La Torre 2006 julio-diciembre (Caribe Anglófono 2005)

LA TORRE

(Vieja época: hasta AÑO XXXIV, Núm. 134, 1986) (Segunda época: hasta AÑO X, Núm. 38, 1996)

CONSEJO EDITORIAL Manuel Alvar Efraín Barradas José Luis Cano Arcadio Díaz Quiñones Ivette Jiménez de Báez Humberto López Morales Francisco Márquez Villanueva José Luis Méndez Julio Ortega José Miguel Oviedo Augustin Redondo

Geoffrey Ribbans Francisco Rico Amalia Rodríguez Monroy Jorge Ruffinelli Ivan A. Schulman Cesare Segre María T. Vaquero Darío Villanueva Hayden White Saúl Yurkievich Iris M. Zavala

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© Copyright, 2006 Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico San Juan de Puerto Rico Composición: Comunicación Gráfica ISSN 0040-9588 (SAN) 208-1245

LA TORRE REVISTA DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE PUERTO RICO

TERCERA ÉPOCA CARIBE ANGLÓFONO 2005

Director

Jan Martínez Gerente de Redacción

Yudit de Ferdinandy

AÑO XI, Núm. 41-42

Julio-Diciembre 2006

PUBLICACIÓN TRIMESTRAL

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NOTA A LOS AUTORES La Revista La Torre recoge en sus publicaciones trabajos especializados en el área de las humanidades. Los trabajos sometidos deberán ser inéditos o ser una versión de un trabajo publicado. La Torre se reserva los derechos de propiedad y de impresión o reproducción del material publicado en sus páginas.

Junto al manuscrito original se acompañarán el disquete y un Abstract en español o en inglés que no exceda las diez líneas.

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Cada colaborador recibirá un ejemplar de la revista y 25 separatas de su colaboración.

La Torre, además de artículos, publica notas, documentos, reseñas y entrevistas.

SUMARIO VALERIE YOUSSEF, Unmasking Ideology through Language ● STACY DENNY, CIGOL: An answer to teachers’ backward logic ● HAZEL ANN GIBBS DEPEZA, Religion, Culture and Identity in Tobago: The Growth of the Spiritual Baptist Faith ● EVELYN O’CALLAGHAN, Women writing male marginalization? Oonya Kempadoo’s Tide Running ● RICHARD J. DOUGLASS-CHIN, Revisiting Edward Wilmot Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887): Islam and the Eastern Caribbean in the 21st Century ● SUZANNA ENGMAN, Reimagining Imaginary Constructs of Identity: Creolization and Wilson Harris’ Counter Discourse in The Four Banks of the River of Space ● CYNTHIA S. PITTMANN, Silent Talking: Agency and Voice in V.S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street ● VÍCTOR M. VÁZQUEZ, Who’s Stuck Up?–The Tar-Baby Story in the Caribbean ● MARÍA SOLEDAD RODRÍGUEZ, Woman with the Cloven Hoof: Lilith of Jewish Folklore and the La Diablesse of the Caribbean ● GILLIAN GLEAN-WALKER, “Grenadianese”: The Research of Alister Hughes into Grenada’s Local Language, and Links to other Caribbean Countries ● ANA MARÍA GARCÍA, The Politics of Black Women’s Bodies and Sexuality in The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid, and Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home by Erna Brodber ● SALLY EVERSON, Redeeming the Specter of Slave Revolt: Warner Arundell, Colonial Modernity and the Woodford Era ● JEAN ANTOINE-DUNNE, Walcott, Ireland and Hieroglyphic Writing ● MARTA VIADA BELLIDO DE LUNA, Forgotten Languages, Forgotten Identities: The Indigenous People of the Caribbean and the Construction of Otherness ● NICHOLAS FARACLAS AND JESÚS RAMÍREZ MORALES, Intonation in Crucian Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creole ● JO ANNE HARRIS, Creoleana: Writing Barbados from the White Creole Perspective ● ELENA LAWTON DE TORRUELLA, Diaspora, Self-Exile and Legacy: About Walcott’s Shabine and Danticat’s M. Bienaimé ● THOMAS W. KRISE, Reading between the Lines: Glimpses of Oral Cultures in Early Caribbean Literature ● WENDELL VILLANUEVA, Overlapping Identities in Samuel Selvon’s Fiction ● DORSÍA SMITH, Say It Isn’t So: V.S. Naipaul’s One-Sided Sentiments in The Middle Passage COLABORADORES ÍNDICE ÍNDICE DEL VOLUMEN XI Tercera Época 41-42 JULIO-DICIEMBRE 2006

Introduction Literary and Linguistic Representations of Shifting Identities among Eastern Caribbean Peoples: Selected Papers of the Eighth Annual Eastern Caribbean Islands Conference. Tobago 10-12 November, 2005.

Most of the papers appearing in this volume of La Torre were presented at the 8th Annual Eastern Caribbean Conference held in Tobago from November 10-12, 2005. A lot of excellent papers were delivered at the conference and, hence, it was therefore not an easy task selecting which papers to publish and which ones to put on standby. The papers that appear here were those selected by the editor of the journal and that met the general submission criteria of La Torre. The papers are not arranged thematically nor according to subject specialties. What links them though is their focus on the often forgotten islands of the Eastern Caribbean. This introduction, therefore, does not attempt to lead the reader through any orderly thematic or comparative progression. Rather, I aim to alert the reader of certain expectations which may or may not turn out to be satisfactory because I do not evaluate the merits or demerits of the individual papers. Moreover, because the papers are conference proceedings, and written by long standing academics and those still in training, the levels of intellectual rigor and rhetorical competence are consequently uneven, based on the research and writing experiences of individual scholars. However, the multiple areas of study presented in these papers go a long way to demonstrate the varied interests and the richness of research terrain yet to be explored in the Eastern Caribbean. ix

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In spite of the lack of identifiable organization, various papers do gravitate toward recognizable units of thematic affiliations, that call for certain temporary ideological and theoretical paradigms of reading. For instance, I do not hesitate to identify some of these papers as engaging certain conceptual and analytic frames: feminist/cultural/literary/historical. Evelyn O’Callaghan’s “Women Writing Male Marginalization? Oonya Kempadoo’s Tide Running” interrogates female narrative representations of perceived Caribbean male marginalization, and raises the specter of possible subversion of Caribbean feminist struggle. However, she demolishes any such assumption by immediately problematizing the troubling representation of sexual relations between men and women, blacks and whites, as narrated in the novel, and worries that the text may be reinscribing the stereotypical modes of representation: white male as sexual predator/manipulator as contrasted with the sexualized black male predator/victim paradigm. Engaging Walcott’s Omeros as a comparative text, she questions the old ways of reading of Kempadoo’s text solely within historical plantocratic paradigms, and advocates for an understanding of how this text also responds to the predatory of sex tourism as practiced in the Caribbean. Thus, she suggest that Kempadoo’s text reinstates male sexual hegemony rather than questions it. Cynthia Pittmann revisits Miguel Street to account for the sexist representation of women characters in this collection of stories by V. S. Naipaul. She argues for a re-evaluation of the text through a careful reading and understanding of Naipaul’s engagement of genderized, classist, and racialized language to imprison women’s characters in traditional and socially prescribed roles as mothers, daughters, lovers, whose potentials for voice and social agency remain only potentials.

Richard Douglass Chin’s “Revisiting Edward Wilmot Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887): Islam and the Eastern Caribbean Today” brings a fresh perspective to the study of Caribbean cultural studies as he addresses an often neglected area of research in the Caribbean: the influence of Islamic culture in the Caribbean, and the rise of Islam as an alternative religion to Christianity, and with deeper, more ancient traditions in Africa to which many Afrosporic peoples are now drawn, but which, ironically in 1990, also

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became the ideological underpinning for the attempted coup d’etat in Trinidad. Douglass-Chin raises legitimate issues as he tentatively explores what this means in a Western Islamophobic world, and the Western definitions of successful states and failed states that include Blyden’s Liberia. The presence of Muslim slaves of Mandingo ethnicity from West Africa in the Caribbean and their influence in racial politics needs also to be studied further, and Douglass-Chin’s article charts a clearing towards that goal. It opens a new way of looking at AfroCaribbean construction of racial identity not based on a rejection of Christianity, but on the assertion of Islam which the slaves considered to be their ancestral religion, and of the same standing as Christianity.

In relation to Douglass-Chin’s paper, Hazel Ann Gibbs’ “Religion, Culture and Identity in Tobago: The Growth of the Spiritual Baptist Faith” combines pictographic with essay formats to explore the historical particularities of Afro-Tobagoan Spiritual Baptists, and argues that they formulated and retained African cultural pratices in areas such as worship, funerary rites, etc. Her historical argument centers on the constant mobility of rural Afro-Tobagonians between the socially constructed respectability of Euro-Tobagonian Christian denominations which, nonetheless, has historically disempowered them, and the culturally and spiritually secure environs of Spirtual Baptists which legimates their collective existence. In “Redeeming the Specter of Slave Revolt. . .,” Sally Everson examines the engagement of Caribbean cityscape as a representational strategy of power acquisition in nineteenth century texts.

Ana María García’s “The Politics of Black Women’s Body and Sexuality in The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid and, Jane and Louisa Will Come Home Soon by Edna Brodber” takes a well beaten path in Black feminist aesthetics to look at the narrative representation of the Afro-Caribbean female body in Caribbean literature. Her argument rests on a reading that examines the difficult negotiations Afro-Caribbean girls often make between the historical and racialized essentialization of their bodies as mere sex objects.

Her project unpacks the collusion between church and society to control the bodies of Afro-Caribbean girls. Thus, Ana María García argues that these two novelists explore the politics of Afro- Caribbean female resistance to these controls. The question left unanswered is

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whether these modes of resistance through sexual self-liberation guarantee real power and an entry into the restricted spaces of social respectability and acceptability. The politics of female transgression of social boundaries of sexuality is also pertinent in María Soledad Rodríguez’s paper.

Unlike Ana María García’s somehow essentialist reading, Soledad’s takes us into the realm of the supernatural, where the resistance is much more resistance to male control of female sexuality and reproductive potentials become contested in the metaphysical realm.

In María Soledad Rodriguez’s “Woman with the Cloven Hoof: Lillith of Jewish Folklore and the Diablesse in the Art and Literature of the Caribbean” we shift further into the cultural/spiritual/folkloric debates in Caribbean studies. In this paper, María Soledad Rodríguez considers the transgressive location and performance of the la Diablesse in relation to constructed social ideals of female sexuality and mothering praxes. Her comparative and genderized reading of Lillith of the Semitic folklore and the Caribbean la Diablesse as the figurative and iconic projection of men’s collective fear of and desire for women’s sexual freedom and subsequent sexual performance of men’s wildest fantasies enables us to see further into how folklore circumscribes female libidinal liberation. Drawing on psychosomatic and emotional filtration theories, she insinuates that the conflation of human and goat physiognomies to configure the la Diablesse becomes ironically the quality that enables her trans-boundary existence and conflates her with the soucoyant. In similar vein Víctor M. Vásquez’s “Who’s Stuck Up? – The Tar-Baby Story in the Caribbean” also takes a comparativist approach to his reading of the Tar-Baby story as it is performed in narrative representations in the Caribbean and among African-Americans. He examines the tale’s power to be used to reflect human relations and to interrogate the dynamics of power structures in the discourses of speech and silence.

Thomas W. Krise’s “Reading Between the Lines: Glimpses of Oral Cultures in Early Caribbean Travel Narratives” is a response to what he says is Walcott’s pertinent question on absence of the voices of the enslaved Africans in Krise’s My Caribbeana: An Anthology of English Literature of the West Indies 1657-1777. Thus, the paper tries to fill the gap by arguing for a recognition of these voices through the white

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writers who gathered, transcribed and recorded the slave voices in their writing. Thus, Krise’s main point is that, though the slaves did not themselves script these texts, they are not totally absent from these texts. Whether Krise has been successful in demonstrating the full participation of the erased African/Arawak/Carib/Taino voices in this paper, or as he says, what appears as mere glimpses or whispers, is left to the reader to decide. It is in Jo Anne Harris’ paper that we find a kind of response to Walcott’s rhetorical question in the review of Krise’s My Caribbeana. . . In “ Creoleana: Writing Barbados from the White Creole Perspective,” Harris problematizes J. W. Ordeson’s Creoleana as a text that sought to establish the foundation of a white Creole literature, culture, law, and language use within their peripheral location in Barbados in relation to Britain. Harris stipulates that Ordeson’s arsenal lay in marshaling of vast ecological detail, social norms and rules, economic relations in which class, gender, sex and race played determining roles, and slavery and the plantation economy became the arenas in which these issues were played out against and for Empire. Harris concludes that Creoleana may yet prove to be the single most important text through which we can begin to reconstruct the roots of a uniquely white Bajan cultural history.

The perennial debates about Caribbean identities, the politics of diasporic (trans)locations and nomadic existence of post-modern postcolonial Caribbean peoples are also taken up by Elena Lawton de Torruella in “Diaspora, Self-Exile and Legacy: About Walcott’s Shabine and Danticat’s M. Bienaimé.” In this comparison between Walcott’s Shabine in The Schooner’s Flight and Danticat’s Bienaimé in The Dew Breaker Lawton de Torruella shows similarities yet differences in the way the two writers of different generations and nations represent their culture heroes. The major thrust of Lawton de Torruella’s paper examines the similarities and differences of perception of these two characters, perceptions based on their notions of how their work become modes of creative inscription of their contributions to Caribbean historical achievement, whether by themselves or by their progeny. It is this Walcottian desire to leave a lasting artistic monument, and thus inscribe the Caribbean contribution to world history that Jean Antoine-Dunne examines in “Walcott, Ireland and Hieroglyphic Writing.” The paper takes a

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historicist and comparativist view of Walcott’s artistic indebtedness to Irish writers, both of the Irish Renaissance period and those still living, and draws parallels between the exploration of the Irish writers for a national ethnic Irish rhetoric of elocution and performance and his search for the same among the linguistic imaginations of the ordinary islanders: Ireland and St. Lucia. The paper concludes with the idea that both Walcott and his Irish compatriots seek to authenticate their writing and voice, their connectivity and separation from English, through the voices of the folk and the seemingly hopeless existential situation of the colonized Caribbean and Irish people.

Wendell Villanueva’s “Overlapping Identities in Samuel Selvon’s Fiction;” and Suzanna Engman’s “Re-imagining Imaginary Constructs of Caribbean Identity: A Study Wilson Harris’s Counter Discourse in The Four Banks of the River of Space” both continue the speculative readings of Caribbean fiction as arenas of identity formation and articulation of cultural parameters. Taking a sociological approach, Wendell argues for multiple identities that are embraced by Selvon’s characters depending on the socio-political wind of the day that favors them. Thus, Wendell concludes that Selvon’s development of characters that are constantly shifting through multiple locations of identity demonstrate his accurate representation of Trinidadian within a pan-Caribbean culturescape. It is within the same narrative logic of representation that Suzanna Engman unravels in Harris’s The Four Banks of the River of Space. She posits that Harris’s project in these texts is not to draw up binaries but to collapse them and model connectivities in spite of liguistic, cultural, and locational differences.

Drawing on Harris’s theories of eternal genesis and “saving nemesis” that radiate from a kaleidoscope of identities, Engman accepts Harris’s rejection of any notions of fixity in matters pertaining to Caribbean identity.

Travel narratives have always fascinated scholars, particularly those bibbers after exotic stories of foreign lands. But travel narratives have also been very problematic in the way they are viewed as historical and anthropological documents toward an understanding of the other described in the narratives. Thus, Dorsia Smith’s “Say it isn’t so, Naipaul’s One-Sided Sentiments in The Middle

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Passage” takes a swipe at Naipaul for his seeming endorsement of the racist colonialist narratives of and unscientific histories of the Caribbean written by Froude, Trollope, and Kingsley. Smith’s arguments rest on Naipaul’s narrative of recapitulation of all the negative stereotypes about the Caribbean that had been invented to further the imperial enterprise of plantation economy based on the exploitation of African slaves and Indian indentured workers. The issue of Naipaulian reinscription of English travel writers’ negative representation of the Caribbean needs a more nuanced reading, if we are not to be seduced by Naipaul’s ironic brilliance to believe everything he writes to be what he truly means. The question to be asked is whether Naipaul is lamenting the futility of imperial designs in the Caribbean or critiquing those that were enslaved and colonized in the name of English enlightenment.

Though this volume is heavy on literary studies, it nevertheless reflects its multi-disciplinary focus with a few papers on language and creolistics. The papers engage languages of the Caribbean as reliable conduits of pan-Caribbean cultural politics, selfrepresentations, and histories. Thus, Gillian Glean-Walker’s “‘Grenadianese’: The Research of Alister Hughes into Local Language and Linguistics Links to Other Caribbean Territories” takes a descriptive approach to the work of Alister Hughes, a Grenadian journalist of the second half of the twentieth century to demonstrate Hughes’ contribution to the development of Grenadianese. Mixing the techniques of a book review and biographical sketches, the paper reads like a post-mortem celebration of Hughes’ efforts at making Grenadianese acceptable as language. The paper demonstrates the interconnectedness of Grenada to the other Caribbean islands in history, language, culture, and vision, and calls for further studies of Grenadienese as a continuing validation of Hughes’ pioneering work.

Valerie Youssef’s “Unmasking Ideology through Language” explores the contradictory emotional and psychological alliances embedded in the language of Tobagoan youths. The language of these youths reflects the oppositional pulls both toward home and exile, and the concomitant merits that each equally compelling emotion promises.

In Nicholas Faraclas and Jesús Ramírez Morales’s “Intonation in Crucian Anglo-Caribbean English Lexifier Creole” the authors argue

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for the recognition of a supra-segmental phenomenon to identify and record typical Crucian intonation patterns using spectrographic analytic methods among users of Crucian, as an attempt to show fundamental specificities of Crucian within the generality of English Lexifier Caribbean Creole. Their paper concludes that the research does support their hypothesis. Marta Viada’s “Forgotten Languages, Forgotten Identities: The Indigenous People of the Caribbean and the Construction of Otherness” also explores certain remnant elements of Caribbean indigenous vocabulary toward a meaningful reconstruction of self-representation of the native selves prior to their erasure by European epistemology. She argues for further research into this area to forestall further erosion of the indigenous presence in the Caribbean. Finally, Stacy Denny enters the language debate with strong pedagogical exegesis of language learning woes in Caribbean schools in her paper, “CIGOL: An answer to teachers’ backward logic” which critiques teachers for their roles in engaging confusing teaching methodologies that further become obstacles to students’ language learning competence. These contradictory methodologies lie in their love-hate relationship with Bajan and Standard English. The paper looks at the way teachers of English struggle between their private praise of the lucidity, concreteness, creativity, and color of Bajan, while publicly cursing it as bad language. Thus, Denny’s paper delves into the age old debate about what brand of English is suitable for Caribbean children, who must have English to move upward in society, but also find it difficult to acquire it competently because of the interference of Bajan. Denny’s paper, therefore, ties in well with the papers on language politics and Caribbean identity rigmarole.

I have tried to give the reader the general direction of these papers.

As stated above, my purpose has not been to engage the papers intellectually, so I abstained from making statements about my reading of them. All in all, a good selection of papers that makes a wonderful read.

DANNABANG KUWABONG UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO, RÍO PIEDRAS DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH-COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES

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Unmasking Ideology through Language Ideology is the system of values and beliefs that we live by. We believe we absorb it from our families and environments and to some extent this happens, but there is much that we absorb from a broader institutional base in government, both at home and abroad. This paper examines the implicit ideological base of some young Tobagonian men as it is gleaned from interviews with them conducted by myself and Winford James in the 1990’s which later formed the basis of our writings on Tobagonian language (e.g. 2001, 2002, 2004a, 2004b). I will show the way we can discern the values and beliefs of these young men through their interview talk, specifically from the way in which they position themselves relative to those around them in the wider Tobagonian society and beyond. Both the content of their speech and their specific means of expression are critical in conveying their ideological positioning. The discussion highlights the dilemma they face of frozen opportunity, fixed in a time warp, constrained by underdevelopment, betwixt and between two worlds.

Few among us appreciate as keenly as we might, the ways in which our lives and their circumstances are constrained, not just by the societies in which we live, but by the power structures which dominate those societies. There are “implicit assumptions” which constitute the “ideologies” we live by which are handed to us by the powers that be, though we may think of them merely as common sense realities. As Fairclough (2001, 2-3) has put it, “Ideology is the prime means of manufacturing consent, and the means by which ‘social relations’ and power differences are legitimized.” We tell ourselves that we live in democracies and look to “Third World” dictatorships as 291

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entities where governmental control is coercively maintained, convincing ourselves in so doing that we are not under constraint. In reality, however, each governing body “controls” us through the web of reality that it creates and/or recreates through language, and releases to us daily through the media.

In the case of Tobago today, there must be conflicting ideologies at work. On the one hand there is the pull of the larger external world beyond the Caribbean, whose “reality” is represented to us in subtle and not so subtle ways by the United States’ media. Then there is an internal reality, and another conflict, between Trinidad and Tobago, and Tobago alone. The local government promises us almost as much as the United States, it would have us believe, in terms of opportunity and prosperity, but experience differs and it differs more for the Tobagonian than for the Trinidadian.

Among those we interviewed in Tobago were a number of young men, some in sixth form at Signal Hill, some just beyond it, and others out of school from age fifteen and working in various capacities. As we discussed their lives and life prospects with them, they talked not only of their immediate and longer term goals but also of the clash of worlds alluded to above. Their statements allow us to observe real conflicts of value systems with which they were grappling. As noted above, both the content of their talk and the structuring of it provides a means of looking into their world view, their ideology.

Time will only allow us a glimpse at two of them, and within their discourse I have extracted the longer streams of speech for a particular reason. The structure of an interview is one of being disempowered by the interrogator’s control of the discourse through questions. In many cases then, speakers simply respond briefly, do not become engaged in their talk. However, when they become involved, impassioned, they may begin to offer more, the stream of speech takes on a life of its own beyond the interview structure which is temporarily suspended. It is for this reason I focus on longer extracts.

In particular we will examine three related dimensions of their ideology and world-view for what they tell us of the situation and prospects of the young person in Tobago today:

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1. Their view of life in Tobago and themselves in relation to it; 2. Their view of Trinidad and of the world beyond the Caribbean; 3. Their relationship to their peers and the larger world.

In terms of the structuring of their talk we work with the techniques of critical linguistics (Hodge & Kress, 1993) which explores linguistic structure in discourse for cues and clues to positioning.

Specifically it will be noted that the following techniques cue emphases of intent for both: 1. The use of repetition; 2. The use of parallelism; 3. The use of marked Creole forms.

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The first young man we will call Dave. He is 24 years old and has a lived his whole life in Castara. He is unemployed save for ‘workin the seine’. He spends his time liming with his friends, fishing and playing football. He describes his own life below:

e

1. Well mostly limes on the docks like, you know fishin, fun kind e ting. Nothin more really. It have a beach and you find most of the fellas dem does try to get a little change by workin the seine. And then in the evenin time might go play a little sports any ting on the football ground and so on. Most ∂ the young fellas that is the main thing in the village, playin sports. So you find you jus home, jus relaxin an playin sports. It eh have nothing else to do.

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2. Well jus like I here. I come out by a little friend an them. I do a little work. I goin an bathe now. From after that I jus chillin out, waitin on time to play a little football. Every minute watchin the time.

We notice the negatives in his speech, highlighted above, which describe a perceived lack of activity: “it eh have nothing else to do” and the repetition of “waitin” an “watchin” the time. Activities are “fishin”, “workin the seine”, “playin sports”, again repeated, and “jus chillin” (semantically, not very different from waiting or at least waiting around).

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In response to a question about those who are leaving, he describes those involved as being frustrated by their lack of progress, their lack of ‘light’, but he makes the point that they are few and that they do return.

3. Not plenty, one or two leave the village. And they start comin back one by one. They find here is the rightest place to live, though they goin they still comin back.

4.You would find well –(is a hold back then) stayin inside here-they too much in the countryside. Some ∂ dem say like they eh seein light.

They find they too much in the country and dem does …and dem does want to go forward. Some ∂ dem, they like the place, but yet they still find –So well then dey always, some ∂ dem pack up an go.

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He also demonstrates a loyalty to the home scene by his repetition of the fact that they do come back, qualifying their finding: “here is the rightest place to live”. There is an emphaticness to the use of “does” which is not his regular habitual marker, used above in connection to the desire “to go forward”. There is an ambivalence in his perceptions for intense loyalty characterizes his use of the superlative ‘rightest’ but it contrasts with the impelling desire “to go forward”.

For the future he sees football as his way up and out, ironic in Trinidad and Tobago’s present 2005 context, when our hopes and dreams are fixed on our footballers performance in next year’s World Cup, and many a young man is still hoping to make the team. Football was a recurring theme among young men throughout the island.

Dave declared that it was the only thing that he wanted to talk about, the only thing that marks his life out as singular: 5. Well the only thing I like to talk about that ever really happen to me – that I will never forget then in life – playin football, yes, playin sports – That I like so much – I find iz a keep down right through. Cos you just getting poorer. I want to move on. Everybody tellin me I got the talent, I got this, I ready to go, anyway but I eh getting the push. I went an train with all kinds of teams and play an, you know – like me eh know is like I just eh gettin the push.

That is my main thing.

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We witness the contrast between the singularity of his concern “the only thing” “that I will never forget in life” and his frustration, repeated three times: “I eh getting the push”.

As he goes on he associates himself with Dwight Yorke - and again Dwight himself was a common theme among the young men: Dwight represented an ideal to which they aspired by the very fact of his having ‘moved on’ as they would want to. Dave’s claim to some kind of fame rests on his association to the footballers, an idealization of talent and advantage which they represent.

6. Well, to tell you the truth, me an Dwight Yorke use to play together.

I play against all them nationals in Trinidad. Latapy all ∂ them. All ∂ them. An I know to mihself mih standard up there wi them. The main player out there – is Dwight, you know.

7. I myself, – iz Trinidad where I go go. I go be right up there in the business Area Club. –workin there – more serious thing – trainin hard you know– workin to make the national team. That is mih main aim.

8. When I talkin I feel I go beat all the rest ∂ the fellas. I doh even study dem talk, dey, you know. Why I can’t travel? Why I can’t travel fu enlighten? I does really give the friends the friends, you know. Sometimes I doesn – I feel a main countryman but I hardly travel an ting.

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His frustration is indicated by the repetition of the question: “Why I can’t travel? Why I can’t travel fu enlighten.” At this point he distances himself from his friends both in terms of talent and destiny.

Having noted that “I know to mihself, mih standard up there wi: them”, he declares “when I talkin I feel I go beat all the rest ∂ the fellas. I doh even study dem talk.” He separates himself for the first time and, significantly, distances himself geographically– “I feel a main countryman, but I hardly travel an ting.” Couple this with his other assertion, “Iz Trinidad where I go go, I go be right up there…”; and it becomes very clear that the “main country” is the land of purpose, elevation and destiny. Notice his use of prospective marker “go” whose semantic value is one of long term, prediction.

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The struggle here represented is clearly one of a clash of worlds.

An association of Tobago with an essential rightness of positioning contrasts with a futility and lack of way forward, which in turn is associated with Trinidad and the wider world. He associates enlightenment and forward movement with that world outside, and consequently distances himself from his peers by a perceived capacity to have the talent to move beyond limitation – up, and beyond – like Dwight Yorke.

Dave’s use of language, although it is totally spontaneous, allows him to highlight effectively the contradictions of his existence, even though he himself may not consciously perceive them. The overall discourse structure in terms of length of utterance reveals his true passions; the parallelism of his activities, from “waitin”, “watchin”, onwards, gives a consistent and informative patterning; his use of marked Creole forms allows him keen emphasis e.g. “Iz Trinidad where I go go”; “Why I can’t travel? Why I can’t travel fu enlighten?” as also do his telling repetitions and then paradoxes so framed in his text e.g. Examples 3 and 4 in text above. We sometimes feel we have to plan talk to make it effective; Dave’s discourse proves the opposite.

The second young man, Darrell, lives in Signal Hill and graduated from secondary school there. He followed school with youth camp where he developed his carpentry skills further and subsequently obtained some month-long working contracts. He also raises rabbits and keeps dogs. Basically he remains unemployed, only picking up work from time to time despite his youth camp teacher’s efforts: 9. Well my teacher with the youth ting. He try with us throughout, you understand? He considered a job for us an ting. But everything as I say, come an cool out for a while, You could scarcely hear people calling. Well in sports now…

In response to this situation of limited opportunity for advancement, he describes the passion he has developed for football since the youth camp. For Darrel, as for Dave, it represents a means of achieving, of doing well. A boasting slips in, a claim to fame:

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10. …we start to play football and I see myself starting to like the game and is from there I took a like at it. And right now I representing the team… we gonna play first division foot ball.

He describes what he sees as the need for discipline within the team as it is training. Basically through an affective parallel structuring and repetition, he declares, whatever you are doing, do it properly; there is a time for everything: 11. fellas come, we say we trainin … we come to train, we come to play we come to play, we come to skylark we come to skylark, you understand. When discipline is need you have to get discipline.

He tells of the high unemployment rate and the use of drugs but he defends the young people. In relation to their manifest problem of unemployment and the capacity for taking to drugs in idleness, he says: 12. But they doesn let it go to their mind. Like to go on drugs an steal an do these things. They go come out and they go go out on the field when evening come and everybody playin in what sport they like. Evenin time they go home. You have the people who does smoke an ting. But they is fellas who could mostly handle theirself. They wudn go off course. If they kyan get it they kyan get it, they will cool out. They wudn do no violent thing to get it.

For them as for him “goin out on the field when evening come” and “playin sport” is the real remedy, and he claims an indifference to the pull of drugs.

Once again we meet the notion of going ‘outside’ as the panacea to the current situation of unemployment. To go outside means to make money: 13. Most of my friends gone abroad to their family an ting. Some went to study. Some gone to work. Right now I jus waitin on a little thing from outside, a little job from outside, and as soon as

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I get that, I go go outside, make my money an come home. When I go outside to make my money, I go outside to make my money an come home.

14. I mean —let me get the name of the place— Florida. On cruise agency ting. When I work hard, get my money an ting an come home.

He speaks of his desire to earn money to build a house: 15. I jus waitin. As soon as I get to go out. I savin while I here too, eh?

I does pray to God I could get to go out. I swear that if I get to go out an make mih money I go come back here.

Twice, like Dave he says that he is “waitin” and twice he repeats this resolution to come back home when he gets the money he needs to come back and build his home.

Darrel’s attitudes to life and his situation come through very clearly in the following: 16. Nothin does frustrate me that much to say I go want do that or I go go an do that. Try to see mihself, try to see mih life runnnin smoothly. Always ketch myself goin. When I not working I home cleanin up the place. Try to see mihself, try to see mih life, runnin smoothly. Always ketch myself goin. When I not working, I home cleanin up the place. An I ha: the place look good. While the family dem gone to work now I see mih place look good.

He keeps himself busy. There is a conscious decision as manifested in the statement of introspection, of self-watching: “Try to see mihself, try to see mih life runnin smoothly. Elsewhere above he refers to seeing himself ‘starting to like the game’”. There is above all the belief that keeping busy is the right thing, in the home context if not outside it.

Running through this discourse then we see a number of common threads with Dave in Castara. It is not just the unemployment situation which is common but a frame of reference to deal with that unemployment. Sports, specifically football, are centrifocal to remedying the situation, or at least to making the “waiting” tolerable. He is

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adamant that he will come home, and one gets a strong sense that he too sees Tobago “as the rightest place” and values a way of life that he wants to return to. At the same time the vehemence of his assertions that he will come back speak to a reality where most do not return but remain “outside”.

There is a respect for work, for discipline, for keeping busy. But like Dave, who is “waitin” an “watchin”, Darrel too is “jus waitin on a thing from outside”. His very denial of being frustrated suggests a strong potential for it, which he is sublimating in activity.

For Darrell too, football provides a means of excelling when other doors are closed and also a way up and out at least to Trinidad, via elevation to the First Division. It is something to succeed in, when elsewhere life is frustrating and potentially unproductive.

Throughout this discourse again we witness the use of –in(g) forms to describe the continuous but hopefully temporary states of the young man’s experience. “Waitin”, or “getting one or two little jobs an ting” or “playin second division now”. We see too the predictive force of the Creole “go” from a young man who claims not to like the sound of the Creole: “I go go outside an make my money an come home”. He fends off the drugs threat for his peers: “they go go out on the field when the evening come”. It is as if the Creole system provides complementary marker sets for different degrees of emphasis. He employs repetition and parallelism to express the need to do whatever you are supposed to be doing wholeheartedly: “We come to play we come to play, we come to skylark, we come to sky lark” or “So when discipline is need you have to get discipline”. In similar vein, he is able to link real purpose to his migration by a statement of purpose repeated and linked to a “when” clause “When I go outside to make mih money I go outside to make mih money an come home”.

There is a love of home and community, but a desire to go beyond it. The attraction is to make money, and the drive is the lack of potential for this at home. If it were possible to make money and build a house at home, Darrell would clearly do it, but he is forced instead to consider ‘a cruise agency ting’.

We see in both these young men a love of home, a valuation of the traditional ways; but at the same time in both we witness a frustration, a desire to climb up and out which was less present for the last

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generation. There is a sense of treading water, biding the time for opportunity to strike. And there is a necessary escapism through the vehicle of sport, as a temporary measure, which if all else fails will carry them beyond the confines and strictures of the present condition. To provide education without employment is to build frustration back into the system. We are forced to recognize that both government and private citizens who have done well have an absolute duty to create employment and the capacity for money making at home. Traditional culture is at once valued and dismissed for education has come and advancement is expected; in this context other shores become doubly attractive because they promise prosperity of a kind which is not achievable at home.

VALERIE YOUSSEF UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, ST. AUGUSTINE

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References Fairclough, Norman (2001) Language and Power. UK: Longmans.

Hodge, R., & G. Kress (1993) Language as Ideology. New York: Routledge.

James, Winford & Valerie Youssef (2002) The Language of Tobago: Genesis, Structure and Perspectives. School of Continuing Studies, UWI, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago.

(2004a) The Morphosyntactic Systems of the Creoles of Trinidad and Tobago, Mouton Handbook of Varieties of English.

The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter.

Youssef, Valerie & Winford James (2004b) The Phonological Systems of the Creoles of Trinidad and Tobago, Mouton Handbook of Varieties of English. The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter Youssef, Valerie (2001) Age-grading in an Anglophone Caribbean Creole: A Case Study in Tobago. World Englishes, 20:1, 29-46.

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CIGOL: An answer to teachers’ backward logic Introduction CIGOL is an artful and discrete way of turning around teachers’ illogic to establish logic. It is neither deception nor trickery, but rather the diversion of caring teachers’ qualities, and energies in the steady direction of the failing non-standard dialect student, so that the teacher begins and continues to recognize that he/she is not merely teaching English, but bringing English alive in order to teach the individual. With this hope, this research sought to have teachers express their views about Bajan dialect (BD), the non-standard variety spoken in Barbados, and Standard English (SE). I used a mainly qualitative approach in conducting this research, as I did not want to measure or quantify attitudes or even simply to document these attitudes, but rather I sought to (1) have the feelings underlying these attitudes unrestrainedly expressed, (2) describe these attitudes and (3) attempt to understand them. The illogic lies in teachers privately praising the dialect but publicly cursing it. The non-standard dialect, in the view of the majority, is colourful, lively and apt for private expression but inappropriate and inept for the public domain, particularly education. This paper will seek to highlight some of the views and attitudes expressed in relation to a proposal that BD be used as an instructional tool in primary schools. The issues arising from these attitudes will also be addressed, along with an attempt to understand these attitudes. Suggestions will also be proffered as to how some of these negative attitudes may be curbed.

For the purpose of this work attitudes refer to feelings at the affective level, thoughts at the cognitive level and predispositions at the behavioural level. That is, “one knows or believes something, has some 303

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emotional reaction to it and, therefore may be assumed to act on this basis” (Edwards 1982: 20).

Methodology The participants consisted of two major groups of primary school teachers in Barbados. One of those groups, consisting of 88 teachers (respondents) responded to a questionnaire I constructed. The other group comprised five separate discussion groups (discussants) totalling sixteen teachers (one teacher was a surprise, but welcome addition). They discussed questions along similar lines to those addressed in the questionnaire. There were seven research questions aimed at investigating teachers’ attitudes towards the non-standard dialect, particularly as a medium of instruction in primary schools, but I will deal primarily with some of the findings of research question 1 herein.

Findings and discussion Research question 1: What differences (if any) do teachers perceive between SE and BD? The discussants were asked to discuss this question, whereas the respondents were to respond to four items designed to shed some light on this issue. The first set of items requested that they make a choice from five with regards to the statement: In Barbados I see BD as a NL(native language) /SL(second language) /FL (foreign language)/ other /NA(no answer) In Barbados I see SE as a NL/ SL/ FL/ other/ NA.

The second set of items asked respondents to list 5 words/phrases each to describe BD and SE respectively. Interestingly, the discussants presented their answers as dichotomies, which seemed to imply that the two codes share little in common, so that, discussants’ comments alluded to an affinity to BD, but some level of disconnection with SE. The following two extracts give testimony to this:

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Mr. B: “I consider Bajan as a unique…language form used by Barbadians; it’s traditional…it is cultural in terms of Barbados…Standard English then becomes his [a student’s] foreign language.

Ms N: …Standard English is formal…easily understood throughout the world in countries who speak Standard English. Whereas dialect…is more…cultural...

Notice words like ‘cultural’ to describe BD. This term denotes custom—that which is inherent or inbred, and is therefore ‘part and parcel’ of the individual being; hence, there is a sense of a strong connectedness. On the other hand, SE is referred to as ‘foreign’, ‘formal’ and understood by ‘countries who speak’ that language. The implication is that this language is not native and certainly is not spoken in Barbados to demonstrate a sense of belonging, seemingly signalling alienation, disconnection and separateness.

The majority of respondents to the questionnaire also appeared to demonstrate some affinity to BD, by virtue of their choice of answer. Eighty two percent saw BD as the NL of Barbados, which I will admit was surprisingly high in my estimation. The real issue though was the 25% who noted that SE was the native language of Barbados.

This was puzzling because it meant that there were some of that 82% who felt that two major native languages were operating in Barbados, and perhaps did not understand the concept of NL. This was troubling as I was dealing with a group of teachers who all taught language and should certainly, I believe, understand the linguistic situation of the country in which they taught.

Structured vs. unstructured Participants (discussants and respondents) also implied a structured/unstructured dichotomy by their responses. They spoke of SE as being rules governed, while implying, and in some cases stating, that BD is devoid of rules. Ms. K explained for example that SE had a system for achieving structures like 3rd person singular present tense and plurality, and because BD ‘runs contrary’ to this system it has no rules governing it (Denny 2002: 75). Respondents described BD as having ‘no written rules’, ‘incorrect grammar’ and termed it

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‘Broken English’, whereas SE was ‘well structured’, had ‘many rules’, and ‘standard spelling’. That teachers felt BD to be broken and unstructured was somewhat surprising and reminded me of a recent discussion. My colleague asked her language class, many of whom had just referred to their dialects as broken, to imagine breaking a glass by throwing it to the ground. She asked that they describe that glass in its present state and then asked: “What are you saying about your own language when you term it broken?” The image was graphic and the students got the point of uselessness. But these, for the most part, were students who knew little about the ‘linguistics’ of language; yet, these findings would also seem to suggest that some language teachers know very little about the ‘linguistics’ of language. To believe that BD is unstructured and broken seems to imply that it is inappropriate and even useless. Yet, by teachers’ claims to affinity, this thinking would appear to be very contradictory. Furthermore, such a belief has implications for how teachers ‘see’ the monolingual non-standard dialect in relation to the language they speak, a language, which paradoxically, teachers describe in very animated terms.

Vivacious vs. staid Forty seven times respondents spoke of BD in terms like ‘expressive, colourful, flowery, fun and vivid’. By this stage much of what I had seen and heard was very enigmatic. I could not understand, when I related this to other findings, how the very characteristics that teachers complained of were lacking in the language classroom (motivation, enthusiasm, interest, spiritedness, etc), but inherent in this dialect, still did not justify its use in the classroom. Yet, the very language (SE), which engendered the qualities which teachers deplored, was perpetually and ‘exclusively’ used in the classroom. This was very perplexing, at least until I really tried to empathise with these teachers.

Issues arising Theory & practice Theory informs practice. The way teachers think will impact on what they do in the classroom. This is critical when we add students’

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performance to the equation. Teachers’ judgments of a student’s language may place dialect-speaking students in educational jeopardy.

Dandy (1988) explains: “the instructor’s attitude toward students’ language is a crucial factor in determining whether students will be active participants in the educational process” (p. 1). This was actually borne out in my study by one teacher who spoke of interrupting a student who was reporting his weekend activities in BD. She asked him to start over using ‘proper’ English. The student became halting and stiff in his speech, until he eventually gave up trying. Dandy (1988) reports a similar incident whereby constant interruption by the teacher to correct a phonological error caused Joey, “one of the best readers in the class”, not to be coaxed into reading aloud further to his classmates (p. 7).

These comments about students’ speech and the continual corrective actions say to the students that their language and they themselves are deficient. If as a result of this perception students withdraw from the language learning process then they will not get enough practice in the oral aspects of the language. Besides, any seemingly negative attitudes to the linguistic forms of students’ language may inform teachers’ expectations of students’ performance, which can then inform students’ own expectations of themselves as language learners (Rosenthal & Jacobson 1968a & b). Hudson (1980) sheds light on the issue when he says “if a teacher expects a child to perform poorly, her behaviour towards the child may be such to encourage him to do just that” (p. 209). One would also expect the converse to hold true. If teachers expect students to do well, their behaviour will encourage them to do so.

Further to this issue, teachers who feel SE is the native language of Barbados will presumably use native language methodologies in the language classroom. This assumes that the learners already have acquired certain structures which will possibly be passed over in teaching. Craig (1971) explains it this way “native language methods, because they assume that the learner already knows the language being taught, fail to give him an active command over language patterns of Classes C and D” (p. 378). Class C refers to patterns known passively, that is, they are understood by the learner but cannot be produced, and Class D are those patterns not known to the learner. This

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issue really bears out the need for educators to be careful as to how they label Anglophone Caribbean students. This region finds itself in a unique linguistic situation, for neither is SE a native language, nor a second/foreign language in the true sense of the term. This is because students’ “receptive knowledge of standard oral and written English far exceeds that of many speakers of languages other than English” (Nero 2000: 504). This Nero claims is due to the constant interaction between English and Creole along the Creole continuum in those areas where the divide is even large enough to be termed a continuum, for example, Barbados.

Regardless of what I have claimed, I would never categorically state that students’ failure is solely the result of teachers’ negative attitudes, but it certainly is a factor that should be explored. I wish however to deal with this issue of teachers’ ambivalence towards the non-standard.

Ambivalence Teachers claimed to identify closely with BD, casting it in a very agreeable light. Nevertheless, these very teachers were adamant in their views that SE should be used as the language of instruction in the classroom, so that the very qualities expressed about BD, which ought to enliven the learning process, are traded in the classroom for the “staid, formal and rigid” variety (teachers’ descriptions, Denny 2002), and unapologetically so. Why this seeming contradiction?

Perhaps the answer lies in MacCullough’s (1981) interpretation of teachers’ ambivalence to Black English in the USA. She explains that studies conducted by DeStefano (1978) find that as a group teachers tend to have a very normative, corrective view towards students’ language, so much so that teachers become preoccupied with “proper” language; consequently, they view non-standard as improper for classroom activities. Perhaps the reason might even more so be that the education system is so concerned with the non-standard in a negative way, that it is seen as an object to overcome rather than something to be studied and understood in its own right (Labov 1981:1).

While I can accept these reasons for teacher ambivalence in the USA, I believe that the West Indian linguistic situation is better ex-

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plained by its past widespread sugar plantation slavery system. The seed of inferiority was so deeply sown in Blacks that it has sprung up into strong, sturdy and profoundly rooted negative mentalities which continue to bear fruit down to this day, and understandably so, as “it can sometimes take a lifetime to remove a lifetime of negative indoctrination…” (Denny 2002: 146). Burling (1973: 122) perhaps most clearly elucidates my thoughts on this matter when he says of black American teachers: These Negroes who have themselves struggled for an education and fought to acquire linguistic symbols associated with education may [find it] difficult…to accept the notion that the speech they have worked so hard to suppress is anything but just plain wrong.

But Barbadian teachers never claimed that BD was “plain wrong”, just plain inappropriate for education. I therefore accept MacCullough’s (1981) position and add to it: “socialization of Black teachers into a society that devalues Black speech [in education] has been successful” (p. 70).

Structure Another issue that arises is the way these teachers view the structure of BD. I speak of how some seem either to think or to imply that BD has no structure. These teachers work within a structure, they understand structure and therefore anything outside of this to which they are accustomed appears to signal lack of, break-down or deficiency. But as McCullough (1981) says, teachers need to understand that “different language is not ‘deficient’ linguistically” (p. 67). BD, as expressed by most of the teachers in this study, is apt for communication; because like all languages it meets the communicative and expressive functions required to exist in a speech community and as such cannot be termed deficient. Linguists have long described the non-standard dialects of the Caribbean as highly structured and rulegoverned [Cassidy 1969; Moses et al. (1976)]. So the same can be said of BD as is said of African American Vernacular English in Stoke’s excerpt. It is a “highly structured…fully developed linguistic system with

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an internal consistency and regularity in its phonological, grammatical and semantic components” (Stokes 1976: 2).

The issues became clearer with some thought, but not so the solutions. I nonetheless recommend that Barbadian teachers, policy makers and curriculum planners work at implementing the following strategy, ‘CIGOL’ (an anagram), as a way of restoring, or possibly instituting logic to the language learning/teaching process.

Consideration Teachers need to give careful consideration to their learners’ needs.

The classroom should not be viewed as a group of homogeneous learners, but as individuals whose strengths should be validated and weaknesses improved; non-standard dialect is not one of those weaknesses. The student who comes before the Caribbean teacher does not require a linguistic transplant. Children already come with varying language competence in their mother tongues, which meet certain communicative and expressive needs. What the teacher therefore should understand is that “the language skills…children bring with them to the classroom do not correlate to the language skills required for success in schools” (Sorace 1998: 75). Teachers, according to Sorace (1998) need to find “humane and non-damaging ways” of helping children to develop language skills which give them choice so that they are able to “consciously…choose language appropriate to their purpose and audience” (p. 75). Language education is therefore about expanding a child’s linguistic repertoire not subtracting from it.

In other words, teachers need to be considerate of the fact that, like them, their learners need to be able to traverse and manipulate the linguistic continuum (code-switch). Furthermore, no language code is always socially appropriate, so that what must be taught in the classroom should move past the realm of linguistic form into that of social appropriateness. Sorace (1998) proffers the idea that “helping a child to become cognizant of the fact that he or she instinctively uses different styles of language in different environments and contexts will enable conscious choice of language appropriate to a particular purpose and audience” (p. 77). I wish to add that children can

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only develop this understanding if the one teaching them is clear about these issues. Holdzkom et al (1982) purport that this can be achieved by sensitising students to different audiences and dialects through study of dialect, language and culture. Loban (1976) advocates such study; claiming that schools which have already implemented such programmes find that students are both fascinated and stimulated “furiously to think” (p. 87).

Considering Barbadian students’ needs would also mean understanding that they are neither native speakers nor foreign speakers of English. English is for them a second dialect and should be taught as such. Nero (2000: 503) suggests some appropriate activities to achieve this end.

Introspection This is the point at which teachers move the learners from under the microscope and place themselves there. They need to carry out an honest evaluation of self if they are to be effective. These introspections should lead to clear understanding of views, feelings, motives and behaviours. I say this because in my study I found that the majority of teachers had a very ambivalent view of BD. It was a lovehate relationship; the language they loved to hate and hated to love.

To show love openly would be to align themselves with degradation, oppression, low socio-economic status and lack of education. To hate it would be to betray a sense of self, to turn their backs on their roots, their cultures and heritages. It was a real internal tug-of-war, which is best expressed by Burling (1973) on a similar issue pertaining to Black American teachers: Many blacks… are still beset with a tangle of conflicting emotions about their language: love of the language of their childhood and their most intimate family relationships; shame at speaking a dialect that they have been taught to regard as bad; fear that recognizing the unique features of this dialect will provide an excuse for a new round of discrimination; pride in a separate cultural tradition (In Stokes 1976: 9).

Teachers need to grapple with these emotions, try to understand the reasons for them and most importantly try to work through them

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for the benefit of self and the language education process. Stokes (1976) puts this even more eloquently: I intend to suggest that English teachers, in their quest for solutions to the difficulty of teaching students with dialect interference problems, would do well to begin with an examination of both their own attitudes and the students’ attitudes toward the students’ language…. Regardless of how innovative or unique methods of teaching language and communication promise to be, unless teachers soften negative attitudes toward dialect and dialect speakers, it is doubtful that any meaningful progress toward facilitating language teaching, learning, and use can be successfully effected (p. 2).

While I do not fully agree with Stokes that this is necessarily a problem of dialect interference, I wholeheartedly embrace the idea of dealing with dialect issues at the level of addressing negative attitudes.

Introspection should lead to action. Action, in the sense that teachers should make a real effort to acknowledge BD as a true linguistic system with no flaws, simply one required for a different social setting. It is evident that this ambivalence is being displayed in the classroom, and this leads to contradictory behaviour and puzzlement, which Roberts (1994) captures in his work: “What is clear from historical and current practice is that creole has always been used in the classroom, but what is contradictory is that, while teachers could use it, the pupils were not supposed to” (p. 54). Such behaviour will evidently send mix signals, further complicating an already complex language situation. This is yet another reason why teachers must have a definitive stance on the issue for theory informs, and (un)consciously filters into practice.

Guidance Teachers should both accept good guidance and be good guides.

In search of good guidance they should read relevant research to improve their knowledge base. Part of the problem is that teachers do not always know what is happening in their fields. Not all research is good, relevant or practical, but teachers can learn to be discrimi-

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natory. I want therefore to challenge Barbadian and Caribbean teachers as Webber (1985) did American teachers: “Teachers of language arts must be involved in the process of applying the …body of research on the language of Afro-Americans [in this case West Indians], language acquisition and language curricula to the development of student materials and the training of teachers to use them” (p.18). Teachers also need to be good guides/models. To this end Dandy (1988) suggests that teachers let their students see them reading, writing, speaking and practising the skills they are trying to teach (p. 10). Barbadian and Caribbean teachers can investigate what linguists have said about these pertinent language issues which ultimately affect them (Wassink, 1999; Craig, 1976, 1977; Fishman & Lovas, 1970; LePage 1968, Roberts 1994, Robertson 1996). The knowledge gained can be used to carry out their own action research to deal with some of the issues they face. In this way they are led by the research to lead the language teaching process rather than merely being unquestioning followers of curricula and policies.

Open discussions The ignorance surrounding non-standard dialects might lay with teachers’ inability to confront issues through discussion. It is necessary to speak about non-standard dialects as languages in the language classroom. Nero (1995) advocates that “the language classroom should be a forum for honest, meaningful discussion on the social stratification of language and on societal and personal attitudes towards language, especially stigmatized varieties” (p. 7). She adds that the value of these discussions may be seen in an appreciation of the nature of language, the viability of linguistic systems and most importantly a clear understanding of the social values ascribed to languages versus their intrinsic structural value. Nero goes on to say that these discussions should be ongoing, accompanied by assignments and activities where students can use both codes, even comparing their uses and purposes. Holdzkom et al (1982) commenting on this very issue, claim that these discussions will help the child to grow in awareness about language. I do believe that consciousness-raising borne from discussion is the way forward. It can help to dispel myths about

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good and bad English, instil pride in dialect speakers and certainly aid teachers in putting aside their prejudices and fears that dialects will harm or interfere with students’ acquisition of standard English.

Learning Good teachers must first become good learners. They can only act on what they know. Some Barbadian and Caribbean teachers do not know how children learn because they are not trained in theories of learning. As a result, their teaching styles may be in direct conflict with their students’ learning styles, and they might never know. Comer (1986) cited in Dandy (1988), in reference to this subject, unabashedly states: “many so-called reformers do not understand how people learn…they do not seem to understand how much it depends… on internalization of attitudes. They do not give enough attention to the kind of climate that must be created to make that possible” (p. 8). In short, negative attitudes about non-standard dialects will not create an environment for dialect speakers, which is conducive for learning.

