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Student Midterm submissions 2013 (2013 midterm assignment) |
LITR 5831 World Literature
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Lori Arnold
8 October 2013
“Colonial and Postcolonial Literature Instructs Twenty-first Century
Americans”
Many students choose to write introspective essays that illustrate their
personal experiences or feelings about colonization and the results from the
breaking down of empires as a result of the midterm assignment. It is
fascinating to note the many perspectives that students bring as they observe
the challenges of colonial and postcolonial texts when viewed from a
twenty-first century American lens. While many of the students wrote from a
personal perspective, I noted Lisa Hacker, Ryan Scott Smith, and Debbie Sasser
because they all concluded with a very specific idea for using colonial and
postcolonial texts in dialogue with each other to instruct twenty-first century
American students.
Lisa Hacker brings a very personal perspective on colonial and postcolonial
literature to her midterm essay and she does not shy away from a very difficult
topic surrounding imperialism. As a mother and teacher, Hacker discusses a
personal experience she had with her son at a Christian school. The historical
connection between imperialism and religion is a contentious topic today because
people of all religions believe that they have a mandate to expand the religion
through conversion. This results in some zealous teachers glossing over the
problematic tendencies of imperialism and religion’s involvement in the abuse.
She comments that Christian school curriculum could be viewed as
“another
example of postcolonial literature, albeit one that favors the colonial
viewpoint...Simply put, a text that tends to encompass or favor the colonial
viewpoint, in part, could still be considered part of postcolonial literature”
(Hacker para. 11). This is a fascinating idea and perhaps an inventive way for a
teacher of either public or private Christian schools to introduce some critical
thinking skills to his or her students. Finally, Hacker presents a solution that
involves using postcolonial texts to teach compassion to students that will help
them care more about the world and break down the self/other binary.
The midterm assignment also inspired Ryan Smith to examine the self/other binary
in relation to colonial and postcolonial texts. When students read a literary
text they have a tendency to either strongly identify with the text or to see
the text as “Other.” A goal of literary studies is to teach students to
recognize that the self/other binary is false and to embrace the commonalities
of all human beings. Smith observes that in colonial/postcolonial literature
class, it is easy as a twenty-first century American to make value judgments on
both Robinson Crusoe and Lucy. A simple reading of these novels places Crusoe in
the role of the villain as the colonizer and conqueror and Lucy in the role of
victim as vanquished and oppressed colonized. While he emphasizes the importance
of placing literary texts in historical context, Smith offers an intriguing
defense of colonial/postcolonial studies: “insight gained by
retrospective reading is not to be
ignored. Without texts like Kincaid’s,
Robinson Crusoe could be read in an academic vacuum, forever lacking new
meanings and interpretations. These perspectives...invigorate the text and allow
us to both consider its original context and its topical relevance” (para. 9). I
find this point incredibly important for students studying literature in any
place at any time. One can care about Lucy without being one of the “colonized”
and it is possible to view Robinson
Crusoe as something beyond simply a very old novel. As the twentieth century
unfolded and many empires collapsed, literary theorists rejoiced at the
opportunity to embrace new authors and see old favorites through a new lens.
Building upon the concept of historical perspective in colonial/postcolonial
studies, Debbie Sasser discusses the collision of cultures in
Robinson Crusoe and
Lucy. Although Crusoe transfers his
culture to Friday by teaching him his language and religion, the transfer only
goes one way. Crusoe believes that his culture is morally superior to Friday’s
culture and thus he believes that he must convert Friday to his culture. Sasser
suggests that there is a mutual exchange of culture between Mariah and Lucy. She
specifically points to Lucy’s reference to the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a
Cloud” by Wordsworth as evidence of the exchange of culture that is a result of
colonization. While it is clear that Kincaid does not see this exchange of
culture positively, and clearly expresses anger over the colonization of
Antigua, Sasser attempts to view some aspect of colonization in a positive
light. She also discusses one way that viewing literature in dialogue adds to
the meaning of the text. I was particularly fascinated by the way that she sees
the idea of transnational migration in both
Robinson Crusoe and
Lucy. Sasser comments, “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” (para. 10). Both characters have become part of other
cultures by the end of the novel, but they also see the past in everything they
experience.
I found it fascinating that all three of these students emphasized the
importance of viewing literary texts in historical perspective because I
specifically learned something about the contemporary relevance of
colonial/postcolonial theory from these essays. Twenty-first century students
can look at earlier literary texts such as
Robinson Crusoe from a
colonial/postcolonial perspective and learn that not all of proclaimed motives
of imperial nations are true and recognize that the consequences of colonialism
are devastating according to Hacker. On the other hand, Smith reminds me that
historical perspective is important to prevent me from judging characters such
as Robinson Crusoe too harshly. I did not live in the seventeenth century, and I
cannot completely understand the culture that justified slavery, but judged
cannibals very harshly. I really appreciated that Sasser incorporated
transnational migration into her critique of both
Robinson Crusoe and
Lucy. Although it may fall out of
favor eventually, because of our place in history, students of literature in the
early twenty-first century can relate to colonial/postcolonial theory.
