London in Love

Journal of Literature

and Art Studies

Volume 5, Number 6, June 2015 (Serial Number 43)

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Journal of Literature and Art Studies

Volume 5, Number 6, June 2015 (Serial Number 43)

Contents Literature Studies

Reading as Transformational Journey From Homer to Borges 385

Robin McAllister

On Huck’s Establishment of Identity in The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn from the

Perspective of Initiation Theme 394

LIU Xi, MA Wen-ying

Trickster or Colonizer: The Latent Effects of Colonialism in Efua Sutherland’s Play The

Marriage of Anansewa 399

J. Sunita Peacock

London in Love 408

Tzu Yu Allison Lin

Mother Images in Carol Ann Duffy’s Poetry 412

ZHOU Jie

Literary Art as a Vehicle for the Diffusion of Cultural Imperialism in the Nigerian Society:

The Example of Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus 419

Adam Ezinwanyi E., E. Michael Adam

Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and the Issue of Feminism in African Novel 426

Ibeku Ijeoma

A Motherland That One Cannot Return to—An Interpretation on Song of The Chu From

a Perspective of Cultural Security 438

XIONG Xiao, YANG Xi

Chinese Left-Wing Literature in the Vision of an American Left-wing Writer 447

HUANG Jing

Art Studies

Layered Documentation—On the Process of Documenting Contemporary Dance and

Physical Theatre 455

Maria Mercè Saumell Vergés

From Sunset Winter to Caetano’s Spring: The Importance of a Song Contest in the Portuguese

Music Scene of the 1960’s and 1970’s 461

Sofia Isabel Fonseca Vieira Lopes

The Impact of Handicrafts on the Promotion of Cultural and Economic Development for

Students of Art Education in Higher Education 471

Yassir M. Mahgoub, Khalid M. Alsoud

Journal of Literature and Art Studies, June 2015, Vol. 5, No. 6, 385-393 doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2015.06.001

Reading as Transformational Journey From Homer to Borges

Robin McAllister

Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, USA

The transformational journey archetype begins long before literature in rites of initiation when a child undergoes a

journey full of tests and temptations, perilous encounters in an underworld, and visions that transform the child into

a member of a tribe. Before this archetype is translated by the written word into literature, the telling of the story is

not just the account of something that happened long ago in the past, but an actual reenactment of the events for the

audience. The journey archetype appears in the earliest example of literature, Homer’s Odyssey, where Homer

makes the readers both an observer and participant in the transformation. The journey does not always, as in rites of

initiation, involve a child and occur only once in life. Instead, the journey may begin in death and trauma and

involve a person who must resume that journey over again as an adult. Such is the fate of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid

whose transformative journey begins with the burning towers of Troy. In these two early epics the heroes suffer the

loss of an older world and must resume their pursuit of new identities in a new world after descending to a land of

death or underworld to consult ancestor figures who prepare them for the transition to a new life, identity, and

destiny. The reader of these works participates in the journeys the heroes undertake and learns to renew contact

with the sources of life and consciousness in myth, magic, and vision. Dante’s journey through the Inferno to his

vision of God in Paradiso is a culmination of this transformative experience and vision, whose intent is to

transform us as well through imaginative and intellectual participation in the journey. In Jorge Luis Borges’s

parody of Dante in his story, “El Aleph”, Borges goes beyond Dante in making the reader, not only a participant in

the journey and vision, but a “writer” whom Borges evokes to transform the impossible vision of the Aleph into an

illusion of reality. Unlike Dante’s positive transformational vision of the universe as a harmonious cosmos

embraced within the vision of God as if it were a book uniting its multiple pages in one binding, the vision of the

Aleph confronts the protagonist and readers with a universe that is random and chaotic, a vision that is

disillusioning rather than transformational.

Keywords: transformational journey, reading, rite of initiation, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Borges

Introduction

The story of transformational journeys begins long before literature, (that is, long before stories are

translated into a written language used by a civilized urban people), in oral narrative, myth, rites of initiation,

and shamanic spirit journeys. An amazing transition takes place when stories based on rites of initiation and

shamanic journeys are translated into literature. The hero or the person who undertakes the journey changes, no

longer a child whose journey full of tests, trials, perilous encounters, and visions changes him once and for all

into a man or fully accepted member of a tribe, but an already mature man, an older man who has already lived

a full existence in one kind of world, who suddenly has to make a difficult transition into a new, unfamiliar

Robin McAllister, associate professor, Department of English, Sacred Heart University.

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READING AS TRANSFORMATIONAL JOURNEY FROM HOMER TO BORGES

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world. The journey of transformation does not necessarily end in a transformative vision, but, instead, must be

resumed again and again.

The story of transformational journeys begins in a dream. These are some of the images: Burning towers,

weeping, angry women, covered in blood from their lovers swords, smoke from a funeral pyre visible far out at

sea. A boat with oars and a single square sail suspended on the surface of the blue sea, dense, black clouds on

the horizon, flashes of lightening; the dark belly of a wooden horse; grey limestone cliffs along wooded river

valleys; caves with small hidden mouths that open up into visions of horses and bison, rivers of fire and blood,

dark forests concealing a gleam of gold in their green canopies; a Redtail Hawk crossing a high blue sky above

a distant mountain range; an horizon of grass that never gets closer and never farther away no matter how long

you walk away from a sun that is forever setting; pronghorn antelope standing silently in a circle of yellow hills

visible only to the spiritual eye; Blood, a pit of blood with almost transparent ghosts flitting above and around a

man with a sword waiting for a blind prophet; but above all burning towers, caves, and winding paths.

Rites of Initiation

All stories of journeys seek to achieve the transformative closure of rites of initiation. Mircea Eliade writes:

The term initiation in the most general sense denotes a body of rites and oral teachings whose purpose is to produce a decisive alteration in the religious and social status of a person to be initiated. In philosophical terms, initiation is equivalent to a basic change in existential condition; the novice emerges from his ordeal endowed with a totally different being from that which he possessed before his initiation; he has become another. Among the various categories of initiation, the puberty initiation is particularly important for an understanding of premodern man. These “transition rites” are obligatory for all the youth of the tribe. To gain the right to be admitted among adults, the adolescent has to pass through a series of initiatory ordeals: it is by virtue of these rites, and of the revelations that they entail, that he will be recognized as a responsible member of the society. Initiation introduces the candidate into the human community and into the world of spiritual and cultural values. He learns not only the behavior patterns, the techniques, and the institutions of adults but also the sacred myths and traditions of the tribe, the names of the gods and the history of their works; above all, he learns the mystical relations between the tribe and the Supernatural Beings as those relations were established at the beginning of Time. (Eliade, 1965, p. x)

Rites of initiation often take the form of journeys. Stories about these journeys make up not only our most

ancient legends, but our most contemporary poetry and fiction. The story contains the same motifs, a

protagonist, someone who is searching and struggling for something, which goes on a journey into an

unfamiliar world, full of adventures that test and tempt him physically and spiritually. There is a descent into an

underworld, often a cave, where he leaves behind the world of the living, or at least his prior familiar world,

and encounters the dead, the ancestors, and the sacred realm of the gods. There is a crucial encounter with the

ancestors which results in a vision of the spiritual reality underlying appearances in the world of the living to

which the protagonist will return, transformed and perhaps rewarded with marriage and sovereignty. The

journey is a symbolic death and rebirth, the death of a prior self and the emergence of a new identity. At least

this is the form the story takes in the journeys Odysseus, Aeneas, Dante, and Borges take.

It is not just the journey that is transformative. The telling of story of the journey is transformative also.

Before this story is translated by the written words into literature, the telling of the story is not just an invention

or the account of something that happened long ago in the past but an actual reenactment of the events with the

actual presence of the ancestors evoked for an audience who are not just listeners but participants in the events

themselves. Eliade explains this commonplace miracle from an oral, traditional society:


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Whereas “false stories” can be told anywhere and at any time, myths must not be recited except during a period of sacred time (usually in autumn or winter, and only at night). This custom has survived even among peoples who have passed beyond the archaic stage of culture. Among the Turco-Mongols and the Tibetans the epic songs of the Gesar cycle can be recited only at night and in winter. The recitation is assimilated to a powerful charm. It helps to obtain all sorts of advantages, particularly success in hunting and war...Before the recitation begins, a space is prepared by being powdered with roasted barley flour. The audience sit around it. The bard recites the epic for several days. They say that in former times the hoofprints of Gesar’s horse appeared in the prepared space. Hence the recitation brought the real presence of the hero. (Eliade, 1963, p.10)

Rarely, if ever, does the reader of a work of literature feel this power of immediacy in oral narrative that

seems to abolish momentarily the boundaries of time, making an event from the past a present reality,

abolishing the boundaries between story, poet, and audience, making the listener of the story a participant in

events re-enacted once more in a kind of dreamtime set apart or outside the successive moments of ordinary

time, but this preliterate response to narrative and its transformative power underlies a more sophisticated,

critical response to the literary work.

Homer

Literature, the transformation of myth and legend into a written form, provides a different kind of

transformation, one that can be examined in a curious, highly stylized passage from one of the first epics ever

translated into written form, Homer’s Odyssey. The epic simile in this passage, the oldest, most traditional of

literary devices, conceals the power of the literary work to make its readers both participants and observers of

the experience literature conveys. This detachment or alienation that makes analysis as well as participation

possible comes at the price of the total imaginative involvement of oral narrative. The subject of this passage is

Odysseus’ own personal response to an oral bard, Demodocles, reciting an oral epic, the story of Odysseus’

own adventures in the Trojan War, specifically the story of Odysseus’ strategem of building a wooden horse

and filling it with armed warriors to bring down at last the city of Troy:

And Odysseus let the bright molten tears run down his cheeks, weeping the way a wife mourns for her lord on the lost field where he has gone down fighting the day of wrath that came upon his children. At sight of the man panting and dying there, she slips down to enfold him, crying out; then feels the spears, prodding her back and shoulders, and goes bound into slavery and grief. Piteous weeping wears away her cheeks: but no more piteous than Odysseus’ tears, cloaked as they were, now, from the company. Only Alkinoos, at his elbow knew. (Homer, 1963, pp. 140-41)

Those tears will force Odysseus to reveal his true identity at last and tell the story of his wanderings after

the fall of Troy. He himself will be the narrator of his own story, the story of a transformative journey, a rite of

initiation strangely altered by its passage from oral legend into literary epic. Although the incident portrays a

moment of oral narrative, similar to that described above in which past events are momentarily for Odysseus as

real and present once again as the footprints of Gesar’s horse, this narrative response is presented to us within

the context of the written medium of literature, and Odysseus represents a response to narrative performance

that marks the transition from oral myth to literature.

Why does Odysseus weep? He not only relives the events of a past life, but realizes for the first time that

he is as altered and alienated from that prior identity as a woman who in one moment of battle loses her

husband, her former glory, and happiness, and is carried into slavery. Odysseus is both the wife, the woman

who weeps, and the dead warrior, the old Odysseus left behind on the field of Troy. As he listens to the story of

his former life, he relives the events and participates in them once again. Odysseus had spent ten years fighting


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before the walls of Troy. He was present when Achilles struck down Hector and dragged the body behind a

chariot in the dirt three times around the walls of Troy before the eyes of Hector’s wife, mother, and infant son.

He watched Achilles die with Paris’ lucky arrow shot to his ankle tendon. He hardly thinks about the night he

crept out of the belly of a wooden horse and began setting fire to Troy. He was present the day after the fall of

Troy when Hector’s infant son is torn out of the arms of his mother Andromache and thrown off the wall of

Troy to his death. Andromache is the woman who now returns as a metaphor or simile for his own present self,

weeping not just for a dead warrior husband, but for that dead, former self of a heroic age that is now legend

and story. When story is translated into the new technology of writing or literature, a certain distance takes

place that removes the reader and poet from the immediacy of myth and total participation. Language itself is a

technology for translating, storing, and transmitting experience. Within the context of a written language the

old world of oral myth is seen from a new perspective, both detached and passionately involving, just as

Odysseus suddenly both relives his past and contemplates it with sorrow and detachment as if he were

Andromache or another woman weeping over the body of her slain husband.

When our story of the transformative journey as embodied in myth and rites of initiation enters the realm

of literature, the rite of initiation is radically displaced and transformed. The story Odysseus tells of his own

adventures, the most famous episodes of the Odyssey, resembles a rite of initiation, but a rite of initiation, not

for a child assuming his adult identity and role in the tribe for the first time, but for a man who has already lived

through one existence, an heroic existence that has been left behind on the battlefield of Troy, and now must

seek a new role and identity in a post-war world, a world in which he is no longer as king but a shipwrecked

refugee and beggar.

Odysseus’s journey takes him from the burning city of Troy, brought to final destruction not by the

heroism of battle and individual combat, the story of the Iliad, but by Odysseus’ deception of the wooden horse

secretly filled with armed warriors, to a world of magic and violence that delays his return to his former home.

Odysseus’s journey is an attempt to return home after 20 years of war, an attempt to return home to a world that

has changed since he first left 20 years earlier to fight a war in Troy. He cannot return to the same world he left.

There are indications throughout the Odyssey that Odysseus is dead, that his attempt to return to the home in

Ithica he left and the wife who waits for him faithfully but hopelessly, is similar to returning from the dead, a

ghost, and a memory, for those now living where once he reigned. When we see him first, he is living a

suspended existence, godlike, on Kalypso’s island, with the goddess’s promise to render him immortal if he

will give up his attempt to return home and remain forever with her in a paradise suspended in time.

Odysseus’s journey takes him through a series of adventures that test and tempt his will to return home. As

in a rite of initiation there is a cave, a journey to the land of the dead, a crucial encounter with the ancestor,

Teiresias, the blind prophet, reveals to Odysseus the future events that await him upon his return to the land of

the living and the steps he must take or avoid in order to make his way home again. Odysseus comes closest to

physical extinction in the cave of the Cyclops. He is tested physically and mentally. To escape with his life, he

has to conceal his real name and invent a new name that fits all identities or none. When Polyphemus asks him

his name, Odysseus answers, “Nobody”. He has no identity, his old identity is hidden or annihilated in the cave

of the Cyclops, and he can assume any or every disguise he requires to escape death. Emerging from the mouth

of the cave, clinging to the belly of sheep, Odysseus is reborn into the new world of the goddess Circe, a

goddess of love and death, who hold the keys to a journey to the land of the dead. She can transform men into

panthers, wolves, and swine, and bring them back transformed again into younger and stronger versions of


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themselves. Only through her, by his participation in a sacred marriage with her, can Odysseus journey to the

land of the dead, speak with the oracular ancestor ghost, Tireseias, and receive a vision that instructs him how

to return to his true home. He stands over a pit of blood on the beach of a sunless, shadowy world where ghosts

flicker and flitter unsubstantially around his head like bats coming out of a cavern at twilight and holds a sword

out keeping back both the ghost of Alpenor, whose life is the symbolic sacrifice that allows Odysseus to go to

the land of death and return again without leaving his own life behind there, and even driving away the ghost of

his own mother who pleads for her son’s pity, until the ghost of the prophet most famous for solving the riddle

of the hero Oedipus’ true identity as both son and husband, father, and brother, can drink the sacrificial blood

and speak. Odysseus will return from the land of the dead with a prophesy of the future that helps him survive

the sirens, the clashing rocks, the whirlpools, and famine on the island of the Sun, and shipwreck. But he

returns to an Ithica where he is no longer recognized, except by his old dog Argos, and where he is a beggar, a

servant to his former servant, the swineherd Eumaeus. The rest of Odysseus’s story: The battle with the suitors;

stringing his old bow and shooting an arrow through rings set up as a target; his reunion with his wife Penelope.

Retiring with her to his own marriage bed to reconfirm their union. His journey is over, but not over. He has

been transformed from warrior to beggar to king once again, but there is no final closure. We never see him

complete the final destination prophesied by Teiresias, a final voyage and journey at the end of his life in search

of a land, another land of the dead, where no one has ever seen the restless waves of the sea or heard of the oar

of a ship.

Virgil

We next encounter the story of a transformative journey in the lines of Virgil’s literary epic of the Roman

Empire, the Aeneid. Aeneas, as we remember, is a Trojan warrior who has been defeated by Odysseus and the

Greeks. He will tell Dido, the Queen of Carthage, his own version of the last night in Troy, when the city fell to

the Greeks, and Aeneas barely escapes the burning towers and falling walls of Troy, carrying his father on his

back and leading his young son by the hand. He will leave his wife behind in the burning city, lost and

separated from him in the confusion of escape. Aeneas has to start life all over again after surviving a

catastrophe, but he seems doomed to repeat the events he has escaped from over and over again. For him the

rite of initiation is transformed from a ritual a boy goes through only once in life to a journey and ordeal

repeated every time. An already mature adult must make a difficult passage from one existence in a former

world to a life in a changed world. Once again a man flees the flames of his conquered city. For a while after he

is shipwrecked, he lives with another refugee, Dido, the queen of Carthage, who consummates a sacred

marriage with him in a cave during a rainy tempest, until the god Mercury interrupts their bliss and orders

Aeneas to recall the destiny promised to him as the founder of the future Roman empire, secretly prepare his

ships to flee, and leave Dido, regardless of their love for each other. As he sails away he can look back over the

sea to another column of smoke soaring above the ruins of a city, this time the smoke from Dido’s funeral pyre

as it consumes the remains of her suicide and dooms Carthage to future war and destruction at the hands of

Aeneas’ Roman descendants. Once again Aeneas abandons a woman and flees the flames rising from a doomed

city.

In order to leave the old Aeneas of Troy, Dido, and the Trojan War behind and assume his new identity as

a Roman, Aeneas must also journey to the Underworld, speak with the ancestors, the ghost of his father

Anchises in this case, and receive a vision of the future history of Rome. But his descent and return is not


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necessarily a transformative experience. He is not just reborn into a new world, but a new world that repeats the

pattern of the past. As the Sibyl tells him in her prophetic trance before she will guide him down through the

winding cavern of the Underworld and back again:

0 you that at last have done with the dangers of the deep (Yet graver ones await you on land), the Trojans shall come to power in Lavinium-be troubled no more about this-But shall not be glad they did. Wars, dreadful wars I see, and Tiber flowing with torrents of human blood. You will not escape a Simois, a Xanthus there, a Greek encampment; Latium has a new Achilles in store for you, he too a goddess’ son...Once more it's an alien bride, a foreign marriage that’s destined to cause such terrible harm to the Trojans. (Day Lewis, 1952, p. 132)

We seek in vain for a final transforming experience to conclude Aeneas’ story. Instead of rebirth when he

returns from his journey to the Underworld, Aeneas is plunged back into a world of war, and his story breaks

off abruptly in a sudden act of homicidal fury that seems to refute and cancel out his own painfully acquired

virtues of self-restraint, rational control of the passions, and the rule of law. His story must await completion by

a future reader and author, Dante, who will continue the story of the transformative journey and bring it to its

most divine conclusion.

Dante

Dante too is a refugee of civil war and an exile from his beloved city and home of Florence. He too, like

Aeneas, must begin a new life all over again, after surviving a catastrophe that ends his old world. In April of

1300, Dante finds himself in midlife lost in dark woods. He sees the sun illuminating the top of a mountain, but

when he tries to climb the slope, he is driven back by a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. Before he can climb out of

the dark woods and experience the spiritual rebirth he seeks, he needs a guide who can take him to the world

beyond and bring him safely back to the world of the living. His journey will resemble a rite of initiation, once

again for a person who has survived the death of a former world and seeks a transformed identity in a new

world. His Christian rite of initiation is telescoped into the descent into the underworld with its symbolic death

and his return up the mountain of Purgatory to ascend the spheres of the heavens, where he will meet the soul

of his own ancestor and receive a transformative vision from God himself.

Aeneas’ Underworld is a deep volcanic cave, Avernus, still emitting sulphur fumes that kill any bird that

tries to fly across its mouth. The Sibyl compares the winding cave to the legendary labyrinth of Crete built by

Daedalus to hide the Minotaur: “...The way to Avernus is easy; night and day lie open the gates of death’s dark

kingdom: But to retrace your steps, to find the way back to daylight-that is the task, the hard thing” (Day Lewis,

1952, pp. 133-4). Dante’s journey seems to have begun with his reading of Virgil’s Aeneid, since he chooses

Virgil rather than the Sibyl to lead him into the Inferno and back out again, up the terraces of the mountain of

Purgatory, and into the Garden of Paradise, before Dante will ascend through the spheres of heaven to the

presence of God. Aeneas’ journey into Avernus preserves details that point to the origin of this journey in rites

of initiation and shamanic journey, as James Frazier acknowledges by entitling his own epic study of

mythology, The Golden Bough, in reference to the talisman, perhaps mistletoe, that sanctions Aeneas’ descent

into the underworld. Aeneas’ descent is preceded by the Sibyl’s trance or possession by the god Apollo. As

Eliade tells us, the shamanic ecstasy is a spiritual journey, not unlike the puberty rite of initiation, in which the

shaman leaves the world of the living, flies to the world of the spirits and ancestors, and returns to the world of

the living with healing and knowledge. Aeneas will retrace the steps of a rite of initiation with all its

accompanying symbols of death and rebirth. The golden bough symbolizes immortality, or life even in the


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death of winter. Aeneas discovers it with the help of his mother Venus’ doves while he and his shipmates are

cutting trees for the funeral pyre of one of their companions. The apparently accidental death of Misenus

functions as a sacrificial death that provides the necessary life that enables Aeneas to return from the land of the

dead with his own life.

Dante would not have interpreted these events in a mythological way, but he might well have been

astounded to find that Virgil’s Underworld contains not just Tartarus, a place of punishment like Hell, but a

Paradise, the Elysian fields, and a kind of Purgatory where the souls of the dead are prepared for a return to life

on earth. Aeneas’s ancestor spirit, the ghost of his father, presides over this vision of future souls, among which

Aeneas will see the souls of his descendants, the future emperors of Rome:

Now did Aeneas descry, deep in a valley retiring, a wood, a secluded copse whose branches soughed in the wind, and Lethe river drifting past the tranquil places. Hereabouts were flitting a multitude without number, just as, amid the meadows on a fine summer day, the bees alight on flowers of every hue, and brim the shining lilies, and all the lea is humming with them. Then his father, Anchises, said:—They are souls who are destined for reincarnation; and now at Lethe's stream they are drinking the waters that quench man's troubles, the deep draught of oblivion. But, father, must it be deemed that some souls ascend from here to our earthly scene? Re-enter our dull corporeal existence? Why ever should so perverse a craving for earth possess them? First, you must know [answered Anchises] that the heavens, the earth, the watery plains of the sea, the moon's bright globe, the sun and stars are all sustained by a spirit within; for immanent Mind, flowing through all its parts and leavening its mass, makes the universe work. This union produced mankind, the beasts, the birds of the air, and the strange creatures that live under the sea's smooth face. The life-force of those seeds is fire, their source celestial, but they are deadened and dimmed by the...bodies they live in the flesh that is laden with death, the anatomy of clay: whence these souls of ours feel fear, desire, grief, joy, but encased in their blind, dark prison discern not the heaven-light above. Yet, not even when the last flicker of life has left us, does evil, or the ills that flesh is heir to, quite relinquish our souls; it must be that many a taint grows deeply, mysteriously grained in their being from long contact with the body. Therefore the dead are disciplined in purgatory, and pay the penalty of old evil. All these souls, when they have finished their thousand-year cycle, God sends for, and they come in crowds to the river of Lethe, so that, you see, with memory washed out, they may revisit the earth above and begin to wish to be born again. (Day Lewis, 1952, pp. 151-2)

It is apparent here in Virgil’s words how Dante could have read these lines as a foreshadowing or

anticipation of the Christian concept of the afterlife, a mistaken pagan view, reincarnation in particular, but

nevertheless an anticipation of what Dante finds as he follows Virgil through the Inferno. Dante’s journey is the

now familiar rite of initiation we have seen with Odysseus and then Aeneas, a rite of passage for a displaced,

refugee, or survivor of a catastrophe, the death of an old life and the search for meaning and identity in a

changed world. In no other literary journey do we end with a vision of the power Dante gives us, however, as,

in the last lines of Paradiso, he tries to narrate his actual experience of spiritual transformation as he sees God

in the form of a beam of light that exceed human understanding:

From that moment my vision was greater than my speech, which fails at such a sight, and memory too fails at such excess. Like him that sees in a dream and after the dream the passion wrought by it remains and the rest returns not to his mind, such am I; for my vision almost wholly fades, and still there drops within my heart the sweetness that was born of it. Thus the snow loses its imprint in the sun; thus in the wind on the light leaves the Sibyl’s oracle was lost. 0 Light Supreme that art so far exalted above mortal conceiving, grant to my mind again a little of what thou appearedst and give my tongue such power that it may leave but a gleam of thy glory to the people yet to come; for by returning to my memory and by sounding a little in these lines the better conceived will by thy victory. I think, from the keenness I endured of the living ray, that I should have been dazzled if my eyes had been turned from it; and I remember that for this cause I was the bolder to sustain it until I reached with my gaze the Infinite Goodness. 0 abounding grace, by which I dared to fix my look on the Eternal Light so long that I spent my sight upon it! In its depth I saw that it contained, bound by love in one volume, that which is scattered in leaves through the universe, substance and accidents and their relations as it were fused together in