Teachers therefore need training in theories of language acquisition. A teacher of language should first be a student of Linguistics.

Webber (1985) sees such training as a tool to help teachers understand native language acquisition processes and the process through which students will best learn English as a second dialect. Sorace (1998) therefore explains that when we acknowledge how children acquire language initially then we understand that speaking and listening are the foundations upon which other skills are formed. As a result, an oral rich programme as an initial start to teaching literacy is important. This is quite unlike what happens in Barbados and other parts of the Caribbean whereby writing is stressed. Baratz (1970) also specifically suggests linguistic training that emphasises the interference theory and the social influence on language learning.

In addition, teachers need to be trained to function in an English as a second dialect (ESD) context, so that they can look beyond how a child speaks to evaluating the ability and performance of that child (Granger et al 1977). This would be in the form of pre-service and inservice programmes to “alert current and prospective teachers to

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sociolinguistic factors known about Black English” (Harber 1979: 5). Of course, this would have relevance to BD as well. These programmes could aid in determining teachers’ attitudes to the languages which they will encounter, which in turn could inform the training programme as to the areas of knowledge and lack of knowledge about non-standard dialects; hence, assisting in the planning of teacher education programmes (Harber 1979: 5).

Teachers also need to be trained in the use of ESD activities like those carried out in Canada (Gapaul-McNicol 1993 in Nero 1995:4; Coelho, 1991 in Nero 2000:489). Additionally, Siegel 1999 reviewed some of these programmes, such as instrumental where (L1 is used as a medium of instruction), accommodation (L1 use is accepted in the classroom) and the awareness programmes (the vernacular is the object of study in the context of language diversity). These programmes can be investigated and adapted for suitability.

As regards the latter, two such programmes recorded an improvement in student oral and written skills by the end of the programme.

For example in the Caribbean Academic Programme (CAP), which aimed to raise students’ awareness of the differences between Caribbean Creole and SE, both codes were employed in the classroom.

Fischer (1992) found that in the 1991-92 school year 73% of CAP students were in the lowest level but after one year only 7% remained there, while 26% were in the two highest levels and 81% moved up at least one level. The programme therefore appeared to have benefited these students, and can perhaps similarly benefit those in Barbados and the wider Caribbean with proper adaptation.

Teachers in Barbados also need continual training in the use of SE. Some teachers think that they are teaching SE, but in reality it is a mixture of the non-standard and the standard. Actually, some linguists claim that part of the language problem in the Caribbean classroom lay with teachers’ ineptitude in the standard language.

McCourtie (1998), for example, identifies low level of educational attainment by elementary teachers in Jamaica and insufficient mastery of English as two factors which impact on the quality of teaching in that country. Robertson (1996) also clearly states “classroom teachers do not function consistently in the official language of instruction” (p. 113). Continual training would help them to upgrade their

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level of English proficiency and perhaps even their confidence level in teaching the language.

Conclusion To conclude, I wish to unpack the logic of the many teachers in my study. They seem to believe that language instruction will rid students of that “bad” and “negative” language called dialect. In applying similar logic I appeal to teacher trainers to use teacher education programmes as a means of ridding teachers of “bad” and “negative” attitudes towards the dialect. Dialects are our second skins here in the Caribbean. They are so closely linked to our identity (Norton 2000) that to degrade or demean them in any way can be likened to demeaning or degrading our literal skins, which all amounts to the same practice—prejudice. It is therefore necessary in these training programmes to turn some teachers’ “logic” backwards.

STACY DENNY UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, CAVE HILL CAMPUS, BARBADOS

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Bibliography Baratz, J. (1970). Educational consideration for teaching Standard English to Negro children. In R. Fasold & R. Shuy (Eds.), Teaching Standard English in the Inner City (pp. 20-40). Washington, DC.: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Burling, R. (1973). English in black and white. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Cassidy, F. (1969). Teaching Standard English to speakers of creole in Jamaica, West Indies. In J. Alatis (Ed.), Monograph series on language and linguistics 22, pp. 203-214.

Comer, J. (1986/7) New Haven’s school-community connection. Educational Leadership 44, 13-16.

Craig, D. (1971). Education and creole English in the West Indies: Some sociolinguistic factors. In D. Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. (pp. 371-391). Cambridge: CUP. Craig, D. (1976). Bidialectal education: creole and standard in the West Indies. Linguistics: An International Review, 175, 93-134.

Craig, D. (1977). Creole languages and primary education. In A. Valdman (Ed.), Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. (pp. 313-332).

Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Denny, S. L. (2002). We survived the inhumanity, but do we still wear the shackles: An investigation into teachers’ attitudes to the use of Barbadian dialect as an instructional tool in primary schools. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Exeter, Exeter.

Dandy, E. (1988, April). Dialect differences: do they interfere? Paper presented at the 4th Annual Meeting of the Minority Advising Program and Minority Recruitment Officers, Georgia.

Edwards, J. R. (1982). Language attitudes and their implications among English speakers. In E. B. Ryan & H. Giles (Eds.), Attitudes towards language variation: Social and applied contexts. (pp. 2033). London: Edward Arnold.

Fischer, K. (1992). Educating speakers of Caribbean English in the United States. In J. Siegel (Ed.), Pidgins, creoles and non-standard dialects in education. (pp. 99-123). Melbourne: Applied Linguistics Association of Australia.

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Fishman, J. A., & Lovas, J. (1970). Bilingual education in sociolinguistic perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 4, 215-222.

Granger, R. C., M. Mathews, L. C. Quay, and R. Verner, (1997, April).

Teachers’ judgments of non-standard speaking children. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York.

Harber, J. R. (1979). Prospective teachers’ attitudes toward Black English. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED181 728) Holdzkom, D., L. J. Reed, E. J.Porter and D. L. Rubin (1982). Research within reach: Oral and written communication. Washington DC: National Institute of Education, Department of Education.

Hudson, R. A. (1980). Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: CUP. Labov, W. (1981). The study of non-standard English. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

LePage, R. B. (1968). Problems to be faced in the use of English as the medium of education in four West Indian territories. In J. Fishman, C. Ferguson & J. Das Gupta (Eds.), Language problems of developing nations. (pp. 431-442). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Loban, W. (1976). Language development: Kindergarten through grade twelve. (NCTE Committee on Research Report No. 18). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

McCourtie, L. (1998). The politics of creole language education in Jamaica: 1891-1921 and the 1990s. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 19(2), 108-127.

McCullough, M. (1981). Teachers’ knowledge of attitudes toward Black English and correction of dialect related reading miscues. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Michigan.

Moses, R., H. Daniels, & R.Gundlach (1976). Teachers’ language attitudes and bidialectalism. Linguistics: An International Review, 175, 77-91.

Nero, S. (1995, March). Not quite ESL: Teaching English to speakers of other Englishes. Paper presented at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Conference of College Composition and Communication, Washington, DC. (2000). The changing faces of English: A Caribbean perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (3), 483-509.

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Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Roberts, P. (1994). Integrating creole into Caribbean classrooms. Journal of Mulitilingual and Multicultural Development, 15(1), 47-62.

Robertson, I. (1996). Language education policy 1: Towards a rational approach for Caribbean states. In P. Christie (Ed.), Caribbean language issues: Old and new (pp. 112-119). Mona: U.W.I Press.

Rosenthal, R. and L.Jacobson (1968a). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupil intellectual development. NY: Holt Rinehart and Winston.

(1968b). Teacher expectations for the disadvantaged. Scientific American, 218(4), 19-23.

Sorace, G. (1998). Building bridges to the language of wider communication. English Journal, 87(3), 75-78.

Stokes, L.D. (1976, March). What is “really” basic about dialect and teaching?: Attitudes are. Paper presented at the 27th annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, Philadelphia.

Wassink, A. (1999). Historic low prestige and seeds of change: Attitudes towards Jamaican creole. Language in Society, 28(1), 5792.

Webber, K.N. (1985). The role of language teachers in the quest for educational excellence. Excellence through Equity, 2(1), 15-19.

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Religion, Culture and Identity in Tobago: The Growth of The Spiritual Baptist Faith

Introduction 1 Calypso chorus: I’m a slave from a land so far, I was caught and I was brought here from Africa, I’m a slave from a land so far, I was caught and I was brought here from Africa 2 GREETINGS: (a) Chairman, Chief Secretary, Hon. Orville London, 3 (b) I am honoured to participate in the Eighth Annual Eastern Caribbean Island Cultures Conference and to share my thoughts with you on the topic - Religion, Culture and Identity in Tobago: The Growth of the Spiritual Baptist Faith.

4 I, not am no slave.

Yes, I from a land so far.

Yes, I was caught.

Yes, I was brought here from Africa.

But, I, not am no slave.

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I am an African person.

I have beliefs and rituals.

I have principles and practices.

I have tradition.

I have culture.

I not am no slave.

Bukra enslave meh fore parents, but, I not am no slave.

Bukra put chains on a we foot, and on a we hand, on a we waist, and on a we neck, But I, not am no slave.

Bukra put chains on a we mind, Bukra enchain a we plenty And for a very long time, But I, not am no slave.

I am an African person, I have soul and I have spirit.

I am that I am.

I, not am no slave.

5 The many history books concur that the Africans were captured and brought into these parts under the whip of slavery, a whip that attempted to obliterate the memory of beliefs, practices, principles, culture, and being.

The skin surface became bruised and broken, unattended, germs infested the wounds, infected, the sores began to fester and give off pus (information), gangrene appeared and some people thought, aha, they dead.

6 But salt water is a healer. And islands are surrounded by salt water.

So every day we go to the sea to wash and the salt water does more than wash, it cleans and cleanses. And scabs are formed that cover the wounds and healing takes place under the broken surface, and some see the scars and don’t understand that the scabs and scars are not only signs of wounding but also signals of healing. So we chant and dance and sing to express our meaning.

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7 Barrett notes, “Religion for the African was, is and ever shall be the source of life and meaning” (Barrett, L., 1974). Ramsay concurs, “It was to the religious beliefs and practices that the survival of the African… was most attributed” (Ramsay, P. 1994). And Brathwaite states categorically, “The focus of African culture in the New World is religious” (Brathwaite, E. 1974). Because the sacred and the secular intertwine in the psyche of the African, because for the African religion is culture and culture is life and life is religion, “the cultural forms provided comfort … amidst the cruelty and harshness of their oppressive situation.”(Ramsay, P. 1994.) They practised what Ramsay refers to as cultural marronage, “the psychological level on which the African… resisted slavery through the preservation of the cultural forms which they brought with them to the New World.” (Ramsay, P. 1994.)

Parmasad defines ‘commuity identity formation’ noting that, the essence of Caribbean people was not constituted by colonialism out of nothing, but rather by the cultural implements and ancestral symbols of thousands of years of other layers of sedimentation which we access even when we do not recognize it. (Parmasad, K. 1994.)

Frances Henry explains the reaffirming of African identity through commitment to an African religion, stating that, “in general terms, religion is viewed as part of a cultural system constantly constructed and reconstructed in response to human experience and the changing socio-political realities of society” (Henry, F. 2003).

So what does all of this mean?

8 Well, it means that since the African ethic acknowledges the religious nature of the cosmos making no distinction between the sacred and the secular, to the African, the world of the spirit is real and self-evident, and since religious expression for the African involved rhythmic singing and dancing, the use of drums and spirit possession, and since his African ancestry and identity were important to the psyche of the African descendants, religion became culture, and culture became events and celebrations, and celebration became a cultural event, and cultural events became community

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activities, and everybody participated in community activities, so the African ethos, religiousity and expression were preserved.

Ome notes that “Resistance was of all types. At times it was military.

At other times it was diplomatic. But at all times it revealed the depth of African commitment to freedom” (Ome, A., 1989). Barrett concurs, “Slavery was fought not only physically but spiritually” and suggests that “the best of African manhood entered the New World and so thoroughly marked it with African customs, that in a short while the sound of the New World was the sound of Africa” (Barrett, L. 1974).

In Tobago the African descendants asserted themselves through their African heritage.

9 Thus, the dead is acknowledged in the Bongo and the wake and the nine nights and the forty nights and the year wake to the sound of the tambrin, the tamboo bamboo and the drum, events in which the whole community participates. Birth, initiation and marriage are rich traditions which beckon the whole village to get involved. Dance festivals with colourful costumes and rhythmic energies enthrall the entire audience in attendance. It is good to give thanks, and thanksgiving is calling together the family, friends and neighbours to share in the joy, and that is the purpose of the saraka ceremonies.

“The persistence of the original culture through devices designed for survival in new and, hostile habitats… is not the least of marvels about a people who, having been severed and made to suffer, managed to survive to tell the tale” (Warner-Lewis, M. 1991). Tobago heritage festival celebrates and ensures the continuation of these African expressions of culture. The Spiritual Baptist Faith celebrates and ensures the survival of the African religious ethic. For in the midst of the new and New World situation the Faith persisted and persevered.

It was against the law, even up to as late as 1951, to worship God in any form that looked like it was African. Earl Lovelace chronicles, 10 One day it was in the papers. They pass the law … that make it a crime on the whole island for people to worship God in the Spiritual

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Baptist religion…if we ring the bell, that was against the law. If we clap we hands and catch the Spirit, the police could arrest us. What to do? We move. We run. So now the church we have is on the edge of the village, high up on a steep hill, far up in a wilderness place, a little mud hut hiding behind a row of half-dead mango trees. And we have a look-out to watch for the police so if they creep up on us and we don’t have time to run we could pretend that we keeping an agriculture meeting… And so this Sunday the few of us walk up Zion hill to the church out in the wilderness place, far from the eyes and ears of the police. And in the middle of the hymn-singing and the shouting and the hand clapping, and all of us so full up with the sweetness of the service that we forget that we in the midst of Babylon, the police slip in the church and we didn’t see them.

Then across the music, cutting thrugh the God-praising, we hear this whistle blast and this gruff voice announcing: Awright, you under arrest! They drag leader down from the pulpit. They jab us with their batons. They form us in a line…So now with one police driving the van behind us and the rest of them around us, we start to walk to the police station.

“Within Tobagonian society”, writes researcher Laitinen, “Spiritual Baptists have long stood apart from other Christian denominations and have suffered from stigmatisation and prejudices. This has continued the colonial tradition of denigrating African-influenced beliefs and practices” (Laitinen, M. 2002). Secrecy and seclusion in the face of persecution led to fusion, substitution and syncretisation resulting in a continuum of African religiosity. Warner-Lewis explains, while some denounced and denied the past, “a large number maintained traditional beliefs and practices alongside Christianity, using one spiritual resource to supplement and complement the other” (Warner-Lewis, M. 1991).

On the one end, next to main stream Christianity, there are churches with retentions of the Spiritual Baptist tradition syncretized with European/American religious practices which are very much akin to what is loosely termed in popular language, Pentecostals. On the other extremity, next to African Traditional Religion, are the churches with retentions from the Spiritual Baptist tradition syncretized with African Traditional practices, which are very much akin to what is called in

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popular language Orisha/Shango. Spanning the middle of the continuum is the Spiritual Baptist/Shouter Baptist Faith.

11 Herein lies the perplexity of perception and complexity of confusion in defining and describing the indigenous religious expressions of Africans of the island cultures.

The reality is that along the continuum there are Spiritual/Shouter Baptist churches that are Christian churches in beliefs, doctrine, principles and practices who by nature of their acceptance of their Africanness sing, shout, groan, pull doption, speak in tongues, experience the manifestation of the Holy Spirit and practice water baptism and mourning, as part of the expression of their faith. Along the continuum there are also Spiritual/Shouter Baptist churches that having accepted their Africanness hold true to traditional African beliefs and practices, experience the manifestation of ancestral spirits, and also have some Christian beliefs and doctrine along with the non-Christian beliefs and practices, and who also sing, shout, groan, pull doption, speak in tongues, and practice water baptism and mourning as part of the expression of their faith. The differences arise out of the nature of the struggle for survival and the ethos of African ideology which is by nature revolutionary, dynamic, active and liberating. The distinctions define, and are defined by, the practices and principles demonstrated.

12 The varying expressions of African culture and religiousity, ethos and identity are the essence of what Barrett calls the ‘soul-force’ of the African, “the power which turns sorrow into joy, crying into laughter, and defeat into victory. It is patience while suffering, determination while frustrated and hope while in despair” (Barrett, L. 1974). Oh, may the study and exploration of the island cultures produce for the sometimes dysfunctional descendants of the enslaved, disinherited and disconnected children of Africa a channel for what Frances Welsing in The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors calls ‘true mental health’. Welsing posits,

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Black people, as a collective, are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

We are becoming strong enough to face many unpleasant realities and truths about ourselves and the social system and world that we live in, without denial or panic. This ability to analyze our selves, our behavior and our reality critically is one of the signs of true mental health. Another equally important aspect of mental health is our full acceptance of the responsibility for reorganizing our own behavior in order to change things that are wrong. (Welsing, F. C. 1995).

REV. HAZEL ANN GIBBS DEPEZA HERMAN PARRIS SPIRITUAL BAPTIST SOUTHLAND SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

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Reference Barrett, L. E. (1974). Soul-Force: African heritage in Afro-American religion. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.

Caribbean Quarterly, 40 (1) (1994, March). Jamaica, University of the West Indies.

Caribbean Quarterly, 40 (3&4) (1994, September/December). Jamaica, University of the West Indies.

Gibbs DePeza, H. A. (1999). My Faith - Spiritual Baptist Christian. Trinidad: Multimedia Production Centre, the U.W.I. Henry, F. (2003). Reclaiming African religions in Trinidad: The sociopolitical legitimation of the Orisha and Spiritual Baptist Faiths.

Trinidad and Tobago: University of the West Indies Press.

Laitinen, M. (2002). Marching to Zion: Creolisation in Spiritual Baptist rituals and cosmology. Finland: Helsinki University Press.

Lovelace, E. (1986). The wine of astonishment (2nd. ed.). Oxford: Heinemann International.

Ome, A. (1989). The stor y of emancipation. Trinidad: Pegasus Publishing & Marketing Enterprises.

Warner-Lewis, M. (1991). Guinea’s other suns. Massachusetts: The Majority Press.

Welsing, F. C. (1995). The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors. Chicago: Third World Press.

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Women writing male marginalization?

Oonya Kempadoo’s Tide Running This paper is primarily concerned with the literary construction of Caribbean sexual identity in Oonya Kempadoo’s work, and secondarily with how this is impacted by economic and cultural factors as well as prevalent models of gender roles. Kempadoo’s first novel Buxton Spice (1998) is a frank fictional exploration of sexual curiosity and desire — significantly, among Caribbean girls and young women — and their consequences. As one online reviewer notes, “she writes about sex almost as if it never existed until her talent discovered it.” Hot stuff then; yet the voice of the pre-adolescent narrator preserves a certain innocence. Towards the end of the text, however, the mood darkens. Sexual double standards lead to domestic violence, paralleled by increasing political repression in the nation state (Guyana) under Forbes Burnham’s dictatorship. This darker mood is developed in her second novel, Tide Running (2001) and there is nothing innocent about the narrators here, or indeed the narrative itself.

While it speaks to contemporary issues that affect the entire region, the novel is set in and very much informed by the physical and cultural specificity of Tobago, where Kempadoo lived between 1996 and 1998. Significantly, it was here that she began to write (although Tide Running was actually written in Grenada, where she now lives). In the strict sense then, Kempadoo is not a Tobagonian writer. Born in Sussex in 1966 of Guyanese parents and brought up in Guyana from the age of five, she is of mixed Indian, African, Scottish and Amerindian (and according to her interview with Simon Lee, also Chinese) descent. She lived briefly in Europe in her late teens before making a conscious decision, as Lee notes, to return to the Caribbean where she has lived ever since: in St Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, and currently in Grenada. In addition to her writing she does voluntary social work with a home for Grenada’s disadvantaged teenagers, proof of her continuing concern with young people in the region.

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Despite much critical acclaim, the quality of Tide Running is uneven: much of Bella’s narrative is unconvincing and there are some sections of the novel which could have been omitted without loss. Kempadoo confesses to little rewriting and it shows in that the text lacks the finely crafted finesse of prose by, say Jamaica Kincaid. Indeed Lee quotes Kempadoo acknowledging that “[f] or me now it’s unsatisfactory. If I did it again it would be different” (57). That said, there is an honesty and “in your face” freshness of subject matter which strikes a chord with younger readers, particularly on issues of popular culture and sexuality (the novel’s plot concerns a sexual triangle between a working class youth and a middle class married couple recently arrived in the island, whose paths cross with dangerous consequences). Lee quotes Kempadoo: Generally, Caribbean people are either seriously concerned with slave history or ethnic and gender worries.

The rest just like to party and lime. Hence the reason for me being as honest possible.... You can’t just look at the nice side [of sexuality], there’s the kinky side too” (59).

Tide Running is concerned in equal parts with partying and liming, with “ethnic and gender worries” and with the “kinky” aspects of multiracial sex in a Caribbean island largely dependent on tourism.

Even as it celebrates Tobago’s exquisite beauty, the darker side of paradise surfaces, particularly race and class demarcations, and the appropriation of “natural” West Indian sexuality for ugly practices of sexual exploitation and self-delusion.

(I) Asked by Lisa Gee what “sparked” Tide Running, Kempadoo responds: A reaction to the global obsession with ‘women’ and our problems, our introspection and our attributions of blame for our predicament.

I have an interest in what is driving young men today and how this is impacting on society. And I am interested in the influence of the US media and entertainment industries on behavior and values in very different cultures.

One of the novel’s achievement is its “spot on” evocation of the daily life, world view, values and dreams of a (representative) young,

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black, working class Caribbean male. But what does this evocation convey about Caribbean manhood? What is driving young Caribbean men today — often to unemployment, idleness, crime, drugs, and ultimately prison? The first part of my paper discusses the construction of young working class manhood in the light of Errol Miller’s controversial theory of Caribbean male marginalization.

An article in the Barbados Nation (Friday, July 1, 2005:6) entitled “Take closer look at boys” re-circulates the cliched cry of “Caribbean men in crisis” and in particular, the belief that in the field of education “the existing imbalance between boys and girls ... [is] worrying”. The human resources director of a Barbadian company is reported citing University of the West Indies statistics which demonstrate that “80 per cent of females completed degrees in medicine compared with 20 percent males, and 70 per cent females completed law degrees compared to 30 percent males. ‘We need to pay more attention to our boys,’ he stressed.” He blames parents for tending “to think that it was all right for boys to lime, while the girls are kept indoors and given chores” and advises parents to go “the extra mile to ensure that boys settle down and maintain focus.” Earlier, another newspaper (Barbados Advocate, Sunday, February 6, 2005:3) reports the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Social Transformation (another prominent male) insisting that “while the issue of gender equality has focused primarily on empowering women socially, economically and politically, societies will accomplish more once attention is paid to the role of men and boys in the process.” Rather like Kempadoo’s response to Gee, above, these media interventions imply that men’s failures are due to women’s successes and buy into Miller’s still-powerful claim for the “marginalization of the black male” in his 1986 monograph of the same name and his follow up book, Men at Risk (Kingston: Jamaica Publishing House, 1991).

De Albuquerrque and Ruark demonstrate that Miller’s study “is based on minimal empirical data focusing largely on gender differences in the Jamaican educational system. However it has served as a kind of clarion call” throughout the anglophone territories of the region (2). “But,” they query, “are men really falling behind or are women simply catching up?” Further, “[h]ow can Caribbean women... be ascendant and at the same time marginalized

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and exploited” as the data they present clearly indicates is the case (2). They conclude: Caribbean women as a group are as well, if not better educated, than their male counterparts, but are significantly under represented as large business proprietors and managers, as university lecturers, in trade unions, parliaments, the judiciary and other bastions of power.

So while some lower-class men may be at risk, Caribbean women still have a long way to go before they can fulfill Miller’s prediction of claiming the third millennium. (12-13)

Another social scientist, Eudine Barriteau, persuasively argues that Miller’s “thesis” is flawed on the basis that he posits men having primary rights to resources of the state so that measures to empower women and render them equal “are interpreted as men’s [sic] being further marginalized.” For Barriteau, “the thesis has predetermined that Caribbean men have been willfully or deliberately marginalized as an outcome of adjustments introduced into gender systems to benefit women” (325). Yet, despite the currency of the “men in crisis” myth, Barriteau insists that “Caribbean societies are resiliency patriarchal” (327), a conclusion supported elsewhere by Linden Lewis (2) and Barry Chevannes: Are [Caribbean] males being marginalized? Certainty not, if the main factor being considered is power. Despite the increasing percentage of women at the University of the West Indies, it is the men who are elected to the seat of student power. At the community level, whether the issue is dons or youth club leaders, there is no marginalization of males. And as far as the churches are concerned, women’s overrepresentation in the membership and ministering groups, but under representation in the leadership is well documented .... The marginalization discourse always ignores these facts. (1999, 33; quoted Barriteau, 324)

Further, in Learning to be a Man: Culture, Socialization and Gender Identity in Five Caribbean Communities, Chevannes concludes that “Caribbean manhood may be seen as an expression of control over women, a matter of relations of power” (225). “Male power” in Jamaica, argues Seaga, “rests in the ability to demand respect, particularly from their peers and women,” and is aggressively and often violently extracted from subordinates (2).

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I hope in time to adequately research and theorize the relatively new area of Caribbean masculinity studies but for the purposes of this paper, I want to use the emphasis on power relations noted above to read Kempadoo’s construction of sexual, class and race relations in a largely tourist based economy.

(II) Barriteau observes that dependence on tourism is prevalent in the region and that “several jobs in this sector will seem like women’s work, especially at the lower-end skill level” (347). Serving and “servicing” visitors are often regarded as “feminizing” men into positions of subordination and passivity, reducing them to the unmanly status of chattels; in Tide Running, “dese young fellas” consider that “construction work is ‘slave wo’k.... Working in hotel is ‘slave wo’k’ ”(100). Nowhere are the interconnections and contradictions of various kinds of power relations more complex than in the informal industry of sex work within the tourist industry.

Certainly it fits within the kind of scenario outlined by Jean and John L. Comaroff: that is, one in which the threatening context of global capitalism for non-Western states leads to prevailing economic conditions that inflict intolerable stress on cultural notions of gender (and race) as indices of identity. “As consumption has become the moving spirit of the late twentieth century,” they argue, “so there has been a concomitant eclipse of production” with workplace and labour no longer rooted in stable local contexts and hence, “no longer prime sites for the creation of value and identity” (295). Instead, investment, gambling, and schemes for making a “fast buck” are valorized with a man’s status ranked according to his name-brand clothing and spending power.

Certainly, in Tide Running, Kempadoo’s portrayal of young men indicates the pervasive influence of consumerism on all kinds of relations. In the arena of sexuality, the community views the casual “sexing” of females (girls, babies and animals) by men as a matter of fact. Cliffs sister complains to their mother that his brother is “servicing de whole’ a Plymouth” to Mudda’s great amusement, if not approbation (43-44). Emotional bonding is irrelevant and material gain paramount. As Cliff reflects, “all the girls them want the same

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thing — juk, juk, juk. And then they want something else — a chain, a earsring, piece’a chicken, soft drink” (22). Likewise, interracial, crossclass sexual relationships are crudely depicted in terms of mutual exploitation: sex is a commodity to be traded like any other. Cliff dispassionately observes “quick-talking gigolo fellows hooking up some white girls, working hard, shamming and showing off to them, hoping the girls go take them for the night, or a week” (42). When Bella participates in the Sunday School fete, he notes her dancing with “[t]wo renk gigolo fellas from Canaan, who always ketching tourist girl”(40), signifying to Cliff and the others present that “dem people,” whether from overseas or from Trinidad, operate by the same rules. The older German artist Hilda openly keeps a succession of younger black men as “companions” until they pass their “sell by date” or break her rules: “First he put his hair in locks, you know, pretty-pretty. And then he start in this tourist racket, doing all kinds of women” (109).

Given the casual nature of such relations, any “friendship” between Bella (brown skinned, relatively wealthy) and a black “ragamuffin” like Cliff is clearly perceived by the Tobago community in terms of commodification. Hence “Champie’s woman” boldly taunting Bella with the offer of her own boyfriend: “Come! Is black man yuh want?

Look one here! .... Dis is real black man here .... Don’ worry wit’ dem li’l magger boys, come fuh de original t’ing!”(122). Buying into the dominant stereotypes, the consensus is that since her white husband cannot (by virtue of his race’s diminished virility) be qualified to satisfy Bella, Cliff, the “de black dallie,” the black stud, “does get pay to give she good” (175).

But what are the motives on the either side? Are Bella and her husband slumming, looking for a bit of “rough trade” to spice up their own sex life? Is “King Peter” the magus directing the erotic threesome? Is Bella trying to demonstrate her wish to belong locally (despite her “up town top ranking”: privileged status, wealthy English husband, “flim-style house”), romanticizing “roots” and seeking to visibly and physically identify herself as such? The reader is left frustrated. For neither the narrators nor the narrative is innocent.

The novel interweaves two first person accounts: Cliffs matter of fact detailing of his everyday life and Bella’s more mannered and, in places,

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self-consciously poetic stream of consciousness reflections. Cliffs is the more convincing, deceptively simple and written in a fine approximation of (often lyrical) Creole speech, referencing familiar touchstones of (then current) popular culture (brands, icons, television programmes and music lyrics). But ultimately, neither narrator is truthful. At the end of the text, we –like Bella and her husband– do not know Cliff at all; is he a sensitive victim or a selfdestructive criminal? Feeling comfortable with his place in the family, Cliff semi-articulately acknowledges playing the role of son to his mistress’s husband, asking him to “Adop’ me nuh” (126), always watching Bella and gauging the effects of his performance. Bella picks up on “Cliffs eyes slinking away” (127) and elsewhere, forced to examine the relationship through the eyes of a Trinidadian friend, notes that “his polish had disappeared sometimes .... Rough edges showing, attitudes sliding sly” (138). Cliffs (completely out-of-character) slapping of his sister is shocking, and suggests his narrative has submerged aspects of a troubled personality. Yet his mother’s vilification of her son, as she swigs on a beer, is too simplistic: “Someting wrong with dat boy, Lawd.... He need help” (210). Cliff himself never accounts for his disillusionment with and “betrayal” of “dem people,” and his reflections on his conviction (for stealing their car and money) simply rehearse the fantasy of rebellious masculinity gleaned from dance hall lyrics and Hollywood portrayals of AfricanAmerican “gangsta” bravado previously dismissed in his narrative as “shit talk”: “King’a the block; man’a the ghetto, I got juice. Respect.

Respect I man, cause I is the real juice” (187).

And despite her “strictly roots” self-representation, Bella’s narrative suggests a shallow and thoughtless “up town top ranking,” complacent about her perfect mixed race marriage, designer house and privileged life and disingenuous as to her motives and responsibilities in the relationship with Cliff. Despising the narrow views of the Trinidadian middle class (“Clothes, cars and subtle shades of skin separate the classes there” (p. 134), she instantly observes on their first visit that Cliff and his brother look “out of place in this David Hockney bigger room” (59). Bella, ultimately guided by sexual desire, deludes herself about the relationship between herself and her husband, and Cliff: “Differences don’t have to be barriers”

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(91), she pleads. But soon after, she acknowledges that “[w]e had to put Cliff straight” about his place (101). In her account, Cliff generally toes the line; until, that is, he deceitfully takes advantage and proves himself to be just like the other opportunistic gigolos. When her friend’s question, “You sure he not after something?” (138) proves prophetic, Bella and Peter withdraw from Cliff at the time he needs then most, pleading helplessness in the face of the law. He has, in effect, reverted to type and as manifested in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the rich don’t clear up their own messes.

The novel gradually uncovers a corrosive lack of trust across the entire society: mother for son, sister for brother, lover for lover, citizen for politician, woman for man, Tobagonians/locals for Trinidadians/ foreigners, black for white. And reader for narrative. But whatever the motives on either side, the novel ends up reinforcing stereotypes: the calculating, controlling, powerful white man who directs the sexual scenarios; the passionate, sexually uninhibited, indulged “browning”; the feckless, if well-endowed black man. Paula Aymer’s review of Sun, Sex and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean

by Kamala Kempadoo (coincidentally the sister of Oonya Kempadoo), observes that in the essays which comprise the study “[t]he black body in its varied shades of blackness is a major site of contestation” (209). Tide Running amply dramatizes this contestation. Aymer’s review notes several contributors to the volume suggesting that “Caribbean forms of tourism support powerful racist ideologies about the innate sensuousness of black bodies” (209), and this is evident from the data cited on “white female tourists arriving from Europe and North America combing Caribbean beaches and bars in search of young black men who fit their ‘return to nature’ racial images” (210). In Tide Running, Bella and Peter conjure Tobago in uncannily similar fashion: “our holiday haven from Trinidad city life, seduced us into its womb, promising peace o mind, crime-free living, and the blue Caribbean sea”(64), the same old tourist brochure images which construct the island as an unspoilt tropical paradise. More insidiously, the supposedly liberal, egalitarian and enlightened couple view Cliff as a beautiful and desirable object (“Nubian Nike”p. 58), a living embodiment of the Little Black Boy erotically (but tastefully) sited in their bedroom. Note the clash between the aesthetic terminology

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and that which evokes a far more sinister echo of slaves on the auction block or child prostitution: “It’s a sculpture. A sculptor friend of ours made him. Beautiful, eh?’

Bumsy small and high, legs tight and shining... silent as a jumbie....

Could’a be me or Ossi when we was young, or any li’l flat-chest girl bathing by a standpipe (55).

In disturbing ways, Bella and Peter’s “tastes” replicate the racial and sexual stereotypes catalogued in Aymer’s review.

Aymer claims that uncovering the “sordid secrets” of Caribbean sex tourism demonstrates “the innate weakness of Caribbean states, evident in their ability to provide for and protect the majority of their citizens” from this demeaning and exploitative ‘industry” (210). As in Walcott’s scathing attack in Omeros on the prostitution of Helen/ St Lucia by Caribbean politicians and developers, so too wealthy sex tourists take up, pamper, then discard the “sensuous” black bodies that fit their projected fantasies. Jennifer Rahim provides collaboration for the claims Chevannes and the Comaroffs when she emphasizes that “continued exploitation or re-colonization of small nation states along North/South... geo-political binaries demonstrate that the geographical and racial lines of colonialism have not been significantly altered” (para 3), and links this recolonization with the “global tourism industry and its use-value reification of island landscapes/people into saleable products that service fantasy fulfillment” (para 5).

Rahim’s reading of Tide Running focuses on the trope of invisibility: the disappearance (via devaluation) of the local under “the bombardment of consciousness by North American media-simulated realities and subjectivities” (para 5). We recall Kempadoo’s comments above on her perception of “the influence of the US media and entertainment industries on behavior and values in very different cultures.” In the Tobago context, Cliff, Ossi, Doberman, Lynette and the rest all judge themselves and their world by standards assembled from a mosaic of such media and entertainment vehicles: cable TV, American evangelical religious programmes, Caribbean dance hall music and African-American hip hop, and Hollywood film. The brand names of international youth culture are checked off-KFC, Baywatch,

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Nike, McDonalds, Coke — resulting in a homogenization that erases cultural specificity. Interestingly, Rahim also notes the “colonial” influence of “Trinidadization” on the local (para 8), asserting the novel’s exposure of the tensions between native and Trinidadian visitor/tourist. The arrogant assumption of superiority by Smallie as she steupses at the admiring glances of “hungry” Tobagonian men, and the casting of Tobagonians as ignorant and incompetent in financial matters by the Trinidadian businessman Vaughan Jagdeo, speak to this tension.

Returning to the theme of embodiment, Rahim points out that the promotion of perfect bodies (and lives) played out in “mediaconstructed gender identities and sexual fantasies” (para 18), even while clearly disparate from the local actuality, nonetheless conditions the imagination so that local is filtered through foreign, eventually becoming invisible. The impossible ideals of male heroism, female beauty, sexual desirability and successful life styles sold and consumed via the media are impossible of achievement in a Tobago village yet the young people read their lives through just such images, mimicking them, acting out the fantasies (as in Lynette’s validation of her life by way of purchasing advertised products like fabric softener when the family has no washing machine). This split between the local and the imported, Rahim argues, results in an impoverishment of language: Ossi does not have the language to name the images on the screen; and increasingly, the youth cannot name local plants, practices nor, eventually, articulate their own feelings.

The initial exception is Cliff. As Rahim points out (para 28), “Cliff demonstrates the ability to distinguish differences between television portrayals of life as perfect as opposed to the imperfect real, for instance, on first observing Bella and Peter at their house he notices that “[t]hey look bright up like they on TV, ‘cept neither one of them perfect-looking all over” (54). But as he inserts himself into the validated “flim-style house” and perfect lives of Bella and Peter, he is transformed into thinking he belongs there. Whereas the reality is that he is a temporary acquisition, a live sex toy. As Rahim acerbically notes, Kempadoo treats the affair with Bella and Peter as a kind of benign or masked sex tourism. Sexual experimentation as the leisure afforded

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the wealthy, rather than overt solicitation for sex, seems the motivation behind the couple’s seduction of Cliff. Additionally, Cliff is not an initiated sex worker at the outset. He first appears as an innocent, not yet adept in the sexual games and exploits that his brother Ossi seems to have mastered. In this case, the plot traces his subtle entanglement in the orgies of the affluent (para 29).

Cliff, in his earlier and more “revealing” narrative passages does like the narrator of Buxton Spice - evince a certain innocence despite knowing everything there is to know about the brute facts of sexual relations. Disgustedly observing his brother whose exploits as a “village ram” amuse his mother as they repulse his sister, Cliff distinguishes himself from such unthinking physicality: “He don’t know what to do with herself or he long totee. Just doing what the girls and them want he to do, and feel that is it. Me, I make for different” (44). But is he? Or do the new colonizers corrupt the “virgin territory” discovered in paradise, so that the “sensitive” Cliff, the exception to the rule, comes to participate in his commodification and learns to exploit his favoured status while he can?

I am not suggesting that the novel downplays the historical precedents of such multiple manipulations and the coarsening of sensibilities which ensues. More than once the text alludes to Tobago’s darker side in terms of its slave history. Bella reflects on The bones of old estates: Mason Hall, Franklyn’s. Old Grange, Runnymede, Whim. Sullen embers of revenge still smoldering up there.... Just visiting from Trinidad, we could never have seen the darkness of this island.... Traces of resentment glowing under the skin of proud faces, in the gait of mobile bodies. (64) Power relations are still conditioned by long-historied inequalities.

Rahim insightfully points out that the title of Tide Running “is actually an inverted metaphor for a condition of stasis” (para 37). For all his speeding around Tobago (on his bicycle, in Peter’s car) or the globe (via television and film), Cliff is ultimately trapped in the same place, sharing the same commonplace fate as other “ragamuffin” firm which he initially and disdainfully distinguishes himself. “At this stage of the text,” she asserts, “blackness [in its male embodiment] comes full circle ... and is reconstructed as ontologically flawed, criminalized and perverted” (para 39). The discourse of the Middle Passage, the

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island’s (and the region’s) haunting legacy, is revisited in the final images of Cliff s incarceration in prison: a cramped, painful, sickening space of despair and spiritual death.

(III) Lest I characterize the novel only in terms of the “dark side,” it should be stressed that its evocation of landscape and seascape is particularly effective and moving. On first reading Tide Running, I kept thinking of Walcott, the Caribbean’s foremost poet of the sea..

Lee writes in his interview that “[s]ettling in St Lucia in 1985 crystalised Kempadoo’s love of the Caribbean sea and landscape,” and that the sea and land are as crucial in her writing as in that of Harris or Walcott. “In Tide Running” he continues, “the sea assumes the importance of a major character and is the central motiff, unifying plot and themes” (58). Kempadoo’s opening chapter is titled “Sea Breathing,” and from the first line the rhythm of the language echoes the rhythm of the waves - “ rolling and swelling up... Breathing out... snorting and slurping back in”(3) - with strikingly “intuitive” lyrical effect in Cliffs “untutored” but minutely observed rendering. The auditory quality of the Creole prose; the prevalence of assonance (“rolling and bubbling”), alliteration (“poison-black patch, long prickas sticking”) and onomatopoeia (“snuffling and bubbling.... hissing and crackling”); the semantically vague yet sensually precise details (“them white crusty shells”); the animistic construction of the sea as a living, breathing life force is hypnotic and totally convincing for anyone who has lived with the sea. Like Walcott’s Achille (in his epic Omeros), the sea is Cliffs element, his refuge and his salvation. Cliff projects his own frustrated agency onto the natural element through which he fully lives, and which consistently draw him to it. Facilitated by the Creole pronoun’s lack of marking for gender, the sea is male: “e’ belly” and ‘“e ribs” move with Cliffs, it “brawls” and “romps” during dry season, while the rains “out the sea spirit.” Attuned to every nuance of the sea, the sea breeze, the light, the temperatures and textures and colours of water and sky, Cliff achieves a kind of holistic harmony of man and nature when he is at sea. He revels in the sacred ritual of fishing (“taking me out to deep sea. A warm flash inside me. Warm as the sun now heating up the

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day, flashing on the water”), as witnessed by the “singing” and “preaching” roofs on the jetty (9), where man is transformed in the challenge of the sea. Cliff identifies with his (then mentor and first surrogate father figure): Stompy who like it when the sea getting on, not giving you and ease. It does raise up something inside him. Make him look different: wild-up and ready for anything. Is the only time he eyes shine and he laughing good, not just skin-teeth, real laugh (11).

In contrast with Bella and Peter’s stereotypical projection of Tobago as their garden of Eden, Cliff experiences the sea as nothing but itself, which allows him a haven of quiet, truth and peace (45). As Lee suggests, “he seems to understand [the sea] better than any of the people in his life” (59).

In contrast, the social domain is characterized by tedium and repetition. “Time pass like every day in Plymouth” (14): hustling the basics of life, roaming around on his bike, “hanging out,” “stylin”’ in best clothes at the weekend and looking to “trouble people girlchi’ren” (14), before the American soap operas start on cable television, followed by Baywatch and Oprey Winfree, advertisements for Betty Crocker, “just call 1-800-JESUS” and “all-natural Viagra” (177).

No wonder Bella and Peter represent an exciting alternative. But like Walcott’s Hector, Cliffs tragedy lies in breaking his bond with the sea, with nature, for a fantasy foray into an equivalent of The Bold and the Beautiful. Buying into the values and willful self-delusion of the latter, he renders himself invisible: the fragile balance is shattered between the local and the imported, between immersion in the natural and the postlapsarian knowledge of the ugliness of human life in his underprivileged community. Cliff has no option but to take refuge in role-play of the most self-defeating kind. The sea has brightened his life; human and sexual intercourse irrevocably darkens it as he is made aware of the unbridgeable gaps between privilege and poverty, light skin and dark skin, sexual freedom and self respect.

I am reducing the text to simplistic binary oppositions, but the structure of the narrative suggests such a reading. The two narrators, using two registers of language, coming out of two different class perspectives and value systems, sensitize readers to the clash of

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Caribbean and North American popular culture (and the indeterminacy even within the Caribbean of “local” and “imported”), of male and female sexual and power relations, of natural cycles and human stasis.

The last section of the novel is once more given over to Cliffs narration, and one is left with such a sense of Walcott’s Omeros, a celebration of the unsung Caribbean quotidian, ends with the comforting lines, “the sea was still going on.” Tide Running concludes with Cliffs acknowledgment that — for him, maybe permanently — “the sea ain’ stirring. No sparking, no li’l white chips. No rash’a silver jacks jumping. Cat paws ain’ scratchin’e surface today. Sea stop today” (215). His baldly delineated yet moving portrayal of a trapped creature, a dead spirit, is a terrible indictment of the myth of the island paradise where hedonism and sexual excess are the norm, and the virile black male body is celebrated for its racial/cultural “authenticity” Kempadoo’s third novel, All Decent Animals (Picador, forthcoming), is set in Grenada and based on a study of a young girl’s life of abuse: another even darker, and more hidden side of Carribean social reality. But it is also about the strength of her spirit and her ultimate survival of violation. Tide Running bravely exposes the lives of thousands of young underclass men who are, as Lee notes, often functionally illiterate, undereducated and unemployed. “Bombarded with images of American consumer society, soaking up dub macho and gangster fantasies, yet constrained by the harsh economic realities of societies caught between the world of the nineteenth century plantation and the internet age” (59), they are emotionally and spiritually “in crisis.” Like Cliff, like his homeland, they remain “islands in between.” In All Decent Animals (as in countless media reports of domestic and sexual violence against women and girls) women as well as men are the victims of this crisis. Hopefully, Caribbean masculinities can be configured —in social and fictional texts— so that they neither construct themselves nor are constructed as the agents (or victims) of sexual and cultural violation .

EVELYN O’CALLAGHAN UNIVERSITY OF WEST INDIES, BARBADOS

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Works Cited Aymer, Paula. “Exposing Caribbean Tourism: Review of Sun, Sex and Gold. Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean, Kamala Kempadoo ed. Small Axe 6, 12 (September 2002): 209-211.

Barriteau, Eudine. “Requiem for the Male Marginalization Thesis in the Caribbean: Death of a Non-Theory,” ConfrontingPower: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean, Eudine Barriteau ed. (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2003): 324-355.

Chevannes, Barry. Learning to be a Man: Culture, Socialization and Gender Identity in Five Caribbean Communities (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2001).

Comaroff, Jean and John L. Comaroff. “Millenial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming,” Public Culture 12, 2 (2000): 291-343.

De Albuquerque, Klaus and Sam Ruark. “‘Men Day Done’: Are Women Really Ascendant in the Caribbean?” Caribbean Portraits: Essays on Gender Ideologies and Identities, Christine Barrow ed.

(Kingston: Ian Randle, 1998): 1-13.

“Focus More on the Role of Men in Gender Relations,” Barbados Advocate (February 6, 2005): 3.

Gee, Lisa. “An Interview with Oonya Kempadoo,” http://www. orangeprize.co.uk/projects/futures/kempadooi.html (accessed October 26, 2005).

Kempadoo, Oonya. Tide Running (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001).

Lee, Simon. “The Excitement of Writing: Simon Lee meets writer Oonya Kempadoo,” BWIA Caribbean Beat (March/April, 2002): 55-59.

Lewis, Linden. “Gender Tension and Change in the Contemporary Caribbean,” paper to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Expert Group Meeting on “The role of men and boys in achieving gender equality” (Brasilia, October 2003).

Miller, Errol, The Marginalization of the Black Jamaican Male: Insights from the Development of the Teaching Profession (Kingston: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1986).

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Rahim, Jennifer. “Electronic Fictions and Tourist Currents: Constructing the Island Body in Kempadoo’s Tide Running,” Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal 2, 2 (Fall 2004). http:// scholar. library.miami.edu/anthurium/volume_2issue_2/rahimelectronic.htm (accessed February 7, 2005).

Seaga, Edward. “Social Riddles Rooted in Cultural Identity,” Jamaica Gleaner Online (Sunday, May 15, 2005). http://www.jamaica_gleaner.com/gleaner/20050515/lead/ lead5.html (accessed March 17, 2005).

“Take Closer Look at Boys,” Weekend Nation (Barbados, July 1, 2005): 6.

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Revisiting Edward Wilmot Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887): Islam and the Eastern Caribbean in the 21st Century In 1875 Edward Blyden remarked: “in the United States, the West Indies, South America, Egypt, Syria, West and Central Africa, we are compelled, however reluctantly … to endorse the statement [that ‘the Negro who accepts Mohammedanism acquires at once a sense of dignity of human nature not commonly found even among those who have been brought to accept Christianity’]” (Blyden 10). Blyden has been regarded as the father of Pan-Africanism, a precursor to Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois. However, few critics have written on the work of this St. Thomas native who, having traveled to America only to be rejected from Rutgers College on racial grounds, migrated to Liberia in 1851 to help build a colony there for repatriated diasporic Africans. No one has examined Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race for that insightful text’s relevance to the rise of Islam among diasporic Africans today. Political theorist Sebastian Mallaby fears that this rise is the effect of the recent proliferation of “failed states” around the globe, and will result in “terrorism” in countries such as Liberia and other strife-torn “anti-imperialist” locations (Mallaby). I want to complicate Mallaby’s theory about the rise of Islam by revisiting Edward Bylden’s 1887 text to investigate the nuanced ways in which Islam has manifested itself historically among African diasporic communities, and how it continues to do so today in the Eastern Caribbean, specifically in Trinidad, a country that has 345

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recently come under the scrutiny of the United States as a site of Islamic terrorist activity1.

Islam is not a new religion to African Trinidadians. Historically, while the majority of Muslims have come from South Asian communities initially brought to the West Indies as indentured labourers during the mid-1800s, the first Muslims were actually Africans who arrived at least as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Sylviane Diouf cites numerous instances of the intransigent attitudes of African Muslims enslaved in the Eastern Caribbean; for example, in 1833, in a petition requesting that they be sent home to African shores, the already-established Free Mandingo Society of Trinidad informed the monarch of England: “We cannot forget our country…Death alone can make us do [sic]” —to which they signed their names in Arabic. In Guyana in 1807, after a failed slave insurrection an observer described the court proceedings: “‘[o]ne ‘piece of evidence brought forward at the trial was a letter in Arabic addressed to the [rebels], but, as no one in the Court could read it, its purport was only guessed at.’” Similarly, a white traveller to Trinidad in the 1840s noted that among a newly disembarked group of 441 recaptives2 there, most of the men, women and children wore gris-gris amulets, evidence of an African-Muslim syncretism in which talismans were made that contained on folded paper, writings “based on the relationships that exist between Koranic texts, letters, stars, and numbers; therefore, the marabout who produce[d] them must have [had] a knowledge not only of the texts but also of numerology, astrology, mathematics, and astronomy” (Diouf 129-33).

1 US security concerns vis à vis Trinidad as a site of Islamic terrorist activity

have arisen over two important facts: 1) the geographically strategic position of Trinidad in the Caribbean basin, and 2) America’s need for Liquefied Natural Gas, a key Trinidad export.

2 While slavery was not abolished in England and America until 1838 and 1865 respectively, the trans-Atlantic slave trade was abolished by England and the US in the years 1807-1808. By 1808 England had established the British West India Africa Squadron at Sierra Leone to police illegal slave trading by British citizens. In 1819, American Congress authorized a naval squadron to sail to African waters in order to apprehend illegal slave ships and help resettle “recaptured” slaves in various locales. Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Trinidad were among some of the locations that Britain and the US deemed suitable for the settlement of the “recaptives.”

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The Mandingo of Senegambia especially were noted to be gris-gris wearers and practitioners of “the occult”–the very name mandingo coming to mean “sorcerer” or “rebel” in Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, and Mexico. In Trinidad, the Free Mandingo Society, a group of discontented freedmen, sent several petitions to England during the 1830s, requesting return passage to Africa. One acerbic missive read: We respectfully beg leave to inform your Excellency that we have communicated with our tribe, and have resolved to brave all dangers and run all risks, if the British government will only afford us a passage to Sierra Leone. Those dangers and risks, we do not apprehend to be either as serious or numerous as the philanthropic Secretary of State for the Colonial Department in his anxiety for our safety and welfare seems to anticipate, as some of our tribe have already performed the journey from our country to Sierra Leone overland. On our arrival at that settlement we shall meet with a number of our brethren, and we shall then make such arrangements as will ensure us a safe journey across the Country. This of course will be done at our own expense from our own resources. We never thought of taxing the generosity of the British government so far as to require an escort from the Sea Coast. (Diouf 173)

Diouf, writing in 1998, observes that the obvious connections the Free Mandingoes of Trinidad had with their “brethren” on the African continent are strong indications “that Islamic networks were functioning very well on both sides of the ocean” (Diouf 173).

However, Edward Blyden, more than 100 years earlier than Diouf, had already observed the powerful networks existing among African Islamic peoples.

As Professor of Classics at Liberia College, Blyden travelled extensively throughout West Africa, taught himself a number of languages, including Arabic, visited Palestine and Egypt in 1866, and, in general, observed the manner in which Islam had united large numbers of communities across the African continent. We must remember that, as an early proponent of black nationalism, Blyden cherished the vision of a new Africa “conquered for Christianity by the [returning] Negro converts to the religion” (Blyden 335).

