|
Student Research submissions 2015 (2015 research options) Research Essay |
|
 |
Janice Smith
6
December 2015
Lucy
and Lucifer: Jamaica Kincaid’s Use of Milton’s
Paradise Lost
Allusions have become so common in literature that it is almost
impossible to read a current novel or watch a film without finding at least one
or two parallels involving classical literature. Case in point, the character
Frodo Baggins from the recent film Lord
of the Rings, with his wonderings abroad and struggles with the dreaded
Saruman, in some ways mimics his wayfaring Greek predecessor, Odysseus.
Just recently Susan Collins created the
arrow-welding liberator, Katniss Everdeen, in
The Hunger Games from classical
traits associated with Athena.
While these characters contain glimpses
from the past, I must ask, do they really embody the full essence of their
counterparts? The imitation seems
to be more surface than anything, claiming similar traits rather than a solid
parallel with the persona. While it might be entertaining, it really doesn’t
seem to serve any purpose other than that – to entertain.
This
is not the case for the author Jamaica Kincaid in her book,
Lucy. In this novel, Kincaid alludes
to the rebellious Lucifer, from Milton’s classic poem
Paradise Lost, to aid in the
development of the main character. The author then uses the association to
explore issues of power and oppression from a transnational migrant’s
perspective. Many of Lucy’s reactions to her oppressive mother and to her
colonized past mirror Satan’s vengefulness against a tyrannical God. Throughout
the novel, Lucy struggles to assimilate her position in a post-modern society in
much the same way Satan struggles with the newly formed Paradise. For Kincaid
the allusion doesn’t stop there. She then takes the association and subverts it
by writing a new ending for the anti-hero. Unlike Lucifer, Lucy does not destroy
the lives of the people around her. She simply exposes them for what they
actually represent, a false paradise. Lucy
frees herself completely, from her past and from the false paradise to finally
accept her fate. In this way, the author actually usurps the allusion. The
anti-hero, Lucy, is now seen as the self-reliant or rather “self-begot” creature
freed from the chains of colonized oppression, living the life she wants.
When
comparing Lucifer’s outcome to Lucy’s outcome they are strikingly similar until
the very end. After being slighted by the Son’s anointing, Lucifer launches an
assault in heaven, arguing that God has usurped his titles and status. Kincaid
portrays Mom as the God figure and patterns Lucy’s reactions in much the same
way as Milton. Lucifer’s reaction
actually serves as an outward manifestation of God’s power over the angel. In
both the poem and the novel, these reactions clue the reader into understanding
just how much control these figures exercise over their subjects.
After the revolt fails, Lucifer is
stripped of his titles and cast into hell as punishment. Once Lucifer becomes
Satan, he begins cultivating his plans to sabotage the Garden.
In this way Lucy is like Satan because
she leaves her home, resists the oppressive mother but, instead of sabotaging
the garden, she exposes the colonial fairy tale associating the “new world” or
Paradise. By exposing the farce, she is free from the illusion of greatness. In
this way the two are different. Lucifer
brings about the fall of man and exacts his revenge by destroying Paradise, thus
dooming mankind to a life of sin. This success is short lived, however. For even
in hell God’s retribution can be felt when He turns Satan into “A monstrous
Serpent on his belly prone/ Reluctant, but in vain: a greater power/ Now rul’d
him" (X. 514-516). During Satan’s triumphal address before his followers and just
before he receive his applause, God, in a brilliant display of omnipotence,
reduces Satan to a slithering snake with no arms, no legs and no tongue. Left to
writhe in contempt, he must accept the knowledge that God’s far-reaching powers
encompass all of creation, even the devil’s dark abyss. It seems that God, like
Lucy’s mother, can influence outcomes even across geographical boundaries.
However God’s power is omnipotent whereas mother’s power, at least for a time,
only serves to dissuade and manipulate. When viewed as a colonial text, Lucifer is the “other,” an unruly lesser
in need of discipline, that forces the hand of the colonizer, God, who, by
exerting his power on the lesser, controls the situation by subversion. In the end Lucy is more powerful than
Satan because he is never freed from the oppressive powers that control him nor
is he able to fully exercise his free will.
By crafting such powerful opposition to God, Milton can show how an
all-powerful ruler conquers the unjust and triumphs in the end.
