Nora Ventura

October 2, 2011

 "History Intertwined in Written Art" 

I enrolled in this course with the hope for a guided exploration to readings that humanize history. As a cross-cultural studies student, the history of all people is not only of great interest to me but necessary to better understand world cultures. Traditional history courses, however, seem to dehumanize events and I feel that I cannot relate to past events if studied in those rather dry terms. As an undergraduate student I took twelve hours of humanities, but none sparked as much interest as Dr. Shreerekha Subramanian's approach to teaching Basic Texts III. The texts assigned to that class planted a seed of curiosity regarding other texts that might help me learn about historical events. I wanted more Edwidge Danticat, more Junot Diaz, and more Wole Soyinca. I wanted to feel uncomfortable and enraged and educated about historical events in places away from me. One concern I did make myself aware of was that it would be inevitable that in reading such books I would likely get only one perspective of the events, as is the case in traditional history courses. The idea of reading texts in dialogue appealed as the most appropriate solution to this dilemma, and this course has thus far done exactly that- present narratives from both sides, the colonizer and the colonized. Both colonial and post-colonial texts are unapologetic, and being personal narratives it is most appropriate that it be so. This is what I most admired of all the writers I've discovered (although I know they were already there; forgive a small colonial attitude). Historicism is what I did not know I was looking for when I completed Basic Texts III. I wanted history intertwined in written art. Historical narratives are not meant to be an apology, but rather a brief revival of what once was.

Jamaica Kincaid's "A Small Place" bitterly mourns a brutal eradication of Antigua’s' history and traditions as a result of England's colonization. Her nostalgia is evident in the angst of her writing- the angst knowing a tragic loss that goes ignored.  Kincaid mourns a culture lost and points out that North Americans see England differently from how she sees it. She writes, "what I see is the millions of people, of whom I am just one, made orphans: no motherland, no fatherland, no gods, no mounds of earth for holy ground, [...] and worst and most painful of all, no tongue" (94). But we can see it. We see it in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. We see Friday's beliefs wiped away by Crusoe's Christianity (Defoe, 171). We see that "The temple of Imra will do for the Lodge room" (Kipling, 2.34). We see humans beings listed among trinkets for sale (Defoe, 32). Kincaid asks, "Do you ever wonder why some people blow things up? [...] Do you ever try to understand why people like me cannot get over the past, cannot forgive and cannot forget?" (93). The truth  is that without writings like hers, one can wonder, but never come close to understanding what Antigua (or any other colony) experienced; Literature is the only disciple that can humanize a nation.

In a Theories of Cultural Diversity course I learned about pigmentocracy- a hierarchy based on skin color. In this color based hierarchy, those with the darkest skin are at the lowest end of the hierarchy and those with the lightest skin atop. Evidence of pigmentocracy is in all the readings for this course, and best illustrated in the handout regarding Colonial Oaxaca in Mexico. African slaves, indigenous natives, and the European were all subjected to the sistema de castas (caste system) developed by the rulers of New Spain after sexual relations between all three groups resulted in "people of mixed ancestry [that was] not supposed to exist." This stratification system made "whiteness" a desired trait. "The strategy for upward mobility called for choosing a marriage partner who was light-skinned enough for the priest to decide that both spouses belonged in a “high-ranking casta."” Reading this, Kincaid's voice echoes "and all the laws [...] mysteriously favor you..." (94). Lucy notices Mariah's blue eyes "which [she] would have found beautiful even if [she] hadn't read millions of books in which blue eyes were always accompanied by the word "beautiful"" (39). What is "whiteness" to us? Is it beauty, status, and wealth as the texts illustrate? I think that without the need for a college education one can see that this is true today still. The privilege that comes with having white skin cannot be denied even today (although we have to be careful with this generalization, for six million Jews were murdered not too long ago). I don't feel that it is appropriate to look at these texts and be appalled at the explicit racism, when racism is all around us today.  Yet when I read of the "savages," "poor creatures," or the ones who "aren't niggers", all gunned down, sold, or traded, it is impossible not to feel enraged.

Kincaid gets "angry" at us for not seeing the atrocities of what England did. Although our interpretation of the world is limited to our own experiences, we have to be honest with ourselves and wonder how much of it is that we choose to not know about or not see. We can cling to Literature and allow current events to go unaddressed, only to become inspirations for future Somali, Iraqi, Guatemalan, or Romanian writers. Or, we can question our media, our representatives, our professors-we can question ourselves. Of the American couple Lucy notices that "they made no connection between their comforts and the decline of the world that lay before them" (72). I want to be quick to separate myself from Lucy's perception of Americans and scream that I care and that I will do whatever I can to better the circumstances of others, but I fear that Lucy would be quicker to point out that "if all the things [I] wanted to save in the world were saved, [I] might find [myself] in reduced circumstances" (73). I fear that I am one of the subscribers to the paper in Kipling's story, a subscriber who needs to be sheltered when "the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and reporting the better for [me]" (1.32). Is what’s going on in the other parts of the world really an "inconvenience" to us? Should we understand Kincaid? Should we attempt to feel the vulnerability that Derek Walcott expresses when he writes that "The night was white. There was nowhere to hide"? To question this is already a separation of oneself from the “other.”