Nevertheless, his criticism of the West’s attitude toward Islamic African peoples provides us with valuable insight into how little we have progressed in our understanding of Islam and Islamic Africans;

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his words, written in 1875, still have an uncanny relevance today: “the East is daily getting to be ‘nearer seen and better known’… in those special aspects which, in religion and government, in war and policy, differentiate Eastern from Western races… [Our] intimate acquaintance with the languages, thoughts, history, and monuments of Eastern nations is no longer a luxury, but a necessity” (Blyden 2).

Blyden comments further, in 1876: “There is something lamentable— we were going to say grotesque—in the ignorance [on the part] of some who assume to be authorities and guides on African matters, of the condition of things at even a little distance from the [West African] coast” (Blyden 61).

While Trinidad and Guyana have historically contained the highest concentration of Muslims in the Eastern Caribbean, those numbers are still relatively small in comparison to other religious denominations. For example, today’s Christian population in Guyana stands at 50%, while the Muslim population there is cited by the CIA World Factbook at 10%. In present-day Trinidad, Christians number about 57%, while Muslims number 5.8%. However, Trinidad’s 1990 fiveday Islamic coup, and the continued high-profile presence of the coup instigators, the Afro-Muslim group Jamaat al Muslimeen, has brought the island to the attention of an American government intent upon its self-styled mission to marshal “global security” through an Americanled “war on terrorism.” The situation in Trinidad over the last fifteen years has raised a number of questions about the connections among Islam, terrorism, and Black Nationalism in the island. Political critic John Sawicki cites as causes of the coup: 1) the economic downturn in Trinidad during the 1980s as a result of arguably unnecessary and suspect structural adjustment impositions of the IMF3; 2) the resultant 3 Davison Budhoo resigned from the IMF in 1988, charging that the IMF had systematically and deliberately manipulated certain key statistical indices in order to cause international lenders to refuse Trinidad money, and so force the island into the purveyance of the IMF. Budhoo also alleged that the IMF, in spite of his protestations, continued to manipulate Trinidadian statistics in “an aggressive campaign of misinformation and derision” about Trinidad’s economic performance in the world market. See John Sawicki, The 1990 Islamist Coup in Trinidad and Regional Security Among Caribbean Microstates. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 2002: 140.

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discontent among the classes hardest hit by this downturn—poor African Trinidadians; and 3) the rise of Islam among these poor African Trinidadian classes. Sawicki documents the manner in which Islam has changed in Trinidad from a religion practised by predominantly middle-class South Asian Trinidadians to one practised by nonbourgeois Muslim groups. Sawicki states: In 1980 the Central Statistical Office listed 60,234 Muslims affiliated with ASJA [Anjuman Sunnat-ul-Jamaat, a mainly bourgeois East Indian organization], while in 1990 it recorded only 24,003. Alternately, while 2,499 were noted as “other” [Muslims] in 1980, that figure had grown to 41,729 in 1990, while an overall increase of the Muslim population was noted as being a plus of 2,399.

Where did the ASJA Muslims go? Who comprises the “other” category used by the Central Statistical Office? (Sawicki 78)4

Sawicki suggests that Trinidad’s economic and political turbulence of the last quarter of the twentieth century resulted in a mass exodus of skilled professionals and educated elite from the island; as South Asian Muslims departed in search of improved economic prospects elsewhere, mosque populations declined while conversions among the African Trinidadian population increased dramatically (80). Those conversions have been and continue to be encouraged by a significant number of anti-Western, anti-bourgeois Muslim missionary organizations beginning with the Islamic Missionary Guild in 1960 (the group responsible for the establishment of Jamaat al Muslimeen), and continuing with other organizations such as the Muslim World League, who extend to converts’ scholarships to study in Pakistan, Mecca and the Middle East. A similar fundamentalist group, the United Islamic Organization, is also composed of small Islamic splinter groups, and receives support from American Islamic foundations. The instigator of the 1990 coup, Yasin Abu Bakr of the Jamaat al Muslimeen was cleared of charges in the subsequent trials after the coup attempt, but Jamaat has continued to be the most publicized face of Afro-Islam in Trinidad, as well as an object of 4According to my calculations the increase in Muslim adherents should read 2,999 rather than 2,399.

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suspicion in the recent alarming rise in kidnappings, crime, and bombings in the country5.

What has been the appeal of Islam for disenfranchised African Trinidadian populations? According to Sawicki, Jamaat al Muslimeen recruits came predominantly from those segments of Trinidadian society that were “alienated both from gainful employment and mainline religion.” As young as eleven years of age, they had dropped out of a national education system in which elite schools were run in large part by Christian religious orders. When the Muslimeen stormed into Parliament during the 1990 coup, a teacher who happened to be present in the gallery recognized a youth she had previously taught.

When the teacher asked him why he had become a coup insurgent the youth answered: “‘Miss, I came out of school after five years and couldn’t read or write, and nobody knew or cared’” (Sawicki 109).

Concerning Western, Christian based education, Blyden wrote in 1876: “The Negro in Christian lands, however learned in books, cannot be said to have such a thing as self-education. His knowledge, when brought to the test, often fails him. And why? Because he is taught from the beginning to the end of his book training … not to be himself, but somebody else… He is not brought up … to be the companion, the equal, the comrade of the white man, but his imitator, his ape, his parasite” (37). In “The Mohammedans of Negrita” Blyden continued: The white boy who looks at the glories of the canvas… feels an elevation of sentiment, a rush of inspiration and aspiration. He grasps some fragment of the beauty of the marble, or gathers some flying whisper from the magnificence of the canvas, and echoes it back in the language of his own consciousness, and feels, ‘I, too, am a white man’! The Negro youth sees only the surface—it is all obscure allegory to him, and his feeling is frozen into language subtler than the marble 5

On Tuesday November 8, 2005, Abu Bakr demanded—on pain of “war and bloodshed”—that all Muslims submit two and one-half percent of their earnings to his organization as a tithe (zakaat). While some Muslim groups denounced his demand, Inshan Ishmael, CEO of Trinidad’s then-newly launched Islamic Broadcasting Network, sought to defend Abu Bakr on the grounds that Abu Bakr had been misquoted. See: Rachica Sookraj, “Muslims can seek injunction vs. Bakr,” Trinidad Guardian, Tuesday November 8, 2005: 5.

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he looks upon, as he asks himself, ‘What part or lot have I in this’?

(Blyden 329)

In Blyden’s estimation, Islam held benefits for Africans that Christianity did not extend. For example, Islam—more often than Christianity—came to Africans through trade and intermarriage.

Conversely, Christianity “came to the Negro as a slave… [H]e and his children received lessons of their utter and permanent inferiority …” (12). Such inferiority had persistently been conveyed to African Christians through what Blyden terms “the depressing influence of Aryan art”: No one can deny the great aesthetic and moral advantages which have accrued to the Caucasian race from Christian art, through all its stages of development, from the Good Shepherd of the Catacombs to the Transfiguration of Raphael, from rough mosaics to the inexpressible delicacy and beauty of Giotto and Fra Angelico. But to the Negro all these exquisite representations exhibited only the physical characteristics of a foreign race… (14)

In contrast, Muslims, “from some strange idiosyncrasy, perpetuated by religious ordinances, abhorred… making visible pictures of things they revered, loved or worshipped” (14). And while “It is not too much to say that the popular literature of the Christian world, since the discovery of America… has been anti-Negro”: Mohammedan history abounds with examples of distinguished Negroes. The eloquent Azan, or ‘Call to Prayer’, which to this day summons at the same hours millions of the human race to their devotions, was first uttered by a Negro, Bilal by name, whom Mohammed, in obedience to a dream, appointed the first Muezzin or Crier… Ibn Khallikan mentions a celebrated Negro Khalif, who reigned at Bagdad in the ninth century. He describes him as a man of great merit, and a perfect scholar… (15-16)

While Islamic cultures have hardly been exempt from involvement in slave trading, or from their own brands of racism and other forms of violence, it might be revealing to examine the ways in which slavery, racism and violence have manifested themselves in Muslim communities over and against the manifestations of these phenomena

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in the Christian, Western world. Suffice it to say that while Christians would be hard pressed to deny the truth of Blyden’s observations about the relationships existing between Christianity and Blacks in the West, Jamaat al Muslimeen member Bilaal Abdullah recently echoed Blyden’s claims: “Islam is dignity for the African. It changes behaviour” (Sawicki 186)6.

Sawicki contends that to assume that the Jamaat al Muslimeen has been without sympathy and support in Trinidad would be a “serious error” (111), for in 1990, the year of the coup, there existed “an undercurrent of unhappiness with the Government, which was witnessing rising militancy in the street and mobilization of considerable union and popular support” (110). Such undercurrents appear to be on the rise again today: the CIA World Factbook has now listed under its heading “Political Pressure Groups” for Trinidad and Tobago, none other than the Jamaat al Muslimeen.

I will end my discussion with a question. While the US is concerned with the policing and suppression of the spread of terrorism in the Eastern Caribbean7, how might we examine the phenomenon of the growth of Islam among diasporic Africans in islands such as Trinidad with an attitude of open inquiry and a willingness to practise careful observation and respectful listening? Many would protest that violent peripheral rogue organizations such as Jamaat al Muslimeen (who, we must consider, constitute only one of many growing African 6

Another claim made by Jamaat is that Christianity, because of its associations with the rise of unbridled, unethical and aggressive forms of capitalism and expansionism in the “New World,” has become suspect and corrupt.

7 See Chris Zambelis, “Al-Quaeda’s Inroads into the Caribbean,” Kandyce Kellshall, “Radical Islam and LNG in Trinidad and Tobago,” and Scott L. Wheeler, “The World: Trinidad and Tobago Terrorists Develop Island Operations.” The Trinidad Muslim population statistic of 15% cited by Wheeler and Kelshall in their articles dated 2002 and 2004 respectively, conflicts sharply with the statistic presented by the CIA. The CIA’s World Factbook cites that number as a mere 5.8% in 2004. This discrepancy is evidence of the role that alarmist exaggeration continues to play in this era of the so-called “war on terrorism.”

When I attempted to contact Scott Wheeler, requesting to know where he had acquired his statistical reference, I received no reply. I also attempted to acquire contact information for Kandyce Kellshall from the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, but my request was unanswered.

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Islamic groups in present-day Trinidad) do not warrant respect; however, in the spirit of Edward Blyden, I would suggest that if, without the use of physical coercion, we are to exert even the most negligible influence upon a peripheral “Other”—even a violent “Other”—we must first figuratively and perhaps literally as Blyden did, learn the language that s/he speaks. In describing his great success in encouraging Muslim Africans to read the Christian Bible in Arabic, Blyden quoted from a letter he received in 1876 from an African Muslim of Africa’s interior: Praise and glory to the Creator of the earth and the heaven. This letter comes from the youth, native of the Futha country, to the possessor of honour and knowledge, namely, the learned Abd-ulKarim, called among the Christians Mr Blyden. Peace to you, and to your family. How are you? I am in good health. I have received the [Arabic Bibles] which you sent me. I distributed them among the people…[T]hey asked me, ‘Where have you procured books like these’? I told them that a Christian man, who loves the Muslims, gave them to me. (Blyden 333)

Blyden suggested 120 years ago the necessity of the West to work much harder than it then did to understand African and African diasporic Muslims. His advice is still pertinent today because the West has not done this work. What are we waiting for? When will we actually begin to do it?

RICHARD J. DOUGLASS-CHIN UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR CANADA

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Works Cited Blyden, Edward W. Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race. Ed. Christopher Fyfe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967.

CIA. “Guyana: People.” CIA World Factbook 29 June 2005. 24 July 2005 http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gy.html “Trinidad and Tobago: People.” CIA World Factbook 29 June 2005. 24 July 2005 http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/ factbook/geos/td.html “Trinidad and Tobago: People.” CIA World Factbook 11 May 2004. 24 July, 2005 http://www.geoplace.com/hottopics/ CIAwfb/factbook/geos/td.html Diouf, Sylviane. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas, NY: New York University Press, 1998.

Kellshall, Kandyce. “Radical Islam and LNG in Trinidad and Tobago.”

Energy Security. Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. 15 November 2004. 20 October 2005 http://www.iags.org/ n1115045.htm Mallaby, Sebastian. “The Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire.” Foreign Affairs.

March/April 2002. 24 July 2005 < http://www-stage.foreignaffairs.org/20020301facomment7967/ sebastian-mallaby/the-reluctant-imperialist-terrorism-failed-statesand-the-case-for-american-empire.html> Sawicki, John. The 1990 Islamist Coup in Trinidad and Regional Security Among Caribbean Microstates. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 2002.

Sookraj, Rachica. “Muslims can seek injunction vs. Bakr,” Trinidad Guardian. 8 November, 2005: 5.

Wheeler, Scott L. “The World: Trinidad and Tobago Terrorists Develop Island Operations.” Insight on the News. World News Communications Inc. 24 December 2002. 20 October 2005 <http://www.hvk.org/articles/1202/279.html>.

Zambelis, Chris. “Al-Quaeda’s Inroads into the Caribbean.” Daniel Pipes. 22 October 2005. 26 October 2005 <http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/27208>

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Re-imagining Imaginary Constructs of Identity: Creolization and Wilson Harris’ Counter Discourse in The Four Banks of the River of Space This paper examines Wilson Harris’s theories of race, language and place as he articulates them in several of his essays and as they operate in his novel The Four Banks of the River of Space. An analysis of Harris’s literary techniques reveals that they disidentify with and deconstruct Western culture by completely rejecting the underlying ideology of the dominant language and creating another language (and logic) that goes beyond what is accepted and known.

Harris manipulates symbols by integrating binary opposites, twinning, and creating images of metamorphosis and regeneration to abolish binary opposites. Thus, race, language and place do not separate people into us/them or self/other; on the contrary, they unite us in our cross-cultural capacity and allow us, through our imagination, to free ourselves from social constructs that limit our humanity.

Because of cultural mixing, miscegenation, hybridization, syncretism, interculturation, diglossia, bilingualism, dual citizenships, creolization, and transculturation, identity becomes a dynamic term constantly shifting in meaning. The Caribbean is a place where many cultures have been forced into contact with one other through colonization, slavery, and indenture; and the languages of the Caribbean reflect the hegemony of the dominant culture. The language of the dominant Western culture —that of the colonizer— occupies a central position, and others, including the many Creoles of the

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Caribbean, occupy marginal positions. The dominant culture must control language in order to maintain the status quo of power; however, the status quo is changing, at least in theory, as Caribbean writers, including Wilson Harris, seek to subvert the dominant discourse and assert their cross-cultural identity.

Both Mervyn Alleyne in The Construction and Representation of Race and Identity in the Caribbean and the World (2002) and Peter Roberts in Language, Race, and Ecology: The Shaping of Colonial Identity in the Caribbean (unpublished manuscript), early on in their respective books state that race and ethnicity are socially constructed. These social constructs create boundaries that both exclude and include; and belonging on the inside or outside of a certain race and ethnicity is one of the features of identity. The three main features of identity, race, language, and place, distinguish insider from outsider. Stuart Hall in “Who needs ‘Identity’?” (1996) defines Identity Theory as a theory of discursive practice. Discursive practices are the ways in which an ideology of the dominant culture creates and responds to reality in order to preserve the structures of power. Identities both include and exclude, and they function precisely because of the play between power and exclusion.

In this paper I will examine Harris’s theories of race, language and place as he articulates them in several of his essays and as they operate in his novel The Four Banks of the River of Space. In addition, I will analyze some of the literary techniques Harris employs and discuss how these techniques free him to deconstruct identity based on discursive practice and construct cross-cultural identities. Harris is aware of the importance of myth, the collective unconscious, and the revisioning of history to foster crosscultural multiple identities. In his work, he seeks to create “a deepseated cultural change that would alter ways of seeing and thinking” (qtd. in Fazzini 9). He focuses much of his critical discussion on the cross-cultural capacity of creolization; and in his novels he integrates European, African, Amerindian, and Eastern Indian mythologies.

Harris’s ideas, set forth over more than half a century, are articulated with consistency in his critical essays and fiction. He recognizes colonial discourse in the novel of classical realism, what he

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calls the “novel of persuasion”1. In his criticism and fiction Harris counteridentifies, or inverts the hegemony of the dominant discourse of Western culture. In addition, Harris disidentifies with Western culture, completely rejecting the underlying ideology of the dominant language by creating another language (and logic) that goes beyond what is accepted and known2. He does this by unraveling the three features of identity to reveal that race, language and place do not separate people into us/them or self-other; on the contrary, they unite us in our cross-cultural capacity and allow us, through our imagination, to free ourselves from social constructs that limit our humanity. Harris disidentifies and deconstructs identity in The Four Banks by deliberately manipulating symbols trough integration of binary opposites (in other words both binary polarities apply) and by doubling or duality, which forces on the reader a kind of double vision.

In addition, he uses images of metamorphosis and regeneration to abolish binary opposites completely (in other words, in the process of becoming, neither binary category applies).

The Four Banks of the River of Space (1990) is the final novel in Harris’s Carnival Trilogy, which also includes Carnival (1985) and The Infinite Rehearsal (1987), all set in Guyana. In the preface of The Four Banks, a character who signs himself W.H. introduces the novel as “book of dreams” that Anselm, the protagonist, has entrusted to him to edit. This narrative form of a main story embedded in a wider frame creates a kind of doubling of the narrator and author, a fusing of their identities. Doubling of characters is a recurring metaphor for the collapsing of identities in many of Harris’s novels. Duality of consciousnesses is a way of fusing the binary opposites of self/Other.

The plot begins with the apparition of Lucius Canaima, emerging “through a door of space into memory and imagination” (3). Anselm, an “architect, engineer, painter, lover, sculptor, [and] saint,” (9) remem1

See Harris: “Form and Realism in the West Indian Artist” in Tradition, the Writer and Society: Critical Essays. London and Port of Spain: New Beacon, 1967.

29-30.

2 For more information about identification, counteridentification, and disidentification, see McLaren, P. & T. Tadeu da Silva. “Decentering pedagogy: Critical literacy, resistance and the politics of memory.” Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter Eds. McLaren and P. Leonard. London: Routledge, 1993. 47-90.

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bers that forty years before he had witnessed and did not report Canaima killing an Amerindian, a Macusi dancer. Canaima is also Anselm’s “twin” brother born to his slave-mother Rose’s twin sister (also named Rose) several years after Anselm was born. In Anselm’s descent or ascent into his unconscious memory, he encounters more people from his past (all dead). At the end of the book of dreams, the characters realize their common humanity, cross-cultural genesis, and identity.

Throughout the novel, the identities of the characters overlap, merge, and reverse themselves. The Greek God Proteus, who can change shapes at will, is an image that depicts Harris’s conception of identity. In Anselm’s dream history, all the characters, including the setting or landscape of the dream, are components of the dreamer’s psyche. A Jungian reading would interpret the myriad characters as inseparable parts of an organic whole, which is the psyche or identity of the narrator/author; and the river and rainforest journey as a journey into the psyche(s) of the character(s).

Harris’s goal in writing this kind of fiction is to alter the ways we see and think. The first step to meaningful change is the breakdown between self/Other, self and other being the basis of identity as defined by the dominant discourse. By vanishing this binary opposition, Harris redefines identity in terms of creolization, which he calls the “saving nemesis” of humanity. Creoleness, he says, implies recuperative powers that allow us to cross boundaries that restrict our vision. It allows us to throw “a ceaseless bridge across the chasm of worlds” to link the “doomed world of materialism” to the “real (however apparently unreal)” world of evolving cross-cultural identity, and in doing so, creolization unravels hegemonic discourse (“Creolization” 35). In other words, cultural contact doesn’t have to result in one group dominating the other.

The identities of Harris’s characters are unlike the “consolidated character” of the novel of realism; his characters are kaleidoscopic with myriad identities that overlap, reverse themselves, and connect humans with each other across cultures, time (past, present and future), and space. Anselm, expresses the creolization of identity when he says: “We have earned the right to go forward…into profoundest self-recognition of ourselves in and through others: the interior

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anatomy, the true terrifying flesh of the World, the true terrifying knowledge of the Heart that may set us free at last from fear” (142).

Throughout the novel, Harris makes extensive use of doubling: the paradox that unites self and other. In Stories of the Double (1967) Albert J. Guerard writes: “Few concepts have haunted the human imagination as durably as those of the double—from primitive man’s sense of a duplicated self as immortal soul to the complex mirror games and mental chess of Mann, Nabokov, Borges” (qtd. in Drake 22). Sandra Drake says that doubling is “an assertion of an assertion of an existence that is at once the ‘same’ as the original that is being copied and very often its ‘opposite.’ … Yet the whole power of the concept of doubling derives from the awareness at a deep level of consciousness that this opposite and ‘other’ is also an aspect of ‘self’ –an aspect representing both profound wishes and profound fears” (22-23). The double is a way to mitigate fears, bridge gaps between cultures, and “to end a reading of the history of America mestiza as unrelieved victimization” (19). Doubling, or twinning, says Harris, reveals a human being or a culture’s totality. “The coming together of pairs of opposites creates a new conjunction whose character is neither the one known thing, nor the other, but a third unassimilable or in-between thing. … Twinship can be defined as the unrealized synchrony between two or more cultures which, at first sight, seem remote in time and circumstance (“Literacy and Imagination” in Selected Essays 73).

Doubling also reveals simultaneous or parallel realities. Lucius Canaima, Anselm’s half brother and cousin, is recognized by Anselm as his twin. Anselm reflects that he and Canaima have “The same voice. Yet not quite the same. As if in Lucius I perceived, however faintly, parallel lives, alternative existences… How strange is one to oneself? How many ‘quantum strangers’ does one bear in oneself?” (56). Twins, dual consciousnesses, bear “mutual instinct and memory” and “mutual unconsciousness” (109). The duality of the self, the union of self and other, realizes that when one brutalizes an other, one brutalizes oneself. “To dream of being killed was to dream we had ourselves killed others, to dream of being attacked was to know simultaneously that were ourselves attacking others,” relates Anselm (64).

By drawing many overlapping dualities in The Four Banks, Harris

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erases the boundaries of identity between characters. Thus, Penelope, of The Odyssey, is also Penelope George; Penelope’s first husband, Simon, is twinned with her second husband, Ross; Proteus, Harold, and Simon are also Ulysses, and so on with all the characters.

Discursive practice ties identity to race, which is defined in terms of discrete categories of color rather than a continuum of colors. However, in The Four Banks, race is described as “coercive identity.” “Blackness was but a mask. Strip it away and one was left with the features of blood on one’s doorstep,” muses Anselm, who is of mixed racial heritage (89). He concludes, “What was clear was the necessity to penetrate, replay, reinterpret, and not succumb to, formulae of static evolution: to respond to the true, multiple voices—familiar, native, alien—that run in one’s mixed inheritance, mixed blood” (137). By continually constructing and deconstructing the racial identities of his characters in a “self-revising tapestry,” Harris makes the reader wonder if one can ever really grasp the protean concept of identity: “I glimpsed my own strangeness,” writes Anselm, “Who was I? Was it ever a question I would ever be able to answer?” (27). The answer is complex, and, according to Harris, it involves coming to terms with the crossculturality of humanity as a whole, and with it, paradoxically, the crosscultural capacity of imagination inherent in multiplicities of identity.

The English language, as the language of the dominant discourse, has propagated the constructed binary of self/Other and the notion of static identity. When Anselm thinks of his family and acquaintances, he says that their most secret dreams, their prayers, were uttered in the English language. “English became their mental tongue —it became their landscape of psyche—whatever color of their skin. …Penelope and Ross were so seized by their commanding native tongue they would have accepted the divide [of self/other] as fate’s sealed discourse” (27-29). In a Creole language, though, born from English and other languages, one can hear that “mixed voices of…mixed antecedents, …mixed ancestry, bring a new quality of incantation into the language of object and subject” (29). Anselm likens the mixing of languages to the voice of the flute: “It sings and tells its tale in the English language yet solid (however whispering) music gives the Word that echoes in one’s frame as one kneels un-

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canny twists, uncanny spirals, that relate to ancestral tongues, Macusi, Carib, Arawak, Wapishana pre-Columbian tongues that have been eclipsed” (44). Though these languages have been eclipsed, they are not dead; they are continually recycled, like water evaporating into cloud, then returning as rain, “into cloudkinship to latencies of precipitation in and of the Waterfall through rock. And the voice of the spiraling flute mirrors within solid music the ascension of the spirits of the living and the dead through rock and cloud into space” (45). In recognizing the resurrecting ability of creolization, Harris neutralizes the domination of the English language and erases the distinction of self/Other.

The cross-cultural dynamic is one that abolishes the boundaries of mapmakers and redefines how identity is connected to place. Realistic novels often conflate a return to nature with a return to the savage nature that lurks just beneath the enlightened veneer of civilized Europeans. In Western literature, says Deborah Root in Cannibal Culture (1996), European encounters in non-European cultures has become a trope: “White people always seem to be dying undignified deaths or going crazy in hot countries” (173). She concludes that when the colonist comes face to face with different people, cultures, and places, it causes “extreme anxiety about authority, that is, about her ability to remain in control of the experience and her position relative to the various things she encounters. The notion of giving up authority voluntarily is both elided and rendered intolerable to the Western subject” (175).

On the other hand, in Harris’s fiction, the hinterland is a space in which Western characters can confront and transcend their attachment to power, bringing to consciousness unconscious biases. At the end of The Four Banks when Anselm, Ross, and Penelope enter into the interior of the rainforest carrying the three dead Macusi children, Anselm feels Ross’s “instinctive distrust of—and withdrawal from—the savage Macusis (‘savage’ as he could not help feeling they were)” (126). But as he experiences the reversal of power, of being the captive of the Macusis and of the rainforest instead of being in command in a place with imposed order, Ross is transformed: His early public school, university unthinking acceptance of epic

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formula, of the great epic ‘savages’ of ancient myth, the great warriors underwent a change. He began to distrust them within the suffering Word and primitive child he now bore in his arms with acute misgiving and ambivalence. The Word changed. Its inherent glory dimmed…He spoke of the purity of the language in order to mask from himself apparent deficiencies he feared, the inability of the Word to probe the ultimate issues, he was driven to harness the Word to purely utilitarian purposes, he began to surrender himself to the visual and to retreat from arts of visualization or the seeing mind that lies though and beyond the consuming eye. (127)

When this reversal of programmed thought happens to Ross in the rainforest, the dominant discourse disintegrates: “The volumes in South America he had brought from England shaped themselves into brilliant ashes…, a crackling chorus of high-flying nineteenth century super-power map-maker, botanists, biologists, evolutionists, soldier-civil servants, anthropologists, chroniclers, etc., etc.” (135-36).

Place is not fixed for Harris, nor is any one particular place tied to identity. A quantum view of place unites humans with the environment: “a quantum physicist would describe ‘Quantum Immediacy’ by saying that parts of ourselves are embedded everywhere—in the rock, in the tree, in the star, in the river, in the earth, everywhere.

Those parts are very frail. But they are enduring” (Harris, qtd. in Fazzini 24-25).

Harris’s novels move the reader beyond the limiting frames of socially constructed definitions of identity into an inclusive cross-cultural formulation of humanity. His ideas go against discursive practices—what many have accepted without question as the truth. However, if we are aware of these practices and how and why social constructs of identity are formed, we can free ourselves from their boundaries and alter the way we think and see.

SUZANNA ENGMAN UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO, RÍO PIEDRAS

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Works Cited Alleyne, Mervyn. The Construction and Representation of Race and Identity in the Caribbean and the World. Jamaica: U West Indies P, 2002.

Drake, Sandra E. Wilson Harris and the Modern Tradition: A New Architecture of the World. Westwood, CT: Greenwood P, 1986.

Fazzini, Marco, ed. Resisting Alterities: Wilson Harris and Other Avatars of Otherness. New York: Rodopi, 2004.

Hall, Stuart. “Introduction: Who needs ‘Identity’?” in Questions of Cultural Identity. Eds. Paul du Gay and Stewart Hall. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996.

Harris, Wilson. “Creoleness: The Crossroads of a Civilization?” in Caribbean Creolization: Reflections on the Cultural Dynamics of Language, Literature, and Identity. Miami: U of Florida P, 1998. 1-15.

Selected Essays of Wilson Harris. The Unfinished Genesis of the Imagination. Ed. A.J.M. Bundy. New York: Routledge, 1996.

The Four Banks of the River of Space. Boston: Farber and Farber, 1990.

Tradition, The Writer, and Society: Critical Essays. Port of Spain: New Beacon, 1967.

Roberts, Peter. Language, Race, and Ecology: The Shaping of Colonial Identity in the Caribbean (2005 unpublished manuscript).

Root, Deborah. Cannibal Culture: Art, Appropriation, and the Commodification of Difference. New York: Westview P, 1995.

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Silent Talking: Agency and Voice in V.S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street What particularly calls the attention of a reader of Miguel Street (1959) nearly fifty years after its first publication is the way in which V.S. Naipaul represents female characters within gender prescribed roles, e.g. the mother, daughter, neighbor, and how race and class intersect to create gender behavior boundaries, especially those related to speech. Naipaul’s female characters in Miguel Street seem to be dynamic yet stereotypical representations of women. However, by noting the observations and perception of women through Naipaul’s narrator, we can uncover underpinnings of agency, voice and perceived power as they interact with gendered prescribed behavioral scripts. In Miguel Street, and in many other Caribbean short stories or novels, active and vocal female characters abound; however, in their vocality there resides a paradoxical silence. I examine the possible meaning of speech and silence in order to question the limits of agency for these characters.

Miguel Street was written as a collection of seventeen short stories based upon Naipaul’s memories of growing up in Trinidad.

Regardless of the fact that there is a boy narrator who is observing and reacting to the events depicted, the presence of the adult Naipaul intrudes upon the narrator’s observation. The narrator responds to events occurring on one street in Trinidad. In “Prologue to an Autobiography” (written in1982) Naipaul wrote that Miguel Street was his first novel ever written and that some of the material is autobiographically based. The story material and characters were constructed, in part, on personal memories. However, changes were made in order to construct a more efficient narrative. For example, 365

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he simplified his complex family makeup to include only a mother and son, and then chose a young boy to see the events from a child’s point of view.

The boy observes what seems to be a disparate and un-situated community. What holds this neighborhood together? Some might say that the society is not held together. It is a pessimistic story about people who cannot be successful in their world. The critic, Selwyn Cudjoe, writes: Miguel Street examines a colonial society in which the characters’ traditional values have no organic connection with the social environment and their quest for a meaningful existence seems to be denied because of the apparent chaos that surrounds them — hence the major theme that one cannot achieve anything in Trinidad because of the futility and the sterility of the society. (31)

How do the women within this novel support or contradict this negative view of the sterility within Caribbean society? Patricia Mohammed lays the foundations of the society on the role women have played within the Caribbean. She writes, First, a large number of women, if not the majority, have always worked outside of the home and, if not fully, then certainly have been largely responsible for the support of their households. As central figures in production, women have also provided continuity to household and family life. (24)

She claims that the mother-centered stereotype has been inherited and that these facts account for women being blamed for increasing the Caribbean male’s marginalization (25). Helen Pyne-Timothy addresses this issue and argues that Naipaul’s female characters reflect a view that women lack agency in their lives. In referring to several novels in Naipaul’s early period, she writes: Females seem so unimportant to the major thrust of these works, they are obviously not what Naipaul calls “the doers” or the creators in these societies, and they are not apparently involved in the delicate structuring of social relationships which the men weave among themselves. (24)

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Yet in Miguel Street, and in many other Caribbean short stories or novels, active and vocal female characters abound; consequently, a few of these women are included here. There is Laura, who is independent socially, sexually, and economically from the fathers of her children. The narrator writes appreciatively of her, “She loved all her children, though you wouldn’t have believed it from the language she used when she spoke to them” (85). He goes on to praise Laura’s vocal ability, “Some of Laura’s shouts and curses were the richest things I have ever heard, and I shall never forget them” (85). The narrator’s friend, Hat, also praises Laura’s well-crafted curses, “Man, she like Shakespeare when it come to using words” (85). Is Laura’s power manifested within the range that Naipaul permits his female characters by her skillful cursing?

It is notable that the boy narrator’s mother repeatedly expresses her power over him with her dominant voice and manner. The many episodes related to her include episodes of aggressive behavior such as, slaps, beatings and harsh words directed towards the boy. In one scene, the boy goes off without permission and upon coming home his mother says, “Where you was? You think you is a man now and could go all over the place? Go cut a whip for me” (47-48). Mary is an exception found within this society; she is a nurturing mother whose tranquil manner is commented upon by the narrator. Note how the boy considers her atypical in the following comparison between Laura and Mary.

Now, to compare Laura, the mother of eight, with Mary the Chinese, also mother of eight doesn’t seem fair. Because Mary took really good care of her children and never spoke harshly to them. But Mary, mark you, had a husband who owned a shop, and Mary could afford to be polite and nice to her children, after stuffing them full of chop-suey and chow-min, and chow-fan, and things with names like that. But who could Laura look to for money to keep her children? (85)

At this point, the narrator excuses Laura for her rough ways because she is the only income provider in her family, i.e. her status as a single mother allows her to exhibit traditionally masculine traits without censure. The responsibility of motherhood is not accepted easily by all mothers in Miguel Street. For example, there is an

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ambivalent and supposedly scheming young mother who gets the saga boy (ladies’ man), Eddoes, to raise one of her children (Pleasant) as his own. This woman claims that Eddoes is the father, and that if he does not take responsibility for Pleasant, she will have his approved scavenging area changed, She say if I don’t take the baby she go make me lose my job…She know lots of people. She say she go make them take me away from St. Clair and put me in Dry River, where the people so damn poor they don’t throw away nothing. (98)

Because she is beautiful and has many friends, she is seen as a powerful woman, consequently, Eddoes is worried. The narrator makes it clear that this exceptionally beautiful baby girl is not really Eddoes’ child, but no one dares to tell Eddoes about their suspicions.

The reader is positioned to lay judgment on the mother. Hat says, I know the sort of woman. She has a lot of baby, take the baby by the fathers, and get the fathers to pay money. By the time she thirty thirtyfive, she getting so much money from so much man, and she ain’t got no baby to look after and no responsibility. (98)

When the boys see Pleasure’s mother, the narrator comments, “…Eddoes’ stock rose when we saw how beautiful the mother was.

She was a wild, Spanish-looking woman” (99). Here the boys seem to excuse the mother for her behavior because of her attractiveness.

All of these women mentioned (except Mary) have an independent authority over themselves. Each one speaks up for herself within the limited framework that Naipaul provides. We don’t actually know the motivation of the woman Eddoes was with, but we do know that she is not willing to sacrifice herself for every child she bears. She schemes to find a man who might have been the father of her baby to take custody. She and the other women mentioned are all “doers” (active characters with agency within the novel as seen by the youthful narrator) but what are the limits of this agency? Do these women function as powerful and central voices within the dominant community? Is the voice women are given, though vocal, still silent?

Critics have claimed that women’s voices are silenced when they are shown to react in opposition or response to what males within

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their world do (Debold, Wilson and Malavé 231), yet clearly women are powerful from this youthful narrator’s perspective. Is this a typical and accurate portrayal of Caribbean society? When reviewing statistics, it becomes clear that family patterns in the Caribbean often entailed women who took care of the basic needs for themselves and their own children. (Harmsen 22) There is evidence of communal surrogate mothering (othermothering) as well as women with agency within Caribbean society. For example, the author, Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe) comments that because of unstable social and economic conditions, women formed supportive communities and those powerful women were typical of her experience. In an interview

by Trinidadian author, Elizabeth Nuñez, Condé expresses this solid view of Caribbean women: I was educated by a strong mother and a strong grandmother. My sisters are strong. All the women I knew in Guadeloupe were strong.

They triumphed over the conditions that limited them. My books are a reflection of what I see in life. (Nuñez 4)

Naipaul portrays this type of women’s community in the novel.

For instance, when the women who live on Miguel Street pool their mothering efforts to raise Eddoes’ child, the narrator observes, “She became the street baby and all the women, Mrs. Morgan, Mrs. Bhakcu, Laura, and my mother, helped to look after her” (100).

If we look at the speech and the meaning of silence within these Caribbean women, different patterns emerge. Women’s voices have been stated to be the silenced ‘outsiders’ voices and that this is why there is much less writing by Caribbean female writers. (Cooper 87) However, we have seen that in Caribbean society and in Miguel Street that women are not usually portrayed as silent.

Carole Boyce Davies and Elaine Savory Fido address this issue when they define the concept of voicelessness to include not only works written (or not written) by women, but also the actual representation of women within the text, a partial definition is as follows: By voicelessness we also mean silence; the inability to express a position in the language of the “master” as well as the textual construction of woman as silent. Voicelessness also denotes

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articulation that goes unheard. In practical terms, it is characterized by lack of access to the media as well as exclusion from the critical dialogue. (1)

According to this definition, Laura would not be classified as completely voiceless because she is both heard and a part of the critical social dialogue within her community. However, her commentary does not reach outside the boundaries of Miguel Street, so her power and influence are contained. Mary, on the other hand, being an atypical representation of woman, is silent. Her voice is removed by the narrator’s perception of the society’s norms, i.e. because she has a husband, she has little individuality or voice.

Consequently, the narrator remembers that Mary fed her children well, not what she has said.

As previously mentioned, women of the Caribbean have always been highly vocal. In the introduction to Renna and Other Stories, Brooklyn author, Paule Marshall whose parents were emigrants from Barbados, claims that she developed her narrator’s voice from women. As a child she listened to West Indian women in the kitchen who collected together after daily domestic chores to swap stories and share experiences. When writing about those authors who have influenced her writing she refers back to those who were not writers at all but speakers, …I always acknowledge before all others: the group of women around the table long ago. They taught me my first lessons in the narrative art. They trained my ear. They set a standard of excellence. This is why the best of my work must be attributed to them; it stands as testimony to the rich legacy of language and culture that they so freely passed on to me in the wordshop of the kitchen. (11-12)

Yet these women’s voices were confined because they had little direct influence on the community that lies outside of their immediate audience. They are marginalized because their impact is confined within a private sphere.

So far, all of the women mentioned are mothers of the same social class but there is another woman of interest on Miguel Street, Mrs. Hereira. She also expresses her individual voice but with some

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differences. She is said to be Portuguese, and she lives with a man, Toni, who beats her. They are new residents on Miguel Street and are not well accepted by the neighbors because Mrs. Hereira is apparently from a more affluent class and the characters are suspicious of her.

They cannot understand why she voluntarily chooses to live within their community and experience a lower standard of living. The narrator expresses this view: This lady didn’t fit in with the rest of us in Miguel Street. She was too well-dressed […] a little too pretty and a little too refined, and it was funny to see how she tried to jostle with the other women at Mary’s shop trying to get scarce things like flour and rice. (102)

Mrs. Hereira often got into the habit of going to the narrator’s house after she had been beaten. Though this domestic violence suggests that she was dominated, the reading audience discovers that she has left her wealthy husband who was a medical doctor because her life with him was too sterile. Later, though, Mrs. Hereira does return to her husband after her life with Toni becomes too dangerous to be considered exciting. In this case, again, Naipaul creates a female character that has some agency and voice. She is able to explain why she is with Toni and not her husband. Also, she understands her husband well enough to know that she can return to him if her relationship with Toni goes awry. However, by the perspective shown, her independence appears to be a flaw and Mrs. Hereira’s voice is ineffective.

In order to continue exploring voice, paradoxically, silence must be considered. Usually the meaning of silence is opposed to voice, for example, Deirdre Lashgari writes in Violence, Silence, and Anger that “…the voices that have been silenced or, speaking, [which] have not been noticed hold the missing pieces of our understanding of human community, and of ourselves” (11-12). However, all silences do not lack agency. In Language and Silence, George Steiner writes that, We …speak too much, far too easily, making common what was private, arresting into the clichés of false certitude that which was provisional, personal, and therefore alive on the shadow-side of speech. (53)

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Steiner asserts that silence is an alternative to too much speaking (54). Doris Sommer offers another understanding of silence in Sacred Secrets when she focuses on the silences found in Rigoberta Menchú’s testimony. She writes that, “Minchú’s [sic] audible silences and her wordy refusals to talk are calculated, not to cut short our curiosity, but to incite it, so that we feel our differences as frustrated intimacies” (200). Sommer addresses the use of silence as a conscious technique to exert power. In light of the possibility of uncovering voice in silence, I would like to look at the meaning of silence found within a particular incident in Miguel Street.

Laura, the outspoken vivacious independent mother of eight mentioned earlier is presented as a woman who chooses not to be with a man. When Nathaniel, her current boyfriend, stays with her too long, he is tolerated for a while, but Laura physically beats him.

In one incident, Nate chooses to be silent and not respond to Laura’s calls in order to appear masculine and powerful in front of the neighborhood men, but Laura approaches him, “You think you is a man. But don’t try playing man with me, you hear. Yes, Nathaniel, is you I talking to, you with your bottom like two stale bread in you pants” (88). Nathaniel’s companions laugh appreciatively at Laura’s word play and she laughs in return. Only the threat of calling the police can get Nathaniel to move on. When he says to her, “But who go mind your children?” (89) She replies, “That is my worry. I don’t want you here. You is only another mouth to feed. And if you don’t leave me right right now I go go and call Sergeant Charles for you” (89). Laura is not a woman to be trifled with or pushed around by a man.

Yet when her older daughter, Lorna, gets pregnant and comes home with the news, “Ma, I going to make a baby” (90), Laura behaves in an uncharacteristic manner. First, she cries so loud and mournfully that the boy narrator reports, “Laura’s crying that night was the most terrible thing I had heard. It made me feel that the world was a stupid, sad place, and I almost began crying with Laura” (90). After these tears, Laura and the house seem subdued. The narrator says, “She was an old woman now” (91). The silence in Laura’s manner is too loud to be considered “perplexingly prim,” as one early reviewer claimed (Poore 1). Laura’s silence pervasively weighs upon her household and community in an oppressive manner,

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She no longer shouted at her children, no longer beat them. I don’t know whether she was taking especial care of them or whether she had lost interest in them. But we never heard Laura say a word of reproach to Lorna. That was terrible. (91)

Laura loses her expressive vocalizing ability, which had seemed to ameliorate her dismal life situation. She is no longer able to create humorous word pictures out of her pain. The voice, which can authentically express her pain, is unavailable. Laura loses her determination to fight for life. For this mother and her daughter, the defeat is in what the pregnancy represents. Lorna’s condition eliminates the hope that through education and determination, she could have a better life. Earlier in the story, Laura is quoted as saying, “It have nothing like education in the world. I don’t want my children to grow like me” (90).

Critics may misread Laura’s defeat as prudishness. One New York Times reviewer sums up Laura’s reaction in this manner, “There is a girl who had eight children by seven fathers and grew suddenly and perplexingly prim when her daughter showed signs of carrying on the tradition.” (Poore 1) However, Laura’s reaction seems more reasonable if it is viewed as an inability to psychologically adjust to Lorna’s changed circumstance. Laura stops believing that there can be a release from the continuous cycle of pregnancy and poverty— if not for herself— then for her eldest daughter. Laura’s bleak perspective of her daughter’s future takes away her resilient determination.

Lorna is ultimately buried in her mother’s unfamiliar silence and she commits suicide. The reading audience infers that silence was more oppressive and cruel than angry curses could ever be. After Lorna’s death, Hat comments, “Is what they always do, swim out and out until they tired and can’t swim no more” (91). In her hopeless state, Laura has no energy to react when she receives the news that her daughter has killed herself. The narrator says that, “…when the police came to tell Laura about it, she had said very little. Laura said, ‘It good. It good. It better that way” (91). In my reading, this sparse comment represents a kind of auditory silence that refers to what is not said, rather than what is said. Laura’s audible silence preceding

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her daughter’s suicide is punctuated by another voiced silence in her reply. The comment is not an expression of approval about her daughter’s death, but rather an expression of the emptiness she feels.

Naipaul, perhaps inadvertently, complicates voice to include a silence that has agency and is an unexpected communication medium that impacts the residents on Miguel Street with an oppressive force.

In this context of vocal and vocalizing women who argue, shout, and manage their own and their children’s lives, silence can be an audible and powerful punishment. Generally, Naipaul creates female characters that are outside the realm of important action within Miguel Street and consequently are voiceless. (Pyne-Timothy 247) Further, his writing reveals a gender bias in that women’s status is relationally intertwined with a man’s and that these female characters are presented exclusively within the roles of wife, mother, daughter and/or promiscuous woman. However, perhaps by using his memory of women in Trinidad for story material, he inadvertently reveals moments of women’s agency and voice. (Conway 5)

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Works Cited Boyce Davies, Carole and Elaine Savory Fido, eds. Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1990. 1-24.

Conway, Jill Ker. Exploring the Art of Autobiography: When Memory Speaks. New York: Vintage, 1998.

Cooper, Carolyn. “Writing Oral History,” Noises in the Blood. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. 87-95.

Cudjoe, Selwyn. “Tradition, Miguel Street, and Other Short Stories; The First Period of Naipaul’s Development,” V.S. Naipaul: A Materialist Reading. Amherst: U Massachusetts, 1988. 16-36.

Debold, Elizabeth, Marie Wilson and Idelisse Malavé. Mother Daughter Revolution: From Betrayal to Power. Massachusetts: AddisonWesley, 1993.

Harmsen, Jolien. “From a Child’s Point of View. Intergenerational Influences on the Organization of Household,” History of the Family 2. 4 (1997): 379.

Lashgari, Deirdre. Violence, Silence, and Anger: Women’s Writing as Transgression. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1995.

Marshall, Paule. Reena and other Stories. New York: Feminist Press, 1963.

Mohammed, Patricia. “Towards Indigenous Feminist Theorizing in the Caribbean,” Feminist Review 59 (Summer l998): 6-33.

Naipaul, Vidiadhar Surajprasad. Miguel Street. New York: Vintage, 1959. . “Prologue to an Autobiography” in Literary Occasions. Ed. Pankaj Mishra. New York: Vintage, 2003. 53-111.

Nuñez, Elizabeth. “Talking to Maryse Condé. Grand Dame of Caribbean Literature.” Nov. 2000. UNESCO, <http://www.unesco.org/ courier/2000.11/uk/dires.htm> (2 Nov. 2005).

Poore, Charles. “A Nation’s Honor?” The New York Times. 5 May l960, <http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/07/specials/naipaulmiguel.hmtl> (3 Oct. 2005).

Pyne-Timothy, Helen. “Women and Sexuality in the Later Novels of V.S. Naipaul,” World Literature Written in English, 25:2 1985. 298306.

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. “V.S. Naipaul and Politics: His View of Third World Societies in Africa and the Caribbean.” CLA Journal. 28:3 March 1985. 247262.

Steiner, George. Language and Silence. Essays on Language, Literature, and the Inhuman. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1998.

Sommer, Doris. “Sacred Secrets: A Strategy for Survival,” in Women, Autobiography, Theory. Eds. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson.

Madison and London: U of Wisconsin, 1998. 197-207.

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Who’s Stuck Up?–The Tar-Baby Story in the Caribbean I. Introduction In the second chapter of his book on the folklore of the Hausa peoples of western Africa, Tremearne (1913) compares various versions of the immortal “Tar-Baby Story” as they have been recorded among the different tribes of that region. He uses versions from, the Shisumbwa, Ronga, Angolan, Sierra Leone, Yoruba and Northern Nigerian traditions. The rhetorical questions he puts forth are food for thought: Are these simply “silly stories”? Does their appeal lie merely in being able to “amuse children”? He goes on to say that these tales have become so widespread because they represent the power of the magical to ward off thieves and danger, and thus symbolize the need for preservation and protection that are universal human essentials (23-24).

After reading Tremearne’s interesting comparison, I discovered many other versions of the same tale from other parts of the world, including the Afro-American version taken from the Uncle Remus stories, “The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story.” What I found motivated me to keep exploring this fascinating area of the folklore of the world especially with respect to how this “tar baby” has been expressed in the Caribbean region. In my search I discovered tar baby stories from the Bahamas, Curaçao, Montserrat, Nevis, St. Maarten, St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. Vincent. Others, from islands such as Haiti and Martinique were written in French Creole and thus, were difficult to analyze. I decided to limit myself to the English-speaking Caribbean, 377

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except for the Curaçao version, which was conveniently translated into English from the original in Papiamentu.

What I hope to prove through this comparison is that Tremearne’s expressed hypothesis concerning the meaning behind the tar baby stories, namely that they “represent the power of the magical and symbolize the need for preservation” needs to be taken several steps further. There are many more values and meanings in these tales.

They have endured the test of time because of their intrinsic power to bring out the best and the worst in human beings. In essence, I point to the fact that the “tar-baby,” with its silence, provokes the anger and violence of its antagonists. In many stories the “baby” is even perceived as stuck-up or proud. Its passivity brings out some of the more negative qualities of the characters. A basic question that I ask is, “What does this say about the power of silence and passive non-violence in human nature? Might it not point to how easy it is to get stuck and tangled in our own pride and haughtiness?”

All the stories, the ones in Tremearne and the nine Caribbean stories I have gathered, have the common elements of deceitfulness, trickery, lying, stealing, cunning and conniving. Some are told for amusement, others for more obvious moralizing purposes. I believe there is a motive behind every story that has been created, either orally or in written form. They do not appear spontaneously for no reason at all. At times, their original purpose may be lost. What I propose to do is look at some of the possible purposes behind the tar baby stories and arrive at some general conclusions.

II. Folklore from Africa “Teachervision” is a website designed for classroom teachers. On its page titled “African Folk Tales” emphasis is given to the value of using folk tales and myths as a means of handing down traditions and customs from one generation to the next. They are a way of communicating values, history, attitudes and social norms. Africa’s folk literature includes tales, myths, legends, proverbs, tongue twisters and riddles. Among them, the tales of Anansy (Ananse, Nancy, Nanzi) the Spider are perhaps the most well known. Because he can be wise, foolish, amusing or even lazy, Anansy is a primary character

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in many of these stories such as the ones from Curaçao, Nevis, St. Croix and St. Vincent.

Although considered a classic of American literature and a landmark of American folklore, the 1880 publication of Uncle Remus Tales, compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, reflects the values and lore of Africa. There we find “Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby,” written in AAVE (African American Vernacular English), in which Brer Rabbit is the outstanding trickster figure. In his 1955 review of what was then a recently published book titled The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus, Duncan MacDougald states that the stories are not “just another collection of folktales but represent a vast storehouse of information that deserves detailed comment” (1). He mentions six different fields in which the tales have significant input: linguistics, comparative literature, artistic, psychological, historical-sociological and folkloristic.

There is an interesting article on “Techniques of Creolization” by Lee Haring (2003) that describes African Creole tales that have emerged and have been propagated throughout five island territories of the Indian Ocean: Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, the Seychelles and the Comoros. He affirms that Creole communities developed in these societies much the same as in the Caribbean (and in the United States). “Where societies come into a colonized, multiracial existence for the benefit of a European minority, the normal reaction of the constituent groups is to renegotiate culture” (19). This is done by using a variety of techniques that are reflected in the folklore, both oral and written, that emerges in the Creole community. Among these are language-mixing, quotation, parody, reduction, allusion, augmentation, framing, mixing channels and narrative lexicon and “signifying.” Some of these techniques are universal, but he adds, “the violence and oppression of creolization gives them a special energy.” I believe this remark applies aptly to the Caribbean region and can be seen clearly in the tar-baby stories, as I will explain below.

III. The Tar-Baby Story Cline (1930) did a comparative study of the tar-baby stories in order to address the question of their origin. The two possible centers of dissemination are India and Africa. Others of her time, Jacobs,

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Dähnhardt, Parsons and Brown had also worked on the subject, finding that there were countless versions of the story in both regions.

She went into much detail in her comparison, but finally reached the conclusion that the story originated in India from where it was carried to many lands, especially Africa and other parts of Asia (78). Her conclusion is based on “the priority of the Indian literary versions, their logical nature along with their peculiarly Indian tone and philosophy, and furthermore, the incongruity of the figure of the rabbit in the African and American tales” (77).

According to Cline, the tar-baby story consists of four fairly well defined parts: 1) a clever animal, occasionally a person, is suspected of stealing; 2) a sticky object is placed in its path; 3) the thief strikes the object first with one hand, then the other, and so on until he is completely immobilized, and 4) the observer then comes to punish or kill the thief who, in many cases, escapes by a clever ruse. In India the creature caught is usually a monkey, a man or a jackal. In Africa and America the rabbit is the most common figure.

