ENG 375: Lenore’s Blog

One thing I really like about this text is the way in which the narrator repeatedly contrasts “the way she is now” with the way things were/are in Antigua. In a way, it helps us as American readers to align with her perspective and kind of trust the evaluation she presents of the things she sees when she returns home. Of course, the narrator has the context provided by her childhood–a context not at all shared by us, her readers. She continually distances herself from her past and her connections to Antigua (like when she says that sometimes she feels she needs to stop speaking to her mother/brothers and so she does… she just takes off and that’s that), though, and so in that sense it is easier for me as a reader to see her perspective as my perspective. It’s an interesting narrative technique. It is also, I suppose, somewhat deceptive, because regardless of how much she pulls away from her past and her family, those things will always impact who she is and how she thinks the way she does.

Also, I think it is interesting how many times she makes an observation and then says something to the effect of “..but I can’t find any meaning in this.” She seems to be in a frequent search for meaning… what is this meaning, why is she looking for it, and how does she know what is or isn’t “meaning”?

Just a quick note–
I find all the footnotes in my edition to be pretty distracting. They make it a lot harder for me to keep up the flow of reading, just because I keep having to break off and read whatever note has been added in at the bottom of the page. However, I have gotten something from the footnotes: I am interested in the complex naming system that seems to be in place for this island community. White, black, creole, “us,” “white niggers” … the list goes on. It seems that every possible variation on “race” has been given a title and each title has a different value in the society Rhys is trying to portray. I can’t imagine how exhausting it must have been to live in a society like that. (reminds me of our octoroon discussion.. how great-great grandparents can change your rights as a citizen, three-four generations later!)

I wrote down a few notes during the movie and I thought I would use this space to share them.

For one, one of the narrators, maybe his brother, said that “Frantz wanted to get free of this body” and then the video played some kind of maddening music meant to reflect what that kind of self-rejection can do to a person. In truth, I believe that Fanon probably wanted //everyone// to escape their bodies. Still, what thing to say! Imagine how confusing wanting to escape your body could make your life! Perhaps more disturbing is the thought that so many people probably feel this way in relation to their race and all of the complications that humanity attributes to race. I feel like the more I discuss race in my classes and the more I think about it with chapters like the one by Fanon, the more overwhelming the matter becomes. Racial identity and race relations are quite possibly the only issues I have ever studied in my college career that the study of which only muddles things and leaves me feeling less educated than I did to begin with. Whew! Poor Fanon!

Secondly, I think it’s very interesting that his book was originally called //Essay for the Disalienation of the Black Man//.” It certainly seems bolder than “Black Skin, White Masks,” in the sense that it is more obviously a manifesto on race relations with a specific goal. The video framed the title change as Fanon’s idea–is this true? I can see a fatcat publisher saying “No no, Frantz, this will never do” and asking him to adjust it so it could please a wider audience. On the other hand, naturally, it would also have helped (and still helps) Fanon’s cause to approach a wider audience, so it could very well have been his idea.

In response to the homepage blog prompts, I definitely liked the effect of the psychotherapy sessions with both the colonizer and the colonized. The subject matter was a little disturbing, but once I got past that, I definitely liked how the filmmaker was trying to show Fanon’s interest in examining the mental states of both parties, how Fanon felt that both suffer certain affects and no one’s mind goes untouched by the damages of colonialism. In this way, colonialism becomes this Monster of sorts that hurts everyone.

Hm, actually,–got to love the clarity that comes with writing–I’m not sure I like the shirking of responsibility that comes with isolating colonialism as a monster. I suppose this blog entry is not intended to be some all-encompassing statement on the way the world should be run, but the fact remains that in instances of imperialism or colonialism, etc, someone had to pull the trigger, so to speak. Someone made the conscious decision to make it happen and he/she should be held responsible for it, regardless of how he/she suffers from his/her own transgressions.