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such a way that what I tell of is a simple light. I think I saw the universal form of this complex, because in telling of it I feel my joy expand. A single moment makes for me deeper oblivion than five and twenty centuries upon the enterprise that made Neptune wonder at the shadow of the Argo. Thus my mind, all rapt, was gazing fixed, still and intent, and ever enkindled with gazing. At that light one becomes such that it is impossible for him ever to consent that he should turn from it to another sight; for the good which is the object of the will is all gathered in it and apart from it that is defective which there is perfect. Now my speech will come more short even of what I remember than an infant’s who yet bathes his tongue at the breast. Not that the living light at which I gazed had more than a single aspect-for it is ever the same as it was before—,but by my sight gaining in strength as I looked, the one sole appearance, I myself changing, was, for me, transformed. In the profound and clear ground of the lofty light appeared to me three circles of three colours and of the same extent, and the one seemed reflected by the other as rainbow by rainbow, and the third seemed fire breathed forth equally from the one and the other. a how scant is speech and how feeble to my conception! And this, to what I saw, is such that it is not enough to call it little. A Light Eternal, that alone abidest in Thyself, alone knowest Thyself, and, known to Thyself and knowing, lovest and smilest on Thyself! That circling which, thus begotten, appeared in Thee as reflected light, when my eyes dwelt on it for a time, seemed to me, within it and in its own colour, painted with our likeness, for which my sight was wholly given to it. Like the geometer who sets all his mind to the squaring of the circle and for all his thinking does not discover the principle he needs, such was I at that strange sight. I wished to see how the image was fitted to the circle and how it has its place there; but my own wings were not sufficient for that, had not my mind been smitten by a flash wherein came its wish. Here power failed the high phantasy; but now my desire and will, like a wheel that spins with even motion, were revolved by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars. (Dante, 1961, pp. 481-85)

Borges

In so far as the literary medium of poetry possesses the power of oral recitation to make the reader not just

a reader or observer, but a participant in the events reenacted in the story. The reader reenacts the

transformational journey he or she is reading. Jorge Luis Borges in his parody of Dante’s vision of God in the

story, “The Aleph”, goes beyond making the reader a participant to making him a “writer” who can resolve the

“inexpressibility” of the vision of the universe as a microcosmic Aleph Borges cannot. Borges writes:

In that gigantic instant I saw millions of acts both delightful and awful; not one of them amazed me more than the fact that all of them occupied the same point in space, without overlapping or transparency. What my eyes beheld was simultaneous, but what I shall now write down will be successive, because language is successive. Nonetheless, I’ll try to recollect what I can. (Rodriguez & Reid, 1981, p. 161)

Dante had interrupted his narrative to invoke the presence of God to sustain his vision; Borges interrupts

his narrative to invoke the presence of a reader. By denying that he Borges can find words to express the vision

and negatively spelling out the conditions required to represent the totality and simultaneity of the vision, he

provides the reader with an incentive to use his imagination to convert the partiality of the enumeration into

totality, its successiveness into simultaneity. If the reader evokes a vision, or illusion of vision, from the

paradoxical, apparently random images of the enumeration, the journey is transformed from the fictional

protagonist and writer to the reader who “dreams” the fictional vision into existence as an apparently

autonomous reality, to paraphrase Borges’s words from his essay “Avatars of the Tortoise” (Rodriguez & Reid,

1981, p. 109). Unlike Dante’s transformational vision of the universe as a harmonious cosmos embraced within

the vision of God as if it were a book binding its multiple pages in one volume, Borges’s vision is apparently

random and chaotic. The Aleph’s appropriate image is a book whose letters mix and lose themselves when

there is no longer the presence of a reader to transform their sequence into simultaneity, their partiality into

totality:


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I saw a summer house in Adrogue and a copy of the first English translation of Pliny—Philemon Holland’s—and all at the same time saw each letter on each page (as a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight). (Rodriguez & Reid, 1981, p. 161)

Conclusion

The story of the transformational journey has taken us a long way from the shaman’s dream flight to the

world of the spirits and back, from Eliade’s words about rites of initiation in which the initiate learns “the

sacred myths and traditions of the tribe, the names of the gods and the history of their works; above all...the

mystical relations between the tribe and the Supernatural Beings as those relations were established at the

beginning of Time” (Eliade, 1965, p. x). Dante transforms this initiatory vision into the highest realms of

philosophy, theology, and poetics without breaking continuity with the most primitive origins in journey and

initiation. Our own story of transformative journeys must now come to an end, but the journey is not over. Each

of us continues to recapitulate these mythic patterns as we make the difficult transition from catastrophe and

loss in our own lives to learning to live with a renewed sense of identity in our changed and changing world.

References Day Lewis, C. (Trans.). (1952).The Aeneid of Virgil. New York: Doubleday Anchor Book. Dante, A. (1961). The divine comedy: Volume 3: Paradiso. (J. D. Sinclair, Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press. Eliade, M. (1963). Myth and reality. (W. R. Trask, Trans.). New York: Harper Torchbooks. Eliade, M. (1958). Rites and symbols of initiation: The mysteries of birth and rebirth. (W. R. Trask, Trans.). New York: Harper

Torchbooks. Homer. (1963). The Odyssey. (R. Fitzgerald, Trans.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Rodriguez, M. E., & Reid, A. (Eds.). (1981). Borges; a reader; a selection from the writings of Jorge Luis Borges. New York:

Dutton.


On Huck’s Establishment of Identity in The Adventure of

Huckleberry Finn from the Perspective of Initiation Theme

LIU Xi, MA Wen-ying

Changchun University, Changchun, China

The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain is considered as representative novel with initiation

theme in American literary circle. It has taken the fancy of the readers throughout the whole world since it was

frequently printed and widely translated. In the story, Mark created an image of a boy named Huck who had an

unexpected adventure by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River with his friend, Jim. After experiencing the

adventure, Huck finally became mature. The present paper gives a brief introduction of the story. Then, the paper

mainly explores how Huck established his identity from the following aspects: his disapproval to slavery and his

consciousness of moral development and obligation.

Keywords: establishment of identity, initiation theme, moral development, obligation

Introduction

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be viewed as a mythology about a boy who undergoes growth from

adolescence into young adulthood. In the novel, Mark makes an exploration upon the process of growth and

maturity deeply by portraying an image of a boy adventurer—Huckleberry Finn, who run away from his cold

family by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River. He was anything but lonely because his friend Jim was

accompanying him. Jim was a runaway as well from his master or he would be sold to another white family. After

they came across, they took adventure together to see the outside world which could enrich the life experiences

and even help them establish the identity. The two boys struck a bond of friendship that took them through

dangerous events and excited adventures. In the story, Huck sets a good example for the explanation of initiation

theme by his unusual experiences. “In 1940s, the study on the initiation theme in literary works sprung up in

America” (Hutchinson, 1993, p. 75). Since then, initiation has become a literary theme full of novelty and vitality.

Many critics think that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not only a story which describes the adventure of a

little boy but also reveals his growth and maturity after he broadens his worldview so that the story has a typical

initiation theme. Initiation theme has been explained by many writers in the western literary history which

describes the growth of a teenager by undergoing some life experiences and even adventures. “The great

initiation stories teach young adults and teenagers how to survive in the complicated circumstances” (Louis, 1985,

p. 58). At first, those who have experienced the growth are quite unaware of its meaning and significance

LIU Xi, master, lecturer, School of Foreign Languages, Changchun University. MA Wen-ying, doctor, associate professor, School of Foreign Languages, Changchun University.

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subconsciously. Day after day, they would suddenly indulge into insight learning and come to understand the

importance of the experience which can help them become mature spiritually. The confusion and fear are mixed

with the desire and curiosity, the inexpressible shocks followed by the subtle physiological changes add an

atmosphere of mystery and shyness to the stage of initiation. The paper discusses how Huck establishes his

identity from the perspectives of initiation theme, his disapproval to slavery and his consciousness of moral

development and obligation so as to show the process of his growth and maturity.

Initiation Theme and Huck’s Establishment of Identity

One of the most outstanding characteristics of The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is its combination of

adventure story with initiation theme. The main difference between adventure story and initiation novel is their

different emphasis. An adventure story emphasizes on the exciting feeling, unusual and strange things met in the

adventures. Its success lies on actions of adventure and exciting, astonishing, or awing feeling on the nerves of

readers. Initiation novels do not pay too much attention to the telling of an interesting story, but to showing the

experiences and feelings of the protagonists in the process of socialization. Initiation novels focus on the growth

of protagonists in the social environment and personal recognition and contemplation. Protagonists in initiation

story don’t have to leave their home to be on the road of adventure. The protagonists experience the epiphany and

get the deeper recognition which will guide and even determine their future life. The Adventure of Huckleberry

Finn takes the adventure as the turning point of growth and adds some dangerous and exciting elements to the

story, making readers anxious about the safety of the protagonist. However, the dangerous scenes are just used as

a kind of method. The main purpose is to make the protagonist get his own recognition and become mature.

The second characteristic is that the attention on humanity is an important part of growing process. Louis J.

Budd points out that

people not only are restricted by the cultural context where they live, but also can creatively produce rich individual patterns of living; the living pattern of an individual person may be superior or inferior to that of his species. (Louis, 1985, p.37)

Finally, Huck tore the letter he had written into pieces—the humanity in the Huck’s heart came to

awakening, his action showed the oppression of the Southern culture to humanity. Huck’s growth and deep

understanding humanity would gradually be transmitted to sensitive young adults.

The third characteristic is exhibiting the South-American culture through the initiation novel. The purpose

of the ancient initiation rituals is to make children get the rules and beliefs of community through serious ordeals

in order to fuse into the society. From it, we know people’s culture is an important part for children’s growth. It is

a rich soil providing the sufficient nutrition for people’s growth, especially for children. Huck is a typical

American boy, his growth can not be cut from his understanding of social culture. People’s culture is also a

dynamic one. It should change by following the pace of the change of time. The establishment of Huck’s identity

is based on his changing attitude toward understanding of American social culture. South American culture is

obviously different before and after the adventure in Huck’s mind.

Huck’s Disapproval to Slavery

Establishment of identity can be viewed as an essential characteristic of initiation novels. Allen Marjorie,


the author of One Hundred Years of Children’s Books in America said “Before young adults can successfully

abandon the security of childhood dependence on others, they must have some idea of who they are, where they

are going and what possibilities there are to go there” (Allen, 1996, p. 178). Young people must develop a sense

of identity. Erik H. Erikson pointed out that “A person experienced some kind of psychological crisis or spiritual

crisis in his growing process and then got a complete and healthy personality about the relationship between self

and society” (Erik, 1995, p. 105). Without clear identity, we can not say a person gets mature completely. The

process of establishment of identity and the influencing factors are important elements in initiation novels. After

the little hero Huck in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had a new understanding of nature and culture, he

began to establish his own identity which was based on his adventure in the wilderness. His conception about

slavery, moral development, and obligation had got a future step, which attributed to his growth and maturity

One must be greatly influenced by the era that he is living in. Many domestic and social elements are

combined to serve as incentives to forge the development of an individual. Among them, social system is always

considered as a leading element to the growth of a person. It is necessary to have a clear understanding about time

to form other recognitions about the surrounding world before taking a right action. With a clear understanding to

the system of a society can a child expand his worldview so as to become mature. Thus, the way to understand the

social system can be viewed as a proof to show how a child comes mature mentally and spiritually so as to

establish his personal identity.

Huck, young as he was, had already experienced a period from unclear to clear recognition of slavery. The

novel describes the life at the time of pre-civil war. Huck’s childhood life in southern America was a slavery

lifestyle, which gave much influence upon Huck’s outlook. In those days, people there, white slave masters, took

slavery for granted, thus they did not feel guilty to enslave the blacks by compelling them doing excessive

formwork in the plantations and even selling them or killing them. Moreover, he thought the blacks were savages,

uncivilized, and stupid and “to plant cotton with crude tools was the most suitable for slaves” (Mark, 1994, p. 62)

so that they belonged to an inferior race. Many whites “although they were not fortunate enough to possess assets,

after all had souls, so they would never debase themselves to labor with the awful slave side by side. They never

did so and would not forever” (Beaver, 2001, p. 49). Their emancipation from physical work was good to the

balance of the moral scale of the southerner.

At first, Huck had no difference from others as to the slaves and slavery because he was totally soaked to the

traditional slavery culture. However, in the process of adventure, especially after he encountered a black boy, Jim,

and developed their friendship rapidly, Huck was roused by humanity himself. After he found the black boy was

always helpful to him and even saved his life, Huck came to abandon his deep-rooted prejudices against the

blacks. At the end of the story, Huck pleasantly accepted the coming of modern times and new social atmosphere

towards slavery. Without careful thinking about the disadvantages of slavery, Huck would fail to deny its

existence. Without the encounter with Jim, Huck would fail to learn by an example that all men were created

equal. Just because Huck cast the old conception away, he finally recognized the slavery should no longer exist.

Hence, he took out the first step to establish his personal identity from boyhood to early adulthood.

Huck’s Consciousness of Moral Development and Obligation

“Huck’s initiation into adulthood was shown in his developing relationship with Jim” (Susan, 2002, p. 138).


It can be well understood that Huck was a young boy who had never known anything but a society with prevailing

slavery in which black people were considered to be inhuman pieces of property. From beginning to the end,

Huck was painfully aware of prevailing social attitude and believed them to be right. He never considered that the

social system would be wrong, and even at last was dismayed that Tom Sawyer so readily joined him in his illegal

plan to free Jim, Miss Watson’s property. The great irony was that Huck always believed that it was his moral

conscience that told him that protecting Jim from returning to slavery was “wrong” and that “right” and “moral”

thing to do would be to see that Jim returned to his owner’s house. Subsequently, he labeled himself as an

immoral and hopeless sinner when he remembered that he had not done anything to return Miss Watson’s

property. At that time, due to the limitation of his thought, Huck never doubted about the “right” existence of

social morals and system.

Through the way drifting on Mississippi river, Huck went through a lot so that his thought was enriched by

the experiences. He thought he should establish his own moral standards rather than changing himself according

to changing circumstances. The first challenge was his suspecion on the existed social morals, the rights and

wrongs. Once Jim was attacked by other whites, he would resolve to defy society to protect him. He thought that

it was wrong to look on black people as the property of whites so that he began to treat Jim as an independent

individual human being. As Jim and Huck went down the river together, Huck remained burdened and troubled

with his original view of morality—Jim was born to be the property of a white family and he existed for the white

man’s amusement. But as Huck and Jim relationship became more intimate, these views concerning Jim became

complicated and modified in Huck’s mind. While Huck tried to teach Jim a garbled version of history and

literature, primarily from the books they had found, Jim began to instruct Huck further in folk ways, common

sense, and most of all, human decency. As Huck was greatly impressed by Jim’s concern and genuine affection

for him, he seemed to look to Jim for the guidance that he would have had. Ideally, Huck writes that Jim “was

most always right” (Mark, 1994, p. 72).

Though Huck seemingly failed to discard the basic philosophical and social ideas held in his society, he did

make a change himself. In becoming and independent adult, he dramatically shifted his moral view, coming to

embrace Jim as a friend and father figuring for whom he was ready to go to hell. From suspicion to abandon to

existed social morals, his moral standards developed through the journey of initiation, to some extent, such a

change was a typical element as an incentive to help him establish personal identity.

Initiation is thought

to become integrated as part of a group and realize one’s role in that society. After young adults experience a series of events, they must gradually develop a philosophy of life and establish a set of guiding moral beliefs and standards. (Louis, 1985, p. 96)

Every society is formed by individual and individual must fuse into a society to take his part of obligation to

make his contribution to it. According to research results given by some anthropologists, specific rituals prevail

among many ancient people for young adults to enter the adulthood. Young adults experience a series of ordeals

in the rituals. When they come back and get into the society, they seemly become the new people and have ability

to carry out the duty and obligation bestowed by the community. Consciousness of obligation is an important

mark of maturity. Just as what we have mentioned above, Huck got benefits from the adventure. He had entered


the household of maturity from childhood to early adulthood. What he experienced woke up his sense of

obligation. Undoubtedly, as a young adult in pre-civil war period, Huck was given the obligation to interpret the

significance of equity by Mark. He was a symbol that the American young adults at his time came to realize the

importance of equality and disadvantages of racial discrimination.

Conclusion

Industrial society demands its citizens to have high technology and organization and law consciousness, so

children need a long time to study and grow. Adolescence becomes an independent phase to grow from child to

youth. Adolescence is a crucial phase for people to develop their thoughts, morals, and psychology. It is a serious

challenge for children to melt into the complex and conflicts-filled society. Young readers can experience the

growth of psychology with protagonists in the novel by reading initiation novels. The Adventures of Huckleberry

Finn is generally acknowledged as a classic initiation story in American literature. As for most of young adults,

they hardly have a chance to get to the adventure like Huck. What happened to Huck evokes the contemplation of

young adults. Young adults regard the novel as a mirror and evaluate themselves through comparison with

protagonists. The good qualities reflected by protagonists set a good example for them. Huck finally established

his personal identity because he changed his attitudes towards slavery, social morals, and obligation. He

abandoned the long-rooted prejudices against slaves and developed his pioneering standards for the social morals

and strengthened his strong sense of obligation. As a classic American initiation story, The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn both embodies the common experiences of human beings’ initiation and possesses typical

American features.

References

Allen, M. (1996). One hundred years of children’s books in America. New York & Oxford: Facts on File Inc.. Beaver, H. (2001). Stephen Crane: The hero as victim. The Yearbook of English Studies, 31, 77. Erik, H. E. (1995). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.. Gui, Y. Q. (1985). Selected reading in English and American literature. Beijing: Translation Company Press. Hutchinson, S. (1993). Mark Twain: Critical assessments. NewYork: Routledge Information Ltd.. Louis, J. B. (1985). New essays on adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Louis, J. B. (1987). On Mark Twain. Durham: Duke University Press. Mark, T. (1994). The adventure of Huckleberry Finn. Guangdong: Gospel Light Publications. Michael, P. (1996). A dictionary of cultural and critical theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.. Susan, C. (2002). Mark Twain’s escape from time. London: University of Missouri Press. ZHANG, S. Y.(2005). History of western literature in 20th century. Beijing: Peking University Press.


Trickster or Colonizer: The Latent Effects of Colonialism

in Efua Sutherland’s Play The Marriage of Anansewa

J. Sunita Peacock

Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, Slippery Rock, PA, USA

The essay analyzes the play written by the late Efua Sutherland (from Ghana) and shows the effects of colonization

among the Ghanaians. First, it explores the historical inroads made by the colonizer in West African countries, such

as Ghana, causing the debilitation of the culture of such countries by erasing its history. One way in which such

erasure occurred was in the destruction of sacred sites of the people. Further connections will also be made to West

African cultural contexts with the history of colonization in Africa and its effects on popular culture, specifically

drama in countries like Ghana. Next, the essay draws upon the role of the trickster figure of Ananse, the spider who

features in many West African and Caribbean folkloric traditions. Sutherland’s play revolves around the main

character of the play, Ananse, and he is likened to the trickster figure, but the essay shows how this figure is also

debilitated by the colonizer. Finally, in the play, one notes that despite the main character’s “victory” in getting his

daughter married to the “Chief-Who-Is-Chief”, he does it for his survival and the survival of his daughter in a world

in which the latent effects of colonization has hampered the memory and culture of its people.

Keywords: Africa, postcolonial, drama, folklore, history, literature

Introduction

Sutherland’s play The Marriage of Anansewa has been acclaimed for it highlighting issues of “societal

opportunism” and “contemporary social foibles” of Ghanaian society (Adams & Sutherland-Addy, 2007, pp.

1-2). But in this essay, I am going to analyze and contemplate upon the latent effects of colonialism among the

Ghanaian people as noted in the characters of Ananse and his daughter Anansewa in Sutherland’s, The

Marriage of Anansewa. The essay will explore, first, the historical inroads made by the colonizer for economic

gain in areas of Western Africa, such as Ghana, and further show the erasure of sacred sites in such areas to

understand how such erasures, in a microcosm, reveal the loss of memory and identity in the hearts and minds

of the colonized people. Further, an exploration of colonialism within cultural contexts of West African popular

culture will be noted to show its effects on popular culture, such as drama, which mirrors the social structure of

African nations, specifically Ghana because of colonialism. To understand the connections created between

colonialism and African indigenous works, the history of the trickster figure Ananse, a popular icon in West

African and Caribbean folklore will be disseminated. Sutherland’s main character, Ananse in The Marriage of

Anansewa parallels the folkloric, spider-trickster figure of African yore. Again, through the examination of

Ananse and his daughter Anansewa, the traditions of the Akan people that Sutherland is applauded for showing

J. Sunita Peacock, Associate professor, Ph.D., Department of English, Spotts World Culture, Slippery Rock University of

Pennsylvania.

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in her plays will be revealed but the essay will also show how the specific postcolonial theory of a colonized

nation’s location (and in turn its people) oscillates between meanings as it complicates “the harmonious

totalities of culture” (Spurlin, 2013, pp. 71-72) because of the colonial encounter.

The Colonial Encounter in Efua Sutherland’s The Marriage of Anansewa To fully understand the issues of location and the complications of one’s culture and identity because of

colonization, one needs to first examine the history of the colonial encounter between the colonizer and the

colonized. In her study of the burial sites of the Ghanaian people, Greene in her book, Sacred Sites and the

Colonial Encounter: A History of Meaning and Memory in Ghana, explores how Christian missionaries in

Ghana blurred and sometimes even erased the borders between religion and culture among the people of Ghana

in the area in and around the Gold Coast for over a period of 100 years (1850-1950). By evaluating the aspects

of blurring and sometimes even erasing religious sites of the people along the Gold Coast, one can also argue

how such opacity unwittingly affected the works of postcolonial writers and dramatists, such as Sutherland

whose drama has been applauded for the uses of Ghanaian folk traditions to enhance modern dramatic works,

as noted in The Marriage of Anansewa, which was published in 1987.

Further, an examination of the effects of colonialism on the social structures of African society also need

to be mentioned to see how the colonizer affected the minds of the colonized people and in turn affected the

social structures of popular culture, such as drama in the African context. In the book, West African Popular

Theatre, by Barber, Collins, and Ricard, the authors note how the oral traditions (oriki chants, popular

music-juju, and fuji) of West African nations from Ghana to Nigeria were re-introduced in “innovative and

emblematic ways, incorporating colonial and post-independence” eras (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. xii).

The manner in which colonialism affected the oral traditions/music was the incorporation of the “text” (Barber,

Collins, Ricard, 1997, p. xii). Other African elements that are present in the indigenous plays are the

collaborative aspect of a performance with audience participation, and the “inclusion of a musical component

and dance” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. xv). In Sutherland’s play Marriage, one notes the colonial

encounter of the use of “text” but also varied aspects of African drama “with the inclusion of a collaboration of

characters who are outside the main action ( audience) music and dancing working in an egalitarian way on

stage” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997 intro xv). Later in the analysis of Sutherland’s Marriage, one will note

how the African dramatist retained aspects of society’s oral tradition by using forms of improvisation in the

“texts” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. xv).

Another effect of colonization along the Gold Coast (West African nations) was the emergence of a hybrid

form in drama, depicting the hybrid identity of the colonized people. Because of the geography of the Gold

coast and the importance of trade beginning from ancient times, the people of the area were familiar with

foreign cultures. Hence, their own culture became “innovative and adept at social navigation to foster

commercial networks; with this came an open and accommodating attitude toward foreign, imported cultural

elements and a willingness to invest in entertainment” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. 1).

When the British colonizer entered West Africa, he imposed a commercial colonialism at the beginning of

the nineteenth-century and with it came the creation of roads, railways, and an educational system, “which the

colonial governments undertook to regulate” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. 2). As colonialism benefitted

England/Europe, a new culture and new classes were created in Africa, beginning from “cash-cropping farmers”

to an “intermediate class of traders, artisans, laborers etc.…it was from the intermediate sector that modern


401

West African popular culture emerged” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. 3). This hybrid culture will be

noted later in Sutherland’s Marriage.

Briefly, the plot of the play, Marriage is about a wily father Ananse who is in need of money to enhance

his status in society and so he decides to marry his daughter to the chief who will pay him the largest sum of

money for her hand. Ananse gets his daughter to type letters to four different chiefs, one of whom he hopes will

offer the most money for his daughter. Ananse dictates what he wants his daughter to write in the letters and

mails the letters to the chiefs with a photograph of his daughter in each of the letters. The prompt mailing of the

letters and his daughter’s photograph in each of them is done unbeknownst to Anansewa. The play begins with

Ananse speaking to his daughter and reminding her that she needs to use her typing skills to help her father find

a prospective groom for her as he spent money to send her to the E. P. Secretarial School and that he is not

getting any younger and that he would need to live in comfortable surroundings in his old age. He emphasizes

to her:

After you have gone out and returned home, here, will my hope for a more comfortable future be any better? The mattress on which I try to rest my bones after each day is up-and-down—will it have changed from a straw-stuffed, lumpy mattress to a soft, bouncy Dunlopillo[…]? Let alone some comfortable chairs to sit in? A fridge in the kitchen, a car in the garage? My name on invitation lists for state functions? Embassies’ parties? (Sutherland, 1987, p. 12).

To add insult to injury, Ananse laments, he does not even have enough money to put in the collection plate

on Sundays in church!