The one essential part of any tar-baby story is what Cline calls the “stick-fast” motif. The thief, sometimes out of curiosity, but usually out of anger and spite, strikes the tarred figure. The anger is provoked by the figure’s silence. In many cultures this is a sign of a lack of politeness, good manners, friendliness or even hospitality. The thief’s reaction is to strike, resulting in his getting stuck. While wrongly interpreting that the tar creature is “fighting back,” the thief continues his assault until he is completely overcome.

A common feature in the stories from India finds the thief getting stuck at five points—his two hands, two feet and his mouth or head— typifying the five senses, according to Cline’s interpretation. This is an interesting point because what usually moves a thief to his act is greed and disrespect for another’s property. What might be implied in the sticking of the “five points” is that there are dire consequences in allowing oneself to be overcome by greed and sensuality. One can get “stuck” in one’s own faults or imperfections.

Cline points out that in many of the Indian tales there is a “well or spring story” and that the tar-baby itself was formerly a water sprite.

The scarcity of water in this and many regions of the world gives the story special significance within this context.

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In the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America there is evidence of a tar-baby story in the Soteapaneco language from the Veracruz region of Mexico. Titled “Kwento de Kooya,” the story incorporates regional motifs typically associated with tar-baby stories throughout Mexico and is similar to trickster tales found in many parts of the world. There is a trickster rabbit who steals maize, the region’s main staple. The story seems to be addressing the conflict that arises between the needs of an individual and those of the community at large. The phrase “throughout Mexico” implies that this literary motif is widespread in the country, pointing once again to the social appeal that the story has for all cultures.

IV. The Tar-Baby in the Caribbean I believe that MacDougald’s statement above with regard to the “vast storehouse of information” that can be found in African folktales can be equally applied to the tar-baby stories from the Caribbean.

The tales provide us with information on: Linguistics (by studying the language varieties that are used); Comparative Literature (by contrasting the tales according to the islands or territories where they originate); the Arts (the literary styles in which the charm, wit and satire of animals and humans are expressed); Psychology (the study of human attitudes, relationships and feelings as expressed through the characters); Historical-Sociology (how the culture, social norms and institutions of the Caribbean are reflected in the stories), and Folklore (comparing the ways the traditions and customs of the region are conveyed).

When we look at the nine specific Caribbean tales that I have selected for this study, we find numerous similarities and differences.

Ten categories or features are used for comparative purposes: Main characters, Form of the tar-baby, What has been stolen?, Process of “getting stuck,” How does the “stuck” character end up?, Feminine presence in the tale, Use of language, Apparent purpose of the story, Story ending, and Unique features.

There is a wide variety of main characters in the stories, although only one of them includes humans—the tale from St. Maarten has two “ol’ ladies.” If we consider “Nanzi,” “Bru Nancy” and “Bu Nancy”

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as the representation of the famous spider, then all the other stories have animal characters: rabbits, lions, goats, a Tacoma or tiger, and even a shark.

In the majority of the stories, a detailed description of the tar-baby or tar-figure is not given. Perhaps this implies that the writer or storyteller takes for granted that the reader or listener would naturally know what the tar-baby is. In St. Maarten, it is a “tary man”; in St. Croix, it is a statue in one tale and “two boards in the form of a man” in the other. In St. Thomas, the figure has “fritters” in his hand and in St. Vincent, there is “bread and fish,” certainly to entice the thief even more, especially in settings where food is scarce.

The stolen goods vary from tale to tale: water, fruit, corn, yams, peas, and mangoes. Nothing is stolen in the Nevis story. Up to this point, neither the tar baby nor the stolen objects seem to have much importance—they can vary, or not even be mentioned at all.

In reference to Cline’s remark concerning the presence of water, springs and wells in tar-baby stories, the St. Vincent and Bahamas tales include this setting. She also mentions that in a story from Antigua, the tar-baby is placed in the water, the place where water-ogres live.

The “process of getting stuck” is a more complicated feature. As was stated above, the “stick-fast” motif is essential to all these stories.

In the Bahamas, Nevis and St. Maarten tales, part of the mouth or lips get stuck, perhaps symbolizing gluttony, or sexual prowess as in the Bahamian version in which the rabbit tries to kiss the baby. In Curaçao and Montserrat the belly or stomach gets stuck (gluttony again?), while in Curaçao, Nevis, St. Maarten, St. Croix and St. Vincent, the head is stuck, perhaps implying that the thief’s rationality got stuck. I find interesting the suggestion from Cline that the “five point stick” represents the five senses with its logical insinuation that an excess of sensuality or sensuousness can get one into trouble. In all the stories there is “multiple contact” with the baby.

Getting unstuck from the baby and free from the threatening situation is just as complicated, which is precisely what gives the tar-baby story its appeal. This is where trickery comes into play in all the stories except the St. Croix version in which Bo Lion gets scaled and boiled. There are “mock pleas” in several of the stories such as the Bahamas account in which B’Rabby tricks the animals into

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throwing him into the fine grass, and the St. Vincent version in which Ba Nancy begs that he not be thrown into the sea. This is almost ludicrous because when he finds himself at the bottom of the ocean, he laughs and says, “This is my home.” If the character is really the Anansy spider, does it make sense? (Well, who said it had to make sense?)

There are few female characters in these stories and only one royal one, the Queen in the Curaçao story. Interestingly enough, “Fader Gad” has a “daughter” in the St. Croix version. Once again, logic is missing. In only one of these tales is the wife outrightly mistreated and it is in the Nevis account where Bru Nancy, after getting freed, tricks his wife into fetching him some food from the tar-baby. When she does not return, he goes after her, accuses her of “huggin’ and kissin’ the mon” and gives her a whipping. Dirty dude…

All the stories were written in some Creole variety including the version from Curaçao which, of course, appeared originally in Papiamentu. Some of them tend towards the more basilectal end of the linguistic continuum, such as the Bahamian, Montserrat, St. Maarten and Nevis versions. None were very difficult to read so that the transcribers, such as Ms. Parsons from 1922, must have tried to simplify the transcriptions as much as possible. These Caribbean tales were more or less uniform in their use of the various lects.

The “apparent purpose of the story” is admittedly quite subjective and is practically limited to the ending of each tale. Some have inferred moral endings, such as the Bahamian, Cruzian, and St. Vincent stories.

Others end abruptly on a humorous note giving them an “amusement” purpose. Someone might dare say, hopefully facetiously, that the purpose of the Nevis tale, with its male chauvinism, is to show men how to treat their women!

The St. Croix account featuring Fader Gad was unique. It would be interesting to find out how or why this version emerged. The threeday symbolism from Christian tradition, plus the reference to the creation story of the “making of the Moon, Sun and Stars” give it a different tone from the others. Even so, this main character does not really demonstrate any traditionally divine attributes; in fact, he has a daughter and in every other way acts as any other human being.

So, we ask, why the name and title? But then, each of the tales has its

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own peculiarities. No two are exactly alike, revealing the creative nature of the tar-baby story, not only in the Caribbean context, but also around the world.

V. Reactions and Conclusions Poliner (1984) uses the Ananse anthology to illustrate how folk tales, as one of many human creative enterprises, serve the purpose of shaping a people’s search for identity. They achieve a twofold objective: first, they are able to reflect the societal, ethical, emotional and spiritual realities of a specific cultural community. These realities include the realm of dreams, aspirations, frustrations, pain and folly that are part and parcel of a national idiosyncrasy. Second, good folk tales carry in their essence an ambiguous nature. These ambiguities allow and even press the individual reader and the wider collectivity to define and re-define their relevant codes and meanings in life (12).

The fact that folk tales are open to a variety of interpretations and meanings makes it possible for a community to explore and rediscover new meanings in its ongoing search for identity. This is where I feel the true value of the tar-baby stories lies—in their ability to contribute to their communities’ search for meaning, their ambiguity or apparent senselessness allow space for new meanings to emerge.

For example, in the Cruzian account Ba Nansy states that the bottom of the sea is “his home”. At first sight, this might seem illogical. However, what he might really be saying is that “survival at any means” IS home, even if it requires confronting adverse situations. This would be the reality of Africans trying to survive in their new condition in the Caribbean. Another example is the other Cruzian tale that has religious overtones. The “truth” about the story is not the details of the “Father” figure, but rather the reality of a creative process and the importance of keeping one’s “word.” After all, the creation came into being, according to many religious beliefs, through the pronouncement of the “divine word,” one that was truthful and trustworthy.

In her article, Poliner also suggests that the Spider creature was forced into exile by way of the Middle Passage along with its creators, the Ashanti peoples of West Africa. I believe that the “tar baby story” also traveled in the hearts and collective memory of his people

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providing them with inner spiritual resources that helped them face the hard life they were encountering (14). Poliner says it succinctly: “Anansy tales provided the slave with a means of therapeutic, psychosocial release, well adapted to the unstructured and largely unprincipled world in which he or she was to survive” (16). In this sense, both the Anansy and the tar-baby stories were/are tools or resources in the Africans’ quest for new identity within the Caribbean context. The astuteness of the different characters in all the tar-baby tales to be able to flee from the “stickiness” of their situations is precisely the resource they needed to survive. Trickery and deceit are “relative” realities within the context of these stories. For some, they are qualities that should be shunned and never taught to one’s children. For others, they might be the necessary tools that might ensure one’s own survival and that of one’s progeny. The tar-baby stories could be considered by some as primers in survival tactics.

Finally, lets turn once again to the essential “silent” quality of the tar-baby—the silence that provokes violence, that silence that brings out the good and the bad in the “listener” of the silence. As I stated above, it is so easy to get stuck and tangled in one’s own pride. The tar-baby, without saying a word, could actually be pointing a finger at the true proud and haughty people of our society. Several of the characters in the stories approached the “baby” with “good” intentions, greeting it, striking up a friendly conversation, and expecting polite reciprocity. But when they did not receive it, their attitudes changed and that is where the trouble began. As we reflect on new meanings for ourselves through these tales, we can also ask: Do we need to be so bent at times on having people react the way we expect them to?

Why are we so programmed into programming everyone else? Can we not learn to let people be? Certainly, politeness, friendliness and hospitality are positive social values and should be encouraged, and even expected, but when these desired ideals do not manifest themselves, is it necessary to react the way we sometimes do by ignoring, criticizing, and condemning to the point of eliminating the offender physically or emotionally? That is where trouble usually begins, and the tar-baby stories so accurately depict this truth.

So, answering Tremearne’s questions, NO, folk tales, including these “profound” tar-baby stories are not simply or merely there for

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amusement. But they do not just simply “represent the power of the magical and symbolize the need for preservation” either. There is so much more to them. I hope to have proven my point.

VÍCTOR M. VÁZQUEZ UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO, RÍO PIEDRAS

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References AILLA (1993). “Kwento de Kooya”. In The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Retrieved from the Internet on May 12, 2003. http://www.ailla.org Cline, R. (1930). “The Tar-Baby Story”. In American Literature, Vol. 2, Issue 1, (March 1930), 72-78. Retrieved from the Internet on May 16, 2003. http://www.jstor.org Edwards, C. (1942). Bahama Songs and Stories. New York: G. E. Stechert & Co. Geerdink-Jesurun, N.M. (1972) Nanzi Stories—Curaçao Folklore.

Curaçao.

Haring, L. (2003). “Techniques of Creolization”. In Journal of American Folklore. Washington, Winter, (19-35).

MacDougald, D. (1955). “Review-The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus”: Brevard, NC. Retrieved from the Internet on May 12, 2003. http:/ /xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/review1.htm Parsons, E. (1933). Folk-lore of the Antilles, French and English, Parts I and II. New York: American Folk-lore Society.

Poliner, Sharlene M. (1984). The Exiled Creature: Ananse Tales and the Search for Afro-Caribbean Identity. In Studies in Humanities 12 (1984), 12-22.

Teachervision (2003). “African Folk Tales—Background Information” Retrieved from the Internet on May 12, 2003. http:// www.teachervision.com Tremearne, A.J.N. (1913). “Folk-lore and Folk-law”. From Hausa Superstitions and Customs: An Introduction to the Folk-Lore and the Folk. London: John Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 1-27.

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Woman with the Cloven Hoof: Lilith of Jewish Folklore and the La Diablesse of the Caribbean ABSTRACT Early in Merle Hodge’s novel, Crick Crack, Monkey, the protagonist says: “And so Aunt Beatrice, who was only a distant lady in our memory, grew horns and a diablesse face and a thousand attributes of female terrifyigness” (10).

In this paper, I examine the woman with the cloven hoof, an invariable sign of the diablesse in the Caribbean, and the sensual attributes assigned to her in different places, among them her clothes, the presence of a hat or turban, eyes that we can or can’t see, a fragrance accompanying her, and whether she asks three questions. I will look at and analyze representations of the La Diablesse by artists, authors and storytellers, paying close attention to the leg as an outward symbol of conflicting natures or of having access or giving entrance to another sphere, thus disrupting boundaries; confusion or overlapping with the soucouyant, exclusion and difference; solitude, rejection, or lack of communication; a representation of male fears; and the desire to nurture and devour, among others. Finally, I will also discuss her ability to drive men crazy or to their deaths in some versions, and in others, her desire to steal a baby, in an attempt to show parallels between this figure and Lilith, Adam’s first wife according to tales told by Jewish rabbis.

Early in Merle Hodge’s novel, Crick Crack, Monkey, the protagonist says of the aunt that’s trying to take her away from Tantie: “And so Aunt Beatrice, who was only a distant lady in our memory, grew horns and a diablesse face and a thousand features of female terrifyingness” 389

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(10). The La Diablesse or devil-woman that the narrator mentions has a long history in the Western imagination. As Marina Warner points out: Demonesses with lovely faces, nymphs who turn into foxes, Circe in the Odyssey, Alsina in Gerusalemme Liberata, the Sibyl of the Sibylline Mountains of Umbria, Italy, Venus of the Venusberg, who tempts the knight Tannhauser, all display their cloven hoof and much worse in the morning, after the first night of love, or in the aftermath of a thousand years of heedless bliss. (112)

The Caribbean and its diaspora have also maintained this figure of the devil-woman with the cloven hoof alive in art and literature. In Allsopp’s Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, the djablès (diablesse, jablesse) is a “legendary evil creature, appearing usually on a lonely road in moonlight, assuming at first the form of a very pretty young woman, finely dressed, in order to lure a man into a wooded or bushy place before revealing herself as an old crone with cloven hooves, who will cause the man to go mad or die” (194). Besides Merle Hodge’s Aunt Beatrice and the mother’s description of the jablesse in Jamaica Kincaid’s story “In the Night” as “…a person who can turn into anything…Take good care when you see a beautiful woman. A jablesse always tries to look like a beautiful woman” (9), in her 1998 novel, Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson has her protagonist tell of a dream in which she sees a tall woman with “one good foot and one hoof like a goat” (48). She includes the following description of the La Diablesse as she’s represented on a deck of tarot cards: “…a tall, arrogant-looking mulatto woman in traditional plantation dress and head tie. Her smile was sinister, revealing sharpened fangs. Behind her ran a river, red like blood” (51-52). In Haiti, she is believed to be the spirit of a dead woman not allowed to enter heaven because she must be punished for the crime of being a virgin at the time of her death (Harper 30).

Furthermore, as recently as January 21, 2004, Allister Bain’s play, Effie May, which is based on the lore of the diablesse in Grenada, was showcased in London at the Oval House Theater, and on April 6, 2005, Antiguan filmmakers Mitzi and Howard Allen had the North American premiere of their feature film, “Diablesse,” at Ithaca College in New

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York. According to the news release, “‘Diablesse’ is a humorous look at Caribbean folklore, particularly the oral tradition of storytelling.

The story unfolds in one night in which Diablesse, the “she-devil,” attempts to find a husband and get married before sunrise” (“Caribbean Filmmakers…”).

In other visual arts, she is represented in sketches, paintings and sculptures by Trinidadian Alfred Codallo and Haitian Serge Jolimeau, among others, and there is a German artist who has lived in Tobago for such a long time that she is described in Oonya Kempadoo’s Tide Running as Tobagonian artist Hilda Schmitz (103). Her real name is Luise Kimmé, and she numbers among her gigantic sculptures one of the La Diablesse that leaves her cloven hoof in evidence.

Mentioning her visit to Kimmé’s exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Port of Spain in 1995, Marina Warner describes her as “the irresistible haunting enchantress of the night who wears flouncy clothes and a picture hat and charms her victims who do not realize that she is a devil woman in disguise until it is too late. Kimmé’s La Diablesse was appropriately dressed to the nines, with her cloven hoof peeping from under the frilly hem of her dress” (113).

Although she can have a donkey/cow/goat/horse-foot, the cloven hoof is the most common indicator that one is dealing with a diablesse, the sign that she is a demoness. However, different places and authors have given her variable descriptions: a large hat under which she hides a face resembling that of a corpse or a madras turban, a fan, a long skirt and petticoat that rustle and hide her leg with the cloven hoof, eyes that we can or cannot see, a distinctive fragrance, maybe “a rich perfume blending with the smell of damp and decaying things” (“Trinidad and Tobago Folklore”) and whether she asks three questions or not. On a solicitous website, you are told that if you feel “you may encounter a La Diablesse on your way home, take off all your clothes, turn them inside out and put them on again, and this will surely protect you” (“Trinidad and Tobago Folklore”).

Furthermore, whereas she retains her ability to drive men crazy or to their deaths in some versions, in others she is represented as wanting to steal a baby.

According to Gérard A. Besson, this figure may be “a syncretic creation, combination of the West African goddess Erzulie, tragic

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mistress turned vengeful, slave concubine, beautiful, desirous, feminine presence, the ever young seductress…” who in Trinidad “is the spirit of the woman wronged, and as such awaits the male predator so as to take vengeance for transgressions against women” (37). If she is seen in the cane or cocoa at noon, the man who wronged her sex and follows her because she caught his eye will find that he can no longer cast a shadow and “is never quite himself again” (Besson 38).

Always on the move, whether on a lonely road waiting to seduce a man or hoping to steal a baby, one can say that she represents something similar to versions of the soucouyant: “the evils of wandering women who do not stay at home where they ‘belong’” (Anatol “Transforming” 55). In fact, that is the point critic Gisselle Anatol stresses even more in a second article: Besides serving as metaphorical inverse-templates for “good” mothers in Society—somewhat like a photo negative—the soucouyant and La Diablesse legends provide foundational concepts of how female mobility and sexuality are to be viewed in mainstream society.

The tales make implicit the notion of women’s general untrustworthiness. Condemned for behaviour that focuses on liberation and sensuality rather than domesticity and reproduction, …the independent travels of both figures…suggest a dangerous participation in an otherworldly realm outside the private sphere. (“A Feminist Reading”)

The La Diablesse definitely transgresses the limits of acceptable notions of female sexuality and attitudes toward children. In fact, her very name places her in the context of Judeo-Christian spirituality that I would like to explore with the aim of setting up some parallels to an earlier female devil, or demoness, that might help explain how the seemingly unrelated notions of lust and stealing/killing children came to be attributed to the same figure. In order to do this, I want to refer to studies of Jewish folklore and, more specifically, to the figure of Lilith, Adam’s first wife. In his study of the storytelling of the rabbis, Howard Schwartz says that “So vivid was the presence of Lilith in their lives that she became the projection of their sexual fantasies and fears” (56), and adds: “Lilith’s role as the seducer of men is likely to have been based on the Babylonian night-demon Lilitu, a succubus

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who seduces men in their sleep, while Lilith’s role as child slayer may well derive from the Babylonian demon Lamashtu. It is interesting to note that the roles of Lilitu and Lamashtu became blurred together, just as Lilith takes on the roles of both seducer and child-slayer” (58), as does the diablesse in the Caribbean.

According to Schwartz, Lilith apparently first took on characteristics related to lust and seduction, with related issues of female independence and sexuality, and became so dominant that she started taking on the aspect of the child-stealing/destroying witch, a lesser figure, probably “between the 1st and 3rd centuries, and Lilith has played a powerful dual role ever since in Jewish folklore and superstition” (59).

Lilith can probably be considered another precursor of the diablesse for many reasons. They both incarnate the same two characteristics of lustful seductress and child-stealer/slayer, and they are both also avenging creatures. As for Lilith, Schwartz points out that her agency rests on her repeated coupling with Adam, one which is associated with his being unable to attain holiness because she drains him of his soul just as much as of his seed, and she could also have vengeance on her mind because her children are demons while Eve’s are human (64).

In terms of the diablesse, her meeting with a man takes place as a pure act of seduction, and the versions that have her turn into an old crone confirm this, for what is her transformation if not into a woman past the childbearing stage? In her child-stealer version, she is more obviously destructive, with the direct attack being as effective as spilling the man’s seed.

If Lilith holds more power over men than over women (Schwartz 63), so does the diablesse. For the man, she represents the challenge of the forbidden, the never-before experienced that can equally destroy him. This is cleverly expressed in Theresa Lewis’s Caribbean Folk Legends, when “Charles Marinon, the Jablesse Baiter who boasted that he wasn’t afraid of anything living or dead deliberately went La Jablesse hunting armed with crucifix and a small container of salt in his pocket—so he said” (82) and is found “spread-eagled face down in the middle of the road…every bone in the body was broken, every limb stretched out of its socket, and there was neither scratch, nor

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dent, nor tear in the skin, or a spot of blood present to indicate how it had happened” (87).

In contrast, stories about women struggling against Lilith usually involve the child-stealing version, not the seductress (Schwartz 53).

This also happens in those about La Diablesse. One of them is Richardo Keens-Douglas’s La Diablesse and the Baby. In the introduction, one reads: “They say that if you make the mistake of talking with her, she’ll take your soul, just like that” (np). In this story, a stranger asks for shelter during a rainy night. The grandmother who is singing a lullaby to her grandchild picks him up and hugs him to her bosom when she realizes that the stranger has already said “Let me hold the baby for you” twice. According to the narrator, La Diablesse “was said to have a habit of always asking the same question three times” and when she saw that the grandmother wasn’t going to give him up, after the third time she “turned and walked out the door in the rain” (np). The next morning, the grandmother sees the traces of “one human foot, one hoof, one human foot, one hoof” (np) on the verandah, a definite sign that the stranger was a La Diablesse. It is interesting to note that the grandmother in folktales is usually past the childbearing stage and in this one, it takes such a woman to overcome the power of the three questions and make the la diablesse leave.

A final point I would like to make is that in analyses of Jewish folklore, Lilith’s role has been described as the polar opposite of Eve’s: “So it is that where Eve is dependent, Lilith is independent; where Eve is passive, Lilith is sexually demanding; where Eve is maternal, Lilith is certainly not; where Eve is a faithful and loyal wife all the days of Adam’s life, Lilith abandons him…they are the poles of a single personality” (Schwartz 62) and “Every woman is likely to experience the full range of emotions, including those attributed to Eve and those of Lilith…To deny one side or the other is to deny the wholeness of the self” (Schwartz 65).

Whereas we can all agree that there is some truth in that notion of the wholeness of the self that results from an acceptance of the Lilith/ la diablesse and the Eve in us, however, I propose that in the Caribbean there already exists a version of the La Diablesse that combines the figure’s two aspects, seductress and child-stealer, in a way that retains

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her independence while transforming her into a protector of children.

I’m referring to one of the stories that Patrick Chamoiseau includes in his Creole Folktales, “The Most Beautiful One Is Under the Tub,” about a parrot that has to wait twenty years until the only thing that he can say finally makes sense. In this Creole version of the Cinderella story, the La Diablesse appeared at Anastasia’s christening, took her “in her arms, rocked her, kissed her, ran long fingernails through her hair, and put her down again” (12). She had a great time at the party, dancing all night, but repeated this ceremony at dawn, and when she left “from beneath her dress came the sound of a galloping horse.

Eyelids bounced open at the sight of her skirts lifting as she showed off (with loud braying) the dun hoofs fetchingly attached to her ankles…She vanished into a tree—from which burst that silly parrot, squalling his nonsense” (13). The La Diablesse who turns into the parrot will eventually reveal where the cruel mother has hidden Anastasia from a gentleman that she wants her other daughter to marry, not Anastasia. That way, instead of claiming the child for herself in typical La Diablesse fashion, she comes to her aid as the parrot that must die after liberating the girl from the mother’s wicked intentions. The child-stealing La Diablesse, then, in one action liberates herself from her compulsion and recuperates maternal, nurturing aspects without giving up the fun-loving, seductress side that shows off the sign that she’s a devil, her hoof. This “wandering woman” who had not stayed home, had shown up at the christening, and eventually secured Anastasia’s proper marriage serves as proof that, in some cases, the double facets of the La Diablesse do remain intact.

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Works Cited Allsopp, Richard, ed. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. With a French and Spanish Supplement edited by Jeannette Allsopp.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Anatol, Gisselle. “Transforming the Skin-Shedding Soucouyant: Using Folklore to Reclaim Female Agency in Caribbean Literature.”

Small Axe 4.7 (2000): 44-59. . “A Feminist Reading of Soucouyants in Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring and Skin Folk.” Mosaic 37.3 (2004) http:// www.questia.com/PM.qst?action=print&docId=5008460005. 9/2/ 2005.

Bain, Allister. Effie May. “OVAL HOUSE First Bites Writer’s Season.”

Spring 2004 http://www.ovalhouse.com/Theatre/firstbitewriter %27season2004.htm 11/14/04.

Besson, Gérard A. Folklore and Legends of Trinidad and Tobago. San Juan, Trinidad: Paria Publishing Company, 2001.

“Caribbean Filmmakers to Screen New Film at Ithaca College.” Ithaca College News Releases, March 23, 2005. http://www.ithaca.edu/ news/article.php?id=1670, 10/12/2005.

Chamoiseau, Patrick. Creole Folktales. Translated by Linda Coverdale.

New York: The New Press, 1988.

Harper, Fowler B. Problems of the Family. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952.

Hodge, Merle. Crick Crack, Monkey. Oxford: Heinemann, 1981.

Hopkinson, Nalo. Brown Girl in the Ring. New York: Warner, 1998.

Keens-Douglas, Richardo. The Diablesse and the Baby. Art by Marie Lafrance. Toronto: Annick Press, 1994.

Kincaid, Jamaica. “In the Night.” At the Bottom of the River. New York: Vintage, 1985. 6-12.

Lewis, Theresa. Caribbean Folk Legends. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1990.

Schwartz, Howard. Reimagining the Bible: The Storytelling of the Rabbis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

“Trinidad and Tobago Folklore: Tell Us a Story, Raconteur.” http://

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w w w. n a l i s g o v t . t t / F o l k l o r e / T R I N I D A D - A N D - T O B A G O FOLKLORE.htm. 2/23/02.

Warner, Marina. “Siren/Hyphen; Or, the Maid Beguiled.” New Left Review 223 (1997): 101-113.

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“Grenadianese”: The Research of Alister Hughes into Grenada’s Local Language, and Links to other Caribbean Countries Introduction Caribbean Language is like an orchestra, more appropriately, a steel band orchestra, with each island beating on a different pan, with a different sound. Lead Tenor, Tenor, Bass, Guitar, and Double Second.

Each in its place, each with a place, and blending as they beat into one sweet music which we call Caribbean Language.

The reality of our Region is that within that common grouping which we call Caribbean Language is a diversity of speech and expression with remarkable similarities, as well as notable differences.

In the Anglophone Caribbean, we share a common theme of at least 200 years of British rule and control, a common history of colonialism and slavery, but beneath that is a wealth of diversity and distinction which make each country unique while still somehow being part of the whole.

This paper is based on a collection of work on Grenada’s popular language, which, for the purpose of this paper shall be referred to as ‘Grenadianese’, in memory of Alister Hughes who coined the word for words and phrases in Grenada’s Creole language.

Alister Hughes Alister Hughes’ name is synonymous with journalism. A Grenadian by birth and commitment, he was, during the 70s and 80s, correspondent for various wire services and radio reporter for several Caribbean radio stations. The voice of Alister Hughes was well known 399

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as the voice for Caribbean news, and particularly for news on troubled Grenada.

During his 30 years of active journalism, and particularly during the final years of Gairy’s administration and the four years of Maurice Bishop’s People’s Revolutionary Government, Hughes systematically built his reputation with the international community as the source for credible news out of Grenada. At times, his reports on Caribbean radio stations as well as through his privately circulated Grenadian Newsletter, were the only sources of independent news coming out of Grenada.

The irony of his journalistic career is that in spite of the spate of arrests and imprisonments of persons opposed to both regimes, and in spite of consistent attempts to vilify and discredit his news reports, it was only on October 19, 1983, the day of Maurice Bishop’s murder, that Alister Hughes was arrested and imprisoned.

Hughes’ imprisonment amplified the international focus on Grenada during that nation’s most tragic times. Alister Hughes was the news that reporters from the Miami Herald and the London Times went looking for during the American Intervention in Grenada. His freedom was trumpeted in the media of the world. ‘By persecuting the reporter, those responsible ensured that he became part of the news; the messenger became the message.’1 Hughes was repeatedly recognized and honoured for his outstanding service to media and press freedom. He refused the offer of the British award, Commander of the British Empire, CBE, but referred to the Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree, conferred on him by the University of the West Indies as ‘the most memorable day of my journalistic career’.

Hughes’ journalistic career was sandwiched between years of research into every aspect of Grenada’s historical and cultural life.

For years before entering active journalism, he had a Folk Museum at his home, with his collection of Grenada’s artifacts as well as a substantial collection of documents and books on the Caribbean and

1 Citation on the occasion of conferment of an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree. Cave Hill, UWI, Barbados 1990.

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especially on Grenada. In addition, he engaged in private research by way of collecting material on Grenada’s Creole language.

In 1966, he contributed a short article, ‘Non-Standard English in Grenada’2 to the Caribbean Quarterly journal. While I have personally taken issue with his choice of description of Grenada’s Creole, almost 40 years ago, in 1966, this may have seemed acceptable.

With winding down of his active journalism in his latter years, Hughes resumed his research into Grenada’s history and culture, and by 1997, he stated his intention to write a book on Grenada’s Creole Language3. Unfortunately in the eight remaining years of his life, this was not completed.

In 2002 Hughes prepared a paper, ‘Grenadianese’ for presentation at UWI’s Grenada Country Conference. In the paper he made a tender plea for acceptance of the language of the Grenadian people.

English is Grenada’s official language. That’s what you (should) hear spoken in Parliament. That’s what you’ll hear by the Receptionist at any of our hotels. And that’s what you’ll hear (if you are deemed to be a visitor) when you chat with (our premium) taxi men and vendors.

But English is not the national language of this island. That’s something different. To hear the national language, you must associate with Grenadians when they are relaxing…When they’re not careful about speaking ‘good English’. In the national language, the people of this Island have developed a special vocabulary. …These words and phrases mirror Grenada’s history…and have become so entwined with standard English that the users are hardly aware of them. And so, unnoticed, something unique, something we may call ‘Grenadianese’ has evolved.

It is unfortunate, however, that this cultural gem is not considered ‘respectable’. Words from this vocabulary are banned from class rooms where ‘proper’ English is taught. And little boys and girls get their knuckles rapped for using them. Nevertheless, the vocabulary continues to be used by all sectors of the society and Grenadianese flourishes.4

2 ‘Non-Standard English in Grenada’. Hughes, Alister. Caribbean Quarterly.

Vol. 12 No. 4 Dec. 1966.

3 ‘Alister Hughes passionately believes in Caribbean unity’ by Yohannan, Diana. Sunday Express. August 31, 1997.

4 ‘Grenadianese’ by Alister Hughes. UWI’s Grenada’s Country Conference, UWI. Grenada Centre 2002.

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At his death, in February 2005, his lifelong collection of artifacts was donated to emerging Grenadian Folk Museums at Westerhall and Belmont Estates. Books and papers including the Grenadian Newsletter were bequeathed to the UWI Grenada Centre. The task and privilege have been given to the writer of this paper to coordinate and complete the research on the Grenadianese Collection.

What does the Grenadianese Collection contain?

Alister Hughes’ collection of Grenadianese is a Folkloric collection, varied in the extent of completion of each entry. It comprises approximately 1500 entries, A-Z, of Grenadian Creole words and phrases. The entries are organized mainly as 3”x5” and 4”x6” cards.

Some entries are merely a record of the word or phrase while others give standard interpretations of meaning; example/s of usage; attempted etymology and phonetics based on a Phonetic Scheme also included in the collection’s documents.

One can assume that the major research was carried out during the 1960’s based on the references used: • Concise Oxford Dictionary 5th Edition (1964); SOED 3rd Edition (1962) • Literature of that period, such as: Caribbean Quarterly March & June, 1956; M G Smith’s Dark Puritan (1963) Slinger Francisco’s (Mighty Sparrow’s) “Calypsos to Remember” (1963) Frank Collymore’s ‘Notes for a Glossary of Words & Phrases of Barbadian Dialect’ (1957) • Scrapbooks, apparently compiled from newspaper and other clippings. Indicated in references such as ‘Scrap Book 3 Pgs. 51 & 52’, etc.

The collection also contains over 100 newspaper clippings from Trinidad Express newspaper of late 70s possibly early 80s of “From Our Angle”. These are satirical illustrations, words and meanings of

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a Trinidadian dictionary. Presumably these were to be used as references for the Grenadianese Collection.

Several magazine articles and related documents make up this collection, including notebooks with compilations of Grenadianese words.

A notebook compiled July–October 1996 while at Trinity, Dublin, marks Hughes’ second stage of research into Grenada’s Creole. The notebook contains extensive notes from this comprehensive search for English Language and Linguistics in general, Caribbean Language and references found for Grenadian Language in particular.

The collection is incomplete, and on the basis of preliminary consultations with UWI Linguists, it would need to be reviewed and revised in keeping with current linguistic research and for general use and value. Similarly, spelling and etymology would need to be reviewed and revised.

A note to the research suggests that words and phrases were collected within the following categories: Carnival; Food; Drinks; Clothing; Games; Parts of the body; Ailments and deformities; Types of people; Descriptions However, analysis of the collection indicates that these initial categories were significantly expanded. For instance, there are items relating to Customs: Flora: Fauna: Furniture & equipment:

Maroon; Su-Su. Ché Bœuf; Bluggo; La lé.

Tit-er-e; Maboya; Zagada.

Press; Safe; Lay Lay Stick.

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Even in its present form, this collection is a valuable record of 20th Century Grenadian Creole. Completion is vital, requiring significant linguistic and historical input in addition to careful coordination and management to bring this project to completion.

Other Sources of Grenadianese Apparently, the only published collection of Grenada’s Creole language is a mimeographed publication, ‘Popular phrases in Grenada Dialect’ by C. W. Francis, produced around 1971. It was used by Allsopp as a reference for his Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage.

There are several papers and documents on Carriacou’s language (Carriacou is Grenada’s sister island, equivalent to Trinidad’s Tobago).

Most significant seems to be a PhD dissertation ‘It have more soft words. A study of Creole English and Reading in Carriacou’, University of Florida (1985) by Ronald Kephart, and a book by the same writer ‘“Broken English”. The Creole Language of Carriacou’ (2000). The author declared his intention to refute the concept of Carriacou’s Creole being ‘broken English’, and describes his work as a ‘descriptive grammar intended for anthropologists and linguists’5. However, Carriacou’s language, though similar to Grenada’s, has its own distinctive features, words and expressions which allow the more discerning Grenadian of ‘the mainland’ to quickly spot a ‘Cayak’, as soon as he utters his first sentence!

Grenada’s Unique Language, through its History In preparing this paper, extensive use was made of Richard Allsopp’s Dictionary of Caribbean Usage6. His detailed research provided a strong basis for suggesting linkages between Grenada’s Creole and the Creoles of other countries.

Appendix 1 contains a small sample of Grenadianese, most of which is found as entries in Alister Hughes’ collection. It is presented with 5

Kephart, Ronald. The Creole Language of Carriacou. 2000, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 6 Allsopp, Richard. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. 1996, UWI Press.

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etymology supplied by Hughes as well as from Allsopp’s Dictionary, and includes links to other Caribbean countries as well as to other cultures. Again, Allsopp’s Dictionary was the main source for these links. In many cases, these were expanded from personal knowledge of the writer, especially where links to Grenada were not recorded.

John Mendes’ ‘Cote Ci Cote La. Trinidad & Tobago Dictionary’ was used as a second reference for links to Trinidad and Tobago.

Unfortunately Mendes’ book does not make a distinction between word usage in each of the islands, Trinidad and/or Tobago, therefore this source proved less valuable.

Grenada’s history holds the key to its language. The vocabulary of Grenada shows a blend of influences which mirror its history and its links to varying cultures from the indigenous Caribs through European and African as well as more recent East Indian influences. Its shared history of sugar, slavery and colonialism is reflected in the development of Caribbean Language, but what are noteworthy are the stronger links to some countries farther from Grenada, and weak links with some of its closest geographic neighbours.

Carib Influences In spite of virtual extermination over 400 years ago, traces of Carib language and culture still survive. Grenada’s indigenous fauna such as its lizards: zandoli, mabouya and zagada, the swarms of tiny spawning fish found in the rivers, tit-e-re. These names are all linked to other Eastern Caribbean islands such as Dominica, St Lucia and Trinidad, reflecting the movement of the Caribs between the islands.

Links to other Caribbean Territories Grenada flourished under French rule. At the point of being ceded to Britain in 1763, Grenada had a well-developed French culture. The love of all that was French was deep-rooted not only among the French and coloured citizens, but among the slaves as well. The slaves adopted much that

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was French, but changed the original culture to a unique form in which were to be found both French and African elements. They spoke a version of French referred to in later times as French Creole…The influence of the French proved to be so enduring that after more than 200 years (of English domination) fragments of French Creole culture still survive.7

The advent of British rule brought with it a significant expansion of the island’s population, and greater diversity with a predominance of African slaves from several parts of West Africa as well as from other British colonies. Planters in well-established colonies such as Antigua, Barbados and St. Kitts with their African slaves capitalized on the opportunities presented by Britain’s acquisition of Grenada.

Grenada’s sugar revolution took place between 1763 and 1775. By the latter year, Grenada’s exports were second only to Jamaica among Britain’s Caribbean possessions8.

And so, before the end of the 18th century, Grenada had a full mix of cultures and nationalities, and the seeds for the growth and development of its Grenadianese.

Grenada’s Anglo-Saxon Protestant planters from Britain as well as those from the more northern British colonies of Barbados, Antigua and St Kitts must have brought with them words like safe in reference to the ventilated storage cupboard still common in households with little of no refrigeration, and press as an antiquated name for a wardrobe, words still current in Grenada’s vernacular, though extinct from modern day Britain.

African Heritage Some words with clear African origins are shared with Antigua, as well as other islands. Cata as a covering placed on the head when carrying a load, is easily traced to Twi, Ashum is shared again with Antigua, as well as Jamaica.

The custom of co-operative savings used extensively by Grenada’s peasantry and that of other Eastern Caribbean countries , known as 7

Steele, Beverley. Grenada. A History of its People.

Cox, Edward L. The Free Coloureds in the Slave Societies of St Kitts and Grenada, 1763-1883.

8

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Su-Su is traced to the Yoruba custom, e-susu. Like ashum and the cata, this custom would have been brought with slaves as their masters resettled in Grenada from more northern colonies in the 18th century, or may have come directly with the slaves from specific regions of West Africa.

Strong French influence In spite of the 200 years of British rule which were to follow, the influence of the French still pervades in words, phrases, sentence formations and enunciations of Grenadians, particularly the people of rural Grenada. The French verb faire, to make, is now translated to English but is used in its French sentence structure, such as making message, for running an errand, making a fête for having a party, and making a baby for being pregnant.

Most of the features and characters of the island’s Carnival are French words. Joo-vay and jab jab are detailed in the Appendix. The names for the island’s popular foods are strongly influenced by the French language as well: Lambe; Farine, the traditional Christmas drink, Ponche de crème.

In the Anglophone Creole of the slaves and their children, French terms persisted. Cawé as a swaying movement, originating in the slaves’ custom of stick-fighting; bose describing a hunched back, maljo meaning Obeah, translates literally from the French: ‘mal jeu’ to evil, or bad eye. Caca-jay seems to be a creolized blend of Portuguese caca with French jeux, eyes for the ‘matter’ which sometimes forms in the eye, while sleeping.

These words and phrases, Grenada shares with islands whose history includes periods of French rule, such as Dominica and St. Lucia.

The Exclusive in the Grenadianese Collection At this point, with only preliminary examination of the Hughes’ corpus, there seems to be a body of words which is unique to Grenada, at most extending only to Carriacou. These include words such as:

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Ché Bœuf Ciac or Cayak

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A fruit shaped like an ox heart, commonly known in other Caribbean islands as Custard Apple A country bumpkin. The derogatory description of a native of Carriacou.

Cocolute

This is a simple single-stringed musical instrument made from a length of cocoa wood and twine or nylon.

No reference was found for this instrument in Allsopp’s dictionary.

Crêpes

Frizzy Negroid hair

Jou-kou-too

A very descriptive expression for an insignificant person

La Good

Grenada’s terminology for the custom by our venders of giving ‘a taste’, as translated literally from French, ‘la goute’. Again, no reference was found for this instrument in Allsopp’s dictionary.

These references reinforce the French past in Grenada’s linguistic history. It is possible that further research, will reveal use of words in other Caribbean countries.

The Genesis of Grenada-Trinidad Kinship Hughes, in his article on Grenada’s non-standard English states that in the Eastern Caribbean, Grenada has its closest links with Trinidad. ‘The populations of the two islands are kept in such close touch through newspapers, radio, trade and travel, that they share a large common non-standard English vocabulary and may be regarded as a single linguistic entity’9.

Though the statement is true in terms of Grenada’s closest cultural and linguistic affinity, the root of that link did not begin in the 9 “Non-Standard English in Grenada.” Hughes, Alister. Caribbean Quarterly.

Vol. 12 No. 4 Dec. 1966.

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20th century, as suggested. It must be traced back to the end of the 18th century, and Britain’s colonial policy on acquisition of Grenada.

On gaining Grenada from France in 1763, and yet again in 1802, Britain made every effort to eradicate French influence from its mainly French subjects and their slave property, in terms of speech, religion and culture in general. The reaction of the French planters in Grenada was to request of the Spanish government of Trinidad, rights to settle Trinidad which, according to Eric Williams, was at that time, ‘poor, undeveloped, a showpiece of metropolitan incompetence and indifference’10. The granting of this request, by Cedula, marked the start of a steady stream of immigrants from Grenada to Trinidad, which continued unabated for the next 150 years. Initially the migrants were French Roman Catholic planters and their slaves. In latter years it was Grenada’s working class seeking opportunities for work and ‘a better life’. The close links between Grenada and Trinidad began, therefore, with Grenada at that time the dominant economy and culture, influencing all aspects of Trinidad’s culture including its language. The similarities of French Creole language between Grenada and Trinidad are so striking, it is easier to note the differences than to attempt to give details of the similarities.

Poor Links with Tobago Grenada’s language shows strong links with the former French islands of St. Lucia and Dominica, with links as well to Barbados and as far north as Antigua. The virtual pairing of Grenada with Trinidad by linguistic scholars tells of the strongest links between these close neighbours. However, in spite of closest geographic proximity, common history in terms of both French and British colonization, as well as political federation in the past, the links of language between Grenada and Tobago pale in comparison, and seem only related because of Tobago’s political union with Trinidad with resultant frequency of communication through media, trade and travel.

10

Williams, Eric, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago.

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The Importance of Having a Written Record of a Grenadianese Grenada has been blessed and cursed by its first political leader, Dr. the Hon. Sir Eric Matthew Gairy. His scandalous and corrupt governance of the 1960s earned the name, ‘Sqaundemania’. His advocacy of UFO’s at the United Nations in the ‘70s are but two examples of the international ridicule brought by his governance on the respectability of the island nation.

But there was an innate good sense about the man which occasionally triumphed. Numbered among his few credits was his official attempt to promote and encourage Grenada’s French Creole from its low status in the late 1960s. At that time, French Creole still existed in small pockets among older folk in rural communities in the north of Grenada. Gairy’s attempt to re-introduce ‘patois’ created uproar from Grenada’s establishment. The suggestion that the language of the black rural poor should be elevated, given pride of place, seemed to defy the basic tenets of respectability and progress.

The lack of success of this programme is Grenada’s permanent loss.

So much for the French Creole. Even Grenada’s Anglophone Creole, our Grenadianese has been out of favour with Grenada’s establishment. Alister Hughes’ introduction to his paper ‘Grenadianese’ in 2002, reminds us of the non-acceptance of Grenadianese 40 years later.

The people’s language which brings forth knuckle wrapping reactions from ‘those who care’ on those who dare to speak the lingo.

In spite of the prejudices, several talented writers and performers have emerged in Grenada, particularly since the 1980s, who have embraced the Grenadian Creole in the telling of their stories, their poems, their plays, their music.

Celebrated writers such as Merle Collins and Jacob Ross, Calypsonians like Ajamu and Black Stalin, Chris De Riggs’ Heritage Theatre. Richardo Keens Douglas has gone international with his plays and children’s books.

By using Grenada’s language in their telling, Grenada’s artistes are blazing the trail of identity for Grenadianese, illustrating its uniqueness while showing where it fits in the bigger picture of Caribbean Language. And in the analogy of the pan, Grenada is finding its own position, be it double second, guitar or bass, playing sweet

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music in that big, big steel orchestra called Caribbean Language.

Pan came of age, and Grenadianese is close behind.

Grenadianese: The language of its fields, of our streets, of its homes, of Grenada for Grenadians.

When de man ask Way you from?

No more Playin’ you doh hear And sayin’ some shit like A… A… A island Near by Trinidad Or A… A few mile Off Venezuela But out Loud an’ bole Like you make de name Grenada!

An Wid you head in de air Becus de world is yours An’ you know is yours An’ you not go be Meek Meek Meek An’ wait to see If somebody Go let you Inherit de earth Becus you know arready Is yours

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So you say Loud An’ clear An’ proud Grenada!11

GILLIAN GLEAN-WALKER UNIVERSITY OF WEST INDIES, JAMAICA

11

Merle Collins. ‘Callaloo’.

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APPENDIX 1 ENTRY

MEANING

POSSIBLE ETIMOLOGY

CARIBBEAN LINKS

Alpagat

Slipper with leather sole and woven top.

Homemade folk footwear common in Venezuela and Panama.

Spanish Zapat = shoe

B’dos Guy RA DCEU T&T MJ CCCL Also Grenada

Ashum

A confection made by pounding roasted corn and brown sugar together

African Twi o-siám

Ant. LJ TWWT Ant G Ja RA DCEU

Bad John

Hooligan Ruffian

Baka Neg

Derogatory. Albino. Fair-skinned person. Mulatto

Bazodi

Mentally uncollected. Bewildered. Confused.Dizzy

Ant, Dom, St L, T’go,T, RA DCEU Also Grenada

Beh beh

Bemused

T&T MJ CCCL Also Grenada

Blue Voice

High pitched voice The voice of an adolescent which changes tone involuntarily

No reference in RA DCEU Or T&T MJ CCCL

G?

Bluggo

Musa balbisiana. A stout, thick skinned, four-sided plantain that sticks out at right angles to the stem of the bunch, and I such a tough texture that it is grated or fed to pigs, though it is of good food value

Belz, StL, G, T’go RA DCEU T&T MJ CCCL

G?

Bose

Humped back

French Bossu = hunched back

G, T’go, T RA DCEU

Ca ca jay

Discharge from the eye

Portuguese Caca = excreta French Yeux = eyes

G RA DCEU

G?

Cagoo

Without energy. Crest-fallen.

Guadeloupe Kagou ramouli = weakened in courage

T RA DCEU Also Grenada

G

Cata

Head cover for load

Africa – Congo Ant. LJ TWWT Nkata =a pad for the RA DCEU shoulder of head Also Grenada

Cawa / Kaway

To sway from side to side. Wine.

When the sea hit the vessel it caway’ ‘The music start and she make a caway’

French Carrier = to strut, to pose

Dom, StL, G RA DCEU T&T MJ CCCL

Ché Bœuf

Fruit shaped like a bullock’s heart. Custard Apple

French Coeur = heart boeuf = cow

G RA DCEU

G?

Ciac Cayak

Derogatory. Country bumpkin. Native of Carriacou

G, C’couRA DCEU

G?

E. Carib RA DCEU French derived Beke = creole for white Negre = black

Dom, G RA DCEU

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ENTRY

MEANING

POSSIBLE ETIMOLOGY

CARIBBEAN LINKS

Co rile

A large variety of cerasee cultivated esp. in Indian communities for use of the fruit as a vegetable. Also folk medicine

Indian Hindi Karailli = small bitter gourd

Guy, St V, T, RA DCEU Also Grenada

Coal pot

A small, round, charcoal burning open stove

Dutch Kool = charcoal Pot = pot, jar, container

Ant. LJ TWWT RA DCEU T&T MJ CCCL Also Grenada

Coco lute

A simple single-stringed musical instrument made from the length of cocoa-wood on which a length of twine or nylon is attached.

` French Cheveux crêpes = frizzled hair

No reference in RA DCEU Or T&T MJ CCCL

G?

No reference in RA DCEU or T&T MJ CCCL

G?

Creps

Frizzy Negroid hair

Cuffum

Turn head over heals. A somersault

B’dos AH RA DCEU Also Grenada

Dan dan

Sunday best clothing

E Carib RA DCEU T&T MJ CCCL

Dogla

Half Negro, half East Indian

Indian Hindi Dogala = ‘hybrid mongrel’

Jab jab

Masquerader dressed as a devil

French Diable = devil

Gren, Guy, St V, T’go, T RA DCEU Also Grenada Dom, StL, T’dad, T’go, G RA DCEU

Joo-vay

The first part of the Carnival celebration Day-break Monday morning

French Jour = day Overt = open

Dom, StL, T’dad, T’go RA DCEU Also Grenada

Jou kou too

Insignificant you

French Jusqu’a vous = as low down as you

G RA DCEU

G?

(La Good )

(Extra Bonus, frequently in fruit and vegetable market purchasing )

French La gout = the taste

No reference in RA DCEU or T&T MJ CCCL

G?

La Lé

Moss, floating in water

Lambe

Conch

French Lambi = molusque marin

Dom, StL, G RA DCEU T&T MJ CCCL

Las Lick

Child’s Leave-taking game

All Caribbean RA DCEU

Lay Lay stick

Swizzle stick

No reference in RA DCEU or T&T MJ CCCL

G?

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ENTRY

MEANING

POSSIBLE ETIMOLOGY

CARIBBEAN LINKS

Maboya

Also known as wood slave

Carib

Dom, St L RA DCEU Also Grenada

Mad bull (Kite flying)

A bit of paper fixed at the back of a kite to vibrate loudly when the kite is aloft

Mal Jo

Obeah

Many Happy Returns

And same to you.

This phrase is not confined to birthday wishes.

Used for Christmas, Easter Greetings

Maroon

Cooperative self-help system in which labour is given in return for food and drink

Moco Jumbie

Carnival character on stilts

French Jambé = legged

Morbe (Mauby)

Refreshing bitter-sweet drink non alcoholic drink made from the bark of the Mauby tree

Carib E Carib Mabé = potato whose RA DCEU root is good to eat

Poke ah Poke

Mediocre

Spanish T RA DCEU Poco a poco = little Also Grenada by little

(Ponche de Crème)

Alcoholic drink made of milk, eggs and rum.

Traditional Christmas drink

Press

Shaved ice with syrup

Old English

GT RA DCEU

Press

A wardrobe. Cupboard for keeping clothes

Old English

Ant, B’dos, Ja, T, USVI RA DCEU Also Grenada

Quell bay

Repressed, confused, idiotic

French Quel = what Bete = beast, stupid creature

St V, T’go RA DCEU Also Grenada

Safe

Wooden framed moveable cupboard used to provide ventilated storage for food, protected from insects

Old English

Ant. LJ TWWT RA DCEU

Shaben

Fair skinned person with blonde coarse hair

Dom, St L, T RA DCEU Also Grenada

(Short Knee)

A traditional Carnival masquerade figure dressed in colourful costume. Most of the outfit covered in sequins and mirrors.

C’cou, G RA DCEU

Sling

Thick, almost jelly like cane syrup before it begins to crystallize

E Carib RA DCEU

Stingy Brim

A small hat worn by men with a narrow brim.