Now
bringing an epic poem, Paradise Lost,
into dialogue with a Post-Colonial text, Lucy, is challenging to say the least,
but in this essay I will attempt to mediate the distance between the “old canon”
of a Western Classic and the “new canon” of multicultural literature by
presenting a formal discussion of the “self and other” relationship while
deconstructing the characterization of “villains” in both texts. For this
purpose I will make comparisons between God and Lucy’s mother for the purpose of
establishing the power dynamics. These relationships lead to rebellion in both
texts. Then I will attempt to draw parallels between Lucy and Satan as a way of
expressing the moral dilemmas faced by the “other” as presented in both the poem
and the novel.
In an
attempt to make positive use of the English classic, Kincaid uses
Paradise Lost in a Post-Colonial
context as a way of proposing questions of justice and injustice.
By claiming the language of the conqueror as her own, she can consider
and articulate that which “inspir[es] her to express her own sense of wrong”
(Simmons 68). For Kincaid power and authority lie in the ability to control the
language, and she embraces that power through the development of Lucy.
At first Lucy appears to the reader as a
colonized “other” in a state of transnational migration. By constructing the
narrative in such a way, the reader is given insights into Lucy’s psyche and
struggles with her as she finds her way. You experience the Post-Colonial world
through the eyes of the “other”. As
the book unfolds, Lucy’s rebellious character experiences some radical changes
as she forces herself to resist her past. Lucy and the reader settle into a dark,
almost foreboding existence. As she changes, the reader changes with her. In the end, she is free to live the life
she wants regardless of the loneliness and uncertainty ahead; she embraces the
change and we respond accordingly. The story takes a sudden twist at the end
when Lucy, in a flashback scene, embraces her namesake as Lucifer. By utilizing
the allusion of the devil from Paradise
Lost in tandem with the characterization of Lucy as the colonized, the
reader is confronted with the fact that Kincaid has personified Milton’s
Lucifer in the character of Lucy. Once the allusion is in play, the reader must
fit a retro lens, as it were, over all the reactions they made along the way, look back and reconcile themselves with their reactions to Lucy. Furthermore the
reader must resolve the issue of having a colonized “other” who is not
resisting the evil associated with her namesake, but rather embracing the
association. This is where the language takes over as the usurper. You have been
taken in by the language; made to believe you were experiencing the view of a
colonized psyche, when in all actuality, you have experienced the language of
the devil given to the colonized (Lucy) by the colonizer (England). You have
been duped by the language; a language that has been turned back upon itself as
a means to an end. By aligning her with dramatic evil, Kincaid produces a type
of cultural relativism for the reader. A situation in which you must ask
yourself, is justice truly represented in the “old canon” or is it simply
perpetuating the “nineteenth century colonial form of imperialism” and how does
that justice transfer into the lives of a Post-Colonial reader? (Simmons 67).
Ultimately Kincaid leaves it is up to the reader to determine who is just in
Lucy. In
Satan: The Dramatic Role of Evil,
Stein argues how we must be willing to be “more comprehensive, and therefore
more daring, [in our] exploration of the human experience” by “submitting [our]
ideas to [the] dramatic structure” rather than rely on the original
interpretations from the past. (221).
But
what of Milton’s Paradise Lost and
its intentions? In Paradise Lost, Milton crafts a poetic masterpiece that
captures the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Rooted in the Genesis story,
Milton expands the epic to include the rebellion against God and the expulsion
of Satan from heaven before the fall of Adam and Eve. This expansion of the
Christian narrative not only serves to “justify the ways of God to men” (I.26)
it also gives the reader a glimpse at what it means to be obedient to an
omniscient and omnipresent God. The poem is filled with numerous characters that
intrigue the reader and beg interpretation: some are loyal and obedient while
others are agents of the “self”, seeking independence and free will completely
separate from God. Milton purposefully constructs the language, most
specifically Satan’s rhetoric, to create tension and disruption. His language is
often compared to the highly stylized “God’s speech” which in and of itself
demands attention or at least description in this essay. For without the
language of God in Paradise Lost, we
have no tool with which to resist the diabolical dialect. When regarding the
language in this way, Satan is meant to be seen as the lesser of God. And when
viewed in this way, Milton is intentionally constructing a lesser to elevate the
greater. From a Colonialist perspective God and King are synonymous and
therefore seen as the more worthy. They represent the enlightened “self’ that
seeks to improve and expand the notions of imperialistic rule, while the devil
is the “other,” a lesser in need of discipline to bring him back in line with
the colonial way of life.
In
Lucy, Kincaid establishes the mother
as greater and Lucy as the lesser by ascribing divine attributes to the mother.