Right from the beginning of the play one notes the history of imperialism in the lives of the people of

Ghana, which has led playwrights, such as, Sutherland to unabashedly use the effect of colonization that is

rampant in the lives of people of Ghana, hearkening to a hybrid identity: To note such an identity mirrored in

plays, such as Marriage, a brief history of drama in Ghana needs to be revisited. In the formation of new

classes being created by colonialism and the rise of an “intermediate class” of artisans, laborers, and traders, a

modern, West African popular culture emerged (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. 3). One important form of

drama in West African popular culture was “the concert party, a contemporary, roving, comic opera-a dynamic

folk art of Ghana” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. 6). This “slapstick musical comedy, with a strong seam

of pathos and a very prominent moral tone” running through it was a common dramatic form (Barber, Collins,

& Ricard, 1997, pp. 6-7). In the early days of the concert party the colonial “vaudeville minstrelsy” was

imported from Europe, but between the 1930s-1950s, “the genre became progressively Akanized” (People of

Ghana referred to as the Akan people) “by the incorporation of an analogue of the Ananse-spider trickster

character and the use of the Akan language” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. 7). Sutherland does just that

with the protagonist, Ananse in Marriage. Continuing with the history of theatre in Ghanaian society, Barber

also notes that by the 1960s-70s, the plays were “firmly planted in the everyday domestic world of

contemporary Ghana, with salient references to cocoa, farms, banks, schools and the Ghana National lottery”

(Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. 15). Sutherland was a director of the National Drama School in Ghana

under Nkrumah and the school was financed by the government as The Marriage of Anansewa depicts exactly

the themes, characters, and the colonized hybrid identity of the Ghanaian person and society. We see Marriage

following “the core of the concert repertory” with the play “depicting” a family drama in “an exaggerated and

amusing way” by showcasing contemporary problems of the audience” (Barber, Collins, & Ricard, 1997, p. 23):

Ananse has given his daughter an education and now he wants to marry her off to the richest suitor of his


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choice so that he can live a life of comfort (exaggeration about a father’s materialist leanings), but the themes

of the concert repertory are present with the dramatization of a father-daughter relationship with the daughter

reacting unfavorably to the father’s decision which Anansewa does when she notes that her father has sent her

picture to several suitors without her permission.

Concurrently, the effects of colonization on society as depicted in popular culture can be further analyzed

with both serious and contentious conclusions. First, the inroads that the colonizer made at the beginning of the

nineteenth-century into the continent of Africa and especially in West Africa can be noted in Greene’s book,

which was mentioned earlier in the essay. The author shows how the people of the country whose culture is

defamed react to such defamation. Greene uses the loss of burial sites of the Anlo people (who lived in and

around the Gold Coast) by recalling the history of Christian missionaries in Ghana, between 1850 and 1890.

One important way of gaining the trust of the people whose land was being taken over by an outside force was

by the outside force opening schools and hospitals for the people of the region. But by bringing “western

technology and science education various water bodies lost their sacred aura and were rendered spiritually

irrelevant” (Greene, 2002, p. 3). Greene continues, “According to dominant thinking in nineteenth-century

Europe, the material world was quite separate from the spiritual world” (Greene, 2002, p. 3). Hence, when

German missionaries came to Gold Coast communities, such as the Anlo, who lived in these areas and who put

spiritual significance to physical sites, such as burial areas, “they were ridiculed, ignored, or selectively

appropriated” by the western missionaries (Greene, 2002, p. 4). So, when burial sites of the Anlo people were

destroyed by the colonizer, the colonized people “struggled in diverse ways and with differing degrees of

success, to deploy, deform, and defuse” the cultural values and forms imposed upon them by the European

missionary. Unfortunately, for the colonized individual, “his ability to choose what to accept and what to reject

was circumscribed by the power dynamics embedded in the colonial enterprise” (Greene, 2002, p. 5). At any

rate, for the colonized to survive and not to feel as though his entire culture/history was being erased, the life of

the African, which was later embedded in literary forms (art, drama, and writing) had to continue and one way

to make it work would be “through the traumatic encounter between Africa and Europe”, as noted in Gikandi’s

essay African Literature and the Colonial Factor (Gikandi, 2007, p.54). In fact, according to Gikandi, the

current hybridity in modern African literature is because of “the radical changes in society because of

colonialism” (Gikandi, 2007, p. 55). These radical changes are noted when analyzing Sutherland’s Marriage

right from the start. The play is written in English (the language of the colonizer) and through her writing the

dramatist is able to show the folk culture of Ghana (the use of the trickster, spider Ananse and other elements of

the concert plays) along with the effects of colonization on the minds of the people of Ghana giving them a

hybrid identity, which is viewed as a valid identity in modern Ghana in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Equally, Gikandi notes that with the arrival of the colonizer in the early nineteenth century, African writers

wrote in European languages (Olaudah Equiano) “to oppose slavery and validate an African identity” (Gikandi,

2007, p. 55) and giving a voice and passage to the European world for the African writer (Gikandi, 2007, p.

55).

Paralleling Gikandi’s analysis of how the colonized adapted to the colonizer, Greene in Sacred Sites, gives

an anthropological view of adaptation. Greene suggests how individual memory

situates what (they-the Anlo people of the Gold Coast) recollect within the mental spaces provided by the group. These mental spaces are composed of ideas (how one thinks about past experiences) language (how one speaks of what one remembers) and places (material sites that support our mental images). (Greene, 2002, pp. 8-9)


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Just like the Anlo people, on the Gold Coast, who are representative of many communities in Ghana that

were affected by colonization through the destruction of an important Ghanaian practice of house burials over

the creation of public cemeteries, so also in the play Marriage, one sees an adaptation of burial/funeral rites. In

response to the colonizer’s removal of certain physical sacred sites, the Anlo people diffused their culture by

embracing the “new meanings that the colonial encounter had begun to encourage them to accept about sites of

historical significance” (Greene, 2002, p. 8), and “These new meanings gradually gave rise to new collective

memories and the bodily practices that supported them” (Greene, 2002, pp. 8-9).

Paralleling the Anlo people’s forced adaptation of their own culture is Ananse’s adaptation of thinking

about certain customs of his village. In Act Three of the play, Ananse’s aged mother is angry with her son

because he has chosen to have an “outdooring ceremony” for his daughter Anansewa, “five years after the girl

has become a woman, which is not good custom keeping in anyone’s world…” His mother continues, “Your

school people say you have thrown these things aside” (Sutherland, 1987, p. 44). Ananse’s mother’s lament

mirrors the “new meanings” that Greene discusses earlier when the Anlo people lost their sacred sites. To

combat loss, the Anlo form “new collective memories”. Hence, erasing their former memories of whom and

what they were and instead creating a new hybrid identity. Ananse’s mother’s lament in Marriage parallels the

Anlo people’s change of memory in the character of Ananse who mirrors a similar change because of the effect

of colonization and the erasure of memory summoned by “schooling” imposed upon the colonized by the

colonizer. Historically, the African had no choice as Gikandi notes that after the conference of Berlin of 1885,

“the whole continent was divided among European powers” (Gikandi, 2007, 55). African societies either had to

“adapt or perish” (Gikandi, 2007, p. 56).

On the one hand, the character of Ananse has a loss of memory of his culture because of his need for a

fridge, a fan, and funds for church; thus embracing the colonial ideal of western materialism. But on the other

hand, Sutherland also gives her universal audience Ghanaian culture adapting its past to its decolonized present.

Then again, with issues raised by authors, such as Greene and the loss of burial sites and certain important

African traditions, the narrative of colonialism can be “conceived as the unwilled evacuation of African

subjects” from their history (Greene, 2002, p. 56).

What Sutherland gives both Ghanaian and universal audiences are a colonial event that was merely an

interruption in African society (Greene, 2002, p. 56). Historically, early African nationalist writers opposed

imperialist rule and fought for African political rights. But what

this meant was that African literature was not initially intended to provide a radical critique of European rule; rather, it was a discursive mode through which Africans could try to represent and mediate their location both inside and outside colonial culture. (Greene, 2002, p. 57)

In Sutherland’s character, Ananse we see him moving inside and outside African and European culture.

For example, he feels that to be comfortable in his old age, he needs western accoutrements such as, a fridge, a

car, and money to put in the church’s collection plate, at the expense of his daughter’s marriage to the chief

who is the highest bidder. The fridge, car, and the Christian church juxtapose with Ananse arranging a marriage

between his daughter and chiefs from different villages. His “schooling”, as his mother laments, has him

changing the time of his daughter’s “outdooring ceremony”. But Ananse does not change everything in his

culture, instead, he weaves in and out of it because of his hybrid identity created by the influence of the

imperialist. Ananse’s idea of success and comfort come from the importation of the culture of the colonizer as


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it coincides with his Ghanaian culture.

Sutherland’s treatment of burial lore is with humor. The scene, toward the end of the play when Ananse

realizes that all four chiefs have paid well for his daughter and they are all coming for her hand in marriage

becomes a moment of concern for the conniving father. When Ananse hears that all the chiefs are coming for

his daughter’s hand in marriage, he prepares for a mock funeral for his daughter. In Act Four, the Storyteller

within the play notes Ananse starts drilling his daughter. Anansewa is pretending dead? “very well. It turned

out that he did his work well” (Sutherland, 1987 p. 69). Ananse’s dilemma of who to give his daughter’s hand

to, as all chiefs have paid him the bride price, and more, is solved. As news of the arrival of the four chiefs

reaches Ananse’s ears, he instructs his daughter to “stiffen your limbs” (Sutherland, 1987, p. 55), to act like she

is dead. Anansewa laughingly replies, “but I have never died before” and again Ananse tells her to “hold her

breath, a little,” and Anansewa replies, “How can I switch my life off and on like electricity” (Sutherland, 1987,

p. 55). In this exchange between father and daughter, Sutherland satirizes burial law and “home burials” that

Greene describes in her exploration of how the German colonizers destroyed the cultural norms of the

Anlo/Ghanaian people to suit their purpose of imperialist takeover and in this humorous example Sutherland is

using death/burial as an instrument of “resistance against colonization” (Gikandi, 2007, p. 58). One can

conjecture, though, that Sutherland’s satire informs the audience how the colonizer has destroyed certain

cultural norms of a society but by the same token how the colonized is able to adapt and change his identity by

locating himself inside and outside the colonial way of thinking. In Sutherland’s play, the humor stems from

the fact that death/burial is used to trick the chiefs and the trickster Ananse is successful. Herein lies the

movement of the colonized inside and outside his hybrid identity.

As noted earlier in the essay, West African dramatic forms went through many changes because of the

advent of colonization. A distinctive theatre tradition that emerged was an inclusion of indigenous African

traditions (dances, symbols, audience participation, singing etc.) and most importantly, “the impact of the cycle

of tales associated with the trickster figure of Ananse the spider” (Gibbs, 2004, p. 160).

In analyzing the trickster figure of the spider who is the “folk hero of Ghanaian and Caribbean folk tales”,

Deandrea notes, in the article titled Trans (l) Atlantic I-con: The Many Shapes of Ananse in Contemporary

Literatures, that, “tricksters” in all oral literatures cause “laughter and profane nearly every central belief, but at

the same time they focus attention precisely on the nature of such beliefs” (Deandrea, 2004, p. 2).What

Sutherland creates in The Marriage of Anansewa in the protagonist Ananse is taking the folklore of the

spider/trickster stories of the Akan people and “reduce” them to writing in a text. In his essay, “Ghana”, Gibbs

(2004) uses the word “reduce” to claim that it is an appropriate term because the process of reduction “involved

stripping them (the tales) of the gestures and the musical elements that flesh out the performance and dramatists

have reversed the process” (Gibbs, 2004, p. 160). What Sutherland did was to “transform the tales (anansesem)

into plays (anansegro)” (Gibbs, 2004, p. 160). In fact in her foreword to the play Marriage, Sutherland notes,

that the storytelling art called “anansesem” by the Akan-speaking people has been transformed by her into

“anansegoro” using “some of the conventions of anansesem to reveal the bases of The Marriage of Anansewa”

(Sutherland, 1987, p. 3).

In Sutherland’s Marriage, the father Ananse arouses laughter and at times tends to, as Deandrea (2004)

notes, profanes, and focuses attention on certain cultural beliefs (which is the role of the trickster). As noted by

his mother, he disregards the actual time period of his daughter’s outdooring ceremony conducting it right

before she is to be married. So, he profanes the belief but the audience’s attention is drawn to the belief by his


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casual use of it. By the same token, Ananse’s disregard leads to chaos in his life, but then again he manages to

pull off certain schemes that could cause disasters and regain normalcy once again, without him being found

out. According to Pelton in The Trickster in West Africa, (2004) the figure of Ananse can also be interpreted as

“a way to unveil the ethical and religious principles of Akan society”. By Ananse’s attack on certain important

principles in his culture, he is able to “regenerate them creatively, under modified shapes” (Deandrea, 2004 p.

2). Inevitably, though, Ghanaian novelist Ayi K. Armah shows Ananse in an utterly negative model of

selfishness to suggest that “Ghanaian society is dominated by an Anansean rush for material acquisition”,

which can also be analyzed as a side effect of colonization (Deandrea, 2004, p. 4).

It is true that in Marriage, the character of Ananse does have a sense of insolence as measured by the way

in which the critic Pelton (2004) describes the spider/trickster figure. He is ready and willing to misuse the

customs of marriage/outdooring/burial ceremonies, which is seen throughout the play, possibly, for the

dramatist to reveal through the use of Ananse, the use of “domestic activity” (Sutherland, 1987, p. 3) that are in

existence in Ghanaian society but they are “given full theatrical expression” through the exaggerated character

of the spider/trickster figure and the changes established by the latent effects of colonialism on Ghanaian

domesticity (Sutherland, 1987, p. 3).

Ananse is bold as he asks four chiefs to marry his daughter hoping that only one will comply; he totally

disregards his daughter’s feelings toward marriage and although he sends her to typing school to learn a skill,

he uses her skills to suit his own purposes, one of them being using her for marriage to a rich chief to

eventually put large sums of the money he receives in the collection plate during church service in his village to

gain personal recognition. Hence, the trickster figure serves a dual purpose as he not only reminds the audience

of the tales of the African’s past, but also the effect of materialism and colonialism on the African’s future.

Next, according to Adams and Esi Sutherland-Addy (2007), in their introduction to the book titled The

Legacy of Efua Sutherland: Pan African Cultural Activism, Sutherland’s play Marriage, brings to the forefront

“contemporary societal foibles as can be seen in the practices of local Christian churches, the chicanery of

artisans, and the desperation of societal opportunists” (Adams & Esi Sutherland-Addy, 2007, p. 2). The

contemporary themes used in the play hearken back to Barber’s mention of Ghanaian plays being “firmly

planted in the everyday domestic world of contemporary Ghana” (Adams & Esi Sutherland-Addy, 2007, p.15).

The effect of colonization and its existence within traditional African culture is depicted further in the

trickster figure, Ananse’s use of traditional African customs of arranging a marriage for his daughter so that he

can purchase a fridge and have money to put in the collection plate at his local church, shows, in my estimation,

Sutherland’s humorous dig of the destructive nature of colonial materialism embedded in the African psyche.

But then again, with the happy ending in Marriage with Anansewa getting a chief who cares about her needs

and also supplies the needs of her father, declares the notion of the African being able to locate himself/herself

inside and outside of the colonial culture (Gikandi, 2007, p. 56). The implementation of the trickster figure,

could also symbolically show the manner in which the colonizer tricked the colonized into believing amongst

several things that the African did not “have a history, philosophy or language prior to the Europeans” (Gikandi,

2007, p.56). This idea of chicanery is noted in one particular scene when Ananse, as stage directions note, is

behind a “web screen” (Sutherland, 1987, p. 53). In this same scene, his daughter enters, singing and joyous

because of her outdooring ceremony and the fact that she is now a woman ready to be married: “We have

touched your lips with an egg to bless you, and we have dressed you in gold to honor you” says Anansewa as

she mimes her ceremony (Sutherland, 1987, p. 53). Ananse’s figure behind the web is symbolic of the


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spider/trickster who has trapped his prey in his web of deceit as his daughter Anansewa is unaware of her

father’s reasoning for wanting to marry her off to the highest bidder. Once again, colonial philosophy is at the

heart of literary/dramatic traditions and conveys a close association in African literature (Gikandi, 2007).

Ananse’s role playing as noted in the spider/trickster figure could further symbolize a country in flux

whose inhabitants have shifting identities because of colonization. One part of the character of Ananse is to,

according to Perce’s (1968) article, The Didactic Essence of Efua Sutherland’s Plays, “outwit all around him”

because of his need for a comfortable life in his old age; the other reason according to Pearce, could be to

protect his daughter and himself in a difficult world, “especially when they are pitted against the more

privileged class represented by the wealthy chiefs” (Pearce, 1968, p. 80). This disparity between two groups of

people in the society in which Ananse resides could hearken back to colonization when societies that were

colonized by an outside power lost, according to Bhabha, “the harmonious totalities of culture” (Spurlin, 2013,

p. 72). The purity of the colonized domain is lost and such nations call into question their cultural practices

which are “relegated to the outside of constitutive nationhood allowing for gaps, the collapse of certainty, and

the evocation of the erasure of borders to come into play, and opening up the possibility of new narratives of

the nation” (Spurlin, 2013, p. 79). In paralleling Bhabha’s theory of the gaps in the identities of the people of

colonized nations, one can surmise the actions of tricksters like Ananse who emerge to possibly widen such

gaps by outwitting their own people.

Sutherland has been hailed as one of Ghana’s leading directors of experimental theater groups beginning

in 1950 and bringing into focus, according to Pearce, the rituals of Ghanaian society. Her inclusion of several

narrative schemes taken from oral African tradition, costumes, props, folkloric trickster figures (Ananse), dance,

and music combined with the influx of colonial discourse (writing in the language of the colonizer and the

effects of colonization on the main character, Ananse), she is able to give us insights into the psyche of the

decolonized African person who moves inside and outside the colonial encounter

According to Brown (1981) in the book, Women Writers in Black Africa, Sutherland sees a connection

between the art of theater (writing, producing, acting) and traditions within a culture (Brown, 1981, p. 61).

Hence, “Sutherland’s theater is symbolic of Ghanaian culture as a whole insofar as that culture exemplifies the

interaction of Western and African values” (Brown, 1981, p. 62). It is true that in Marriage Sutherland takes

the traditional Ghanaian idea of marriage into which she infuses the effects of westernization on such a

tradition. And as the title, of the play suggests, it is the marriage of Anansewa, which is about a woman who is

central to the action of the play; thereby, “using the conventions of the theater” as a “symptom of the manner in

which social conventions-in this case Ghana’s-have blended new and old values, non-African (colonial) and

African traditions” (Brown, 1981, p. 63).

Conclusion

To conclude, many social conventions from Ghanaian folklore are used in the play, such as the father

(Ananse) arranging the marriage for his daughter (Anansewa) to the chief of his choice; one also notes the

father’s choice of postponing the outdooring ceremony of his daughter till he is ready to give her hand in

marriage, and the father being in charge of the women in the household, such as his mother and his daughter.

Within the dramatic structure of the play, Marriage, one also notes features of folk tradition with the use of

singing by a group of women who weave in and out of the actions in the play and who act as a chorus while

important events occur within the drama; there is a Storyteller who comes and gives background information


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throughout the play; the main characters, such as Ananse, orders a backstage hand referred to as the Property

Man to bring props on and off the stage. All of this is a part of Ghanaian dramatic folk tradition, which

Sutherland juxtaposes with comments from the main characters that show the influence of westernization, such

as the desire for western goods by the main character, Ananse. As mentioned earlier, the effects of colonization

is also noted throughout the analysis of Marriage and the new evolution of Ghanaian traditions in Sutherland’s

transformation of the art of story-telling (anansesem) into textual dramatic forms.

References Adams, A., & Esi Sutherland-Addy, V. (2007). The legacy of Efua Sutherland: Pan African cultural activism (pp. 1-26).

Oxfordshire: Ayeba Clarke Publishing, Ltd.. Barber, K., Collins, J., & Ricard, A. (1997). West African popular theatre. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Brown, L. W. (1981). Women writers in Black Africa. Westport: Greenwood Press. Deandrea, P. (2004). Trans(l)atlantic i–con: The many shapes of Ananse in contemporary literatures. Journal of Transatlantic

Studies, 2(1), 1-26. Gibbs, J. (2004). Ghana. In M.Banham, (Ed.), A history of theatre in Africa (pp.159-170). New York: Cambridge University

Press. Gikandi, S. (2007). African literature and the colonial factor. In T. Olaniyan & A. Quayson, (Eds.), African Literature: An

anthology of criticism and theory (pp.55-59). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Greene, S. E. (2002). Sacred sites and the colonial encounter: A history of meaning and memory in Ghana. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press. Pelton, R. (1989). The trickster in West Africa: A study of mythic irony and sacred delight. Los Angeles: University of California

Press. Pierce, A. (1968). The didactic essence of Efua Sutherland’s plays. Women in African Literature Today, 71-80. Rotimi, O. (2007). The attainment of discovery: Efua Sutherland and the evolution of modern African drama. In A. Adams, & V.

Esi Sutherland-Addy (Eds.), The legacy of Efua Sutherland: Pan african cultural activism (pp.18-23). Oxfordshire: Ayeba Clarke Publishing, Ltd.

Spurlin, W. T. ( 2013). Shifting geo-political borders/Shifting sexual borders; Textual and cultural renegotiations of national identity and sexual dissidence in postcolonial Africa. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 13, 69-79.

Sutherland, E. T. (1987). The marriage of Anansewa. United Kingdom: Longman African Classics.


London in Love

Tzu Yu Allison Lin

Gaziantep University, Gaziantep, Turkey

In this paper, I read several literary texts, in order to demonstrate the relation between the viewing subject and the

gazed object, in terms of love, illusion, and and aesthetic ecstasy. Walter Benjamin’s untitled poem illuminates love

and blessing through artistic images, as in Giorgio de Chirico’s painting, The Song of Love (1914). Love in London

is somehow a dream-like image—a surreal illusion of love, which stays in the viewer’s mind as a poem of colours,

representing eternity. Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day says it better, when Mary walks into the British Museum and

gazes at the Elgin Marbles, thinking how much she is in love with Ralph. John Keats’ “On Seeing the Elgin

Marbles” also depicts the way in which a gaze of love could be an eternal moment of aesthetic ecstasy.

Keywords: love, aesthetic ecstasy, London, image, illustration

Introduction

Love can be defined in various terms, in different conditions and contexts. When one is alone, love can be

seen as a desire. To be alone with one’s self somehow is a perfect way to possess the loved object, as one can

manipulate the love relation within one’s own mind, as the reader can see in Walter Benjamin’s note-like poem.

In London, Virginia Woolf’s character Mary, in Night and Day, has her love secret unfolded when seeing the

Elgin marbles in the British Museum. Through the gaze, Mary constructs a surreal situation, which goes beyond

her present space and time, imaging Ralph as her guardian, who is able to love her in return. In Keats’ poem,

readers can see that the whole experience of gazing at the Elgin marbles turns to be a sense of sympathizing love,

for the mortality of one’s own physical being, and the limitation of its relation with the others.

Love in Imagination

Let’s begin with a poem by Benjamin:

When I begin a song It sticks And if I become aware of you It is an illusion

And thus love wanted you Humble and small So that I win you With being alone

Tzu Yu Allison Lin, doctor, assistant professor, Department of Foreign Language Education, Faculty of Education, Gaziantep

University.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

LONDON IN LOVE 409

Therefore you slipped from me Until I learnt Only flawless petitions

Betray nature And only enraptured steps The trace. blessed. (Marx, 2007, p. 67)

I am fascinated by this little note-like poem, not only because of its neatness in the use of words, but also the

richness of its meanings. The narrator sings a song to a lover, knowing that this feeling of love creates an image of

the lover in the narrator’s mind. Since the narrator cannot physically be with his or her lover, the narrator comes

to focus on seeing the image of the lover, as if he or she “win[s]” the lover, by even only thinking about that

person. However, the lover’s image is very much unstable. It is only a changeable illusion, existing in the

narrator’s mind, which does not have a certain form. It is always slipping away. The narrator has to trace the

illusion of the lover, as it is “[b]etray nature” to be in love with someone like this. For the narrator, to have the

illusion of being in love is as real as eternity—it is even “blessed”.

In Giorgio de Chirico’s painting, The Song of Love (1914), he depicts exactly such a surreal illusion of love,

which stays in the viewer’s mind as a poem of colours, representing eternity. As in a dream-like illusion, each

visual object is not directly connected to another, as if they were picked up randomly: The little white cloud is

hanging on the blue sky; on the wall of the building, there are a big head sculpture and a leather glove. The green

ball stopped moving. Each visual object has a ridiculous size, which cannot be measured by real terms. All of the

visual objects exist in the same space of time, and it looks like they will be there forever. It does not matter which

one comes first, to create and to compose the song of love.

Impossible Love

Love is a feeling as real as eternity, as one can see in Benjamin’s poem. Love can also be as painful and

unbearable, as a physical movement or a practice, as in one’s “soulless travels” on the road:

Valleys. This road, generally, is one for The long-defeated; and turns any ironic Observer’s tracer-isotope of ecology, Sociology, or hopeful manic

Verse into a kind of mere Nosing virus itself. It leaves its despondent, foul And intractable deposit on its own Banks all the way like virtually all

Large rivers, particularly the holy ones, which it Is not. It sees little that deserves to be undespised. It only means well in the worst of ways. How much of love is much less compromised? (Ford, 2012, p. 626)

As Alan Brownjohn’s narrator asks in the poem, “A 202”, “How much of love is much less compromised”,

as one keeps seeing and enduring the very “coarse road” (Ford, 2012, pp. 625-26) across southeast London. This

road, A202, as changeless as an “exhausted Grey zigzag of stubborn” (Ford, 2012, p. 625), belongs to the traveler

LONDON IN LOVE 410

himself. The road itself, even it looks like as if “soulless” (Ford, 2012, p. 626) as it could be, is having “no clear

attitude” toward the traveler, because the traveler’s mood is a complex, specifically on “Monday mornings in

town” (Ford, 2012, p. 625).

In Woolf’s novel Night and Day, Mary is depicted as a character, who turns aesthetic works of art into an

imaginary love relation with Ralph, through her gaze at the Elgin marbles in the British Museum. Mary’s gaze

seems to empower the works of art, as they externalise her “some wave of exaltation and emotion” (Woolf, 1992,

p. 65). Works of art, in Woolf’s novel, do not express something “purely aesthetic” (Woolf, 1992, p. 65), as they

are externalisation of a character through artistic “shapes”.