“Lucy and I have something in Common?”
“I cannot tell you how angry it makes me to hear people from North America tell
me how much they love England, how beautiful England is, with its traditions”
(Kincaid 99). Reading the excerpt from Kincaid’s,
A Small Place in the third week of
class was quite the shock for me. At first glance I am the American that Jamaica
Kincaid so strongly despises. I was excited about this colonial/postcolonial
literature course from the beginning because I am intrigued by the relationship
between Great Britain and its former colonies. However, I approach this topic
from the perspective of an American who is more than a bit of an Anglophile. I
have been taught British and American literature from a very young age, so
postcolonial literature makes me uncomfortable because it often is very critical
of Great Britain the empire. I also struggle with reading strong critiques of
imperial Great Britain because I was taught the very conservative Christian view
of history in primary and secondary school that often glorifies the motives of
explorers.
My prior experience with postcolonial literature is limited; however, I have
read some famous works of colonial/postcolonial literature in another course at
UHCL. During my undergrad degree I took a course on the rise of the modern
novel, in which we read Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness and Quicksand by Nella
Larsen. Although the course was not designed with the colonial/postcolonial
perspective in mind, we discussed some of the issues of colonialism and
postcolonialism in these novels. Larsen’s novel does not deal directly with
issues relating to a postcolonial former colony; rather she discusses an African
American descendant of slaves who cannot be accepted as she wishes to be in the
United States because of racism and subsequently chooses to immigrate to Europe
where she gains better acceptance. I found these topics intriguing, which led me
to read Things Fall Apart after
completing my degree. In our course, I find the discussions of the form of the
novel, specifically the way authors address or fail to address the self/other
binary fascinating. Reading colonial/postcolonial texts in dialogue with one
another contributes to breaking down the self/other binary and entering the
field of difference for both the texts and American students of the early
twenty-first century like myself.
The genre of the novel is very important in studying colonial/postcolonial
literature because of the issues of perspective that it raises. As we have
discussed in class many times the perspective of the narrator in the novel
influences how the reader perceives the imperial nation or the colonized
natives. The perspective of the narrator also strongly influences who is the
self and who is viewed as the other in the novel. In dramas, all of the
characters have a voice, which makes it easier for the reader to feel that he or
she has to the ability to choose who is the “self” and the “other” in the play.
Poetry, on the other hand, can be a difficult genre because the perspective or
identity of the narrator is not always clear. In many novels,
the narrative is told in the first person, which gives the narrator the
role of the self. It is certainly possible to see the novel from a different
perspective; however, it is natural to either strongly identify with or strongly
vilify the narrator of a novel.
The self/other binary is an important concept in literature generally, but in
the literature we’ve read so far it applies to both a racial binary and a gender
binary. Robinson Crusoe,
Lucy, and
The Man Who would be King all address
issues of race. Crusoe and
The Man Who would be King both use
the perspective of the colonizer in their narratives, while
Lucy is told through the lens of the
colonized. This has a significant impact on how the reader responds to the text.
I also found that in our class we are critical of all narratives, but we trust
the relationship between Lucy/Mariah more than the relationship between
Crusoe/Friday because it is told from the perspective of the colonized rather
than the colonizer. The Man Who would be
King has a double narrative of self/other binary. The narrator separates
himself from Daniel and Peachey by recording their speech in dialect, while all
three of the men view the natives of India as different from themselves.
The self/other binary is important in postcolonial theory because it indicates
how a culture can justify conquering another culture. In the multicultural
society that exists throughout much of the world today, this is a horrifying
thought. However, in colonial novels such
Robinson Crusoe and The Man Who would
be King the idea of one culture as inherently better or morally superior is
imbedded into the narrator’s psyche. Ryan Smith’s midterm submission from 2011
discussed at length the propensity of literature students to make judgments of
characters in colonial/postcolonial texts by naming them either “villains” or
“victims.” Through several class discussions we struggled through this idea and
tried very hard to determine why we are so quick to harshly judge Crusoe, but
find ourselves baffled by the character of Lucy. While Crusoe treats the slave
trade (which is the consumption of humans through labor) as completely normal,
he is obsessed with the cannibalism that he finds evidence of on the island.
