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Student Midterm submissions 2013 (2013 midterm assignment) |
LITR 5831 World Literature
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Kristine Vermillion
Web Highlights
The Novelty of Dialogue?
The process of dialogical conversation is an
essential part of the course, and it is one that I am naturally inclined to. I
function off the idea that everything is connected, and nothing is ever as
simple as it seems. For this reason I was surprised and disappointed with
previous students who seemed to think this idea of dialogue between texts as
some sort of novel idea. My undergraduate degree is in humanities. The
foundation of the study of humanities is the idea of the interconnectedness of
the various fields and how they speak to and interact with one another, or at
least that was my take on it. So when I read the midterm submission by Allen
Reid, a fellow humanities undergraduate, I was disturbed by his admission that
he had “never really thought of merging the two disciplines i.e. using
literature to study history or vice versa.” [sic]
How could he not? Really?! Jenny Brewer
also opened her midterm by admitting that she was “accustomed to view content
packages on their own terms, as self-contained entities” and “was accustomed to
treating each work of literature as a world unto itself.” I am glad that via
this class they were able to break through into the meaty, higher regions of
critical thought.
The world of theory, along with the idea of
dialogue, is also important to this class. I was not surprised by Reid’s take on
literary theory, because I have heard it many times before. The following is how
he related the idea of theory within the context of this class: “Sure I took
literary theory like every other graduate student in literature, but it is
‘shoved down your throat’ so fast, in one semester, that one hardly has time to
digest it; but, now taking a class in colonial and post colonial literature, and
reflecting back on my literary theory studies, it all came together.” Though I
question his use of aggressive language, I do agree that this course provides
needed formative practice in the application of a dominant theoretical trend.
My main intent in taking this class is to learn the
application of the theoretical approach well in order to be able to push the
study and the underlying philosophical theory behind it even farther. I am
primarily interested in the theory. However, in order to accomplish what I want
to accomplish, I have to understand the specifics of the class materials. I am
using this part of the midterm to build and solidify my foundation of knowledge
for the purpose of future building.
I have looked through the model assignments trying to find those who have
succinctly articulated the main points of this course by defining key terms and
ideas well.
Concerning the first text we read,
Robinson Crusoe, the analysis offered
by Keaton Patterson in his midterm in his essay titled: “Self, Other, Us: The
Promise of Dialogue between Colonial and Postcolonial Texts,” is a great
starting point. His first paragraph solidly nails down the thrust of the course
by identifying its theoretical origins and showing its application in our course
materials.
The dialogue
between colonial and postcolonial literature is unique in its cultural and
political immediacy to the historical narrative that frames global human
relations. Indeed, history is a narrative, and like any narrative it is shaped
by the authority of its perspective; it is the control of this perspective that
is the point of interest (and struggle) within colonial-postcolonial literary
discourse. As Edward Said has noted, the Western empires used “cultural forms
like the novel … in the formation of imperial attitudes, references, and
experiences” (xii). For example, colonial texts such as Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe
and Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King” clearly delineate the cultural and
racial differences between colonizers and colonized, casting each in the
respective roles of self and other and ultimately serving to rationalize and
reinforce the imperial system. However, after decolonization and the rise of
postcolonial literature, writers such as Jamaica Kincaid introduced a new
perspective that voiced a challenge to the primacy of this historical narrative.
Postcolonial texts, such as “A Small Place” and
Lucy,
invert this self/other binary, exposing its arbitrary, oppressive structure and
pulling colonial literature of the established Western canon into “a process of
dialogue and necessary correction” (Gugelberger 582). As a result, this
intertextuality produces a cultural-political dialectic of self and other that
illuminates the dehumanizing hegemony of colonial (and neo-colonial)
exploitation, empowers the oppressed through the assertion of an independent
perspective, and perhaps points the way for a new, more egalitarian synthesis of
human relations.
Through the juxtaposition of these types of narratives, the
spell invoked by the power of the narrative is essentially broken as
perspectives clash and reveal, through their conflict, the reality and the
gravity of the situation that has been there all along. The rest of Patterson’s
Midterm submission offers a great conversation of Defoe, Kipling and Kincaid. He
displayed a thorough understanding of the idiosyncrasies and ramifications of
post-colonial theory and the benefit of the dialogic. In grasp and scope of
content as well as the quality of examples given, Patterson, in my opinion,
provided very beneficial insights.
