I am getting used to Lowry's narrative voice. I do not dislike it; it is instructive. It's like she is explaining how she went about researching in the process of her writing the biography. To me, this is an anthropological style. It is also what we might call self-reflexive. She is being critical about her own manner of writing and research.
An example of this would be when she talks about language. She writes for instance that "own" is a painful word to use. You'll recall in class that I mentioned an NPR interview with Isabel Allende on her 2009 novel Island Beneath the Sea, where a caller takes her to task for using the word "slave," the politically correct term these days being "enslaved." I was disappointed with how quickly Allende agreed with the caller, which made me think that she wasn't as confident as she might have been with writing about slavery. One may take Lowry's self-critical voice in this same way. She does a lot of explaining of her choices. In choosing to use a word like own, she says that she is using the language of the time because it was the legal condition. However, she also says that a present perspective can be maintained, meaning one can both read the language of the times and also reject that language as not belonging to this time. In essence, Lowry is both telling Tubman's story and creating a separate and connected conversation about how she is going about creating the story. In this sense, the book is taking place in the historical present and real present simultaneously.
I find myself being less patient when she complains more than once that her writing must rely on court documents written by old white men. Here, I see Lowry herself falling into political correctness. I would rather she use the same reasoning as she does with the language. The documents she relies upon are the documents of the time, and while she might look at them as limiting, they are not. Tubman lived during a time when institutions were dominated by white men, so this is not a fact that she should feel the need to adjust in any way. I would be more interested however in Lowry finding ways that the voices of the oppressed speak even in situations of domination. I am confident, having read this book once before, that she later does just that. Would that her researcher voice was more confident. At one point, she writes, "All slaves old or young were the same." Huh? This is true, in my opinion, in only the most superficial sense. To be in the social role of slave connected one to others in that same oppressed state, yet every enslaved person was different, human, and of varying character and talent. So, what does Lowry mean exactly, and how can she feel this way when she is writing about an enslaved woman who so very clearly was different than most, one who did not accept her objective social condition? Lowry finds a way out of her own conflictedness when she writes, "The data comes scattered and for the most part will not stand on its own but must be applied, interpreted, and merged across the years." Yes, that is her task as a writer of history attempting to educate a contemporary audience.
Likewise, however, she admits that she has only scraps of information to work with, and she says that it is difficult therefore to provide a chronological or linear story. This is yet another feature of the book that, for me anyway, needs little explanation and no apology.
Lowry continues, using her story-teller and researcher voice to inform her reader about slavery, so she takes on I suppose also a teacher's voice. She explains slavery to us. For example, she explains why it is that the woman whom the world knows as Harriet Tubman was born on a plantation that was not that of her owner. Edward Broadas was not, when she was born, old enough to yet be recognized as master, according to Lowry. So, her mother and father lived on the property of her father's owners. Lowry also explains the law, rights, inheritance, the land, and injustice. One question her readers might ask is whether this voice is more instructive than it is intrusive.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Roll Jordan Roll...Our Black Family...A Duty and a Burden
The next two sections I assigned myself are related to the last. "Our Black Family" and "A Duty and a Burden" basically examine an underlying social idea and order at the foundation of slavery: patriarchy. Genovese explains that white masters, especially of the genteel or gentleman class, considered themselves not only fathers of sorts of their slaves but also of their own families. This sort of view harkens back to medieval order in which a landed gentry served as Lords. Genovese quotes one master who writes an English earl,
Underlying patriarchy is an inherent belief in the inferiority and superiority of humans. This being the thinking, masters felt it a duty and yet a burden to serve in this capacity. Burden is not to be defined as something undesirable but something along the lines of noblesse oblige. To whom much is given, much is demanded. This is not meant materially but rather in terms of intelligence and inheritance. Those who were of the planter class felt that they had inherited, maybe even by God, the role of master and that, so assigned, they had no right not to fulfill the duty. If they felt at some point that slavery was wrong, such thinking and feeling was cured by accepting it as a natural and ordained duty.
In addition, underlying this order was a related concept of bondage, which would appear to come directly from the concept of the bond, perhaps related to indenture. A bond defined a financial relationship between people. It might be looked at as today's loan. Today, we speak of being a slave to our creditors. A bond might be seen as an interest in a person's life or livelihood. (Refer to the bonds that Elizabeth Hull for instance mentions in her will. These bonds influenced relationships even among family members; they were not to be overlooked, and they had to be paid.)