Edward Said uses the term Orientalism to illustrate a Western attitude of superiority towards the non-Western; it is a perception of the non-Western world as exotic and mysterious, but inferior nonetheless (Andrea Smith). Kincaid certainly resents and points out this attitude. I, "a tourist," will never know the Antigua that Kincaid herself was not allowed to know. Kipling's writing declares that "Native States were created by Providence in order to supply picturesque scenery, tigers, and tall writing. They are the dark places of the earth..." (Kipling, 1.22); this would not console Kincaid but rather inflame a response. Kincaid would reply that "Even if [she] really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to [her], what [she] became after [she] met [the colonizer]" (94). But Defoe's Crusoe would perhaps make one more attempt to get Kincaid to see the goodwill of the colonizers that rescued her from "whole nations of Negroes" where one was sure to "be dovour'd by savage beasts, or more merciless savages of human kind" (21).

If Literature humanizes history, we cannot dismiss the tyrants of history by not hearing (or reading) their voices. Having enjoyed Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger and Edwidge Danticat's The Dew Breaker served me as a reminder that it is human beings who are the torturers, the murderers, the oppressors. Both Adiga and Danticat make the oppressors the protagonists  because it is the only way to understand what made them do what they did (one cheats, steals, and murders as a way up and out from the bottom of a caste system, and the other is a prison guard/torturer for the Duvalier dictatorship). In Colonial and Post-colonial studies it is just as important that we recognize these villains too. As discussed in class, Kipling's Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan are not heroic but rather despicable. Nonetheless, they represent the cravings for power, glory, and resources that drove the colonial empires. In almost every page of Kipling's writing we encounter murder and the use of weapons to subdue a people through fear and violence (echoes of genocide and militarism). How do we, the readers, become hoodwinked by the absurdity of their (Dravot and Carnahan) speech and ideas to the point that the story becomes surreal? The effects of colonization though, are very real and live on through the generations.

The daffodils in Kincaid's Lucy literally made me gasp and realize that I myself am a transnational migrant with a memory too familiar to Lucy's. In 1992 I myself was ten years old living in Mexico when the 500 anniversary of Cristobal Colon's arrival was celebrated. The whole school had to memorize a song about that wonderful day when a brave man rescued us from our ancestors the cannibals, the savages, los indios. I have very vague memories of that day. I remember hundreds of us marching in place to the joyous tune, each of us trying to sing louder than our friends around us. I only remember a small piece of that song; a song so cheery that I would not be surprised if most of us were struggling not to dance. That day was filled with re-enactments and poems and songs about La Conquista, but I only vividly remember myself screaming that song. Unlike Lucy when she refused to sing in the choir, I sang as loud as I could. It took me two decades and Kincaid' book to be able to understand how that day we celebrated genocide, famine, and war. I am not enraged like Lucy, but I am upset that we as children were deceived into singing a story so distant from what actually happened. I too have now turned a childhood memory into "a scene of conquered and conquests; a scene of brutes masquerading as angels and angel portrayed as brutes" (30).

In her 2009 Midterm submission, Chrisoula Mouliatis writes that Lucy's angry reaction to the daffodils "was not a hatred for Mariah, the daffodils themselves, or even Wordsworth that skewed her vision of the flower, it was the principle behind the poem." I agree with Mouliatis but I am confused when she writes that "It was required of [Lucy] to memorize the poem by people who wanted to change her and made her feel as if she could never be good enough, but knowing this poem might help her chances." I don't understand if she means that the English actually intended to increase Lucy's life chances by imposing British poetry on her, or if Mouliatis means that Lucy was only supposed to be fooled and believe that British poetry would indeed increase Lucy's life chances. Regardless, I think both Mouliatis and I would agree that Western academia was imposed so severely to the colony that instead of planting a seed for knowledge, a seed of resentment was planted. "You loved knowledge," Kincaid writes, "and wherever 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)" (94). Western art is still glorified today, preferred even from non-Western. As an undergraduate student I was bothered that even the great works of Literature were severed into two categories: Western and Non-Western. I feel that a disservice is done to students by not presenting all great texts as one accomplishment of human kind, but perhaps it is a reminiscence of a colonial attitude that has yet to pass.

Reading Texts in Dialogue forces us to question our responses to the readings, the actions of the protagonists, and our own history. We learn to acknowledge that history is like Maude in Lucy: to some Maude may be an example of greatness, but a "personal jailer" to others. Although I have to admit that I was very intimidated at the beginning of the semester because everyone else's literary background is so extensive that I was sure I would feel alienated all semester long, I am very glad to have enrolled in this class and I am sincerely looking forward to the rest of what I know will be semester rich with learning.