Another student who showed substantial
analysis was Charles Colson. I appreciate the personal spin he put on the
materials by relating his experience during his childhood in Hawai’i. I also
have a similar experience. My senior year of high school my parents moved us
from Wyoming to Hawai’i. I graduated early so I never formally went to school
there, but my younger brother went to high school there, and the experience was
both very difficult and eye opening for him. My parents also struggled with the
way the “native” people treated them. They too were frequently discriminated
against due to their skin color, their speech and their lack of familiarity with
local customs. We went over there without any predisposition for racial
discrimination (Wyoming is “The Equality State” don’t you know), and to be the
recipients of it—walking into such a charged situation was very difficult.
Reverse discrimination and racism is not the answer. To merely invert the
paradigm accomplishes very little. It will do nothing to curtail the instances,
that my family and countless others who of necessity followed where the job
sent, where innocent people were treated like villains due to the past mistakes
of others due to the color of their skin.
I was compelled by the rest of Colson’s essay, and I like his
summary line. “Narrative gives direction to personal and cultural history;
dialogue provides the diversity of voices necessary for a humanizing encounter
with the other. Inasmuch as the novel as a genre combines them, it helps
us make sense of our experience in the modern era.” I agree, as I did in our
course about utopian fiction, the novel is a unique place to deal with cultural
and social problems and realities; it is a place where we can converse more
freely and evoke the development of critical thinking skills. For this reason I
think both writers and theorists alike have before them an opportunity through
discourse and dialogue to move from the thesis-antitheses loop to the world of
synthesis.
Midterm Essay
A Discussion of Nations vs. Individuals
The few times that I have spoken out in
class have been in a type of defense for Defoe and Crusoe. I honestly am not a
champion for Defoe or his work, but our conversation regarding
Robinson Crusoe in class has brought
to light once again an aspect of post-colonial theory and its sister theories
that I find a little disturbing. I agree with most of the observations made
about the colonial impulse, its sins, and the disturbing language it uses. I
appreciate the creativity, perspective, and passion the post-colonial texts
bring to the dialogue. I actually really, and I mean really, love the dialogical
aspect of the course. With this being said, how do I possibly describe the
problem I have with the theory?
My problem is rooted in the idea that it is entirely too easy
to interpret everything through the lens of power dynamics. Theory has moved in
this direction, and it has produced great scholarship looking at various power
dynamics including those exerted by various people groups, governments,
languages, and genders. These analyses are powerful, but I think they might
oversimplify the problem and cloud the view of the reader/thinker—making the
binary of self versus other all that they trained to see. I am compelled by two
specific questions posed in the Objectives. Objective 2a asks if colonizers and
the colonized can be understood as something other than villains and victims. I
am personally tired of looking through this lens. The second, Objective 8, is
geared towards a focus on the question of how we, as products of Western
Civilization, can reconcile ourselves toward this study with the shadow of our
nation’s sordid history of inhumanity towards others looming over us. These are
good questions, and I have to try to answer them.
I read and understood a lot of
Robinson Crusoe differently than the
others in class. I think there is more there than meets the eye. One aspect that
I found particularly interesting is Crusoe’s internal processing of the cannibal
question and his eventual gained understanding about the differences between
individuals and nations. When Crusoe first discovers that cannibals occasionally
visit the island, his first impulse is to want to destroy them because of the
judgment he makes about their practices. His mind stays in a holding pattern
here for a considerable amount of time, but then he starts to change.
But now, when, as I have said, I
began to be weary of the fruitless excursion which I had made so long and so far
every morning in vain, so my opinion of the action itself began to alter;
and I began, with cooler and calmer thoughts, to consider what I was going to
engage in; what authority or call I had to pretend
to be judge and executioner upon these men as
criminals, whom Heaven had thought fit for so many ages to suffer unpunished to
go on, and to be as it were the executioners of His judgments one upon another;
how far these people were offenders against me, and what right I had to engage
in the quarrel of that blood which they shed promiscuously upon one another. I
debated this very often with myself thus: "How do I
know what God Himself judges in this particular case? It is certain these people
do not commit this as a crime; it is not against their own consciences
reproving, or their light reproaching them; they do not know it to be an
offence, and then commit it in defiance of divine justice, as we do in almost
all the sins we commit. They think it no more a crime to kill a captive taken in
war than we do to kill an ox; or to eat human flesh than we do to eat mutton."
