Kenyatta S. Gray

Finding the “Self” By Interacting with the “Other” in Colonial-Postcolonial Literary Texts

             As I journey through my last semester of graduate school, I find it interesting how the theme of colonialism and its lasting legacy seems to be a recurring theme among my courses.  I first learned of colonialism in grade school every October when my classmates and I were taught that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two.  The catchy rhyme gave the sense that Columbus was a good guy who, if it had not been for him, the United States of America would not exist.  When I entered college, it was a completely different story.  Columbus did not reach America, but the islands known as the West Indies because he was trying to find a better route to the East (Asia).  I also heard that it was Amerigo Vespuci (hence the name America) who had discovered what is known as South America; but some academic scholars would argue that it is questionable whether he did or not.  Probably as an attempt to keep us poor little grade school children ignorant (or not to scare us), we were conditioned to see Columbus as a hero who discovered America and “negotiated” with the natives he encountered in the “new world.”  Yet, in college, our eighteen-year-old selves would discover that Columbus was not a hero but that of a monster, whose “negotiating” skills consisted of torture, forced labor, and the complete wipe out of the natives.  I did not know then that this was called colonialism and that it was a dark past that would leave a permanent scar on countries heavily affected by its hidden ideology.

            I found my college courses to be quite a challenge between “fairy tales” and realization.  I have always known Columbus to be a hero, yet as I advanced in learning, I began to see him as a villain.  My grade school teachers now seemed to be conspirators, trying to cover the truth, but my college professors seemed to be biased towards the famous explorer; they were against my grade school conspirators.  The question is:  who is right and who is wrong?  As a Cross-Cultural Studies student, I am encouraged to think outside the box by reading between the lines of culturalism[1] by discerning Western attitudes towards the East, and once discerned, providing a way of understanding by creating an open dialogue between the cultures.  This helps me to answer the objectives of my literature course, alongside the novels used in the course.  Objective 2a (by definition, the genre of the novel combines fundamental representational modes of narrative and dialogue) in particular stands out when collectively studying the works of Defoe and Kincaid.  One can hear the angry overtones in Kincaid’s A Small Place and think that she was speaking to Crusoe himself!  Although Crusoe is not a colonizer, he is a product of imperialism because his feelings about going to a new place, creating a trade for himself, and his perceptions of natives as cannibals reflects those feelings of most explorers traveling to the New World.  Understanding the novels together has helped me create my own feelings about colonialism and now a new perspective on how its effects have created the post-colonial world we live in today. 

            Although I have only been in my literature class a month, I have viewed colonialism in a different light through the talented eyes of Defoe and Kincaid.  The authors draw on the experiences of others and their own to reveal how colonialism was a tool for discovering the self through interactions with others.  Kincaid stood out to me the most.  In A Small Place and Lucy, the reader can ultimately sense the anger Kincaid feels toward the British and how their rule had a negative affect on the lives of the inhabitants on the island she is from.  In the course, my classmates and I are encouraged to bring the literature of the colonial and post-colonial into dialogue as “conscious debates between authors or exchanges arranged by later readers” (Objective 1).  In order to create this dialogue, we study the works of Defoe and Kincaid together rather than separately (Objective 1a) and how this extends the transition between them “to a contemporary third wave of transnational migration” (Objective 1b).  Defoe and Kincaid could not have provided a better way to do this.  Crusoe lived during the time colonialism was at its peak and represented the attitudes of explorers:  through their motives to go to sea, what happens to them once they have reached a destination and their contact with/perceptions of native peoples.  Kincaid reveals the anger resulted from growing up during the last remnants of colonialism and how one had to travel away from home to find themself in order to be happy.