Mary’s emotion were not purely aesthetic, because, after she had gazed at the Ulysses for a minute or two, she began to think about Ralph Denham. So secure did she feel with these silent shapes that she almost yielded to an impulse to say “I am in love with you” aloud. The presence of this immense and enduring beauty made her almost alarmingly conscious of her desire, and at the same time proud of a feeling which did not display anything like the same proportions when she was going about her daily work. (Woolf, 1992, pp. 65-66)

Through Mary, Woolf’s writing comes to show that the idea of Beauty is indeed, an impression of one’ own

emotion. Mary’s emotion does not reveal the aesthetic value of a work of art. Her way of seeing does not concern

how beautiful the work of art is, or, its artistic techniques. Mary’s emotion of love illuminates C. Lewis Hind’s

aesthetic theory. When Hind saw the Assyrian Winged Bulls, he noticed not the work of art itself, but his own

feelings—that “something more”, both “strange and stimulating”, transforming “mere technique into mysticism”

(Hind, 1911, pp. 88-91). Mary’s visual experience in the British Museum particularly depicts her “aesthetic

ecstasy” (Bell, 1947, p. 37), coming to show her realization of her desire and her love. Her way of seeing is a very

personal, as if the winged Assyrian bulls and the Elgin Marbles would take her to an epic journey of love.

Here is Keats’ poetic expression of aesthetic emotions, focusing on the Elgin Marbles:

On seeing the Elgin Marbles (by John Keats) My spirit is too weak—mortality Weights heavily on me like unwilling sleep; And each imagined pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick eagle looking at the sky. Yet ’tis a gentle luxury to weep That I have not the cloudy winds to keep Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye. Such dim-conceivèd glories of the brain Bring round the heart an undescribable feud: So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time, with a billowy main, A sun, a shadow of a magnitude. (Ford, 2012, p. 364)

According to Clarke Olney, Keats’ “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles”

were the immediate results of a visit to the British Museum under Haydon’s guidance. On this visit, if one may trust Haydon’s later recollection, the two enthusiasts were accompanied by John Hamilton Reynolds. The marbles made a profound impression upon Keats; and with Haydon as his guide it is little wonder, for he, better perhaps than any man in London, loved the marbles and had mastered their meaning. (Olney, 1934, p. 262)

LONDON IN LOVE 411

Between 1817 and 1818, Keats and the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon began their “intimate friendship”

(Olney, 1934, p. 260), which had a great impact on Keats’ poetry. “Haydon was thirty-one, Keats ten years his

junior: both were young and passionately intense in their love for beauty” (Olney, 1934, p. 261). Both the young

artist’s and the young poet’s (Keats was “virtually unknown”) love for artistic creation makes them think about

each other as “truly one of those, / Whose sense discerns the loveliness of things” (Olney,1934, p. 260).

Haydon believes that art should be the “powerful”, the “grand”, in order to achieve the “highest”, the “most

‘sublime’ themes” (Olney, 1934, p. 274). This aesthetic ideology somehow does not necessarily represent Keats’

own poetic senses, as his “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” would show. Although “sorrow” and “hopeless love”

(Olney, 1934, p. 275) in Keats’ poem are not exactly the emotions that Haydon needs, for his grand “historical or

religious themes” (Olney, 1934, p. 275), the intense friendship between two artists somehow becomes immortal,

as Beauty and the intense aesthetic emotions the viewer’s—which is “a gentle luxury” to cry (Ford, 2012, p. 364).

Conclusion

Through literary texts, readers are able to identify words which represent feelings of love. An understanding

of love is difficult to achieve, as there is no single way to define love. Words and images are in the same

complexity, trying to express the moment of eternity that one feels in love. As one gazes at the work of art,

somehow imagination and feeling come together, synthesizing the meaning of love, as a part of experiences in

life.

References

Bell, C. (1947). Art. London: Chatto and Windus. Ford, M. (2012). London: A history in verse. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hind, C. L. (1911). The post-impressionists. London: Methuen. Marx, U., Schwartz, G., Schwartz M., & Wizisla, E. (Eds.) (2007). Walter Benjamin’s Archive: Images, Texts, Signs. London:

Verso,. Olney, C. (1934). John Keats and Benjamin Robert Haydon. PMLA, 49(1), 258-275. Woolf, V. (1992). Night and day. J. Briggs, (Ed.). London: Penguin.


Mother Images in Carol Ann Duffy’s Poetry

ZHOU Jie

Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China

“Mother” is sometimes associated with “other”. The same is true in some of Carol Ann Duffy’s poems, in which

some mothers are described as institutionalized in the patriarchal society and considered as “the other”, losing

self-identity. Duffy also describes women fighting against the patriarchal control generation after generation until

they are finally free. Some mothers exhibit their own potentials as mothers, either able to or unable to fulfill the

duties of both material and spiritual caretakers of the family.

Keywords: Carol Ann Duffy’s poems, mother, other, institutionalized, potentials

Introduction

Carol Ann Duffy (1955-), the first woman poet laureate appointed to the position in British history, owes

both to the second-generation feminist in the 1970s and post-feminist poetics. She pays attention to women

experience, to their sufferings and difficulties, including their identification as mothers. In her poems, some

mothers are identified as institutionalized under male control to criticize the patriarchal control of motherhood,

and some other mothers are with their own potentials to call on women’s full play of their initiative to be

care-taking and responsible mothers.

Mothers Identified as Institutionalized Under Male Control

In different cultures and historical period “most women perform the role of the mother in the institution of

motherhood”(SHI, 2004, p. 28). As “a cultural construction”, motherhood is analyzed by Rich as an institution in

patriarchy, a female experience shaped by male expectations by Rich. Women’s mothering is thus defined and

controlled by the patriarchal society, in which women live. The “patriarchal gaze” force women to obey the rules

of mothering established by the dominant patriarchal culture. Women have no authority, nor perceptions, nor

values of their own. Motherhood is not only imprisoned by patriarchy, but also turned into a form of oppression

and exploitation, alienated from other women and from their bodies. “Woman’s place is the inner space of the

home; woman’s anatomy lays on her an ethical imperative to be maternal in the sense of masochistic, patient,

pacific; women without children are ‘unfulfilled’, ‘barren’, and empty women” (Rich, 1976, pp. 97-98). Women

are deprived of the rights to choose whether to be or not to be a mother. They can not escape the trap of

motherhood, and have to become victims of the institution of motherhood. Women have to sacrifice a lot, because

all mothers are saintly in the religion of maternity. Behind the sanctity are women’s loss of motherhood, the loss

of the true nature of a woman’s self, and the feeling of being wasted and fragile. Because institutionalized

ZHOU Jie, Ph.D., professor, School of Applied English Studies, Shandong University of Finance and Economics.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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MOTHER IMAGES IN CAROL ANN DUFFY’S POETRY 413

motherhood causes pain and distorts women’s lives, writers can create new and feminist possibilities in defining

the experience of being a mother. So does Duffy, who wrote poems like “Whoever She Was”, “Recognition”, and

“A Clear Note”, etc., in which the mother is identified as institutionalized under male control.

As an example of a woman character whose identity is constructed upon her motherhood, the mother in the

poem “Whoever She Was” from Standing Female Nude is considered as an “idealized mother”, “A figure

produced and then consumed for a ‘shilling’”, and “an object of exchange” (Kinnahan, 2004, p. 157). According

to the poem, it seems that the mother’s children have all grown up and left home, and the mother is left in

confusion, unable to find her own identity as a mother and lost in who she is, just because of no children around

her. She can only find fragments of memory and phrases.

In the first stanza of the poem, there are several images that describe the woman in a loss of self-identity.

First, she is “a flickering figure/on a shilling screen. Not real” (Duffy, 1985, lines 1-2), of no importance or

significance. Secondly, her “still wet” (Duffy, 1985, line 3) hands were associated with “sprout wooden pegs”

(Duffy, 1985, line 3), stereotyped images for hard-working housewife. Thirdly, when she hung the washing out,

she smelt “the apples / burning” (Duffy, 1985, lines 3-4), an image that shows that she has lost efficiency as a

housewife. Besides images of vision and olfaction, the poet describes “little voices of the ghosts/of children on

the telephone” (Duffy, 1985, line 5), calling “Mummy”. The word “ghosts” shows that in the mother’s mind the

telephone call from her children sounds unreal. Obviously, the woman can only find her identity as a mother.

After her children left her, she is left with fragments of memories of her life as a mother, and loss of self-identity.

She can only identify herself with images of nursing and mothering, all traditional pictures of representative

mother images.

Her memories are all about mothering and nursing. She remembers “The film is on a loop. Six silly

ladies/torn in half by baby fists” (Duffy, 1985, lines 9-12), and herself bending over her children at night to kiss

them. She remembers the perfume, the rustle of silk, and how she whispers “Sleep tight” to her children. She is

wholly devoted to her role as a mother, and even “her maiden name sounds wrong” (Duffy, 1985, lines 16-17).

She is unable to forget about her children, her duty, and role as a mother. She would keep the playroom and the

photographs, turning the playroom over “on a clumsy tongue”, and “making masks/from turnips in the

candlelight./In case they come” (Duffy, 1985, lines 17-20).

The death of the woman’s maternal existence, or the loss of her identity as a mother, is revealed by biblical

metaphors in the following lines: “Whoever she was, forever their wide eyes watch her/as she shapes a church

and steeple in the air” (Duffy, 1985, lines 21-22). And the use of “her” that seems to be causing confusion in the

use of pronouns shows her confusion in finding herself. She is so trapped in motherhood that she feels as if her

life has ended after her fulfillment of her maternal responsibility.

The mother is obviously identified as being house-bound, taking care of housework, because “the woman’s

role is that of housewife, mother, consumer of goods, and emotional support of men and children” (LIU, 2008, p.

38), but as her life is limited to cooking, nursing, cleaning, washing, and childcare, she knows nothing else. So in

the end of the poem are two italicized lines: “You open your dead eyes to look in the mirror / which they are

holding to your mouth” (Duffy, 1985, lines 27-28). After the children leave home, she seems to be “dead” and

loses her identity. As pointed out by Rich, the home has become “a part of the world, a center of work, a

subsistence unit” (LIU, 2008, p. 38), but “not a refuge, a place for pleasure and retreat from the cruelty of the


‘outside world’” (ibid). The woman always had to see to children’s needs in the privatized home. She is so

devoted to it that she not only developed complicated, subversive feelings but also a feeling of “desperate

loneliness” (ibid), because she has no contact with other people.

A similar woman is described in “Recognition” from Selling Manhattan. This is a middle-aged woman who

can only identify herself by devoting her life to housework and finally realize that her life as a housewife is a kind

of waste. The poem contrasts the woman as a girl with a mother and wife, showing how a happy girl can lose her

self-identity and turn into a dull housewife.

Her self-identity is found in her children, her husband and housework, but she finally identifies herself with

the waste. The poet shows the change time has brought onto the woman’s weight and face: she used to be lighter

and her face was not swollen, but now she “put powder on, /but it flakes off” (Duffy, 1987, lines 8-9). She

identifies herself in her relationship with her husband. She talks about her husband: “I love him/through habit, but

the proof/has evaporated./He gets upset” (Duffy, 1987, lines 9-11), and tries her best to be qualified as a source of

love and warmth and care for the family, or at least for her husband, who seems to be dissatisfied. She identifies

herself as a housewife, whose duty includes shopping, when she tries “to do all the essentials/on one trip” (Duffy,

1987, lines 12-13). Obviously she has submitted herself to the role of a housewife, and has developed a habit of

buying all the essentials once to save time. In doing so, she realizes how foolish it is, and she is in sadness in the

past beautiful memory. She weeps as she sees “creamy ladies held a pose” (Duffy, 1987, line 20) in the window,

because she is left “clogged and old” (Duffy, 1987, line 21). Finally she identified herself as “The waste” (Duffy,

1987, line 22), almost forgets her purse and fumbled, making the shop girl gape at her coldly.

The poem ends with a description of confusion, showing the woman failing to recognize herself when

shopping, which is also a failure or a loss of self-identity.

Three Generations Against the Trap

Three women in different generations of a family are described in “A Clear Note” from Standing Female

Nude. This is a long poem with 144 lines, in three parts, each of which contains the dramatic monologue of a

respective woman from three generations of one family. Both the grandmother Agatha and the mother Moll have

experienced unfulfilled lives because of the trap of the patriarchal society and marriage as institutionalized. And

both advise their daughters try not to be trapped in motherhood but to develop their own potentials.

Agatha, of the first generation, emigrated from Ireland to Scotland, is identified as a nurse for eight children,

“tending the dying./Four kids to each breast” (Duffy, 1985, Canto1, line 2). For her whole life, she hopes for “the

fields of Ireland only/and a man to delight” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 1, lines 9-10), but all she can get is “a move

across the water/to Glasgow and long years of loathing / with the devil she has married” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 1,

lines 14-16). This is a typical woman that is born in the early twentieth century, devoted to her role as a mother

and wife, with a dissatisfying husband, because he would “kiss me goodnight – me weeping in my bed”, or “turn

away cold, back rigid,/but come home from work and take me on the floor / with his boots on and his blue eyes

shut” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 1, lines 5-8). With this loveless husband and her own dreams unfulfilled, her heart is

broken: “Again and again throwing life from my loins / like a spider with enough rope / spinning and wringing its

neck. And he / wouldn’t so much as hold me after the act” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 1, lines 17-20). The “love” life

between the wife and husband is brutal and mechanical, and she gives births like a spider spinning and wringing


its neck, trapped. Thinking that “it won’t be over till one of us is dead” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 1, line 21), she feels

frustrated because her dreams as a woman has been suppressed by her husband. Her only hope is “Don’t bury him

on top of me. Please./I had a voice once, but it’s broken” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 1, lines 23-24). But unfortunately

he is buried on top of her finally, making her afterlife still oppressed by him. Her revolt against her husband can

only be expressed with insulting words, such as “scunner”, “the devil”, “a corpse”, and “that bastard”, etc.

Moll, of the second generation, is a daughter of Agatha’s, born in the mid twentieth century. She is in need

of convincing herself of her identity. Her husband is not as brutal as her father is, but he does not want her to work,

even though the “job pays well, but more than that,/there’s the freedom. Your father’s against it” (Duffy, 1985,

Canto 2, lines 9-10). She wants to go out to work, and “fly to stay with you alone”, so she tells Bernadette, the

only daughter among her five children, about the fights between her and her husband, because he “broods on what

I’d get up to / given half the chance. Men!” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 2, lines 33-36) The word “Men!” is obviously

with hatred for men. Moll is imprisoned by the traditional idea of the responsibility of a housewife within the

house, unable to go out to work. Patrick Jenkin in 1979 frankly denied women of the same right as men to work,

which shows the traditional idea of women not at work from the nineteenth century and that of the Thatcherite

family (Kinnahan, 2004). Moll advises her daughter not to give birth to babies but give birth to her own life,

which she had failed to do so herself, because she’s trapped by her four sons and her husband “like gold leaf”, and

her, “with a black hole of resources” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 2, lines 37-40). Unlike Agatha, Moll is able to talk

about her sexual desires with her daughter. Besides complaints, she is also able to talk about women’s liberation.

She tries to change the feminine image by wearing men’s cap. Having had the chance to work out of the house,

she is surely one of the generation having benefited from the first wave feminist movement. But because of the

patriarchal system, she is still trapped in the family.

Bernadette, the third generation, having known how Agatha and Moll end their lives unfulfilled because

they have been unable to “swim in impossible seas/under the moon” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 2, lines 46-47), is able

to identify herself. She has kept in mind the sadness and hardship of the older generation’s lives, “The hopes of

your thousand mothers/sing with a clear note inside you/Away, while you can, and travel the world” (Duffy, 1985,

Canto 2, lines 26-28), and she kept her mother’s words about giving birth to her own life. So she swims “with

ease in all /possible seas” (Duffy, 1985, Canto 2, lines 33-34). Her mother’s dream to swim in impossible seas is

realized in the daughter’s life. As the third generation of the family, she has successfully liberated herself from

traditional women’s role and finds her own identity as an independent and free woman.

Mothers Identified as With Their Own Potentials

Besides criticizing the patriarchal system that destroys women’s lives by institutionalizing motherhood and

showing women’s hardship in their fight for liberation and freedom, Duffy also wrote poems to identify women

as being able to, or having failed to, develop their potentials or fulfill their duties as mothers.

The mother bears the weight of Eve’s transgression (is, thus, the first offender, the polluted on, the polluter) yet precisely because of this she is expected to carry the burden of male salvation. Lest she fall, there are horrible examples to warn her. (LIU, 2008, p. 31)

Horrible Examples

One horrible example Duffy gives is the mother of Byron, who is said to have laid the foundation of her


son’s preeminence in guilt. It is thought that for the crimes of the poet Lord Byron, his mother deserves the curse,

because she has fostered those passions in his youthful heart. In Duffy’s poems, mothers like Byron’s mother lay

foundations of their children’s preeminence in guilt, as shown in the poem “Psychopath”, or lay foundations of

her child’s preeminence in tragedy, as shown in the poem “Girl Talking”, or neglect their child in their growth, or

lay foundations of her child’s preeminence in language use, as in the poem “The Way My Mother speaks”, or the

mother is not only a material housekeeper, but also a spiritual housekeeper, as in such poems as “Litany” or

“Mouth, with Soap”. All of these poems show the importance of a mother to her child or children, showing

mothers identified with potential to influence their children.

In the poem “Psychopath” from Selling Manhattan, there is a mother like the mother of Byron’s. This is

proved by the psychopath’s memory and words, after he kills the girl, “Mama, straight up. I hope you rot in hell”

(Duffy, 1987, line 41), which shows his hatred for his mother who has done that shameful thing. He remembers

the old man who “sloped off, sharpish. I saw her through the kitchen window”(Duffy, 1987, line 42). In his

memory, “the sky slammed down on” his school cap, and his sandwiches “were near her thigh, then the Rent Man

/ lift her cigarette” and he “ran, ran…” (Duffy, 1987, lines 43-46). Obviously, the little boy is influenced by his

mother’s adultery, which led him to a woman at age 12 and turned him into a psychopath, and finally he

committed such crimes as rapes and killing. Another example is the mother in the poem “Model Village” from

Selling Manhattan. The speaker, Miss Maiden, poisoned her mother, because of a lover waiting for her for years,

but rejected by her mother. So when the man didn’t come back, Miss Maiden, faced with her mother’s lips of

reproach, got the idea of poisoning her. The mother turns out to be an obstacle for Miss Maiden’s love, or

marriage, and led to the daughter’s hatred and crime.

Therefore, mothers are responsible for their children’s growth. But they are unable to offer help to their

children when they are confined by the patriarchal system. In “Girl Talking” from Standing Female Nude, the

mother is just as passive as her daughter, after whose death, she can only “held her down” and “cried”. The

mother has been too obedient to men and the patriarchal society to have her own thoughts. In some way, her

ignorance and obedience partly led to her daughter’s tragedy. Similar mothers are described In “Comprehensive”

from Standing Female Nude, when the fourth speaker feels bored, and says that “My mum is bad with her nerves.

She won’t/let me do nothing” (Duffy, 1985, lines 26-27), which proves that the mother is not only being of no

help to her child, but also might have been cause of the child’s boredom. In “Lizzie, Six” and “Education for

Leisure” from Standing Female Nude, children are neglected or ignored, with no description of mother at all.

Mothers as Moral and Spiritual Guide

According to Kinnahan, there is an “interdependence” of the mother’s role as a consumer and the role as a

moral, spiritual guide, and

The interdependence of one role upon the other in the traditional family results, as in the poem, from an inter-splicing of discourses of the maternal, but one that must be policed through strict boundaries to keep out resistant or disruptive discourse. The conversation is contained within the boundaries established by their roles as caretakers of the material and spiritual needs of the family, although clearly their own spiritual needs are unattended (Kinnahan, 2004, pp.158-159).

In the poem “Litany” from Mean Time, the mother is identified as a moral, spiritual guide for her children.

The poet gave the reader the consumer image of married women in the poem by description of the wives’


“stiff-hair”, “red smiles”(Duffy, 1993, line 3), “Mrs. Barr’s American Tan leg”(Duffy, 1993, line 5),

“cellophane”(Duffy, 1993, line 7), “polyester shirts”(Duffy, 1993, line 8), “bright stones in engagement

rings”(Duffy, 1993, line 10), and “sharp hands poised over biscuits”(Duffy, 1993, line 11), etc. And the girl

describes their marriages as “terrible” (Duffy, 1993, line 7), and mentions “the code I learnt at my mother’s knee,

/ pretending to read” (Duffy, 1993, lines 14-15), related to the spiritual life. Because she said “A boy in the

playground…told me / to fuck off” (Duffy, 1993, lines 19-20), her mother came into “uproar” (Duffy, 1993, line

22), made her to apologize, to say “sorry” to “Mrs. Barr, Mrs. Hunt, Mrs. Emery” and “Mrs. Raine”, which shows

her mother’s moral authority to wash her daughter’s mouth with soap.

Mothers can be of great help for their children. For example, in “Comprehensive” from Standing Female

Nude, finding the children’s nostalgia, the first speaker’s mother tries to comfort them by saying that they will get

their own house in England so that they won’t miss their hometown Africa so much. In “Who Loves You” from

The Other Country, the speaking mother expresses her worry about the children’s “travelling in those mystical

machines” (Duffy, 1990, line 1), warns them of people falling from the clouds, getting burned in public places,

being gnawed to shreds, or ending their lives in the shortcut. She also suggests them to “breathe in and out”

(Duffy, 1990, line 3) easy, to “rest where the cool trees drop to a gentle shade” (Duffy, 1990, line 7), to “send me

your voice” (Duffy, 1990, line 11), and to “walk in the light, steadily hurry towards me” (Duffy, 1990, line 15).

She repeated “Safety, safely, safe home” (Duffy, 1990, lines 4, 8, 12, 15, 16) in the last line of each of the four

stanzas to show her worries for her child’s safety and her love and care for them. In “The Way My Mother

Speaks” from The Other Country, the mother is shown as of influence on the child’s use of language. She says her

mother’s phrases to herself in her head when she feels homesick. The speaker repeats the mother’s phrases like

“The day and ever” (Duffy, 1990, lines 5, 20, 21) and “What like is it” (Duffy, 1990, lines 11, 14) “for miles”,

because she is “homesick, free, in love / with the way my mother speaks”.

Daisy Goodwin thinks that Duffy’s poem “The Way My Mother Speaks” shows Carol Ann Duffy’s mother

as “the force behind Carol Ann’s decision to become a poet”. In her article “Carol Ann Duffy: The original good

line girl”1 on The Sunday Times, May 3, 2009, Daisy Goodwin introduces Duffy’s mother, May, as “the first

reader of her poems” 2 from the very beginning. Duffy says, if her mother found her poetry too complex, she

would ask her what they meant and that made Duffy realize the “importance of saying difficult things in simple

language”3. She considers her mother’s “Irish syntax and voice music”4 as what started her love of words, and

she “inherited from her mother a passion for language”.5

Conclusion

Just as Cixous connects the idea of “mother” with the idea of “other”, and occasionally discusses the

relationship between “mother” and “other” and occasionally talks about woman as “other” (Blyth & Susan, 2004,

pp. 22-23), Duffy has written about mothers’ lives both as institutionalized and of self potentials. She shows that

institutionalized mothers in the patriarchal society are considered as “the other” by the society, thus losing

1 See from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6210786.ece 2 See from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6210786.ece 3 See from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6210786.ece 4 See from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6210786.ece 5 See from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6210786.ece


self-identity and their potentials. But mothers with their own potentials are different, with some being able to

fulfill the duties of both material and spiritual caretakers of the family, but some being a failure for various

reasons.

References

Abbott, J. S. (1833). The mother at home, or the principles of maternal duty. New York: American Tract Society. Blyth, I., & Susan, S. (2004). Hélène Cixous: Live theory. London & New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Chodorow, N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. CA: University of California

Press. Cixous, H. (1986). Sorties: Out and out. In H. Cixous & C. Clement (Eds.), The Newly Born Women (pp. 63-132). Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press. Duffy, C. A. (1985). Standing female nude. London: Anvil. Duffy, C. A. (1987). Selling Manhattan. London: Anvil. Duffy, C. A. (1990). The other country. London: Anvil. Duffy, C. A. (1999). The world’s wife. London: Picador. Goodwin, D. (2009, May 3). Carol Ann Duffy: The Original Good Line Girl. The Sunday Times. Retrieved from

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6210786.ece Kinnahan, L. A. (2004). Lyric interventions: Feminism, experimental poetry, and contemporary discourse. Iowa City: University

Of Iowa Press. LIU, Y. (2008). A theoretical reader in motherhood. Wuhan: Wuhan University Press. Rich, A. (1976). Of woman born: Motherhood as experience and institution. New York: W. W. Norton. SHI, P. P.(2004). Mother-daughter relationship & the politics of sex and race. Kaifeng: Henan University Press.