Crusoe’s rationale shows
us great interior complexity and character refinement, which according to
Bakhtin, is an essential element of the novel. He questions and corrects himself
as he begins to see them as people of a different culture, religion, and nation,
and he becomes an advocate in a way for a breed of moral relativism. I cannot
prove it at this time, but knowing what I know about Defoe’s other novels,
Moll Flanders and
Roxana, I am inclined to believe that
Defoe was criticizing a dominant social view. Via his very complicated and shady
characters and their less than ideal circumstances, he very adeptly wrote to
show that very few things are black and white. Situational ethics, moral
relativism, and pragmatism are all major aspects of his novels. He comes to the
conclusion that the idea that cannibals are evil and therefore worthy of
destruction is wrong. His initial impulse was wrong.
When I considered this a little, it
followed necessarily that I was certainly in the wrong; that these people were
not murderers, in the sense that I had before condemned them in my thoughts, any
more than those Christians were murderers who often put to death the prisoners
taken in battle… it occurred to me that although
the usage they gave one another was thus brutish and inhuman, yet it was really
nothing to me: these people had done me no injury:
that if they attempted, or I saw it necessary, for my immediate preservation, to
fall upon them, something might be said for it: but that I was yet out of their
power, and they really had no knowledge of me, and consequently no design upon
me; and therefore it could not be just for me to fall upon them….
He then clearly resolves what he is to be about, i.e. the
prevention of an encounter that might ultimately involve his need to protect
himself from them. I think it is important to note that at this point of the
narrative he is not defending his land or territory. He doesn’t come to the
conclusion that it is his island and they can’t be there. The only thing he
deems worthy of defense is his own life. He never claims that they don’t have a
right to be there, nor does he try to stop them. He just stays out of their way
and conscientiously erases his footprint from the island.
… it was
not my business to meddle with them, unless they
first attacked me; and this it was my business, if possible, to prevent: but
that, if I were discovered and attacked by them, I knew my duty. On the other
hand, I argued with myself that this really was the way not to deliver myself,
but entirely to ruin and destroy myself …. Upon the whole,
I concluded that I ought, neither in principle nor in
policy, one way or other, to concern myself in this affair:
that my business was, by all possible means to conceal myself from them, and not
to leave the least sign for them to guess by that there were any living
creatures upon the island—I mean of human shape.
This conclusion appears to me to be fairly sound. He
concludes that the defense of his own life is the only just ramification he has
for doing anything and it is his responsibility to make sure that doesn’t
happen. In this instance, at least, it is important to note the respect he comes
to for their individual lives as well as for their nation. The Christian
worldview which is comprised of two fundamental ideas—the idea of the
sovereignty of God over the nations and the Savior of individuals—is the basis
for his logical conclusion.
As to the crimes they were guilty of
towards one another, I had nothing to do with them; they were national, and I
ought to leave them to the justice of God, who is the Governor of nations, and
knows how, by national punishments, to make a just retribution for national
offences, and to bring public judgments upon those who offend in a public
manner, by such ways as best please Him.
The theme of the nations in the Christian scriptures is
profound. The conversation on it begins in Genesis and continues throughout to
the final chapter in Revelation. It is a theme that has provoked great research,
doctrinal dissertations, and controversy. There is more here than meets the eye,
and the dichotomy of self versus other—villain versus victim, does not even
begin to scratch the surface of the depth of content. Crusoe’s later treatment
of Friday as an individual in conjunction with this discussion on nations
indicates Defoe was taking to task certain contemporary issues in his day. His
view here might actually be a stinging critique of his own nation’s
imperialistic attitude. (Disclaimer: I have not read the entire book yet, so I
do not know exactly how it ends. I have read some criticism that indicates that
when he returns to the island, everything descends into chaos and “Things Fall
Apart.” This ending can be analyzed and criticized in myriad of different ways.
As the population on the island grows, Crusoe begins to view it as a nation, and
then the ethics change from individual to national.) Regardless, the talk of
nations permeates the rest of the narrative, and I think it is a fascinating
subject.
