Abby Estillore 

Self-Other and Nostalgia-Exile:  Identity Crisis?

Other:  The Outsider Within

How would one’s identity be defined without reference to the “Other”?  From a deconstruction perspective, defining a thing leads to another definition of the thing but does not really get to the definition of the thing itself.  In (re)creating and (re)writing one’s identity, (I offer apologies ahead in case I misuse the term ‘deconstruct’) it is imperative to engage the need of both binary oppositions such as Self-Other, Master-Slave, Male-Female, and Nostalgia-Exile to work like each other as opposed to simply wishing the other away.    

As a middle school teacher for six years, I have encountered how the term “Other” negatively impacts subgroups not quite belonging to the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grade clusters such as Special Education and ESL kids.  A co-teacher expressed disgust at the term whenever the lunch schedules were posted on the walls of the school:  First Lunch – ESL and Others (italics mine).  I wondered, too, if some students caught on with the term.  Unfortunately, some of her students expressed the same disgust and annoyance with the word even though they were the first group to have lunch at the school cafeteria. 

Recently, I had asked my students to participate in a roundtable discussion about the notion of the “Other.”  My first example concerned the act of specifying their race or ethnicity on forms and applications related to school or part-time jobs.  I was confident that the students have not thought it twice to bubble in the circle that represented their race.  From this prompt, students’ hands shot up in the air to voice their opinions about the need to specify and what “Other” was eventually telling them.  “Why does race matter?” “What purpose does the blank for “Other” have to do with me as an potential part-time employee or as a potential candidate receiving school-related services or Title I assistance, for example?  Questions such as these did not only provided a teachable moment for me, but it also allowed a meaningful conversation about identity formation in reference to binary oppositions of Self-Other, Male-Female, Black-White, Master-Slave, Civilized-Savage, etc.

 To further develop a postcolonial dialogue from a deconstructive view on the troubling issues of identity formation, I will explore the creation of the Other through the Self and tropes of nostalgia and exile in our course texts (Lucy, Robinson Crusoe, A Small Place, and other poems) when it comes to deciding who we really are. 

Theorizing Postcolonial Literature:  Recognition of the Other through Assimilation

The word “postcolonialism” seems to signify a stance against imperialism and Eurocentric ideology.  Postcolonial writers find ways to articulate and celebrate identities by giving the Other an authentic voice.  Often in postcolonial literature, sentiments of anger, shame, and inferiority legitimize the Colonized’s position in the dominant society.  The racial dynamics argues that the Other learns to speak the dominant language and the subordinated culture.  “I can’t” and “I Ain’t” both signify radically different voices:  the language on the left is privileged as linguistically correct; the one of the right is subordinated as linguistically inferior.  Conversely, the Colonizing Subject views the voice of the Other through assimilation.  The Other is forced to embody the language of the Colonizer as the proper way of discourse while contradictorily humanizes the Other as having a “voice” to enter into a dialog.  The language of the Other is perceived as subordinate, uncivilized, and indecipherable, lacking syntax or mechanics.  Texts such as Lucy and A Small Place expose the voice of the unheard, the dilemmas surrounding the development of a national identity after colonial rule. 

The protagonist Lucy has to face a new life as an au pair in the United States while having to suppress her Caribbean past.  In the “Poor Visitor” (Lucy), Lucy recounts her journey to the United States for the first time by experiencing the stark difference in the climates of the new place and her old home in the Caribbean.  She responds, “I was reminded of how uncomfortable the new can make you feel” (4).  Certainly, there is some degree of assimilation afforded in this simple yet poignant scene.  That Lucy has to learn to take in the new, and perhaps, let go of the old gradually alerts readers to pay attention to minute ways of subverting the Other’s experience.  She observes “the first day, the first morning following her first night” as “not the sort of bright sun-yellow making everything curl at the edges,” but “that it was nice and made [her] miss home less” (5).  Like a naïve child, Lucy marvels how the shining sun and the cold air in the middle of January can coincide.  “What a feeling that was! How can I explain?...I was no longer in a tropical zone, and this realization now entered my life like a flow of water dividing formerly…my past—so familiar and predictable—the other my future, a gray blank,” Lucy continues to remark at the existence of two opposites side by side (5-6).  She can choose to embrace both worlds or continue to suppress that which is “familiar and predictable” to define her future life, to recreate her own self.  In the conclusion of this chapter, Lewis calls Lucy “poor Visitor” to comment on Lucy’s naïve reaction to and detachment from the new environment.  Aptly so, Lucy does not fit in nor seem to belong, to “be a part of things” (13).  As an Othered being, she often feels the need to remember her past but does not find consolation or a sense of belonging even to herself.  Like the past, assimilation blurs Lucy’s access to selfhood, constantly undermining her sense of Self and shutting her out from settling in a place of her own.    

