LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Student Midterm 2008

C. Vanessa Olivier

The Coexistence of Oppression and Resistance

in Postcolonial Literature Studies

On the first day of class when to my surprise I discovered that I had signed up for a literature driven class, I was apprehensive and insecure, to say the least.  I honestly did not think my cross-cultural studies quest would benefit significantly from a literature course.  I must say I stand corrected.  The two subjects complement one another beautifully. In fact, I am quite amazed at how much I am enjoying this novel approach to examining human issues which are at the core of cross-cultural studies.  It is quite refreshing.

One process central to the cross-cultural studies discipline is ethnographical technique.  The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology defines ethnography as "a descriptive account of social life and culture in a particular social system based on detailed observations of what people actually do" (Johnson, 2000: 111).  The anthropological faculty of the University of Pennsylvania further adds that ethnography is composed of two things primarily: “the fundamental research method of cultural anthropology, and the written text produced to report ethnographic research results” (2).  Others emphasize the idea that ethnography is a “holistic research method founded on the idea that a system's properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other” (3). Finally, “the genre has both formal and historical connections to colonial office reports” (3).  The attention to detail regarding this term serves to emphasize the importance of written text in cultural studies.  Literature in particular offers a unique perspective into the realm of the world of anthropology; for, in literature, the findings are primarily based on experience rather than fieldwork.  It is one thing to report findings from the role of observer and quite another to write from the role of the observed.

In searching for a theme for my paper, I was inspired by Michael Russo’s 2005 midterm, in which he writes, “This ability of fiction to connect with an audience on both an emotional and philosophical level, either in conjunction with or independent of historical fact, is a force neither virtuous nor evil; like the element of water, it can bring vitality to a culture, or wipe clean its fields so that other philosophical crops might be planted and new traditions sewn.”  History like cross-cultural and anthropological studies is greatly enhanced through literary texts.  One of the major recurring themes in my studies has been the coexistence of oppression and suffering or in other words, suffering and hope.  Colonial and post-colonial texts studied in conjunction with one another offer fascinating insight into this issue.  As objective one in our class syllabus notes, “To bring classic literature of European colonialism and emerging literature from the postcolonial world into dialogue” through intertextuality and historicism can provide an additional tool in the learning journey of many.

I must admit, had I not been forewarned of the racist undertones in Conrad’s book, I do not believe I would have immediately labeled him a racist.  His writing is just exquisite, and I was so entranced with the brilliant images his writing induces that it blinded me a bit.  I do not know whether or not he intended to deeply interlace his text with subliminal racist messages.  I sensed a bit of irony and sarcasm in the way he boldly delivered messages regarding the colonizers and their mission.  For example, the narrator criticizes the colonizers, noting, “It was as unreal as everything else-as the philanthropic pretense of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work” (21).  In another scene, Conrad seems even more opposed to the occupation:

“They were no colonists; they were conquerors.  It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind-as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness.  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 so much.  What redeems it is the idea only.  An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea-something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to…” (4). 

In reference to the Eldorado Exploring Expedition the narrator professes,

“It was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world.  To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe” (27).

In these examples, Conrad seems to be criticizing the English campaign in Africa, but these dialogues are the exception.  For the most part, Conrad promotes feelings of European superiority.

            Conrad’s dialogue presents the colonizers as oppressors.  Consistently throughout Heart of Darkness, the reader is led to view the Africans as simple people, who lack any cultural complexities.  Conrad repeatedly refers to the natives as an “incomprehensible black frenzy,” as if everything about them is chaotic, insane, and uncivilized (24).  In describing their language, Conrad’s character concludes they uttered “strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language; and the deep murmurs of the crowd…like the responses of some satanic litany” (62).  There is an implication that the Africans are inhuman and wicked simply because he cannot understand their language spoken in their land.  In the scene in which Marlow is supposedly distraught at the inevitable death of his trusted helper, he still manages to put forward an insult, claiming, “it looked as though he would presently put to us some question in an understandable language; but he died without uttering a sound” (42).  In other instances, Marlow seems indecisive regarding his comprehension of the African people.  For example, when he initially hears the drumming sounds he describes it as “a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild --- and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country (17).  Later in the story, however, he cannot tell whether or not the drums signified “war, peace, or prayer” (31). 

Regarding the environment, Conrad depicts a dreadful place, as in his descriptions: “a grimy fragment of another world,” “The earth seemed unearthly,” and “the peculiar blackness of that experience.” All of these crude and indifferent references lend credibility to his belief that the natives were insignificant.  Furthermore, this incessant degradation of “the other” is a form of oppression.

            The text in Heart of Darkness also implies that the African natives are used as props in a story dealing with issues of much greater importance, namely psychological transformation.  The first description of the African people includes the comment that “they had faces like grotesque masks…” (10). Surely Conrad could have found other words to create a picture and still retain the emotions he sought to convey.  When confronted with the sick and dying natives, Marlow acknowledges their suffering; “they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom” but then quickly focuses his attention on the origins of a piece of cloth tied around one of their necks; “was it a badge – an ornament – a charm – a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it?” (14). True, the deep suffering of the Africans is noted, but for what purpose?  Can we admire what appear to be Conrad’s humanitarian concerns, when in the next moment the focus shifts to  a minute distraction? In reference to his helper, the narrator proudly boasts that “he was an improved specimen; …to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs” (33)  In one descriptive scene, Conrad undoubtedly equates the native people to their environment: “I noticed that the crowd of savages was vanishing without any perceptible movement of retreat, 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” (55).  These types of seductive passages aid in burying the racist undertones of the novel.  Conrad, however, assures us that the African subjects are indeed human:

“No they were not inhuman.  Well, you know that was the worst of it…They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was the thought of their humanity – like yours – the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar.  Ugly.  Yes, it was ugly enough (32). 