When Crusoe rescues Friday he does not hesitate to erase Friday’s culture by
teaching him that cannibalism is wrong. He is not interested in learning about
why Friday’s culture practices cannibalism. Instead Crusoe relates, “he had
buried the two men...and showed me the marks that he had made to find them
again, making signs to me that we should dig them up again and eat them. At this
I appeared very angry, expressed my abhorrence of it, made as if I would vomit
at the thoughts of it, and beckoned with my hand to him to come away, which he
did immediately, with great submission” (Defoe ch. 14). It is very easy as a
person living in the twenty-first century to be focused on Crusoe’s hypocrisy,
but historically Defoe creates a character who is a man of his time. I have to
consistently remind myself that in the early eighteenth century slavery was
still common and a man like Crusoe would have commonly viewed slavery and
cannibalism as very different from each other.
While Defoe’s Crusoe rather seriously approaches his duty to morally educate
Friday and make him part of himself, the characters of
The Man Who would be King
decide to colonize simply because they are able to. This rather lighthearted
approach to colonization could be approached as a middle step between Crusoe and
Lucy. In another narrative told from the perspective of the colonizer, Dravot
and Peachey view the world as belonging to them. Once they decide that they can
no longer play their tricks in India, they decide to branch out to the
territories, where they expect that their obvious superiority will allow them to
easily overcome the natives. The narrator relates that Dravot tells him, "The
country isn't half worked out because they that governs it won't let you touch
it...Therefore, such as it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other
place where a man isn't crowded and can come to his own. We are not little
men...Therefore, we are going away to
be Kings" (Kipling para. 42). Although the two men obviously believe that they
are superior to the natives of India, the narrative of
The Man Who would be King remains
lighthearted because of Kipling’s narrative style. What they do not quite expect
is to be considered gods by the natives (of course we only know this from
Peachey’s re-telling). The perspective of the natives is initially amusing
because they exotisize Dravot and Peachey as much as the men view them as
“other.” While Kipling gently mocks colonization through Peachey and Dravot, the
character of Lucy in Kincaid’s
angrily reproves colonizers. As I mentioned in my presentation on Wordsworth’s
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” Lucy is very angry over being forced to memorize
poetry written by a dead white man from the oppressor’s culture. When she
recounts the story to Mariah, she is clearly very upset: “I said, ‘Mariah, do
you realize that at ten years of age I had to learn by heart a long poem about
some flowers I would not see in real life until I was nineteen?’” (30). However,
because the story is told from Lucy’s perspective, the reader discovers that she
is not telling Mariah the entire story. Lucy recognizes that the effects of
colonization extend beyond the end of their oppression when she says, “It wasn’t
her fault. It wasn’t my fault. But nothing could
change the fact that where she saw beautiful flowers I saw sorrow and
bitterness” (30). In this scene that it is easy for the reader to perceive Lucy
as the victim of imperial conquest; however, there are many other aspects of
Kincaid’s narrative that resist the victimization of Lucy.
The self/other binary applies just as well to issues of gender as
colonizer/colonized in the texts we have read so far in our course. I have found
that examining these texts from a gender perspective can be a useful way to
break down the self/other binary between the reader and the characters. Women
are nearly nonexistent in Robinson Crusoe,
but both Lucy and
The Man Who would be King deal with
gender issues in rather different ways. Dravot appears to treat women as objects
in The Man Who would be King, just as
they treat the natives as people to be conquered. However, the two men seem to
have some fear of women and the destruction that they can cause because
refraining from relationships with women is an essential part of the contract.
Peachey also appears to blame their downfall on Dravot’s insistence on breaking
this part of the contract. Just as Crusoe’s character reflects the opinions
toward slavery of his time, Peachey and Dravot reflect common attitudes toward
women of their time. However, in class we discussed the way that Kipling
portrays the natives’ attitudes toward women. Although the story is clearly told
from the perspective of the colonizer and Peachey is the character telling the
story to the narrator, he claims that the natives appear to allow their women
some freedom of choice in marriage. Peachey even makes the concession that this
is similar to the English marriage customs. thus, while the relationship between
the colonizer and the colonized in The
Man Who would be King clearly maintains the self/other binary, Kipling uses
portrayal of gender to begin entering the field of difference.
In “A Small Place” Kincaid resists entering the field of difference by pushing
away nearly every reader who is not like her. Her accusation hit home for me as
I mentioned above, but Lucy brought
me back to Kincaid. After reading the excerpt from
A Small Place, I felt very defensive
and was concerned that Lucy would be
just as disconcerting an experience. Although her frank discussions of sex
sometimes make me uncomfortable, they show that there are in fact commonalities
among women. Lucy begins discussing sex after her encounter with Hugh, but what
was clearly recognizable for me was that she acknowledges the many memories
connected to the physical experience. Through this discussion, I began to see
that all of Lucy is really about
connecting her home of Antigua or her “self” to the “other” of her new life in
New York. I believe that this is familiar for all people regardless of
circumstance because I at least am constantly changing and trying to blend who I
have been with who I am becoming. One way that this breakdown of self and other
occurs in Lucy is through
Lucy’s uneasy relationship with Mariah.