Fashionable in the 1960’s

T&T MJ CCCL Also Grenada

Straw Cork

Illicitly distilled rum. Bush Rum. Mountain Dew

B’dos, T RA DCEU Also Grenada French Mal jeux evil eye

Gren,St V, T’go, T RA DCEU Also Grenada G?

G, Grens, Mont RA DCEU ViIs, St K, Dom, StL, T’dad, T’go, G RA DCEU

E Carib RA DCEU

G?

G?

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ENTRY

MEANING

POSSIBLE ETIMOLOGY

CARIBBEAN LINKS

(Su Su )

A friendly cooperative savings scheme.

African Yoruba Ees u, e susu

E Carib RA DCEU

(Tabay)

Confusion. Gossip

Tit-e-re

Tiny fish spawned in rivers. Caught, dried in quantity for use as food

Carib titiri

Dom G St V RA DCEU

Vum

Wide and loose, of a dress.

‘That dress is a real vum’

Zabouka

Avocado pear

Dom, St L, St V, T RA DCEU Also Grenada

Zagada

Ground Lizard

G RA DCEU T&T MJ CCCL

Zandoli

Tree lizard/ fast moving lizard that lives in holes in the ground ‘Zandoli, find you hole’

Carib Anaoli Fr Creole des anaolis

Dom, G, St L, T RA DCEU Also Grenada

Zoote

Stinging Nettle

French ortiés = nettle

Dom G T RA DCEU

Zup and Span (Marbles)

No description in AH

No entry in RA DCEU

Zwill (Kite flying)

Broken bottle, razor blades etc. put in the tail of a kite to cut the thread of another kite.

G T T’go RA DCEU

G?

G?

KEY T’dad

Trinidad

T&T

Trinidad & Tobago.

Not differentiated by island in source: ( MJ CCCL )

Guy

Guyana

T’go

Tobago

St V

St Vincent

Mont

Montserrat

C’cou

Carriacou

St L

St Lucia

Ja

Jamaica

Grens.

Grenadines

B’dos

Barbados

E Carib

Several Eastern Caribbean countries

Dom

Dominica

Ant

Antigua

( )

GGW’s insert /addition

G?

Words and phrases possibly unique to Grenada

Also Grenada

The writer’s (GGW) personal knowledge of words used in Grenada, but not appearing in other Sources

SOURCES RA DCEU

Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage

Allsopp, Richard

1996

UWI Press

MJ CCCL

Cote ce Cote la Trinidad & Tobago Dictionary

Mendes, John

1986

The College Press

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The Politics of Black Women’s Bodies and Sexuality in The Autobiography of My Mother

by Jamaica Kincaid, and Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home by Erna Brodber ABSTRACT One of the most pervasive cultural legacies of colonial domination in the Caribbean is the distorted notion about black women’s sexuality as immoral, which began to take shape during slavery to justify the sexual abuse of female slaves perpetrated by their masters. Various critics have stressed the need to reclaim black women’s bodies and sexuality, to counter the demonization that it has been subjected to and also to break the “code of silence” imposed on this subject. Black Caribbean writers Jamaica Kincaid and Erna Brodber challenge this code of silence and problematize the black female body as a central image in The Autobiography of My Mother by Kincaid, and Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home by Brodber. These two novels narrate the coming of age of black female protagonists who grapple with the complexities of the gendered and racialized experience of sexual awakening and development. This paper will compare the representation of black women’s sexuality and their raced and gendered body in Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980) and The Autobiography of My Mother (1996), focusing on the interrelationship between family dynamics, class and the internalization of sexual values.

I will argue that both authors transgress conventional decorum through their open treatment of the “unspeakable” subject and proposes that Brodber’s novel articulates the regulations imposed by patriarchal, racist, colonial institutions on the body and sexuality of black women, adopted by the repressive moral codes of religious sectors and the aspiring middle class in Jamaica, while Kincaid chooses to focus on the defiance of the controls imposed on black women’s bodies, enacted by her protagonist through the affirmation of her sexuality as a source of pleasure, self-love, autonomy and power.

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One of the most pervasive cultural legacies of colonial domination in the Caribbean is the distorted notion about black women’s sexuality, which began to take shape during slavery. Colonization of the black female body required the negative stereotyping of black women as the bearers of uncontrolled and unrestricted sexuality. This convenient misrepresentation was brought about to justify sexual exploitation of female slaves by their masters, along with demonization of blacks regardless of sex, to justify their oppression.

In the comprehensive historical account on notions about colonized black women’s sexuality “Toward a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic of Silence” Evelynn M. Hammond argues black women critics and writers are “fighting to reclaim the body— the maimed immoral, black, female body” (99) to counter the negative stereotyping of black women’s sexuality that persists today. African American feminist theorist bell hooks argues that, at the present time, mass culture generates and promotes “the commodification of Otherness,” particularly that which refers to the exploitation of black women’s bodies. Mass media, which reproduces hegemonic discourse through mass culture thus perpetuates, in the present, the commodification and distorted notions of black women inherited from the plantation system.

Hammonds argues that, “Historically black women have reacted to the repressive force of the hegemonic discourses on race and sex that constructed this image, with silence, secrecy and partially selfchosen invisibility” (94). In the United State and in the Caribbean, middle and upper class black women, as well as religious working class women, have adopted conservative sexual conduct and avoided the discussion of this shame-ridden subject, what African American writer Toni Morrison describes as one of the “unspeakable things unspoken.” A “politics of silence” about sexuality, similar to the political strategy adopted by black women reformers during the 19th century in the U.S, mimicking the colonizer’s Victorian and Christian morality codes, still persists today (Hammonds 97).

Black Caribbean writers Jamaica Kincaid and Erna Brodber are breaking the code of silence imposed on the subject of black women’s sexuality, a prominent theme in works such as Annie John, Lucy and The Autobiography of My Mother by Kincaid, and Jane and Louisa Will

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Soon Come Home by Brodber. These four novels narrate the coming of age of black female protagonists who grapple with the complexities of the gendered experience of sexual awakening and development.

In these works the female body is problematized as a central image.

Drawing from the complexities approached by these texts, this paper will compare the representation of black women’s sexuality and their raced and gendered body in Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980) and The Autobiography of My Mother (1996), focusing on the interrelationship between family dynamics, class and the internalization of sexual values.

In Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home, Nellie’s sense of self is defined in relation to her extended family. Early on, it is established that, “the voice belongs to the family group dead or alive” (12).

Family unity portrayed by the author is supported by the polyphonic quality of the fragmented narration that alternates the voices of family members as speakers, mostly in a dialogue with Nellie, who is the central narrator, or among themselves. The family is constructed as a powerful force that ties Nellie to its web and shapes her perception of self and the world. Categorized as “one solid phalanx,” the family is the central matrix that organizes her life, alternating its paradoxical role as “a pit or a shelter” (13), a contradictory duality that become a leit motif within the narration. The family offers the protection of a kumbla, Is a funny thing but when the people you close to ‘fraid, is a warm fear. And you feel that if you stay close to them, the bad spirit will pass” (14).

Yet, the kumbla, a “round and seamless calasbash that protects you without caring” is also a trap that “makes you delicate” (130), and poses danger to the person’s independence.

The family is also the main force that shapes Nellie’s sexual subjectivity as a young woman by imposing a strict code of decency to be followed. In the very beginning of the novel Granny Tucker’s sentencing words, “The chile life spoil,” condemning Nellie’s mother’s early pregnancy out of wedlock, will establish a bleak tone to describe women’s sexuality and reproduction that will be sustained throughout the narrative. Yet this incident also points to the fissures

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in the observance of the strict moral codes predicated by the grandmother whose conservative posture is reinforced by her strict religious affiliation to the repressive Baptist church.

Another dominant woman in the family, Aunt Becca, introduces Nellie to the dangers that men pose to young women when she forbids her to date Baba Ruddock, whose uncle “spoil Cousin B.’s life,” thus echoing Granny’s assertion that men represent danger in women’s lives. Aunt Becca’s self-appointed mission is to protect Nellie’s chastity from a menacing world that “is waiting to drag you down” (17). She transmits a clear message to her niece to avoid and distrust the town’s men in order to make something of her life. “It only takes two seconds” for a girl’s life to “get stopped part way” (17). Thus, Aunt Becca associates low-income men with damage, failure and women’s inability to succeed, a notion rooted in her perception of the ills brought about by transgression of conventional codes of sexual behavior, as well as the marginal position of men in Jamaican low-income family, mostly matrifocal (Rowley). Among Nellie’s female close relatives, Aunt Becca is closest to the aspired middle class status, and is seen by the family as the most successful, “Aunt Becca came out the best” (91). Described as “uppity” and as a “lady,” she is the most repressive woman in the family and has the keenest interest in safeguarding Nellie’s upward mobility. Not only does she guard her niece from the dangers of men, but also from getting her social progress thwarted by a forced marriage with a man of a lower station.

Brodber uses popular proverbs that Aunt Becca repeats as ominous warnings, “Learn that lest you be weighed in the balance and found wanting” (1), inculcating the fear and guilt of losing her honor; or “Woman luck de a dungle heap fowl come scratch it up “ (17), a veiled warning about a young woman’s vulnerable reputation and social position.

The first section of the book, “My dear will you allow me,” suggests an invitation to Nellie’s initiation in sexual activity, which she is offered and rejects, not without paying the price of isolation from the community of young people, safeguarded within the kumbla of Aunt Becca’s home, where she lives in order to attend school. Nellie is aware of the various paths to choose from, lamenting that God gives no “street map,” “compass,” “scale” or “through way”. In the face of

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her ambivalence, she chooses the family way, “You must be right Aunt Becca,” (17), thus internalizing the need to deny her sexual desire motivated by the fear of facing the rejection of her almighty family. Yet, in spite of the repression that the extended family imposes on Nellie’s body, she grows up protected by the warmth and attention of multiple mothers.

Unlike Nellie, Kincaid’s character in The Autobiography of My Mother loses her mother who dies at the moment of her birth and grows up alone in a hostile, threatening world. During the first seven years of her life, she is raised by her father’s laundress, invisible among the woman’s many children. Thereafter, Xuela has to survive the ill treatment of a menacing stepmother, and the cruel indifference of her father. The extended family that provides nurturing and prescribes a moral code is absent in Xuela’s life. Without a mother figure, no one is there to pay attention during her formative years. Thus, Xuela grows up as a wild, independent child who develops her own attitudes and values towards sexuality and her body. In the midst of the loveless environment that surrounds her she learns to find respite and happiness in the enjoyment of the senses.

And sometimes there was a gentle wind and sometimes the stillness of the trees, and sometimes the sun setting and sometimes the dawn opening up, and the sweet sickening smell of the white lily that bloomed only at night, and the sweet sickening smell of something dead, something animal rotting. This beauty, when I first saw it–I saw it in parts, not all at once made me glad to be alive (62).

As she grows older, the newly found pleasures in her pubescent body are welcomed as a source of contentment and self-love, All this I heard at night, again and again. And it ended only after my hands had traveled up and down all over my own body in a loving caress, finally coming to the soft spot between my legs, and a gasp of pleasure had escaped my lips which I would allow no one to hear.

(43).

For Xuela shame is not part of the equation of accepting and loving her body. In contrast, the central feature of Nellie’s puberty is a feeling of disgust towards her body, reinforced and further enhanced by the startling reactions of her family and the entire community to its

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physical changes. At age eleven, when her father acknowledges her imminent womanhood saying “with strange solemnity: –My. But you have shot up” (23 emphasis added), Nellie senses that a distance has grown between them, and perceives her menstruating womb as the cause of this estrangement, And my balloon stinks with shame. Something breaks and there is no warmth no more. So I am different. Something is wrong with me (23).

Nellie feels obsessively dirty “I need to be cleansed” (119), toxic and fowl smelling, oozing slimy yellow around your nest. Building a strange rawsmelling barrier around your private world. To touch is to contaminate (23).

She describe her budding breasts articulating strong images of putrefaction, My whole chest was that rotten banana root and there were two suckers. Alexander Richmond [her father] knew that I was rotting. I told him to touch me but he wouldn’t. Just looked at me strange and sent me to my mother (119).

Xuela’s experience is quite the opposite: …my bosoms grew out and pressed against my blouse, my hair touched my shoulders in a caress that caused me to shiver inside, my legs were hot and between them there was moisture, a sweet smelly stickiness. I was alive (65).

In contrast to Xuela’s love self-derived from her new body, Nellie’s self-esteem is seriously compromised by the changes that she abhors.

Moreover, Nellie’s sustained use of gruesome images of her smell stand in sharp contrast to Xuela’s self reaffirmation and rebellion manifested through the acceptance and enjoyment of the smells of her uncleansed body, I responded in a fashion by now characteristic of me: whatever I was told to hate I loved and loved the most. I loved the smell of the thin

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dirt behind my ears, the smell of my unwashed mouth, the smell that came from between my legs, the smell in the pit of my arm, the smell of my unwashed feet (32).

Nellie’s changing body also becomes a source of inexplicable social isolation and abandonment. She is no longer allowed to “hug and roll” (21) with the boys as she used to, or to visit Mass Stanley, a nurturing father figure, who confirms the curse that afflicts her, “You getting big Nellie. Hummmm. Can’t see you no more” (121). Nellie sadly acknowledges that her body has made her a pariah within her family and community.

Her mother’s perceptions of menstruation and reproduction, as an abominable and shameful curse, is painfully acknowledged by Nellie, My mother in her dead-pan voice that I cannot figure out to me. It is not her scolding voice, it is not a praising voice. So what is it. No eye contact and she is pretending to sew. My God. I’m hardly eleven. What shame have you to hide from me? Silence. You are eleven now and soon something strange will happen to you—Silence; still no eye contact. –Well, when it does, make sure you tell your aunt (23).

Brodber clearly portrays the character’s psychological schism with her physical self as an inheritance from the line of women in her family who are ill at ease with their sexuality. Xuela, in her isolation from other women, is unaware of the existence of menstruation, so when it appears for the first time, she is free from the prejudice that could influence her judgment. Xuela is neither intimidated nor disgusted by this novelty in her body and accepts it as a positive sign.

And so it was that when I first saw the thick red fluid of my menstrual blood, I was not surprised and not afraid. I had never heard of it, I had not been expecting it, I was twelve years old, but its appearance to my young mind, to my body and soul, had the force of destiny fulfilled…(57).

Ultimately, Nellie, unlike Xuela, perceives her gendered body as a “weight” that needs to be effaced and as a source of ambiguity and conflict, “This bounty. Put it under a bushel. Or else it will shame you”

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(24 emphasis added). Brodber’s construction of the family women’s attitudes toward sexuality, mimicked by Nelly, illustrates the same kind of self-imposed invisibility and the “politics of silence” historically adopted by black women reformers in the United States, who “hoped by their silence and by promotion of proper Victorian morality to demonstrate the lie of the image of the sexually unmoral black woman” (Hammonds 97). Feminist authors influenced by Michel Foucault view this tendency of black women to internalize dominant norms as an example of how subjectivity is shaped by hegemonic discourses, not through direct coercion or force, but through selfregulation (Bordo 253).

In contrast, Xuela does not internalize the restrictions of Victorian morality. Quite blatantly, at age fifteen, she becomes the lover of her father’s friend in whose house she has become a maid. The description of the first time she experiences intercourse is a testimony of her self-assured acceptance of her sexuality: I saw that Monsieur La Batte was standing not far off from me. He did not move away in embarrassment and I, too, did not run away in embarrassment. We held each other’s gaze. I removed my fingers from between my legs and brought them to my face, I wanted to smell myself. It was the end of the day, my odor was quite powerful. This scene of me placing my hands between my legs and then enjoying the smell of myself and Monsieur La Batte watching me lasted until the usual sudden falling of the dark. […] it was anticipation that was the thrill, it was anticipation that kept me enthralled. And the force of him inside me, inevitable as it was, again came as a shock, a long sharp line of pain that then washed over me with the broadness of a wave, a long sharp line of pleasure…(70).

In sharp contrast, when Nellie, away from her family’s watchful eye, follows the prescribed “script” of a foreign student’s casual sexual encounter—“a script was writing itself” (27)—it is a miserable experience, devoid of pleasure, and mediated by the imagined presence of her mother, so you let him touch you. Shame. You feel shame and you see your mother’s face and you hear her scream and you feel the snail what she see making for your mouth one long nasty snail […] then you see her face pained with disgust then her scream. Then you follow her

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eye and touch the mekke mekke thing with your hand and she runs (28). The mother in her imagination speaks: “You want to be a woman; now you have a man, you’ll be like everybody else. You’re normal now! Vomit and bear it. (28 my emphasis)

Nellie’s powerful repudiation of sexuality is Brodber’s quite literal representation of religious and aspiring middle class black women policing the sexual behavior of their young females. Quite the opposite, Kincaid articulates in a positive light the sexual freedom of a disenfranchised black woman who is removed from her father’s house and forced to become a maid in a middle class white household in Dominica, settling her social position as a black domestic worker. Xuela, in spite of her father’s increasing wealth and power, is forced to accept her lower class status and the absence of strong family ties. Her only family—her father, stepmother and half siblings—enjoys a higher social station, which she is denied, “my father removed me from his house and the presence of his wife” (62), yet, she is not defeated by her father’s rejection or intimidated by her new master.

In colonial, ethnocentric studies on low-income Afro Caribbean families, male-female relationships have been depicted as “loose mating patterns” (Rowley 22), or “loose nonmarital conjugal relations” (Herkovitz, Frazier in Barrow 150). The overwhelming majority of the literature on the Caribbean black family emphasize the centrality of women as heads of household, a phenomenon that has been identified as matrifocality, and the concomitant male marginalization in this type of family structure (Rowley 22).

Furthermore, it is widely argued that Jamaican family structure, “does not appear to be moving toward the nuclear model” (La Font and Pruitt 218). Regardless of whether black low-income women’s mating patterns are judged by European middle class standards that describe matrifocal family structure as “dysfunctional,” these studies indicate that sexual behavior among lower income women who head these households is not necessarily subordinated to European middle class sexual moral codes, which black middle class women are more likely to adopt, concerned as they are with the possibilities of social prestige and upward mobility that the nuclear family provides. In

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Brodber’s and Kincaid’s novels, the representation of women’s attitudes toward sexuality and family, and its intersection with class values and socioeconomic conditions, are consistent with the sociological and anthropological findings quoted above. Social climbers like Aunt Becca, or Xuela’s stepmother and father improve their chance of mobility by maintaining a nuclear family structure that elicits acceptance from the colonial, and by extension, the mimicking postcolonial dominant class. Aunt Becca marries the town’s teacher and joins the colonial Anglican Church to gain prestige and assert her social position as a “lady,” higher than most town people. Likewise, Xuela’s father, a devout Methodist—“the more he robbed, the more he had, the more he went to church” (40)— cultivates a façade of stable respectability.

Xuela, in defiance, displays fierce independence from the constraints of sanctified colonial institutions such as the nuclear family, the church and motherhood, as a sign of self-assurance as a woman, a lady is a combination of elaborate fabrications, a collection of externals, facial arrangements, and body parts, distortions, lies, and empty effort. I was a woman and as that I had a brief definition: two small breasts, a small opening between my legs, one womb […] such a description has at its core the act of self-possession, and at that moment my self was the only thing I had that was my own (159).

She manifests absolute autonomy during significant events in her life as is deciding to get an abortion, on her own, at an early age, or giving up her relationship with a handsome, black stevedore whom she loves, because his domineering masculinity threatens her independence.

Later on in life she marries a white man born into a rich family.

Yet, this conventional arrangement does not compromise the hard won control that she exerts over her life and body. Her husband will not do anything, as she acknowledges, “directed at impeding my will” (143). When Xuela asserts that she only marries him because she doesn’t love him, and would never marry anyone she loved, she intuitively articulates a way of surviving the threat of patriarchal power by avoiding to become emotionally vulnerable, however

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pathological and painful. Furthermore, she inverts and subverts the traditional power balance between a black female worker and a rich white male, within the racial and class hierarchies of colonial legacy, by becoming the “master” of the relationship and continuing to celebrate her sexuality as a source of power and autonomy, Words would pour out of him […] and I would put a stop to it by removing my clothes and stand before him and stretch my arms all the way up to the ceiling and order him to his knees to eat and make him stay there until I was completely satisfied (145).

Davis argues that, “Historically, the black woman in the New World has always been associated with qualities such as physical strength, sexual independence and economic resourcefulness” (in Cobham).

The strength and independence of black women has been translated as “masculine” traits in female characters developed by Caribbean writers such as Claude McKay or H.G. Lisser, and have been appropriated by contemporary Caribbean women writers to construct their characters, as is the case of Tee’s grandmother in Crick Crack, Monkey (Cobham). Kincaid’s Xuela is also endowed with the resilience of her literary predecessors. During the period of her life following her traumatic abortion, she literally embodies overt masculine postures by cross dressing, using the clothes of a dead worker that she buys from the widow, and adopting an androgynous appearance.

It was these clothes, the clothes of a dead man, that I wore to work each day […] I wrapped my almost hairless head in a piece of old cloth. I did not look like a man, I did not look as a woman” (98).

Dressed as a man Xuela takes on a physically strenuous job sifting sand, helping to build a road. Radically altering her appearance and gendered identity, this brief and painful period seems to have redemptive and healing effects on her distressed spirit. Xuela emerges stronger than ever, revalidating her self-assured persona, manifested since early on in her life, so unusual in a child that leads her schoolteacher to believe her to be evil or possessed, as she transgressed the limits of childhood vulnerability with her

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fearlessness, “The world that I came to know was full of danger and treachery, but I did not become afraid” (41). It is her clear sense of purpose and resourcefulness that leads her later on in life to be in control of her relationships with LaBatte, Roland and Philip, initiating each one of the relationships, determining their outcome, and dictating every aspect in between, including sexual activity, He was like most men I had known, obsessed with an activity he was not very good at, but he took directions very well and was not afraid of being told what to do, or ashamed that he did not know all the things there were to do. (143)

By adopting traits traditionally attributed to men, Xuela not only reverses patriarchal power in the relationship, but also feminizes it.

In “Jamaica Kincaid is Getting Angry” Isabel Horing points out that “In Kincaid’s writing the body counters the objectified strategies of colonialism by claiming the right to speak as an object” (219). Xuela’s body becomes her main source of expression and voice, in the midst of a society in which black disenfranchised women are voiceless. In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices Stuart Hall explains Foucault’s views on the role of the body in the dynamics of hegemonic power: He places the body at the center of the struggles between different formations of power/knowledge. The techniques of regulation are applied at the body. Different discursive formations and apparatuses divide, classify and inscribe the body differently in their respective regimes of power and truth”. (50)

Both the colonizer, and the postcolonial male who inherits the former’s position of domination after independence, that is, Xuela’s father, exercise power through the regulation of the black female body.

It is this dominant patriarchal power what attempts to curtail Xuela’s and other women’s sexual freedom. So it is by liberating and empowering Xuela’s body that Kincaid articulates the character’s agency, defiance and autonomy.

While Brodber’s protagonist undergoes a tortuous process of selfintegration, Xuela is clear on who she is from early on in life,

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To my teachers I seemed quiet and studious; I was modest, which is to say, I did not seem to have any interest in the world of my body or any one else’s body […] I negotiated many treacherous acts of deception, but it was clear to me who I really was”. (42)

Nellie’s extended crisis and her conflicts about sexuality are never resolved. She represents black women who fail to become empowered by subverting the repressive discourses that promote their negative perceptions of their embodied selves. Throughout the narrative Nellie is unable to liberate her erotic inner power and consummate a satisfactory sexual involvement with a man. Lacking Xuela’s determination and agency, Nelly always reacts to external pressure, whether depriving herself sexually by yielding to the pressures of her family, or engaging in frigid sex prescribed by the “foreign student script” written for her, or submitting to the repressive male group while living in the compound. She acts under the influence of external forces, in her eyes her redemption can only come from her “prince,” Baba Ruddock, or from the most progressive sector of her family personified in Aunt Alice, yet not from inner strength like Xuela. Nellie fails to reclaim her black regulated body, or to access the “power of the erotic within ourselves,” so eloquently celebrated by Audre Lorde, as that which “informs and illuminates our actions upon the world around us” and allows us to “be responsible for ourselves in the deepest sense” (58). Xuela’s agency illustrates that by affirming the power of the erotic “not only do we touch our most profoundly, creative sources, but we do that which is female and self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal society” (Lorde 59).

Nellie’s final conclusion about sexuality is as bleak as her grandmother’s statement in the beginning of the book suggesting the circular structure of hopelessness. Brodber does not resolve her relationship with Baba, her stagnant sexuality or her nightmarish vision of black women’s bodies that speaks of a black womb disintegrated by black sperm “making hollow women and pointless children” (142). The womb is condemned as an “an abominable scrap thing” dehumanized and unredeemed. In the end Brodber’s

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final articulation of Nellie’s family history uncovers a façade of respectability and Victorian morality that hides deep contradictions in the practice of the values that are preached: Aunt Becca had gotten pregnant from a village man and was rendered sterile after having an abortion. No one ever met Granny’s supposed husband Corpie who turns out to be a fabrication to simulate respectability.

Brodber portrays the outcome of her character as an ambiguous state of sustained pregnancy that points to an absence of resolution in her crisis-ridden journey. In contrast, Kincaid’s marginal character ultimately survives in spite of the loss of her mother, which made her feel that her whole life she had been “standing in a precipice” (3).

Aside from the nuances in the different representations of black women’s sexual subjectivities in these two novels, Brodber and Kincaid open a new path in Caribbean fiction by breaking the code of silence imposed on the colonized, abused, effaced and misrepresented body of black women. By “writing the body,” that is, approaching the subject from a subjective as opposed to an objective frame of reference, in the Caribbean postcolonial context, both authors establish the body as a site of struggle against the legacy of racist and sexist hegemonic discourse and fully recognize the body as being politically inscribed. Both novels problematize Foucault’s contention that power relations in society operate not only in macroinstitutions of politics, economy and the legal system, but also in micro-systems of the family, sexuality and the body. In the process, they are inaugurating in Caribbean fiction an “ecriture feminine” (Cixous in Gatens 232), focused on sexuality, a trend pioneered in Caribbean women’s literature by Clara Rosa de Lima’s Tomorrow will Always Come (1965), which dealt frankly with sexual desire (Cudjoe).

Brodber’s and Kincaid’s texts exemplify Cixous’s feminine writing by articulating a construction of the female body and femininity through a woman’s prism that challenges patriarchal monopoly of women’s representations. The difference between both writers is that Brodber powerfully depicts the politics of black women’s regulated bodies and its pathological effect in a young woman’s life, while Kincaid centers her narrative in her character’s defiance against these dominant views.

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Kincaid, on her own, must be credited for her pioneering and bold articulation of black women’s pleasure and agency as yet absent in the emerging body of work of Caribbean narrative written by women.

ANA MARÍA GARCÍA UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO, RÍO PIEDRAS

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Works Cited Barrow, Christine. “Men, Women and Family in the Caribbean.” Gender in Caribbean Development. Eds. Patricia Mohammed and Catherine Shepherd. Kingston: Canoe Pres UWI, 1988. 149-163.

Bordo, Susan. “Feminism and Foucault: The Politics of the Body.”

Feminist Theory and the Body. Eds. Janet Price and Magrit Shildrick. New York: Routledge, 1999. 246-257.

Brodber, Erna. Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home.

Cobham, Rhonda. “Revisioning our kumblas: Transforming Feminist and Nationalist Agendas in three Caribbean Women’s Texts.”

Callaloo. v 16 (Wntr 1993) 44-65.

Cudjoe, Selwyn R. Introduction. Caribbean Women Writers. Wellesly: Calaldux, 1990. 5-48.

Gatens, Moira. “Power, Bodies and Difference.” Feminist Theory and the Body. Eds. Janet Price and Magrit Shildrick. New York: Routledge, 1999. 227-234.

De Caires Narain, Denise. “The Body of the Woman in the Body of the Text: The Novels of Erna Brodber.” Caribbean Women Writers: Fiction in English. Eds. Marise Condé and Thorumm Lonsdale.

New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. 97-115.

Hall, Stuart. Ed. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications, 1997. 13-74.

Hammonds, Evelynn. “Towards a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic of Silence.” Feminist Theory and the Body. Eds. Janet Price and Magrit Shildrick. New York: Routledge, 1999. 93104.

Horing, Isabel. In “Jamaica Kincaid is Getting Angry.” In Praise of New Travelers. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Kincaid, Jamaica. The Autobiography of My Mother. New York: Plume, 1996.

Rowley, Michelle. “Reconceptualizing Voice: The Role of Matrifocality in Shaping Theories of Caribbean Voices.” Gendered Realities: Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought. Ed. Patricia Mohammed.

Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 202. 22-43.

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Redeeming the Specter of Slave Revolt: Warner Arundell, Colonial Modernity and the Woodford Era ABSTRACT In this essay, I offer a reading of the recently republished Trinidadian novel Warner Arundell, Adventures of a Creole by E.L. Joseph (1838), finding lurking within its “hidden design,” or “forced poetics,” not only an abolitionist stance, but also a redemption of slave revolt as a legitimate means for achieving racial equality. I discuss the implications of its setting during the Woodford era, arguing that it is a period in which a colonial modernity is inaugurated. Joseph asserts the possibility of a truly modern Creole future through the reunion of the hero with his colored brother. I also show how the other major mulatto figure, Julien Fédon, as a leader of the failed Grenadian Revolution, is the “spectral mulatto” who haunts the novel, the mystery that drives the text, and the one who ultimately must be redeemed.

The closing decades of slavery stand out as a critical flashpoint in Trinidadian history reflected in four recently republished nineteenth-century novels: Warner Arundell, or Adventures of a Creole1, Adolphus, a Tale2, 1

E.L. Joseph, Warner Arundell, or Adventures of a Creole. Lise Winer (ed.).

Bridget Brereton, Rhonda Cobham, Mary Rimmer, and Lise Winer (Annotations and intro.). Kingston: U of West Indies P, 2001 [Port of Spain Trinidad and London: 1838], hereafter cited as WA for page references.

2 Anonymous, Adolphus, A Tale. In Adolphus, A Tale & The Slave Son. Lise Winer (ed.). Bridget Brereton, Rhonda Cobham, Mary Rimmer, Karen SánchezEppler and Lise Winer (Annotations and intro.). Kingston: U of West Indies P, 2003 [Trinidad, 1853], hereafter cited as A for page references.

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Emmanuel Appadocca, or a Blighted Life3, and The Slave Son4. Only one is written and published before emancipation in 1838 (the others in the 1850s), yet all focus on those twenty or so years leading up to that propitious event. The British had been in power in Trinidad for just that length of time, gaining formal possession from Spain in the Treaty of Amiens about five years after Abercromby’s 1797 invasion.

Due in part to the terms of the capitulation, well into the nineteenth century the British were administering Spanish law for a French Creole, Catholic-dominant slave society. All four novels are set explicitly or implicitly in the Woodford era (1813-1828), and are written by those who were born or residing in Trinidad for a considerable length of time.

Parliament had just begun its inquiry into slave conditions in the West Indies when the young Sir Ralph Woodford became the first non-military Governor of the island in 1813. Having studied Spanish in Madeira and been raised in a Catholic-sympathetic home, with a father actively engaged in the global expansion of British trade5, Woodford was emblematic of the new system of colonial administration being put into place. Under the Crown Colony system, with the Governor under the direct command of Parliament in 3 Michel Maxwell Philip. Emmanuel Appadocca, or a Blighted Life. Selwyn R. Cudjoe (Ed. With an afterword). William E. Cain (Intro.). Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1997 [London: 1854], hereafter cited as EA for page references.

4 Mrs. William Noy Wilkins. The Slave Son. In Adolphus, A Tale & The Slave Son. Lise Winer (ed.). Bridget Brereton, Rhonda Cobham, Mary Rimmer, Karen Sánchez-Eppler and Lise Winer (Annotations and intro.). Kingston: U of West Indies P, 2001 [London: 1854], hereafter cited as SS for page references.

5 The Woodford family’s Catholic sympathy is evident in the close friendship between his father and the writer Henry Swinburne (1743-1803). Swinburne, whose father-in-law John Baker also happened to be Solicitor General of the Leeward Islands, died of sunstroke in Trinidad. On his arrival in 1813, the newly appointed governor Sir Ralph Woodford erected a memorial for him in San Juan, where he is buried. During the French Revolution, Woodford’s father, the first Sir Ralph, negotiated for formal relations with the Royal Philippine Company on behalf of the British, to promote free trade between the Spanish Pacific coast and the British Pacific and Asian colonies. He was Minister Extraordinary at Court of Denmark and made a Baronet in June 1791 (for Woodford family history see: L.M. Fraser, History of Trinidad, Vol. II from 18141839. Trinidad: POS Government Printing Office, 1896).

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England, colonial administrators considered Trinidad to be the perfect opportunity to formulate a model for the modern, post-slavery colony that the empire now required6. As evident in these republished novels, Woodford’s tenure resonates deeply with the conflict between what Néstor García Canclini calls the emancipation and renovating projects of Western modernity7.

In the introduction to the Caribbean Heritage Series of University of the West Indies Press which has republished three of these novels, Bridget Brereton, Rhonda Cobham, Mary Rimmer and Lise Winer rightly claim that these works are “an integral part of the Trinidadian and Caribbean literary traditions” (WA, xiv). But we may also consider them within the broader tradition of plantation literature. In “Closed Space, Open Word,” Édouard Glissant uses “plantation literature” in a more expansive sense than what is customary in U.S. contexts8. In the U.S. the phrase is usually restricted to white southern writing that romanticized plantation life both before and after slavery ended there. Here, Glissant’s distinction between popular (and oral) stories 6 See Catherine Hall, Civilizing Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830-1867 (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002); Bridget Brereton, Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad 1870-1900 (Cambridge U P, 1979); and L.M. Fraser’s History of Trinidad, ibid.

7 García Canclini actually identifies four (often conflicting or contradictory) movements of Western modernity: the “emancipation project” which refers to the secularization of culture and the rationalization and individualization of social life; the “expansive project” as an extension of scientific knowledge and industrial development, and the circulation and consumption of goods motivated by profit under capitalism (usually linked to urbanization); the “renovating project” which involves two impulses, a need for constant progress, improvement, innovation or change and a need to “continually reformulate the signs of distinction”; and the “democratizing project,” which promotes popular education, moral improvement, and the diffusion of art (12). For this discussion, I focus on the clash between the emancipation and renovating impulses, given that at this historical moment in the West Indian colonies the aim of the emancipation project was the abolition of slavery while the British Empire was reformulating itself in an era of rapid expansion. Néstor García Canclini. Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Exiting Modernity.

Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1995. Trans. By Christopher L. Chiappari and Silvia L. López.

8 Édouard Glissant. “Closed Space, Open Word,” in Poetics of Relation. Trans.

Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 1997. pp. 63-75.

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of slaves and the elitist literary tradition of the planters is important, where he characterizes the latter as one of “delusion,” a “disguised apology” with “a driving force and hidden design” of the “derangement of memory” (71). Left out of this formulation, however, at least in that particular essay, are works that engage abolitionist discourse in support of racial equality like these four novels. The “derangement of memory,” in this plantation literature entails not a “disguised apology” for slavery, as Glissant’s remarks suggest, but reveals opposition to it.

Though I argue that these novels all take up the cause of abolition, they differ substantially in respect to their views on the radical antislavery solution offered by the Haitian Revolution (1804). In contrast to Sybille Fischer in Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, who finds that nineteenthcentury Cuban antislavery novels avoid depictions of the Haitian Revolution, these Trinidadian novelists take pains to link the Haitian Revolution to Trinidad. Surely this difference is due in part to the severe censorship of abolitionist writing at the time Cuban national literature emerges, but her more general characterization that “disavowal of revolutionary antislavery became an ingredient in Creole nationalism and eventually in hegemonic constructions of modernity,” fails to take into account Anglophone Caribbean literature of the same period and the importance of slavery and abolitionism to British modernity in general (274)9 . The Haitian Revolution played a far different role in the British context, where it figures predominately in imperial discourse10. The Haitian Revolution gave

9

In contrast to Fischer, I distinguish between articulations of a Creole modernity and a colonial modernity in Trinidad, where the former is predicated on racial equality, while the latter on white supremacy. As seems appropriate for the Cuban, Dominican and Haitian contexts of this same period, Fischer describes “Creole modernity” as coinciding with hegemonic Western modernity through which a racially exclusivist nationalist ideology is promoted, without labeling its possible alternative based on racial equality as exemplified by the Haitian revolution (Modernity Disavowed, p. 136, 145-46, 178).

10 See for example, Cora Kaplan, “Black Heroes / White Writers: Toussaint Louverture and the Literary Imagination.” History Workshop Journal, 46 (Autumn 1998), pp. 33-62.

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the British an opportunity to win back what they lost when the French had a similar advantage during the U.S. independence struggle. The British thus could use Haiti as evidence of both African savagery and French incompetence. For moderate abolitionists who advocated amelioration and gradual manumission of slaves, Haiti was deployed as the inevitable violent outcome of an inherently violent plantation system and a warning to planters that their day might yet come if they did not free those people of African descent who were still slaves.

Fischer convincingly argues that radical antislavery, like the Haitian Revolution, was central to “the revolutionary spirit of modern universalism in a way that the more celebrated and better-known revolutionary movements of the time were not” (16). Given that many French Trinidadian planters along with their slaves had fled that revolution and the short-lived one in Grenada11, often via Martinique, it had a particularly strong resonance on the island. Nineteenthcentury Trinidadian writers, then, whether French Creole, of the “English party,” or imperialist, could not help but acknowledge the event which catapulted the British Caribbean into modernity.

British elite abolitionism, like radical antislavery, contributed to the emancipatory project, but in a way that tended to bolster imperialism. As abolitionist writing moved away from strictly religious circles to appeal to a broader, mass audience, it also shifted from testimonial and autobiographical modes to that of fiction. Mrs. Noy Wilkinson, author of The Slave Son, published in London in 1854, admits in her preface that though she began the novel in the 1840s, she was inspired to finish it with the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin the previous year (SS 99). In Emmanuel Appadocca, published in England in 1854, Michel Maxwell Philip also makes a direct link with U.S. slavery in his preface, saying he was similarly aroused “by the cruel manner in which the slave holders of 11 The Grenadian Revolution under Fédon’s leadership (also referred to as “Fédon’s Rebellion”), which began in 1795 with support from French Jacobins, managed to overthrow slavery and oust the British and royalist French planters from Grenada until 1796 when the British retook the island and reinstituted slavery (WA, 441; also see Edward L. Cox, Free Coloreds in the Slave Societies of St. Kitts and Grenada, 1763-1833, Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1984, as cited in “Preface,” EA, p. ix).

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America deal with their slave children” (EA 6). By this time, the slavery question had been decided in the British and French colonies, and abolitionists were working to build international pressure to put an end to it in the U.S., Cuba, and Brazil. These were the fiercest competitors of the British and French West Indian sugar, cotton, and coffee planters after European price controls (giving them preference) were lifted, thus emerged a feeling that they were losing the struggle against those countries still using slave labor. Abolitionism became an assertion of British superiority, fueling imperial expansion. In this context, an anti-slavery position in Trinidad could hardly be considered a radical stance, yet Philip and Wilkinson both chose that setting to speak to U.S. circumstances.

This situation differs substantially from E.L. Joseph who wrote and published his historical novel, Warner Arundell, while living in Trinidad during the era of slavery. For this reason, Joseph had to be much more circumspect in denouncing racial slavery, lest he be ousted, as his hero is, for being a “Saint,” that is, proscribed as an abolitionist spy. In this essay, I offer a reading of Joseph’s Warner Arundell, finding lurking within its “hidden design,” or “forced poetics,” not only an abolitionist stance, but also a redemption of slave revolt as a legitimate means for achieving racial equality.

Joseph cautiously asserts human equality while presenting British culture as the apogee of European enlightenment. As an Anglican Jewish immigrant from London before Jewish (and Catholic) emancipation, Joseph no doubt was aware of both the limits and promise of modernity. Alongside his English boosterism is a critique based on the lessons learned through the history of European settlement of the Caribbean. Joseph’s novel as well as his earlier History of Trinidad, on which it is based, can be seen then as attempts to express a distinct Creole historical consciousness, differentiating it from England and Europe, yet placing it on the same path of socioeconomic development12. That is, he presents the British West Indies as firmly part of the modern and modernizing world despite the 12 E.L. Joseph. A History of Trinidad. Reprinted London: Frank Cass and Co. 1970. [Trinidad: Henry James Mills, London: A.K. Newman and Co., Glasgow: F. Orr and Sons, 1838].

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practice of slavery, which is rendered as a barbaric tradition that needed to be replaced by a more enlightened social system.

As Benedict Anderson maintains, Creole plantation culture, like that of the bourgeoisie, spread through the printed word, primarily in the form of newspapers13. Trinidad, like other British colonies of the early nineteenth century, had a well-developed tradition of a free press, setting it apart from Spanish and French Caribbean colonies of the same period. But, the nature of the free press in a colony controlled by Creole planters meant that it can and did publish gossip, rumors, and hearsay, as fact, and exhorted the courts to punish those they deemed a threat to their way of life. Joseph’s criticism of such prejudicial practices is reflected in the final volume of his novel, when the hero, who tells the story in first person narration, finds out that being thought a “saint” in a slave society can mean martyrdom whether or not one is willing to die for the cause. The press in this context functions as what Brathwaite refers to as a “cultural censor,” explaining that “[i]n extreme cases, there is preventative censorship (house arrest, deportation, etc.) and/or extermination” of anyone, intellectual or of the masses, who criticizes or challenges the Eurocentric/white supremacist system (16)14 .

Indeed, the day after he is exonerated for murder, Warner finds himself the subject of one of these journalistic missives, when he reads in the paper: “We caution our judge that our eyes are upon him [W.A.], and that we will look sharp that he does his duty in punishing this villainous saint, without any fear of influence of the Aldermanbury faction” (italics and square bracket in original, WA 402). Here the pro-slavery faction which constitutes the “we” differentiates between their group and the wider Trinidadian society by stressing “our eyes” versus “our judge.” They remind the judge that he too is under scrutiny, and that his decision is beyond the reach of a British Parliament dominated by abolitionists. Though Warner can safely joke that he would like to tweak “’we’ by its nose,” the incident points to the way the free press was used to discipline 13

Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities NY: Verso, 1993, pp. 60-65.

Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversity and Integration in the Caribbean. Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1974.

14

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those who threatened the hegemony of white supremacy in a slave society (WA 402).

This episode registers even more powerfully as social critique given that Joseph was compelled to resign as editor of the Port of Spain Gazette after the publication of the volume in which the incident appears. Joseph defiantly took full responsibility for what he called the “immorality, sedition, and treason” contained in his work (WA xxiii). Perhaps one case of “sedition” the author had in mind is Warner’s accusation of murder against a vicious slave owner, an event which comes to the attention of the Anti-Slavery Society in England, prompting the rumors that Warner is an abolitionist spy. Warner’s characterization of the local anti-slavery zealot who comes to his defense (only making matters worse for him, of course) as a man of “uncontrollable temper,” “imprudent,” “with no regard for truth,” hardly seems sympathetic to the cause (WA 323). Later, he tells the reader that though the system of slavery obviously must be condemned, he “would not incite a slave revolt over it” (WA 344). By the end of the novel, however, we can read Warner’s explicit rejection of slave revolution, particularly the Grenadian Revolution in the middle of which he is born, as ironic. Through the mulatto figures of Julien Fédon and Rodney Arundell, Joseph suggests the possibility of authentic racial solidarity and a truly modern Creole future that owes its debt to such slave revolts15. In this way, the novel rewrites the failed Grenadian Revolution as a success, such as that of Haiti, rejecting a racist basis for modern Creole society16.

15 I will use the term “mulatto,” colored, mixed race and sometimes brown as was used in this era, to refer to people of both European and African descent.

In nineteenth-century Trinidad ‘mulatto’ was an identity claimed by members of mixed African and French descent, which sometimes was extended to any mixed European and African, or colored person (see for example, Jean-Baptiste Phillippe’s An Address to the Right Hon. Lord Bathurst … by a Free Mulatto, London: S. Gosnell 1824, republished as Free Mulatto, Selwyn Cudjoe, ed. and intro., Wellesley, Mass: Calaloux P, 1996).

16 For a completely different reading of Warner Arundell and how the figures of Julien Fédon, Victor Hugues, Rodney Arundell, and María Josefa Ximenes function to buttress white supremacy see Selwyn R. Cudjoe, Beyond Boundaries: The Intellectual Tradition of Trinidad and Tobago in the Nineteenth Century.

(Wellesley Ma: Calaloux, 2003, pp. 65-83).

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In the introduction to Warner Arundell, Brereton and co-authors state that “it is misguided to read this [novel’s] ‘colour blindness’ ... as an indication of unusual prescience or liberality on the author’s part,” suggesting instead that it should be seen as a function of its historical moment (WA xxxv)17. That is, they argue that though it was clear slavery was on its way out, “the new dyad of ‘black and white’” (WA xxxv) based on scientific racism had yet to fully emerge —thus an ideological vacuum allows for a neutral presentation of mulatto figures that later is impossible (WA, xxv). In Trinidad the mulatto figure maintains saliency much longer than elsewhere in British Caribbean literature, no doubt due to the size and wealth of the “mixed” African-European Creoles, but this position does not pay close enough attention to the representation of Julien Fédon, who is not simply a neutral figure. Instead, I contend that as a leader of the failed Grenadian Revolution, Fédon is the “spectral mulatto” who haunts the novel (WA 314); he is the mystery that drives the text, and the one who ultimately must be redeemed.

In Warner’s first encounter with him, Fédon is presented as an anonymous wretched old man who can never return to his beloved homeland of Grenada lest he “die the death of a felon,” for killing his countrymen (WA 312). Warner does not recognize him, believing, as he reports at the opening of the novel, that Fédon had drowned in his attempt to escape from Grenada. Many years later, Warner is stumbling in the darkness of a moonless night on Pitch Lake, Trinidad, when he’s rescued by an old man and his companion, Julie. The ancient Julie Sanois, a former aide to Toussaint Louverture, prophesied that the French would betray him; Louverture failed to heed her warning and at his capture and deportation to France she fled to Grenada18. She 17

The testimony of Gustava Vassa of conditions in the West Indies and southern U.S. as to the racist treatment of free colored or blacks in the mid- to late-eighteenth century calls into question the notion promoted here that systematic white supremacy was not yet in operation in Joseph’s time (see The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustava Vassa, the African. Leeds: James Nichols, 1814).

18 In his History of Trinidad Joseph reports in a footnote that he heard “from an authority” he “cannot doubt” that Fédon had escaped to Trinidad (footnote, p. 186).

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links Fédon and his failed revolution to the ultimately successful revolution of Haiti. At Pitch Lake, Julie refuses to help Warner, not trusting any whites, and fearful that their identities would be discovered. It is Fédon who insists on helping Warner.

After taking Warner into his hut, Fédon betrays himself while talking in his sleep. Warner, in turn, reveals that he is the son of Bearwell Arundell whom Fédon had fought against in Grenada. Fédon had protected Bearwell’s wife, who died in captivity just after giving birth to Warner. Telling this tale of his birth at the opening of volume one of the novel, Warner explains how planters despised Fédon as the accomplice to Victor Hugues (the French Jacobin former governor of Guadeloupe still in exile in the West Indies). Warner also points out that it is believed the slaves were duped by power-hungry mulattoes like Fédon, who were only using them to gain power for the French. But, during Fédon’s rambling confession and cries in his sleep at Pitch Lake, Warner learns that Fédon suffers greatly for not being able to overcome Hugues’ trap of freeing the slaves, having no chance of bringing about racial equality once the island was taken from the British, as happened to Louverture19.

Fédon’s self-inflicted penitence of wearing a hair-shirt, shunning society, and yet not hating white men substantiates his declaration to Warner’s father at the opening of the novel that though he “possessed a valuable gang” his motivation for leading the war against the British in Grenada was for “liberty and equality —not as these words are … understood by the hollow-hearted French” but “to make the negro respected despite his inky skin, to induce the mulatto to consider himself a man, although his brown skin told him he was the son of the tyrannical white man” (WA 27). Thus Warner comes to understand that as a free mulatto Fédon had freed the slaves in good faith, willingly giving up his relative privilege and risking his life to 19

Earlier on, Warner also meets up with Victor Hugues in Cayenne (French Guyana), where he is presented as a blind, foolish, but proud old man with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, who tries to beat his slave to death in public.

Though he is never explicitly described as a mulatto in the novel (and is in fact contrasted with Fédon and two other mulatto leaders), Cudjoe sees Joseph’s representation of Hugues as a mulatto revolutionary leader whose motives are “distorted” to malign his race/class (Beyond Boundaries, n.31, p. 75).

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end racial slavery and form a new society based on social equality (at least among men). Warner’s ability to understand Fédon’s dream at Pitch Lake, having personal knowledge of the events in Grenada and Fédon’s behavior there, allows him to express empathy for the man. Moreover, Fédon admits that he had returned Bearwell’s newborn because Warner’s father enacted racial solidarity with him when the cruel racist Englishman Smithson had called him a mulattodog and spit on him in public. In the course of the novel, Warner unwittingly avenges Fédon by killing Smithson, who also turns out to be the man who ousts him as a saint. Through these interwoven, fantastic coincidences, expected of such adventure tales, Warner enacts the radical solution of the Haitian revolution and doing in fact what he claims was not the way to end slavery and bring about racial equality. Having Warner purge the violent white racist from Creole society, extends solidarity to those Europeans, like his father, who reject white supremacy as the basis of that society.

Fédon’s incitement to free the slaves and exterminate the Englishmen for being publicly insulted can be read as reducing the motivation behind both the Haitian and Grenadian Revolutions to primitive, instinctual revenge despite Fédon’s noble claims. But, Joseph also links Fédon’s confession and his redemption to Governor Woodford and his project for a modern post-slavery colony.

Woodford, it seems, requires a spiritual conversion like the one Warner had experienced on Pitch Lake, where Warner admits at daybreak, that “like most enlightened persons I wondered how I could blunder in the dark” (WA 351). Sir Ralph Woodford too thinks he is enlightened with the knowledge for bringing progress to the backward plantation slave colony through restructuring social relations in Port of Spain by strengthening the church, police, and militia, as well as instituting new civil codes that legalized racial segregation in preparation for emancipation20. After meeting up with Woodford on 20

For Woodford’s administration, see Carl C. Campbell, Cedulants and Capitulants.The Politics of Colored Opposition in the Slave Society of Trinidad 1783-1838 (POS: Paria, 1992); Gertrude Carmichael, The History of the West India Islands of Trinidad & Tobago, 1498-1900 (POS: Columbus Publishers, 1976); Donald Wood, Trinidad in Transition: The Years After Slavery (Oxford UP, 1968); and L.M. Fraser, History of Trinidad, Vol. II from 1814-1839, op.cit. For the role of the police,

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an island in the Bocas Cays, Warner is invited to dinner on the steam boat Woodford. For many colored Trinidadians, this steamship, claimed to be the first in the West Indies, symbolized the governor’s attempt to monopolize the island’s modernization scheme and impose legal segregation21. Tellingly, the ship breaks down, and Warner along with the governor and other passengers are forced to spend the night anchored at the small island.

In the morning, Warner finds himself arrested by order of the Governor for having killed a man, based on Woodford overhearing him cry out in his sleep. But, Woodford has misread Warner’s dream, indicating that unlike Warner and Fédon, Woodford and Warner do not share the same assumptions, historical knowledge or psychic space. Though it is a reasonable, even a rational deduction given Warner’s dreadful mutterings, Woodford’s conclusion is completely wrong. After his acquittal, Warner boldly accuses the governor of inviting him on board his steamship so he could “spy” on him —reversing the accusation made against Warner for being an abolitionist spy (WA 399). It might be assumed that Warner means the governor thinks he is a smuggler or up to any of the other illegal activities that were prevalent among colonials. Spying is also similar to Woodford’s method for collecting gossip to keep tabs on the inhabitants in town, (depicted earlier) that enables him to strictly uphold his new laws for “public order,” “decency,” and “health.” But, it is hard not to think of Woodford’s spying here to also be in league with the pro-slavery faction that would have Warner killed, despite the governor’s claim that he did not believe in the gossip about Warner at their initial meeting. Warner recuperates his composure, apologizing that “we are all liable to err,” challenging the Governor’s infallibility as well as his own (WA 399). Woodford, whose obstinacy was legendary, is here humbled to admit that he, too, was “mistaken” (WA 400).

militia, and church in mediating social relations in the post-slavery era, see David Vincent Trotman, Crime in Trinidad: Conflict and Control in a Plantation Society, 1838-1900 (Knoxville, U of Tennesee P, 1986, pp. 3-34).