Anywho, Frantz Fanon is fascinating. It is important to understand his background because it framed so many of his [enlightened?] ideas about race and colonialism. This helps him gain credibility, I think, because he is writing about what he has seen. It also complicates his credibility, though, because he wrote so many of his works when he was still so young. Were they knee-jerk (relatively speaking) reactions? Would he have altered or at least tempered his reactions any with the wisdom that comes from age? It certainly seems like he reached Stage Three Revolutionary Intellectual, but would he have still felt Revolutionary was the final stage if he had gotten old, if his ideas had been more cultivated and he more cognizant of the long-term effects of time?

I’m racing to finish the reading before class, so this entry will be brief.
Anywho, I am most definitely interested in the role of Okonkwo and what he represents to us as readers and to the villagers in the story. How are we supposed to perceive him? Through my “civilized, Western” lens, he seems like a monster. The text keeps saying that he acts the way he does to avoid inheriting his father’s weakness, but what strikes me is that, to us Americans, beating your wife and refusing to admit a mistake are both enormous signs of weakness. In what culture is it ok to dodge responsibility for taking things too far? Is this a comment on a culture or just an attitude?

Also interesting to me is that this novel has been framed (by our professor) as a response to things like Heart of Darkness that fail to give Africa a specific life, a specific flavor. While I read this, it seems an awful lot like a story, possibly even a children’s story, intended to educate outsiders on a new culture and to teach that “everyone is different and that’s ok.” This is something I almost always have to deal with when I read texts that have been translated– they seem childish to me and I by no means fault the author for it. However,  I see that Things Fall Apart does not list a translator. Maybe Achebe’s writing style is simply similar to that of a parable? Maybe he wrote it this way so we could digest what he is telling is with more ease? It is hard for me to envision this as a comparable response to Heart of Darkness simply because the style (and possibly the content) seems so much simpler, so much less philosophical and thought provoking. My only response to this particular book, really, is “oh, that’s interesting.” Hmm..

I get a big kick out of this book because I love looking at language and I love seeing how different writers use language to further their own authorial agenda. In the case of HofD, I like that the text feels so dark and suffocating–the language reflects the content. Long, dense, descriptive sentences aside, even just looking at the text reveals its tone. There is very little dialogue and the paragraphs are extensive; while reading, it is easy to get lost in the text or forget how a sentence began. What’s more, once you really get going, I find this text to kind of suck me in. It reminds me of Faulkner, in a way– how it kind of hynotizes the reader and, in turn, the spellbinding style absolutely reflects the ways in which Marlow perceives Africa and the European imperialism. He sees how futile it is (what do we REALLY get out of a reading a book? I mean, really) and how misguided the intentions are and yet he is contracted to get the job done. Marlow dedicates months upon months to doing things like repairing a ship or, perhaps more productively but still not altogether helpful in the grand scheme of things, wandering deeper and deeper into the jungle.

These narratives weren’t quite as controversial as that of Briton Hammon, but I did enjoy thinking about them in relationship to one another. For example, the Venture narrative is very straightforward and pretty sad. He is, unquestionably, “put upon” and can’t seem to catch a break. He also doesn’t seem to embellish, or at least puts very little energy into making his writing poetic. He just says “then I did this, then I did this.” What is interesting to me is how different this writing style is from that of John Marrant. Marrant uses language that is most definitely colorful– this is evident even toward the beginning of the text where he describes himself as “unstable as water.” Needless to say, I enjoyed the Marrant text a lot more. I don’t know anything about either man’s educational background, but I wonder if education (and, I suppose, personality differences) are to blame for the stylistic differences.

Secondly, I really don’t know what to make of Marrant’s conversion. Did the people poison him, is that why he was so sick? If so, did his healing just happen to occur at the same time as the pastor’s visits and prayers? I mean, call me a skeptic, but I do wonder what was really happening during his health crisis. It is also interesting to me how, post-conversion, he seems so much less social, even around his family. Why did finding faith, for him, have to mean seclusion? According to many Southern branches of Christianity, he should have been hounding them like no other, trying to get them to convert as well. What’s more, when the Indians are questioning him about his presence on their property and they ask him who his Lord Jesus is, he just keeps on crying and praying. This again speaks to the fear of this black man around Indians and how he is rendered incapable of sharing his message and faith when asked because he is just too frightened. Even during his very execution they ask him about his faith.. why didn’t he use that opportunity to kill time, distract them from the brutal execution, and maybe even save a few souls? Maybe part of him didn’t believe they were capable of being saved? What about when the executioner WAS saved, after hearing Marrant pray in his own language? This is all speculation, of course– there is a lot we don’t know. (ie: what he was taught about “spreading the word” and how strategic he was as a person)

Just as his conversion was puzzling to me, the conversion of the entire palace is also rather strange. This narrative reads like a fairy tale!