In the end, one cannot protect Conrad from racist accusations.  Even though we cannot prove his ideas represent those of the narrators, he does not seriously focus on the abuses of the natives.  They provide mere scenery, as props so to speak, whose horrible situations are acknowledged, but not emphasized or empathetically presented.  Also telling is the fact that the narrator would compare Marlow to a respected figure such as the Buddha.  He would not do so unless his opinions were at least somewhat respected and supported.

In stark contrast, Chinua Achebe invites us to see a different side of Africa and its people.  In fact, Achebe’s very act of writing a novel in response to colonial oppression is a powerful form of resistance.  Achebe, presents a complex society consisting of depth and knowledge.  Near the beginning of Things Fall Apart, we are shown a common activity among the Ibo tribe; “counting the prepared [yam] seeds in groups of four hundred” (32).  Counting is indeed an act representative of an advanced civilization.  Throughout the novel, Achebe introduces many various words of the Ibo language.  We are also able to listen in on moral stories involving animals, similar to the popular Aesop’s fables of Western culture.   In short, Achebe proves that the African “noise” in Heart of Darkness is not only representative of language but of intricate language.  Particularly interesting is the wine ceremony practiced by the Ibo tribe.  It is in many ways comparable to the communion wine rite carried out by many Western religions.  In “An Image of Africa:  Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” Achebe addresses Western  ethnocentricity and lack of insight:

“The young fellow from Yonkers, …is obviously unaware that the life of his own tribesmen in Yonkers, New York, is full of odd customs and superstitions and, like everybody else in his culture, imagines that he needs a trip to Africa to encounter those things (337). 

The colonizers failed to recognize the traditions of the colonized peoples.  In reference to the white man the Ibo tribesman note,

“But he says our customs are bad; and our brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad.  How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us?  The white man is very clever.  He came quietly and peaceably with his religion.  We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay.  Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one.  He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart” (176).

The Africans resist, but in the end face an uncertain future.  When the foreigners immediately condemn the Ibos for their practices of polygamy and twin rituals, they have no point of reference for their judgments. Many groups enforce these acts for self-preservation.  In a society where children do not live long due to lack of medical access, polygamy ensures more consistent and abundant proliferation, and twin infanticide prevents the inevitable risk to the other children, in a culture where many children breast feed to the age of five.  All of these negative connotations regarding Africa support Chinua Achebe’s claim:

“Quite simply it is the desire – one might say the need – in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest…Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which better than any other work that I know displays that Western desire and need which I have just referred to” (337).

Conrad’s novel overlooks the human side of the Africans, reducing them to mere objects.  In the examination of Heart of Darkness along with Things Fall Apart, the class objective, “to model and mediate the “culture wars” between the “old canon” of Western classics and the “new canon” of multicultural literature by studying these traditions together rather than separately is successfully achieved.

In the analysis of Derek Walcott’s poem, “A Far Cry from Africa”, postcolonial studies “extend the intertextuality of the novel or fiction to poetry colonial, imperial, or post-colonial sources.”  Walcott is a product of the colonial encounter (or the oppressor and the resistors).  He struggles with where his loyalties do and should lie.  In his poem, Walcott asks, “Betray them both, or give back what they give?”  He further emphasizes his inner dilemma or rather his identity crisis when he cries, “I who am poisoned with the blood of both, /Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?”  Although Walcott is torn between two nationalities, he does criticize the colonizer’s actions, announcing, “Again brutish (British) necessity wipes its hands/Upon the napkin of a dirty cause.”  He also references the aftermath of colonization suggesting that “Statistics justify and scholars seize the salients of colonial policy.”  Walcott honestly explores his roots and what they signify, concluding that he must honor both sides. 

            Although Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart seem entirely juxtaposed to one another, there are some similarities.  For example, both authors depict women in a subservient role.  Conrad’s depiction deals with more psychological inferiorities, whereas Achebe uses physical abuse to show the devaluation and dehumanization of females.  Another interesting similarity involves the cause behind the deaths in both works.  Both authors choose characters who exercise little or no restraint to experience death.  Okonkwo, Kurtz, and Marlow’s African assistant lack self-control.  In reference to the assistant, Conrad writes, “He had no restraint, no restraint – just like Kurtz – a tree swayed by the wind” (46).  There also exists in both works, the incomprehensible suffering of the other.  Both sides truly believe in their cause and that they are right.  As one of the Ibo leaders expresses, “he does not understand our customs, just as we do not understand his.  We say he is foolish because he does not know our ways, and perhaps he says we are foolish because we do not know his” (191).  People possess many different perspectives and experiences which shape their views.  This is a recurring theme among humans present in both novels.

From the study of colonial and post-colonial texts in dialogue, I have gained more insight into the coexistence of oppression and resistance among clashing cultures and have come to some basic conclusions.  Nothing is black and white.  Human nature urges us to place things in neat categories, but this is not possible in human relations.  Also, everything and everyone is exposed to various influential experiences, therefore creating different perspectives.  There is truth and reason in all sides.  As stated on the Emory University website, “the easiest thing to do about colonialism is to refer to history in terms of guilt or punishment or revenge, or whatever, whereas the rare thing is the resolution of being where one is and doing something positive about that reality.”  We can all benefit from this approach. 

As a cross-cultural study major, I am not a direct teacher, but an informal teacher.  I hope to one day teach others through my actions.  The struggle between the colonizers and the colonized is intriguing and beneficial to me; for, I intend to carry out field research in Mexico and Latin America – places more than familiar with colonization and oppression.

Bibliography

(1) http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Walcott.html

(2) http://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthro/CPIA/METHODS/Ethnography.html

 (3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography

Johnson, Allan G. (2000). The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology, Second ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.