Other key ideas in this section:
Like one of the Patriarchs, I have my Flocks and my Herds, my Bond-men and Bond-women, and every Soart of Trade amongst my own Sevants, so that I live in a kind of Independence on everyone but Providence.
Underlying patriarchy is an inherent belief in the inferiority and superiority of humans. This being the thinking, masters felt it a duty and yet a burden to serve in this capacity. Burden is not to be defined as something undesirable but something along the lines of noblesse oblige. To whom much is given, much is demanded. This is not meant materially but rather in terms of intelligence and inheritance. Those who were of the planter class felt that they had inherited, maybe even by God, the role of master and that, so assigned, they had no right not to fulfill the duty. If they felt at some point that slavery was wrong, such thinking and feeling was cured by accepting it as a natural and ordained duty.
In addition, underlying this order was a related concept of bondage, which would appear to come directly from the concept of the bond, perhaps related to indenture. A bond defined a financial relationship between people. It might be looked at as today's loan. Today, we speak of being a slave to our creditors. A bond might be seen as an interest in a person's life or livelihood. (Refer to the bonds that Elizabeth Hull for instance mentions in her will. These bonds influenced relationships even among family members; they were not to be overlooked, and they had to be paid.)
Other key ideas in this section:
- As patriarchs, slave owners viewed their slaves as their black family and their relatives as their white family.
- As "fathers," slave owners felt punishment was a necessary evil. The same type of rationale for sparing the rod with children was applied to slaves. Such punishment was viewed as necessary to keeping order, not just the order on the farm or plantation but what slave owners viewed as a natural, God-given hierarchy.
- Overall, the South denied the widespread practice of cruelty, feeling it was more an exception than a rule. Wealthier planters in particular publicly and privately suggested disagreement with cruelty. Genovese explains that the preferred view was that most masters were Christian and humane.
- Genovese implies very subtly that slavery required constant rationalizing. The idea of duty and burden was but one. Another was the idea that slaves needed protecting (physical security, basic needs), and it was of course the master's duty to fulfill this need.
To better help us understand Patriarchy, we might in fact ask ourselves if and/or where it continues to exist today.
Roll Jordan Roll...Farmers, Planters, and Overseers
So, we are doing some heavy-duty reading to go along with our writing project. Not knowing much about slavery, we are making a study of it this module, and I assigned myself Eugene Genovese's important book: Roll Jordan Roll.
The section I am covering is ony the plantation "leadership." I put this word in quotes because who was in charge of the operation of sites where slaves were worked is questionable, and that I would say is the main point of the section.
It begins by explaining that most slaves lived on farms, not plantations, the latter being large operations where at least 100 enslaved persons were kept. There were many such places in the U.S.; however, they were not in the majority. In the Caribbean and in South America large plantations, containing even hundreds of slaves was normal. By comparison, Genovese says only about a quarter of blacks lived on large plantations in the U.S. So, here, the depiction of the plantation that we get from Gone with the Wind is somewhat of an exaggeration. Right along with the myth of Tara is the myth that slavery made masses of whites incredibly wealthy. Many whites, even some owning slaves, were scratching out an existence. Many masters, later President Ulysses S. Grant is even an example, worked right alongside slaves.
On the other hand, there were wealthy slave owners, and we refer to them as planters. This distinction between farmer and planter becomes very important post war as well; the planters were the true landed gentry, and one cannot understand Reconstruction without understanding the role of class in developing race relations after the war. The question would become whether the planter class would "side" with poor whites or with blacks...but that is another story I suppose.
As for overseers, some aspired to slave-owning, and, when so, overseeing could be a sort of training. In many cases, Genovese writes, overseers were relatives of slave owners. The author spends quite a bit of time in this section discussing the relationship between the overseer and the slaves. While African Americans have focused greatly on the relationship between slaves and their masters, Genovese concludes, surprisingly, that the overseer actually had reason to "curry favor" with the slaves. Two things, he says, were important when it came to evaluating an overseer: (1) whether a good crop was produced, and (2) what slaves thought of the overseer. One that was not liked would have a hard time getting blacks to work, and a favored slave might give very bad reports to his master of the overseer's doings. While the overseer could retaliate with beatings, many masters frowned upon too much beating to the point where slaves would not work. There is no way to know whether Genovese's depiction of the overseer is correct other than by reading other literature. Comparing his view to that of Charles Sydnor, there would seem to be agreement. Ultimately, cotton farming with slave labor was a business, and half-dead workers could not produce a crop.
Other important ideas in this section:
The section I am covering is ony the plantation "leadership." I put this word in quotes because who was in charge of the operation of sites where slaves were worked is questionable, and that I would say is the main point of the section.