Literary Art as a Vehicle for the Diffusion of Cultural Imperialism

in the Nigerian Society: The Example of Chimamanda Adichie’s

Purple Hibiscus

Adam Ezinwanyi E., E. Michael Adam

Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Nigeria

This paper takes a cursory look at the conceptual framework of what cultural imperialism entails with particular

study of its socio-political consequences in contemporary Nigerian society, and a closer look at the transportation

and importation of western cultural values and the implantation of same in Nigeria thereby almost completely

eclipsing the hitherto African cultural conservatism of the Nigerian state. Clear examples of this cultural transplant

are given in this work, including but not limited to the use of English language in place of the indigenous languages

for communication even when there are no foreigners, smoking of cigarettes, ladies putting on trousers, abortions

as a means of birth control, free premarital and extramarital sexual relationships, and homosexuality and gay

practices. These which were viewed as an anathema to Nigeria’s cultural values have supplanted the traditional

conservatism of the Nigerian people. This work particularly looks at Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and

distills classical cases of cultural imperialism. Adichie through the character Eugene, captures cultural imperialism

as seen in the life of this vastly brainwashed “been-to” who is clearly portrayed as an imperial lackey, capitalist, and

apologist. Also, the character of Rev. Father Benedict, a Briton, who often found any indigenous songs in St. Agnes

Parish was quite offensive. The work also captures cultural imperialism in the ironical contempt with which the

catholic devotee, Eugene, treats his own father, Papa Nnukwu, steeped in the traditional African cultural values,

and Eugene viewes him as Godlessness. The essay concludes by identifying the cultural crises that cultural

imperialism creates in the Nigerian state, and recommends ways of diluting and diffusing the present cultural

imperialism as a solution to the myriad of socio-political crises currently experienced by the Nigerian society.

Keywords: culture, cultural imperialism, cultural values, Purple Hibiscus

Introduction

Cultural imperialism is an integral part of the larger concept of imperialism, which on its own, entails the

political territorial and geographical subjugation of the will, independent and sovereignty of a less powerful state,

to the political will, political control, and authority of a more powerful state. This implies beyond loss of political

Adam Ezinwanyi E., lecturer, Departments of Languages and Literary Studies & International Law and Diplomacy, Babcock

University. E. Michael Adam, lecturer, Departments of Languages and Literary Studies & International Law and Diplomacy, Babcock

University.

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THE EXAMPLE OF CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS 420

territorial, economic, social, and cultural controls by the lesser state or group to the whims of the superior state,

even sometimes, in capricious dimensions. Classical examples abound in history of the concept of imperialism of

Europe, and more currently American imperialism over African and Asian states. It may sound funny and

sometimes, senseless but the truth must be told that the Berlin Conferences of 1884 and 1885 were direct

affronted to civilization, intellectualism, and the acclaim of Renaissance—that is rebirth in learning. For if there

was a rebirth of learning, such learning must have been an upside down conception of learning or else how one

can explain how the major nations of Europe, in pursuit of their obviously “blind” economic and political drive

for prominence, could have come to the conclusion that it was unnecessary to consult or defer to the indigenes of

Africa described as the Black race as they met and deliberated over the political, economic, social, and cultural

future of the great continent of Africa. In their decisions to share up the territory of Africa, they certainly need

input from Africa itself before the inexplicable balkanization. Perhaps, if they had consulted as many as people,

they would not have divided united ethnic groupings into two different or more political entities. An eloquent

example of this assertion is the balkanization of the Yoruba race into Dahomey controlled by the French and

Nigeria controlled by the British.

Each territory the European imperialists took over, either with the brutality of the military might, as in the

case of the colony of Lagos, or with the helplessness of those that surrendered without a fight, as in the cases of

the protectorates of northern and southern Nigeria, was completely brought not only under political, territorial,

geographical, and economic control, but from the imperialist forces directly and indirectly impacted upon the

territory of occupation in respect of the socio-cultural values of such colonized territories. The concept of cultural

imperialism is therefore an outflow from the more foundational and larger in scope concept of imperialism. It is

therefore, the intention of this work to critically appraise the concept of cultural imperialism with a view to distill

and isolate some various possible ways in which cultural imperialism may have negatively impacted on the

socio-political life of the nation, Nigeria. The debut work of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie provides a classical

platform for the exposition of some of these threads of cultural imperialism, and explores possible avenues of

limiting or completely diffusing the unwarranted consequences of this cultural invasion on the socio-political life

of Nigeria, which happens to be the setting of Adichie’s cultural work.

Conceptual Clarification

The concept of culture in its simplest of term means the way of life of the people. For culture to be relevant,

it must be appropriated to a particular definable community of people. For instance, the matrilineal cultural roles

of succession of the Twi people of southern Ghana. It is specifically appropriated to the Twi people. It is true that

culture may acquire inter-temporal and sometimes, inter-spatial characteristics. One thing is certain about culture;

culture is a mirror of acceptable usage. It is a mirror of acceptable usage because through culture, a scholar or

visitor to a given community may be in a position to appreciate or understand the true values of a society which is

the subject matter of study or inquest.

Culture, therefore, means the way and manner a particular people live their lives, such as the way they eat,

the way they build, the way they dress, the nature of their housing, their mode of transportation, the food they eat,

the way they share things, their ceremonies, the way they marry or give away in marriage, the way they speak

their language, the way they sing their songs, the way they dance, the way they bury their loved ones, the type of


occupation or work they are engaged in, their rules of paternity, their rules of administration of estates, especially

in cases of intestate succession, rules related to adoption, rules related to crafts and works of art, rules relating to

education, folklore, literature, and learning. In short, the concept of culture is an all pervading concept. To know

a people entails the study of their culture for in it, lies the wisdom, values, and morals that inspire their conducts

or action. It is, therefore, instructive that the easiest way to run into socio-political crisis in any community will be

to pretend that their cultural values or heritage are of no moment and perhaps, may be viewed as barbaric.

In Nigeria’s post 1914 amalgamation experience, the British discovered that they could run into cultural

brick walls and therefore, invented the indirect rule system through which they, the British, did not need to deal

directly with the people of the various communities of the protectorates of Nigeria. Obviously, among the various

justification for the introduction of the indirect rule system, apart from it being a cost saving effort and providing

the solution to the paucity of British personnel, the more significant factor but little talked about was the fact that

the British did not understand the culture of the various communities in Nigeria, and they conveniently made no

serious efforts in that direction as they viewed the cultural practices of the various communities in Nigeria, as not

only anachronistic but also barbaric.

Culture is of a dynamic nature as it changes from place to place, and from generation to generation. What

may be culturally accepted in Kumasi of Ghana may be viewed as culturally reprehensible in the Nigerian city of

Calabar. It is important to note that what may be acceptable culture today may have been viewed with revulsion,

100 years ago, in a given community. Another significant attribute of culture is the character of acceptability. For

a particular culture to be valid or relevant, it must be acceptable to the people of the community where such a

culture is situated. For instance, the Hindus predominantly in India culturally practice cremation, that is, they

burn the remains of the dead until it is reduced to just ashes, but such a cultural practice will be viewed as

repugnant to the sensibilities of the Ibibio people of Nigeria.

Culture represents “the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviours, and even material objects that are

passed from one generation to the next” (Henslin, 1995, p. 35). Culture in this respect will include material

objects that distinguish a group of people like the buildings, works of art, machinery, clothing, jewelry, hairstyles,

utensils, and weapons. While the non material culture includes the community’s ways of thinking like its beliefs,

values, and other assumptions about the world, and its common patterns of behaviour including language and

other forms of interaction. Culture, according to Rothkopf (1997), is quite dynamic and often grows out of a

systematically encouraged reverence for selected customs and habits. In other words, no present day culture is a

product of merely one historic or political source, rather people continually re-establish their culture by what they

choose to accept.

Cultural imperialism, on the other hand, has been defined by Hamm and Smandych (2005), White (2001) as

the domination of one culture over another other by a deliberate policy or by economic or technological

superiority. According to Pellerin (2006), cultural imperialism “can take the form of a general attitude or an

active, formal and deliberate policy, even including (or resulting from) military action. It can also be due to

economic or technological factors”. Cultural imperialism therefore arises where there is a deliberate attempt to

downplay an extant culture of a group or community in preference for the cultural values of an imperial power. It

was this experience that the various cultural groups in most part of Africa, including what Nigeria went through

and it is still going through as a result of the compulsive transplantation of their cultural values with the colonial


masters’ values. With particular reference to Nigeria, several cultural taboos were introduced by the British and

in fact, became the order of the day as a result of the ethnocentrism of the perfidious Albion. Ethnocentrism, in

this respect, means the use of one’s own culture as a yardstick for judging the way of other individuals, groups, or

communities, generally leading to a negative evaluation of their values, norms, and behaviour.

There is no gain saying the fact that the sudden intrusion towards the end of the 19th century all through the

20th century and through the current period of neocolonialism had created an abrupt cultural shock for the

indigenes of the invaded cultures of Nigeria. Cultural shock refers to “the disorientation that people experience

when they come in contact with a fundamentally different culture and can no longer depend on their

taken-for-granted assumptions about life” (Henslin, 1995, p. 36). To this end, the impact of the intruding

imperialist culture of courtship and dating introduced by the British was hardly understood by the disoriented

young generations of Nigeria. This to a large extent accounts for a high incidence of premarital sexual

gratification among the youth. This has also resulted to unwanted pregnancies, illegal abortions, and sometimes,

though sadly, premature death of the teenage girls.

The above example is but one of several socio-political crises that was engendered by cultural imperialism.

In fact, this has been didactively captured by the celebrated debut work of Chimamanda Adichie, Purple

Hibiscus.

Cultural Imperialism in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (2004)

This work deliberately avoided giving so many other instances of cultural imperialism in Nigeria in the

abstract as the work, the subject matter of this study is replete with so many instances of cultural shocks arising

from the imposition of the imperialist culture on the Nigerian cultural system. To understand the work itself, it is

necessary to start with the author.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in the post-independent Nigeria, precisely 1977. Her background of

growing up and substantially being educated in Nigeria, from primary to university, where she was engaged in

the study of Medicine in one of the Universities in Nigeria afforded her a grand opportunity of experiencing first

hand, the true consequences of cultural imperialism. She has published short stories in literary magazines in

Nigeria, the UK, and USA, where she relocated to and curiously made a switch to the humanities where she

picked a degree in Mass Communication instead of completing her studies in the medical science. This switch

may yet prove to be one of the most significant of her life decisions as a study of Purple Hibiscus her debut work,

which is already drawing subtle comparisons to the works of one of the masters of African literature, Chinua

Achebe. She has tried to echo through her delicate manipulation of syntax, throb and her control of irony, and

suspense and her mastery of those cultural details that have positioned her work worthy of literary appraisal,

especially in the area of the clash of cultures between the imperialist West and the indigenous African value

system.

The setting of the work is Nigeria but particularly the eastern part of Nigeria with Enugu, the Capital of the

former Eastern region as the most prominent setting for this work. The novel captures amongst other themes and

issues the trauma of conflict and clashes of cultural values in a family setting of one of Nigeria’s wealthy elitist

families. It clearly brings out the clash of values between the father of the home, Eugene had imbibed not only the

invading imperialist culture while growing up in colonial Nigeria, but his sojourn in Britain for further studies


had completely disoriented the “been-to” culturally and easily pitted him against the cultural realities of his Igbo

ethnic group, and that of his extended and nuclear family as can been seen in the revulsion with which he held his

father, Papa Nnukwu. In fact, the clash of cultures is reflected by the sharp contrast between Eugene, who

represents the dominant tunes of the Western culture and his aged father who represents the “aging” fast receding

cultural values of the black man in Nigeria. It will not be over presumptuous to say that the sad emasculation of

the African culture by the cultural values of western civilization has greatly contributed to the breakdown and

crisis of the socio-political life of contemporary Nigeria.

Adichie shows mastery of Catholicism most likely from her background of a devote Catholic. She portrays

Christianity and particularly the conservatism of Catholicism, especially the brand from the West without an

admixture of some Africanness as another brand. Clearly representative of this brand of cultural values of the

West is the character, Father Benedict, who is an epitome of ethnocentrism. Father Benedict’s lack of interest in

studying the cultural heritage of the “Godless” people he had come from England to evangelize was clearly

pictured in contrast to the character of the young and newly ordained Priest who was invited by Father Benedict

as a visiting Priest to take charge of Mass on Pentecost Sunday in St. Agnes Parish (Adichie, 2004). Contrary to

his friend’s, Father Benedict, insistence on English songs and choruses during Mass completely stopping the use

of indigenous songs and choruses, the young Priest, half way through his sermon, broke into an Igbo song, “Bunie

ya enu….” (Adichie, 2004, p. 28), to the shock of the indigenous audience that had been browbeaten to accept the

English songs as the only medium of spiritual transcendence to heaven. Predictably, this action of the young

Priest also pitted him against the unrepentant “been-to” and fanatic, Eugene, who rather viewed the Priest as a

Godless leader. To him, the young Priest represents Godlessness for that singular act of deference to Igbo cultural

value of indigenous songs. In his words, “That young Priest, singing in the sermon like a Godless leader of one of

these Pentecostal churches that spring up everywhere like mushrooms. People like him bring trouble to the

church. We must remember to pray for him” (Adichie, 2004, p. 29).

The clash of cultures is also depicted in the home of Eugene who hardly spoke the indigenous language with

strong preference for English language as opposed to his wife, Beatrice who does not only speak the indigenous

language but also sings songs in Igbo, especially when her husband is not around. Beatrice’s lifestyle was

opposed to her husband’s conservative expectation of Western cultural comportment in carriage and speech. For

instance, she sang a praise song in Igbo, “O me mma, Chineke, O me mma…” (Adichie, 2004, p. 39), and hugged

Jaja and Kambili, her son and daughter, to welcome them back home from school at the end of a term.

The conservative cultural values bring together Eugene and Father Benedict as opposed to the other two

classes that resulted on account of this clash in cultures. While the two men represent the first class, that is the

conservative Western culture, a second class evolves which is made up of those who have accepted some values

of the Western culture and some of the African indigenous culture. This class is represented by the Young Priest,

Aunty Ifeoma and her children, Beatrice and her children, Father Amadi, and others, especially in St. Agnes

Parish. This group promotes their indigenous cultural values of respect for elderly people, humility and

submission by the women, communalism as opposed to the individualism of the West, as seen in pages 83, 90 to

91, 94 to 95, and 172, of Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. This group also admires the enlightenment and sophistry,

shown basically in Christian religion, education, and technology development, of Western culture and

civilization. Perhaps, they represent what Karl Marx had in mind when he viewed religion as “the opium of the


people”. The third class is represented by Papa Nnukwu, a representative of the fast fading group that believes

absolutely in the African cultural values and belief system.

The religion of the Christian God certainly has lots of advantages but the hypocrisy of its adherents as can be

seen in Eugene’s remonstration and condemnation of his own wife expectant in her last trimester for feeling too

ill and tired to follow him after Mass to the parsonage for his usual ritual of visiting Father Benedict each Sunday

after Mass. His insistence was un-Christ-like. Scholars of Christian Religious Studies would not fail to recognize

the hollowness or mere ritualistic compliance with religious or sacramental standards. This is quite ironical as

Jesus Christ represents the deepest epitome of love. As a king, He could leave his home above to die for sinners

like Eugene. Is it not paradoxical that such love could not reflect in the way he related with his wife, children, and

extended family, especially his own father whom he despised so much for his belief in African traditional religion,

culture, and values? He refused to visit his father when he was sick despite his elitist and intellectual sophistry.

His high-mindedness and unrequited love caused Papa Nnukwu a broken heart and deep sorrow which affected

his health and finally led to his death. Ironically, it was the same father that Eugene made a big public show of and

spared no expenses in giving him a “befitting” and glamorous funeral.

Adichie is a master at the manipulation of plots to drive home the ironies and paradoxes that arise out of this

clash of cultures. This can be seen during the visit of Eugene and his wife to the Igwe of his village. The wife

curtsied to greet the Igwe (King) and Eugene felt a sense of revulsion and reprimanded her openly for bowing to

“a mere human being” (Adichie, 2004, p. 93) making a reference to the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, verse

five. The plot played out itself where the heroine, Kambili, in attempt to please her father, afterwards, refuses to

bow and kiss the ring of the Bishop at Awka (Adichie, 2004, p. 94). Kambili, who had witnessed the reprimand

of her mother by her father, was shocked at the father for angrily yanking her ear for disgracing him and

dishonouring God by not bowing to the Bishop. What arrant contradiction and unctuous hypocrisy. The Igwe as

well as the Bishop are both men created by God. Both are respected leaders in their respective socio-cultural

settings.

The character of Eugene may not be an exact representation of the quintessential protagonist of the cultural

superiority of the western culture over African indigenous culture. This fictional character may not be necessarily,

intentionally, have been advocating “everything good” in the British cultural values. He can also be viewed as a

victim of the cultural crises that result when a foreign culture forcefully replaces an indigenous culture as was the

case in Nigeria and most African countries. In fact, Africans like Eugene may be perceived as psychopaths,

directly suffering from psychological crisis on account of the invasion of his original, indigenous cultural values

by a foreign culture hardly understood by such victims.

It must also be observed that Adichie has painted a disagreeable picture of worship sections in contemporary

Catholic and other Christian churches. For in contemporary worship services, in such churches, there has been

undeniable transcendence of indigenous cultural values through the native songs and languages, clapping of

hands and drumming and even services conducted entirely in the indigenous languages. Perhaps, Adichie’s elitist

background has prevented her from capturing and reflecting on such cultural realities, especially in the rural

areas.


Conclusion

The crises of cultural imperialism clearly depict the lack of learning or an upside down conceptualization of

knowledge acquired for only selfish ends. For in spite of the renaissance or the rebirth of learning, the European

powers could sit at their various conferences, especially epitomized by the Berlin Conferences and decide the fate

of other peoples of the world without any deference to them. This act of ethnocentrism allowed the imperial

powers including Britain in their pursuit of self interest to be blinded to the need to study and take advantage of

the unique and rich indigenous cultures of the African people. The theory of conflict between cultures and the

consequent crisis, like destruction of family life, communalism, love to one’s fellow men, and respect to elders

which were taken-for-granted orientations of the African culture suffered disorientation and cultural shocks as a

result of cultural imperialism.

In fact, Adichie has in her brilliant combination of irony, syntax, and suspense, completely manipulated

Purple Hibiscus to reflect the crises engendered by cultural imperialism and in several ways, scholars have been

called on to seek the diffusion of such crises through a mid-course of accepting the positive values from both

cultural orientations. Her work is also a call for the avoidance of religious fanaticism and extremism. This has

become so germane to Nigeria buffeted by current religious crisis in Jos and the octopus-like bombings of Boko

Haram. This work therefore calls for restraint, tolerance, co-existence, and the spirit of togetherness for there to

be peace and prosperity in Nigeria.

References

Adichie, C. N. (2004). Purple hibiscus. Lagos: Farafina. Hamm, B., & Smandych, R. C. (2005). Cultural imperialism: Essays on the political economy of cultural domination. Canada:

University of Toronto Press. Henslin, J. M. (1995). Sociology: A down to earth approach (2nd ed.) Massachusetts: A. Simon & Schuster Company. King James version of The Holy Bible. Pellerin, B. (2006). Can pop-cultural imperialism be stopped? Retrieved from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism,_on_16/08/2011 Rothkopf, D. (1997). In praise of cultural imperialism? Effects of globalization on culture. Issue of Foreign Policy, June, 38-53. White, L. A. (2001). Reconsidering cultural imperialism theory. Retrieved from

http://tbsjournal.arabmediasociety.com/Archives/Spring01/white.html


Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and the Issue of Feminism

in African Novel

Ibeku Ijeoma

Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria

Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus is a feminist work that challenges the dehumanizing tendencies of the menfolk as

evident in the character of Mama (Beatrice Achike) who eventually exposed the African conception of an ideal

woman who keeps dumb even in the face of humiliation, victimization, and brutality so as to be perceived as a good

woman. We will make a resounding case to portray that Achike belongs to the category of liberal feminism.

However, as events unfolds, she was forced by situations beyond her control to respond and go radical in order to

crush anything that stands in her way to happiness. Efforts will be made to show how African women are rated

based on the real and good women as represented by Ifeoma and Beatrice Achike respectively. This essay in

exploring the different tenets of feminism will acknowledge that radical feminism is an off shoot of violence. We

shall argue that radical feminism is a radical reaction to dehumanization, humiliation, and violence. This study

seeks to address the issue of feminism and how characters subject to series of humiliation that leads to a radical

approach to gain their freedom.

Keywords: feminism, humiliation, subjugation, Catholic, fanatic, patriarchy, real woman, good woman, Africa

Introduction

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has distinguished herself as one of Nigerian’s female writers. She has won so

many awards: The Prestigious Orange Broadband Prize for fiction for her second novel Half of a yellow sun

(2006), winner of 2008 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for

Purple Hibiscus. She is the author of Purple Hibiscus (2003), a collection of Short Stories, The Thing Around

Your Neck, and Americanah (2013), her latest novel. Her works have been translated into thirty languages and

also appeared in various publications like The O. Henry Prize Stories (2003), The New Yorker, Granta, the

Financial Times, Zoetrope, and Farafina magazine.

Adichie focuses her attention on women and what they go through in life, their love for the family, respect

for their husbands even when they treat them shabbily, and how some of them were able to say no to all forms

of violence or subjugation by the menfolk. Udumukwu in his introduction to his book, Signature of Women,

affirms:

There is a sharp contrast between the real woman in postcolonial Africa. Far from being the source of comfort and rest (the sweet mother as she is perceived in popular imagination), the “good” woman in sub-Saharan Africa happens to be that woman who suffers the effects of oppression, and neglect; and who must maintain a silence and passivity in order to remain good. Silence and passivity are two principal features of the good woman. In the media presentation of images

Ibeku Ijeoma Ann, Ph.D. candidate, assistant lecturer, Federal University Oye-Ekiti.

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from troubled regions of Africa, for instance, it is this “good” woman who bears the wicked children of war and disaster. Apart from being passive and silent in the face of radical change, she is also the embodiment of culture and tradition. The important issue, however, is that her passivity and docility have turned out to be potent fodder for her objectification by patriarchy. In other words, she is good because she naturally fits into the mould shaped for her by patriarchy. (Udumukwu, 2007, p. 3)

Adichie in her novel presented two types of women; the good woman (Mama) and the real woman (Aunty

Ifeoma). Mama even when her life was endangered to the extent of losing her pregnancy endured her husband’s

maltreatment but Ifeoma is a kind of woman who is not afraid of anyone and will speak up when things are

going wrong. She tactically presented Mama as quiet and obedient at the beginning of the novel but she became

radical towards the end of the novel to show that she can react when pushed to the wall as will be discussed in

some details presently.

The novel has received wide range of criticism as a result of its significance to the Nigerian novel. Ranti in

his review praises the novel for bringing into the world of the traditional Igbo women and the events that took

place during the Nigeria military regime. She affirms that the novel is “a complex picture of a man struggling

with his demons, taking out his struggles on those he loves: his wife, Beatrice, his son, Jaja, and Kambili, (his

daughter, the protagonist of the novel)” (Ranti, 2012, p. 1). Daniel Massa described Purple Hibiscus as

focusing its attention on “love, cultural dislocation, political oppression, and domestic violence in their search

for personal freedom” (Commonwealth news).

Brenda Cooper is of the notion in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus who “strives for a holistic vision which

integrates Igbo customs and language with catholic ritual and which incorporates men into gender politics and

embraces the literary traditions of her elders—Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Wa Thiong and Alice” (Cooper, 2012, p.

1-12). Most critics see Adichie as following the foot prints of Chinua Achebe because of her use of history in

her writings. Chinua commented in one of her books, Americanah and said that “Adichie came almost fully

made” (Chinua, 2011, p. 1).

Onukaogu and Onyerionwu are of the views that Purple Hibiscus is a feminist novel and based their

argument on what Adichie said as being a “happy feminist” and consider it as being

very strategic in the criticism of her work, on which her feminist temperament reflects in its fullness for Adichie’s prose reveals that she is a synthesis of virtually every feminist tenet; even though the element of subtlety is strong in her narrative. (Onukaogu & Onyerionwu, 2010, p. 195)

It is from here that this study will take its stand.

Feminism and the African Novel

Feminism is derived from the word “femina” which means woman. Therefore, it will be pertinent to state

that feminism is women-oriented and concentrates on issues that concerns women. It is a literary movement

that tends to bring about a change in the society especially on how women are treated; it tries to discourage

discrimination and humiliation on women; it focuses its attention on emancipation of women. Lots of emphasis

has been made on feminism and its stand in the African novel. Women are often relegated to the background

and decisions made by men without their consent. Most African novels present female characters as sex objects,

inferior beings, and those who must obey the rules made by men. Feminism has been described as having many

faces based on the fact that it varies with circumstances surrounding it which can be cultural or historical.

Whatever stands one takes, it will revolve around the gap between men and women.


428

Ogunyemi is among the scholars that would not want to associate themselves with feminism and derives

their own words. She prefers using womanism. She defined feminism as movement that:

smacks of rebelliousness, fearlessness, political awareness of sexism and an unpardonable (from the male view point) drive for equality and equity between sexes. It therefore instills fear in men though it thrills many women. The radical feminist can go as far as doing without the macho male to enjoy her liberty. (Ogunyemi, 1988, p. 61)

She posits that “Womanism, with its myriad manifestations, is therefore a renaissance that aims to

establish healthy relationships among people, despite ethnic, geographical, educational, gender, ethical, class,

religious, military and political differences” (Ogunyemi, 1985, p. 123).

On the same note, she describes Womanism as

the Nigerian woman writer who is constantly aware of the negative connotations of feminist; the fear of being accused by the Nigerian males of allying with the white outsider has turned most Nigerian women writers towards womanism; a black outgrowth from feminism. (Ogunyemi, 1985, p. 124)

She further states that

Womanism is black centered, it is accommodationist. It believes in the freedom and independence of women like feminism; unlike radical feminism, it wants meaningful union between black women and black men and black children and will see to it that men begin to change from their sexiest stand. (Ogunyemi, 1988, p. 65)

By defining both terms, she tries to take a stand on where she belongs.