21 Jean-Baptiste Philippe describes the public controversy over the steamboat between colored subscribers and Woodford in Free Mulatto (106108).

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Once vindicated, Warner conjures up the ghost of Fédon at the very moment Rodney Arundell barges in (WA 400). In this way, the “spectral mulatto” is made flesh in the form of Warner’s mulatto brother. Significantly, Joseph stages this climatic scene of the two brothers’ heartfelt family reunion so that Sir Ralph Woodford must witness it. One brother is white, descendant and namesake of the very real founding family, the Warners, of St. Kitts (the first permanent English settlement in the Caribbean), while the other is mulatto, Rodney Arundell, descendant of an African woman and her English master (Warner’s father)22. Woodford is “affected by the scene” but has to hide it “under pretence of having to use his handkerchief” (WA 401), leaving it unclear whether the governor has truly been converted or not. If enlightened, Woodford may also be “mistaken” about the racial ideology that underlies his version of a postslavery colonial modernity in which all non-whites are equally subordinate and inferior to whites. An unenlightened governor, however, would only be mistaken about Warner’s anti-abolitionist sentiments.

Given that this novel was published before abolition and not too long after Woodford’s death, it might seem unsurprising that the Trinidadian elite were scandalized by Joseph’s portrayal of Governor Woodford and some of the “local notables” (WA xxii). But on close examination of the characterizations of Sir Ralph Woodford (beside his erroneous accusation against Warner), or the planter or Creole elite, it may be difficult to discern today exactly what was thought to be so scandalous or treasonous in the work. Though the editors suggest that Joseph “deliberately included unflattering and lightly disguised portraits of some of his enemies … in order to revenge for 22 Joseph ensures that Warner’s father remains honest and honorable by indicating that he acknowledged his eldest son Rodney and siblings, who all received an inheritance from him. This information is kept from young Warner by unscrupulous attorneys. Though this seems a plot contrivance, up into the early nineteenth century, it was not unheard of for respectable European planters to legally recognize children from relationships with African or mulatto women, see for example, Gerard Besson’s “The Adjustment of a French Creole Family to the Post Emancipation Period” (paper presented at University of West Indies, St. Augustine, August 9, 1988).

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what he regarded as libels against him” (WA xxv), only the villain Smithson and the sadistic planter Jacopo stand out as particularly offensive depictions of Trinidadians, the first being an Englishman and the latter an Italian/French Creole originally from Martinique.

As previously mentioned, Smithson gets his due in an act of selfdefense by Warner. Jacopo steals away from the island on a smuggler’s vessel once Warner reports his vicious murder of the slave. It is likely that some of the minor Trinidadian characters and incidents are veiled references to actual people and events, but thus far they have not been identified23. There is also the possibility that the book was condemned for more general reasons, where the Trinidadian elite also read beyond the subtly “disguised apology” for Joseph’s position on the need for a modern post-slavery Creole colony based on the Grenadian, and by extension Haitian, Revolutionary model of racial solidarity.

Joseph, like Warner, was never martyred; however, he died just months after the final volume was published. Both his earlier History of Trinidad and Warner Arundell were buried along with him, despite —or perhaps because of— positive reviews in London. Joseph’s work is only now recovering from that initial cultural censorship which in itself constitutes a Glissantian “derangement of memory.” This claim on Joseph’s position on slavery and race —condoning armed 23

Warner Arundell is described by a fictitious “editor” in Joseph’s “Introduction” to the novel as a “descendant of Sir Thomas Warner,” the first governor and head of the founding family of St. Christopher (St. Kitts) in the 1620s (WA 4). Lise Winer also notes that Charles Warner, Attorney General of Trinidad (1844-70) was an important Trinidadian descendant of the family (WA 438). Warner, appointed by Woodford, became the major force for Anglicization of the island after Woodford’s death. On the other hand, the character Warner Arundell claims his noble descent from the Arundells rather than the Warners; the former being “one of the most ancient English families known in the West Indies” who first settled in St. Kitts, then Antigua, where he was born and raised (WA 7). Warner meets his father’s colored family (his mulatto brothers and sisters) on a visit to St. Kitts where they reside (WA 129). Apparently, Arundell (with spelling variations) is still a prominent family name in the Eastern Caribbean some of whose members claim both European and African descent (personal communication, Rhoda Arrindell, Scarborough, Tobago, November 19, 2005).

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revolution based on emerging egalitarian values that catalyzed the emancipation project of Western modernity —may be hard to allow for readers who see him, at best, as a moderate abolitionist (upholding amelioration, gradual freedom through apprenticeship, and the civilizing mission). Yet, if Warner’s life is meant to be an allegory for the birth of a modern Creole Caribbean culture (and it seems the title and its connection to the earlier history indicates that this certainly is a possibility), the fact that Warner owes his very existence to the mulatto leader of the Grenadian Revolution is significant. It is more than that as well, for Joseph just doesn’t present empathy for slaves and mulattoes who revolt, but forces such a recognition on a governor who emblematizes the institutionalization of white supremacy in Trinidad.

Ghosts are reminders of a history that can never be buried; accordingly, the specter of slave revolt in this text also constitutes the haunting of an alternative or Creole modernity. Ghosts, like Fischer’s echoes, are free floating signifiers, and therefore may be appropriated by any one (163). In this way, at the end of the novel the “spectral mulatto” is made flesh not only in Warner’s brother Rodney Arundell (phenotypically and ideologically a mulatto), but in Warner himself. For Warner’s dream/nightmare or haunting by his father’s admonition that prompts him to deny having blood on his hands, reminds Warner that though he has not committed murder, he may provoke and support murder for his own selfish ends. Warner heeds this echo from his past by returning the treasure to its rightful owner rather than reenacting the initial conquest of the Caribbean motivated by gold lust that quickly turned to genocide; the development of the plantation slave system being itself a repetition of this guilty past24. The return of the treasure, in romantic fashion, leads him to his “true treasure,” his long-lost love, María Josefa 24 Significantly, it is Fédon, in his heartfelt speech in the opening scene during

the Grenadian Revolution who recounts this tragic, repetitive history of the Caribbean to Warner’s father: “Look on these lovely islands, did the Supreme Creator bid them raise their verdant heads from the Atlantic that they should be made altars whereon that insatiate devil, European avarice, should sacrifice millions of dark children of Guinea, after having immolated the whole race of Indians?’” (WA 27).

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Ximenes25, the Angel of Mercy who helps him escape imprisonment by her uncle, a Royalist leader in the Spanish American Revolution26.

We could read this final act then, as returning Warner to his Revolutionary and Creole beginnings, embodying the “spectral mulatto,” Fédon, whose haunting of the Caribbean is forever a possibility for enacting racial equality and thus a Creole modernity.

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As heir to the treasure chest, María Josefa Ximenes can be seen as a symbol of the initial sin of gold lust, thus Warner Arundell, as an embodiment of Creole culture, in sexist/partriarchal fashion is able to dominate the irrational, instinctual desire that constitutes the Caribbean original sin. Cudjoe reads this union with María Josefa Ximenes (a Spanish Creole) as “meant to discourage transracial relationships” (Beyond Boundaries, 82). Joseph describes María Josefa as Spanish Creole, which Winer notes refers to “a person of (primarily) Spanish descent –and therefore ‘white’– born in the New World” (WA 437). However, Peter Roberts provides compelling evidence that by the late 18th - early 19th century the French and English understood “Spanish Creole” to indicate a person of mixed (Spanish and Indian or Spanish and African) descent. For this reason, along with its pejorative use in the metropole, the English of the West Indies increasingly came to reject the use of Creole to identify whites, even those born in the New World (The Shaping of Colonial Identity in the Caribbean, ms., pp. 107-122). In any case, Creole was then, as it is today, a highly contested term.

26 Brereton et al. explain that although Simón Bolívar had abolished slavery in 1816 as part of a deal with Pétion of Haiti as a condition of military aide, by 1821 a modified form of slavery was re-instituted by the Congress of Angostura. Despite this, many Trinidadians, particularly free colored and enslaved Africans fled to Venezuela as a space of freedom even after emancipation (as depicted in Adolphus), perhaps because of confusion over whether slavery existed there or not, and/or the “more relaxed race relations” (“Introduction,” Adolphus, A Tale & and The Slave Son, xxv-xxvii).

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Walcott, Ireland and Hieroglyphic Writing ABSTRACT This paper will look at Derek Walcott’s ongoing relationship with Ireland. It will begin with a consideration of his production of Seamus Heaney’s Antigone in St. Lucia, in 2005. This will involve an appraisal of Walcott’s use of Caribbean speech rhythms in his translation of an Irish rewriting of Greek drama. The paper will proceed to an examination of Walcott’s references to other Irish dramatists and Irish writers in particular in the novel poem Omeros. Again this will lead to a consideration of the act of double translation. The paper will end with a consideration of the dichotomy that Walcott has on occasion set up between the existential chasm that he perceives in Beckett’s art and his own Caribbean sense of the O of dawn. The conclusion will suggest a perennial search for authorial presences, affiliations and a desire to shape experience into something new.

Walcott’s work gives a sense that he has always been attracted to Ireland and its writers. Increasingly, this attraction has been to the potential of language (as he sees it) to become concrete and to create a kind of hieroglyphic writing that evokes the sublime. We can begin with an early essay (Walcott, 1970) in which he talks of a Caribbean landscape that is inhabited by ‘presences’. This he connects to Yeats’s vision of landscape as evocative of a nation’s life force through the fabric of myth and folklore.

These Romantic ideas give way in the Walcottian oeuvre to the parallels that exist in terms of history and pain between the West Indies and Ireland. In an interview with Edward Hirsch, Walcott also elaborated on the influence of John Millington Synge’s Riders to the 449

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Sea in the writing of the Sea at Dauphin (Hirsch, [1979] 1996: 59). In this interview, Walcott comments on the influence of the Irish Renaissance and states that he has always felt an ‘intimacy’ with the Irish poets ‘because one realized they were also colonials with the same kind of problems that existed in the Caribbean. They were the niggers of Britain’ (Hirsch, [1979] 1996: 59). Having identified the similarities between the two repressed peoples, Walcott then concerns himself with the revolutionary sentiment of Ireland and follows this immediately by stating that Synge’s act of ‘translating’ from dialect was an inspirational one because Synge was able to distill lyrical beauty from the dialect of a depressed and deprived people.

The use of dialect becomes associated in this article with one of Walcott’s favourite words, ‘elation’.

In an interview with Jean Antoine he also commented on the importance of Synge’s work but locates this more specifically in Synge’s evocation of the sublime in Riders to the Sea (Antoine, 1992).

Again this play gives evidence of a language that connects a people with subsistence living. It is also aligned to a beauty that is placed in opposition to a poetic that exists in contemporary Europe and which is exemplified in the works of Beckett: Beckett is a very honest writer. He is very honest about what his tragic sense is, that everything is going to end in a final mute, inaudible, ‘O’.

And I think that view, however true it may be for Beckett, is a dead end for language, which he himself could only go down. He could only go down that cul-de-sac to the point where all he had left was a mouth, an open mouth. But to me that is still a Baroque idea. That is still a Romantic idea (Antoine, 1992: 81).

Both Beckett and Synge are, however, as Irish poets and dramatists users of a language that seeks to shape experience on the page so that the experience becomes evident by the very look of the thing and the sound that it makes. The ‘O’ is significant here because it creates echoes and the echoes may be either those of an elation that heralds a tomorrow, or the sound that emanates from empty spaces and from the hollowness of experience. The shape and the sound are the important factors.

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This paper is an exploration of some of the elements that Walcott in the 1992 interview identifies as being part of the experience where people might ‘tomorrow morning, want to wake up and say more than just ‘O’, and might want to finish the line’ (Antoine, 1992: 81). As we see for example in ‘O Happy Days’ of his musical Steel.

This is not to foreground the idea of ‘influences’, though Walcott has himself done this on many noteworthy occasions, including the Hirsch interview and his emotional response in an essay on Robert Lowell: ‘Did I feed off his verse like a parasite to fatten my own? That I would have confessed to, because his influence was irresistible, yet what imagination was more omnivorous than his? Yes, I said to myself, above the pain, I had used him. But only as I had used other masters, ancient or modern’ (Walcott, 1998: 93).

These acknowledged masters have shaped his idea of form and language. But it is to the Irish writers perhaps more than any others that Walcott’s conception of form as a philosophical marker that is both seen and heard and enacted may be attributed. Already in the Hirsch interview the idea of sound ascending and shaping itself as calligraphy is foregrounded in Walcott’s example of the St. Lucian “ciseau la mer” which means “scissors of the sea” because that name as description is more startling, much more exciting than saying “martin” or “tern.” The metaphor is almost calligraphic: ‘when it is pronounced you can almost see it’ (Hirsch, [1979] 1996: 58). This is repeated as an idea in The Fortunate Traveller (Walcott 1981): Now, crouched before blank stone I wrote the sound for “sea,” the sign for “sun.” (1982: 36)

This desire for an hieroglyphic quality where sound and visual coalesce to evoke a response that goes beyond the ordinary is also found in William Butler Yeats, in such memorable images as that of the dancer. The dancer is here both an image that unites the corporeal and the spiritual in the poetic and an image that shapes experience in such a way that it becomes simplified beyond intellectualization.

How can we know the dancer from the dance? (Yeats, 1992: 263). We can’t. We experience the image as a given that somehow elicits within us a sense of the possibility of a spiritual union of being and an

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encounter with the sublime. This is evoked through the contouring effect of that image, its graceful movement in space that is also a movement beyond time. This is somewhat suggested in the image of the chestnut tree which locates the poet within the time of tradition (reinforced in the poem ‘Prayer to My Daughter’) and in the words ‘great-rooted blossomer’ (263). Tradition as rooted experience within the context of the poem itself is another name for some eternal continuity that eschews the mortal world and its pain and links the human with the eternal.

It is possible from this to suggest that the idea of tradition is connected to that of the race as a people with specific beliefs and experiences and for whom this specificity is connected to the physical nature of their lives and landscape and an idea of dramatic utterance shaped by that experience itself.

The essay ‘Meanings’ (1970) notes this connection between concrete space and a psychic belief system and we find this made immanent in the several incarnations of the St. Lucian mountain La Sorcière, which ‘emanated influences’ and generated a sense of mystery (Walcott, 1970: 50). But the ethereal presences that one finds there continue to be felt in the ghosts that haunt Walcott’s later poetry as ancestral presences and as skeletons and death-in-life images.

These resemble the later Yeats, in particular a poem such as ‘Byzantium,’ and it is easy to see the influence of the occultist Yeats as well as the ready parallels that Walcott can assert between the Irish love of magic and mysticism and the quite similar folk systems of the Caribbean.

Folk belief and superstition take on a different value in Walcott’s encounter with Synge. Walcott has himself pointed to the Irish keen and Synge’s use of its traditional sound, as an example of the ‘howl’ that is still ‘primal’ and which suggests the ‘possibility of veneration and fear’ (Antoine, 1992: 80).

In Synge, Walcott found a shape or contour for the sublime in the Irish playwright’s use of the keen. The keen is a kind of wailing that has more in common with primal feeling than reason or consciousness. In Riders to the Sea the sound that the mourning women make is more than language. The keen is a wailing that is sound without words and in Synge enacts a primal connection

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between those still living in close connection to the sea and to something above and beyond either experience or human control.

The keen is deep tribal emotion that has within it the pain of the deaths and accumulated suffering of Maurya and all mothers who have lost husbands and a litany of sons in the futile battle against the primal force of elemental nature, here the sea. The play is a great tragedy because Synge is able to use pure sound as an arc that rises up in time and space. Maurya’s words are part of a rhythmic tonal unity that the women intensify with the subliminal power of sound.

Its force is at one with the graphic figuration of moving female shapes that are repeated motifs of the continuing force of death. This linear flow takes us outside of the immediate experience into a confrontation and a sense of awe in the face of the sublime.

This idea of the sublime is graphed in Synge as a lament issuing forth from the mouths of women in the last stages of tragic destiny.

The connection between silence and its reverberating capacity is made deeply significant in Walcott’s reference to Ireland and in his use of this nation as an image of a country rooted in ancient tradition, yet divided within itself. The ‘O’ enables a graphic image of unity that also has a hole or slit from which flow eddies or ripples: It widened the furrows like a gap between hymns, if that pause were protracted hour after hour by century-ringed oaks, by a square Celtic cross,

And later: …

Its encircling power lifted the midges in vertiginous Latin, then sailed a rook into the slit of a tower like a card in a post-box (Omeros 198).

The ‘O’ of Omeros is also a gash, a split and a graphic trace. It brings together the sense of division mentioned earlier but transforms these divisions in the same way that the net of ‘The Season of Phantasmal Peace’ has transformed the divisions between nations.

The ‘O’ seems to utilize Synge’s version of the sublime in that it too

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is an opening from which echoes resound. These echoes seem to come from deep cavernous spaces and reverberate in the psyche.

What Ireland represents is a rootedness in place but with a gap between the Gaelic and English and within that rupture lies a silence that writers like Synge and Beckett have rethought and restructured to give a sense that behind that silence there are presences and within that silence there is deep significance. Moreover that old ‘pebbled language’ so envied by Walcott is also a carrier of a wound as deep as that of the Middle Passage. It carries death in the form of division not of tongues but of faith. It carries the memory of the split between brother and brother in civil war. It carries to this day the rupture of the gun on the shoulder, and the divided land, which Walcott glosses as ‘splitting heirs’ rendering it both senseless and obscene.

Ireland becomes an image of a peculiarly modern tragedy that has a resemblance in some of its elements to the dividedness of the Caribbean self or of Walcott’s Caribbean self. He connects an idea of the sublime and an idea of the past as coming into conflict with the present and opening itself up to our scrutiny as a black hole or wound in the psyche, with the history and experiences of two peoples.

It is noteworthy that Maud who stitches all the birds of the world onto her tapestry and then dies and is made emblematic of the power of death to transform and transfigure, is also Irish. She is a vehicle of the sublime recalling the lines ‘A beach burns their memory’ (1990: 164) and also ‘Change burns at the beach’s end’ (1990: 34) since in the novel-poem Omeros, death is equated with the burning of the past and the transformation of the detritus of the past into poetry.

These images as Edward Baugh has pointed out (Baugh, 2006: 4) resonate with the echoes of works as distant in time as the essay ‘The Figure of Crusoe’ ([1965] 1993). Maud is also linked, through her embroidery, to that net that we find in the unifying and utopian image of ‘the nations of birds’ in ‘The Season of Phantasmal Peace’ of The Fortunate Traveller (CP 464-465).

The reference to ‘History’s lesson’ (199) in (Omeros) in its recollection of Joyce and the Field Day Company of Derry, engages our attention as a comment on the question of the way in which history infiltrates the psyche and landscape of place. The echo of Joyce’s short story ‘The Dead’ (201) is also a signpost to the squalor

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of the past in quite pointed fashion since the stories in Dubliners as a whole contain the most virulent attack on the residual and scurrilous presence of history on the psyche of the Dubliner. It is also a telling comment on the fact that having a rooted history and a sense of place (having souls buried in the soil of one’s place) do not automatically mean a lessening of the trauma of the hurts of the past.

In Ireland there is no real healing, because there is no forgetting.

What Walcott advocates yet again is a willful and creative amnesia.

At a different level he also introduces an idea of form that is linked to a peculiar idea of sound. Sound as a conveyor of historic echoes in the folkloric and the poetic is an issuing forth that emits echoes within the consciousness of the self and psyche.

Further the system of reverberations that makes this sound possible is associated throughout Omeros with the activity of light, which also reverberates. This image of light that creates reverberations is not new to Omeros as we see for example in “The Star Apple Kingdom”: in that creak of light that was made between the noises of the world that was equally divided between rich and poor, between North and South, between white and black, between two Americas, the fields of silent Zion in Parish Trelawny, in Parish St. David, in Parish St. Andrew, leaves dancing Eke children without any sound in the valley of Tryall, and the white, silent roar (CP 395)

Walcott is using the idea of the resonances that emanate from between spaces ‘at the interstices’ to make a very profound statement.

This is that the gaps or spaces of existence—the caesura-the middle passage—are liminal spaces.

This use of reverberations or what one might call the aftershock of conflictual experience acting on our beings, is something that is to be found in the work of the playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett.

We see this feature as a dramatic technique in terms of linear movement, in works that are based on an idea of contrapuntal movement in space such as Quad (Beckett, [1984] 1990). As an innovative dramatist, Beckett also plays with the sound that has much

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in common with the echoing system generated by an ‘O’. This is most effectively seen in Not I (Beckett, 1990). The ‘sounds’ that issue from those spaces where the human is squeezed and traumatised into silence are more acts of dramatic performance than of language as we normally conceive it. Mouth of Not I is not speaking to be understood by her words, but making a dramatized and graphic depiction of her encounter with experience.

The impact of such sound is its resonance or the effect on the hearer or recipient since it moves like dance in that it is a contouring in sound of experience. There are resemblances, therefore, between the use of such sonic evocations as the keen in Synge and the utterance of Mouth and the enactment of the Middle Passage in limbo dance and in the mute cries of the insane. They are ‘performances’ of experience. Homi Bhabha has much to say on the performative and the gap (Bhabha, 1994). But that is a discussion for another day.

In “Star Apple Kingdom” this use of silence made graphic and at the same time dramatic is deployed through the figure of the woman who hears beyond words. Walcott’s figure is shaped by a flow of sound that graphs the shape of horror and its potential for transcendence both through its images and its movement: she was one of a flowing black river of women who bore elliptical basins to the feet of paupers on the Day of Thorns, who bore milk pails to cows in a pastoral sunrise, who bore baskets on their heads down the haemophilic red hills of Haiti, now with the squeezed rag dripping from her hard hands the way that vinegar once dropped from a sponge, but she heard as a dog hears, as all the underdogs of the world hear, the pitched shriek of silence. (CP 394) The actual movement of the verse seeks to suggest the movement of the river and simultaneously of synchronic time. It, therefore, takes on a mythic ambience and becomes aligned to some form of transcendent vision. But this vision emerges because something more powerful than sound—that is the reverberations of silence—have

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shattered the surface of stone made by history as time and opened up a crack through which light, which also reverberates, now emerges.

The moment of climax is the dawn, which is also a crack i.e. the crack of dawn.

But in its location at ‘break’ of dawn, emphasised by the egg that is hatching and breaking, we also have a concept of beginnings.

Omeros is certainly about beginnings and about invocation: And O was the conch-shell’s invocation, mer was both mother and sea in our Antillean patois, os, a grey bone, and the white surf as it crashes and spreads its sibilant collar on a lace shore (Omeros 14).

Anyone who has read Omeros knows that the ‘O’ of ‘O-mer-os’ represents a synthesis of culture and language and is a statement on the multivocal and multiracial legacy of our colonial and aboriginal past. But it is also a statement on the capacity of sound, in its shape and movement and in its echoes and resonance, to trace patterns of meaning. These patterns are actual and concrete in that they exist as sonic waves and as writing that seeks to give of the very body and essence of the idea and the experience. As such they take us beyond the horror and the void into a startling confrontation with the sublime which is in itself beyond words.

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Bibliography Antoine-Dunne, Jean. “Derek Walcott and Jean Antoine in Conversation.” Poetry Ireland Review 34 (Spring 1992): pp. 72-85.

Baugh, Edward. Derek Walcott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Beckett, Samuel. The Collected Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, 1990.

Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.

Crawford, Robert. “Homing”. Afro-Asian Caribbean Focus.

Hirsch, Edward. “An Inter view with Derek Walcott.” 1977.

Contemporary Literature, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer 1979), 279-92.

Reprinted in Conversations with Derek Walcott. Ed. William Baer.

Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1996.

Ismond, Pat. Abandoning Dead Metaphors. Jamaica: The University of the West Indies Press, 2001.

Joyce, James. Dubliners. London: Penguin, [1914] 1956.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. London: Penguin, [1914] 1992.

——— Ulysses. London: Penguin, [1922] 1992.

Synge, John Millington. Collected Works IV. Plays Book 2. Ed. Ann Saddlemyer. Washington: Colin Smythe, 1982.

Walcott. Derek. Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux [1970] 1982.

Meanings’ Savacou 2 (1970): 45-51.

The Fortunate Traveller. London: Faber, 1982.

Omeros. London: Faber and Faber, 1990.

What the Twilight Says. Essays. London: Faber and Faber, 1998.

Collected Poems 1948-1984. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, [1986] 1998.

‘The Poet in the Theatre’. Poetry Review 80. 4 (Winter 199091): 4-8.

Yeats, William Butler. The Poems. London: Everyman, 1992.

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Forgotten Languages, Forgotten Identities: The Indigenous People of the Caribbean and the Construction of Otherness

Introduction It is impossible to justify our present course of destroying every where those, whose only crime is, that they precede us in the possession of lands, which we desire to enjoy to their exclusion.

(Banister, 1830)

This paper examines the languages and identities of the Arawak and Carib peoples of the Caribbean in an attempt to understand their culture, language, and identity and the impact they have had on the construction of a Caribbean Creole identity. I have also tried to examine the truth behind the false construction of Indigenous identity embedded within the ideology of “otherness.” A biased and distorted historical narrative plagued by European ethnocentrism and racism lies behind such construction. Such a study is imperative because these languages and identities are dying or have already been totally lost in some cases. Today indigenous languages are spoken by a minority who represent a marginalized group. Who were the ancestors of these people? What characteristics distinguished their languages?

What were their customs and beliefs?

European beliefs and attitudes distorted the truth about them. For most Europeans indigenous languages were too complex so they were considered as unfit for communication. Indigenous languages and 459

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cultures were strange and alien to colonizers. They believed that these languages and cultures would impede the process of civilization in the New World so the indigenous population had to surrender their language and identity to the new ruling power. How far did the Europeans go in constructing a negative image of these people, an image that would suit their purposes of control and exploitation? A study of the real history is slowly revealing the truth behind these false constructions. The line between myth and reality is indeed a thin one when considering the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean.

Descendants from Common Ancestors: An Overview of Taínos and Caribs The Taínos, who inhabited the Greater Antilles, and the Caribs, who inhabited the Lesser Antilles, were the first indigenous groups of the New World that established contact with European colonizers.

Their ancestors had reached the islands from South America around 2,500 to 5,000 years before the arrival of Columbus. In his book, Robiou (2003) states that Ricardo Alegría mentions that the migration of Ostionoid indigenous groups led to the development of the Taíno culture. This corresponds to the Archaic Period. During this period two groups migrated to the islands: Arawaks and Caribs. The Arawaks came from Central America and settled the Greater Antilles, and the Caribs came from South America and settled the Smaller Antilles.

Some scholars believe that Taínos and Caribs belonged to the same family while others contend that they were two distinct groups.

Taínos received their name from the Spanish colonizers. When Columbus arrived in the New World he understood that these new people introduced themselves as “nitaíno” meaning “the good people” to refer to themselves. Their origin, according to Highfield (1996), can be traced to the Amazon basin in South America. He continues to explain that their migration to the Caribbean was known as the Saladoid Migration. These Pre-Taínos reached the Greater Antilles as far as Puerto Rico. They adapted to the new environment interacting with the ancient cultures they encountered. During the 13th century, this culture reached its peak on the island of Hispaniola and spread to the surrounding islands. The Taínos produced the most complex

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material culture in the Caribbean and their language was essential to the unity of Taíno culture. They never developed a written language.

It remained a spoken language in a pre-literate culture as stated by Highfield (1996).

One scholar who believes that the people who settled in the vast area of the Antilles were culturally and linguistically very diverse is Taylor. In his book, Taylor (1977) posits that the first migration was made by the Arawakan Indians. A few centuries before the arrival of Columbus, the Karina or Cariban group migrated from South America and conquered their Arawakan speaking predecessors, and in the process they acquired the language of their defeated enemies. This resulted in a process of transculturation of the Lesser Antilles. When Caribs took Arawakan women as wives, the Arawakan language ended conquering the conquerors, Robiou (2003).

Some historians also agree with the idea that Caribs and Taínos were very different. Taínos had developed a more complex society than the Caribs. They had developed a political and economic system called “cacicazgo” that was somewhere between the tribal system and the state. They had a marked division of classes: “nitaínos” who belonged to the higher and noble class, “behiques” who were the shamans or witch doctors with the knowledge of medicinal plants, and the “naborias” who made up the lower working class. On the other hand, Kalinago Indians of the smaller western islands had a tribal system and considered themselves as warriors. According to Robiou (2003), they did not have a class division and were excellent seamen.

Not all historians accept this dichotomy between Taínos and Caribs. Were there two different indigenous groups with different languages and cultures in the Caribbean, or was there one homogeneous culture with slight variations? Sued Badillo, professor at the University of Puerto Rico, posits (1978) that what many Europeans (e.g. Breton) confused with a state of bilingualism in the Caribbean was actually a state of dialectal variation of the same language. The language exhibited a set of certain social constraints such as words and expressions that were reserved to women or men. He believes that both Caribs and Taínos spoke a common language—Arawakan. This concept of a common language has been established by physical and linguistic anthropology.

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Professor Martínez Cruzado has linked Taíno features in Puerto Ricans to a common ancestral lineage. In 1999 he analyzed the DNA mitochondrial material found in the hair of Puerto Ricans. DNA is transmitted intact in women and can show if there is a common indigenous heritage. Results and further research were mentioned in the El Nuevo Día by Cortés (2004). Results revealed that out of a sample of 800 people, 61.1% of the people studied showed an indigenous component. Currently, Professor Martínez Cruzado is conducting a similar study in the Dominican Republic. A preliminary analysis of his data reveals a prominence of indigenous descent in Dominican subjects. He explains that the results obtained from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic reveal that indigenous populations came from the same maternal lineage in both islands and that probably their common ancestors came from indigenous tribes migrating from Mexico and Central America.

The Arawak Language Family The Arawak language family contains the largest number of languages in South America. Geographically, it spans four countries of Central America—Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua—and eight of South America—Bolivia, Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. There are about 40 living Arawak languages today according to Aikenvald (1999). Arawak languages were spread throughout most of the Caribbean islands and in the vast areas of the South American lowlands. Arawak played an interesting role during the European conquest. The first Amerindians encountered by Columbus in the Bahamas, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico were Arawak-speaking Taínos. The linguistic situation at that time placed Taíno as the predominant language form. According to Highfield (1996), Arawak Taíno was spoken in the Bahamas, Eastern Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. He states that there were small pockets of non-Taíno speakers scattered throughout the islands of the Greater Antilles (e.g. Guanahatabey of western Cuba, the Ciguayo in northern Haiti). Highfield explains that farther to the east lived the Igneri, an Arawak-speaking people that settled in the smaller eastern Caribbean islands. Carib-speaking migrants from South

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America settled in the Lesser Antilles. Their language was influenced

by Arawak speaking women whom they took as wives after stealing them from the Taínos. Arawak played a significant role in the formation of Island-Carib. This linguistic transition occurred as captive Arawak-speaking mothers spoke their native language with their children. Taylor (1977) contends that the language spoken by the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles basically was the Arawakan language of their women so they had assimilated Taíno as their language. Other scholars agree with this position. Highfield (1996) states the following: The grammar and structure of the language spoken in the islands was basically Arawakan, only a few Carib structures were retained in the speech of the male Caribs. It was Taíno that spread throughout the islands. The Taínos of St. Croix spoke a form very closely related to that of the Taínos of Puerto Rico. Taíno was spoken in the major islands of the Greater Antilles until the mid 16th century when it disappeared due to the strong pressure of Castillian Spanish. (p. 6)

Many words were incorporated into Spanish as Taíno borrowings were incorporated, especially those used to name autochthonous flora and fauna as well as toponyms. Taylor (1977) strongly believed that in most cases more than two languages were involved in the pidginizing process that led to the birth of Creoles. He holds that bilingualism in the Caribbean was present before Columbus and that an important number of loan words allowed for intelligible communication. Contact between members of different speech communities allows for bilingualism to develop. Columbus reported that these Indians all spoke the same language. In his book, Languages of the West Indies, Taylor cites a comment written by Andrés Bernáldez in 1856: Todos parecían que eran de una misma lengua, que es maravilloso en tantas islas no haber diversidad de lengua y podíale causar el navegar, que eran señores de la mar, y por eso las Islas Canarias no se entendían, porque no tenían con que navegar y en cada isla había una lengua. (p. 18)

The English translation to this quote is the following: They all seemed to speak the same language. It was wonderful to observe that among the many islands there was no linguistic diversity.

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Maybe this was due to the fact that the Indians were great seamen. In the Canary Islands, such was not the case. Their languages were unintelligible from island to island, probably because the Indians of these islands were not good seamen. A different language was spoken on each island. (p. 18)

Other studies contend that the language was not mutually intelligible among all islanders. Highfield (1996) believes that the truth lies somewhere in between these two poles—one language and closely related dialects rather than one homogeneous tongue. In spite of the dialectal variations, Taínos could communicate across a wide geographical domain.

Today there are about 40 living Arawak languages: Garífuna, Tupí Guaraní, Guajiro among others as reported by Aikenvald (1999). The greatest bio-linguistic diversity is found in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples who represent 4% of the world’s population but speak at least 60% of the world’s languages (Nettle & Romaine, 2000).

Indigenous languages are spoken by minority groups who have been severely marginalized throughout history. Colonial governments and missionaries used their beliefs about the inferiority of indigenous languages to justify replacing them with European languages.

Stereotypes about people are projected onto their languages and cultures. Europeans considered the languages of these people barbaric and uncivilized according to European standards. Being linguistically and culturally different condemned “the other” to being savage.

We must identify and stabilize languages that are endangered so that they can be transmitted to future generations. When a language dies, a great amount of knowledge about our world dies with it.

Language is one of the things that clearly differentiates us from other species. No one “kills” a native language willingly; language death is caused by extreme situations.

Nettle and Romaine (2000) mention three reasons that account for language death. First, languages die when the people who speak the language cease to exist. A good example of language death occurred during the colonial era. In less than 100 years indigenous populations of the Caribbean were eradicated due to intense forced labor, malnutrition, and diseases brought upon them by colonizers. A

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second cause for language death is shift from one language to another, mainly a forced shift. This situation pervaded during colonization.

Indigenous populations were forced to learn the language of the white man in order to communicate. No attempt was made by the colonizers to learn the others’ language, which was considered difficult and dysfunctional. A third cause of language death is “voluntary” shift from one language to another. Native speakers of a language cease to valorize their mother tongue. They feel that they are better off speaking a new language which is esteemed as powerful and more prestigious. The people then cease to teach the native language to their children and the language ceases to be used in all domains where it was once used by native speakers. Evidence of this third cause of language death can also be identified in the colonial period. Language choice is influenced by power relationships, and without any doubt one can say that the colonizers had the power, their language was the key to civilization, they definitely had the power to “kill” languages and cultures and they did so very effectively. Alleyne (2004) explains that colonizers were the ones who named the merging languages in the Caribbean. These languages were called Creoles or patois. Alleyne (2004) contends that this kind of naming was partly responsible for the people in the Caribbean believing that their languages were inferior. He posits that even the term “indigenous” (which means first possessors) was used by European colonizers to reduce these inhabitants of the New World to one convenient group. This naming was based on an uneven power relationship between those who had the power to name and those who had to submit to being named. We must learn the hard way so if we do learn something from the European conquest, I hope it is to understand that language death must be avoided at any cost.

Construction of Otherness and Manipulation of History History has attributed certain behaviors, characteristics and traits to ethnic groups and races as a means of power, control and domination, not only control over the body but also over the mind and soul of that person who is seen as “the other”. History written in books may be very different from what really happened. The past

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cannot be reconstructed by scattered pieces of information placed out of context. History must be studied within the circumstances of time. One major historical misconception of the past is the stigma that has hung over the Carib Indians of the Lesser Antilles (Sued Badillo, 1986).

Old chronicles about the Indies are plagued with prejudice and distortions because they resulted from a colonial ideology. The dualist dichotomy between Taínos and Caribs was a convenient creation of the Spaniards. On one extreme we find the docile, noble savage—the Taíno. On the other, we find the savage, the cannibal—the Carib. This set of binaries hid one of the most important premises of colonial conquest ideology. Carib vs. Taíno was equated to violence vs. submission and resistance vs. collaboration. Colonial conquest needed to be glorified at the expense of indigenous devaluation. Sued Badillo (1978) comments the following about the falseness of historical documents: Una increíble geografía radical en uno de sus extremos amamantó un pueblo en condiciones paradisíacas para convertirse en un símbolo ideal de convivencia social y al otro extremo, abortó otro y lo convirtió en la quintaescencia de todo mal. (p. 2)

The English version reads as: An incredible radical geography, on one extreme, nurtured the idea of a paradise-like image of one group of Indians who became a symbol of peaceful living; whereas, at the opposite extreme, it aborted another group of Indians who symbolized the quintessence of evil. (p. 2)

Many scholars have portrayed the Caribs as “man-eaters” of primal instincts, as bloodthirsty warriors who ate their enemies. This construction of a false identity gave way to a series of invented and exaggerated narratives about violent murders and horrendous behaviors attributed to the Carib Indians of the Caribbean.

According to Sued (1978), Columbus in his first trip in 1492, provided the first intentionally manipulated narrative about indigenous people when he refers to “hombres con hocicos de perro

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que comían hombres y bebían sangre” (p. 17). In English this would be translated as “men who had dog snouts and ate men and drank blood.” This was indeed a lucrative and strategic plan to justify enslavement and abuse of a “monstrous other.” Similarly, Robiou (2003) states that during his first trip, Columbus forged the colonial vision of the New World—a beautiful paradise populated by servile and docile Indians who could easily be converted to Christianity as well as exploited. The author contends that Columbus’s first trip was geared toward exploration; whereas, his second trip was focused on colonization and exploitation. It was precisely during this second voyage that Spanish colonizers had their first violent encounter with Carib Indians. A Carib woman was taken as prisoner after killing the males. Michelo de Cuneo, a sailor, was the first European to rape an indigenous woman. This first rape became the first interracial sexual encounter to be recorded in the New World. Sued Badillo (1978) writes: No podemos ignorar el hecho de que Colón, para darle credibilidad a sus propósitos comerciales, manipuló el conjunto de relatos fragmentarios que recibió de las indígenas. En su famosa misiva a los reyes católicos, aludió a islas de mujeres guerreras, a islas de oro, a islas de hombres con cola, a islas de hombres sin cabellos, y por supuesto a islas de antropófagos. Todos estos personajes claramente míticos muy pronto se desvanecieron, pero los caníbales persistieron porque como ya veremos, resultaron apropiados para la nueva ideología de la conquista en las nuevas tierras. (p. 39)

The English translation of this quote reads as: We cannot ignore the fact that Columbus manipulated the bits and pieces of information that he received from the Indians to bestow credibility upon his commercial purposes. In his famous letter to the Catholic King and Queen, he alluded to islands of warrior women, to islands of plentiful gold, to the islands of men who had tails and no hair, and of course to the islands of cannibals. All these mythical characteristics soon vanished from the mind of Europeans, but the image of the cannibal Indian persisted because as we shall see, it was most appropriate for the ideology of conquest of the New World. (p. 39)

Special laws were passed to enslave Caribs. In 1511, La Real Cédula del 6 de junio, declared that the island of St. Croix was a Carib

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territory and granted permission to capture and enslave the evil Caribs. Sued (1986) refers to Caribs in the following way: Far from being bloodthirsty assassins, the Lesser Antilleans—a branch of the Arawak stock—were the only groups which learned out of experience in the other islands how to defend themselves against the Spanish. Alerted to the dangers of enslavement and relocalization by runaway Taínos, they not only resisted but even at times retaliated with force and effectiveness. (p. 57)

In 1542 Spain passed a law that prohibited Indian slavery. The law was modified in 1547, and permission was granted to enslave aggressive Indians. Evidently, now it became very convenient to promote a campaign of false reports and exaggerations of the horrors committed by the Caribs. The most repulsive of all these accusations in the eyes of Europeans was that of cannibalism. These cultural classifications originated out of the need for free-labor on sugar plantations and mines.

The island of St. Croix became an important frontier between Taínos and Caribs. Figueroa (1978) explains that when Juan Ponce de León conquered Puerto Rico in 1509, Taínos complained about the wrongdoings of the Caribs who inhabited St. Croix. Ponce de León successfully pacified and converted Crucian Caribs to Christianity, but several months later, Diego de Nicuesa, raided St. Croix taking over 150 Caribs as slaves. The Caribs rebelled and incited Taínos to rebel as well. Two former enemies became allies against a common foe—the Spaniards. Many Caribs left St. Croix and it is thought that Taínos also fled with them to the smaller islands rather than submitting to the Spanish. The Virgin Islands became a battlefield where Taínos and Caribs resisted the Spanish Empire to the best of their abilities. Figueroa (1978) posits that the Virgin Islands were used as a frontier in three different ways: First, they were a battlefield between Caribs and Taínos. Then they became a common ground where both Taínos and Caribs joined forces against the Spanish.

Finally, they became a frontier area that served as refuge for Taínos and Caribs.

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Quintessence of Evil and “The Other”: The Construction of False Identity Ideologies are undoubtedly a social construct. Firstly, they may be said to be the reflection of the prevailing ideas of an age, usually associated with the ruling class or elite. Ideologies characterize the mental dimension of a society, groups or institutions as explained by van Dijk (1998). The author defines ideology as “a shrewd framework of social beliefs that organize and coordinate the social interpretations and politics of groups and their members, and in particular also power and other relations between groups” (p. 135).

We may infer from this definition that ideologies become a kind of “historical knowledge” about something or someone. They promote the development of certain attitudes about the “self” and toward “the other.” Ideologies perpetuate prejudice and negative evaluation of the other as a tool for power and control. It gives way to a binary representation of a positive self and a negative other, of us vs. them, of good guys (the Europeans) vs. the bad guys (the indigenous people). According to Sued (1978), the negative vision of the Antillean Indian lies within a broader European configuration where both indigenous people and Africans were held responsible for the weaknesses and flaws in the character of Creoles, while all the positive traits of Creoles were inherited from the “virtuous” colonizers. When encountered with the new inhabitants of the New World, European colonizers dispossessed them of their land, their language, and their identity aided by a propaganda of corruption (Roberts 2004). This idea of the corruption of indigenous people (and of Africans as well) gave way to what I call a system of labeling within the new ideology being constructed in the New World.

Hegemonic power does not manipulate differences between individuals and social groups in a naïve way, on the contrary, it produces and reproduces difference as a key strategy to create and maintain social divisions that accommodate ideology to the ruling power. Roberts (2004) mentions the importance of naming in the process of identity construction. I would rather speak of labeling because it is the strategy by which the dominant group exerts power and control over the dominated group.

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Labeling becomes a way of political control because it allows the categorization of people into convenient images. It propagates a system of stereotyping. Labels replicate and perpetuate the values of those who create them. Hegemonic institutions use labeling to build, transform, and control the construction of identity. Labels are used to build asymmetrical power relationships between the powerful and the powerless. Labeling means inclusion and exclusion, stereotyping and control. Analyzing who does the labeling in a social arena, and what conflicting categories are established by these labels, sheds light on the process of the construction and transformation of identities.

It is within this framework that I wish to analyze the term “cannibalism.” Some ideologies are explicitly invented in the appropriate historical and social circumstances and are explicitly propagated among group members. They are developed and applied as a legitimization for the abuse of power and its resulting inequality.

The term cannibal is so highly charged that probably this label, above all others, prevailed in the shaping of an image of corruption, degradation, and abomination regarding “the other.” Cannibalism is the practice of eating members of the same species (e.g. man eating man/ dog eating dog). Among humans, this practice has been recorded in the form of “ritual cannibalism” among tribal groups in regions such as the Amazon Basin, Africa, Fiji, and New Guinea. The accusation of cannibalism has historically been more common than the act itself. During the years of colonial expansion, enslaving indigenous citizens was illegal for the Spanish, unless the people involved were so depraved that their condition as slaves would be better than that of free men and women. Cannibalistic tendencies were considered evidence of this corrupt human nature, hence reports of cannibalism became widespread.

Both Robiou (2003) and Sued (1986) agree that the so-called Carib cannibalism was a mere invention of Spanish imperialism to justify slavery and domination. Sued holds a stronger position than Robiou in his defense of Caribs against the charge of cannibalism. He goes into discourse analysis of old documents and chronicles pointing out that they were heavily infused with a dehumanizing ideology. He believes that Europeans were not able to become men but by

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fabricating slaves and monsters. Sued (1986) states that historians as Ignacio de Armas in Cuba and José Julián Acosta in Puerto Rico questioned the cannibalism attributed to the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles. Sued Badillo contends that Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas was ambivalent and contradictory on the subject of indigenous cannibalism due to colonial pressure. Las Casas copied many reports without questioning their veracity, but he did write defending the Indians against cannibalism. Sued Badillo (1986) contends that he accused the Spanish much more than the Indians when he states: The Spaniards, only for their personal interest, have influenced the Indians with the greatest infamies about men in the world, ugly and evil to actually destroy them as men, if they could, no one would imagine such things could be said. It is convenient to know that they have infamed and accused them one hundred thousand times after they realized that their personal riches laid in using them as servants and robbing them of their properties and person. (p. 79)

I totally agree with Sued Badillo when he states, “Caribs, that was the title the Spanish took to capture and make free people slaves.”

Robiou (2003) acknowledges the existence of cannibalism among the Caribs, but he posits that it was highly exaggerated. He presents an excellent description of cannibalism as a religious ritual, a fact that was misinterpreted and manipulated by European colonizers.

When the first colonizers found human remains hanging in indigenous homes, they interpreted this as a religious ritual intended to pay tribute to dead ancestors. Interestingly enough, this same situation was later conveniently interpreted otherwise; it was supposed to provide evidence for the practice of anthropophagy.

One important aspect I wish to consider in the construction of a false identity is the role that discourse plays in the way language is manipulated. Discourse plays a special role in the process of reproduction of ideology. According to van Dijk (1998), discourse analysis focuses on the systematic account of the complex structures and strategies of text and talk as they are actually accomplished in the social context. Discourse structures are involved in the expression or formation of ideology. If one examines the discourse of the colonial era, the use of rhetorical structures and repetition were

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manipulated effectively creating a demeaned, negative image of “the other”—the Caribs. Negative opinions were perpetuated by describing “the other” in terms of names of animals, beasts, insects, etc. The following words and phrases are just a few that I recall from the many different documents and chronicles that I have read describing the Carib Indian: “ caribe insular comedor de carne humana, indio belicoso y aventurero, sanguinario, cruel antropófago, dejaron una estela de destrucción a su paso, devoraron a los varones indígenas rivales y robaron sus mujeres, castraban los niños para luego engordarlos y comerlos, indios salvajes de propósitos homicidas, grupos de hordas salvajes que emitían feroces aullidos”. In English this means: “insular man-eating Carib, rebellious and adventurous Indian, blood-thirsty and cruel anthropophagus, they left behind them a trace of destruction, they ate male rival Indians and stole their women, they castrated young boys to fatten them and later eat them, savage Indians of homicidal purposes, ruthless savage hoards that hollered ferociously.” Such descriptions about Caribs appeared in historical chronicles. It is evident that they rely on mental manipulation and were intended to construct a vivid mental picture in the minds of Europeans of who these dangerous savages really were. This kind of colonial discourse was necessary to justify enslavement and genocide of indigenous populations. Such terrible people needed to be conquered and subdued, even worse, they needed to be saved from themselves, from their evil languages and cultures.

The construction of a corrupt Carib nature by portraying them as cannibals was very convenient for European colonizers. It turns out that Caribs were the second and most successful wave of Amerindians to settle the smaller Antilles. The first were the more peaceful Arawaks who arrived around 500 BC. About a thousand years later, the more warlike Caribs moved in. Caribs were the Amerindians who most fiercely fought for their lands and who most vehemently resisted colonization. Portraying Caribs as “man-eaters” started a war-time propaganda. All warring enemies sling mud at each other. Let us recall Americans’ feelings toward the people of Iraq.

The Europeans were the ones who labeled the Caribs as cannibals.

Character assassination worked well when bullets and swords failed.

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Most Europeans perpetuated the labeling of Caribs as dangerously uncivilized people, thus killing them, enslaving them, stealing their land, rounding them up as animals, and doing away with their language and culture was more than justified within the ideology constructed in the New World which presented Caribs as the quintessence of evil. For centuries Caribs have carried the stigma brought upon them by labeling, by a fabricated image of “the other.”

History has been written by the victors not by the defeated. It is time that we rewrite history.

Conclusion The indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, Taínos and Caribs, were the first sufferers of exploitation systems imposed by Europeans.

They were exposed to sugar plantations, forced mining labor, tribute, and “encomiendas.”

We have inherited numerous things from our indigenous ancestors.

They are still alive in the language we speak, in our bloodline, in our music and art, in the names of our towns and rivers. Long ago they taught our European ancestors how to cultivate the land and fed them from their “conucos.” They taught them how to fish with “tarrayas,” “nasas” and “corrales.” The use of many herbs and plants for medical purposes is also one of the legacies left behind by our indigenous ancestors. Robiou (2003) posits that Taínos had an ideological impact upon the religious beliefs of African slaves in the Caribbean. There seems to be a possible connection between the burial rites of the Yoruba and the Arawaks. The African deity “Changó” resembles the indigenous god of fire “Bayamancao”.

Alleyne (2004) claims that indigenous languages may have played a role in Creole genesis. This idea needs to be seriously considered.

Syntactic, phonological, and morphologic similarities between Creoles may attest to the fact that these languages coexisted in a contact situation and that a form of bilingualism developed between Indians and slaves. This ‘pidginized’ second language dialect might have had an influence on Creole genesis. Roberts (2004) also posits that several similarities between the language of African slaves and indigenous people were found at the word formation level and at the

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phonological level as well. When Africans came into contact with Indians, they adopted a contact language. During this contact period indigenous words and possible indigenous structures were adopted into African dialects. This suggests an early close association between two ethnic groups: Amerindians and Africans. A detailed comparative typological study of indigenous languages and Creoles may provide evidence to support the theory that indeed indigenous languages were a substratal influence in Creole genesis. This claim is beyond the scope of this paper, but I wish to do future research in this field.

After exploring the languages, cultures and identities of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean, as well as the hardships that they have gone through as a result of colonization, I feel the need to contribute in any way I can, so that their languages and identities, at least those that remain alive today, will not be forgotten.

They have influenced Creole language and identity far more than what is currently acknowledged. I agree with Roberts (2004), when he states, “Clearly also the contact languages fashioned by the indigenous inhabitants to communicate with Europeans left their mark on the colonies that came into being” (p. 87).

We owe the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean many things. We owe them their stolen lands, we owe them their forgotten languages and cultures, we owe them their dead ancestors sacrificed out of greed, but most of all, we owe them a rewriting of history where “the other” is no longer presented as an enemy out of a need to conquer and dominate, but where “the other” is truthfully depicted without a biased manipulation of historical facts. Only then will we begin to render a small retribution for centuries of wrongdoing. If history had been written by the indigenous people, they could have very truthfully reported the atrocities committed by “the other”—WE.

MARTA VIADA BELLIDO DE LUNA UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO, RÍO PIEDRAS

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References Aikenvald, A. and R .M. W. Dixon (Eds.). (1999). The Amazonian Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Alleyne, M. (2004). “Indigenous languages of the Caribbean.” Society for Linguistics Popular Series. Paper No. 3. June 2004. Virgin Islands: Society for Caribbean Linguistics Publishers.

Bannister, E. (1830). Human policy: Justice to the aborigines of new settlements. New York: Negro Universities Press. p. vi.

Cortés, R. (2004). “Búsqueda del origen de los indígenas en las antillas.” El Nuevo Día. Sábado, 20 de noviembre de 2004. p. 22.

Figueroa, A. (1978). “The Virgin Islands as a historical frontier between the Taínos and the Caribs.” Revista Interamericana. Vol. III, No. 3. (Fall 1978) pp. 393-399.

Highfield, A. (1996). Some Observations on the Taíno Language. St. Croix: University of the Virgin Islands Press.