            Robinson Crusoe is about a man who wanted to find his own lot in life and not accept the one designed for him according to his parents.  At first upon hearing of this story, I thought it would confirm what I knew of the attitudes of the explorers; they wanted to make a better life for themselves than the one they had in their native country.  This was true in a sense because Crusoe left for the same reason, but Defoe adds more to the story.  Whether he wanted to make the story longer or more interesting I do not know, but I learn later that Defoe based this story on the experience of Alexander Selkirk (C. White, lecture notes, 2 September 2009).  Crusoe has two reasons for leaving home.  He tells the reader of the misfortunes of his two elder brothers; one who went off to war and the other no one knows what happened.  His father discourages him from seeking a life of adventure and tells him to basically except the career that has already been destined for him because it “had the fewest disasters” (Defoe, 4-5).  Defoe does not exactly say that these were the exact reasons, but the reader gets a sense from Crusoe describing the fate of his brothers and the warnings of his father as leverage in making his decision.  Speaking from experience, we may often find the desires of our parents in wanting what is best for their offspring bothersome.  We are taught in school that there are numerous opportunities for a career path and it is up to us to decide what we would see ourselves doing for the rest of our lives.  My mother had always placed pressure on me to think about going into the military because “it would be good for you;” but I have other dreams, although I have not decided on anything definite yet, which does not include a career in the military.  However, parents have a way of getting us to change our minds and consider their words.  After I realized one day that I am almost finished with graduate school and still have not decided on a career path, I made the decision to consider a career in the military after graduation.  My decision came after I realized I was at a crisis point:  what do I do now that school is about to be over?  All I knew was that I love to travel and I wanted to be successful in my career.  What better way to go than the military, which gives me the chance to travel and be successful.  Crusoe also came to a crisis in his life that led him to consider the advice of his father.  After he decided to make his dream of becoming a seafarer a reality, Crusoe joined a company headed for London.  During this trip, the company found themselves in the middle of a storm, prompting Crusoe to vow to return home and accept his lot in life (Defoe, 7-8).  My personal reflection and the episode Crusoe endured serves as an example of Objective 2 (To theorize the novel as the defining genre of modernity, both for colonial and postcolonial cultures).

            The relationship between Crusoe, Xury, and Friday reveal the self vs. other aspect of colonialism.  As I have learned in previous courses, colonialism was driven by the notion that inhabitants occupying countries not yet developed were uncivilized.  Although the hidden motive was tapping into the said countries natural resources in order to increase prestige, colonists also felt it was their duty to educate natives on the “right” religion and governmental systems.  Crusoe was not that different from other seafarers of his time.  When he meets Xury and Friday, he expects them to be cannibalistic savages who he must tame so that they can serve him and bring him wealth.  He finds them both to be faithful servants, but once Crusoe sees the chance to increase his economic prosperity, he sells Xury.  When Crusoe meets Friday, he has already established a self-made kingdom and teaches him to obey him.  He automatically gives him a name without asking him if he has one.  Eventually, the relationship of slave and master becomes a relationship between friends.  Crusoe realizes how much he needs the companionship of Friday and vows to reward him for being a faithful servant.  However, Friday dies at sea and Crusoe only gives him a brief obituary of how Friday proved himself useful to him.  The account of Crusoe in terms of his relations between Xury and Friday reveal the driving force behind colonialism; self and other.  Crusoe believed that because Xury and Friday were different from him in terms of race and civilization, they would eat him and once tame could be of service to his needs and protection.  Crusoe placed more importance in economic prestige and obtaining it that he treated the “others” as if they were not on his level of humanity, but objects that would gain him profit.