One other thing that I took note of that
wasn’t mentioned in class is the work and forethought Crusoe puts into preparing
for the needs of the additional peoples he thinks are coming to the island and
who are going to need resources to travel on the seas. Crusoe and all the men
worked hard cultivating and planting the land to prepare for the needs of
others. This endeavor cost all of them dearly in labor and their own food
supply. Crusoe narrates that they sowed “all the seed we had to spare: indeed,
we left ourselves barely sufficient, for our own food for the six months that we
had to expect our crop; that is to say reckoning from the time we set our seed
aside for sowing; for it is not to be supposed it is six months in the ground in
that country.” Their crop was not the best harvest Crusoe had ever seen, but
they produced enough to amply supply the perceived needs of their future
companions.
This passage reminds me of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. All the work that Crusoe had been doing over the long years of his stay on the island for his own preservation and sanity ended up being essential for the service of others in the end. The following excerpt from Smith’s work is worked out on the island as Crusoe’s domestic work and the use of the capital that he has enables him to benefit the society and get them beyond their little borders.
As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can both to employ his
capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that
its produce may be of the greatest value;
every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society
as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public
interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.
By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends
only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its
produce may be of the greatest value,
he intends only his own gain,
and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an
invisible hand
to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse
for the society that it was no part of it.
By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more
effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
(Book 4, Chapter 2)
Once again the idea of the relationship between the nation
and the individual is of foremost importance. It also shows that there’s more
than meets the eye here and the story cannot be explained or criticized via the
post-colonial mindset alone. The situation at hand is entirely too complicated
to do that. I was surprised by the complexity of Defoe’s novel, and I feel like
there are so many things I would have to understand in order to fully grasp all
that is going on in it.
In regard to Jamaica Kinkaid’s works, I find
a different type of complexity. In around about way, they too question the role
of nations via the questioning and criticism of the power of language—the
Foucaultian notion that whoever is in control of the language yields control of
the culture. This leads to the resistance of post-colonial peoples to the
continued use of the colonizers language. In this light the following quote from
Kinkaid’s A Small Place speaks
volumes. “For 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? And what can
that really mean? For the language of the criminal can contain only the goodness
of the criminal’s deed…” (94). The statement is extremely provocative, and we
must question the veracity of this claim, because it is a fundamental question
of post-colonial theory. Kinkaid’s characters are all embodiments of the
resistance and frustration that they feel as a result of actions by nations in
the past and the present over which they can exert little to no control. They
are individuals screaming into the deafening noise of history trying to be
heard. How best can they be heard? What language do they use?
In a way, Kincaid’s provocative ideas concerning language,
dominance, servitude, and resistance speak to my conundrum concerning the
dominant theoretical approaches that dictate the language and research in the
field. While there is a huge theoretical and doctrinal gulf between Kincaid and
myself, a strong parallel exists in our reactions against a dominating and
history erasing force from which we are trying to break free yet seem to be
indelibly burdened by. In order to resist and change and find freedom to move,
do you use the language and play on the predetermined field by rules previously
set out, or do you try to chart new territory? If you do chart new territory, is
there any way to do so without it being mere resistance, which isn’t new
territory at all because it still lies within the scope of power dynamics. A
more intelligent way has to exist.
Research Proposal
A question asked about Kincaid’s
Lucy in the course materials frames
the content of what I want to write about. The question is:
“If Crusoe planted a ‘second Eden,’ how does Lucy as Lucifer change that
Eden?” While reading
Lucy I found the revealed meaning and
implications of her name to be very profound and worthy of exploration. I think
that this question is a central tenant of post-colonial and feminist theories.
In order to delineate the tenants of this theory, it is
necessary to once again delve into the story of the original garden, i.e. Eden,
examine the application of the Christian theology implied in Defoe’s works, and
then show how crafted and subversive Kincaid’s work truly is. After delineating
this “central tenant” I am after, I would like to see how it traces through the
other texts we are reading if at all possible.
Though the foundational comparison and analysis of Defoe’s
and Kincaid’s works seems to merit the essay format, the journal format might be
more useful due to the intended scope of its content. While I feel confident
that I can suggestively link the ideas, I am not quite sure that I can do it in
essay form, and I think I need the freedom the journal provides. I also want to
incorporate the texts we have yet to read this semester. In this case, it is
probably best to use the division characteristics of the journal as opposed to
the formal design and flow of an essay. Please advise.