It begins by explaining that most slaves lived on farms, not plantations, the latter being large operations where at least 100 enslaved persons were kept. There were many such places in the U.S.; however, they were not in the majority. In the Caribbean and in South America large plantations, containing even hundreds of slaves was normal. By comparison, Genovese says only about a quarter of blacks lived on large plantations in the U.S. So, here, the depiction of the plantation that we get from Gone with the Wind is somewhat of an exaggeration. Right along with the myth of Tara is the myth that slavery made masses of whites incredibly wealthy. Many whites, even some owning slaves, were scratching out an existence. Many masters, later President Ulysses S. Grant is even an example, worked right alongside slaves.
On the other hand, there were wealthy slave owners, and we refer to them as planters. This distinction between farmer and planter becomes very important post war as well; the planters were the true landed gentry, and one cannot understand Reconstruction without understanding the role of class in developing race relations after the war. The question would become whether the planter class would "side" with poor whites or with blacks...but that is another story I suppose.
As for overseers, some aspired to slave-owning, and, when so, overseeing could be a sort of training. In many cases, Genovese writes, overseers were relatives of slave owners. The author spends quite a bit of time in this section discussing the relationship between the overseer and the slaves. While African Americans have focused greatly on the relationship between slaves and their masters, Genovese concludes, surprisingly, that the overseer actually had reason to "curry favor" with the slaves. Two things, he says, were important when it came to evaluating an overseer: (1) whether a good crop was produced, and (2) what slaves thought of the overseer. One that was not liked would have a hard time getting blacks to work, and a favored slave might give very bad reports to his master of the overseer's doings. While the overseer could retaliate with beatings, many masters frowned upon too much beating to the point where slaves would not work. There is no way to know whether Genovese's depiction of the overseer is correct other than by reading other literature. Comparing his view to that of Charles Sydnor, there would seem to be agreement. Ultimately, cotton farming with slave labor was a business, and half-dead workers could not produce a crop.
Other important ideas in this section:
- Large plantations in America are mostly found in South Carolina.
- Genovese says there was not as much specialization (of "occupations") on small farms. Where there were ten slaves or less, there wasn't much division of labor.
- The author mentions "slackers, the inept, and troublemakers." Slaves apparently were not homogeneous, and as in all times there were those who did not accept their condition and found ways around it.
- Genovese also discusses absentee masters and resident masters. He doesn't spend much time on this, but he does say that non-residency was frowned upon by some planters, yet he writes that most absentee masters checked on their plantations regularly. A very wealthy planter might have plantations in neighboring counties.
- Between 1/3 and 1/4 of rural slaves worked under overseers.
- There could be close relationships between an overseer and slaves, though an overseer's treatment of slaves as equals was not acceptable. Likewise, Genovese writes, blacks might have white "friends" who helped blacks at times. These were typically poor whites.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life
Today, my Special Topics in Writing class begins reading Beverly Lowry's Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life. I read this book about five years ago and greatly enjoyed it. This time, I hope to read a bit more closely. I'd like to think about how Lowry goes about telling this story. This will be a study and a model for me and for my students.
So, I began reading last night, and I paid attention to how Lowry opens the book. She sets a tone maybe with Owasco Lake. Perhaps that is her intention. She provides a bit of the landscape (literal and figurative) of Tubman's old age. Lakes are usually thought of as calm. Lowry suggests that old age has set in with Tubman so there is an involuntary calmness about her maybe. She says that calmness has characterized Tubman throughout her life. She has been "indifferent to all surrounding circumstances." However, moments later, Lowry writes that "the constant cut of fear" has taken its toll. This contradiction early on in the book, in the drawing of Tubman's character, Lowry seems unaware of. Is Tubman unshakable, fearless, or fearful and deeply bothered? Perhaps she is both, which it seems to me would make her completely normal. But again, I'm not sure Lowry is herself aware of the contradiction. Still, I think the lake could be a useful metaphor for all of the complexity that lies just beneath the surface, and I am sure that Lowry uses it to frame Tubman's life for just this purpose. Hopefully, thinking about this tool will encourage my students to visit the landscapes of their subjects. (They too are writing about specific individuals as they study and write about slavery.)