Recognition of the Other through assimilation is challenged in A Small Place.  Jamaica Kincaid addresses the reader as a tourist about the Antigua she knew before it is the Antigua that most people now know.  She expresses disgust over the Anglicization of Antigua, about how England felt it to be their authority to turn Antigua into more like an English town, English place.  The “talking back” mood of Kincaid’s piece demands the voice of the oppressed to be heard, to be recognized rather than just be assimilated into the dominant culture.  “The language of the criminal can contain only the goodness of the criminal’s deed…” (94) In other words, the identity of the Other is a part of the identity of the Self toward formation of identity.  I realize now that in attempting to define what constitutes identity formation, I enter into a cyclic dialog, a vortex of upbringings, influences, the –isms, a “talking back” language.  This type of language forces the Oppressor to hear the voice of the Oppressed.  Theorizing one’s voice whether or not it happens to be dialogic encounters between self-other, oppressor-oppressed, enables a dynamic postcolonial discourse in validating identity in the dominant society.

The Colonizer’s tendency to homogenize differences, permeating the Other stems from the desire to establish political and economic autonomy and dominance within the capitalist world.  By addressing the reader as a tourist as opposed to someone else, Kincaid opens up the “talking back” and capitalist exchange inherent in postcolonial discourse.  When I hear Antigua, I picture a vacation island getaway or something of that sort.  Why is this?  What does my perception of Antigua as a vacation spot reveal about my identity?  I am not proposing to answer these questions as I do not quite know how I came to that correlation of Antigua = Vacation.  As postcolonial-transnational, I am immersed in the recognition of the Other through assimilation and have taken on speaking the dominant language to try to fit in and claim a sense of belonging to myself (?).  This is a murky field of study the more I invest time in attempting to figure out what constitute identity.  Do we stop being the way of who we are once we are able to define our identity?  Postcolonial literatures seem to ask readers to examine the Self and Other in us to have it work like each other rather than in opposition to each other.  Notions of Self and Other fulfill what the other cannot which forces us to really get at the root of our being.

Master-Slave/Servant Dialectic in Robinson Crusoe and Lucy

The protagonist Robinson Crusoe felt something was missing from his life – that, somehow, he yearned to seek that something by taking a voyage overseas.  Unsatisfied with the middle-class life he led, Crusoe seeks to recreate his identity by setting sail to London with unfortunate turn of events.  The storm caused the near death of Crusoe, yet he still insisted on going on the ship bound for London to become a merchant.  The second voyage did not prove fortunate when the Moorish pirates seized the ship.  Crusoe was enslaved in the town of Sallee.  He and a slave boy were able to escape shortly, and both headed down to the African coast.  He encountered a Portuguese captain who offered to buy the slave boy.  Crusoe, in his merchant-like thinking, saw capital by selling the slave boy for his labor in the Brazilian plantation.  Crusoe even justified his decision by believing that he was helping the boy and the captain.  At this point, the master-slave dialectic became poignant as Crusoe suddenly assumed the position of Master.  The next voyage he embarked on allowed Crusoe to demonstrate his new identity:  as lord, as king, as master of an island off the coast of Trinidad.

Robinson Crusoe’s experiences as a castaway in the Trinidad Islands can be viewed as recreating and rewriting his identity.  He rules over the coast of Trinidad, the animals that grazed there, and eventually, the cannibal he named Friday.  In the encounter between Crusoe and Friday, recognizing the other as either a subject or an object shapes the meeting of two self-conscious beings.  Both Crusoe and Friday could have viewed each other as subjects, independent and autonomous.  But, as race complicates this meeting, Crusoe, a white-skinned male, assumes mastery over Friday, a dark-skinned cannibal.  Crusoe sees another being that threatens his autonomy over the island, so he feels that treating Friday as his slave/servant to be a legitimate thing.  Friday assumes the role of the slave/servant to reinforce Crusoe’s position.  He learns the proper language and religion from Crusoe, which Crusoe sees as preserving civilization and morality.