Similarly, Alice Walker prefers to use womanism and defines it as “a black feminist or feminist of

colour…committed to survival and wholesomeness of entire people, male and female…not a separatist, except

periodically, for health…love struggle, loves the folk, loves herself…” (Walker, 1984, pp. xi-xii)

Obioma Nnaemeka also presents her version of feminism which she prefers to be called “Nego-feminism”

and contends that:

Nego-feminism is the feminism of negotiation; second, nego-feminism stands for no-ego feminism. In the foundation of shared values in many African cultures are the principles of negotiation, give and take, compromise and balance… African feminism (or feminism as I have seen it practiced in Africa) challenges through negotiations and compromise. It knows when, where, and how to detonate patriarchal land mines. In other words, it know when, where, and how to negotiate with or negotiate around patriarchy in different contexts. (Nnaemeka, 1991, pp. 377-378, as cited in Walker, 1984)

Acholonu uses the term “Motherism” as “Africa’s alternative to Western Feminism” (Acholonu, 1995, p.

3). She believes that a motherist is a humanist and environmentalist. She recognizes that women fell in love and

“respects the interconnectedness of all life, the ecosystem and the entire human race” (Acholonu, 1995, p. 112).

Alice Walker prefers to be called a womanist and upholds that “a womanist is a black feminist or feminist of

colour-committed to the survival and wholeness of the entire people, male and female… (but who) loves

herself. Regardless” (Davies & Graves, 1995, p. 5, as cited in Walker, 1984).

Ogundipe-Leslie views that

African feminism for me, therefore, must include issues around the woman’s body, her person, her immediate family, her society, her nation, her continent and their locations within the international economic order because those realities in the international economic order determine African politics and impact on the women. There is no way we can discuss the situation of the African woman today without considering what the IMF policies and World Bank are doing to her status and her conditions. (Ogundipe-Leslie, 1984, p. 228)


429

She later disassociates herself from the word “feminism” and prefers using STIWANISM because the

issues that revolves around using feminism. It means Social Transformation Including Women in Africa and

she postulates that it “is about the inclusion of African women in the contemporary social and political

transformation in Africa” (Ogundipe-Leslie, 1984, p. 230).

It is obvious from the above that most women writers do not want to associate themselves with feminism

but there are some that accepts it, to the extent of calling themselves “happy feminist” in the likes of

Chimamanda Adichie and Ama Ata Aidoo in a keynote address in which they gave the opinion that

when people ask me rather bluntly every now and then whether I am a feminist, I not only answer yes, but I go on to insist that every woman and every man should be a feminist- especially if they believe that Africans should take charge of African land, African wealth, African lives and the burden of African development. It is not possible to advocate independence for the African continent without also believing that African women must have the best that the environment can offer. For some of us, this is the crucial element in our feminism. (Adichie, 2007, p.47)

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in her essay, “Placing Women’s History in History” argues that feminism places

women at the center of history by recognizing their peculiar roles and contribution in the shaping of history

(Fox-Genovese, 1982, p. 29). Filomena Steady views that feminism is about the issues that affect the African

women and they are out in liberating themselves in order to be free.

Charlotte Bunch in his opinion states the importance of theory in feminism when he states that:

Theory enables us to see immediate needs in terms of long-range goals and an overall perspective on the world. It thus gives us a framework for evaluating various strategies in both the long and the short run and for seeing the types of changes that they are likely to produce. Theory is not just a body of facts or a set of personal opinions. It involves explanations and hypotheses that are based on available knowledge and experience. It is also dependent on conjecture and insight about how to interpret those facts and experiences and their significance. (Hooks, 1984, p. 30)

Nnolim took a different stand in his definition of Feminism and sees it as an image of “a house divided”

(Nnolim, 2003, pp. 248-261). He views that women are fighting themselves through the ways they present their

female characters in most of their novels. M. J. C. Echeruo makes a critical assertion to the task that lies ahead

for African Feminism when he states that the task that remains is for African Feminism to establish the general

and theoretical bases for making the hard choices which Dr. Acholonu says lie ahead: between a radical

dismantling of patriarchy and a zealous movement or reconciliation and compromises. It is a task to keep

African women and all those others who write on the African condition busy for a long, long time.

Udumukwu in his book Signature of women affirms:

Women’s distinctive approach to various situations and problems posed by life and living in Africa has drawn increasing attention in recent times. The latter part of the twentieth century witnessed the growth of an enormous volume of literature written by women and for women. This literature has underscored the view that the images of women usually found in literature have been created by men without any true reference to the peculiarity of women’s experiences. In African literature, for instance, men have mostly written of women in their own context as sexual objects, as mothers of children as daughter and as mistresses and goddesses. These female stereotypes turn out to conform with the traditional patriarchal view of the woman as inferior to man. (Udumukwu, 2007, p. 5)

This was the situation in Africa before women started writing and concentrated on a common theme which

Udumukwu refers to as “the recognition of the need to place women at the Centre rather than at the periphery”

(Udumukwu, 2007, p. 5).

Kate Millet, who is a radical figure in second war of feminism, views that Patriarchy subordinate the


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female to the male, it treats the female as inferior to male and this power is exerted directly or indirectly, in

civil and domestic life to constrain women…Millet recognizes that women as much as men perpetuate these

attitudes and the action out of these sex roles in the unequal and repressive relations or dominations and

subordination in what Millet calls “sexual politics” (Millet, 1973, p. 173) .

Nnolim sees feminism as an image of “a house divided”. He views that women are fighting themselves

through the ways they present their characters in their novels “With so many African female writers unsure of

the future of feminism and of their rebellious female characters that they often destroy or make mad, one could

predict a bleak future for the movement” (Nnolim, 2003, p. 19). Chukwuma in response to the above assertion

by Nnolim affirms “Nnolim’s fear of equality between the sexes as a result of such female exposure and push is

natural for one who all his life has been on the supremacy ladder, and is now in defense of his gender”

(Chukwuma, 1994a, p. xxii). She further states “the women turn out to be the foundation on which the house

rests” (Chukwuma, 1994a, p. xiii). In the same vein, Akachi Ezeigbo in response to Nnolim’s assertion posits:

“the beauty of existence is seen in controversy, contention, even in discordant voices which would definitely

end harmoniously, after everyone has probably had a say. If it does not, then people will have to ‘agree to

disagree’” (Snail–Sense, p. 40, as cited in Ezeigbo, 1991). An example of “a house divided” can be found in

Onwueme’s “Tell It To Women” when Yemoja, a female character laments on how she is treated: “If I am not

trapped in a husband’s chain or father’s chain, I’m trapped in another woman’s chain. Where is the way?

Where is the free—free—freedom that these women talk about? (Onwueme, 1994, p. 13).

Maduka in a paper titled “Feminism and the Nigerian Female Critic: A Metacritical Statement” believes

that

Feminism is systematically assuming a strategic position in Nigerian critical discourse. This is largely due to the emergence of female academics/ critics who have consistently used their works to challenge the dehumanizing tendencies of the patriarchal socio-political institutions in the country. (Maduka, 2001, p. 227)

Stegeman believes that feminism is a course embarked upon by women and she views that

the new woman who promotes a theory of personhood where the individual exists as an independent entity rather than a group member, where she is defined by her experiences rather than her kinship relations, where she has a responsibility to realize her potential for happiness rather than quantitative financial worth, and where she must reason about her own values, rather than fit into stereotyped traditions. (Stegeman, 1974, p. 90)

Similarly, Adichie affirms

An integrated house constructed on a foundation, consisting of a myriad of African feminist thoughts, is expected to weather the raging storms and robustly play out amidst panoply of concepts and dialectics. And the feminist current remains relevant in this female phase as the women struggles with the stress-related thing around their neck that nearly chokes her before she falls asleep. (Adichie, 2006, pp.119, 125)

Feminism as Seen in the Novel

Adichie presented the two different types of feminism: African feminism which is often seen as being

liberal and tolerates men and Radical feminism which uses violence in order to gain their freedom. The novel

made it clear that Radical feminism is usually a reaction to violence. It is a measure taken by the victimized to

gain his/her freedom. At the beginning of the novel, Mama (Beatrice Achike) tolerates the brutality and

victimization from her husband as an African woman so as to be regarded as a good woman for the sake of her


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society. In African tradition, it is a taboo to be a divorcee. From the opening of the novel, one can clearly

predict the type of husband/father. Eugene Achike will be to his household. Adichie started the novel in this

way to clearly describe the family as will be seen all through the novel. Kambili’s voice is used in telling us the

events as they unfold and the opening of the novel through her voice made us to know the kind of father she has

when she posits

Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines on the “étagère”. We had just returned from church. Mama placed the fresh palm fronds, which were wet with holy water, on the dining table and then went upstairs to change. Later, she would knot the palm fronds into sagging cross shapes and hang them on the wall beside our gold-framed family photo. They would stay there until next Ash Wednesday, when we would take the fronds to church, to have them burned for ash. Papa, wearing a long, gray robe like the rest of the oblates, helped distribute ash every year. His line moved the slowest because he pressed on each forehead to make a perfect cross with his ash-covered thumb and slowly, meaningfully enunciate every word of “dust and unto dust shall you return”. (Adichie, 2003, p. 5)

Eugene from the opening of the novel is seen as an ardent Christian whose life does not reflect Christianity

at home. In catholic tradition, the missal is a sacred book that contains the words of God and for him not to

have any regard for it clearly depict that he is just a church goer and not a true Christian as we are meant to

believe. It is assumed that he should have a forgiving heart for the sake of the word of God he has just heard

from the church because through Kambili, we understood that they just came back from church and she showed

us how committed her father is in church by helping to distribute ash in church, a privilege for selected few in

catholic traditions.

The breaking of the figurine is very significant in the novel in the sense that it serves as a source of

consolation whenever Mama is heartbroken, she cleans it each time her husband beats her. Kambili through

whose eyes we see the characters said

I meant to say I am sorry Papa broke our figurines, but the words came out were, “I’m sorry your figurines broke, Mama”. She nodded quickly, and then shook her head to show that the figurines did not matter. They did, though. Years ago, before I understood, I used to wonder why she polished them each time I heard sounds from their room, like something banged against their door. Her rubber slippers never made a sound on the stairs, but I knew she went downstairs when I heard the dining room door open. I would go down to see her standing by the étagère with a towel soaked in soapy water. She spent at least a quarter of an hour on each ballet-dancing figurine. There were never tears on her face. The last time, only two weeks ago, when her swollen eye was still the black-purple colour of an overripe avocado, she had rearranged them after she polished them. (Adichie, 2003, pp. 18-19)

As the figurine is broken, one will wonder how she will deal with her emotions whenever there is a quarrel

between them. It is obvious that Beatrice has no other choice but to look for means of dealing with the pains

and the humiliation that she gets from her husband. It is possible that Adichie makes the breaking of the

figurine possible at the beginning of the novel in order to look for a way to stand up and fight for her right.

Even when her daughter asked if she will replace it, she said no. This is a deliberate attempt by the author to

make sure that the woman does not always look for means of hiding the humiliation and subjugation she passes

through but rather to look for a way to say no to all forms of ill treatment as evident in the novel. Beatrice is so

much attached to her marriage with Eugene Achike because she felt he is a source of spiritual, emotional and

physical strength. She felt that Eugene would have listened to his kinsmen into taking another wife since she

could only give birth to just two children. Leaving the marriage for her will make her an ingrate, so, she stays

against all odds to honour the man that honoured her. It is obvious that their faith in the Catholic church made


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her to believe that divorce is not an option in marriage but rather, marriage should be for better for worse and

even the African community where she comes from sees the good woman as one who “suffers the effects of

oppression, and neglect; and who must maintain a silence and passivity in order to remain good. Silence and

passivity are two principal features of a good woman” (Udumukwu, 2007, p. 3) as Udumukwu acclaimed in his

book. He also presented a striking balance between a good woman and the real woman which can be likened to

the character of Ifeoma who “even in the face of tyranny will not remain silent” (Udumukwu, 2007, p. 3).

Beatrice is presented as an epitome of a good woman who tolerates all kinds of humiliation. She told her

daughter how the villagers wanted her father to marry another wife when she couldn’t give birth and as a result,

she felt indebted to her husband no matter what happens even to the detriment of her life. She posits:

God is faithful. You know after you came and I had the miscarriages, the villagers started to whisper. The members of our “umunna” even sent people to your father to urge him to have children with someone else. So many people had willing daughters, and many of them were university graduates, too. They might have borne many sons and taken over our home and driven us out, like Mr. Ezendu’s second wife did. But your father stayed with me, with us…“Yes” I said. Papa deserved praise for not choosing to have more sons with another woman, of course, for not choosing to take a second wife. But then, Papa was different. I wished that Mama would not compare him with Mr. Ezendu, with anybody; it lowered him, soiled him. (Adichie, 2003, p. 28)

This goes a long way to explain why Mama would stick to her husband even if it means death, her

daughter saw reasons with her and also was grateful that her father is a good man, though she felt that

comparing her father to some men as Mama did is bringing down his reputation.

One can assume that he will be lenient on his wife but the reverse is the case as he made it obvious for his

children to notice he has no regard for their mother. When Kambili informed Jaja that their mother is pregnant,

it is expected that he should be happy as children always do when they are aware that they will have a baby in

their family but Jaja told her that they will have to protect the baby—this is ridiculous. Kambili said “Mama is

pregnant…and will be due in October”. Jaja closed his eyes for a while and then opened them. “We will take

care of the baby; we will protect him. I knew that Jaja meant from Papa, but I did not say anything about

protecting the baby. Instead, I asked, “How do you know it will be a he?”(Adichie, 2003, p. 31).

It is naturally believed that a pregnant woman is fragile and should be handled with care but Mama’s case

was different as a result of the kind of man she got married to. She was not allowed to take decisions on her

own, Papa also dictates for her as can be seen in the novel when she felt like staying back in the car because of

her condition but he bluntly refused. It has become a tradition for them to visit Fr. Benedict after mass.

“Let me stay in the car and wait, biko,” Mama said, leaning against the Mercedes. “I feel vomit in my throat.” Papa turned to stare at her. I held my breath. It seemed a long moment, but it might have been only seconds. Mama was looking down; her hands were placed on her belly, to hold the wrapper from untying itself or to keep her bread and tea breakfast down. “My body does not feel right.” she mumbled. “I asked if you were sure you wanted to stay in the car.” Mama looked up. “I’ll come with you. It’s really not that bad.” Papa’s face did not change. He waited for her to walk towards him, and then he turned and they started to walk to the priest’s house. Jaja and I followed. I watched Mama as she walked. Till then I had not noticed how drawn she looked. Her skin, usually the smooth brown of groundnut paste, looked like the liquid had been sucked out of it, ashen, like the colour of cracked harmattan soil. Jaja spoke to me with his eyes: what if she vomits? I would hold up my dress hems so Mama could throw up into it, so we wouldn’t make a big mess in Father Benedict’s house. (Adichie, 2003, pp. 37-38)

This goes a long way to show that her children are even aware of who their father is and his style of

dictating for everyone even at their own detriment.


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For Ogundipe–Leslie,

African Feminism for me, therefore, must include issues around the woman’s body, her person, her immediate family, her society, her nation. Her continent and their locations within the international economic order because those realities in the international economic order determine African politics and impact on the women. There is no way we can discuss the situation of the African woman today without considering what the IMF policies and the World Bank are doing to her status and conditions (Ogundipe–Leslie, 1984, p. 228).

Based on this explanation, one can succinctly say that Mama has been violated in different ways by her

husband. She is the type of woman that feels that her marriage to her husband is worth all the troubles she goes

through and sees it as a privilege considering the fact that he could have married another wife as suggested by

his kinsmen and so, Ogundipe–Leslie’s assertion may not really bother her but it is just a reflection of what is

happening to her as we were told by Kambili.

I heard the door open. Papa’s gait on the stairs sounded heavier, more awkward, than usual. I stepped out of my room just as Jaja came out of his. We stood at the landing and watched Papa descend. Mama was slung over his shoulder like the jute sacks of rice his factory workers bought in bulk at the Seme Border. He opened the dining room door. Then we heard the front door open, heard him say something to the gate man, Adamu. “There’s blood on the floor,” Jaja said. “I’ll get the brush from the bathroom.” We cleaned up the trickle of blood , which trailed away as if someone had carried a leaking jar of red water colour all the way downstairs. Jaja scrubbed while I wiped. Mama did not come home that night, and Jaja and I had dinner alone. We did not talk about Mama. (Adichie, 2003, p. 41).

This violent action by Eugene on his wife is against Ogundipe–Leslie’s assertion. He has violated and

caused harm on his wife’s body to the extent of killing an unborn child which is against humanity and also,

God whom he claimed to worship and adore. This kind of situation contradicts the fate which his Catholic

doctrine professes. As a good woman who must protect the image of her husband, she came back from the

hospital as if nothing happened and told her kids that

“There was an accident, the baby is gone,” she said. I moved back a little, stared at her belly. It still looked big, still pushed at her wrapper in a gentle arc. Was Mama sure the baby was gone? I was still starring at her belly when Sisi came in”. As always, she can’t blame her husband for all the harm he has caused and as such, dare not tell her kids about it, though they know the truth. (Adichie, 2003, p. 42)

In contrast, Adichie presented another kind of woman whom Udumukwu referred to as the “real woman”.

Aunty Ifeoma is totally different from Mama, she stand up for her right no matter the consequences. She is of

the opinion that things are not working the way. It should in the school and can’t keep quiet for it to get worse.

She complained to her colleague:

We cannot keep quiet, sit back and let it happen, “mba”. Where else have you heard of such a thing as a sole administrator in a university?” Aunty Ifeoma said, leaning forward on the stool. Tiny cracks appeared in her bronze lipstick when she pursed her lips. “A governing council votes for a vice chancellor. That is the way it has worked since this university was built, that is the way it is supposed to work, oburia (meaning—it is not like that)?” the woman looked off into the distance , nodding continuously in the way that people do when searching for the right words to use. When she finally spoke, she did so slowly, like someone addressing a stubborn child. “They said there is a list circulating, Ifeoma, of lecturers who are disloyal to the university. They said they might be fired. They said your name is on it.” She replied her colleague and said “I am not paid to be loyal. When I speak the truth, it becomes disloyalty. (Adichie, 2003, pp. 227-228)

Ifeoma is an epitome of a real woman who stand up for her right despite the consequences, she refused to

be intimidated by those who feels they are at the helm of affair and refused to keep quiet. She is very intelligent


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and can defend herself as such, wasn’t afraid of losing her job. Even when she lost her job, she has started

making plans on how to relocate to a society that will appreciate her real womanhood unlike Mama who is so

glued to her marriage and saw it as a privilege to be married to Eugene Achike.

One can decide to give up on Mama because it is obvious she enjoys the treatment meted out on her by

Eugene, she refused to stand up and say no to all forms of violent action by her husband. One can succinctly

say that Mama is bound up in the marriage as a result of her faith in her religion and the culture of her people;

the African woman is usually seen as an embodiment of her cultures and traditions and as such held bound by it.

It is expected that Papa should have learnt his lessons after the first miscarriage and treats his wife with more

care but he always behaves like someone tormented by the evil spirit, who after committing a crime, becomes

sober and goes back to it again. After the second miscarriage, she was forced to run for her dear life as she

narrated the ordeal to Ifeoma when she visited them at Nsukka unexpectedly.

“My doctor said there was nothing he could do to save it.” Mama shook her head slowly. A thin line of tears crawled down her cheeks as though it had been a struggle for them to get out of her eyes. “To save it?” Aunty Ifeoma whispered. “What do you mean?” “I was six weeks gone.” “Ekwuzina! Don’t say that again!” Aunty Ifeoma’s eyes widened. “It is true. Eugene did not know, I had not told yet told him, but it is true”. (Adichie, 2003, pp. 253-254)

Ifeoma was so furious when she heard what happened to her to the extent of losing a pregnancy, she

couldn’t take sides with her brother as one will think but insisted that she won’t speak to his wife when he later

called. Mama is the opposite of Ifeoma, she is totally against her brother’s attitude of beating his wife and sees

it as a sign of humiliation. She pleaded with Mama to spend some time with her before going back but, as

always, she makes excuses for her husband and the need go back to him. Ifeoma compared her late husband

and her brother when Mama was seriously making excuses for him and even told her that his money should not

make her worship him like a god. She was so furious when Mama started giving her instances of what Eugene

did for the people in his village but she bluntly told her that it is far from what they are saying. She was so

pissed off when she gave reasons for her husband’s behavior. She said

“Eugene has not been well. He has been having migraine and fever,” she said. “He is carrying more than any man should carry. Do you know what Ade’s death did to him? It is too much for one person.” “Ginidi, what are you saying?” Aunty Ifeoma swiped impatiently at an insect that flew close to her ears. “When Ifediora was alive, there were times, nwunye m, when the university did not pay salaries for months. Ifediora and I had nothing, eh, yet he never raised a hand to me.” “Do you know that Eugene pays the school fees of up to a hundred of our people? Do you know how many people are alive because of your brother?” “That is not is not the point and you know it.” “Where would I go if I leave Eugene’s house? Tell me, where would I go?”. (Adichie, 2003, p. 255)

As always, she uses the above assertion to convince anyone that cares to listen, on the reason why she

should accept all forms of violence from the husband. Eugene subjects his family to all forms of psychological

trauma and it affected their psyche drastically. Kambili could not talk boldly with Amaka; she found out that

their family is totally different from theirs as a result of her father’s authoritative way of ruling the family.

Eugene’s abuse on his family ranges from psychological to physical which affected all the members of his

family. Julia T. Wood gives the view that those who violate people do so “to gain or sustain self-esteem, to win

the respects of others, to maintain control over people and situations” (Adichie, 2003, p. 294). Eugene ended up

losing respect from his family, they are only afraid of him and does whatever they like when he is not around.

They were banned from watching television, associating with their cousins and grandfather, and playing and

even talking in the house. Their life was so regimented by their father’s presence and they talk in whispers


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when he is around.

Beatrice’s second miscarriage and constant beating by her husband is like the shot that broke the camel’s

back. She must have told herself that if she continues like this, Eugene may kill her one day and will still marry

another wife. She made up her mind to forget what the church and her society will say if she kills the obstacle

that stands on her way to freedom. It must have been a big battle before she made up her mind to do it. Sisi who

we always see through the eyes of Kambili, cooking and taking good care of the house must have been angry

with her master for constantly beating his wife and children but she can’t do anything to salvage the situation or

assist them because she is often regarded as a mere cook who should follow the order in the house and as such,

can’t contribute anything meaningful to the development of the family. She is like a watchdog that is always at

home and sees everything that happens. The opportunity came when her madam confided in her and she offered

to help. Jaja who is always being presented as a stubborn son who disobeys his father did not blink an eye but

to stand in as the sacrificial lamb even when he is not the culprit. He promised to save their unborn baby from

the whims of his father even when the baby is yet unborn. He must have been constantly devastated by his

father’s behavior and promised to do all he can to protect the women in his life—Mama and Kambili. He

always takes responsibility of an offence committed by his sister in order to protect her from his father. It

wasn’t surprising to us when he gave himself as the culprit when his father died. He always compares himself

to Obiora who is younger but takes care of his mother; he said “I should have taken care of Mama. Look how

Obiora balances Aunty Ifeoma’s family on his head, and I am older than he is. I should have taken care of

Mama” (Adichie, 2003, p. 293). One can rightly say that if not for the autopsy conducted on his body, she

would have kept everything to herself. She purposely refused to pick up the phone but when the caller persisted,

she picked and announced to her children that:

“They did an autopsy,” “They found the poison in your father’s body.” She sounded as though the poison in Papa’s body was something we all had known about, something we had put in there to be found, the way it was done in the books I read where white people hid Easter eggs for their children to find. “Poison?” I said. Mama tightened her wrapper, and then went to the windows; she pushed the drapes aside, checking that the louvers were shut to keep the rain from splashing into the house. Her movements were calm and slow. “I started putting the poison in his tea before I came to Nsukka. Sisi got it for me; her uncle is a powerful witch doctor. (Adichie, 2003, p. 295)

Beatrice has ceased to be the traditional good woman to a real woman who will not remain silent in the

face of tyranny. It is obvious that she has endured a lot from his husband who refused to turn a new leave. She

made up her mind to crush anything on his way to happiness not minding who. This is a deliberate attempt by

Adichie in order to prove that those who choose a radical way to achieve their happiness must have given a

warning sign before resorting to that way. Beatrice endured a lot from her husband but when it’s obvious she

can’t keep on staying glued to him because she felt that he did her a favour by not marrying another wife who

can give him more children. She refused to take into consideration what the church and the society will say

because she believes that they could not tame Eugene and as such, damned their consequences. Her children

did not blame her for killing their father except Kambili who objected to her method of killing because, they

usually take a sip from their father’s sip and would have been killed as well but their mother was wise enough

to know when to use the poison.

Jaja who feels it’s his responsibility to protect his mother and often compares himself with Obiora who is

younger but takes proper care of his mother in the absence of his father did not hesitate to take responsibility of

killing his father and was taken away by the police men. Kambili states


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The policemen came a few hours later. They said they wanted to ask some questions. Somebody at St Agnes Hospital had contacted them, and they had a copy of the autopsy report with them. Jaja did not wait for their questions; he told them he had used rat poison, that he put it in Papa’s tea. They allowed him to change his shirt before they took him away. (Adichie, 2003, p. 295)

This will be for Jaja a way to make up all the times he has failed to protect his mother and sees it as an

opportunity to make amends. Mama was so devastated when he was taken away and was depressed

psychologically and physically, she talks sparingly and gazes into the thin air. Kambili reveals that

She has been different ever since Jaja was locked up, since she went about telling people she killed Papa…but nobody listened to her; they still don’t. They think grief and denial—that her husband is dead and that her son is in prison—have turned her into this vision of a painfully bony body, of skin speckled with blackheads the size of watermelon seeds…Most times, her answers are nods and shakes of the head…and often…she simply sat and stared. (Adichie, 2003, p. 296)

Conclusion

Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus is a feminist work that challenges the dehumanizing tendencies of the menfolk.