On one occasion Lucy refers to her as “a ball of fury, large, like a God” and
another time with fond recollection she says, “I would see her face before me
–godlike” (Kincaid 150). In pensive reflection Lucy wonders “how it came to be
of all the other mothers in the world mine was not an ordinary human being but
something from an ancient book” (Kincaid 150). By using the “god” references,
Kincaid establishes a connection between the mother and the omnipotent. The
characterization leads the reader to perceive her as having power and the
ability beyond that of a normal mortal. While Lucy’s mother appears god-like,
Milton’s God has obvious power:
Almighty Father from above,
From the pure Empyrean where he sits
High Thron’d above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view:
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven
Stood thick as Stars, and from his sight receiv’d
Beatitude past utterance
(III. 56-62).
In
this passage God is characterized as elevated, lifted above all the other hosts.
He looks down upon all that attend him, able to view everything at once. This
establishes him as omnipresent. Above him, Milton describes the cosmos as a
dense collection of “Sanctities” that are blessed beyond words. This highly
stylized speech serves to portray God as the supreme ruler of heaven completely
surrounded by his creation from above and below. He is also seen as omnipresent
and omnibenevolent in this characterization. Unlike Lucy’s mother, God does not
provoke a negative response, but rather imbues the reader with a sense of awe by
the greatness of his characterization. Establishing God as the supreme power in
Paradise Lost was for John Milton a
way to “display His power in such a way as to impress its greatness on the
[readers]” (Armstrong 96). Written for the purpose of redemption, Milton saw
discipline as the answer to what ailed the English parliament during his day. He
envisioned “a society of reformed, redeemed individuals who observed God’s laws
spontaneously and not through fear, a society in which discipline is spiritually
executed, not juridical (Armstrong 104).
Whereas Milton sought to inspire a systematic reform of England through the
dramatic demonstration of divine control and spiritual discipline in
Paradise Lost,
Lucy forces a break with the Colonial
system and all its institutions as a means of instituting reform in the modern
novel. Kincaid creates a persona that will not only challenge the system of
Colonial rule, she equips her with words meant to “contain the horror of the
deed[s]…inflicted on [her] (Kincaid 92). From
the beginning of the book, Lucy resists her roots. Early on the reader can tell
that Lucy, “understood finding the place you were born in an unbearable prison”
(Kincaid 36). She leaves Antigua and comes to North America as an au pair to
find “places [that] were points of happiness to [her]” (Kincaid 3). Along with
her need to separate herself from her home is a preoccupation with the
separation from an adoring mother. At first the responses come off as resistance
to parental control. Yet as the novel progresses, the mother’s love turns into
more of an obsessive control that Lucy responds to with mocking contempt.
Incidentally, the need for separation is directed not only at her mother back at
home, but also towards her surrogate mother, Mariah.
In Travels of a Transnational Slut: Sexual Migration in Kincaid’s Lucy,
Holcomb refers to this as Lucy’s diaspora identity of which Kincaid pits a
“recognizable form of West Indian anger against an unquestionable metropolitan
dominance” (296). The more Lucy
perceives her mother and Mariah as threats, the more visceral the rebukes
become. Lucy’s resistance serves to
establish the mothers as controller of the “other”. On a deeper psychological
level the “mothers” represent their respective worlds; biological mother
represents colonialist values and Mariah represents the American ignorance
towards larger world views. Regardless of the fact that Lucy’s mother is from
descended from slaves, she still embodies a regard for the English way of life
that Lucy simply cannot contend with. By resisting her mother, she resists the
colonized way of life. By breaking free of Mariah she dispels the falsity
associated with the love that Mariah tries to manufacture.
Satan’s resistance to God is very similar to Lucy’s resistance. Often cast as
the hero struggling for ground within God’s domain, he is fraught by the longing
to seize control of heaven, dethrone the tyrant king, and exercise his will. To
the reader, Satan is often viewed as suppressed, even slighted and at times
validated in response to the dictatorial potentate that demands obedience
without question. From a colonial perspective Satan could be described as a
power-hungry savage that is simply out for control and hell-bent on the
destruction of any and all of creation. But what caused Satan to resent God in
the first place? Close reading of the text shows that Lucifer was once a great
angel in heaven. He was “of the first/ If not the first Arch-Angel, great in
Power/ In favor and preeminence” in heaven (V. 659 – 661) We learn that after
some time God appoints the Son as copartner to the Kingdom:
Hear my Decree, which unrevok’t shall stand.
This day I have begot whom I declare
My only Son, and this holy Hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand; your Head I him appoint;
And by my Self have sworn to him to bow
(V. 602 – 606).