I read the Briton Hammon narrative for Dr. Parker’s linguistics seminar last semester– you taught that class meeting, remember, Prof Groom? Therefore, I’m going to focus my energy here on the Equiano narrative.

I was especially struck by the language in this narrative. It is interesting to me that he starts off the first two chapters with such humble words– he seems to anticipate the response that people (aka white literates..?) will have to his narrative and, in the very first paragraph, he asserts that he didn’t write it for them and is not “so foolishly vain” as to expect any sort of repuation boost from writing it. He also seems to be tiptoeing with his words in the beginning, which is especially striking when compared with the end of chapter one that more or less becomes a tirade about slavery and racism. This particular chapter ending was surprising to me because prior to it, his narrative style was affable and innocuous, much like they stereotypical “jolly old black man” who shares clever and charming lessons with his grandchildren. The end of chapter one, however, features very strong language and he even says “Did Nature make them [Africans] inferior to their sons? and should they too have been made slaves? Every rational mind answers, No” and thus assumes the role of a “rational mind.” How shocking for him to call himself a rational mind when earlier in the narrative he was almost apologizing for writing his story in the first place! It seems like here he may have lost his composure and, well, ranted.

Also, in the first chapter, I would be interested to know how he selected which aspects of his home culture to highlight. He clearly mentions religion, cleanliness, government, commerce, the importance of community, and the presence of a military. It seems to me like these traits, in addition to other aspects of his writings, reflect a certain self-consciousness. He seems to be trying to prove to his Anglophone readers that his home was not savage or wild and that they had rules of humanity just as the slaveholders, etc, prided themselves as having. It is also interesting to me how he mentions slavery here and there, as if he is trying to keep the narrative in perspective. He contrasts slavery in Benin (which is almost always a severe punishment..) with the slavery in the West Indies and then uses that evidence to comment on the questionable “humanity” and “civilized” nature of the white people. In chapter two, he even uses words like “savage” and “brutal cruelty” to describe them, followed by a commentary on how the white people even treat eachother with cruelty, not just the blacks. It is interesting to me too how he takes on a role of moral superior and seems to be saying “these white people have got it all wrong; they’re monsters and they just can’t see it!”

It is unexpected to see such strong observations in a slave narrative. He sets up his narrative in a variety of strategic ways (listing aspects of his home that give him humanity, starting chapters with polite and humble addresses to the reader) that ultimately are intended to gain sympathy and credibility from the reader so he then can express his bold views about the White culture to which he has been exposed and then, on the larger scale, racism and slavery in general. I wonder how this narrative was received by the public, if his strategy was successful in watering down his message enough for it to be palatable among his white superiors. Not that it matters, right? …He wrote it for his friends, after all…

First off, this chapter is rather difficult to read. The writer uses a lot of words like “this” and “those” which vaguely refer to previous concepts and, well.. I think it is more than a little confusing. Poor writing, too, if you were to ask every other writing professor I’ve ever had in my life.

But enough about me. I think it was an interesting point on page 2 when the author says that our terms like creole and métissage suggest a sullying of one culture with that of another. I haven’t ever really thought of it that way, nor have I ever heard it discussed that way, but the fact remains that those words, which refer to a natural process, do inherently suggest a pollution. I remember from my french classes alone that “métissage” means “cross-breeds.” This sounds a lot like plants or animals–like our hybrid discussion from Thursday and certainly raises interesting questions about our daily language and the small linguistic details that reveal (outdated?) cultural beliefs.