This was evident in the character of Mama (Beatrice) who undergoes series of humiliation, dehumanization,

and denial from her husband. The novel showcased Mama as a good woman who tolerates everything from her

husband and often consoles herself as a result of what the church and society will say. She felt that her marriage

to Eugene is a favour considering the fact that he refused to listen to his kinsmen on the need to take another

wife when she couldn’t give birth after two children. One can ask whose fault because it is because it’s obvious

that she lost two pregnancies as a result of her husband’s violent action and should be blamed for her inability

to give birth to more children.

We also present two different types of women: the good and the real women as evident in the character of

Mama and Aunty Ifeoma respectively. Ifeoma belongs to the group of lecturers who refused to keep silent over

bad governance by the Vice Chancellor of the school where she lectures, she refused to be intimidated when

she was informed that her name is on the list of those who are not loyal to the Vice Chancellor and will be

sacked. While Mama was often subjected to all forms of humiliation but kept silent in order to be regarded as a

good woman by the church and the society she lives in.

Adichie, also, presented the two different types of feminism viz: the Liberal and the Radical. Ifeoma was

associated with the radical way of standing up for her right while Mama at the beginning of the novel was

liberal but when it became obvious that her life is at risk, she dammed the consequences and went radical. This

is a deliberate attempt by Adichie to prove that radical feminism is a reaction to some circumstances, she

believes that one can’t wake up and start crushing anything that stands in his/her way. It is often being

prompted by situations that seem to overpower the person. Mama’s radical way of ending her husband’s life

was prompted by his violent actions which she brought to an end by poisoning his tea.

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Adichie’s purple hibiscus. In E. N. Emenyonu (Ed.), New novels in African literature today. Ibadan: HEBN. Ezeigbo, T. A. (1991). Fact and fiction in the literature of the Nigerian civil war. Ojo: Unity. Fox-Genovese, E. (1982). Placing women’s history in history. New Left Review, 133, 5-29. Hooks, B. (1984). Feminist theory: From margin to centre. Boston: South End Publishers. Maduka, C. (2001). Feminism and the Nigerian female critic: A metacritical statement. In A. A. Akpuda (Ed.), Reconstructing the

Canon: Festschrift in honour of professor Charles Nnolim (pp.227-242). Owerri: Skillmark Media. Massa, D. (2006). Review of purple hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The aesthetics of commitment. Ibadan: Kraft Books. Millet, K. (1973). Sexual politics. New York: Avon. Nnolim, C. (2003). A house Divided: Feminism in African Literature. In H. Chukwuma (Ed.), Feminism in African literature:

Essays on criticism (pp. 252-265). Port Harcourt: Pearl Publishers. Ogundipe-Leslie, O. (1984).African women, culture and another development. Journal of African Marxists 5, (35-36), 63-80. Ogunyemi, C. O. (1985). Womanism: The dynamics of the contemporary black female novel in English. Chicago: University of

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Walker, A. (1984). In search of our mother’s gardens. London: The Women’s Publishers. Wood, J, T. (2009). Gendered lives: Communication, gender, and culture (8th ed.). Boston: Wadsworth.


A Motherland That One Cannot Return to

—An Interpretation on Song of The Chu From a Perspective of

Cultural Security*

XIONG Xiao

Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China

YANG Xi

Wuhan College of Foreign Languages and Foreign Affairs,

Wuhan, China

Song of The Chu, a novel written by LAN Zi— a Chinese Australian writer, recounts the struggle in Australia over

20 years (1988-2008) of a group of Chinese young people. Cultural difference or even conflict is one of the

inevitable issues in terms of migration. The Chinese (Han) culture which belongs to the continental civilization and

the Australian (Western) culture which belongs to the maritime one are both mighty and cannot be conquered or

assimilated by each other. This means that the Chinese immigrants to Australia, compared to the ones from a less

mighty culture, are more sensitive and resistant to the impact of an alien culture, which leads to a conscious or

unconscious sense of security of the mother culture. Cultural security, not unidirectional, also refers to the worry by

the locals of the impact brought by the immigrants. The protagonist resorts to converting to Buddhism as a solution

to the cultural schizophrenia.

Keywords: Song of The Chu, cultural security, cultural schizophrenia, solution

Introduction

A human being is a social being, or, as a matter of fact, a cultural being. A human being’s nationality is, to a

great extent, determined by the culture she/he belongs to rather than the passport she/he bears. Cultural

confrontations and conflicts, which are inevitable in the era of globalization, are often reflected in the individual

beings who migrate from one nation to another. Some immigrants are able to adapt to the new culture without

much difficulty, while some are not. Cultural factors are the first to be taken into consideration with individual

differences excluded. The immigrants from Southeast Asia tend to adapt to the new culture more easily than those

from China. Small in area and some islands, Southeast Asian nations can easily be influenced and even

conquered by other cultures (the Chinese culture before 17th century and the western one after), which leads to a

less solid subjectivity of the Southeast Asian culture. The Chinese culture, belonging to the continental

∗ Acknowledgements: This essay is a stage achievement of “A Study on the Chinese Australian Literature from a Perspective of Cultural Security” supported by “the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China 2014”, Project Number: CCNU14A03035.

XIONG Xiao, lecturer, School of Foreign Languages, Central China Normal University. YANG Xi, lecturer, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Wuhan College of Foreign Languages and Foreign Affairs.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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A MOTHERLAND THAT ONE CANNOT RETURN TO

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civilization, solid and mighty, cannot be easily conquered, which is reflected in that most Chinese immigrants

insist in speaking Chinese, living and thinking in the Chinese way even many years after they migrated to another

nation. This is the representation of the security of the Chinese culture. “Cultural security” mainly refers to “‘the

sense of security’ that people believe their own country-nation’s ‘basic values’ and ‘cultural characteristics’ will

not vanish or deteriorate in the trend of globalization”1 (PAN, 2007, p. 28).

The history of the Chinese immigration to Australia can be dated to the early 19th century, however, most

early Chinese immigrants worked as miners, cooks, shepherds and forth who belonged to the lower class and

barely had any access to uttering their voices, let alone in the form of writing. The Chinese Australian writing

gains prosperity with the rising of multiculturalism since the 1970s when the White Australian Policy was

demolished.

The novel Song of The Chu written by LAN Zi recounts the life struggle of a group of Chinese young people

who migrated to Australia in the 1980s, their effort to adapt to the Australian culture and the dilemma between

staying in Australia and returning to China. The Chinese immigrants’ experiences and destinies in Australia,

though individually different, are largely related with the Chinese culture.

The Adaptation to the Australian Culture

Culture, in fact not a big word, is pervaded in one’s daily life, which can reflect the basic outlook on value

and the traits of a culture, including how a nation’s language is constructed and used, how its people cook and

enjoy food, and how its people deal with job (money) and interpersonal relationship.

The moment when the Chinese people step onto the land of Australia, the first shock comes from the

language they hear and read and they can barely communicate with the local residents without speaking English.

In other words, they can barely live in the Other culture without acquiring the Other language. “Attending the

class of English training school is pleasant”2 (LAN, 2011, p. 12). Therefore, the first task for most Chinese

immigrants is to get language training. Language is one of the best representations of culture in that

Language is not merely the vehicle for thinking or the means of communication, it also bears the weight of people’s consciousness, thinking, mind, emotion and the formation of personalities and passes on the historical traces of the formation and development of innumerable families, races, nations and countries; it is the historical and cultural geological stratification of a country-nation.3 (PAN, 2007, p. 121)

People take in and express most kinds of information by and with language, which is a highly abstract

system of symbols. Linguistically, Chinese is built on characters which, through the grapheme, can be understood

but cannot be pronounced; whilst English is built on words which, through the grapheme, can be pronounced but

cannot be understood (except knowing the meanings of roots and affixes). Furthermore, English belongs to the

German language branch of the Indo-European language system whilst Chinese the Sino-Tibetan language

system. The two belonging to different language systems and the English-speaking nations being far from China,

it is not easy for the Chinese people to acquire English, even the immigrants to an English-speaking nation, like

Australia. Compared to the Europeans, it may take the Chinese immigrants longer to acquire English and it is not

1 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 2 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 3 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi).


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uncommon that some Chinese immigrants (for example, those who live in the China town) who have stayed in

Australia for many years still cannot speak fluent English or would keep speaking Chinese and do not often

communicate with the local residents. Learning English is a tough but inevitable task for most Chinese

immigrants.

I went to an English school when I just arrived in Sydney. The students there were promoted to a higher level every three months. Six months later, I was promoted from the beginners’ class to the advanced one, which was a preparatory course for the undergraduate or postgraduate studies.4 (LAN, 2011, p. 19)

When one begins learning another language, the culture encoded within is being constructed in one’s mind.

Besides language, food is also one of the best representations of culture.

When I just arrived in Australia, the thing that I was not used to the most was not language or quietness…it was food. It is said that one thinks of her/his dearest ones far away on festive occasions more than ever, as for me, it is thinking of the chicken – the flavor of home.5 (LAN, 2011, pp. 154-155)

As a matter of fact, food is better to be replaced by “cuisine” which culturally stresses more on the ways of

selecting, cooking, and enjoying food. In other words, food, like language, no longer mere food, has been

invested with cultural traits. Most Chinese immigrants can stand many different things in the Other nation,

however, the Chinese food is what they cannot forget or live without. They can live on hamburgers, chips, and

sandwiches for at most one month and if longer they may get crazy. An Ping and her friends get together from

time to time to prepare and have the Chinese food such as jiaozi. Varieties of the Chinese cuisines (Chuan, Lu,

Yue, and Huaiyang) and of the cooking styles (panfry, stirfry, fry, boil, steam and so forth) always attract and

haunt the stomach and the mind of the Chinese people overseas. It is very uncommon to find a Chinese immigrant

insisting cooking in the western style and enjoying the western food for years, sometimes though. Some Chinese

immigrants think the Australians do not treat their stomach seriously for they only stuff it with a sandwich for

lunch. When the Chinese immigrants gather together, they do not only talk in the language of Chinese, but also

cook and enjoy the Chinese food, where language and food mix with each other and become the symbols of

homesickness.

There are common experiences for both Chinese women and men immigrants; but sometimes different.

Living far away from the Motherland, the Chinese immigrants may fall into frequent homesickness which may

lead to their gatherings from time to time. “Why is everyone here today?”6 (LAN, 2011, p. 17). “Oh, today is the

Chinese New Year’s Eve”7 (LAN, 2011, p. 17). “Zhong Yun may call me when he is free; he occasionally comes

to attend our party”8 (LAN, 2011, p. 20). Chinese women and men may become friends or start a relationship to

comfort each other and to dispel the homesickness. “According to figures, the sex ratio of men to women is 8: 1”9

(LAN, 2011, p. 20). But there are always more options for Chinese women for they can establish a relationship

with the Australian men (“Even worse, the women students out of the 8:1 aim at laowai (foreigners)”10 (LAN,

4 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 5 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 6 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 7 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 8 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 9 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 10 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi).


441

2011, p. 18)), the men from other developed nations or the Chinese men from Hongkong, Taiwan, or Southeast

Asia as Mike says: “You can marry a man. You can marry a rich laowai, to kill two birds with one stone,

citizenship settled and becoming rich”11 (LAN, 2011, p. 23). Compared with Australia, China is a developing

country. The economic status plays an important role in the relationship between different sexes. The inferior

economic status of the Chinese immigrants determines that more Chinese women immigrants marry or would

marry the white Australian men while few Chinese men immigrants marry or would marry the white Australian

women. “Love has to be fed with milk and bread rather than ‘love is rose to be frequently watered’ as in a song”12

(LAN, 2011, p. 47). Although the economic status works, sometimes it is not easy, as a matter of fact, for a

Chinese woman to marry a laowai. Audrey tells An Ping:

We met that day and had a nice chat…I thought it was time to go home. Unexpectedly, he took me to a motel. I told him he couldn’t do that to me and asked him to drive me home.13 (LAN, 2011, p. 27)

Inequality in economic status leads to the inequality of the relationships between laowai and the Chinese

women. There are also Chinese men getting married with the women from other nations, Zhong Yun, who

marries a (non-white) Vietnamese woman, being one. It is not seldom that the Chinese women and men start a

relationship, An Ping and Zhang Tao and Audrey and David being two examples, which, unfortunately, do not

turn out to be happy endings, An Ping and Zhang Tao part and Audrey dies. Although it is rumored that the

Chinese women want to marry the white men, the fact is that few do and most marry Chinese men instead. Even

An Ping’s marriage to a man from Hongkong ends as a tragedy. A marriage of persons from two nations is just

like the confrontation between two cultures they represent. The reason that most Sino-Australian mixed couples

part in the end is because the incompatibility of the two cultures they respectively bear.

The adaptation of the Chinese immigrants to the Australian culture is not easy due to the powerfulness of the

Chinese culture and the conscious or unconscious cultural defense, represented by the Chinese language which is

deeply rooted in the linguistic function of the Chinese immigrants’ minds, the Chinese food which they cannot

live without, their tendency of gathering together and the interlaced interpersonal relationships.

The Return to the Chinese Culture

Having stayed for some years in Australia, An Ping said to herself:

Without love, family, or career, I have become a loner in the real sense. I am bored enough so that I read through the newspaper that Mike told me to bring back. It read ‘welcome the professionals with Master Degree or above who are willing to return to China to work or start a business to attend the meeting’. Shall I sign up to the meeting? Shall I return?14 (LAN, 2011, p. 141)

“Love”, “family”, and “career” are the symbols of belongingness. No matter how long the first-generation

Chinese immigrants have stayed in Australia, it is always not easy for them to find a sense of belonging to

Australia and they never disconnect with their Motherland. When they encounter setbacks, they would resort to

China or the Chinese culture for revitalization. For them, there are love, family, and career in the Motherland.

11 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 12 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 13 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 14 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi).


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At the Christmas of 2000, I arrived with my luggage at Baiyun Airport of Guangzhou. I stepped again onto the land of Mainland China 12 years and one month after I left. I didn’t know why I had such a feeling: among all the returnees from all over the world, I especially wanted to see the ones who were from Australia and regarded them as townees. Did it reflect the territorial complex in human nature: Abroad, we regarded the Chinese people as compatriots; At home, we regarded those who were from the same city or province as townees—the ones on our own side.15 (LAN, 2011, p. 154,)

According to Hinduism and Buddhism, 12 years constitute a Samsara. An Ping’s return 12 years after she

left marks a new journey in her life or a rebirth. The 12-year drifting in Australia has not completely

Australianized her, therefore, she returns to China to rediscover her Chineseness. For the Chinese immigrants, “in

the process, however, they find that the one has become the other to such a degree that otherland actually contains

motherland, like a mirror with a mirror” (OUYANG, 2004, p. 50). Upon her return, some things have changed,

some not, both for her and for China. She encountered the Chinese IT elites who came back from the U.S. “Their

return to China was like rich men, with superiority, visiting poor relatives”16 (LAN, 2011, p. 165). They had

stayed in the U.S. which was more economically and technologically developed than China. Naturally they

thought they had been endowed with the Americanness and displayed an air of superiority which reflected that

they were different from their compatriots and they may even look down upon the latter. Accordingly,

surprisingly and probably, their compatriots may admire and even envy them as if they were the authentic white

American citizens. Naturally, An Ping, who returned from Australia felt less confident and marginalized among

them. An Ping regarded the ones who returned from Australia as her compatriots (the ones “on her side”) rather

than the Chinese people. This implies she has been endowed with some Australianness or has been somewhat

Australianized. But China is where she was born, she could not completely disconnect with her past, her family,

and friends. Therefore, “I started looking for a job after I came back (to Australia17) from Guangzhou. I laid my

eyes on those Australian companies who had sub-branches in China”18 (LAN, 2011, p. 169). 12 years in

Australia did not scour An Ping’s Chineseness, instead, pushed her forward to resorting to the things and people

(Zhang Tao being one) in China when she felt upset and lost.

An Ping returns to China several times since then, for work and also for Zhang Tao. For her company and

boss, her Chinese identity plays a role of bridge to connect and earn profits from the Chinese people; for the

sub-branch in Beijing, she is a Chinese Australian who must be close to the Chinese people and can help them

earn profits from the Australian company. Mayo, her boss, does not trust the Chinese people and asks An Ping to

fly to Beijing to audit the account.

Waiting for the financial statements from the sub-branch in Beijing, Mayo was preparing for the company’s listing. I didn’t have much time to think of Zhang Tao. With a different division of the Australian fiscal year from the Chinese one, Mayo does not trust the sub-branch in Beijing. The Australian accounting system inheriting the British one, an Australian fiscal year begins on the 1st July of this year and ends on the next 30th June while the Chinese one begins on the 1st January of this year and ends on the 31st December of the same year. The accounting software that the Sub-branch in Beijing uses is developed in China while the Australian one in Australia. That is to say either has an account. He asked me to reenter the data that I brought back from Beijing. I worked overtime for two months to rewrite the Chinese

15 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 16 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 17 Noted by the authors. 18 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi).


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account.19 (LAN, 2011, p. 192)

Mayo’s distrust against the Chinese people can be dated to long ago, which is under the influence of

stereotyping the Chinese people. An Ping gives her comment “He (Mayo) was doomed to invest in China for that

he could never feel the pulse of the Chinese people”20 (LAN, 2011, p. 210). However, China has been developing

and changing and it is no more the one when An Ping left China twelve years ago. What An Ping sees in China

has subverted the long-standing stereotyped exoticization of China in the western literature. There must be some

differences between cultures and some problems in the Chinese ways of dealing with things, but it should not be

the ground that the westerners prejudice against the Chinese people. It’s just because each has a unique and solid

culture.

The Chinese people in the Beijing sub-branch at first regards An Ping as an authentic compatriot and want to

take advantage of her by not complying with the rules and she also finds that her ways of dealing with things

conflict with the Chinese ones. However, as An Ping puts “Educated and growing up in Australia, my intestine

has been straightened”21 (LAN, 2011, p. 269), whose straightforwardness is one of the representations of the

western culture and maritime civilization. Although An Ping does not like Mayo very much neither, she prefers

the rules and the ones who respect and comply with the rules. Compared with the Chinese people, Mayo is the

one who more respects the rules. No one should be blamed with regard to the differences of the ways in dealing

with things between the Chinese and the Australian peoples. It is the culture that functions. The Chinese culture,

belonging to the continental civilization, has been focusing more on the interpersonal relationships rather than on

rules. China has just opened its gate for more than 30 years and it’s on the process of being civilized and

standardized and the so-called international rules and standards are made by the western world which includes

Australia. Therefore, it is no wonder that An Ping, who has stayed in Australia for years, have differences and

even conflicts with her Chinese compatriots, which should not be understood as “home-resentment” (WANG &

ZHAO, 2005, p. 78).

I kept asking Mayo: “When can I return to Sydney. I’ve already missed Australia”. I have been dreaming of returning to China before this, never regarding Australia as my home though I have stayed there for more than 10 years which almost count for half of my life. Now I have returned only to find the so-called Otherland is my present home and China has become the “Motherland” that only lives in my memories. In the eyes of my compatriots, I have become one of “Mayo’s”, “one of the Australian company” and one on their opposition who wants to pick a hole in their account.22 (LAN, 2011, p. 270)

The process of migrating is a drifting on an Otherland. 12-year dream of returning to the Motherland only

ends with the Motherland turning into another “Otherland” while the Otherland in a real sense has somewhat

become a new “Motherland”. The return to China does not bring An Ping close to her Chinese compatriots or

re-endow her with the Chineseness, but only strengthens her sense of belonging to Australia.

In the Motherland which has turned to the Otherland, Zhang Tao, who has been her lover in Australia and

returned to China for his official career, is her only spiritual sustenance. Zhang Tao has stayed in Australia for



444

years as other overseas Chinese students, only finding his personality more compatible with the Chinese culture

and returns to China. Zhang Tao is one of the reasons of her return to China but it only turns out to be that Zhang

Tao has got married and fathers a son. She cannot keep an illegal and immoral relationship with him. Zhang Tao

says: “An Ping, there is no such a supposition. One cannot step twice into the same river. You understand it. We

cannot return to the past”23 (LAN, 2011, p. 192) An Ping rebuts: “Yes, you can. If you are willing to, you can

return to Australia with me and we can live as we have lived in the past…”24 (LAN, 2011, p. 192). For Zhang

Tao, his Chineseness has never faded away; for An Ping, her Chineseness has partially, if not fully, faded away

and that is why she returns Australia.

An Ping does not find a sense of belonging on returning to China and her love for Zhang Tao is doomed with

no future. Therefore, her two sources of belonging recede into disillusion and she returns to her new

Motherland—Australia.

A Solution to Cultural Schizophrenia

Compared with An Ping’s first journey to Australia, her decision to return to Australia is somewhat like

self-exile. Edward Said gives a definition to exile in his Representations of the Intellectual:

The exile therefore exists in a median state, neither completely at one with the new setting nor fully disencumbered of the old, beset with half-involvements and half-detachments, nostalgic and sentimental on one level, an adept mimic or a secret outcast on another. (Said, 1993, p. 49)

To be Chinese or to be Australian, that is the question. Within the narrow space between the two cultures and

with the unreachable love from Zhang Tao and the irremediable death of Zhong Yun, An Ping feels lost and

helpless and thus “I became superstitious, looking for fortune-tellers everywhere. A friend of mine introduced an

old western lady to me and said that she could tell the past and the future and the previous and the present life”25

(LAN, 2011, p. 169). Resorting to fortune tellers is a symbol of seeking a sense of belonging which is absent in

real life, or rather, An Ping finds her consciousness barely not able to bear her existence, therefore, she turns to

something unconsciousness (“I became superstitious”). “Myth is the natural and indispensable intermediate stage

between unconscious and conscious cognition” (Jung, 1961, p. 311). Fortune telling or Divination, not a formal

religion, can be dated to primeval ritual which was closely related with myth and bridged a connection between

the unenlightened humankind and the gods. Generally, fortune telling, which existed or exists among the

polytheistic tribes or ethnic groups, is different from a formal and systematic religion with a rigid hierarchy.

However, it is the only way which must be passed from polytheism to monotheism in the process of humankind

civilization for that the former is more structurally unstable. It is also reflected in An Ping’s suspicion about what

the fortune teller says.

A young Chinese gentleman knocks at An Ping’s door, saying “I’m a Buddhist, not a bad guy. If you’re free,

please come to our Buddhist temple”26 (LAN, 2011, p. 259), which leads An Ping to the access to Buddhism for

the first time. An Ping’s conversion to Buddhism is rather schematized, which reflects that at first she does not



445

take the conversion too seriously neither. However, An Ping has failed to place her spiritual sustenance on

returning to China and Zhang Tao and on returning to Australia and Zhong Yun who is in Australia but has got

married, converted to Catholicism and died. With disillusionments in both China and Australia, in both Zhang

Tao and Zhong Yun, in the tragic marriage and divorce with a Hongkong man and with more-than-ten-year

struggle for life in Australia,

I kneel on the mat and could not hold back the tears. I lower my head so that no one could see my inexplicable sorrow and talk to Buddha in my heart: “The Mighty and Merciful Buddha, please give me wisdom so that I can confront with my star-crossed destiny; please give me strength so that I can endure the trauma brought by love”.27 (LAN, 2011, p. 265)

From being superstitious to believing in Buddha, An Ping’s consciousness overcomes unconsciousness,

grows and lays itself on a more stable monotheism—Buddhism.

An Ping does not only convert to Buddhism, but also decides to be a voluntary worker for the Buddhist

temple in Nepal. As the Master says: “You have to learn to let go. Shede, shede, the hand that gives gathers”28

(LAN, 2011, p. 326). She obeys, lets go her bewilderment in the cultural schizophrenia and even flies to Lumbini

where Buddha was born and where An Ping comes to an insight:

Why Buddhism came into being in such a place and why Buddhism requires one to cultivate the afterlife. It is the ones who live here that long for the afterlife; long for not being a human being; long for not being a woman; long for a paradise where one does not need to worry about food or clothes, where one has water to drink and where the sun is not burningly hot and it is not cold in winter. The reality is so disappointing.29 (LAN, 2011, p. 328)

It is right at Lumbini that An Ping realizes that her living condition is far better than the locals’ and how

blessed she is. Moreover, upon seeing the sunset at the Himalaya, her bewilderment on cultural identity and love

is melted.

An Ping converts to an eastern religion rather than a western one, which helps her survive the migration

from her Motherland to the Otherland though she cannot fully incorporate with the white Australians and neither

can she be identified with by her authentic Chinese compatriots. It is Buddhism that gives her strength and it is a

solution she finds to let go the bewilderment and to cure her cultural schizophrenia.

Conclusion

Most immigrants, in the process of immigration, have to undergo the three stages experienced by An Ping,

especially for the Chinese immigrants who are from a solid and powerful culture. When they feel they are

narrowed between two cultures, they must also suffer from the cultural schizophrenia and want to find a solution

to their vague cultural identity. Converting to Buddhism is definitely not the only solution; more solutions to this

issue can be found out in the studies on other Chinese Australian writings.

References

Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York: Vintage Books. LAN, Z. (2011). Song of the Chu. Kingsbury (Australia): Otherland Publishing.

27 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 28 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi). 29 The citation is translated by the authors (XIONG Xiao and YANG Xi).