Nettle, D. and S. Romaine. (2000). Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Roberts. P. (2004). “Societies in the raw: from diversity to corruption.”

Language, Race, and Identity in the Caribbean (pp. 76-87). Virgin Islands: University of the Virgin Islands Press.

Robiou, S. (2003). Taínos y Caribes: las culturas aborígenes antillanas.

San Juan: Editorial Punto y Coma.

Sued Badillo, J. (1978). Los Caribes: realidad o fábula. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Antillana.

Sued Badillo, J. (1986). “Another version of the Carib affair and Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Caribs and the problem of ethnic identification.” In Occasional Papers in English No.1 Foundation of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Puerto Rico. P.R: Fundación Arqueológica Antropológica e Historia de P.R., Inc. Taylor, D. (1977). Languages of the West Indies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Van Dijk, T. (1998). Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Sage Publications.

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Intonation in Crucian Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creole 0 Introduction. Among the English-Lexifier Creoles of the Caribbean, those of the northern-most Lesser Antilles (including Crucian, the dialect of Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creole spoken on St. Croix) are some of the least described and analyzed by linguists (Aceto and Williams 2003). Suprasegmental phenomena, especially at the level of intonation, have also received relatively little attention until quite recently by creolists who work on Caribbean languages. This study represents a preliminary attempt: 1) to document the intonation patterns that typify Crucian by submitting a sample of spontaneous Crucian speech to acoustic analysis (each utterance was digitalized at a sampling rate of 22050 Hz (16 bit) and the fundamental frequency contour was calculated using the tracking utility in the PRAAT 4.0 program) and 2) to determine how the intonation patterns found in Crucian compare to those found in other dialects of Afro-Caribbean EnglishLexifier Creole.

1 Tone and prominence in Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creole (ACELC). Although some of the dialects of Afro-Caribbean EnglishLexifier Creole (that is, the Afro-English contact language which emerged during the era of plantation slavery in the Greater Caribbean and on the West Coast of Africa) such as Cameroon Pidgin, Nigerian Pidgin, Sierra Leonian Krio, Saramaccan, and Aukan (Ndjuka), have always been considered to be tone languages, there is a growing 477

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consensus among those most deeply involved in the analysis of ACELC suprasegmental phenomena that virtually all of the other dialects of ACELC are to some extent tonal as well (Herskovits 1941; Turner 1949; Lawton 1963; Carter 1989; Devonish 1989; 2002; Holder 1998; Sutcliffe 2003a, 2003b): Carter (1987), Sutcliffe (1998), and Holder (1999) all agree that [although] there are major differences…between Bajan and Guyanese, on the one hand, and Jamaican on the other…in all three Caribbean varieties, distinctive pitch patterns enter into the comparison of lexical and grammatical morphemes and as such are assigned to tonebearing units…Furthermore, in all these varieties, such pitches can be transcribed as being contrasting high and low tones, modified in actual use when incorporated into an utterance by downstep, downdrift, and other…features which are typical of tone languages…This suggests that there is an even wider grouping here, including all varieties which emerged out of the contact between African languages and English during the time of the slave trade in and around the Caribbean and along the Atlantic seaboard (Sutcliffe 2003b: 269-270).

1.1 Tone patterns over words in the dialects of ACELC. In his comprehensive treatment of prominence in words in ACELC, Devonish (2002) divides the dialects of the language into 2 groups: 1) The “Five Vowel Dialects”: All of the ACELC dialects spoken in the Greater Caribbean, except for Saramaccan 2) The ‘Seven Vowel Dialects’: All of the ACELC dialects spoken along the West Coast of Africa, plus Saramaccan In the same work, Devonish convincingly accounts for the prominence patterns found over words in both of these ACELC dialect groupings by proposing a language contact scenario in which speakers of West African languages (the preponderant majority of which are tonal) reinterpreted the high-low (HL) intonation found over the citation forms of each individual English word as a high tone (H) followed by a low tone (L), which they then assigned to tone bearing units in the corresponding Creole word (183-186). This

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analysis is similar to those provided by Amayo (1980) and Sutcliffe (2003b:266).

While almost every English-derived word in all dialects of ACELC carry some vestige of this H-L sequence, in the Barbadian, Guyanese and West African dialects of ACELC there are minimal pairs of Englishderived words, which are distinguished only by the occurrence of a H-L sequence over one and a L-H sequence over the other, as in the minimal pair sístà (H-L) “female sibling” vs. sìstá (L-H) “female member of a religious order”. Sutcliffe cites the existence of pairs such as bábà (H-L) “father” and baba (mid tone-mid tone or M-M) “priest” in Yoruba as a possible source for these pairs (2003b: 294). Devonish (2002: 168) argues that both the H-L and the L-H member of these pairs was ultimately derived from English citation form HL intonation, but by different scenarios associated with different waves of AfroEnglish contact. Whatever factor or combination of factors their derivation can be attributed to, the existence of L-H sequences over some words has a significant impact on the intonation patterns found over declarative sentences in the dialects of ACELC where they occur.

2 Tone and intonation patterns over sentences in the dialects of ACELC: downdrift and downstep. Just as is the case with other tonal languages, declarative intonation in the West African dialects of ACELC such as Nigerian Pidgin (Faraclas 1996: 270-277) as well as in the Caribbean dialects of ACELC such as Crucian, Bajan and Guyanese (Sutcliffe 2003b: 280-281) takes the form of a process called downdrift whereby high tones throughout the entire utterance are lowered by any preceding low tone. A series of high tones which are lowered by preceding low tones due to downdrift is illustrated in the Hertz (Hz) levels for the pitch of the voice in example (1) below form the Crucian dialect of ACELC, as well as in example (9) in section 3:

FARACLAS / RAMÍREZ MORALES

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LA TORRE (TE)

(1) Crucian (female, age 70, born/raised St. Croix, parents from St. Croix/St. Thomas): Mì ónlí gát wàn I only have one ‘I only have one child.’

mi L

on H

píkní. child

li ga t w HL H

a L

n

pi k ni HL HL

Related to downdrift, is downstep, another intonation-like phenomenon that typifies tone languages. Downstep involves the lowering of high tones over the course of an utterance, even if there are no low tones realized phonetically preceding them. In such ca-

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ses, a non-phonetically realized low tone is usually assumed to occur underlyingly before a downstepped high tone. A series of lowered or downstepped high tones some of which are not preceded by any phonetically realized low tones can be found in example (5) below from Crucian. As shown in that example, downstepped high tones are represented with an exclamation point preceding them (!H).

One way in which intonation patterns that typify tonal languages distinguish themselves from intonation patterns that typify non-tonal languages is that at the end of the most common type of declarative sentences in tonal languages, the pitch of the voice does not always fall. For example, in the Nigerian Pidgin dialect of ACELC, declarative sentences which end underlyingly with high tone (H, as with the word sófa “suffer” in example 2 below) are realized phonetically with a final falling (H-L) sequence, while declarative sentences which end underlyingly with low tone (L, as with the word wàka ‘walk’ in example 1 below) are realized phonetically with a final rising (L-H) sequence: (2) Nigerian Pidgin (-C = incompletive aspect): /À L I

sí yù dè sófa./ H. L L H see you –C suffer

À sí yù dè sófà.

L H L L H-L ‘I saw you suffering.’

/À L I

sí yù dè wàka./ H. L L L see you –C walk

À sí yù dè wàká.

L H. L L L-H ‘I saw you walking.’

2.1 Final cadence in Caribbean dialects of ACELC. In all of the dialects of ACELC spoken in the Greater Caribbean, declarative intonation is normally signaled by what Sutcliffe calls final cadence.

Final cadence involves replacing whatever tone would normally occur over the final syllable of a sentence with a low (L) falling tone whose pitch drops to the bottom of the register, as shown in example (1) above. If the sentence penultimate tone is low, it is raised by final cadence to a downstepped high, thereby ensuring that all sentences over which final cadence operates end with a sequence that falls from either a high tone or a downstepped high tone to a low-falling

FARACLAS / RAMÍREZ MORALES

482

LA TORRE (TE)

tone. A final falling intonation typifies the most common class of declarative sentences in English, as well as in most non-tonal languages worldwide (Ladefoged 1986: 225). An example from Crucian of both downdrift (which typifies tonal languages) and final cadence (which typifies non-tonal languages) is shown in (3) below: (3) Crucian (female, age 70, born/raised St. Croix, parents from St. Croix/St. Thomas): Mì nó híp á pì.pól.

I know heap of people ‘I know many people.’

m i n L

o H

(pause) h i H

p a p i p ol L HL L

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2.2 Final rise in Caribbean dialects of ACELC. In most Caribbean dialects of ACELC there is a stylistic variation in which the final falling contour that constitutes final cadence is not assigned to declarative sentences, and therefore their final syllables retain the tones that they would normally bear in non-sentence final position. This divergent declarative intonation pattern is called final rise by Sutcliffe (2003b: 269), who says that it is used for stylistic effect instead of final cadence in Guyanese, Barbadian, Trinidadian, Gullah, and Jamaican as in the following example which he recorded in a market place in Guyana: (4) Guyanese (Sutcliffe 2003b: 283): L H L.L.H.H L L.H Yù gát màrìd-mán táim àn fàin táim.

You have married man thyme and fine thyme ‘There is married-man thyme and fine thyme.’

Various linguists (Roberts 1988; Devonish 2002:v; Sutcliffe 2003b: 278-280) have commented on the ‘singing’ intonation that typifies Bajan and Guyanese. This particular auditory impression can be attributed both to the high frequency of use of final rise instead of final falling declarative intonation among the speakers of these two ACELC dialects, as well as to the existence in the Bajan and Guyanese lexicons of ‘atypical’ English-derived words that bear L-H sequences, as explained in section 1.1 above. When such words occur at the end of a declarative sentence, the resulting final rise can be as dramatic as that produced by the L-H sequence assigned to sentence final low tone in the Nigerian dialect of ACELC in example (2) above. An utterance final L-H tone sequence accompanied by final rise is exemplified by the following sentence from Crucian, which ends with the second person plural pronoun àyú:

FARACLAS / RAMÍREZ MORALES

484

LA TORRE (TE)

(5) Crucian (female, age 50, born/raised St. Croix, parents from St. Croix): Áy wél láyk bín hyír wìt I well like being here with ‘I really like being here with you (plural).’

ay H

àyú. you (plural)

w e l ay k b in hy ir w i t a !H !H !H !H L L

yu HLH(LHL)

According to Sutcliffe (2003b: 283), final rise can also occur over sentences which end with a low toned syllable, in which case the final low tone is raised to the level of a downstepped high tone in Bajan and

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485

Guyanese. This pattern is also found in Crucian, as shown in the sentence final fragment below, where the second syllable of the word wúmàn “woman” which normally bears low tone is pronounced instead with a downstepped high tone at the end of the utterance: (6) Crucian (female, age 50, born/raised St. Croix, parents from St. Croix): …próféshnàl blák wèstíndyán wúmàn. …professional black West Indian woman ‘…professional black West Indian woman.’

pr

o fe shnal bl a kwe s t i n d ya n w u m H H L H HL H H H

a n !H(LHL)

3.0 High rise in Crucian. As shown in the pitch traces for examples (5) and (6) above, the final tone in Crucian declarative sentence is not only realized at the level of high tone or downstepped high tone

486

FARACLAS / RAMÍREZ MORALES

LA TORRE (TE)

as in Bajan and Guyanese, but it also rises (and sometimes then falls) at the very end. According to Sutcliffe (2003b: 284), this intonation pattern, which he calls high rise, is generally reserved for yes-no questions in ACELC as it is in English. In the Crucian example below, high rise occurs at the end of a declarative sentence, where a final high toned syllable bears an HLH contour: (7) Crucian (female, age 50, born/raised St. Croix, parents from St. Croix): Gèn káyn à ól àn fíbùl hír. getting kind of old and feeble here ‘I’m getting kind of old and feeble here.’

g e n k ay n a L(H) H L

o l an (L)H (H)L

f i b u l h i H(L) L HLH

r

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This use of high rise intonation is extremely common in the Crucian declarative sentences that we have examined thus far, as illustrated by the LH contours that occur over the high toned words sówn “sound” and sáyd “side” in the following two examples: (8) Crucian (female, age 50, born/raised St. Croix, parents from St. Croix): Dèm wél láyk háw ì sówn.

They well like how it sound ‘They really like how it sounds.’

d emw e l ay khaw. i s ow n L H !H H L HLH

FARACLAS / RAMÍREZ MORALES

488

LA TORRE (TE)

(9) Crucian (female, age 50, born/raised St. Croix, parents from St. Croix) (-C = incompletive aspect): Wén dém dà ték when they -C take krás across

yò your

à a

líl swích àn nàk little switch and knock

yú you

báksáyd. back

‘…take a little switch and beat your buttocks.’

wedema t e k a l il swi ch an na k yu kra s yo b a k H H L H L H HL HL L HL HL HL HL

s ay HLH

d

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In the following example, an extra high rise seems to be tacked on to the end of the sentence following another high rise over nó “know”.

(10) Crucian (female, age 70, born/raised St. Croix, parents from St. Croix/St. Thomas): Mí én I negative ‘I don’t know.’

m i H

nó. know

en H

no HLHLH

4 Conclusion. As shown in Table 1 below, Crucian shares final cadence over declarative sentences and high rise over yes-noquestions with the ACELC superstrates (dialects of English), with

FARACLAS / RAMÍREZ MORALES

490

LA TORRE (TE)

the ACELC substrates (Niger-Congo languages), and with all of the other dialects of ACELC. While final rise is found over declarative sentences in Crucian, the ACELC substrates and most of the other dialects of ACELC, it is not typically found in the ACELC superstrates and perhaps not found as well in a few of the Caribbean dialects of ACELC (Sutcliffe 2003b: 276-283). The final high rise contour which occurs so frequently over declarative sentences in Crucian is found neither in the ACELC superstrates nor in the ACELC substrates, nor has it been documented thus far for any of the other dialects of ACELC (although we would not be surprised if after careful analysis, final high rise will be found to actually occur in many ACELC dialects).

Sutcliffe suggests that some of the rising contours found at the end of declarative sentences in ACELC might be due to influence from Celtic languages or from dialects of English influenced by Celtic such as Comish (2003b: 293). This may ultimately prove to be the source for final high rise in Crucian declarative utterances.

Superstrates

ACELC Southeastern ACELC

(Englishes)

CRUCIAN

(Bajan, Guyanese)

Declarative Final Cadence

+

Y/N Questions High Rise

+

+

+

+

+

Declarative Final Rise

-

+

+

+

+

?

?

+

-

Declarative High Rise

‘Celtic Rise’?

+

+

Substrates (Niger-Congo)

+

+

Table 1. Sentence-final intonation contours in Crucian, its superstrates, its substrates, and in other dialects of Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creole.

NICHOLAS FARACLAS AND JESÚS RAMÍREZ MORALES UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO, RÍO PIEDRAS

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Creoleana: Writing Barbados from the White Creole Perspective Prologue Set in the Barbados of the 1790s, Creoleana, written in 1841 by J.W. Orderson, is apparently the first novel written by a Barbadian and possibly the earliest novel of the Anglophone Caribbean to have been written by a native of the region. According to the introduction by editor John Gilmore, there were several earlier novels in English, but none written by a native of the West Indies. J.W. Orderson1, whose grandfather was living in Barbados at the time of the 1715 census, was born in Barbados on May 28, 1767 making him at least a second generation Creole2.

1

Isaac William Orderson, who wrote under the name J.W. Orderson, was born in Barbados in 1767. At the age of 20, he became the proprietor and editor of his family’s newspaper, the Barbados Mercury. His play, The Fair Barbadian and Faithful Black was performed in 1832, and his novel, Creoleana was published in London in 1842. In addition to his literary works, Orderson published pamphlets on various local issues, such as sugar growing and the poor in Barbados. He died in 1847 at the age of 80.

Downloaded from: http://www.interlinkbooks.com/BooksC/Creoleana.html 2 Gilmore states that “Modern scholars often use ‘creole society’ to refer to the concept of a new society, with new habits, manners, institutions and modes of speech, created in the Caribbean by the interaction of peoples from different parts of the world, especially the interaction of Africans and Europeans. This is what Orderson means by ‘Creolean’ and even though a large part of the novel is set among the white Creole society of Barbados, that society, like Barbados as a whole, is based on the various relationships and interactions of both black and white people.” (8) 497

498

JO ANNE HARRIS

LA TORRE (TE)

First published in 1842, Creoleana is a romantic novelette interwoven with vignettes of life in Barbados which reveal the prejudices of class and race inherent in the very nature of slave society at the end of the 18th century. Creoleana also incorporates the use of a Creole dialogue spoken by slaves and free colored characters, with white characters often using Creole words and phrases particular to Barbados (Gilmore 8). In part, it is the use of a Creole dialogue within the socio-historical context that allows the reader to suspend his disbelief and journey back to the Barbados of the 1780s and 1790s when the Empire was the dominant voice.

By 1842 when Creoleana was published, the literary voices of Barbados’ inhabitants had shed much of their imperial tone and Orderson’s characters speak in Creole voices as part of a Creole society. In the evolution of New World literatures these voices are whispering declarations of an emerging West Indian literature whose Creole authors were an amalgam of masters, slaves, indentured servants, and freedmen struggling to be heard in the uproar of imperial dominance.

In his preface, Orderson mentions the merits of “West Indian Literature”; a fact that is noteworthy in actually recognizing the existence of a West Indian Literature as early as 1842. The author then continues by offering his readers assurance that although the events are not narrated in chronological order, they do give a glimpse into the customs, manners, and habits of Creolean society. In order to give greater credibility to the novel, he implies that the British abolitionist William Wilberforce3 has quoted from the author’s earlier publications and [the author] is therefore a “…humane and truly benevolent man.” Regardless of the veracity of Orderson’s statement, this is significant since the novel was published in 1842 —several years after emancipation and apprenticeship had ended in Barbados. Gilmore speculates that Orderson chose to write about a time prior to emancipation in order to avoid the tensions of a

3 Eric Williams has a description of William Wilberforce’s influence as an abolitionist on p. 256 of From Columbus to Castro: A History of the Caribbean.

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post emancipation society that was still struggling to locate free blacks within its society.

The complete title of the novel in its original publication was Creoleana: or social and domestic scenes and incidents in Barbados in days of yore. Although this in itself seems self explanatory, given the date of publication, 1842 (eight years after emancipation) the question is then why a retrospect and why the 1790s? Was Orderson nostalgic for a bygone era? Was he striving to write a social history of Barbados? Was he trying to absolve or minimize the injustices of slavery?

Or was his an attempt at locating Barbados within the hegemonic literary canon of the British Empire? In 1841, Orderson sent a letter to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Stanley, stating that: Influenced by an earnest desire of testifying my profound respect for your Lordship, I have presumed, unauthorized, to avail myself of the auspices of your Lordship’s distinguished name, to place before the British Public the following political incidents and domestic anecdotes of my native country. (Orderson 20)

His use of the adjective “native” implies that Barbados was developing its own national identity and moving away from the Empire. For whatever reason he wrote, the result was that today we have a very unique story which in its telling reveals not only some history of Barbados but also an insider’s view of white Creole life as Orderson states in his preface: He [Orderson] does not profess to give any extended view of the customs, manners, and habits of Creolean society; yet, in the progress of his tale, there will be found many little apertures…through which a discerning eye may catch a glimpse of each, as they existed in times of yore, rather than as they exist at present. (21)

We the postcolonial readers of Creoleana must now read with an equally discerning eye in order to glimpse a view of 18th century Barbados from the white Creole perspective.

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Postcolonial Theories and Barbados Revisited Nations, like narratives, lose their origins in the myths of time and only fully realize their horizon in the mind’s eye.

(Homi Bahbha, Introduction, Nation and Narration)

Creoleana begins shortly after the Bridge Town Fire in 1766 which reduced most of that town’s businesses to “…one general heap of cinders and ashes…” (23) In this introductory chapter, the author not only sets the stage for the narrative, but gives some intricate details of business and social practices among white Creoles in Barbados as he details trade between Great Britain and the West Indies (38-39). By giving the reader a glimpse into the commerce of Barbados with the British home office, our novelist foreshadows Edward Said’s view that the [colonial] novel is a cultural form used as a method by which a colonized people asserts its identity within the empire (xii).

The variation in Creoleana is interesting and ironic in that rather than a tool of the racially colonized or oppressed ‘other’ it is an attempt by a white Creole ‘Other’ to locate Barbados the colony as an equal within the context of the British Empire. In Orderson’s words: Generally speaking, the intercourse, indeed between the West Indies and Great Britain, except by monthly packets, was then little more than annual, nor had we at that time any regular trade with Liverpool (now become the emporium of our supplies) until the establishment of that eminent and celebrated house, which baffling all the causalities and difficulties of transatlantic commerce, continues to this day under the firm of H… in which W… originally embarked in colonial trade, more than half a century ago! (38-39)

He continues by describing the much more active and equable trade between Barbados and other Caribbean islands, referring to “…our Bermudian friends [who] have not lost sight of us; but, adopting a more personal intercourse…have amalgamated themselves by marriage, as well as by trade, with our countrymen and fellow citizens” (39). Ironically, Orderson, who in his preface appealed to the British Public and Lord Stanley, has become an unwitting resistance writer whose tone foreshadows the independence movements of more than a century later.

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In his introduction to Nation and Narration, Homi Bhabha discusses this ambivalence of language in the discourse of the nation where “…meanings may be partial because they are in medias res; and history may be half-made because it is in the process of being made…”

(3). Thus, neither Orderson nor his readers could have foreseen the implications of Creoleana as an effort to “assert their own identity and the existence of their own history.” (Said xii) Nor would Orderson or his readers have understood that as a pioneer West Indian text Creoleana foregrounds Said’s theory that “grand narratives of emancipation and enlightenment mobilized people in the colonial world to rise up and throw off imperial subjection” (xiii).

The conundrums surrounding emancipation are also woven throughout Creoleana in the way slaves and freed coloreds speak in their Creole dialect rather than the author translating their thoughts4.

Although the use of the forced lingua franca of the West Indies plantation might be a device for incorporating local color in order to appeal to the British penchant for the exotic, the result is that as blacks with a separate voice, the characters become human participants in Orderson’s melodrama—a radical turn of events revealed in various episodes. In one there is a discussion of an incident of miscegenation by the Scots schoolmaster, William Lauder, who attempted to rape his mulatto daughter by an African woman. The daughter, Rachel, successfully resists the rape, but is sentenced to a public beating, subsequently rescued by Captain Pringle and emancipated. Captain Pringle provides her with a house where they live until Rachel attempts to deceive him by taking another woman’s baby, pretending that it is theirs. Captain Pringle then discovers the ruse, sails for Jamaica and dies at sea. Thus miscegenation is both condemned and condoned within the same anecdote. Rachel very cleverly turns the house into a hotel/brothel and by the end of the novel is a prominent, albeit a somewhat infamous businesswoman.

A postcolonial Caribbean reading of Miss Rachel Pringle might see 4 In The Rhetoric of Empire, David Spurr identifies twelve rhetorical modes through which “the Other” was and continues to be constructed—surveillance, appropriation, aestheticization, classification, debasement, negation, affirmation, idealization, insubstantialization, naturalization, eroticization, and resistance—and he examines how these constructions work.

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her as an Anansi, the trickster whose abilities have allowed her to outsmart her colonial attackers, thereby awarding the African a triumph over the European. However, in spite of its foreshadowing of postcolonial and race based theories, Orderson would most likely have included it primarily for anecdotal value.

Caribbean Theories and Barbados Revisited There is always a danger of positioning the Caribbean in the postcolonial context as if there were no unique characteristics that identify it as not only postcolonial, but Caribbean postcolonial. This is also true of Creoleana as a novel. Orderson has stated in his introduction that he intends the work to be an example of West Indian literature with glimpses into Creole society. In order to bypass the ongoing controversy of what is a Creole and Creole society, for purposes of this paper we will use Gilmoreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s definition that it is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;society, with new habits, manners, institutions and modes of speech, created in the Caribbean by the interaction of peoples from different parts of the world, especially the interaction of Africans and Europeansâ&#x20AC;? (8). Thus the quality of this and other West Indian or Caribbean Creole texts will be the intersection of those cultures and the resulting hybridity of societies lacking a common history. Unlike other colonial geographies in the Americas, the Caribbean islands lacked histories in the European sense since any cultures existing before 1492 had been obliterated by the invading Europeans along with most evidence of their histories and cultures.

In this New World there was a mingling of race, class and religion that blurred the strict boundaries of European society where the emergence of the nation state often paired national leaders with the church as a defense against foreign domination. Consequently the European national sovereign in general and the British sovereign in particular was also a symbol of the church with religion a major factor in determining governments. This mingling of the religious and the civil was not strictly represented in the Caribbean colonies since islands were in a state of constant flux as they became either the spoils of European wars or financial negotiations, traded from one power to the other. The islands were pawns, little more than

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commodities, heavily taxed and valued only for the market value of their products. Perhaps the most unifying element was a dislike for absentee owners/managers. Gordon Lewis mentions this insularism of the planters and the tax burden placed on them by Europe, stating that the insularism was only overcome sporadically if one island needed help from another to overcome a slave revolt or provide reinforcements for European wars fought in the Caribbean (104).

Creoleana presents this scenario in Chapter XVIII as Orderson writes that: “The pernicious spirit of republicanism which prevailed in France, was not long in reaching the shores of her Atlantic possessions, and Martinique soon felt all the horrors of intestine commotion” (138). Napoleon had overthrown the monarchy in France and the royalists in Martinique appealed to the military commanders in Barbados to, help defend the island. Prince Edward led a detachment from Barbados and Martinique was saved from Napoleon’s forces, only to be taken over by the English – an ironic end to a neighborly intervention. If we analyze this from Antonio Benítez Rojo’s perspective, we see the repeating pattern of conquest and imperialism regardless of which monarchy or government was in charge. If we view that same history from Glissant’s perspective, we find a poetics of relation in which those same sufferings and historical transformations intersect to produce an emerging consensus transcending the particular to create an Antillanité or creolization of cultures.

In the Introduction to Caribbean Discourse Michael Dash discusses Glissant’s vision of Antillanité as an idea in which cultures do not confront one another, but rather intersect as in the poetics of carnival where characters momentarily leave their self-centered worlds, plunging into “...creative disorientation” from which they emerge into a new form — Antillanité where: We cannot deny the reality: cultures derived from plantations, insular civilizations, social pyramids with an African or East Indian base in the European peak: languages of compromise, the general cultural phenomenon of creolisation, pattern of encounter and synthesis, persistence of the African presence, cultivation of sugar cane, corn and pepper sight-where rhythms are combined, people formed by orality. There is potential in this reality. What is missing from the

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notion of Caribbeanness is the transition from the shared experience to conscious expression... the need to transcend the intellectual pretensions dominated by the learned elite, and to be grounded in collective affirmation. Our Caribbean reality is an option open to us.

It springs from our natural experience, but in our history has been an ability to survive. Its present isolation is postponed in each island, the awareness of the Caribbean identity and, at the same time, separates each community on its own true identity.

—Edouard Glissant, Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989. 220-221.

Another clash of cultures is the dilemma of the oral vs. the written histories. In Caribbean Discourse, Glissant views the oral language as inseparable from the movement of the body, while the written is an immobile controlled form of expression. For the slave, who was controlled by the master, it was necessary to fuse pitch, movement, and speed into the Creole language so that the “unstructured” product was intelligible only to other slaves (163). The problem arises when in either written history or novels, the concepts of Creole are forced into the syntax of the master (either French or English). Thus in Caribbean novels one might expect to find a lexicon which is subject to meaning in order to convey a Subject which is conceptual and graphic but forced into written form. This forced poetics has bypassed the gradual transitions of natural language so that the Caribbean novel will inevitably be problematic with allegories, hidden meanings, rituals and other devices normally found in folktales. Thus the Caribbean novel reflects an orality not found in modern European literature (120). As a novel written by a white Creole immediately after emancipation, Creoleana lacks much of the orality or references to African rituals found in 20th century Caribbean novels, although there is reference to Obeah or Obi on page 43 in a discussion of religion, the Anglican Church and other religious customs of the time.

Race cannot be ignored in the novel, since as a white creole the author paints a much more idyllic view of slavery than would a person of African origins such as Mary Prince. One of the main characters has a mulatto half sister, Lucy, with the miscegenation openly admitted. However, in general both mulattoes and blacks are depicted as accepting of their positions with little mention of the humiliations

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involved. On page 91 the author narrates the story of an African named Prince who returned to Africa, but then decided to return to Barbados, giving as his reason that “he liked the white people’s ways, and their victuals and dress, and all that: something in bacará country, which he no have in he own’. ” Apparently intended to minimize abuses of slavery, Orderson ends the chapter with the admonition that he recommends “these circumstances, of whose main facts the writer has a perfect recollection, to the consideration of the Anti-slavery Society, and generally to the friends of the African race” (92). Given in its historical context of recent emancipation, a postcolonial Caribbean perspective would view Orderson as writing to and for a public who needed absolution from their participation in slavery. Of course, if viewed from Fanon’s perspective, this same incident would reflect the mimetic fetish of blacks who need to act white in order to give themselves agency.

Epilogue A much longer paper could explore the dynamics of agency in detail, but in the general context of Creoleana and Caribbean theories, the primary importance of this work is that in contrast to contemporary West Indian fiction, the text speaks from within the white Creole society, allowing the reader to view colonial Barbados from the colonizer’s perspective. In the earlier works such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest, or in Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko the voices were also white, but unlike Creoleana, the voices were those of absentee agents/colonizers who viewed the Caribbean as a remote, exotic place—not home. In contemporary Caribbean novels the voice is often that of the subject/slave’s descendants trying to locate their collective voice within the colonial legacy. In his essay “The Muse of History,” Derek Walcott warns that this leads to “…a literature of recrimination and despair, a literature of revenge written by the descendants of slaves or a literature of remorse written by the descendants of masters…” (37). In Creoleana the voices are neither.

They are a chorus of voices, English, Irish, African; some black, some white, some mulatto but all inhabitants of a Creole society that

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struggles to harmonize competing cultures within a shared space.

As a 21st century reader, I, like Walcott “…are interested in their differences, but what astonishes [me] is their staggering elation in the possibility of the individual Caribbean man, African, European, or Asian in ancestry, the enormous, gently opening morning of his possibility” (Walcott 53). With this in mind, regardless of its literary or historical weaknesses, Creoleana succeeds in providing glimpses into the “customs, manners, and habits of Creolean society” (Orderson 21) without either recrimination or remorse; and therein lies its strength.

JO ANNE HARRIS UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO, RÍO PIEDRAS

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Works Cited Benítez Rojo, Antonio. The Repeating Island: The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective. 1996. Trans. James E. Maraniss. 2nd ed.

Durham: Duke University Press, 2001.

Bhabha, Homi K. “Introduction.” Nation and Narration. Ed. Homi K. Bahbha. London: Routledge, 1990. 1-7.

Creoleana: A Review. May 2005 <<http://www.interlinkbooks.com/ BooksC/Creoleana.html>>.

Gilmore, John. “Introduction.” Creoleana. Ed. John Gilmore. Oxford: Vintage, 2002. 1-18.

Glissant, Edouard. Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays.

Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1989. . Faulkner, Mississippi. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1996.

Lewis, Gordon. Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: The Historical Evolution of Caribbean Society in Its Ideological Aspects, 1983.

Orderson, J.W. Creoleana. 1842. Ed. John Gilmore. Caribbean Classics.

Oxford: Macmillan, 2002. 264.

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage, 1993.

Walcott, Derek. “The Muse of History.” What the Twilight Says. New York: Favar, Stares, Giroux, 1998. 36-64.

Williams, Eric. From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean.

New York: Vintage, 1984.

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Diaspora, Self-exile and Legacy: About Walcott’s Shabine and Danticat’s M. Bienaimé Till red-eyed like dawn, we watch our travail Subsiding, subside, and there was no more storm.

And the noon sea get calm as Thy Kingdom come.

Walcott, “ Schooner Flight” Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.

Perchance, in the future, it will be a pleasure to remember these things.

Virgil, The Aeneid

In the epilogue of her text entitled Havana Dreams, Wendy Gimbel comments on exile. She begins by asserting that: Identity is more intricate than one imagines. In exile, it leaves no trace. The myth of exile runs something like this. When someone goes to live in a foreign country, he can’t take enough of the past with him to matter. In his own land, when someone sees him, even for a few minutes, he is more understood than he is in exile after twenty years.

Then Gimbel touches on the heart of the issue: And so the exile begins to imagine the homeland as paradise and to inhabit it in his dreams. But there is no coming home… A person without a present doesn’t exist at all… In resisting change, in arresting the flow of time and circumstance, an exile becomes fractured, a lost soul. (213) 509

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Burton Pike adds to this construct of psychological impermanence by referring to the migrant’s existence as “fragmented,” consisting of “bits, pieces and shifting moods” (72).

For the archaic mind, the solution is simple. There is no life in exile. One’s home is the center of the world and as such is in direct contact with the sacred mythical world which validates all human actions, such as those of Homer’s Odysseus. Hence one must always return to that original home which is one’s haven. For modern men and women, resolving dislocation is more challenging. No mythical world exists. Men and women must validate their existence in profane time. The homeland of the exile exists solely in profane time, and can be a source of validation of the present only if it was itself good. And what happens if the past was bad? The exile must sort out the good from the bad, discarding the negative. The modern exile faces the dialectical task of validating the present while recreating an ideal past with few imperfections. In contrast to the archaic mind, the modern exile must live ambivalently straddling two worlds.

This paper examines two very different instances of men who left their island homes and did not turn back. They left all that was familiar behind. Do they, in Gimbel’s definition, exist at all? This paper suggests that both men attempt to resolve their dislocation by giving highest priority to creative gifts in their legacies.

The first character we look at is Walcott’s Shabine, a ghost mariner from “Schooner Flight,” who leaves his island only once, yet leaves it again and again as a ghost, in cyclic ritual. His journey—forever incomplete—arrests time. The circumstances of his departure are repeated, and are located entirely outside of time itself. They are, in this sense, mythical. What Shabine finally does in order to avoid remaining a fractured and lost soul in exile is what makes him a remarkable man with a present to live, not just an island past to remember and romanticize.

The second character in exile is Danticat’s highly complex individual M. Bienaimé, the Dew Breaker, the former prison guard in the Port-au-Prince prison during the reign of Duvalier’s Tonton Macoutes.

Exile for Bienaimé means escape and furtive hiding, somewhat disguised, for years. By choice, he exists to those around him not at all, or as little as possible. In his daily life, he avoids the flow of time

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and daily events. Consequently, he exists as a miserably fractured and lost soul. His daughter, whom he has always regarded as a gift he did not deserve, his “bon ang” (his good angel), unwittingly leads him out of hiding, unmasks him, and locates him through her art in present time. Her sculpture proves to be so provocative to him that he can no longer deny his secret and sordid past to her or to anyone who sees this depiction of him as prison victim, rather than prison victimizer. Her mistake jolts Bienaimé out of the past to the present, to self-confrontation, and to the beginning of a life in the present.

Both of these men—for different reasons—find out what it is not to go home. Both enter a kind of stasis, a limbo, until they can define their respective legacies. For Shabine, this is a notebook of his poetry.

Yet Shabine’s poetry goes well beyond words, and integrates the environment of his journey itself with his new way of perceiving the world: Well, when I write this poem, each phrase go be soaked in salt; …my common language go be the wind, my pages the sails of the Schooner Flight… (SF 71, 77)

Bienaimé, on the other hand, suddenly realizes that his legacy will appear to be his daughter’s sculpture. It is, however, a hideously false one, since it is a distorted reflection of the truth that at once stands on its own as a work of art and stands as well as a monumental lie, demanding its own destruction. By facing this one immortalized lie and then in turn a lifetime of lies, Bienaimé finds a way to make peace with his immediate family. With his actions and change of heart, Bienaimé clearly begins to live for the first time since his escape from Haiti, rather than arresting present time in an existential limbo.

Both these exiles—Shabine and Bienaimé—manage to identify and save what must be saved, through extraordinary clarity under the pressure of lonely introspection that wells up in every exile.

Though Danticat’s story line is far more complex and tortuous than that of Walcott’s Shabine, who leaves behind family, Caribbean village neighborhood, sunsets, and a lover, we must credit Shabine for moving ahead with his plans for leaving despite his intimate attachments that fully define him before his journey. Walcott

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emphasizes the retrospective glance that is so full of regret when he constructs the narrative so that Shabine sees what he has given up, and sees all again with ever more sadness, in a quick second glance of hindsight staged in the rearview mirror of the departing taxi he rides in. Here is the sudden panic and loss of one who is departing for good: “…and I look in the rearview [mirror] and see a man/ exactly like me, and the man was weeping/ for the houses, the streets, that whole fucking island”… (22-24) Yet, in his exile, he painfully determines what is ultimately important. His poetry is all he finally considers irreplaceable. He fights to protect it from ridicule and destruction. At last, Shabine, constantly working on his poetry while he continues his voyage, alters his perspective of the world around him, and by extension, about himself.

He once located himself in a geography surrounded by islands scattered here and there. His new perspective integrates this scene and talks of those many islands as “one place, set in an archipelago of stars” (SF 455). This geography signals an enviable wholeness.

Shabine has traveled as far as he needs to go: he has freed himself, as Mircea Eliade remarks, “from the recollection of …a succession of personal events that, taken together, constitute a history” (Eliade, 75). Shabine’s history was once a disillusioned view of both the past and a future that could only reflect and repeat the past. As he has evolved, however, he sees possibility beyond the Middle Passage, beyond his personal struggles as well, and he heads toward a place and a state of being that is integrated and whole: “I had no nation now but my imagination” (152).

With a reading like this, it is easy to view Shabine as a mythical ancestor of the Haitian M. Bienaimé. In a far more convoluted way, M. Bienaimé’s tale approaches Shabine’s model, and slowly leads Bienaimé beyond personal fragmentation and the static life of a haunted recluse in exile. But where does this man’s story begin?

Bienaimé is a sordid, self-exiled individual with a wretched past.

He has fled from Port-au-Prince to Brooklyn New York, and here he lives in anonymity. Bienaimé’s “first” life, before his exile, was a history of violent work in the torture cells of the Casernes Dessalines military barracks. He had pledged himself to work for the President, whom he revered as The Soveriegn One, or, equally ironic, as The Renovator

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of The Fatherland. Bienaimé acts out his darkest side, and relishes developing his own forms of torture for the Macoutes: The way he acted at the inquisitions in his own private cell at Casernes eventually earned him a lofty reputation among his peers. He was the one who came up with the most physically and psychologically taxing trials for the prisoners in his block… He liked questioning the prisoners, teaching them to play zo and bezik, stapling clothespins to their ears as they lost and removing them as he let them win, convincing them that their false victories would save their lives. He liked to paddle them with braided cowhide, stand on their cracking backs and jump up and down like a drunk on a trampoline, pound a rock on the protruding bone behind their earlobes until they couldn’t hear the orders he was shouting at them, tie blocks of concrete to the end of sisal ropes and balance them off their testicles if they were men or their breasts if they were women.” (198-199)…He liked to work on people he didn’t know, people around whom he could create all sorts of evil tales…(187)

All these atrocities, however, were concealed from his daughter, born after he was in exile. She knew her father only as a withdrawn, reclusive man with no past. She recalls only one pastime that brought pleasure to her father’s life: their Saturday father-daughter excursions to the Egyptian collection of the Brooklyn museum. Her father studied and admired the Egyptian burial customs with something approaching obsession. She recalls that he found an inexplicable comfort in seeing that the Egyptians succeeded in preserving their dead, and further helped them by sending masked statues to accompany the deceased and negotiate their entrance into the Kingdom of the Dead. The daughter never questioned her father’s obsession.

M. Bienaimé is also fascinated by the Egyptian practice of weighing the hearts of the dead, as described in The Book of the Dead. A heavy heart meant too many evil deeds over one’s lifetime, and rejection from entry in the Kingdom of the Dead. Her father’s fixation with the practice clearly tapped into his haunting guilt over his own weighty heart, because of his sadistic, ghoulish practices as a prison guard in Duvalier’s Port-au-Prince prisons. Yet Bienaime’s daughter, throughout her childhood and her adult career as a sculptor, is convinced that he was a victim of the Macoutes.

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Changes begin when M. Bienaimé’s daughter creates a sculpture depicting her father’s supposed suffering in Baby Doc’s prison. With this creation, the Egyptian scales that Bienaimé obsessively imagines as weighing the good and the evil in his heart began to tip dangerously in the wrong direction. Perhaps he imagines that his worst crime is to be immortalized in this sculpture as a brutalized and humbled victim, rather than as the heinous, insatiable victimizer that he once was.

Bienaimé, in ways very different from Shabine, now feels the pressures of the circumstances of his exile, and determines a new course of action. He sheds his reclusive social mask by renouncing his anonymity, and proceeds to destroy the sculpture that immortalizes the false circumstances of his past life. With energy and purpose, Bienaimé sinks the sculpture in a manmade lake in Florida.

The sun is setting and my mother has called more than a dozen times when my father finally appears in the hotel room doorway. … …“Where were you?… Why didn’t you leave a note? And Papa, where’s the sculpture?…”

“That’s why we must chat…I have objections…”

He’s silent for a long time.

“I’d prefer you not sell that statue,” he says at last. …“Where’s the sculpture?”…

“We go,” he says. “I take you to it.”…

I glance over at the lake. It’s muddy and dark…

“Is this where the sculpture is?” I ask.

“In the water,” he says.

“Okay,” I say calmly. But I know the piece is already lost…Ordinary anger, I’ve always thought, is useless. But now I’m deeply angry. I want to hit my father, beat the craziness out of his head…

“I don’t deserve a statue,” my father says…

“Ka, I don’t deserve a statue,” he says again, this time much more slowly, “not a whole one at least. You see, Ka, your father was the hunter, he was not the prey.”

Each word is now hard-won as it leaves my father’s mouth, balanced like those hearts on the Ancient Egyptian scales.

“Ka, I was never in prison,” he says… “I was working in the prison…It was one of the prisoners inside the prison who cut my face in this

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way…This man who cut my face…I shot and killed him, like I killed many people.”

I’m amazed that he managed to say all of this in one breath. Like a monologue. I wish I too had had some rehearsal time, a chance to have learned what to say in response. (13-22)

Bienaimé’s daughter is shocked into deep silence. She lives up to Bienaimé’s lifelong conviction that from the day she was born to him, she was meant to be his Ka, the Egyptian term for a parallel soul sent to guide one in life and in death. (Bienaimé simplifies this bit of Egyptian eschatology learned in his Brooklyn museum visits to its Haitian equivalent by thinking of his daughter as “ti bon ang”, his good angel.) She is the Ka sent to lend a hand in the removal of his mask, and to initiate his confrontation with his monstrous past.

For her part, Bienaimé’s daughter understands what it is to be an exile in hiding, as she recalls that her father never “wanted the person he was, is, permanently documented in any way” (34). Her sculpture has changed all this. There is no more hiding.

Bienaimé has confessed his role in the past to his two good angels, his wife and his daughter. He has begun a new life as an exile. The sculpture, a misconceived creation, is the catalyst for profound healing and self evaluation. In studying the Egyptians, Bienaimé understood the permanence of evil deeds. By destroying his daughter’s sculpture, he understood facing his evil deeds, and asking for help in living out his days from his bon ang, Bienaimé turns from his past. The truth that he faces is his whole story.

Without her sculpture to haunt, to disturb, and then to provoke a complex shift of viewpoint, nothing would have happened to change Bienaimé’s static non-existence in exile. His associations with Egyptian eschatology would have remained flirtations, vague associations with ancient practices.

Likewise for Shabine, the imagination that becomes both his inner and outer voyage must be prized above every comfort, and above all that is familiar about the homeland he remembers, in order to transcend his old self. His poetry actually creates an eternal present that incorporates past and future, self and other, priority and final choice. “…I have kept my own/ promise, to leave you the one thing I

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own, you whom I loved first: my poetry. / We here for one night.

Tomorrow the Flight will be gone” (269-272).

Both Shabine and Bienaimé have uncovered the realization that creative work will tell their story, or correct the record of their past.

Shabine rewrites the history of struggle, introducing a modicum of hope; M. Bienaimé destroys the false image of his past and earns the right to die, as well as the right to ask for the accompaniment of his Ka, his “bon ang,” his artist daughter, on his journey through the rest of his life, toward a safer death. Both men’s stories speak separately and eloquently to the next generation about the role of memory, imagination, and art, as they play into immortality.

Because of their exile—two exiles that couldn’t be more different— both individuals understand what it is to define their essential worth, something they call their legacy. In both cases, it is the product of their imaginations (or offspring’s imagination). Following these definitions, they are not fractured, nor do they resist living in the present. Finally, they are no longer lost souls. In fact, they do not need to go home. They have created something beyond home, a “reconstructed space…secure places” (177), as Rodríguez phrases it in her text. This transformative breadth in their perspectives renders both men—in Shabine’s words—“healed of being human” (SF 357).

Epilogue As I wrote about Shabine and M. Bienaimé, I began to turn my thoughts more and more to Bienaimé’s daughter. She is such an integral part of Bienaimé’s final self confrontation. Beyond the fact that her sculpture persuaded Bienaimé to stop living a lie, her manner of looking at every aspect of the bizarre incident of the “lost”, the destroyed, sculpture is fascinating.

Anger plays only a small part in her overall reaction. There was also worry, near panic, silence, derisive laughter, then questions put to her father that are only indirectly answered. In considering these moments in the text, I suggest that Bienaimé’s daughter has also been in another terrible exile. She has been orphaned from the truth about

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both her parents, both of whom are living a sham that has completely changed the family dynamics.

What about her art that was destroyed? Where do her feeling of understanding begin and her feelings of shock and anger end? Should she have insisted that her father had ruined one of her best chances in her young career, with the failure of this sale? Or should the enormity of her father’s confession overshadow all comment about her lost art? Will she ever understand all that has transpired in her father’s past?

Danticat leads her reader to a startling perception through the construct of the talk between father and daughter, which is built up around allegory, anecdote and cultural references. Danticat demonstrates that this associative dialectic involves a way of weaving a wide web of tolerance and protection for both father and daughter, something that no direct answers in a dialogue between the two could ever have achieved. In this way, Danticat has preserved the paradox central to Bienaimé’s ethical dilemma.

Bienaimé’s daughter is strong, as strong as both Shabine and Bienaimé. Her family exile and her recent loss have graced her with emotional acuity and immense wisdom, notwithstanding her ignorance of her father’s real situation in Haiti. She seems to be the real heroine of this multigenerational story of exile, silence, and puzzling loss.

ELENA LAWTON DE TORRUELLA UNIVERSITY OF THE SACRED HEART, PUERTO RICO

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Bibliography Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. New York: Alfred Knopf, 2004.

Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton: Princeton U Press: 1991.

Gimbel, Wendy. Havana Dreams: The Story of a Cuban Family. New York: Random House, 1999.

Pike, Burton. The Image of the City in Modern Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Also in María Cristina Rodríguez’s text, (175), cited.

Rodríguez, María Cristina. What Women Lose: Exile and the Construction of Imaginary Homelands in Novels by Caribbean Women. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2005.

Walcott, Derek. Star-Apple Kingdom. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979.

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Reading between the Lines: Glimpses of Oral Cultures in Early Caribbean Literature One of the challenges for scholars of the early Caribbean is to find ways to “read between the lines” of an archive written by slaveholders and imperialists to catch glimpses of the oral cultures of the native inhabitants and the forced immigrants. For better or for worse, it is the written archive that we must depend on for most of our evidence of the cultures of these subaltern oral societies. Some are moved by this unfortunate situation to ignore or reject the written archive and all the injustice that it represents. For instance, Derek Walcott has argued against the study of the early archive, asking: What, simultaneously, was going on in the Ivory and Guinea Coasts while these poems and speeches were being written? What was the tribal life in the villages along their wide rivers infested with crocodiles, their forests of screeching monkeys, what hierarchy of customs, what exchange of utterances, what systems of grief for burial, marriage, birth? Every collection of human beings gathered for a long time in one place codifies itself, arranges rules of conduct, and makes a calendar for its celebrations of harvest, of the shapes of the moon, with tribal melodies, and preserves its fables and its history in the archives of the shaman and the griot and the bard’s memory. …. (Walcott 60)

Walcott is, of course, correct; but the question remains: how can we discover these cultures and lifeways when all we have are outsiders’ written accounts and whatever material culture survives and is available for archeological examination? Walcott suggests that much of the oral cultures survives in the literature and music of the 21st-century Caribbean: 519

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…the vocal tradition, apart from calypso, conte, reggae, and hymn, is audible in the best West Indian fiction, which has the inflections of the storyteller and of conversational, confessional intimacy. Also, novel and short story have the formal, three-paneled design of plot, a stronger presence than print, or one that blends with print. But the rhythm of that melody is not one that continues the printed sound of this collection. It is the rhythm of the storyteller and singer. It underlines Caribbean fiction. It is there in Naipaul, in Jamaica Kincaid, in Chamoiseau. (60)

It may be so that aspects of 17th and 18th-century African culture persist into the 21st-century Caribbean, but the contemporary scene is the product of many other influences, including East Indian, Chinese, European, and North and South American elements. The rich mixture of cultures in the Caribbean is arguably the root of the extraordinary creativity of the region, but teasing out of the current situation those aspects of early modern African and Amerindian cultures is a difficult, if not impossible, task.

Literary and anthropological theories of the past several decades have given us tools for unpacking written records and questioning the assumptions made in them. Deconstruction, feminism, historicism, cultural materialism, and various approaches to ethnography all offer ways to interrogate records and to tease out truths that may lie beneath or between the lines recorded by deeply interested and invested writers. Another method—one that is wellsuited to classroom use—is to read texts “against” others. For instance, in his Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World, Trevor Burnard analyzes the 37-volume—two million word—diary that Thomas Thistlewood diligently maintained from 1748 until his death in 1786. For 37 of those years, Thistlewood was, first, a slave plantation overseer and later, the owner of his own slave “pen” or farm in Westmoreland parish in far western Jamaica. The diary provides one of the most detailed accounts of the operation of slavery in “one of the most extensive slave societies that ever existed” (7). Burnard’s study complements Douglas Hall’s work on the diary, In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-1786, and gives the student of early Caribbean culture a chilling and fascinating picture of the richest

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British colony in the New World at the very height of its wealth and importance. It is also a key text for the study of African culture in the New World: for “No other eighteenth-century diary contains the wealth of material that Thistlewood’s diaries offer about Africans and people of African descent” (7). Burnard notes that enslaved Africans “did gain some measure of self-expression within an overall structure of fierce repression, social disruption, and constant uncertainty. They developed a rich cultural life, exemplified by their language, music, and religion” (16).

So, one might use Burnard’s study of Thistlewood’s diary as a lens through which to view any number of other texts that represent the early period of Caribbean culture.

The name of Thistlewood is perhaps best known because his diaries are as frank about his sexual life as Pepys’s or Boswell’s. Burnard has analyzed the data thoroughly: for instance, he notes that “Thistlewood engaged in 3,852 acts of sexual intercourse with 138 women in his thirty-seven years in Jamaica” (156). All but two of these partners were enslaved women. Burnard points out that, although Thistlewood’s diary suffers from an “extreme lack of self-consciousness” or reflection, it does provide an extraordinarily detailed view of exactly how white Jamaicans exercised their brutal tyranny over the lives and bodies of their slaves (26). Besides a rather full analysis of Thistlewood’s sex life, Burnard closely examines the lives of four women with whom Thistlewood had the most intimate and long-lasting relationships. In doing so, he gives his reader an example of how one might read between the lines—to overcome the tyranny of the master’s point of view—and uncover usable knowledge of the lives and cultures of the Africans upon whom the Jamaican and the British imperial economies depended—and whose cultures have been an integral and important component of English-language cultures the world over.