In
Marichia Wyatt’s discussion of Lucy,
the relationship between Mariah and Lucy was explored at length. I realized that
Kincaid helps the reader enter the field of difference with Lucy as a character
through this relationship. Lucy wants to enter the field of difference with
Mariah by placing her in a mother role in her mind. As a woman myself, I could
identify with some (a few) of the complications Lucy dealt with in her
relationship with her mother. As we discussed in class, Lucy herself resists
entering the field of difference with Mariah who appears to embrace second wave
feminism; however, she ultimately does try to make Mariah apart of herself by
relating her to her own mother. “Mariah reminded me more and more of the parts
of my mother that I loved...Sometimes when they wished to make a point, they
would hold their hands in the air, and suddenly their hands were vessels made
for carrying something special” (59). While Lucy recognizes aspects of her own
mother in Mariah, perhaps she is also beginning to recognize aspects of her
mother in herself. This is a scary moment for all women, but it does appear
inevitable that Lucy is a product of her family and will gradually become more
and more like her own mother.
In our class thus far, I have discovered that one of the major advantages to
studying colonial and postcolonial texts in dialogue with each other is the ways
that they work together to enter the field of difference between a variety of
self/other binaries. Had I read Robinson
Crusoe alone, I would have been unlikely to see the redeeming qualities in a
hypocritical slave trader. Although he does not recognize that he has been
changed by Friday, it is clear by the end of the novel that Crusoe no longer
views the native man as only “other.” While I first found myself unable to
relate to Kincaid through “A Small Place,” by examining some of the gender
issues inherent in Lucy I was finally
able to feel that Kincaid cannot keep me at arm's length as a reader. It took
some work, but through our class discussion, we were able to discover some
complex issues of race and gender in Kipling’s
The Man Who would be King. The
lighthearted style of the narrative initially resists a serious reading of the
novel; however, I believe that this text plays an important role in our course
because it begins to bridge the gap between
Robinson Crusoe and
Lucy. I believe this is similar to
the result when a text breaks down the self/other binary to enter the field of
difference. The Man Who would be King
relates to issues of race in Robinson
Crusoe, while also beginning to investigate the issues of gender that Lucy
explicitly discusses. Although embracing this intertextuality by discussing
texts that initially appear so wildly different completely ignores any intent of
the author, it appears to be a helpful and even necessary component of
postcolonial studies.
Breaking down the Self/Other Binary in
Forster’s A
Passage to India
I am fascinated by the different options available for the research project in
your course. From a composition theory perspective, I am particularly intrigued
by the use of journals in courses to help students communicate their learning in
writing. Thus, I would really like to do a journal. I looked at Lisa Hacker’s
journal on Kincaid and Walcott from 2011 and I found it fascinating. However, it
seems likely that my topic may fit better with the essay approach. As a graduate
student, I have become very comfortable writing term papers and I find that it
is sometimes difficult for me to break free of that mold. I will see what I can
do, but I cannot promise that you will not end up getting a single essay once I
complete my research.
My research topic has become somewhat narrowly focused rather quickly. I have
long been interested in E.M. Forster, as you may have noticed from my frequent
references to Howard’s End in our
class. Although it is one of his most famous novels, I have not yet read
A Passage to India. I feel that this
course is the perfect excuse I need to not only read
A Passage to India, but also research
some of the criticism on the novel, and attempt to write about it from a
colonial/postcolonial perspective. If I find that this is helpful, I would like
to consider writing about A Passage to
India and Train to Pakistan in
dialogue. Obviously, we have not begun reading the second novel in our course
yet, but it seems that it might give new perspective on
A Passage to India just as
Lucy gave new perspective on
Robinson Crusoe in our class
discussion.
I currently foresee breaking down of the self/other binary as the primary focus
for my discussion of A Passage to India.
My previous experience with Forster (A
Room with a View and Howard’s End)
leads me to believe that this will be an important theme in this novel as well.
I am also interested in introducing some of Edward Said’s theory from
Orientalism. I have only read
excerpts, but my preliminary research into Said seems to indicate that the
self/other binary is an important aspect of his theory. Clearly, I do not have
this completely figured out yet, but if I can make this work as a journal, then
perhaps I’ll do some biographical reporting on Forster and Said, as well as some
historical research into the actual events happening in India at the time the
novel is set in. From your brief introduction into
Train to Pakistan, I can see that
historical research could easily be a part of discussion of this novel. Well, it
doesn’t look like I’ll have a problem finding enough ideas. Also, don’t worry,
I’ll try to narrow it down enough.