Another feature I'm paying attention to is Lowry's narrative voice, which seems interesting. She is telling Tubman's story; she is narrator, but she is using material from an earlier biographer--Sarah Hopkins Bradford--who wrote of Tubman's life in 1901. So, she is actually in the first chapter telling of Tubman meeting with Hopkins Bradford and her brother at Lake Owosco. Lowry imagines Tubman's trip there, involving both the Lehigh train and a boat ride. Lowry is in a sense telling two overlapping stories--one of Tubman and one of Tubman's biographer's process. Lowry seems also be evaluating if not judging Hopkins Bradford's intentions and therefore her work. She suggests that the early biographer is snobbish and also not above the casual "racial stereotyping of her time." In this, I see Lowry justifying the need for her own biography.
Harriet has come to lunch at the Hopkins summer house to tell new stories, for example, one that she has remembered on the boat ride over. There will be a new edition of the biography. Her lake is deep, and it takes time for memories to come to the surface.
So, I began reading last night, and I paid attention to how Lowry opens the book. She sets a tone maybe with Owasco Lake. Perhaps that is her intention. She provides a bit of the landscape (literal and figurative) of Tubman's old age. Lakes are usually thought of as calm. Lowry suggests that old age has set in with Tubman so there is an involuntary calmness about her maybe. She says that calmness has characterized Tubman throughout her life. She has been "indifferent to all surrounding circumstances." However, moments later, Lowry writes that "the constant cut of fear" has taken its toll. This contradiction early on in the book, in the drawing of Tubman's character, Lowry seems unaware of. Is Tubman unshakable, fearless, or fearful and deeply bothered? Perhaps she is both, which it seems to me would make her completely normal. But again, I'm not sure Lowry is herself aware of the contradiction. Still, I think the lake could be a useful metaphor for all of the complexity that lies just beneath the surface, and I am sure that Lowry uses it to frame Tubman's life for just this purpose. Hopefully, thinking about this tool will encourage my students to visit the landscapes of their subjects. (They too are writing about specific individuals as they study and write about slavery.)
Another feature I'm paying attention to is Lowry's narrative voice, which seems interesting. She is telling Tubman's story; she is narrator, but she is using material from an earlier biographer--Sarah Hopkins Bradford--who wrote of Tubman's life in 1901. So, she is actually in the first chapter telling of Tubman meeting with Hopkins Bradford and her brother at Lake Owosco. Lowry imagines Tubman's trip there, involving both the Lehigh train and a boat ride. Lowry is in a sense telling two overlapping stories--one of Tubman and one of Tubman's biographer's process. Lowry seems also be evaluating if not judging Hopkins Bradford's intentions and therefore her work. She suggests that the early biographer is snobbish and also not above the casual "racial stereotyping of her time." In this, I see Lowry justifying the need for her own biography.
Harriet has come to lunch at the Hopkins summer house to tell new stories, for example, one that she has remembered on the boat ride over. There will be a new edition of the biography. Her lake is deep, and it takes time for memories to come to the surface.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Fences
Fences is a modern story. Who cannot relate to it? Who cannot relate to its main character, Troy Maxson? I love Troy. He is a son of America; he is the ultimate, "maximum" son of this country, which is to say he questions the American democratic ideal. There never should have been a time, he says, too early for the realization of his or, by extension, other black's dreams. Life for him, as for Lorraine Hansberry's Walter Lee Younger, "ain't been no crystal stair" (Hughes). Troy is my father and my brother, my uncles and cousins. He is a migrant, having come up from Mobile to what was supposed to be a Promised Land--the urban North--in his case Pittsburgh, where the author himself, August Wilson, lived. Wilson knows Troy; he has met him in bars, on stoops, in smokey jazz clubs. He has captured their language and their pain is represented in that language.
The play opens on a Friday after work. How familiar this is to me. The eagle flies on Friday/Saturday I'll go out and play/The eagle flies on Friday/Saturday I'll go out and play/Sunday I'll go to church and fall down on my knees and pray. Friday is a day of relief and release for those who labor during the work week, usually in factories or on the streets of America's cities, in various capacities, for example, as sanitation workers. The jobs are hard, sometimes demeaning, but they pay oh so much better than those old jobs, picking cotton for Mr. Lubin and being cheated. Yet, Wilson suggests that, as Martin Luther King was heard to say, Michigan Avenue in Chicago is no promised land. In other words, the Negro exchanged one set of oppressive conditions in the South for a new set of oppressive conditions in the North. Troy feels fenced in. He says he "locked [himself] into a pattern" and forgot to leave something for himself. What has locked or "fenced" him in? The answer to this question depends on how large you think Wilson's critique is. The playwright once stated, in the late '80s, that black people still, by and large, had not experienced the American dream but were, rather, still in survival mode--trying to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. Did Wilson see the American Dream as an American nightmare, from which one could be freed only by death? Did Wilson reject what capitalism offers the common laborer?