In
these lines, Milton describes how God abdicates the throne, and places his Son
into the elevated position. God also decrees that all adoration must now be
directed towards his anointed Son. God’s response to the Son in this way for his
willingness to take on the sins of man in order to redeem creation. Conversely
Satan responds to the appointment by finding “himself impair’d” (V.665). The
devil has been usurped by the Son and sees this as an affront to his honor, a
diminishing of his own status in heaven. He reacts to the Son’s ordination with
pride and envy rather than with trust and faith. Just like Satan, Lucy is
subverted by not one but three sons. “Each time a new child was born, my mother
and father announced to each other how the new child would go to university in
England and study to become a doctor or a lawyer” (Kincaid 130).
These lines prove how the sons are appointed and elevated by the
controlling body. After becoming
enraged, Satan retaliates against God in an attempt to reestablish himself.
Lucy response is surprisingly similar to
Satan’s:
“Whenever I saw her eyes fill up with tears at the thought of how proud she
would be at some deed her sons had accomplished, I felt a sword go through my
heart, for there was no accompanying scenario in which she saw me, her identical
offspring, in a remotely similar situation. To myself I then began to call her
Mrs. Judas, and I began to plan a separation from her. ” (Kincaid 130).
For
both characters this response can be seen as an attempt to reestablish the
“first ego”. In this instance
Jacques Lacan, would say that Satan’s and Lucy’s self are marked by the lack
between who they are and what they believe themselves to be. The proclamations
of the sons has alerted them to the fact that they are not in control. They have
lost control of position with relation to their surrounding environment and as a
result can never reclaim their former status. The war in heaven as well as the
plot to sabotage the garden are attempts by Satan to reclaim the first ego.
Lucy’s separation from her mother and resistance to colonialized society can be
classified in the same way. In
Satan’s case the manifestation of the ego is a direct result of the Son’s
appointment. Satan is not aware of his slight until the Son’s accent makes him
aware of it. In this instance, Satan has become aware of the “other” and sees
him as a threat. The devil is reacting to “The Social Real” of Heaven. On all
accounts Lucy is the mimesis of these situations with regard to her mother and
her brothers.
In bringing Satan and Lucy into dialogue, I have attempted to show how
the two texts work in tandem to challenge the ideas of power and control in
colonial and post-colonial studies.
As
Satan returns to Paradise to survey and conquer so does Lucy come round to
America in what can be seen as a third wave of colonization or transnational
migration. But unlike Satan, Lucy doesn’t migrate to subvert the overlord as
Satan does. If Lucy were to subvert the culture, this would invert the power
structure and simply reverse the roles so that the victim becomes the oppressor
and vice versa. In this case, the novel would be a story about revenge not
justification. Kincaid is writing the novel as a way of justifying the colonized
to the reader. In
Surprised by Sin, Stanley Fish talks
about how “Milton leads the reader to understand the moral meaning of the
situation” through an entanglement with the language (Fish 95).
Kincaid utilizes this modern interpretation of Milton, and works an
allusion that entangles the reader even more. Lucy doesn’t want to subvert the
colonizer but rather uncover the myth behind the power.
Moreover, Lucy is not a vengeful lesser but a broken product of the world
and language that created her.
Unlike Satan Lucy doesn’t subvert Paradise, she actually conquers herself by
reaching a self-actualization about the conditions that define her. The reader
is left to right themselves in their own judgement of Lucy. In mimicking
Paradise Lost, Kincaid attempts to
“justify the ways of the [colonized] to man." She mixes a transnational narrative
with an “old canon” allusion in an attempt to bring new knowledge of world
history and international relations to modern readers.
Works
Cited
Armstrong, Wilma G. “Punishment, Surveillance, and Discipline in Paradise Lost.”
Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
32.1 (1992): 91-109.
Ashcroft, Bill, ed.
Jamaica Kincaid: A Small Place. New
York: Routledge, 1995.
Fish,
Stanley. Surprised by Sin: The
Reader in Paradise Lost. 2nd ed.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Holcomb, Gary E. “Travels of a
Transnational Slut: Sexual Migration in Kincaid’s
Lucy.”
Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction
44.3 (2003): 295-312.
Johnson, Brian. “Sacred Silence: The Death of the Author in Paradise Lost.”
Milton Quarterly 29.3 (1995):
65-76.
Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. New York:
Farrar, Stratus and Giroux, 2002.
Milton, John and Merritt Y. Hughes.
Paradise Lost. New York: Odyssey, 1935. Print.
Simmons, Diane. “Jamaica
Kincaid and the Canon: In Dialogue with
Paradise Lost and Jane Eyre.”
23.2 (1998): 67-85.
Stein, Arnold. “The Dramatic Role of Evil” PMLA 65.2 (1950): 221-231.
