James Seth

World Literature Final Exam– Essay Two – Gaining Perspective through Intertexuality

This course not only produced a necessary dialogue between nations, cultures, and attitudes, but it also encouraged a multidimensional learning that traditional literature courses have often avoided, in my experience. First, this class greatly benefited from the range of media used in presentations, allowing me to understand cultural and multinational exchange in a more meaningful and explicit way. Secondly, the class’ emphasis on discourse and interdisciplinary learning allowed me to interpret the literature in a more productive way, looking past the author’s perception to fully address the global issues that the work is concerned with. We began the course by talking about intertextuality, or the way that “texts do not exist independently of each other but rather in a network of shared words, meanings, and issues” (White). By having texts “speak” to each other and analyzing the issues that each is concerned with, the connections between texts became clearer, allowing me to interpret their motives and concerns more accurately.

One of things that I have learned through the class’ focus on intertextuality is the manipulation of voice to demonstrate the effects of colonialism. In my research project, I discuss narration as a literary device, one that can be coded to express a specific feeling or reaction. For example, I refer to the way that Achebe’s narrator in Things Fall Apart uses the language of the English colonist to mock it. When a woman allows her “heathen husband to mutilate her dead child,” the narrator cleverly uses “heathen” to reflect the language, ideology, and the cultural misconceptions of Rev. James Smith, who does not fully understand nor appreciate the Ibo myth of the ogbanje (185). By focusing on the course objectives on narration, I was able to discover how the narrator’s voice weaves the language of Rev. Smith with the language of the Ibo, demonstrating how postcolonial novels speak to their literary predecessors. Achebe’s interweaving creates a narrative that interprets the first world agenda in relation to its own. Had I not been exposed to a course that emphasized intertextual readings, Achebe’s language would have not been as striking or evocative.

In the class, my own preconceived ideas on colonialism and postcolonialism were challenged by texts that upset conventional narratives. In my midterm, I discuss how voice can underline the goals of colonial and postcolonial texts, stating that “While colonial texts look to the future, imagining scenarios of success and overlooking the past, postcolonial texts do the very opposite, looking back and reclaiming history with a critical eye to the marginalization of colonized nations.” While this seemed more apparent before the midterm, I experienced a different understanding after reading Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Rather than looking back, the character of Jasmine is constantly redefining herself, looking forward to new opportunities and experiences, and is, for the most part, just as isolated as Robinson Crusoe. Jasmine’s transition into the first world culture is seamless compared to Lucy in Kincaid’s novel; Jasmine states that “[o]ne minute I was begging a potato-faced woman [. . .] for a job, any job” and the next minute she explains how she is given a job as a teller (196). My perception of colonial and postcolonial literature has developed since then, and I try to avoid attaching a specific narrative to one side or the other. While I felt that postcolonial literature was always trying to reclaim their past, I was surprised to find a character that wanted nothing to do with their past, no matter how painful. Recalling the serendipitous way she receives her job, Jasmine states, “Lillian Gordon, Mother Ripplemeyer: one day I want to belong to that tribe” (197). While Okonkwo wants nothing to do with the white missionaries invading his village in Things Fall Apart, Jasmine is eager to take on the roles that America offers.

Kincaid’s Lucy and Mukherjee’s Jasmine offer two distinct narratives of isolation, assimilation, and identity that are specific to American immigration. In the West Indies, Lucy feels subjugated reading poems about daffodils and learning things that are not meaningful in her own surroundings. Upon arriving in America, Lucy has a difficult time reconciling her expectations with the reality of living as an au pair. Lucy also has trouble understanding her own identity due to her conflicts with her mother, who she eventually sees herself becoming. In contrast, Jasmine/Jane goes by many names, and she adapts and evolves in each new identity she creates for herself. Though Jasmine/Jane is more mobile than Lucy, both women desperately want to escape their past, and each has their own unique way of handing love, loss, and transition. 

What I truly enjoyed about this course was that it did not simply offer a critique of imperialist attitudes in colonial texts; rather, it looked more thoroughly at the gray areas where distinctions could not be easily made. Achebe’s essay on racism in Heart of Darkness argues that the natives are not given a voice, specifically highlighting the grunts of the cannibals and the limited speech of other African characters. However, Conrad’s novel also finds ways to present people of color in a somewhat favorable light, as well as to center the action on a character (Marlow) who seems somewhat critical of the imperialist exploitation and distances himself from the other men. For example, Marlow is greatly saddened when a black member of their crew is killed after being attacked by a group of natives, a testament to the ways that Conrad’s text is perhaps not as intentionally bigoted as it may seem to twenty-first century audiences. It also became difficult at times to align the colonizers with villains during in-class presentations and films on the motives and outcomes of English imperialism. For example, in a film on African colonization, the director included interviews with both black and white commentators. One white commentator who lived in racially segregated Africa expressed attitudes that were both imperialist and progressive. His contradictory sentiments on race demonstrated the complexity of colonization in how it can provoke intolerance but also work towards modernization.

Many of the texts in this course understand the paradox of colonialism’s backwards and forwards philosophies on society and technology. While colonized nations create advancements in products and machines, they severely disadvantage the countries that supply the necessary materials. For me, one of the most affecting points of discussion in the class concerned the fact that countries with the most resources are not only impoverished but undemocratic, whereas the countries the least resources are politically democratic and very wealthy, by comparison. Though this fact seems obvious, it inspires many questions on political agency and the means that colonizers achieve their goal.  While it seems necessary to place the colonizers and the colonized on a level playing field to analyze their motivations, it is impossible to dismiss the social, political, and environmental repercussions effected through colonialism.

In medical terms, this course achieved a holistic approach to literature, one that worked more at assembling rather than isolating. I felt that the presentations, readings, and discussions demonstrated how any text, be it literature, film, poetry, webpage, PowerPoint, or conversation could be “read” in a variety of ways, depending on the perspective and medium.