I do not know the answer to this question without further study, yet the life of fictional Troy Maxson does seem a case study. Troy's life seems tragic on the one hand. His life is a series of struggles framed by a desire to move away from yet an ultimate repeating of his father's blues. His father had to get the cotton in; Troy is on the rubbish. Temporarily, the lives of the two men may have been different yet similar. His father's life would have been framed by seasons, by weather cycles, and by the processes of agricultural production; Troy's life is framed by the eight-hour, five-day work week. It is a familiar scheme that Troy accepts; he makes a deal with the devil--Mr. Rand or the furniture dealer. It is the modern proposal that most of us are offered--forty plus hours a week of our lives for a wage--for money. The weekend is a short-term cure for what ails us, and what ails us is the fact that we have traded our very lives and may have come out with the short end of the stick. This is a sad realization.
Growing up in Detroit, I observed the Friday evening or afternoon ritual. Well, I didn't observe it up close. Our fathers kept their distance from their families on Fridays. A good friend of mine, whose father worked at Chrysler, was after school on Fridays, sent directly to her grandmother's house--away from her father who drank very heavily on that day and the next and sometimes became violent as a result. But he did not drink on Sundays though he did not appear to fall down on that day onto his knees to pray. Maybe he did so in quiet, but more likely his work and his "play" were his prayer or at least his communion with God. He was so much like Troy Maxson this man.
The play opens on a Friday after work. How familiar this is to me. The eagle flies on Friday/Saturday I'll go out and play/The eagle flies on Friday/Saturday I'll go out and play/Sunday I'll go to church and fall down on my knees and pray. Friday is a day of relief and release for those who labor during the work week, usually in factories or on the streets of America's cities, in various capacities, for example, as sanitation workers. The jobs are hard, sometimes demeaning, but they pay oh so much better than those old jobs, picking cotton for Mr. Lubin and being cheated. Yet, Wilson suggests that, as Martin Luther King was heard to say, Michigan Avenue in Chicago is no promised land. In other words, the Negro exchanged one set of oppressive conditions in the South for a new set of oppressive conditions in the North. Troy feels fenced in. He says he "locked [himself] into a pattern" and forgot to leave something for himself. What has locked or "fenced" him in? The answer to this question depends on how large you think Wilson's critique is. The playwright once stated, in the late '80s, that black people still, by and large, had not experienced the American dream but were, rather, still in survival mode--trying to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. Did Wilson see the American Dream as an American nightmare, from which one could be freed only by death? Did Wilson reject what capitalism offers the common laborer?
I do not know the answer to this question without further study, yet the life of fictional Troy Maxson does seem a case study. Troy's life seems tragic on the one hand. His life is a series of struggles framed by a desire to move away from yet an ultimate repeating of his father's blues. His father had to get the cotton in; Troy is on the rubbish. Temporarily, the lives of the two men may have been different yet similar. His father's life would have been framed by seasons, by weather cycles, and by the processes of agricultural production; Troy's life is framed by the eight-hour, five-day work week. It is a familiar scheme that Troy accepts; he makes a deal with the devil--Mr. Rand or the furniture dealer. It is the modern proposal that most of us are offered--forty plus hours a week of our lives for a wage--for money. The weekend is a short-term cure for what ails us, and what ails us is the fact that we have traded our very lives and may have come out with the short end of the stick. This is a sad realization.
Growing up in Detroit, I observed the Friday evening or afternoon ritual. Well, I didn't observe it up close. Our fathers kept their distance from their families on Fridays. A good friend of mine, whose father worked at Chrysler, was after school on Fridays, sent directly to her grandmother's house--away from her father who drank very heavily on that day and the next and sometimes became violent as a result. But he did not drink on Sundays though he did not appear to fall down on that day onto his knees to pray. Maybe he did so in quiet, but more likely his work and his "play" were his prayer or at least his communion with God. He was so much like Troy Maxson this man.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Magic in Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl"
Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl," a prose poem or a short story, is classified as magical realism. What this means is that the author bridges what is normally thought of as the real with what either is thought of as the unreal or as an area of uncertainty. For instance, life and death may be bridged rather than being accepted as apart.
