LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Student Midterm 2008

Corrie Manigold

February 24, 2008

Articulating Encounters: the “Other” in Colonial and Postcolonial Texts

As I write the opening lines of this exam, I sit in the campus library listening to a man speak in full voice on his cell phone. I can't identify the topic of his animated conversation—or the tongue in which he speaks...maybe Urdu?--but I could be wrong. When I glanced over my shoulder to spy out the perpetrator of  “no cell phone” rule, I notice his clothing to be a light gray pajama. He is seated on one of the few comfortable, lounge-worthy chairs in the library and his posture is loose and easy as he reclines discoursing. He seems to have taken no account of the atmosphere of the library—dead silent, save for the squeaking of a computer chair, here and there, or the occasional muffled cough. His lively telephone conversation has gone on now for several minutes, apparently with no attention to the curious glances of students seated nearby, quietly working, of whom I am one.

I realize as I make these observations that the above lines could almost be pulled from the pages of a modern (cultural) “novel of manners”--or that, at least, this incident may have provided me with a very convenient window into a 'self—other' framing for this paper, which I think is simply too serendipitous to ignore...

Like just about any other graduate student that would elect to take a course in Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, I would like to think of myself as possessing a somewhat 'enlightened' mind—that is to say, I endeavor to be cognizant of my own attitudes toward cultural differences, aware of the often fallacious dichotomy of 'self' and 'other,' and intellectually open to things that I discern as 'different' from myself. Having spent several years living abroad, I would also hope that both education and experience inform my views and action towards these ends. But in spite of a fair bit of international exposure, I still, like most people, at times slip into the mental frame that measures the cultural 'other' in terms of a more homologous cultural identity of the 'self.'

My first reaction in the case of the 'loud library talker' was to assume that the situation was be a product of  cultural difference. And perhaps it was--but even this assumption betrays a mindset that is quick to judge based on a 'self—other' dichotomy of things. Difference, though, when perceived, always elicits a reaction. People of every culture experience this—whether it be revulsion, romanticism, or plain curiosity. This is a circumstance that can be observed throughout the literature of the Colonial and Postcolonial genres. In tales of encounters with the 'other' we see, time and again, various configurations of the relationships that are possible when cultures collide: the rejections, integrations, intrigue, and so on.

Within the framework of this course, the oppositional set of 'self-other' is most frequently employed to describe relationship of the colonizer and the colonized. In this model, to the colonizer most naturally falls the attributes of modernity, dominance, and worldliness; to the colonized, the attributes of traditionalism, subjection, and local identity. Reading a variety of colonial and postcolonial works together, as we are doing in this course, forces a cacophony of voices, that otherwise might not be heard together, into conversation.

Though we have only completed one pair of novels in this colonial-postcolonial dialogue, we have already seen many of the complex issues related to this subject matter begin to develop. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness gives voice to the European colonizers' myopic view of the Congolese against the backdrop of the ivory trade industry. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart spins the tale of a tribal people losing their way of life at the introduction of British imperialism. We have also, through poetry, encountered the problematic integration of “self” and “other” as in Derek Walcott's “A Far Cry From Africa,” where the enigma of racial and cultural “hybridity” is poignantly articulated. And, further still, we have witnessed a New World attempt to resolve the difficulties precipitated by such encounters in Walt Whitman's mystical tribute to globalization in “Passage to India.”  Each of these texts affords a different perspective on the effects of colonialization. Read together, they challenge the reader to grapple with the modern complexities that a history of colonization has bequeathed to a postmodern world.

Heart of Darkness, our starting point in this class, carries the reader into the jungles of Congo to observe Marlowe's strange encounters within the infrastructure of colonial commerce. In class, much has been said of this novel in the vein of critique that Chinua Achebe offers in “An Image of  Africa”--that the text is fraught with narratorial observations that are racist and culturally ignorant, and that the tribal people of the Congo are given little, or no, voice. While this certainly is true, there is more to be gleaned from this novel than a discourse on race relations. Marlowe's narrative also contains a subtle critique of the effects of empire—(and not only those experienced by Africans, if we choose to read Kurtz's degeneration as symptomatic of a reprehensible system of government).

In the opening chapter of the novel, early in Marlowe's narrative, he remarks on the subject of imperialism in general,“'The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much...What redeems it is the idea only'” (Conrad 20). In this statement, Marlowe is speaking from a position of hindsight, as one who has ventured into the colonial world, himself an agent of imperialism and an emissary its commercial interests. His tone is one of fairly easy-going, but knowing, cynicism.

