Student Midterm
submissions 2013

(2013 midterm assignment)

LITR 5831 World Literature


Colonial-Postcolonial

 

Jacob A. McCleese

5 October 2013

Midterm: Web Highlights

            Peer review is a highly valuable part of a student’s learning experience. Students pay very close attention to the critique, positive or negative, received from their fellow students. Personally, each time I review essays written by my peers it enhances my skills as a writer. In a way, it’s as if my peers become my instructors, guiding me down the path of writing. It is with these thoughts that I approach the web highlights for this class. Matt Richards, Kristine Vermillion, and Juan Garcia are my chosen instructors for this lesson in peer review.

            Matt Richards’s essay, “Immigrants and Minorities are not the Same Group: The Differences and Similarities of these Culture Groups,” was filled with great ideas wrapped in an overwhelmingly personal prose. Richards develops a definition for minorities and immigrants by examining the very different experiences of these groups in America. He writes, “ Minority groups…didn’t choose to come to America” (Richards). This is the major disparity between immigrants and minorities outlined in this essay. Immigrants came to America desiring a closer connection with the dominant culture, while minorities were forced from their homelands. Richards elaborates on this point beautifully by using various examples from his class texts, the course objectives, and his personal experiences.

            However, his overuse of personal, informal language was very distracting, as was his constant repetition of phrases. For example, in the first paragraph he writes, “The American immigrants journey to America” (Richards). Repetitions such as this detract from a reader’s ability to enjoy an essay. They drain the interest of the essay, lag the pacing, and indicate a lack of substance in the author’s response. Also, in the first paragraph he uses “I” three times in consecutive sentences. My formative writing instructors always taught that informal language should be avoided, but when using this language it should be used sparingly. So, this may have just been a personal preference problem, but it is worth addressing.

            The issues I had with Richards’s use of personal language did not carry over to Kristine Vermillion’s essay, “Problem Solvers on Steroids.” This essay deals with the value and relevance of the Utopian genre. She masterfully weaves in and out of class texts to show that each one stands on it’s own as a significant piece of literature. Her personal, informal language is encased by a significant amount of literary analysis/critique. Perhaps this is what makes all the difference between Richards and Vermillion’s essays. Writing doesn’t necessarily have to be detached and informal, but personal language needs to be a backdrop, not in the forefront. Vermillion uses her personal language as a compliment to her analysis and not the other way around.

            Lastly, Juan Garcia’s essay, “To Be or Not To Be, Racial Integration in the 18th and 19th Century,” demonstrates the necessity of revision. Revision was never a big part of my writing process until graduate school. After reviewing several of my early, disappointing efforts at graduate writing it became very apparent that my evolution as a writer needed to include a strong revision component.

            An essay may contain fascinating ideas, elaborate writing, and vocabulary that any logophile would be proud to claim. However, a lapse in simple grammar can ruin an essay’s validity and turn a reader completely off. Garcia’s essay begins and ends brilliantly. His focus on what W.E.B du Bois coined, “Double Consciousness” in connection with the course objectives, is seamless and quite pleasant at first. Yet, the missing letters, misspellings, and quotes that don’t appear to flow with the rest of the essay disrupted my ability to enjoy Garcia’s prose. This essay was a great reminder that revising assignments is just as important as writing them.

            My reviews were not intended as a reflection on the pitfalls of writing, but focusing on these pitfalls was therapeutic. Learning from the mistakes and successes of others, hopefully, will allow me to avoid errors and succeed in the future.

 

Midterm: Research Proposal

            All good things must come to an end and awful things must also crumble. My research project will attempt to place the idea of “empire” into either the awful or good side of the opening line. Empires have affected the history of the world ever since the earliest forms of mankind chose to live in communities. If there are multiple groups of people, one will always emerge dominant. Right? Isn’t that the natural state of the world? Is this the basic human nature that drives the dominion of empires throughout history? These are simple questions with profound implications that drive me to search for answers.

            My research will be presented in two research posts. This format is most effective because my initial questions break down into two categories. First, why and how did the earliest empires form? Again this sounds simplistic, but it grows into a complicated quandary. Empires are expanding enterprises convinced that the promulgation and dispersion of their culture is the best way to contribute to the improvement of the global culture. Is this a brash assumption or the correct appraisal of one’s culture? I don’t know, but I want to find out. Secondly, where and how does American culture compare to former empires? Reading Niall Ferguson’s Colossus sparked my interest in this question. Is America destined to fail like all the other Imperial powers? Or is there something unique about the American approach to imperialism? These are the questions and ideas that guide my research. I hope to find some answers soon.

