second essay. Iqbal is speaking with a crowd upstairs in the temple and he asks the villagers, “‘Why, don’t you people want to be free? Do you want to remain slaves all your lives?’” (48). The lambardar answers that freedom must be a good thing—after all, Iqbal is promoting it, and they all believe he is good—but what will freedom grant these villagers (48)? Until Iqbal arrives with news of the partition, Mano Majra slept in happy ignorance. The Muslim echoes the lambardar’s thoughts, “Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the Educated Indians…” (48). For the villagers of Mano Majra, security is a blanket that shields them from the outside world. Iqbal attempts to motivate the people to pursue education, to strive for more, to “get together and fight” for “[m]ore land, more buffaloes, [and] no debts” (48). The villagers are still wary. The lambardar says to Iqbal, “‘The only ones who enjoy freedom are thieves, robbers and cutthroats. We were better off under the British. At least there was security’” (49). Iqbal fails to convince the crowd that they should abandon their ignorance (security) in favor of education (freedom). It’s funny then, that Aziz is so determined to win India’s freedom by forgoing its security, and the moment India (Mano Majra) realizes what it has given up, it clamors for the past, for the ‘way things used to be.’
Conversely, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is hell-bent on cashing in his security for the unbridled freedom of the high seas. From an early age, Crusoe confesses, “my head began to be filled…with rambling thoughts” (5). His father, however, has a different plan for Crusoe:
He told me it was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road…that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life… (6)
Crusoe father intends his son to remain at home and ‘get by.’ By not doing so much as to get noticed, and therefore, have things be expected of him, but not doing so little as to be labeled lazy or incompetent, Crusoe’s father has eked out a secure existence. He survives, comfortably enough, by doing what is necessary to preserve this way of life. Crusoe’s father expects that if his son were to venture too far beyond the bound of this lifestyle, he would be quick to regret his situation and would gladly trade his newfound freedom for the comforts of his old life. He goes as far as warning Crusoe that if he continues on with his dream of going to sea, he’ll have too much freedom, or a near-infinite amount of time with which he will have nothing to do: “[H]e would venture to say to me that, if I did take this foolish step, God would not bless me, and I would have leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his counsel when there might be none to assist in my recovery” (7). Crusoe, like Aziz, yearns for freedom—the consequences be damned—although unlike Aziz, Crusoe is given fair warning of what misadventures might befall him. Fortunately for the reader, Crusoe continues with his plan and strikes out in search of freedom, forever turning his back on the life and security he once had.
Jim’s presentation considers how both Lucy and Crusoe both leave home to “measure their wings,” and what becomes of them. What happens to both Crusoe and Lucy is they develop. Jim even states, “Lucy would not have developed emotionally,” had she never left her island. Near the novel’s close, Lucy thinks to herself, “I was alone in the world. It was not a small accomplishment. I thought I would die doing it” (161). A sense of pride (or even relief) is evident in her voice. Lucy leaves her mother (and her mother’s narrow expectations of her) to find her own path. Like Crusoe, she strikes out for what awaits her without so much as a second thought to what she’s leaving behind (Lucy didn’t even open the letters her mother had sent her until after her father’s death). So clean is her break from the past, that Lucy is raw—fresh—when she comes to America. Although she is unaware at the time, Lucy is searching to find herself—a freedom she might have been unable to explore stuck at home under the oppressive ‘security’ of her mother.
In these examples, there’s no certain balance between security and freedom, no optimal point for which the characters are reaching. It’s not fair to say that Aziz, Mano Majra, and the whole of India might have fared better had the British remained. Nor is it certain that Robinson Crusoe or Lucy would have lived more comfortable lives had they not yearned for independence. Most assuredly, the struggle to find a balance between measures of security and degrees of freedom takes place inwardly, and what makes these novels so intriguing is their ability to invite the reader to witness this internal confrontation. These examples should cause the reader to pause and take note when real-world conflicts arise. Take note: one person tries to light his shoe on fire aboard a plane, and now all passengers must remove their shoes at security checkpoints. Are we that quick to surrender our freedoms (however little they may be—it’s more silly than anything, really) for the security we perceive? Or when a water bottle is confiscated at such a checkpoint because it is larger than 3oz, and therefore, could potentially be an explosive, why is it just thrown into the trash? If it were truly so dangerous, wouldn’t it be tossed into some hidden bomb-proof bin? The whole idea of post-9/11 travel is ‘better safe than sorry,’ right?
What we have now is the illusion of security. Taking off our shoes and pitching our dasani doesn’t actually make us safer, but rather it makes us feel safer (well, not all of us…). Like the villagers of Mano Majra, we feel safe because we’re dealing with known quantities—everyone removes their shoes, no one can bring water onto a plane (from beyond the checkpoint, anyway)—and rather than give that up for the unknown, for freedom—what will become of India when the British leave her (will planes start dropping from the sky is the TSA doesn’t peep at our Dr. Scholl’s?)—it’s easier to remain locked away in the shackles of safety.
