Aaron Schneider

Tradition vs. Modernity: The Cause of Colonization

            The tumultuous relationship of the colonizer and colonized is one that is woven into the fibers of world history.  Both the colonizers and the colonized alike come in many different colors and speak many different languages.  Much of the knowledge about world history has been garnered through intense research and study of both the colonizer and the colonized.  The most valuable aspect of this study, however, comes in the form of bringing various Co-Poco texts into dialogue with one another.  Through analyzing the intertextuality shared by Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan, Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine, Chingua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, one finds all four of these texts coming into dialogue with each other based on the common themes of tradition and modernity.  While each of the four novels contains a protagonist who discards the concept of tradition in order to embrace the concept of modernity, each of these protagonists inevitably returns to his or her traditional roots throughout the course of his or her respective journey.

            One of the most important qualities of the concept of tradition (especially in India) is the value and importance placed on names.  In both Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan and Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine, the reader finds special emphasis placed on not only the names of the protagonists, but what makes up the names themselves.  Singh’s protagonist, Juggut (referred to as Jugga), shares much with the novel’s author; both take one of the most common traditional Sikh last names known in India: Singh.  There are no meaningless names in the Indian culture and Jugga’s last name is no exception; when properly read and written, the name “Singh” stands for “lion”.  Jugga’s name is highly symbolic of his characteristics as he is a man in every sense of the word.  He is hard, tough, firm, dangerous, and confident.  It is ironic that in India the concept of men and women being equals is virtually non-existent, yet it is a woman in the form of Bharati Mukerjee’s protagonist, Jasmine, who exemplifies each of Jugga Singh’s heroic qualities. 

Mukerjee’s name, much like Khushwant Singh’s, holds symbolic value.  While Singh shares a last name with his novel’s protagonist, Mukherjee’s last name stands for “India” itself, which serves as a portion of the setting for her 1989 novel Jasmine.  The traditional value placed on names is transferred to Mukherjee’s protagonist Jasmine as she transitions through as many as five different personas (Jyoti, Jasmine, Jase, Kali, and Jane).  The shift from her given Indian name “Jyoti” to her new “American name” of “Jane” symbolizes what Jane herself identifies as “being caught between the promise of America and old world dutifulness” (240).  The losing of tradition and the embracing of modernity is what causes her to leave her homeland of India and journey to the most “American” place on earth: the Mid-Western town of Baden, Iowa.  While Jugga’s journey from tradition to modernity never leads him out of the country, it does lead him into a Muslim’s woman’s arms in the character of Nooran.

While Jugga and Jasmine share traditional names and traditional qualities, their strong confidence and rebellious desire to “push the limits” lead to their shirking of traditional values and acceptance of the modern concept of mobility.  Jugga Singh seemingly would be content with his average village lifestyle aside from one crucial element: he likes Muslim women.  From a modern American viewpoint, dating outside of race and social class fails to be an issue, but during the partition of Pakistan and India, engaging in an interracial relationship brings a whole new meaning to the cliché of “sleeping with the enemy.”  Nooran’s pregnancy with Jugga’s child creates a predicament that transcends racial boundaries and ultimately leads to the sacrifice of Jugga’s life. 

At first glance, a reader is inclined to believe that both the characters of Jugga and Jasmine are traditional in every sense of the word; their traditional values define their characters.  Eventually, however, both of these characters embrace a sense of modernity in stepping outside of the rules and laws of their people before resorting to their traditional roots in times of struggle.  Jugga steps outside cultural boundaries in dating his Muslim girlfriend Nooran, but in the end, holds true to the promise he makes her, “No one can harm you while I live; no one in Manjo Mara can raise his eyebrows at you and get away from Jugga” (16).  While Jugga’s rebellious nature causes him to push the limits of his society to the extreme, he defaults to the traditional values of protecting family and loved ones in the promise he makes to Nooran.  Jugga upholds this promise and sacrifices his life not only to save Nooran, but to save her fellow Muslims as well.  Through this sacrifice, the metaphoric walls of division are broken down and two opposing societies are offered the possibility of re-integration.

While Jasmine’s journey does not end with her embracing her traditional values, she does resort to them throughout her journey.  As Jasmine cycles through identities and continues to die and be re-born into different “selves”, she ultimately distances herself from her traditional values.  The first evidence of this occurs in the shedding of her Indian name: “My grandmother may have named me Jyoti, Light, but in surviving I was already Jane, a fighter and adapter” (40).  The symbolism of Jasmine’s given Indian name “Jyoti” is lost and with it dies the light of her traditional values.  Jasmine adopts the new American name of “Jane” and completes her assimilation in modern American society.  While she is in Iowa, however, she becomes pregnant with Bud’s (her live-in boyfriend) child.  Being pregnant, coupled with Bud becoming paralyzed, causes Jasmine to return to her traditional tendencies of caring for her family because they are her responsibility.  Her desire and passion for Bud wane, but because of her sense of commitment to the traditional, motherly desires of tending to those who are dependent on her, she forgoes her own happiness to take care of Bud, “Bud is happy and I am happy enough” (21).  Jasmine stays with Bud out of obligation rather than want.  In the end, her modernity wins out over her traditional beliefs and she leaves Bud and Baden, Iowa to pursue the American dream: “New York is over, we’re heading west…we’re going all the way to California” (239).  Jasmine’s pursuit of an American narrative directly contrasts the rules of traditional Indian society, a society where individuals follow the concept of “generational continuity” and follow in their parent’s footsteps in both occupation and livelihood.  Jasmine embraces the modern, American concepts of hybridity and mobility as she becomes her own individual.