            In A Small Place, it is not hard for the reader to tell that Kincaid was angry when she wrote this short story.  When Kincaid states, “Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you” (94), I wondered did she mean that she would rather have liked to live the way Antiguans did before English rule?  This sentence, for me, establishes the dialogue between colonial and post-colonial.  Throughout the article, Kincaid states the reasons why she is discontent with England and how English rule had a drastic impact on Antigua.  “The Antigua that I knew, the Antigua in which I grew up, is not the Antigua you, a tourist, would see now.  That Antigua no longer exists.  That Antigua no longer exist partly for the usual reason, the passing of time, and partly because the bad-minded people who used to rule over it, the English, no longer do so” (92).  Kincaid seems to be telling the reader that if you go to Antigua today, you will not find the same Antigua she knew because colonial rule has made it “different.”  Is it different in a bad way or different in a way Kincaid no longer recognizes it?  How is Antigua different after English rule?  Kincaid mentions that many of the streets in Antigua were named after English maritime criminals, that they celebrated the birthday of Queen Victoria, and the Barclay brothers opening a bank (93).  I believe she mentions these things as they are symbols of colonialism and even though the English no longer rules Antigua, these symbols serve as a painful reminder of that rule.  I believe these symbols must drive the anger Kincaid expresses in A Small Place.  In the post-colonial world today, we see on the news how nationalist feelings that began under colonialist rule have not disappeared.  Kincaid asks, “Do you ever wonder why some people blow things up” (93)?  This answers a lot of questions we Americans had after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Due to American foreign policy in the Middle East, many Muslims feel that the imperialistic tendencies of the United States insults their culture and religion.  I can only imagine Kincaid walking down a street in Antigua named after an English maritime criminal by way of the Barclay Bank with the burning desire to blow it up.  This is probably how the terrorists felt when they committed the atrocious acts on that grim Tuesday eight years ago.  The twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the failed attempt to destroy the White house represented the political economy that keeps the United States powerful.  By destroying them, that power would be weakened; but if Kincaid blew up those English symbols, it would not have the same effect.  I believe it would be just a satisfaction to Kincaid that would say “Take that England!”    

            Lucy has the same angry tones Kincaid displays in A Small Place, but the title character is not bitter about colonialist rule.  Lucy comes to the United States to become a nurse in order to return to the island she is from and help her brothers be doctors.  Lucy can be compared to Crusoe in that they both travel abroad to get from under the expectations their parents have placed on them.  However, Lucy seems to go because of these expectations, but changes her mind towards the end.  I did not seem to like Lucy because she had a negative attitude toward the people she worked for and her relations with men.  I believe Mariah and Lewis were kind enough to let her stay with and work for them, and Lucy did not seem to show much gratitude for their kindness.  I do not know the background behind the intentions of Kincaid writing Lucy, but I could see a bit of herself in Lucy from what I have read in A Small Place.  Lucy comes from an island that had been under colonial rule.  The reader can see this in the text when she despised daffodils after having to recite a poem about them and never saw them until she came to the United States (30).  After reading Lucy, I realized she had become the self and her employers the other.  Lucy had to come to the United States to study nursing, in which I am assuming that there were no opportunities to do so on the island.  She had already seemed to have this idea of how Mariah and her family would treat her and settled on how she would act towards them.  I felt Lucy was being selfish because she would not allow herself to get close to Mariah and vice versa, despite the fact she ends up liking her.  Did Lucy believe that Mariah would be the oppressor and she the victim?  However, Lucy finds that what she thought Mariah to have a good life was not so good when she discovered Lewis was having an affair with Dinah, a friend of Mariah.  I also felt from reading this story that Lucy took on the role of the self in which she wanted to see how it felt like being the colonizer.  In her relationships with men she had been with, I feel that Lucy wanted to show the other (her male companions) what it feels like to be used and discarded.  Colonialism was the cruel act of taking from another in order to make the status of one better, and once all had been taken, the other is left with nothing.  I believe Lucy wanted to see how it felt for these men to fall in love with her and once she gained all the satisfaction she could out of her relations with them, leave them without any feelings left.  This could also be seen through the marriage of Mariah and Lewis.  At the beginning of the story, Mariah had been this happy, care free spirit who the reader believed to have a great life.  At the end, when Lewis divorces her, Mariah is no longer the person seen throughout the story.  I could not help but wonder if Kincaid was writing this story as some kind of “what if” scenario or to go along with A Small Place when she says the English have nothing to do with themselves since they have no one to rule over (92)?