In another passage containing a similar tone and message, Marlowe recounts a discussion with his aunt just prior to his voyage into the Congo: “'She talked about 'weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable.'” Marlowe resists this notion, reminding her “that the company was run for profit.” His aunt, unmoved in her opinion on the matter, counters this, quoting Bible verse to remind her nephew that the “labourer is worthy of his hire.” In doing so, she again strikes at her interest in spiritual 'conquest' through his journey and the importance of Marlowe's stewardship of the position that she, through her influence, had acquired for him. When Marlowe, recounts this episode to his listening comrades, he points out that on these points his aunt (along with the whole of her sex, in a more general sense) was unfathomably “out of touch with truth.”  His comments on the matter (although sexist) speak to the discord he holds with the widely held mindset that the expansion of Empire would ultimately benefit the subject of its domination.  

The general view of imperialism as morally justified, which Marlowe subtly refutes in the above passages, is aptly captured by Rudyard Kipling in “The White Man's Burden.” In this poem, the speaker adjures the United States to “take up the White Man's burden--/Send forth the best ye breed” (ll.1-2). He encourages America to inject herself into third-world affairs after the pattern of the British, since American endeavors had begun to  give birth to such opportunities. Such a policy is justified, says the poet, on the grounds that it “serve[s] [the] captives' need.” It is the colonizer's role, he says, “To seek another's profit,/And work another's gain,” and to “Fill the mouth of Famine/And bid the sickness cease” (ll.15-16, 19- 20).

The theory of colonization voiced in Kipling's poem is a far cry from what Marlowe observes in his  journey down the Congo, respecting both the items of health and wealth. When Marlowe first enters the imperial company's station on the Congo, he is shocked at the sickness he encounters among the blacks in its employ:

'Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment and despair...They were dying slowly – it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminal, they were nothing earthly now, - nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom” (34-5).

Kipling's notion of the “White Man” as benevolent conqueror rather suffers when juxtaposed with the dismal portrait of untreated disease occurring, here, in the supposed 'benefactor's' camp.

Worse yet is the coldness with which characters like the company's chief accountant regarded such suffering: “The groans of this sick person...distract my attention,” the accountant complains, and “when one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages—hate them to death” (Conrad 37, 38). The European employees of the company, indeed, offer no sense of redemption for the mercenary imperialism they represent. Futhermore, when one considers that while company representatives are busy collecting boatloads of ivory, the Africans employees are being paid in lengths of (worthless) brass wire, it is difficult to construe what Kipling might have meant by “work[ing] another's gain” or “bid[ding] the sickness cease.” Again, Marlowe's words echo: “What redeems [imperialism] is the idea only.”

Within the above covered portions of text one can construe two divergent points of view of  the 'other.' Marlowe, in Heart of Darkness, provides a decidedly European view of Africa and its people. Yet based on his cynical response to the comments made by his aunt and his dry observations of the unfeeling accountant who crunches numbers in the midst of unfathomable human anguish, his attitudes toward the whole business of colonization indicates a disdain for the dehumanization of the Africans he encounters. While he clearly views the blacks he meets on the Congo distinctly as the 'other,' his observations of them carry an air of curiosity, intrigue, and at times even a fear of the unfamiliar or respect.  

The second attitude toward the 'other' is embodied by Kipling's work, “White Man's Burden,” and the comments of Marlowe's aunt and European characters throughout Conrad's novel. This perspective of the 'other' defines the relationship in terms of 'burden' and 'burden bearer' -- 'subordinate' and 'superior.'   Inherent in this view is revulsion: “one comes to hate those savages—hate them to death.” They are viewed as the “ignorant millions” who must be trained by the Europeans to leave off “their horrid ways.” In this view there is no reconciliation of difference, no ground for respect.

If Marlowe's narrative in The Heart of Darkness puts to rest any notion of imperial benevolence as theorized in “White Man's Burden,” then Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart chisels its gravestone.   

Subtle and complex, Things Fall Apart affords a narrative of colonization from the perspective of a Nigerian tribe called the Ibo. Without being preachy, the text allows non-African readers to identify with the conflicts of a traditional African tribe, and to experience the encounter with the 'other' (here missionaries and officials of the British imperial government) from the Ibo point of view. As the story of the Ibo's encounter with Christianity and then imperial government progresses, we see also a progression and range in the attitudes of the people toward the strange newcomers

Initially reactions to the presence of missionaries among the tribe, and especially to the presence of a white man among them, are characterized by intrigue and curiosity. Of the first encounter, the narrator relates that “[e]very [Ibo] man and woman came out to see the white man. Stories about these strange men had grown since one of them had been killed in Abame and his iron horse tied to the sacred silk-cotton tree” (Achebe 144). As the missionaries move into the vicinity and are in regular contact with the clan,  stories of the “white man's government” begin to reach the Ibo, but to them “they looked like fairy tales.” As a result, the clan's elders permit them to live and practice the new religion among them, as long as it does not interfere with the clan's regular activities. It takes little time for the leaders of Umuofia to come to regard the newcomers as “undesirable people,” however. Some, like Okonkwo, become “fully convinced that the [white] man [is] mad” (154, 147). The initial intrigue of the encounter is quickly replaced, for many in the tribe, by a passive disdain for the presence and peculiarities of the 'other.' 