In the case of "Girl," Kincaid bridges everyday tasks, chores, with a certain magic that may in fact be a part of black Antiguan routine. This magic exists in the poem's language and in its expression of folk culture. One could argue that the entire monologue (it is mostly one voice; the daughter hardly speaks) is a casting of a spell over the daughter if we think of a spell as usurpation of a person's will or submission of one's will. Of course, one could argue, to the contrary, that at the end of the mother's instruction, "girl," continues to ask questions and, earlier in the poem, she defends herself, which is a clear assertion of her own will. If one reads the poem in this way, then at the end of the piece, the daughter appears to have a choice.
At the same time, the mother speaks over the head of her daughter, meaning upon the head of her daughter, instructions, which are akin to incantations. She tells her precisely what to do and what not to do, and importantly, these instructions are delivered in what anthropologist Paul Stoller calls "old words." For example, "this is how you sweep a corner/this is how you sweep a whole house/this is how you sweep a yard." Kincaid walks in two realms, that of the literal and that of the metaphorical. She may be referring to literal sweeping; it would appear so, but she is also invoking sweeping as removal of stagnant or negative energy, and she instructs her daughter on how to use sweeping as an act of empowerment and influence. Here, girl is given options for the size of influence she would choose to have. To this very day, in island nations, and in America as well, there exist practitioners of this art or science. The Lucky Mojo website explains that sweeping is one of the most powerful counters to the influence of foot traffic. It argues that foot traffic and the use of powders are one way to trick someone. The counter to this trick is the sweeping away of such powders.
Indeed, the realm of real power is in the symbolic universe, which means that this poem must be read on two levels though for readers unfamiliar with the folk sayings Kincaid shares, the piece will simply seem to be about working class women's lives in twentieth-century Antigua. To the extent that the symbolic universe is hidden it remains a realm of power for those who believe in the strength of such words. This is language of an oppressed people who have survived because they have had a part of their being within this universe.
It would appear, however, that girl is unaware of the two-level meaning of her mother's instructions. As my own mother believes, having lived in a traditional South African community, power within this realm cannot reach you if you do not engage (or believe in) it. I suppose this is one power that girl has and perhaps this is the distance that scholars suggest exists between Kincaid herself and her real mother.
In the case of "Girl," Kincaid bridges everyday tasks, chores, with a certain magic that may in fact be a part of black Antiguan routine. This magic exists in the poem's language and in its expression of folk culture. One could argue that the entire monologue (it is mostly one voice; the daughter hardly speaks) is a casting of a spell over the daughter if we think of a spell as usurpation of a person's will or submission of one's will. Of course, one could argue, to the contrary, that at the end of the mother's instruction, "girl," continues to ask questions and, earlier in the poem, she defends herself, which is a clear assertion of her own will. If one reads the poem in this way, then at the end of the piece, the daughter appears to have a choice.
At the same time, the mother speaks over the head of her daughter, meaning upon the head of her daughter, instructions, which are akin to incantations. She tells her precisely what to do and what not to do, and importantly, these instructions are delivered in what anthropologist Paul Stoller calls "old words." For example, "this is how you sweep a corner/this is how you sweep a whole house/this is how you sweep a yard." Kincaid walks in two realms, that of the literal and that of the metaphorical. She may be referring to literal sweeping; it would appear so, but she is also invoking sweeping as removal of stagnant or negative energy, and she instructs her daughter on how to use sweeping as an act of empowerment and influence. Here, girl is given options for the size of influence she would choose to have. To this very day, in island nations, and in America as well, there exist practitioners of this art or science. The Lucky Mojo website explains that sweeping is one of the most powerful counters to the influence of foot traffic. It argues that foot traffic and the use of powders are one way to trick someone. The counter to this trick is the sweeping away of such powders.
Indeed, the realm of real power is in the symbolic universe, which means that this poem must be read on two levels though for readers unfamiliar with the folk sayings Kincaid shares, the piece will simply seem to be about working class women's lives in twentieth-century Antigua. To the extent that the symbolic universe is hidden it remains a realm of power for those who believe in the strength of such words. This is language of an oppressed people who have survived because they have had a part of their being within this universe.
It would appear, however, that girl is unaware of the two-level meaning of her mother's instructions. As my own mother believes, having lived in a traditional South African community, power within this realm cannot reach you if you do not engage (or believe in) it. I suppose this is one power that girl has and perhaps this is the distance that scholars suggest exists between Kincaid herself and her real mother.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Having fun with "Girl"
One of the learning outcomes for Intro to Literature is "students will learn to offer radical interpretations of literature." What can be more radical than magic, and what can be a more appropriate topic as we end the month of October and head into November? We're in full harvest mode.