            Taking this literature class has reinforced my knowledge of colonialism and introduced me to post-colonialism.  I have always known colonialism through the lessons in grade school about Christopher Columbus and how he found America.  If it had not been for his discovery, would the countries of the Western hemisphere remain native?  By the time I entered college, I began to see Columbus more as a villain rather than a hero.  This literature course has helped me to discern hero from villain by bringing texts of the colonial and post-colonial into dialogue.  Can we see dialogue as formal, but humanizing encounter of self and other?  When the colonizer dehumanizes the native, does it dehumanize the colonizer?  After reading Crusoe and Lucy, I realized that the answers to these questions lie in the lessons learned from their experiences before traveling abroad and after traveling abroad.  Both Crusoe and Lucy escape their homelands to make better livings for themselves, and they both have within them a built up notion of what to expect when they arrive in their destinations.  They both are the selves who view the other differently.  Crusoe believes Xury and Friday to be savage cannibals who would be the key to his gaining fortune.  Lucy expects Mariah and her family to treat her as if she is a “poor visitor” who does not understand anything, and so they must teach her.  During their experiences with the others, they learn about themselves and seem to have a new perspective on the other.  For Crusoe, he realized that the life he created for himself on the island and the profits he made while abroad would have been the same if he had stayed in England.  Lucy changes her career path and starts to find a life that suits her rather than the one her mother wanted for her.  In the end, I did not see Columbus nor Crusoe or Lucy as villains or heroes, despite their attitudes toward the other.  They all wanted to leave their homelands for a better chance than what they would have had if they had stayed.  They would not have been able to find themselves if it had not been for the conscious and unconscious aid of the others they encountered.

            One of my Cross-Cultural Studies courses this semester focuses on the self vs. other as the basis for the social hierarchy evident in most countries today.  I would like to explore this further in my research project for my literature course.  My goal is to expose the notion of the self vs. other mentality that drove the social hierarchy colonialism produced.  I will show through colonial and post-colonial texts that this system that drove colonial domination operates even today.  I would like to look at readings by Rudyard Kipling because his works serve as a good example of the system under colonialism.  I would also like to explore readings by Kincaid or poems by Derek Walcott who are great examples of post-colonial literature.

            I look back to September 11, 2001, and remember the reactions of that day.  I was in high school, my senior year, and all I can think of was the Middle East as our enemies.  I decided that in college, I would seek international relations as my career in exposing why the East is angry at the West.  I wanted to understand what went wrong and how could this be fixed.  I was able to travel abroad to El Salvador, Egypt, and Turkey, in the position of an ambassador ready to create an open dialogue between my country and the other.  Their questions haunted me:  why does the U.S. support Israel?  What are American intentions in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Do you support the decisions your government makes?  Why?  Why?  Why?  I was at a loss for words because I did not understand American motives in the East.  I felt helpless in answering their questions.  I remembered researching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and found the U.S. to heavily support Israel militarily, and I wondered why; but all the information I found on this support was biased and I could not rely on the sources.  Then I began looking at the news and listening to news radio hoping I can find some answers in understanding my government, but I did not know whether to believe it or not.  I saw the poverty that widely plagued the neighborhoods of La Libertad, El Salvador, and I remembered the little Turkish girl in Gaziantep, Turkey, in tattered clothes with her hands out indicating the need for money.  I wondered, is this the doing of my country?  An imperialistic power that takes freely with no intentions of giving anything in return?  When I think back to the readings of the misery of the Palestinians and the painful questions of the Egyptians, I began to fill with anger against my country.  How could you?  Why?  Then I look at Crusoe and Kincaid and I ask who is the villain?  Are there any heroes?  Could they be seen as both?  As I continue in my literature class and begin to work on my research paper, I hope to discover the past to make sense of the present, and maybe find a solution to the future.