It is the complicated issue of integration with the 'other' that eventually moves the emotional registers of some in the clan from passive disdain to open to open revulsion. After surviving against all expectation in the Evil Forest, the fledgling church began to attract converts—a small number of the Ibo were abandoning their ancestors' gods.   Among them was Okonkwo's oldest son, Nwoye. This act of integration with the 'other,' by his son moves Okonkwo into a “sudden fury.” “[H]e felt a strong desire to take up his machete, go to the church and wipe out the entire vile and miscreant gang” (152).  Eventually Okonkwo decides that his son is not worthy of such vengeance, but the presence of such a notion marks a new point in the Ibo attitudes in encountering the 'other.'

This notion of conflict surrounding acts of integration is something that we can turn to the poetry of Derek Walcott to gain a better understanding of. In “A Far Cry From Africa,” Walcott does not deal explicitly with the kind of integration experienced by the Ibo with the first conversions to Christianity, but in writing from the position of a cultural and racial 'hybridity' he articulates  the discomfort of the individual's experience of divided identity—something that the Ibo, as a community, increasingly experiences with the encroachment of colonial influence. He writes, “I who am poisoned with the blood of both,/Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?” (ll. 26-7). Walcott refers to the Euro-African blood in his veins as a symbol of his “divided” identity. Similarly, Umuofia, is beginning to experience community division along the lines of religious identity and ties to the ancestors. It is likely too, Ibo converts that had not come to the church as a social refuge (as in the case of the outcasts or discarded twins) would have experienced sentiments like Walcott's, since their decision to convert would mean alienation from their clansmen—and essentially a division of identity.  

It is not until we arrive at the end of the novella that we see this colonial encounter, however briefly, from the perspective of the British colonizer. In the relation of one brief—but final—episode we gain insight into the District Commissioner's thoughts after witnessing the corpse of Okonkwo, one of Umuofia's greatest warriors, hanging from a tree, the result of suicide. The Commissioner does not consider the true cause of the desperate act—unlike the reader, he does not know that Okonkwo, once the “Roaring Flame” of his tribe had become forlorn for his people's future, and foresaw in this the “annihilation” of his own identity(Achebe 153). Instead, in a very pragmatic (and arguably British) fashion, the Commissioner ponders on what interesting reading this event would make in the 'how-to' manual he will write on the “pacification” of Nigerian tribal peoples (209).

 For the Commissioner, as for the poet in “White Man's Burden,” the African is a subject that must be pacified and groomed to a reasonable level of civilization. The 'other,' by definition, is inferior and requires to be dominated.  The pain of integration, seen in this model, belongs only to the African, to the broken tribe, and to the conflicted 'hybrid' spoken of by Walcott.

Only one text read so far in this course attempts to remedy the problems of the 'other' and of integration. Walt Whitman's “Passage to India” seems to neutralize the potential disasters of encountering the 'other' through a mystical transcendence of geography, race, and traditional religions. The poet views this transcendence as an inevitable event with the rise of globalization, which is represented here by the construction of the Suez Canal in the “Old World”, and the intercontinental railroad in the “New [World]” (ll. 1-2) He likens this phenomenon to the “weld[ing] together” of “lands” (ll. xx). This “welding” of continents, he says, will cause Europe, Asia, Africa, and America to become “lands, geographies, dancing...holding a festival of garland/As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand” (ll. xx). He intones, “Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first?/The earth to be spann'd, connected by network,/The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage” (ll. xx-xx).

Whitman's poem clearly advocates an integration that is at once cultural and racial.

Elsewhere in the poem, he also evokes ideas about trade and the circulation of ancient wisdoms—both scientific and religious—but concerning the present argument, the lines related to cultural and racial integration through the metaphorical (and literal) notion of intermarriage are of greatest importance. The postcolonial issues of pacification, domination, and spiritual conquest, and conflicted identity raise evaporate in this sort of lofty, elevated discourse. It seems that the poet is almost successful in convincing the reader that this vision of global harmony is inevitable as the various networks that link the distant lands become more comprehensive.  The “other” ceases to exist-- it is incorporated into the “self” though both the marriage of geography through technology and the intermarriage of the newly 'connected' races .

Is such a reality possible? As a poet, Whitman displays his ability as a visionary by taking hold of the notion of globalization at so early a juncture in its history. Perhaps his vision of unity through “intermarriage” will at some point be fully realized. But will a  global “marriage” eradicate from our shared sociological reality the conceptual notion of the “other”? The narratives of previous texts seem to take issue with such a transcendental claim.  Difference, when perceived, always elicits a reaction. Instead of eradicating the notion of 'the other,' maybe instead we can explore narratives that will allow us to reconcile the condition of 'otherness' as something acceptable...something possible to embrace.