Along the same vein, Marriah and Lucy’s encounter can be perceived as the recognition of the other as either subject or object.  Both are self-conscious beings and female.  Lucy concedes that “when [she] left [her] home, [she] had wrapped around [her] shoulders the mantle of a servant” (Lucy 95).  Lucy is in an awkward position while serving Marriah’s family:  she is physically a part of the family and symbolically excluded from them.  Marriah acts “friendly” to Lucy, but is not mutual friends with her.  Lucy responds condescendingly, at first, to Marriah’s “friendliness” as she conceives herself to be the “poor Visitor.”  Having been designated as the “poor Visitor,” Lucy is exposed to this kind of binary representation.  When she retells a dream about being chased by Lewis, Marriah and Lewis interpret the dream as the slave’s unconscious desire for the white master (“Dr. Freud for Visitor”(15)).  Interestingly, their interpretation of Lucy’s dream presumes western rationalization of Lucy as a cultural, postcolonial subject.  Based on this dream, the couple fetishizes Lucy as a colonized object referring to her as the “poor Visitor.” 

The power structure oscillates between the master-slave/servant dialectic to show that both depend on each other for recognition as two self-conscious beings.  However, cultural, racial, socio-political differences challenge these identities.  These binaries work in contradiction, which, also, preserve unity.  This interchange is necessary to maintain the existence of each other.   

Nostalgia and Exile in Robinson Crusoe and Lucy

            The tropes of nostalgia and exile privilege the male over the female.  Inevitably, the alienating exile celebrates the return to one’s home.  Both Crusoe and Lucy experience alienation from their homes which impinge on their identities.  However, while Crusoe’s exile is deemed the norm (like the parable of the Prodigal Son), Lucy’s exile is engendered female, disrupts domesticity, and essentially threatens the patriarchy.      

Robinson Crusoe’s yearning for a fresh identity allows him to seek opportunities other than his home.  He uses his past to help him survive in the island.  He fondly remembers family connections and events as he makes his new life off the coast of Trinidad.  When he returns to England after twenty-eighth year isolation on the island, Crusoe’s return is celebrated like the parable of the Prodigal Son.  Although his parents have passed away, his widow friend kept his promise of caring for the money.  Even, the plantations in Brazil have been profitable during his absence.  He marries and his wife dies.  In the end, Crusoe departs for the West Indies and revisits his island.  Therefore, the yearning for home, nostalgia-exile tropes offer the privileged white male freedom, personal and capitalistic.  Unfortunately, this is not the case for Lucy because of her gender. 

Lucy tries to escape from her mother so that she can become an adult.  Her relationship with her mother stifles her sense of female selfhood.  The mother’s low expectations towards Lucy devalue her self-worth and reinforce society’s attitudes about having and raising successful male children.  In a sense, a return to home for Lucy is not a probable option as she is only to relive the painful past.  Working as an au pair in the United States distances Lucy, at least for some time, from having to deal with her home life.  She is able to step away from the past, so that she can recreate a female selfhood based on what the present and future may bring.  In fact, she does not reply to her mother’s letters since her arrival to the U.S.  Patriarchal society recognizes that women and domesticity are synonymous.  So, the idea of women leaving the motherland in search of a better job or circumstance, for example, undermines social codes of power and control.  Once Lucy leaves her home, she fulfills another subservient position outside her social class.  She steps out of the comforts (safety or familiarity, for lack of a better word) of her homeland and is thrust into a foreign surrounding (still patriarchal in nature).

            Another poignant example of the nostalgia-exile trope is shown in the “Mariah” section of Lucy.  When Mariah takes Lucy to a garden and shows her daffodils, Lucy is reminded of an awful experience having to do with these yellow flowers.  As a child, Lucy had been forced to memorize a poem about daffodils (Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud”), which she had come to understand as “a scene of conquered and conquests; a scene of brutes masquerading as angels and angels portrayed as brutes” (Lucy 30).  Wordsworth’s poem contains postcolonial interpretations starting with the speaker “wander[ing] lonely as a cloud.”  The search for this something else is reiterated in the poem.  Lucy cannot appreciate the daffodils because she has not seen them grow in the Caribbean.  Moreover, the imposition of having to memorize this poem demonstrates the use of power to control and establish one’s superiority over another.  Thus, Lucy yearns to escape these constrictions, yet uses her knowledge of the past to help make sense of the present and future.        

            Narratives of nostalgia and exile influence identity formation.  Crusoe and Lucy struggle to achieve a balance in dealing with the past, present, and future.  Where they come from says a lot about where they are going.  If they both remain in their homes, how would their identities be shaped or defined?  Nostalgia and exile enrich the self-other by having them work like each other in order to preserve and develop one’s identity. 