The protagonists, Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Marlow in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, come into dialogue with each other through the concepts of tradition and modernity, but do so while on an entirely different content: Africa.  The colors of the players and landscape might change in contrast to Train to Pakistan and Jasmine, but the concepts and the way they operate within the texts are precisely the same.  In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo encounters the relationship of traditional vs. modern through the repetition of the term “generational continuity”.  When colonizers enter Okonkwo’s Ibo village, they introduce the modern idea of independence and a break from the cords of generational continuity.  Through these breaks, gaps are created and the continuity is broken.  In the case of Okonkwo, the gap is created not by himself, but by his father Unoka.  In the relationship between father and son, the roles are reversed.  Unoka is the lazy, childish, immature child, while Okonkwo embraces the role of fatherhood and accepts responsibility for not only himself, but the well-being of his entire family.  By breaking the roles of the traditional family, Okonkwo accepts the colonizers idea of independence and social advancement in society.  While advancing, however, Okonkwo returns to his traditional values as he attempts to bridge the generational continuity gap created by his father.  He perpetually lives in fear that his own son will be “modern” like his grandfather and create even more gaps in the continuity.  By becoming modern himself, Okonkwo does a complete 180 degree turn and resorts back to his traditional roots in the raising of his own family.  Okonkwo’s sense of “self” and being a “self-made” man does make him modern, but his desperate attempts to revert back to tradition in the wake of the invasion of white missionaries leads to the conclusion that traditional values are much more important (to Okonkwo) than the modern concepts being introduced to the Ibo villagers by the colonizers.  In the end, a lack of conformity on Okonkwo’s part (which is a traditional principle) leads him to take his own life.

Joseph Conrad’s colonial novel Heart of Darkness (also set in Africa) leads the reader down the same path of traditional vs. modern found in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.  While these novels are written decades apart (one colonial, one post-colonial), they explore the same journey through their heroic protagonists.  Joseph Conrad’s protagonist, Marlow, heads into the “darkness” of Africa as a white colonizer seeking adventure, but leaves a broken man.  He journeys from a self-assured, confident young man to a delusional, decrepit wanderer.  In his journey into the darkness, Marlow finds the light, but it fails to be the truth he desires.  While embracing the same modern ideals of adventure and status as Jugga, Jasmine, and Okonkwo, Marlow resorts to the ideals of traditional, primitive man.  On his journey, Marlow transcends black and white and discovers that at the heart, man is undeniably equal in his desires.  While it could be argued that this is an entirely universalistic approach to the novel, it cannot be denied that like Okonkwo, Marlow uses his sense of modernity to begin his journey, but ends it by resorting to his traditional roots as he seeks clarity and understanding.  In the end, Okonkwo comes to his realizations as the “colonized”, while Marlow reaches his understandings as the “colonizer”.  Heart of Darkness proves to be an examination of all mankind as well as an exploration of the individual “self”.

As these four texts collide intertextually, the dialogue that emerges addresses the classroom objective of how literary fiction instructs and deepens student knowledge of world history and international relations compared to history, political science, and anthropology.  By looking at the concepts of tradition and modernity across texts that span multiple continents, incorporate multiple races, and span two different literary time periods, yet still share similar protagonists, the reader is able to understand that these terms have constantly been and will continue to be in conflict with one another.  Without the modern belief of independence and self-reliance, the world would never grow and would become stagnant in the nostalgia of the past.  Without traditional roots, characters (both real and fictional) would never gain a sense of who they are.  Tradition creates the values that are the foundation of the modern future.  By coming to this understanding in the discussion of tradition and modernity helps advance the understanding that history built our world, and modernity continues to shape its growth as we progress toward the future.  Through the use of literary fiction as opposed to historical non-fiction, sensitive information can be “de-sensitized” to a certain degree.  If colonization and post colonization were discussed via “real” history, the “sting” and “realness” of the situation would make it exceedingly difficult to have open dialogue without the threat of becoming insensitive to an individual who can relate to the colonizer and one who might relate to the colonized.  By removing the “realness” of the situation, both parties can converse from the outside looking in without the threat of becoming too engrossed in the part each has played in the context of world history.          

 Works Cited

Chinua., Achebe,. Things fall apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. Print.

Joseph, Conrad,. Heart of darkness. New York: Dover, 1990. Print.

Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Grove, 1989. Print.

Singh, Khushwant. Train to Pakistan. New York: Grove, 1994. Print.