 

Midterm Essays: Focusing on the Ladies

            Of the two sexes, women have historically been portrayed as more complicated. From emotionally vexing to physically overwhelming, female complexity has been one major focus of a masculine dominated society for centuries. Authors of novels are not exempt from this. Whether they are colonial, post-colonial, neo-colonial, or trans-national, developing the feminine character in literature is a challenge for any author. The obvious question here is why? Why is it so difficult, especially for colonial authors, to portray real women in novels? For colonial authors, I assert that the problem lies in the lack of female representation in colonial society and as the world emerges into post-colonialism, female authors make their presence known (obj. 1).

            Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is arguably one of the best representations of classic colonial literature. The novel portrays one man, an English gent, who sets out on an adventure, finds an island, and begins ruling over the natives. The novel is a wonderful piece of the literary canon; however, the lack of feminine presence is astounding. Throughout the novel the only woman who is allowed a fraction of a voice is Crusoe’s mother.

            In the very beginning of the novel Crusoe’s mother objects to his setting off for adventures. However, the mother is never given any real dialogue. Defoe writes, “This put my mother in a great passion, she told me it would be to no purpose to speak to my father…he knew to well what was my interest to give his consent” (1.10). Crusoe’s mother’s voice is absorbed in the proclamations of her son. Although readers are lead to believe that Crusoe’s thoughts represent his mother’s, this drowning of female dialogue with masculine reflections presents a strong representation of the colonial world. Women didn’t need to speak, or be heard if men were able to speak for them. This trend is easily seen in many colonial novels. Men speaking and writing for women was almost a type literary archetype for colonial authors.

            Allowing male characters to speak for female characters eliminates the need for authors to formulate real representations of women in their novels. This trend causes old issues, fears, and resentments of women to be perpetuated. The silencing of women effectively raises a sort of trepidation about women, and this uneasiness takes front stage in The Man Who Would Be King.

            This story places women in two major categories: sources of conflict and entities that detract from masculine progress. In paragraph 2.24, Dravor asks the members of two villages what the trouble is between them; the members of the village point, “to a woman as fair as you or me” (2.24). The implication here is that this woman was white and the native’s of both villages wanted to possess her. Beautiful women, particularly virgins, causing conflict are an old problem. Helen of Troy is probably the most famous example, and most people are familiar with this tale. An intensely beautiful woman is taken from her home; her husband is so distraught that he starts a war to get her back. The female body is beset and scarred with the results of conflict between men dating back to the earliest civilizations. Wars and bloody disputes have been stirred up just to possess the female body, and the only way to avoid being drawn into a conflict, over a woman, is to avoid them at all costs.

            This is the advice Carnehan offers to Dravot. Carnehan says, “The bible says that kings ain’t to waste their strength on women” (2.55). Here are two male characters turning to arguably one of the most influential books ever in order to justify abstaining from female influence. Carnehan also implies that if a man wants to succeed, or become a king, women will only get in the way of that goal. Like alcohol, women intoxicate men. They excite all masculine desires and then inhibit a man’s ability to perform. According to Carnehan, alcohol and women are equally disastrous to any progressively minded man.

            The assumptions made about women by colonial authors are male assertions and do not have feminine answers within the text. However, reading intertextually allows readers to posit responses from feminine authors to their male counterparts. Women are the ultimate others in colonial literature, but in post-colonial writing, women are often the hegemonic voice. They are the driving narrator, the fully developed characters, and the most psychologically expressive features in the novel. Post-colonial women make their presence felt and throw all preconceptions back in the face of a male dominated society. Jamaica Kincaid’s, Lucy, exemplifies all of this and so much more.

            Lucy, the character, is a strong, young, bold woman from Antigua. Kincaid’s novel not only bears this young woman’s name, but everything in the novel is touched by Lucy’s imprint. Readers are given a view of the world from the perspective of an individual that does not belong to her current society, in more than one way. Lucy dictates all impressions, emotions, dialogue, and modalities demonstrated in this novel. This is a major change from the colonial literature discussed earlier. The male characters in Lucy take a back seat and the driver’s seat is occupied by a female lead.

            One of the most shocking things Lucy does with her position is to turn the convention of feminine virtue upside down. Lucy says, “I did not care about being a virgin…it mattered to him to be the first boy I had been with, I could not give him such a hold over me” (Kincaid 83). Colonial authors equated feminine virtue with virginity. If a woman surrendered her precious gift then she also surrendered her virtue, trustworthiness, honesty, and social purity. Her virtue was inherently connected with who she was as a person. Kincaid’s inversion of feminine virtue is similar to Black authors inverting the color code. Both are taking possession of something used to discriminate or control, and they are turning it into something that disenfranchised people can use to empower themselves.

            All of this leaves me wondering, what do female characters bring to a novel? One answer that is immediately apparent is depth. If novels are all about male problems, in a male world, dictated by men, and written by men that would provide for very limited writing. Women bring a depth of emotion, pain, and struggle that men are just beginning to understand. I don’t want to throw out the male writers and start a feminist revolution. However, women do deserve a seat at the table and a real voice in the literary conversation.