Looking at the statements on page 5 and 6 about how blacks need to be seen as “agents” with “cognitive capacities and even with an intellectual history” without the whole race-relations issue is also interesting to me. People are people and public policy gets so tricky once race becomes an openly acknowledged topic that people try to deal with in an institutional sort of way. I am reminded of issues of affirmative action and how the US places such a [theoretical, not so much in practice] value on “cross-culturalism,” which in mainstream methodology just means “involving minorities.” This kind of thinking throws the white community into one pot and sort of (linguistically) seems to assume they are all the same or at least not diverse enough to count as providing any sort of insights that could be just as valuable as those of a minority participant. …I do not pity legislators.

Page 8 mentions racism in the past and seems to argue what we decided on earlier in class–”scientists did not monopolise either the image of the black or the emergent concept of biologically based racial difference.” So, basically, hundreds of years ago, public opinion of racism was very different from how it is now and ideas about race weren’t as crystallized and categorized as they are now. Interesting.

I know that Salmon Rushdie and the Satanic Verses were very controversial and stated some potentially offensive things about Islam (I think?) but I would like to know more about this topic. The allusion is a little to unfamiliar for me to appreciate whatever reference is being made here. (Page 10)

Interesting point about Canada equalling freedom from racism! I read this in someone else’s blog earlier today (Ricks?) and I agree that it’s not all that true. I know a number of people from Montana and Wyoming who are far more uncomfortable with minority Americans than I think many people down here in VA are. It’s partly about familiarity, I think. Well, actually– this would be an interesting topic to discuss because I know for a fact that Toronto is 50% immigrant (NYC is 24%..) and that Canada on the whole has a lot more immigrant-friendly policies than America. They also have a lot of excellent educational esl programs that help immigrants find their way. Perhaps the existing policies in the US do enforce a sort of “other” that is less strong in Canada.

More later.

Just a few comments.

- on page 207, he describes the fruit (and no bread/drink) which the slaves eat. He then says they are “a happy people, whom so little contents.” This reminds me of Frederick Douglass and his rant on how slaves singing in the fields is not not not an expression of joy, but rather sorrow. Here again we can see a white man who seems blind to the grave injustices of slavery by saying the slaves are happy and don’t need much to be happy…

- pg 208 describes how Ligon is surprised the slaves haven’t risen up– he then lists three reasons for their complacency: 1. they are kept away from weapons   2. they live in fear of their masters’ weapons and punishments involving the weapons   3. they are not taught English          So… here is a white man’s written recognition that language is a source of power and that, in denying it from someone, he is able to suppress what he himself says is almost an expected revolt!

- The ending is kind of humorous… a woman’s skin in Barbados is too sticky to be pleasurable to touch. So does this mean women don’t sweat in England? It’s an interesting observation to make in a document like this; I’m surprised he even wrote it down.. seems pretty obvious that she’s just sweaty and that it’s not that big of a deal, not a matter of race. Here is an example of the exaggeration we talked about, perhaps?

Just as I read the Behn text–

I noticed that in the very beginning there is a comment on nature. It follows an explanation that, while the “natives” are naked, it isn’t something to be concerned about because “where there is no novelty, there can be no curiosity.” Then the text explains a courtship the speaker observed. Interestingly, what the speaker says sounds exactly like what someone might see in 17th century England, complete with a blushing woman and polite but interested male. The speaker then says, “’tis most evident and plain that simple Nature is the most harmless, inoffensive, and virtuous mistress.” So, here the speaker describes a situation that is not at all unfamiliar to the British colonialist eye (nakedness being the one exception) and then says it is an expression of Nature and that it is virtuous. I suppose we should take  this to mean that the speaker believes the British way is the virtuous way and the virtuous way is the Natural way? And, if Nature is a mistress.. well.. who is she mistress to?

 Also, by the end, I am rather disturbed by  the extreme violence inflicted upon “Caesar” and his wife. Why is this violence used to show passion, dedication? Why, once he said that yes, he wanted to die, did they cut off his members first and, in effect, torture him? I am most definitely perplexed by the carnage of this story. And why does it end with the speaker saying that he/she hopes he/she has depicted “Caesar’s” “glorious name” clearly? Is this how glorious people are treated?