If we then enter into some understanding of the daily lives of people caught up in a slave society in the Caribbean, we can begin to understand motives and pressures that characters are subject to in other early narratives from the Caribbean. For example, in Richard Ligon’s 1657 account of the story of Inkle and Yarico (the first telling of this famous and persistent story), he says of the Indian maid Yarico:

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This Indian dwelling neer the Sea-coast, upon the Main, an English ship put in to a Bay, and sent some of her men a shoar, to try what victualls or water they could finde, for in some distresse they were: But the Indians perceiving them to go up so far into the Country, as they were sure they could not make a safe retreat, intercepted them in their return, and fell upon them, chasing them into a Wood, and being dispersed there, some were taken, and some kill’d: but a young man amongst them stragling from the rest, was met by this Indian Maid, who upon the first sight fell in love with him, and hid him close from her Countrymen (the Indians) in a Cave, and there fed him, till they could safely go down to the shoar, where the ship lay at anchor, expecting the return of their friends. But at last, seeing them upon the shoar, sent the long-Boat for them, took them aboard, and brought them away. But the youth, when he came ashoar in the Barbadoes, forgot the kindnesse of the poor maid, that had ventured her life for his safety, and sold her for a slave, who was a free born as he: And so poor Yarico for her love, lost her liberty. (qtd in Krise 30)

What makes this story so hard to explain to 21st-century audiences is the great distance between the economic and social conditions of the 17th-century Caribbean and our own society. The direct experience of abusing another human being for economic gain—the point this famous story is making—is as far removed from most 21stcentury, developed-world people’s experience as is killing a chicken for dinner. But, if we begin with Trevor Burnard’s study of the Thistlewood diaries, and see how matter-of-factly the slave driver exploits his slaves—and how humanly his victims respond and resist—we can begin to see how such a society is possible for human beings who are essentially no different from us.

Another example of reading between the lines can be found in Edmund Hickeringill’s influential travel narrative Jamaica Viewed (1661). Despite the fact that Jamaica was the supposed topic, at one point Hickeringill offers a verse description of the Indians of Surinam.

Note his general admiration, mixed with passionless statements about conduct most Europeans of his day would find reprehensible. His subject here is the Surinamese social order; he writes: To none but to their Chief, they Homage owe, That’s th’Eldest Son, when marry’d, t’him they bowe, His Father, Mother, Brethren, Nephews, all;

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Must low’r to him, and on the knee must fall: Till his first Son be married, then he (Depos’d) must to his own Son bend the knee.

Thus do they live by families, thus then Their alwaies govern’d by middle-ag’d men. ....................................

(In summe to say) They’re all simplicity, Almost like Adam, in’s innocency.

Whatever Nature or their Appetite Does dictate, they do follow with delight, Not once with conscience check embittered, Being by the law of nature only led.

Not coveting large Barns, with hoards to stuffe, When once their belly’s full, they have enough; For Avarice, here never makes them jarre, Nor warrants, by religions varnish, warre.

His pride so natural, (if’t be a vice,) Yet costs him nothing, or but little Price; It never makes him sell his land, nor shut Shop-windows up, nor a spare Jewel put To trouble, in a Pawne for Cloak or Gown.

His only pride’s a Feather in his Crown: The cast-clothes of some gaudy Bird fits him.

For which he needs not venture life nor limb, Nor Hector it, nor list under Sir Hugh, (When known by the old suit, to fish for new;) Nor crindge to Velvet Title, with a gape, Like fawning Curre, or mopping Jack-an-Ape: Nor need to be light finger’d in a crowd; Nor light heel’d to procure a Scarfe or Hood Nor with stretch’d Fancies beg a Ladies smile, Which she (poor soul) scarce understands the while.

They make no Mintage here of Braines, nor be The sterling Pence coyn’d with a Comoedie.

For pomp and fine clothes only are the cause Of all our shirking Trades, and endlesse lawes.

Since Nature ne’re brought forth a Creature yet,

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Unfurnish’d, with what Coverlets were fit.

The Back (if not misus’d) in coldest Lands, Craving no waste-clothes, more then face or hands. (qtd in Krise 45-48) The curious thing in this passage is the way Hickeringill makes the Surinamese out to be superior to his own culture in a variety of ways.

They are, in fact, examples of “noble savages” a decade before John Dryden coined the term, and a century before Rousseau made the notion universally known. Indeed, this privileging of the oral culture over the literate one echoes Ligon’s Yarico story and provides another example of European self-critique at the height of Europe’s vigorous imperial domination of the New World. Thistlewood’s diaries again provide a useful touchstone for grasping these ideas: for in the diaries, Burnard notes that Thistlewood never once makes a comment that might be interpreted as being racist. Indeed, Thistlewood seems to respect many aspects of the culture of the enslaved Africans—a notion that many readers find remarkable. They have trouble understanding how Europeans can manage to be so brutal to other human beings while simultaneously admiring aspects of their victims’ culture.

Yet another example of a “noble savage” critique of European imperialism comes from Thomas Tryon’s Friendly Advice to the Gentlemen-Planters of the East and West Indies (1684). In this “parlor dialogue,” Tryon gives us the first example of an attempt to represent an enslaved African’s point of view. Tryon, an early opponent of slavery, is clearly using the African voice to oppose the institution, but he also suggests something about the nature of African society in Barbados in the 17th century: [Slave.] I desire first you would lay that frightful Cudgel a little further off, and then begging Pardon for the Presumption, since this is the Day you observe to serve God in, I would crave leave to be a little instructed touching that Service, and wherein it consists.

Mast[er]. Why? It consists in being Christians, as we are—But what should I talk to such a dark ignorant Heathen, scarce capable of common Sense, much less able to understand things of such an high and mysterious Nature.

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Sl[ave]. I confess we are poor silly dark ignorant Creatures, and for ought I find, so are many of the Bacchararo’s too, as well as we; but that you may not grudge your Time or Pains, I will assure you, that I will attend very seriously to what you say, and possibly may prove somewhat more docible than some of our Complexion; For I was the Son of a Phitisheer, that is, a kind of Priest in our Country and Way; he was also a Sophy, and had studied the Nature of things, and was well skill’d in Physick and natural Magick, I have heard him often discourse of a great and mighty Beeing, (greater far, and brighter too than either Moon or Sun) which framed both Land and Sea, and all the glittering Glories of the Skie; and he was wont to say, Men were the Children of the great King, who if they were good, would take them up (but I think it was after they were dead here) into spangled Regions, where they should do no Work, nor endure any Pain, nor Fight one with another, but remain in Joy and Peace, and Happiness: ‘Tis so long ago, that I was taken from him and sold hither, that I have forgot much of his Talk, and yet I remember some of his Skill, whereby I have Cured several of my Countrymen since I came hither, of Diseases, that your Doctors could not help, either so surely or so suddainly. (qtd in Krise 53-54)

Tryon’s slave anticipates a number of actual and fictional Africans who are educated and privileged and who wind up enslaved in the Americas, including Job Ben Solomon, Francis Williams, Oroonoko, and John Talbot Campo-bell. His account of having been “taken from” his father and “sold hither,” is an early example of the charge that the slave trade was founded not upon the legal basis of “just war,” but rather upon the crime of kidnapping. Olaudah Equiano’s own account of his kidnapping and enslavement was critical to his political aims in the Interesting Narrative (1789). That his claim has been challenged ever since the publication of the Narrative reflects the importance of the claim that the slave trade was founded upon legal warfare and that the Europeans merely came to the West African markets to buy. Any hint that the slave trade was founded upon kidnapping presented a serious challenge to the system. Tryon’s slave’s seemingly off-handed remark needs to be understood in this context. It thus presents a picture of African society as civilized and cultured in contrast to the Europeans’ picture of Africa as a dark and unruly continent.

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By reading early texts closely and “against” each other—or in groups or collections—we can begin to piece together glimpses of the cultures from which some of the most celebrated literature of the current era took root. Walcott hints at these connections when he says, … What is archival in the Caribbean, as the Caribbean writer knows, is what got lost in the annals of sugar cane burned every harvest like the library of Alexandria, what disappeared in spray in the wake of the slaves. A huge amnesia rather than a history. That is our first book of Genesis. In the end, as it was in the Beginning, it is still the Word, not just the Noun or the Number, that illuminates every race.

THOMAS W. KRISE UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

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Works Cited Burnard, Trevor. Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings.

Revised Edition. ed, Vincent Carretta. London: Penguin Classics, 2003.

Hall, Douglas. In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica, 1750-1786. Mona: University Press of the West Indies, 1998.

Krise, Thomas W., ed. Caribbeana: An Anthology of English Literature of the West Indies, 1657-1777. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Walcott, Derek. “A Frowsty Fragrance (Review of Caribbeana).” New York Review of Books. 47:10. 15 June 2000. 57-61.

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Overlapping Identities in Samuel Selvon’s Fiction “…just as people need to eat and drink, to have security and freedom of movement, so too they need to belong to a group. Deprived of this dimension in life, they feel cut off, lonely, unhappy. To be human means to be able to feel at home somewhere, with one’s own kind.”

S. H. Rudolph and L. I. Rudolph

The quotation above cited by Caribbean anthropologist Ralph R. Premdas in his book Identity, Ethnicity and Culture in the Caribbean, attest to the fact that belonging is an essential need common to all human beings without exception. Uprooted and displaced individuals, such as those from the Caribbean, surviving in highly diverse cultural settings have felt a strong need to bond with a particular group or groups that help instill a sense of belonging to their immediate locality and further aid in conferring a sense of nationhood for them. A common way of attaining this is by claiming a collective identity, which would help ground these individuals with other individuals who comprise that specific society and thus, nation. Caribbean sociologist, Ralph Premdas suggests the difficulties, which arise when individuals in the Caribbean try to lay claim to a particular identity.

Focusing on a unified identity can be complicated because the shifting Caribbean identities are, as Premdas writes, “suffused with an assortment of conflicting claims and overlaps” (5).

Originating from a highly diverse country such as Trinidad, many of Samuel Selvon’s works of fiction attests to these “conflicting claims and overlaps.” Depending on the political influences of the times and the locations from which they were written, the main characters in 529

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his novels tend to favor identification with the particular group that empowers them with agency within a given space and time in history.

Consequently, their overlapping identities are shown in various novels by the reappearance of the particular character that experiences conflict within several levels of his identity formation. This paper illustrates how Selvon works out the various conflicting levels of identity appropriation by his protagonist, seeking to belong to a certain group and desirous to claim an imaginative community that represents him under different circumstances, situations or locations in which he finds himself.

Selvon’s protagonists can identify with the various identity types available to them as Caribbean subjects, the Ethnolocal, the Ethnonational, the National or Trans-Caribbean identity whichever is necessary to aid in their full development. This typology of Caribbean identities was developed by Ralph Premdas and conceptualizes identities that are composed of several layers, “One can conceive a Caribbean identity as constituted around many levels of expression” (7). The ethnolocal identity highlights the importance of locality, which according to Premdas, is seen as “sacred and pure,” (8) the Ethnonational universal identity is an extension of the Ethnolocal, but includes other world communities that share a similar background and culture. The National identity is the most common identity for islanders in the Caribbean, which is usually referred to as insular, where the local interest and those of the state merge and become the same. Consequently, this type of identity is usually applied to represent the Nation. The Trans-Caribbean identity Premda’s last type of identity formation, which occurs within the Caribbean diaspora, is constructed from “memories of assigned Caribbean values, ecology and history” (10). Applying these levels for Caribbean identity to characters in Sam Selvon’s novels aids in helping to understand how identity appropriation works in the highly diverse ethnic society of Trinidad. I will briefly explore Samuel Selvon’s early peasant novels, A Brighter Sun and Turn Again Tiger, because these pioneering efforts were produced during the struggle for Trinidadian independence. I believe that identity formation was at its most critical moment for Selvon as well as for most Trinidadians.

A Brighter Sun was Selvon’s initial effort in constructing the identity

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of a Trinidadian East Indian. As part of their effort to build a new nation Trinidadians, an amalgam of different ethnic groups, needed to display unity as a people and nation. This affects the way Selvon constructs the identity of his first major character Tiger. Though Tiger is an East Indian from a local Indian village in Trinidad, he does not identify with his local Indian group, instead he opts for a more encompassing identity type, the Creole identity. This identity was rooted in the Afro-Trinidadian culture and was the cosmopolitan identity adopted at the time to represent the National identity of Trinidadians. Consequently, the reader encounters an inconsistency, highlighted by Selvon scholar Roydon Salick, which resides in the fact that Tiger, an Indian peasant coming from an Indian village, believes his upbringing to be more Creole than Indian. This understanding does not fit with the character’s social reality. Tiger tells his Creole friend Joe, “I never grow up in too much Indian custom.

All different kinds of people in Trinidad, you have to mix up with all of them” (117). Salick considers these words central to the novel, due to the fact that Tiger was from the Indian village of Chaguanas.

Salick asserts, “But Tiger is a Hindu peasant, from Chaguanas, with very traditional parents and relatives. Selvon would have us believe that Tiger has had a creolised upbringing; but there is nothing to prove this, and much to contradict it” (v-vi). In consequence Selvon creates “a curious discrepancy between the artistic donnee and the historical, sociological reality” (v), because it is an attempt on Selvon’s part “to make art conform to autobiography” (vi). In truth, Indians follow a more ethnolocal or ethnonational identity because they identify mostly with their local Indian group or at times beyond that with the Indians in India. In her book, A History of Trinidad 1783-1962, Bridget Brereton states: …since the 1920s and the 1930s Trinidad Indians had shown an increasing interest in India and its culture. Journals and papers owned

by Indians, like The East Indian Weekly and The Observer, devoted considerable space to events in India. (239)

Tiger on the other hand opts for the Creole identity, a fact which fits more with Selvon’s reality as Salick highlights, “We can understand

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Selvon’s creolization at a young age as a member of a middle-class Christian family living in cosmopolitan San Fernando” (v), but not with Tiger’s reality who was raised in an Indian village. There is a mismatch between Selvon’s autobiographical reality and his character’s, Tiger’s, reality. Tiger rejects the elder’s notions of an ethnolocal or ethnonational identity, which tends to reject unity with other non-Indian groups in Trinidad. This can be further noticed in his father’s words as he notices that Tiger’s only friends, Joe and Rita, are Creoles: “Is only nigger friend you makeam since you come?” his bap asked.

“Plenty Indian liveam dis side. Is true them is good neighbour, but you must look for Indian friend, like you and you wife. Indian must keep together.” (47)

The inconsistencies in Tiger’s non-identification with his ethnolocal or ethnonational group though problematic in Salick’s view, can nevertheless be said to be an effort of the author’s commitment towards the independence effort, by Tiger embracing the Creole identity as his own, Selvon was supporting it as the representative National Identity of Trinidad. It was very important in the preindependence 1950’s for Selvon to promote unity among Trinidadians and in his novel we testify to this by Tiger’s integration as a Creole into Trinidadian society.

Besides embracing the Creole identity as the national identity, Selvon makes an effort to point out the responsibility that falls on the shoulders of the intellectuals who had been chosen to lead the independence movement. Thus, they are accountable to the larger peasant population. His criticism is symbolically represented by Tiger’s criticism of the intellectuals as represented by the two selfserving doctors that represent the two largest groups in Trininidad, the Afro-Caribbean and the Indo-Caribbean. Both deny their services to the peasant and his wife when they most need them and it is a white doctor that aids the couple. Tiger’s outrage is Selvon’s own outcry for a Trinidadian leadership to make good for the common people as a whole, as native intellectuals, they are obligated to work for the people:

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Tiger laughed bitterly. “I beg your pardon! You know all the pretty words, but I shame of all Trinidad doctor. You know what happen last night? Let me tell you. Don’t go yet”—holding on to his arm— “you talking like a social man, well, you don’t know is manners to listen when somebody talking to you? Let me tell you. First, I went to a coolie doctor. Yes, a coolie like myself. You know what he do? He out the light in my face. Then I come by you. You don’t want me to tell you what you do! You know that for yourself! But you know who I get eventually? You know? You don’t know? Is a wite man! Yes a wite doctor from England, who don’t even belong to this country! (187-88)

Selvon’s words are directed to the leaders in Trinidad. He intends to make them realize that they must work for the people if they are to rule the island.

In the beginning of Turn Again Tiger, the continuation of A Brighter Sun, Tiger says the following words that are central to the novel, “Sometimes a step back better than staying in the same place: the next time you move forward you might be able to make a big stride and go way pass where you was before” (13). Tiger’s words are a reflection of the motives that guide this second novel. In this novel, Selvon is concerned with exploring his ethnolocal identity because he realizes that his character went as far as he could but there were issues that were paralyzing to his protagonist Tiger as much as they were for him. They kept Tiger from moving ahead in his development.

In order to move ahead and fully adopt a healthy national identity, Tiger must confront and understand any pathological inner feelings that are stopping him from taking the steps forward that are necessary for him to move ahead in life. Therefore, Tiger comes to realize that there are feelings of inadequacy in his past which spring from his ethnolocal or Indian identity. He must purge these feelings so that he can incorporate his Indian identity and integrate it as part of his national identity if he wants to attain the manhood he has been seeking from the beginning.

Tiger then is confronted in this novel with facing his historical past. Furthermore, he is forced to deal with the oppressing forces within this past. There are at least two historical pasts that he must face and intervene with, the colonial past and the Indian past. The colonial past is full of emasculating experiences for Indian men. White

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men’s oppression did not only stop with their direct exploitation of Indian men, “The White man was making all the money, and they (Indian men) had all the work to do,” (60) or with their humiliation “a white man on a horse would come by and give him an order, and he would say ‘Yes sir’ and hurry to obey” (61). White men highlighted the Indian man’s impotence by raping Indian girls as the men just stood helplessly unable to do anything, “The white overseer screwed the young Indian girls in the cane, and nobody could do anything about it” (60). The white man’s property on the other hand was forbidden and white women were even further protected, they could not even be held under the gaze, “keep off the white man’s land, don’t go near the overseer’s house, turn your head away if you see the white man’s wife” (62).

In Turn Again Tiger, Tiger returns to the cane fields to work under the supervision of a white man, and furthermore, he shares his living space with his father and his family. Both Tiger and his father will work for the white man, thus, living in such close quarters with his father forces Tiger to confront the other oppressing force in his past, the patriarchal Indian System. His father still treats him like a child and even though Tiger is now a married man with children, he tries to beat him with a belt in front of his wife; furthering the humiliation, “Babolal unbuckled a great leather belt from around his waist…

Suddenly it was not his father that he had to fight anymore. It was something else. It was something adverse to all he believed, which was in the shape of a man, a man swinging a thick piece of buckled leather…” (47) Tiger engages in a fight with his father confronting Indian patriarchy and defeats him. Tiger’s confrontation and defeat of his father is a way of purging these oppressing institutions that kept him from moving forward. He also confronts and has a symbolic fight with his white oppressive past. This confrontation becomes enmeshed with a sexual encounter between Tiger and Doreen, the white overseer’s wife. By possessing that which was forbidden to the Indian man’s gaze, Tiger would reconcile the past Indian impotence in front of the white man as the white man had violated the Indian women. The encounter, which is sexual in nature, between the Indian (Tiger) and the white overseer’s wife (Doreen) is represented by a fight, “They fell lock like wrestlers on dry bamboo

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leaves. The cause of every personal catastrophe was in his arms, and hatred and lust struggled equally with him. What he did was done blindly and vengefully and he never knew how it was with Doreen” (177). This battle, just like the fight between Tiger and his father, was necessary for Tiger to be able to move forward, to move ahead. Both encounters became part of the final act Tiger needed to help him accept and integrate his ethnolocal identity as part of his identity as a Trinidadian.

In both these two novels, we see how the main character adopts and deals with an assortment of identities available to him in order to work out a final identity that can be acceptable to him.

Concurrently, it shows what Selvon must have been working through as he worked out these issues in his novels.

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References Alleyne, Mervyn. The Construction and Representation of Race and Ethnicity in the Caribbean and the World. Kingston: U. of the West Indies P., 2002.

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1991.

Barrow, Christine. Family in the Caribbean: Themes and Perspectives.

Kingston: Ian Randle Pub., 1996.

Bennett, Herman L. “The Black Power February Revolution in Trinidad.” In Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd, eds. Caribbean Freedom: Economy and Society from Emancipation to the Present.

Kingston: Ian Randle, 1993. 548-556.

Brereton, Bridget. “The Development of an Identity: The Black Middle Class of Trinidad in the Later 19th Century.” In Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd eds., Caribbean Freedom: Economy and Society from Emancipation to the Present. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers Limited, 1993. 284-295.

Chatterjee, P. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1993.

Edmundson, Belinda. Making Men: Gender, Literary Authority, and Women’s Writing in Caribbean Narrative. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.

Edwards, Paul and Kenneth Ranchad, “Introduction” The Year in San Fernando. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1970. v-xix.

Fabre, M., “Samuel Selvon” in B. King, ed. West Indian Literature.

London: Mcmillan, 1979.

Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” Black Film, British Cinema. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1989. 222-237. . “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation.” Mbye Cham, ed. Ex-iles: Essays on Caribbean Cinema. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1992. 220-236. . Race, the Floating Signifier. Northhampton, MA: Media Education Foundation, 1998.

Harney, Stefano. Nationalism and Identity: Culture and the Imagination in a Caribbean Diaspora. Kingston: U of the West Indies P, 1996.

23-47.

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Kellas, James G. The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity. New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s P., 1991.

King, Bruce, ed. West Indian Literature. London: Macmillan Education Ltd, 1995.

LeSeur, Geta. “Introduction” in Ten is the Age of Darkness: The Black Bildungsroman. Columbia, Mo.: U of Missouri, 1995.

Lindfors, Bernth and Reinhard Sander, eds. “Introduction” Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1993. ixxiii.

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London: Routledge, 1998.

Looker, Mark. Atlantic Passages: History, Community, and Language in the Fiction of Sam Selvon. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1996.

Martin, Tony. “The Development of an Identity: The Black Middle Class of Trinidad in the later 19th Century.” In Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd, eds. Caribbean Freedom: Economy and Society from Emancipation to the Present. Kingston: Ian Randle, 1993.

284-295.

Moretti, Franco. The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. London: Verso, 2000.

Nasta, Sussheila, ed. Critical Perspectives on Sam Selvon. Bolder, Co.: Three Continents Press, 1988.

Pouchet Paquet, Sandra. Caribbean Autobiography: Cultural Identity and Self-Representation. Madison: The University Press of Wisconsin Press, 2002.

Ramchand, K., The West Indian Novel and Its Background. London: Faber & Faber, 1970. . An Introduction to the Study of West Indian Literature.

Kingston: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1976.

Reddock, Rhoda. “Indian Women and Indentureship in Trinidad and Tobago, 1845-1917.” In Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd, eds.

Caribbean Freedom: Economy and Society from Emancipation to the Present. Kingston: Ian Randle, 1993. 225-237.

Roberts, Peter. From Oral to Literate Culture: Colonial Experience in the English West Indies. Kingston: U of the West Indies P, 1997.

236-267.

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Salick, Roydon. The Novels of Samuel Selvon: A Critical Study, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Sander, Reinhard W. The Trinidad Awakening: West Indian Literature of the Nineteen-Thirties. West Port, CN: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Selvon, Samuel. A Brighter Sun. London: Alan Wingate, 1952. . Turn Again Tiger. London: Alan Wingate, 1958. . Ways of Sunlight. London: Longman, 1973. . The Lonely Londoners. New York: Longman Publishing Group, 1985. . Moses Ascending. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1984. . Moses Migrating. Washington D. C.: Three Continents. 1992.

Yelvington, Kevin. Trinidad Ethnicity. Knoxville: The U of Tennessee P, 1993.

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Say It Isn’t So: V.S. Naipaul’s One-Sided Sentiments in The Middle Passage ABSTRACT The Middle Passage describes V.S. Naipaul’s journey to Trinidad, British Guiana, Surinam, Martinique, and Jamaica. As the travelogue unfolds, Naipaul explains why he had to “escape” from the Caribbean to England by depicting a nightmare image of West Indian society. As he quotes in the epigraph the words of James Anthony Froude, the Caribbean society is inadequate and lacks viability: “There are no people here […] with a character or purpose of their own” (Naipaul xi). Furthermore, the Caribbean is a derelict land, since “[h]istory is built around achievement and creation; and nothing was created in the West Indies” (20). As such, Naipaul’s record of his travel experience and observations of the Caribbean serve to project his one-sided knowledge of West Indian society.

The Middle Passage describes V.S. Naipaul’s journey to Trinidad, British Guiana, Surinam, Martinique, and Jamaica. As the travelogue unfolds, Naipaul illustrates his fellow travelers, daily routines, conversations, and encounters. He also explains why he had to “escape” from the Caribbean to England by depicting a nightmare image of West Indian society. Hence, Naipaul lauds his fulfilled vow “[…] to leave [the Caribbean] within five years,” (34) and uses The Middle Passage to bring “honest” interrogation and inquiry to a society where he had only known “the threat of failure, [and] the need to escape […]” (37). Naipaul’s viewpoints, though, are based on such attitudes of Froude, Anthony Trollope, and Charles Kingsley—all of which 539

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embodied an imperial interest in the Caribbean and observed and measured it against the principles of the “mother” culture (Mustafa 78). As such, Naipaul’s record of his travel experience, observations, and anecdotes of the Caribbean serve to project his assumed position as a source of knowledge and authority of West Indian society.

In the “Introduction” of The Middle Passage, Naipaul recounts his unpleasant experiences with the immigrant West Indians as he voyages from England to the Caribbean on board the ship, Francisco Bobadilla. He sets the negative tone and his desire to disassociate himself from West Indians in the opening sentence: “There was such a crowd of immigrant-type West Indians on the boat-train platform at Waterloo that I was glad I was traveling first class to the West Indies […]. ‘You wouldn’t want to travel with all of them West Indians,’ the man at the travel agency had said” (Naipaul 1-5). Naipaul continues his reproachful remarks when he depicts his fellow black passengers as strange, exotic, or grotesque: a man “with a Nat King Cole hairstyle” (1), a “very tall and ill-made Negro” with a “ruined face” (3), and a “much smaller Negro” with “big blank eyes as lack-lustre as boiled eggs” (3). Hence, he fails to move beyond the physical exterior of blacks. Scholar Alphonsus Clement Derrick attributes Naipaul’s obsession with the physicality of blacks as part of his Negrophobia.

He suggests that “the Negro in Naipaul[‘s texts] becomes a symbol, a seemingly apt peg on which to hang the denuded and misshapen reality of the West Indian experience” (305).

Naipaul’s first major destination is Trinidad, his birth place. His opinions are mixed with a personal antipathy and strong viewpoint of the island as a failure. Naipaul first dismisses the island as a nonnation since it lacks heroes (except cricketers as hero figures) and criticizes the country’s deficiency of self-importance, ambition, and value. He further justifies his antipathy by faulting Trinidad’s valorized mores: It was also a place, where a recurring word of abuse was ‘conceited’, an expression of the resentment felt of anyone who possessed unusual skills. Such skills were not required by a society which produced nothing, never had to prove its worth, and was never called upon to be efficient […]. Generosity—the admiration of equal for equal—was therefore unknown; it was a quality I knew only from books and found only in books. (Naipaul 35)

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By depicting the multiple flaws of Trinidadian society, Naipaul reinforces his condemnation of an “unambitious society” that prides itself on its failures. Overall, he summarizes the island as “a place where the stories were never stories of success but of failure: brilliant men, scholarship winners, who had died young, gone mad, or taken to drink” (35) and a place one must leave to achieve futility: I had never wanted to stay in Trinidad. When I was in the fourth form I wrote a vow on the endpaper of my Kennedy’s Revised Latin Primer to leave within five years. I left after six; and for many years afterwards in England, falling asleep in bedsitters with the electric fire on, I had been awakened by the nightmare that I was back in tropical Trinidad. (34)

Naipaul attributes Trinidad’s obsession with modernity or with American products as another sign of Trinidadian failure.

Trinidadians, for instance, prefer Maxwell House, Nescafe, and other more expensive coffees to their rich, local ones. They also desire American B-grade movies over British films, which Naipaul attributes as reflections of poor taste and “fraudulent” cosmopolitianism. Since the individualism of Trinidadians causes interest in far-off countries instead of their own island, Naipaul faults his fellow Trinidadians for ignoring their folk-culture, calypsos, and past. Naipaul also turns to Trollope and Kingsley for guidance in assessing the situation of modernity in Trinidad. After agreeing with their complaints that “island people […] despise or affect to despise their own productions” (41), he concludes that Trinidad is a colonial immigrant society which does not value efficiency or quality; it has “no standards of its own, [since it has been] subjected for years to the second-rate in newspapers, radio and cinema; […] and Trinidadians of all races and classes […] remak[e] themselves in the image of the Hollywood B-man. This is the full meaning of modernity in Trinidad” (61).

When Naipaul directly addresses the condition of blacks in Trinidad, he condemns their past reluctance to examine and accept their history. He charges that “the Negro in the New World was, until recently, unwilling to look at his past” (61) and agrees with Trollope’s statement: “But how strange is the race of Creole Negroes—of

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Negroes, that is born out of Africa! […]. They have no language of their own […]. They have no idea of country, and no pride of race […]. The West Indian knows nothing of Africa except that it is a term of reproach” (62). Even though some blacks may suffer from selfcontempt, the roots of this social and cultural issue are not mentioned.

Moreover, Naipaul lacks an examination of the historical racial and linguistic prejudice in the Caribbean which stresses white European physical features, standardized English, and a whitewashed version of African history in the West Indies. Without this analysis, Naipaul’s remarks are careless and incomplete.

With these various problems in Trinidad and Naipaul’s desire to become a writer, he sees his departure from Trinidad as typical. He reflectively writes in The Middle Passage that “the only professions were those of law and medicine […] and the most successful men were commission agents, bank managers and members of the distributive trades” (35). Naipaul further explains his reasons for the emigration to London: An artist needs to be nourished, needs an audience and a response […]. A writer like myself has no society, because one comes from a very small island which hardly provides an audience, and one’s books are published in London because one of the great legacies of imperialism is that the English-speaking world is divided between New York and London. (Shenker 50)

He also claims that he could not engage in creative outlets in Trinidad since this “primitive island” had “gone back to the bush,” and the bush was “not very propitious to literature” (Tiffin 13). At the 1971 Conference on Commonwealth Literature held in Kingston, Jamaica, Naipaul publicly reiterated that he could not be stimulated to produce in the “culturally sterile islands of the Caribbean” (Lindfors 10). While Naipaul pushes his self-imposed “duty” to tell other Trinidadians what is wrong with their society, he fails to reflect upon the positive opportunities of Trinidad and makes The Middle Passage appear one-sided.

Naipaul resumes his biased attitude towards blacks in Guyana and considers them lazy and not motivated to have entrepreneurial ambitions. His one positive comment is that some blacks have a

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feeling of independence, but this is only due to the harshness of slavery under the Dutch and the subsequent domestic colonization of labor demanded by sugar. Therefore, the blacks have this desirable quality only because of their connection to the mother country.

Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, also elicits Naipaul’s praise for its antiquated Dutch architecture, but also represents to Naipaul an “inefficiency” of its services. As in other parts of the travelogue, Naipaul relies on his tendency to immediately generalize from an observation, comment, or an experience. He uses this power of discernment to give his overall caustic impression of Guyana: Slavery, the land, the latifundia, Bookers [merchants and planters], indenture, the colonial system, malaria: all these have helped to make a society that is at once revolutionary and intensely reactionary, and have made the Guianese what he is: slow, sullen, independent though deceptively yielding, proud of his particular corner of Guiana, and sensitive to any criticism he does not utter himself. (119-120)

Surinam, a former Dutch colony, allows Naipaul a further base for comparing the people in the Caribbean. Thinking of the island an extension of the Netherlands, Naipaul sees its relatively tension-free racial mix as a testament to “Dutch realism,” which openly acknowledges racial difference. Thus, different peoples—East Indians, Javanese, Dutch, and Creoles—reside together, while the “bush Negroes,” who live in the forest, have recreated and preserved their African culture. However, black nationalists view the existence of other cultures as a threat to nationalism and hope to make “negerengels” or “Negro English” the national language. Analyzing the problem, Naipaul doubts that the movement can avoid black racism: “Negro English is no substitute for a developed language.

The bush-Negroes are interesting and in some respects admirable, but between these forest-dwellers and the sophisticated Continental Surinamer there can be no deep sympathy” (185). Therefore, the existence of a separatist nationalism is to Naipaul a “sad,” unnecessary development, and one which, in its rejections, throws away a legitimate affiliation with a worthy European cultural tradition.

Naipaul also asserts that the local creolized languages are simply not capable of replacing European ones. In fact, Naipaul concludes

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that the creolizing process is akin to engaging in “gibberish.” These statements propel the colonial standards that languages outside of standardized English are substandard and inferior.

Naipaul travels next to Martinique, the former French colony, and focuses on two societal traits. First, the helplessness of the country is encouraged by a total dependence on the mother country, France.

Martiniquans, Naipaul asserts, delude themselves into thinking they are as French as the people from France and work to assimilate the French culture, language, and architecture. Since Martinique has no culture of its own, invests in France rather than its own land, and imports most its goods from France, Naipaul criticizes the island as another failing Caribbean region and “helpless colony” (207).

Naipaul’s observation of Martinique’s great dependence on France, however, is incomplete. To a certain degree, France encourages Martinique’s dependence so that France can benefit financially.

Furthermore, France also pushes “the colony mentality” of dependency, so that many Martiniquans will believe that their island can never be completely self-sufficient or successful without the aid of the mother country.

Naipaul also notes the importance of “shade distinctions” in Martinique, which are more rigid than in Trinidad: One of the futile skills unconsciously acquired by anyone who has grown up in the West Indies is the ability to distinguish persons of Negro ancestry. I thought I possessed this ‘skill’ to a reasonable degree until I went to Martinique. Time and time again I was told that a whiteskinned, light-eyed, straight-haired person I had just met really was ‘coloured’. (204)

Martinique’s obsession with color distinction makes Naipaul uncomfortable, quite possibly because he realizes that his brown complexion will place him in an undesirable category. Thus, he longs to be back in Trinidad where it “is more humane in allowing people who look reasonably white to pass as white” (204). Naipaul criticizes the employment of pigmentocracy in Martinique, yet he uses this same measure to judge blacks negatively, give preferential treatment to East Indians, and bestow favor to white Europeans. Hence, he unfairly faults the island without giving attention to his own

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application of prejudice.

Tired of the “French colonial monkey-game” (218), Naipaul leaves Martinique and briefly stops in Antigua, before heading to Jamaica.

The account of Jamaica serves as a last compendium of confirmation of his original thesis about the Caribbean’s “borrowed cultures” and “half-made societies.” In Jamaica, Naipaul condemns the high unemployment, overpopulation, and people’s frustration which generates their “self-destructive rage.” To prove his censure, Naipaul points to the disorganized Ras Tafarians (Rastas) who live in slums and believe that the “white man and his brown ally have held the black man in slavery” (223). Relying on information from a pamphlet published under the sponsorship of the University of the West Indies, Naipaul describes the Rastas, who have developed their “psychology of survival”: “They reply to rejection with rejection. They will not cut their hair or wash […]. Many will not work […] and many console themselves with marijuana […] (225).” Naipaul ends the chapter with an even more unflattering critique of Jamaica: Everyday I saw the same things—unemployment, ugliness, overpopulation, race […]. The young intellectuals […] were looking for an enemy, and there was none […]. They were the accumulated pressures of the slave society, the colonial society, the underdeveloped, overpopulated agricultural country. (234)

At the end of The Middle Passage, Naipaul seems more concerned about finishing his travelogue than giving a full evaluation of Jamaica. Critic George Panton also agrees that Naipaul’s treatment of Jamaica is disappointing: “Naipaul reserves his most scathing comment for Jamaica, the comment being that of dismissing us with contempt [and] devoting only 18 pages to this island; […] two being a reprint from a letter to The Gleaner and the remaining eight largely a summary of the University’s report on the Ras Tafari movement (23). Seeking to discredit The Middle Passage, a number of critics have doubted Naipaul’s objectivity and his qualification as a professional examiner of societies. Gordon Rohlehr used Naipaul’s statement about his early fear of Trinidad to show that it is difficult to distinguish between the writer’s “sensitive examination of history and his honest expression of hysteria” (127). Likewise, Wayne Brown, outraged by Naipaul’s

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pessimism, also dismissed the book as one which is “sadly disguised as objective analysis” (19). Finally, Trinidadian poet Eric Roach argues: “He [Naipaul] cannot understand that we accept the facts of our history and the reality of our situation and we are moving […] into a world of our own ordering (4).

These judgments, however, are by no means representative of the West’s response to The Middle Passage. Praised as a “gifted” and an “impressive” writer, Naipaul has been rated by several British and American scholars as “one of the most sensitive and musical handlers of the English language today” (Dissanayake and Wickramagamage 18). Many readers have also argued that it is Naipaul’s narrative detail that distinguishes The Middle Passage from the dozens of other travel books on the West Indies. Moreover, a few West Indians have conceded that The Middle Passage is praiseworthy because it records truth, however unpalatable. While Naipaul may include his version of the truth in this travelogue and espouse that his travelogues “grow not out of contempt, but out of concern” (Mukherjee and Boyers 13), he omits the positive aspects of the Caribbean. With such a narrow view, his facts and observations are incomplete and unreliable: “What Vidia said about the West Indies in The Middle Passage was very true and very important. But what he left out was twice as true and four times as important” (James 6).

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Works Cited Brown, Wayne. “On Exile and the Dialect of the Tribe.” Sunday Guardian 8 Nov. 1970: 19.

Derrick, Alphonsus Clement. “The Uncommitted Artist: A Study of the Purpose and Method of Satire in the Novels of V.S. Naipaul.”

M.Phil. thesis: Leeds University, 1968.

Dissanayake, Wimal, and Carmen Wickramagamage. Self and Colonial Desire: Travel Writings of V.S. Naipaul. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1993.

James, C.L.R. “The Disorder of Vidia Naipaul.” Trinidad Guardian Magazine 21 Feb. 1965: 6.

Lindfors, Bernth. “The West Indian Conference on Commonwealth Literature.” World Literature Written in English 19 (1971): 10.

Mukherjee, Bharati, and Robert Boyers. “A Conversation with V. S. Naipaul.” Salmagundi 54 (1981): 4-22.

Mustafa, Fawzia. V. S. Naipaul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Naipaul, V.S. The Middle Passage. New York: Vintage Books, 1981.

Panton, George. “V. S. Naipaul: The Most Famous West Indian Writer.”

Sunday Gleaner 22 June 1975: 23, 31.

Roach, Eric. “Naipaul’s Death Wish is Not Our Bag.” Trinidad Guardian 1 Feb. 1973: 4.

Rohlehr, Gordon. “The Ironic Approach: The Novels of V.S. Naipaul.”

Critical Perspectives on V.S. Naipaul. Ed. Robert D. Hamner.

Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1977. 178-193.

Shenker, Israel. “V. S. Naipaul.” Critical Perspectives on V.S. Naipaul.

Ed. Robert D. Hamner. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1977. 48-53.

Tiffin, Helen. “V. S. Naipaul in Paris.” Manchester Guardian Weekly 26 July 1981: 13.

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Colaboradores JEAN ANTOINE-DUNNE Jean Antoine, writer and arts critic, is a lecturer in Literatures in English at UWI St. Augustine, Trinidad, where she specializes in modernism and the poetry of Derek Walcott. She is the co-editor of the Montage Principle: Eisenstein in New Cultural and Critical Contexts.

STACY DENNY Dr. Denny is a lecturer in Linguistics at the UWI at Cave Hill, Barbados. Her area of special interest is Educational Linguistics. She is working on developing a program that uses the non-standard dialect as an instructional tool in primary schools in Barbados.

RICHARD DOUGLASS-CHIN He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He specializes in pre-and early 20th century AfricanAmerican and Arabic-American literatures.

SUZANNA ENGMAN She is a doctoral student in the Caribbean Literature Program at the University of Puerto Rico. She is also the English editor and coordinator of the bilingual magazine of the University of Puerto Rico, Inventio.

SALLY EVERSON She is a Ph.D. candidate in Anglo Caribbean literature at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Currently she is writing her dissertation, tentatively titled “The Caribbean City and Creole Modernity: Port of 549

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Spain in Trinidadian Literature: 1838-1948.” She also helps edit Sargasso, a peer-reviewed journal of literature, language and culture published at the University of Puerto Rico.

NICHOLAS FARACLAS Dr. Faraclas is an Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. He has published widely in theoretical, descriptive, socio- and applied linguistics and conducted research on the languages of Africa, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean.

ANA MARÍA GARCÍA She is a Ph.D. candidate in Caribbean literature at the Department of English of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. She is the editor of Puerto Rican Film and Video“Made in USA”.

HAZEL ANN GIBBS DEPEZA Ordained Minister of the Spiritual Baptist Faith, she is Principal of the Herman Parris School of Theology, a Teacher Educator at the Valsayn Teachers College. She is a poet and a short story writer and is a doctoral student in educational leadership with the University of Phoenix.

GILLIAN GLEAN-WALKER She spent six years in Grenada, where she embarked on researching Grenada’s 20th century social history. She has now returned to Jamaica and is employed by UWI, where she continues to do research on Grenada’s history.

JO ANNE HARRIS She is the Director of the Language Laboratory at the School of General Studies of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. At present she is working on her doctoral thesis.

THOMAS W. KRISE Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Central Florida, Orlando. He published Caribbeana: An Anthology of English Literature of the West Indies, 1657-1777 and is currently writing a literary history of the Caribbean titled Cockpit of the World:

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Imagining the West Indies in English Literary Culture. He is a contributing editor to important literary anthologies and encyclopedias.

ELENA LAWTON de TORRUELLA Professor of English at the University of the Sacred Heart in Puerto Rico.

She has published poetry, book reviews and critical academic essays.

EVELYN O’CALLAGHAN Professor of Caribbean Literature in the Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature at UWI, Cave Hill, Barbados. She has published Women Writing the West Indies, 1804-1939: “A Hot Place, Belonging to Us”, Woman Version: Theoretical Approaches to West Indian Fiction by Women, and The Earliest Patriots (1816) in the Island of Barbados and Abroad.

CYNTHIA S. PITTMAN She teaches English in the English Department of the College of General Studies of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. At present, she is writing her dissertation for a Ph.D. in Literature of the EnglishSpeaking Caribbean from the College of Humanities. Her primary interests are Jamaica Kincaid and V.S. Naipaul.

JESÚS RAMÍREZ MORALES He is a doctoral student in the Program of Caribbean Linguistics of the Department of English, School of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras and is Assistant Professor at the Arecibo Campus of U.P.R. MARíA SOLEDAD RODRÍGUEZ Professor of English in the Department of English of the College of Humanities of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where she teaches women’s 19th century U.S. and Caribbean literature. She is currently doing research on folklore figures in the art and literature of the Caribbean.

DORSÍA SMITH She is a Ph.D. student in Caribbean literature at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. She also teaches English at the Bayamón

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Campus of UPR. WENDELL VILLANUEVA He currently teaches English and Spanish at the University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo. He has also taught at the Bayamón and Río Piedras campuses of the UPR. At present he is working on his Ph.D. on the literature of the English speaking Caribbean in the English Department of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

VALERIE YOUSSEF She is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Head of the Department of Liberal Arts at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad & Tobago.

She has published The Languages of Tobago, a descriptive sociolinguistic study on Tobagonian. Her most recent book is Writing Rage: Unmasking Violence through Caribbean Discourse, with Paula Morgan.

VÍCTOR VÁZQUEZ He teaches at the University High School in Río Piedras and is a doctoral student in Linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Puerto Rico.

MARTA VIADA She is a teacher of English at Inter American University in San Germán and is a Ph.D. student in the Department of English, School of Humanities of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.

AÑO XI, NÚM. 41-42

553

Índice DANNABANG KUWABONG, Introduction ...............................................

ix

VALERIE YOUSSEF, Unmasking Ideology through Language ............ 291 STACY DENNY, CIGOL: An answer to teachers’ backward logic ...... 303 HAZEL ANN GIBBS DEPEZA, Religion, Culture and Identity in Tobago: The Growth of the Spiritual Baptist Faith ................................. 321

EVELYN O’CALLAGHAN, Women writing male marginalization?

Oonya Kempadoo’s Tide Running ........................................... 329

RICHARD J. DOUGLASS-CHIN, Revisiting Edward Wilmot Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887): Islam and the Eastern Caribbean in the 21st Century ..................................... 345

SUZANNA ENGMAN, Re-imagining Imaginary Constructs of Identity: Creolization and Wilson Harris’ Counter Discourse in The Four Banks of the River of Space ..................................................... 355

CYNTHIA S. PITTMANN, Silent Talking: Agency and Voice in V.S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street ............................................................. 365

VÍCTOR M. VÁZQUEZ, Who’s Stuck Up?–The Tar-Baby Story in the Caribbean ................................................................................... 377

MARÍA SOLEDAD RODRÍGUEZ, Woman with the Cloven Hoof: Lilith of Jewish Folklore and the La Diablesse of the Caribbean ........... 389

553

ÍNDICE

554

LA TORRE (TE)

GILLIAN GLEAN-WALKER, “Grenadianese”: The Research of Alister Hughes into Grenada’s Local Language, and Links to other Caribbean Countries .................................................................. 399

ANA MARÍA GARCÍA, The Politics of Black Women’s Bodies and Sexuality in The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid, and Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home by Erna Brodber ............ 417

SALLY EVERSON, Redeeming the Specter of Slave Revolt: Warner Arundell, Colonial Modernity and the Woodford Era ............. 439

JEAN ANTOINE-DUNNE, Walcott, Ireland and Hieroglyphic Writing ... 449 MARTA VIADA BELLIDO

DE LUNA, Forgotten Languages, Forgotten Identities: The Indigenous People of the Caribbean and the Construction of Otherness ......................................................... 459

NICHOLAS FARACLAS

AND JESÚS RAMÍREZ MORALES, Intonation in Crucian Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creole ...................... 477

JO ANNE HARRIS, Creoleana: Writing Barbados from the White Creole Perspective ................................................................................. 497

ELENA LAWTON

DE TORRUELLA, Diaspora, Self-Exile and Legacy: About Walcott’s Shabine and Danticat’s M. Bienaimé ............ 509

THOMAS W. KRISE, Reading between the Lines: Glimpses of Oral Cultures in Early Caribbean Literature ..................................... 519

WENDELL VILLANUEVA, Overlapping Identities in Samuel Selvon’s Fiction ......................................................................................... 529

DORSÍA SMITH, Say It Isn’t So: V.S. Naipaul’s One-Sided Sentiments in The Middle Passage ............................................................. 539

AÑO XI, NÚM. 41-42

555

ÍNDICE DEL VOLUMEN XI (Tercera Época) ENERO-DICIEMBRE 2006 ARTÍCULOS

ALVARADO, LEONEL, Espacios privados y proyectos públicos en el romanticismo hondureño ............................................

115-132

ANTOINE-DUNNE, JEAN, Walcott, Ireland and Hieroglyphic Writing .....................................................................................

449-458

CURLO, VITTORIA, La metahistoria de la humanidad como alternancia de utopías y antiutopías: el grandioso sueño quijotesco del Protopariente en un drama clásico húngaro ...

1-11

DENNY, STACY, CIGOL, An answer to teachers’ backward logic ...

303-319

DEPETRIS C HAUVIN, I RENE , La fotografía como lugar: el intelectual y la definición de la identidad en Puertorriqueños de Rodríguez Juliá ..................................................................

133-151

DOUGLASS-CHIN, R ICHARD J ., Revisiting Edward Wilmot Blyden’s Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race(1887): Islam and the Eastern Caribbean in the 21st Century ................

345-354

ENCARNACIÓN RIVERA, ÁNGEL M., La presencia de los Cuentos de la Universidad de Emilio S. Belaval en la cuentística puertorriqueña .......................................................................

153-166

ENGMAN, SUZANNA, Re-imagining Imaginary Constructs of Identity: Creolization and Wilson Harris’ Counter Discourse in The Four Banks of the River of Space...............................

555

355-363

556

ÍNDICE DEL VOLUMEN XI

LA TORRE (TE)

EVERSON, SALLY, Redeeming the Specter of Slave Revolt: Warner Arundell, Colonial Modernity and the Woodford Era ........

433-448

FARACLAS, NICHOLAS and JESÚS RAMÍREZ MORALES, Intonation in Crucian Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creole ........... 477-496 F IGUEROA FERNÁNDEZ , M ELISSA , La poesía erótica como subversión en los Sonetos sinfónicos de Luis Llorens Torres ...

167-185

FRED, IVETTE, El argumento de Wittgenstein en contra de un lenguaje privado .....................................................................

13-32

GARCÍA, ANA MARÍA, The Politics of Black Women’s Bodies and Sexuality in The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid, and Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home by Erna Brodber .................................................................................... 417-432

GARCÍA, GUSTAVO V., “Verdadero moderno marxismo” y la emergencia del indígena en Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana ........................................................... 187-205

GLEAN-WALKER, GILLIAN, “Grenadianese”: The Research of Alister Hughes into Grenada’s Local Language, and Links to other Caribbean Countries ...............................................

399-416

HARRIS, JO ANNE, Creoleana: Writing Barbados from the White Creole Perspective .................................................................

497-507

H IGUERO , F RANCISCO J AVIER , De la búsqueda falible al racionalismo crítico en el pensamiento de Karl Popper ..

207-228

KRISE, THOMAS W., Reading between the Lines: Glimpses of Oral Cultures in Early Caribbean Literature .......................

519-527

LAWTON DE TORRUELLA, ELENA, Diaspora, Self-Exile and Legacy: About Walcott’s Shabine and Danticat’s M. Bienaimé.......

509-518

MARTÍN, ANTONIO, Más sobre Juan Ramón Jiménez y el modernismo: en torno a “Juventud”, un texto desconocido de 1900 ..................................................................................... 229-258

MARTÍNEZ GÓNGORA, MAR, Actos de subversión y cambio histórico: el mito de las amazonas y la leyenda de la Papisa Juana en Silva de varia lección de Pedro de Mexía ...........

263-282

ÍNDICE DEL VOLUMEN XI

AÑO XI, NÚM. 41-42

557

O’CALLAGHAN, EVELYN, Women writing male marginalization?

Oonya Kempadoo’s Tide Running ........................................

329-344

PITTMANN, CYNTHIA, Silent Talking: Agency and Voice in V.S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street. ..........................................................

365-378 RAMÍREZ MORALES, JESÚS and NICHOLAS FARACLAS, Intonation in Crucian Afro-Caribbean English-Lexifier Creole ............

477-490

RODRÍGUEZ, MARÍA SOLEDAD, Woman with the Cloven Hoof: Lilith of Jewish Folklore and the La Diablesse of the Caribbean ................................................................................ 389-416 ROSALES CÁRDENAS, OTTO, Cuerpo y deseo o la cárcel del sueño utópico en Nocturna mas no funesta de Iris M. Zavala ......

33-47

SMITH, DORSÍA, Say It Isn’t So: V.S. Naipaul’s One-Sided Sentiments in The Middle Passage ....................................... 539-547 VÁZQUEZ, VÍCTOR M., Who’s Stuck Up? The Tar-Baby Story in the Caribbean .....................................................................

V IADA B ELLIDO

DE

377-388

L UNA , M ARTA , Forgotten Languages,

Forgotten Identities: The Indigenous People of the Caribbean and the Construction of Otherness .................. 459-475

VILLAGÓMEZ CASTILLO, BERENICE, Contradicción y archivo negro en Puerto Rico: el caso de Seva, de Luis López Nieves ....

49-64

VILLANUEVA, WENDELL, Overlapping Identities in Samuel Selvon’s Fiction. ......................................................................

WELDT-BASSON, HELENE, Women and the City: Sexual Initiation of Female Protagonists in Marta Brunet, María Luisa Bombal, Sandra Cisneros and Rosario Castellanos ............................

YOUSSEF, VALERIE, Unmasking Ideology through Language ....

529-538

65-78 291-302

NOTAS

MÉNDEZ, JOSÉ LUIS, “Del canto profundo del ser” de Dalia Nieves ......................................................................................

79-87

558

ÍNDICE DEL VOLUMEN XI

LA TORRE (TE)

PUJALS, SANDRA, Si Adelita se fuera con... ¡¿Ivan Petrovich?!: Sergei Eisenstein y su proyecto cinematográfico en México, 1931 ..........................................................................................

89-102

RESEÑAS

A GUIRRE, Á NGEL M., Anagilda Garrastegui, Semillas de fuego .........................................................................................

103-106

ENCARNACIÓN, ÁNGEL M., Sonetario cósmico de Raúl Hernández Novás ........................................................................................

106-109

SANTOS, JOSÉ E., Mario Cancel, Intento dibujar una sonrisa ...

283-286