Before I give my take (actually one of many takes) on Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl," I'd like to play a little with Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" and Penny Marshall's "Riding in Cars with Boys"--our other two texts. In my last post, I spoke a little about the title of Marshall's film. I am intrigued by the oversimplification of the sexual act that initiates reproduction. The film could have been called Teenagers Having Sex, but this would have been way too explicit I guess even in this time, and some would say there would be no art in that title. I disagree. This alternative title is on a scale more realistic than that which the film's producers chose, one that, perhaps appropriate to the time--the late '60s--still maybe held on to Victorian understatement. Girls (not women) got pregnant not from having sex but from riding in cars with boys. This representation of female sexuality on the surface would seem to preference the male role in the sex act to that of the female since being with boys suggests that the boys are doing something to the girls that results in pregnancy. Or, I suppose one could also argue that the girls do something to the boys. The girls are doing the riding; the boys the driving? In either case, "Riding in Cars" is partly a story about female power and women's choices, and though this title seems to cast girls as passive victims, this way of locating women in the passenger seat doesn't necessarily negate their power. Never do we see Bev literally in the driver's seat, but the question is whether--behind what appears to be--she is in fact the one in control of her life. Put another way, the question both for this film, for the "Story of an Hour," and for "Girl" is whether beyond the surface of things exists a dynamic women's space and women's power.
As one who studies temporal (time) constructions, I have enjoyed thinking about the concept of time in Chopin's short story. Time for me is not absolute or fixed but constructed (built) and regulated (measured) and mechanized. Chopin returns to her character Louise Mallard an organic time, maybe even a feminine sense of time. The story of an hour is a very brief narrative in which Mrs. Mallard transcends earthly time that has come to be controlled by man, or by men like her husband who, working in offices, govern themselves by the clock and by a temporal order that has its origin in the movement of trains. Mr. Mallard's own false death was thought to be by train accident, and it is this crisis that frees his wife from earthly time, from the life she has with him that is governed by this order. Chopin flirts maybe with the idea that he too could have been freed from regulated time, but alas he is not dead but his wife is. Clearly, the universe opens or shows itself to Mrs. Mallard, who has re-entered a celestial order in the crack in time that was the suspension of the human-regulated. This crack in temporal order is fascinating, and it suggests to me an opening to an alternative space in which those whose lives are not entirely beholden to the clock--and the life of the clock--may find their freedom and not only that but alternative ways of being. Mrs. Mallard, who becomes Louise again--is victorious because she has transcended this tyranny. What she accomplishes either through literal death of the body or through figurative death of regulated time, Bev accomplishes in becoming a real actor within her own space.
Finally, "Girl." What does its title suggest? Eternal childhood? Upon first reading, one is overwhelmed maybe by the seeming lack of power between this mother and daughter, and this would be an accurate reading given strained relations between the author and her own mother. But, on second thought, perhaps girl is a suggestion of sisterhood, an indication of unity. In other words, maybe the connotation of girl is much more messy than it seems. From the lips of the overbearing mother, it sounds spirit-killing. Is she not training her daughter to be a robot? What spirit could survive such a mechanical life in which washing of white clothes must always be done on Mondays; washing of colored clothes on Tuesdays. Mother would seem to have this routine down to a science. Many women do. Is this order organic, or imposed? Does it mimic or is it informed by some other order, for instance, that learned on a plantation, or is it "natural"? Is this a natural, women's rhythm? Or, is it influenced by both, which would mean that Mother has found her liberty in appropriating an unnatural order and mixing it with other ways?
This tight text certainly seems to leave no room for freedom either for Mother or for Girl, yet, as with our two other texts, maybe that is where power resides because it is so well hidden. The first order of business when living in a colonial state is survival; the second is discovery of one's own organic power. Deeply embedded for instance in Kincaid's short story (or prose poem) is the instruction--"this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard." Is Kincaid via Mother not telling her readers how to expand their power? And what of this act of sweeping? Is this cleaning, working, fixing? These are magical terms, in addition to being ordinary, every day terms. Kincaid indicates a relationship between the woman actor cleaning and organizing her assigned outer spaces to gaining power over her inner spaces, from corner to yard. One who sweeps at once declutters her own mind and, very actively, removes from her life those things she doesn't desire to have control over her inner life.
At the end of the story, Girl appears completely deflated. She has not learned Mother's lessons. She has not learned the power of woman which her mother has passed on so secretly, so tightly. But, we trust that she will. By all appearances, she will be controlled, but Mother knows that she will be in control--if she has listened well--of herself.
