September 30, 2009

Debbie Sasser

Perspectives on Colonial-Postcolonial Literature: The Transfer of Culture

            Taking the Multicultural Literature: Colonial-Postcolonial class was an easy choice for me, because I enjoy learning about other cultures and perspectives of the world when reading literature by authors from various countries and ethnic backgrounds. Throughout the course thus far, I have gained a much clearer understanding about the terms colonial and postcolonial. Before,  I visualized colonization to be primarily the colonists who came to America from England during the 1400s–1800s, however I did not understand much at all about what postcolonial literature would encompass.

            In the postcolonial novel, Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid reveals the basic principle of colonization. "You loved knowledge, and where ever you went you made sure to build a school, a library (yes, and in both of these places you distorted or erased my history and glorified your own)" (Kinkaid, 94). Now, I realize that colonial and postcolonial literature reveals far more about the world we live in, and goes way beyond the scope of American colonization to reach very deeply into people's lives in many different countries around the world—affecting their culture, revealing the historical events of their past, and pointing towards the prospects for their future.

            My perspective on colonization at the beginning of the semester was similar to the reaction Mariah had when she showed Lucy the daffodils for the first time in the novel, Lucy. "Mariah said, 'These are daffodils. I'm sorry about the poem, but I'm hoping you'll find them lovely all the same'" (Kincaid, 29). Mariah had seen the anger Lucy expressed at the memory of the poem by Wordsworth that she had been required to memorize—anger branching from the pointlessness of it, and the fact that a different culture and strange expectations were being forced on her by the British education and government systems that colonized her island in the West Indies.

            This example of intertextuality reveals the experience of Lucy through a poem by another author from another country, culture, and time period. Mariah seems to think that Lucy may be able to see something good about her painful, past situation by delighting in the loveliness of the foreign flowers—maybe their bewitching beauty would help her see why the British wanted to teach them this poetry.

            Before reading the novels for this class and participating in our discussions, I had realized that colonization could be bad, but like Mariah, I wondered if there could be good aspects, too? I thought colonization would provide more opportunity for advancement in various aspects of life—education, employment, economic growth, and for the Christian, even provide opportunities to share the Gospel which could be good depending on an individual's religious beliefs and preferences. In Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe not only teaches Friday his language, hunting skills, and farming, but also introduces him to God and Jesus Christ.

            Crusoe believes that the religion Friday already has is not the true religion—a typical response given by the colonizer towards the culture and lifestyle systems of the natives in the place they are colonizing. "I endeavored to clear up this fraud, to my man Friday, and told him that the pretence of their old men going up the mountains, to say O to their God Benamuckee, was a cheat, and their bringing word from thence what he said . . . must be with an evil spirit: And then I entered a long discourse with him about the devil. . . " (Defoe, 157). Crusoe's concern with Friday's moral well-being is evidence of the perspective Defoe held on religious subjects—he was a puritan, writing a novel that contained his spiritual ideals as well as his thoughts on the societal norms of the time period he was living in. Thus, we can identify the novel as a genre used for far more purposes than mere entertainment—Defoe sought to share his opinions and values with others.

            Both Robinson Crusoe  and Lucy, as novels, express the concept of historicism by giving an account of each character's unique values, which are shown through the relevant historical perspective of the time they are living in. Defoe wrote from London, England, where historically kings and queens have ruled. The story of Crusoe shows Defoe's admiration for royalty and the government of his homeland, because this is the type of government Crusoe sets up on his island. "My island was now peopled, and I thought myself very rich in subjects; and it was a merry reflection which I frequently made, how like a king I looked" (Defoe, 174). He goes on to speak about his property, dominion, and role as absolute lord and law-giver over the people—even boasting that all his people would be willing to give their lives to save his.

            On the other hand, Lucy was an au pair from the West Indies serving to take care of the children of a white, upper class family in North America. She exemplifies her values and culture, although jaded by British colonization, and then is reluctantly accepting and living many of the customs of the family she serves in a completely different culture. "The times that I loved Mariah it was because she reminded me of my mother. The times that I did not love Mariah was because she reminded me of my mother" (Kincaid, 58). Lucy seems to reject her past life via her rejection of her mother's letters and expectations. Although, at the same time, Lucy longs for the familiarity of her past.

            On one trip, Kincaid writes of how Lucy attempts to fit into a culture she's only seen in a movie. "In one of the few films I had seen in my life so far, some people on a train did this—settled into their compartments. And so I suppose I should have felt excitement at doing something I had never done before and had only seen done in a film" (Kincaid, 31). She goes on to say that new experiences were no longer thrilling unless they reminded her of her past. Crusoe felt much like Lucy, because he ultimately built a life for himself that was very similar to what his parents wanted him to have, but then left it to go back to his homeland—which would lead him back to his life with his family just like it would Lucy if she returned to the islands.  

            The choices Crusoe and Lucy made towards the conclusion of both novels seem to almost display the concept of transnational migration, because they are part of more than one culture and seem to be able to claim more than one nationality or country as their home. Lucy was still from her native island, she still valued the culture and past experiences of her island life, however at the same time she had become independent in the foreign land of North America and seemed to have decided to stay there and make her own way within its culture, location, and opportunities. "I don't know if Mariah meant me to, but immediately I identified with the yearnings of this man [French painter, Paul Gauguin]; I understood finding the place you are born an unbearable prison and wanting something completely different from what you are familiar with knowing it represents a haven" (Kinkaid, 95).

            In the opposite way, Crusoe had become a citizen, or rather king, of his own island country, but then decided to leave to return to his native land and culture. He left somewhat reluctantly, because he had been happy during his time there. ". . . and now my life began to be so easy, that I began to myself, that could I but have been safe from more savages, I cared no, if I was never to remove from the place where I lived" (Defoe, 152). Even though his ultimate choice was the opposite of Lucy's, it seems that he also had the same yearnings she and the French painter expressed.

            Overall, changes caused by colonization are not all bad, however in most cases colonization has been a culture killer and oppressive agent towards the native people of the land being colonized as we have seen through the writings of  postcolonial author, Jamaica Kincaid. The colonization of countries leaves a trail of cultural confusion, anger, destruction, and dissatisfaction. Kincaid laments the death of her native language in A Small Place, "Isn't it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime?" (Kincaid, 94). The colonizing transfer of culture makes indelible affects on culture, stains world history books, and continues to permeate into the future of peoples all over the world.

Works Cited

Kincaid, Jamaica. A Small Place. London: Virago, 1988.

Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990.

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1994.