Charles Colson

9 December 2009

Language, Power, and Interpretation

    It seems self-evident to the point of truism to say that dialogue and narrative are made possible by shared language.  In the colonial setting, those who go on to school learn the language, absorb its culture, adopt its values, and often become hybrids, regulating access to power by interpreting.  More than merely translating from one language to another, interpretation often involves expounding upon the culture and way of thought represented by the language.  Such understandings are part of the shift to postcolonial society.  Examining the role of colonial and postcolonial interpreters and interpretation in four texts covered since out LITR 5731 midterm (Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, Train to Pakistan, and Jasmine) is another way to think about the first two course objectives.

    Based upon the examples we have studied, I would observe that colonial literature is characterized by its shortage of real interpreters.  While a variety of Europeans (English, Belgian, Swedish, Russian) make their appearance and there is evidence for at least two languages in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, the only recorded dialogue in all of the African tale is between whites.  I have been unable to find a single reference to an interpreter in the novella.  As Chinua Achebe notes in his article, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” “It is clearly not part of Conrad’s purpose to confer language on the ‘rudimentary souls’ of Africa.”  There are African characters that are partially integrated into the white man’s world.  A rifle-toting guard at the initial landing is one of the “reclaimed,” but neither he nor the exhausted laborers seems capable of more than taking commands.  Marlow’s helmsman and boiler stoker have been trained but are not regarded as much more than costumed animals in their captain’s eyes.  The sort of language Conrad gives to the cannibal woodcutter and the “insolent” cabin boy shows them to be little more than enlightened savages.  All the other Africans speak in howls, screams, confused babbling, murmuring undertones, and physical motions, communicating as animals do.  Evidently Kurtz speaks the language of those at the inner station but his message, in Marlow’s rendition, becomes an imperious arm extended, a shaken fist, a wide-opened mouth, and a deep-voiced shout.  Kurtz is no more intelligible than the Africans when he speaks their language.  Kipling’s Man Who Would be King includes a translator for the two British soldiers as they train the recruits of Kafiristan; the colonial police in the movie Simba use a translator for interrogation.  The assumption seems unchanged since Robinson Crusoe: the colonized must learn the colonizer’s language and adapt to his ways.

    The dictum that “knowledge is power” is evident in the colonial setting when interpreters use language to advance themselves.  The corruption of those in power seems to go hand-in-hand with the compromises they make to achieve success.  The Chundunnugger police station in Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan features both a portrait of King George VI with “Bribery is a crime” in Urdu and a torn-out calendar picture of Gandhi with the English motto “Honesty is the best policy.”  Nevertheless, the police officers of Mano Majra and its district appear to be corrupted in direct proportion to their power and ability to “interpret” the colonial British law system.  Deputy Commissioner Hukum Chand accepts a barely pubescent bed partner as his due, and the subinspector reminds the town tough of the torture that is possible while in jail.  The arrogant and high-handed kotmas of Achebe’s Umuofia are the product of a few months of colonial basic education.  The white man’s court messengers and interpreter accept money for a favorable decision in the matter of a land dispute.  They inflate a fine imposed on the village by 25% to collect bags of cowry shells for themselves.  They disregard the white District Commissioner’s instructions and mistreat Okonkwo and the leaders of Umuofia after the destruction of the church building.  Kurtz learns enough African language and culture to impose his will as a demigod at his isolated upriver station.  He no longer trades for ivory but takes what he wants by gun power and intimidation.

The most successful interpreters are hybrids, sometimes disliked by people in their original culture or disrespected by those in the one they have adopted.  Corey Porter, writing in a 2008 final exam, observed that while the colonizer introduced the advantages of employment and education to the colonized, it was the “colonizee” who then co-opted them into her desires.  Ultimately, this assumption of culture was the beginning of the second (postcolonial) society, which often had very different values than that of the first (precolonial). In Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine, the bright young village girl Jyoti is encouraged to continue her English language education to the point that her brothers are proud of her ability to translate instruction manuals and write school or job applications.  Her grandmother Dida and the rest of the neighborhood think she is mad to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to marry a well-to-do older widower.  Her friend Vimla believes the 14-year-old is living in sin because of her Registry Office marriage to the engineering student Prakash.  Jyoti-Jasmine shuttles between identities.  Iqbal, in Train to Pakistan, likewise goes back and forth between Western habits and practices of Indian class and ethnic consciousness.  His ambiguity almost costs him his freedom and his life when the authorities can’t decide whether he is Muslim or Sikh.  Okonkwo’s son Nwoye, drawn to the Christian religion, is disowned by his father, but he has evidently adapted well enough to be sent to the new training college for teachers in Umuru.

Interpreters do more than translate languages.  In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the African pastor Mr. Kiaga is an example of one who interprets the white man’s religion with considerable success because he understands both cultures so well.  Iqbal attempts to interpret Marxism for the benefit of the villagers of Mano Majra.  Lillian Gordon, the Quaker missionary who taught herself Kanjobal in order to minister to Guatemalan illegal immigrants, interprets American culture for Jasmine-Jazzy, teaching the newly arrived girl to walk, dress, and approach an escalator like an American.  Jasmine-Jessy interprets the Hindu view of fate in the death of Pitaji for Taylor, the sub-atomic physicist.  Jasmine-Jane renders Indian food into terms the townspeople of Baden, Iowa can understand.

    In the colonial setting, those who do not have aptitude in the privileged power language of the colonizer are unable to narrate their personal or cultural history or to carry on a meaningful dialogue, so their ideas and feelings go unheard.  Language learning, then, is a form of empowerment.  Interpreters assume the culture of the other, and this assumption, Corey Porter explains, is the beginning of the second (postcolonial) society, one which often has very different values than that of the first (precolonial).  Postcolonial authors are often “hybrids” themselves, interpreters of one culture to another.  Studying the “old canon” of Western classics in dialogue with the “new canon” of multicultural literature offers the opportunity for readers to cross language and culture boundaries as authors represent world views, interpret events, and share experiences.