Importance of the Past in Identity Formation

The novels Robinson Crusoe and Lucy exemplify qualities of a Bildungsroman character.  In each novel, the protagonists Robinson Crusoe and Lucy undergo unique struggles and challenges toward identity formation.  Both choose to leave their homes in search of something else – this something else gives them power and, in some ways, prestige as they see themselves develop into a unified Self. 

How does the past shape one’s identity?  For Lucy, she longs to escape her past, which leaves her feeling more alone.  Nevertheless, the past functions as a sort of standard basis for Lucy when she compares the events happening at the present and will occur in the future.  She uses her past experiences to comment on situations in her life:  her role as an au pair, sexual relationships with Hugh and Paul, the resemblance of Lewis’s cheating on Marriah with Lucy’s own father.  At the conclusion of Lucy, Lucy leaves Marriah in search of a new beginning.  Shortly after moving into an apartment with Paul and her friend, Peggy, Lucy realizes that she is unable to accept her past (she still harbors resentment towards her mother); therefore, she remains skeptical and pessimistic about the kinds of lives that Marriah and Lewis, her lovers, Peggy, and her family have had to lead.    

Crusoe, on the other hand, sees the past as an integral part of his identity.  In order to somehow appreciate the present and future, he looks back on his past to sustain him on the island.  As he works each day, he remembers the comforts of life such as shelter and food and appeals to God to provide for his daily needs.  He retrieves weapons, clothing, and other things left in the capsized ship and sees these materials available to him as blessings from God.  His past is a constant reminder of rewriting “home” during his displacement on the island.  The Caribbean poet, Derek Walcott, describes Crusoe’s isolation and fear stemming from the absence of human interaction in his poem, “Crusoe’s Island.”  For Crusoe, according to Walcott, being a castaway allows him to reflect on his former home life:  “To love the self is dread / Of being swallowed by the blue / Of heaven overhead / Or rougher blue below.”  Somehow, Crusoe feels dissatisfied with his England home and is motivated to find whatever it is he is looking for.  The island itself is an opportunity for Crusoe to recreate his idea of home.  Walcott portrays the Caribbean as a place of solitude and escape from the familiar and predictable—Crusoe’s ideal home. 

            Good or bad, the past is imperative to defining one’s identity.  In postcolonial discourse, formation of the identity oscillates unsteadily between the Colonizer and/(-) Colonized, Self and /(-)Other, Master and/(-) Slave/Servant, Male and/(-) Female.  The slash and dash should be seen as working against each other and together simultaneously.  These social relationships appear to be working like an exchange, an intertext, a dialog between binary opposites.  With the crossing of boundaries—that liminal space or borders—it is difficult to define one without referencing the other term.  In fact, with the multicultural backgrounds of the students I teach, they prefer to fill in the blank to specify their ethnicity rather than simply to bubble in a single race on forms and applications.  They want to be able to state what comprises their identity.      

Personal Reflections on Postcolonial-Transnational

Growing up in the Philippines up until I was thirteen-years old, I was not familiar with the damaging implications of being categorized as one belonging to “Other.”  As an undergraduate, the word “Other” did not become apparent until professors placed emphasis on binary oppositions that challenged, undermined, and questioned the status quo in almost all of the Literature courses I have taken.  “Other” signified disunity, uncouthness, second-class.  The characters Lucy and Friday signified characteristics of the “Other.”  From the perspectives of the Colonizer such as Robinson Crusoe and the Lewis household, Othered characters Friday and Lucy represented objects to be corrected, redeemed, and tamed.  The end results for Friday and Lucy involve a rewriting of their Othered identities through assimilation, successful or failed.      

Approaching Postcolonial Theory from a Deconstruction view simplifies the idea that what identity IS or should mean as something that cannot be tied to a single meaning, the implication that identity is unstable and presents multiplicities of meaning.  However, we need to consider identity formation—notions of self-other, nostalgia-exile, male-female, master-slave/servant—in light of an intertextual exchange of ideas, cultures, beliefs to be able to engage in an ongoing project of thinking and talking about who we are.       

Works Cited

Defoe, Daniel.  Robinson Crusoe.  New York:  Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1969.

Kincaid, Jamaica.  Lucy.  New York:  Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1990.

-------.  “A Small Place.”  Post-Colonial Studies Reader.  Eds. Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin.  London:  Routledge, 1995.  92-94.

Walcott, Derek.  “Crusoe’s Island.”  <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731copo/readings/walcottcrusoesisland.htm>.  4 October 2009.

Wordsworth, William.  “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud.” <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/Wordsworthlonelyascloud.htm>.  3 October 2009.