Before I give my take (actually one of many takes) on Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl," I'd like to play a little with Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" and Penny Marshall's "Riding in Cars with Boys"--our other two texts. In my last post, I spoke a little about the title of Marshall's film. I am intrigued by the oversimplification of the sexual act that initiates reproduction. The film could have been called Teenagers Having Sex, but this would have been way too explicit I guess even in this time, and some would say there would be no art in that title. I disagree. This alternative title is on a scale more realistic than that which the film's producers chose, one that, perhaps appropriate to the time--the late '60s--still maybe held on to Victorian understatement. Girls (not women) got pregnant not from having sex but from riding in cars with boys. This representation of female sexuality on the surface would seem to preference the male role in the sex act to that of the female since being with boys suggests that the boys are doing something to the girls that results in pregnancy. Or, I suppose one could also argue that the girls do something to the boys. The girls are doing the riding; the boys the driving? In either case, "Riding in Cars" is partly a story about female power and women's choices, and though this title seems to cast girls as passive victims, this way of locating women in the passenger seat doesn't necessarily negate their power. Never do we see Bev literally in the driver's seat, but the question is whether--behind what appears to be--she is in fact the one in control of her life. Put another way, the question both for this film, for the "Story of an Hour," and for "Girl" is whether beyond the surface of things exists a dynamic women's space and women's power.
As one who studies temporal (time) constructions, I have enjoyed thinking about the concept of time in Chopin's short story. Time for me is not absolute or fixed but constructed (built) and regulated (measured) and mechanized. Chopin returns to her character Louise Mallard an organic time, maybe even a feminine sense of time. The story of an hour is a very brief narrative in which Mrs. Mallard transcends earthly time that has come to be controlled by man, or by men like her husband who, working in offices, govern themselves by the clock and by a temporal order that has its origin in the movement of trains. Mr. Mallard's own false death was thought to be by train accident, and it is this crisis that frees his wife from earthly time, from the life she has with him that is governed by this order. Chopin flirts maybe with the idea that he too could have been freed from regulated time, but alas he is not dead but his wife is. Clearly, the universe opens or shows itself to Mrs. Mallard, who has re-entered a celestial order in the crack in time that was the suspension of the human-regulated. This crack in temporal order is fascinating, and it suggests to me an opening to an alternative space in which those whose lives are not entirely beholden to the clock--and the life of the clock--may find their freedom and not only that but alternative ways of being. Mrs. Mallard, who becomes Louise again--is victorious because she has transcended this tyranny. What she accomplishes either through literal death of the body or through figurative death of regulated time, Bev accomplishes in becoming a real actor within her own space.
Finally, "Girl." What does its title suggest? Eternal childhood? Upon first reading, one is overwhelmed maybe by the seeming lack of power between this mother and daughter, and this would be an accurate reading given strained relations between the author and her own mother. But, on second thought, perhaps girl is a suggestion of sisterhood, an indication of unity. In other words, maybe the connotation of girl is much more messy than it seems. From the lips of the overbearing mother, it sounds spirit-killing. Is she not training her daughter to be a robot? What spirit could survive such a mechanical life in which washing of white clothes must always be done on Mondays; washing of colored clothes on Tuesdays. Mother would seem to have this routine down to a science. Many women do. Is this order organic, or imposed? Does it mimic or is it informed by some other order, for instance, that learned on a plantation, or is it "natural"? Is this a natural, women's rhythm? Or, is it influenced by both, which would mean that Mother has found her liberty in appropriating an unnatural order and mixing it with other ways?
This tight text certainly seems to leave no room for freedom either for Mother or for Girl, yet, as with our two other texts, maybe that is where power resides because it is so well hidden. The first order of business when living in a colonial state is survival; the second is discovery of one's own organic power. Deeply embedded for instance in Kincaid's short story (or prose poem) is the instruction--"this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard." Is Kincaid via Mother not telling her readers how to expand their power? And what of this act of sweeping? Is this cleaning, working, fixing? These are magical terms, in addition to being ordinary, every day terms. Kincaid indicates a relationship between the woman actor cleaning and organizing her assigned outer spaces to gaining power over her inner spaces, from corner to yard. One who sweeps at once declutters her own mind and, very actively, removes from her life those things she doesn't desire to have control over her inner life.
At the end of the story, Girl appears completely deflated. She has not learned Mother's lessons. She has not learned the power of woman which her mother has passed on so secretly, so tightly. But, we trust that she will. By all appearances, she will be controlled, but Mother knows that she will be in control--if she has listened well--of herself.
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