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OUYANG, Y. (2004). Motherland, Otherland: Small issues. Antipodes, 18(1), 50-55. PAN, Y. H. (2007). Cultural security. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press. Said, E. W. (1993). Representation of the intellectual. New York: Vintage Books. WANG, L. B., & ZHAO, H. M. (2005). “‘Exile’s return’—On home-resentment in Ouyang Yu’s the eastern slope chronicle”.

Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages, 78-82.


Chinese Left-Wing Literature in the Vision of an American

Left-wing Writer∗

HUANG Jing

Southwest University, Chongqing, China

As one with great fame of writing China and Chinese people in war time, Anna Louise Strong, has the experience of

communicating with Chinese left-wing writers, viewing their dramas works and reading their novels. From her

perspective, Chinese left-wing literature was featured by its revolution and popularity; Chinese left-wing writers

were busy with creating different genres to get every Chinese’s involvement in the anti-Japanese war in 1930s and

participation in the construction of new China in 1940s. Hence, they were multifarious in their identity because they

cared more than literature in a turbulent time. From what she presented, China, as a cultural otherness, was the

existent utopia that fulfilled her radical political dream of communism.

Keywords: left-wing, revolution and popularity, multifarious identity, utopia

Introduction

Anna Louise Strong (1885–1970), an outstanding left-wing American journalist and author, wrote

thirty-three books and numerous articles. She was best known for her support for communist movements in

Russian and China. After obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1908, she worked for

a Child Welfare Program, a federal agency established by President William Howard Taft. Defeated in her belief

that American failed to be real fair and democratic, she was gradually disappointed with the inefficiency and the

high unemployment rate. She moved to Seattle, wrote for the trade-union-run Seattle Union Record, and actively

encouraged the Seattle General Strike in 1919. After the internal collapse of the strike, she went to the Soviet

Union to learn more about the victory of the workers in Russia. There she wrote plentiful reports on the new

Soviet and became one of the best-known reporters. However, she was still unsatisfied for not experiencing the

whole process of a great commnunist revolution. To fulfill her dream of watching a revolution, her attention was

thus easily turned to China. She chose China as the ideal place to witness how Chinese people, especially lower

class workers and peasants, were fighting for their own right and in order to drive out the invasion of imperialist

power. She visited China six times from 1925 onward, interviewing “different places and people” and casting her

accounts favorably to Chinese revolution. In her reportage book One Fifth of Mankind: China Fights for

Freedom (1938), she dedicated a large portion to the comment of Chinese drama and other forms of literature by

∗ Acknowledgements: Supported by the Research Funds of Chongqing Cultivation Project (2014PY39) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities（SWU1309391).

Huang Jing, Ph.D., lecturer, College of International Studies/ College of Arts and Literature, Southwest University.

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CHINESE LEFT-WING LITERATURE IN THE VISION OF AN AMERICAN LEFT-WING WRITER 448

some famous Chinese leftwing writers, which as a whole displayed the cultural landscape of Chinese left-wing

literature movement in 1930s and 1940s. She mentioned different genres of arts: “Big Drum Singing”, “Wall

Posters”, “Poems to be declaimed”, “Yanko Dance”, and “Novels”, among which Chinese drama was the major

genre. What is more is that she got the chance to interview many Chinese left-wing writers, Ting ling, Hu

Lan-shih, Cheng Hsueh-chao, Tien Han, Zhou Li-bo, etc.. What on earth did she see the other since they were

both on the left but with the different cultural background? What was the real landscape of Chinese left-wing

writers? Why did Strong present them in that way?

Revolution and Popularity: The Character of Chinese Left-Wing Literature

Chinese new literature has aroused great interests of many foreign writers. Strong was one of the first

generation of westerners who came to China to witness China’s great changes evolving from the old to the new.

New literature differed from the old or traditional literature as one of the biggest achievement of the May Fourth

Movement in 1919. This literature underwent a complete transformation not only in language, but also in theme

and genres. Chinese left-wing literature was the main trend of this literary revolution. Edgar Snow, the author of

Red Star Over China (1937), edited a collection of modern Chinese short stories (in English), Living China. In

the preface of the book, he declared Chinese left-wing literature was to resist to the reactionary ruling of KMT

(Snow, 1983, p. 4). His ex-wife, Helen Foster, another American author, shared his opinion a lot, also approved

the political function of the literature, and thought Chinese new literature altered with the political movements.

Strong admitted the political function the same but differed from their idea in thinking that Chinese left-wing

literature was closely related to the war but not the civil war, working for the independence for the country, and

enlightening people’s awareness of fighting against Japanese invaders. In terms of Strong, the Chinese literature

was neither for the domestic political conflicts, nor the class conflicts, but the aim was to arouse the patriotism of

the whole country to fight for the sovereign rights of the country. She wrote in her book:

When the present war began and fighting spread on a large scale through the country, more and more leading writers put their pens at the service of the war. Literature became simple and full of incident, designed to arouse the people. It dealt not so much with Japan’s internationally imperialist policies but portrayed the invaders very concretely as robbers and murderers, burning houses, raping women. Its theme became “Defend your homes”, rather than “Resist imperialism”. It is full of heroic deeds of Chinese soldiers and of the sufferings of Chinese people. (Strong, 2006, pp. 156-57)

She conveyed this idea by citing some examples. One was “The Battle of Pinghsing Pass” displayed the

soldiers’ fighting life in the form of an ancient Peiping style of chanted ballads with instruments of drum and

string, named “Big Drum Singing”, performed by Ting Ling group. Another was a drama performed by Shanghai

troupe, “On the Banks of the Whangpoo”, which showed two coolies swam to Japanese ships at night to attach

bombs. Particularly, the local play “Defense of the Village” expressed the inner struggle and hesitation of farmers

who were submissive to any dominant power. It portrayed an old peasant discussing with his daughter-in-law the

approach of the Japanese, whether to make peace with them or to fight against them. The old man thought

Japanese might be mercy to him because of his law-abidingness. Unfortunately, the young woman and the old

man were killed when Japanese and a Chinese traitor came. The old man, dying, told his son, who returned with

the band of Farmer Fighters to revenge, “he had been wrong to rely on Japanese mercy and that resistance was the

only way”(Strong, 2006, p. 154). The words reinforced the attitude of fighting, the only way to rescue China.


Strong realized this and critically pointed out many other dramas possessed similar themes, i.e., anti-Japanese

war was disturbing every person’s life, which couldn’t be avoided, therefore, massive people should take the

responsibility of resisting and protecting their homeland.

Another feature of Chinese left-wing literature from Strong’s presentation was the popularity. Two aspects

could demonstrate it. One aspect was that literature was so immersing into people’s life that Strong could

encounter it in different places and in diverse forms. In her eyes, poets began to go to villages; dramatists and

novelists moved to inland. In 1938, Strong came back to China and spent some time travelling with General Zhu

De and the Eighth Route Army. In a tiny village in Shanxi province, she ran into two dramatic companies at the

same time. One was a group of Shanghai players touring the battle-fronts and the other was the Eighth Route’s

own dramatic company organized by Ting Ling, a famous woman writer. On her way to Hankow, she met a group

of 13 students zigzagging back and forth to put on patriotic dramas.

The most picturesque of all the actors’ groups which toured the country was a troupe of twenty-four Shanghai children aged nine to nineteen. War destroyed their homes and drove them with their parents into refugee camps but they refused to stay there. (Strong, 2006, p.155)

Strong called them “Children’s Dramatic Club”, and introduced that they put on nine war-time plays, all

written by well-known playwrights for amateur production. The short plays of Tien Han, a leading left-wing

dramatist, were so popular that teachers taught pupils in village schools. Some one-act plays were commonly

copied by children in their games. These details showed that left-wing literature was transplanted into people’s

life, either for public enlightenment or entertainment. It changed the traditional perception of that literature or art

as only being useful for the entertainment of the upper class, and got most ordinary people involved. It became

the spiritual celebration of the whole nation. People with different backgrounds were united by the spread of

literature. The other aspect exhibiting the theme of popularity was the reaction of the audiences or the readers.

Strong especially noticed people’s response when she wrote Chinese left-wing literature. She commented: “they

listened breathless to the story of their own victory”, “even more applauded were the Shanghai players” (Strong,

2006, p. 152) and declared that Chinese dramas in an open-air village theater were “the best dramatic acting”. She

wrote,

Under these crude conditions the two dramatic troupes put on their performances which held their audience spellbound for many hours. The sun went down and the winter stars shone on the village drama; kerosene lamps were brought to light the stage. Till after ten on a bitter January night the blue-gray soldiers stood watching, laughing, applauding. The dramas showed aspects of the war against Japan; they were portrayals of life as those soldiers knew it. (Strong, 2006, p. 152)

The crude condition—a bitter winter night, kerosene lamps, no seats, contrasted with audience’s hypnotic

fascination, watching, laughing, and applauding. What a harmonious picture that Strong wanted to show to her

American fellows! The cruel nature and backward circumstance couldn’t prevent people enjoying their own

literature. They celebrated their victories, sharing their stories of sorrows but more importantly, cheering their

spirit for their strong belief in the victories of the future, which formed another contrast by the lonely hearts in the

waste land of modern cities and advanced facilities in America.

However, Strong’s compliments on Chinese left-wing literature were not absolute. She pointed out,

“Literature became simple and full of incident” (Strong, 2006, p. 156), “some of the dramas are so extremely


simple…” (Strong, 2006, p. 157) “Crude as are these amateur performances” (Strong, 2006,p. 156). She soon

explained that the simplicity was easy for people to copy; incidental plot was designed to appeal to the audience’s

revolutionary spirit, and crude performances were “furnishing the vehicle” for “the best” Chinese authors’

writing. Therefore, Strong was quite approval for Chinese left-wing literature’s involvement to the war and

admired the intimate relationship between writers and readers.

The Multifarious Identity of Chinese Left-Wing Writers

When defining literature, Terry Eagleton denied those criteria that were widely accepted, like literariness or

practical functions. Then he offered a general definition of the “literary” which is in fact historically specific. He

further brought forth that

the so-called “literary canon” of the “national literature”, has to be recognized as a construct, fashioned by particular people for particular reasons at a certain time. “Value” is a transitive term: It means whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to particular criteria and in the light of given purposes. (Eagleton, 1996, p. 10)

It might be the similar case of understanding the so-called left-wing literature when Strong fixed her eyes on

Chinese left-wing writing. Although Chinese left-wing movement was under the world trend of the radicalism, it

was closely involved in the complex historical contexts of modern Chinese enlightenment, national independence,

and political revolution. The movement’s literary form, theme, together with its spread could not depart from the

efforts dedicated by the writers, whose attitude of writing and way of living were also confined to the historical

context, displaying the particular characteristics. Strong constructed the multifarious facets of Chinese left-wing

writer when introducing Chinese left-wing literature.

Strong had a clear vision of the issue of war as a key factor in the changing pattern of literature, especially

the centers of writing, reading, and spreading, which symbolized the birth of a new culture and literature. At the

same time, those changes not only happened on literature itself, but also on writers and actors. In another word,

writers were forced to cease their dream of being pure writers, as they had to survive in the war. They might be

refugees, soldiers, actors, and peasants. According to Strong,

Many writers have gone to the front for active service in arousing the people; among these the most important are Ting Ling, the leading left-wing woman writer; Hsu Chen, the well-known novelist; and Chou Li-po, the essayist. Most of them are too active to spend much thought on the theory of writing. (2006, p.158)

Yet, it was this particular circumstance that allowed the emergence of particular criteria to discuss the value

of left-wing literature. Indeed, Strong had unique standards to evaluate the success of a writer.

First, Chinese left-wing writers might act as a bridge to establish the communication between the peasants

and the communist soldiers. Hu Lan-shih, a well-known woman writer who organized a group of Shanghai

working girls in the earliest days of the war, was portrayed as a “quite, well-poised young woman, with a vivid

sense of humor and superlatively straightforward and honest”(Strong, 2006, p. 166), to a typical new woman. She

was outstanding not for her writing or gender charms, but for her deep understanding of the farmers. “Miss Hu

herself had an almost uncannily shrewd knowledge of the Chinese farmer mind”(Strong, 2006, p. 166). With the

tone of praising, Strong accounted Miss Hu’s amazing events in motivating peasants to serve for the soldiers,

harvest the crops, take care of the injured soldiers, reclaiming dozens of child-traitors, and halting retreating


soldiers.

Second, Chinese left-wing writers joined the army, moved to the battle-fields to perform as soldiers. They

might forget their identity as writers temporarily, and devote their time to promoting the career of anti-Japanese

war. Strong was so curious about the modern Chinese literature that she interviewed Ting Ling directly. She had

already sensed that the war changed the style of literature, and the writers’ way of living. To enforce her

confirmation, Strong quoted her interview with Ting Ling.

When I asked Ting Ling to tell me the latest tendencies in Chinese literature, she answered, “I don’t know a thing about literary tendencies; I’ve been six months at the front. But I have a clear opinion about the duty of the writer. He has only one task today: to help save the country. We must simply write to arouse the masses”. (Strong, 2006, p.158)

In this respect, Chinese writers were busy with their identity as writers as well as soldiers. They were no

more confined to only one character but actively to play other roles. They played as actors to put on dramas, made

public speeches, drew cartoons on the village walls and taught the peasants to sing, and fostered the

popularization by singing songs. They regarded themselves as common soldiers, without enough food, or any

transportation tool. What they cared were not pure literature creation, let alone those who insisted arts for art’s

sake in China’s critical moment. In the interview, Ting Ling expressed the real concern of writers, “From the

standpoint of art our playing is backward, but the peasants like to see us because we dramatize their own life”

(Strong, 2006, p.158). “Our life, you see, is rather hard, but our audiences have smiling faces when we come,

even in the midst of all this danger and death. So we are happy too.”(Strong, 2006, p. 159). Art was laid aside; the

peasants’ reaction was valued, even at the cost of hard life, danger, or death.

Third, Cheng Hsueh-chao, a successful writer in Strong’s eyes, was praised by Strong, “She had mastered

the approach to a peasant home”(Strong, 2003, p. 75). Cheng Hsueh-chao’s example vividly illustrated how the

writers tended to stay in villages and live as farmers. Strong had a closely talk with her on August 1st, 1946.

Through the record of their talk, Strong revealed why Chinese left-wing writers penetrated into people and how

they thought of political policy working on literature. Strong emphasized that Miss Cheng was not a communist

but her choice of Yenan was very wise. Miss Cheng left her silk merchant family, took part in the women’s rights

movement in 1925-27, and felt disillusioned for the prosecution of Jiang Kai-shek’s government. Then she fled to

France to enjoy free life but could not endure such freedom after seven years in France. She came back to China,

went around many cities until she found real freedom in Yenan, saying “A writer’s life is very satisfying

here”(Strong, 2003, p. 74). She lived in a shallow cave with very simple furniture, which was entertained as

“Yenan style”. She didn’t care about the shabby residence as she explained to Strong that the house was better

than local peasants’ houses just because of a bigger window, and what she really needed was spiritual food. In

addition, she volunteered to teach farmers winter classes, help the housewife cook, sweep the ground, feed the

animals, and grind the millet. These details indicated how a bourgeoisie lady turned to communism and her life

and spirit was totally transformed,

“I think Mao Tze-tung’s views on literature are very sound”, “Mao call us to know the people of our country, to go among them and portray their life. When we go to the villages it is a double benefit. We import some ideas of sanitation, some general enlightenment. Meanwhile we ourselves gain more intimate knowledge of our country’s life. I especially need this because I spend so many years abroad. But most of our writers come from the upper class and do not know the Chinese peasant”. (Strong, 2003, p. 74)


Writers in Yenan were spiritually satisfied because they were not blind in mind anymore. With the political

guidance, they knew modern literature was not necessarily the copies from the west, or merely the heritage of the

tradition. They agreed with the literary theory of Mao Tze-tung, which encouraged artists to depict the realistic

life of peasants. Miss Cheng was described to show the process how she converted to believe in the Chinese

communism and follow the leadership to be one successfully connected with Chinese peasants.

From the three Chinese women writers portrayed by Strong, one distinctive feature was their active change

of identity, their roles played as soldiers, peasants or actors to foster the engagement of every individual to attend

the independence war. It seemed that they were well organized and very clear with what they should do.

Literature was the tool undertaken to serve for the public affair, the independence and liberation of the country.

The guidance of Mao Tze-tung’s views on literature was the answer to their highly coincident identification and

action.

The Real Landscape of Chinese Left-Wing Literature

Unlike the consensus that Chinese left-wing literature was primarily affected by the Marxist proletariat

literature of the USSR, Strong didn’t spoke of the similarity and cautiously avoided talking about the relation.

She didn’t see the relationship between Chinese left-wing literature and Soviet literature. It was probably because

she wanted to differentiate the two. In fact, Strong held her view towards Marxism. In her autobiography, she

mentioned, the American communists was blindly follow the leadership of Moscow, which led to the total failure

of American communist movement. Additionally, with the deeper understanding of USSR, she was not so

approving of misdeeds of Stalin dictatorship, like the political purge, the concealing the starvation along the

Volga and the miserable death of her best female friend devoting all to her work but not so much admitted by the

government. As a result, China was another hope. From her visiting in 1930s, she never evaluated China with the

rule of USSR as what she did in her 1920s’ visiting. It was no wonder that she thought Chinese communists were

independent with Mao’s literary theory and Chinese left-wing literature was born and developed within its own

context.

From the perspective of Strong, Chinese left-wing literature was born and urged by the war, under which

left-wing writers politically turn left, took the responsibility to stand by the side of people and the country and

naturally came to believe in communism and follow the leadership. From another perspective, Strong’s account

of Chinese left-wing literature was not only the record of facts, but a mirror clearly reflected Strong’s political

recognition and emotional admiration. The communist controlled place of China, especially on behalf of the hope

of a new order, the most advanced social system, was a realized communist utopia that carried Strong’s dream of

being a typical radical contributing to such a new social system lying in freedom and democracy that Americans

always pursued.

Moreover, she confirmed the specialty of Chinese left-wing literature from her failure experience in the

radical movement in America. On February 6, 1919, two days before the beginning of the Seattle General Strike

of 1919, she proclaimed in her famous editorial, “We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by

labor in this country, a move which will lead — NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!”(Strong, 1919, p. 1). The strike

was rising as “the iron march of labor” but then ended peacefully. She mentioned this failure in her autobiography

—I Change Worlds: the Remaking of an American (1935), reflecting the fear and blindness of this radical move.


Due to no explicit and defined guiding idea like Mao’s theory in China, but only roaring radical action, the Strike

went to no where, and was last tackled by the local government. That was a bravery try, but a pitiful and bitter

experience for Strong. Years later, she went to China and witnessed the revolution, and finally understood

China’s communists could win people because they had quite a clear guidance. All Chinese left-wing writers’

action and spirit were presented as well-organized and highly coincident. To her, Chinese left-wing literature was

a good example to illustrate the perfect relationship between writers and readers as well as between writers and

politics.

To some degree, it was an illusion that Strong constructed this harmony to fulfill her dream because she was

not insightful or critical enough to see the other side of Chinese left-wing literature.The truth was that the left

camp was not a monolithic whole as Strong’s assumption. Writers were gathered in the name of national

salvation, Chinese communists, fellow travelers, liberals, and nonparty radicals, united in the institution of Left

League. Yet, they divided into several groups, mainly two camps, the Creation Society and Sun Society, both of

which advocated the movement of revolutionary literature. But their understanding the connotation of

“revolution” and “literature” was different, and they took different strategies to realize the slogan of

revolutionary literature. Some held the view of “popularization” of literature and some favored language reforms

by introducing more Latin words and syntax. As it’s known to all, there were continuous arguments and

skirmishes, even personal attacks against writers in the other camp since Chinese left-wing literature coming into

being. It was complicated to analyze the detailed relationship and specific arguments for they were not the focus

in this article. Even worse, some writers wavered in their belief in the civil war and Rectification Movement

because of some extremely left policies in Yenan. In 1940s, Ting Ling showed gloomy and nihilistic emotion in

her writing, When I Was in Xia Village (1941). Cheng Hsueh-chao was investigated and compelled to write

materials to clarify herself again and again because she was born in an upper class family. She wrote in her diary,

“I regretted that I could not spend my time and energy on studying a subject, or doing some reading. It was

ridiculous doing such checking and confronting.”(Guirong, 2000, pp. 283-84). These phenomena were not

revealed by Strong. Or probably Strong chose not to write about. Another possibility was she was too accustomed

to observe the revolution itself, which result in her ignorance to the divergence of the inner complexity of Chinese

left-wing literature. And her lack of experience also accounted for the ignorance of foreseeing the complex

relationship between writers and politics, all her radical experience teaching her understand the fighting function

of left-wing literature but not getting along with a peaceful society when communists dominated the country. It

was proved Strong was too early to be optimistic in trusting China’s communism was perfect. The shortcoming of

centralization soon came in the form of Cultural Revolution. Although she had “little actual involvement” with it

“in part because of age, in part because of good sense”, (Tracy, 1985, p. 490) she stilled felt restrained in writing

and publishing, even seeing her brother Tracy. She had doubts and complaints about China “today”, which

overturned what she previously thought and she was scared and upset when many of her friends were arrested for

the accusation of “anti-party”. She felt lonely and depressed all day, which was confirmed by her autobiography

writer Tracy B. Strong and Helene Keyssar, “In the end her faith in China, which she had loved far more deeply

than she had ever loved Russia, gave place to perhaps bitter doubts and disillusionment.” (Stuart, 1985, p. 519).


Conclusion

With the establishment of the anti-Japanese national united front, it was the time that Chinese communists

gained its political legitimacy and gradually won increasing support of people. And at the same time, there was

overwhelming optimism in America’s 1930s that communism would rescue the whole world. For these

encouragements, Strong kept wholly glorification of Chinese left-wing literature and writers because they could

serve for the revolution. All proved that it was kind of literary construction that persuaded people to expect the

beauty and harmony that a communist system would be. With the retreat of radical movement, her illusion was

broken. She ignored that any political or social system was on the way to refining and progressing, and every time

of her illusion coming into being was due to the spirit in Strong that she was desperate in finding “a faith that was

both rational and infallible” (Pringle, 1970, p. 188). Compared with other left-wing writers who turned right,

center to be liberals or anti-communists in McCarthy period, Strong was consistently on the left but she was not

publicly acknowledged by American communist party.

References

Aaron, D. (1961). Preface to Writers on the left. New York: Harcourt, Brace&World, Inc.. Eagleton, T. (1996). Literary theory: An introduction. (2nd ed.) Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Guirong, Z. (2000). The memoirs: Cheng Hsueh-chao. Zhengzhou: Henan People’s Publishing House. Pringle, R. W. (1970). Anna Louise Strong: Propagandist of communism (The doctoral thesis, University of Virginia). Schram, S. R. (1985). Book review to right in her soul: The life of Anna Louise Strong. The China Quarterly, 103(4), 518-523. Snow, E. (1983). Living China. Changsha: Hunan People’s Publishing House. Strong, A. L. (1919, February 4 ). No one knows where. In The seattle union record. Retrieved from

http://courses.washington.edu/spcmu/speeches/annalouisestrong.htm Strong, L. A. (2003). The Chinese conquer China. Beijing: Foreign Language Press. Strong, L. A. (2006). One-fifth of mankind. New York: Modern Age Books, Inc.. Tracy, B. S., & Helene K. (1985). Anna Louise Strong: Three interviews with chairman Mao Zedong. The China Quarterly, 103(4),

489-509.


Layered Documentation—On the Process of Documenting

Contemporary Dance and Physical Theatre

Maria Mercè Saumell Vergés Institut del Teatre, Barcelona, Spain

How can choreography and physical theatre pieces continue to perpetuate the work after rendering? How to

preserve their aura, their dynamics, and their ephemeral and genuine nature, as Walter Benjamin said? In 1936,

Benjamin already anticipated in The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility that something is

missing even in the best-finished reproduction. And memories of dance and physical theatre are intricate. The

question is how to create a type of documentation that does not betray the vital flow of the event-based

phenomenon. In this short article we will see a series of choreographic and performance artists like Esther Ferrer,

Ayara Hernández Holz, and Olga de Soto who claimed a new form of organic documentation, making it turn

performance or memory of viewers. Other creators as the company La Fura dels Baus claim documentation as

spectacle and others on the opposite side, as Tino Sehgal propose radically non documentation of their work.

Precisely, these different positions coincide with those of thinkers like Peggy Phelan, Sarah Bay-Cheng, or Paula

Caspão who respect to a range of documentation and how it can never replace the live art.

Keywords: documentation methodologies, digital archives, processes of creation, re-readings, (non)documentation

Introduction

At present, under the current regime of technological reproducibility, images can survive through time, however corporeal effects created by performance cannot. This contrast has created a fascinating theoretical debate and, at the same time, a transformation regarding the concept of documentation itself, presently much more closely associated with the creative process and the new digital platforms.

Ontologies

Recently, further methods of theorizing ephemerality shifted towards the idea of performance as disappearance.

We especially note the contribution of Phelan with her famous book Unmarked: The Politics of

Performance (1993), and also the contribution of Schneider who develops that subject in her book Performing

Remains: Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment (2011). However, the existence of digital archives introduces the notion of ephemerality from other perspectives, questioning the very limits of the performance act by way of the immediate access to various simultaneous sources of information (about the show itself, about its creators, and about the place where the stage action was carried out, the making-of, interviews, images of the show with various casts, reenactments, and so on).

Maria Mercè Saumell Vergés, Ph.D., professor, Institut del Teatre.

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ON THE PROCESS OF DOCUMENTING CONTEMPORARY DANCE AND PHYSICAL THEATRE

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Bay-Cheng in her paper “Theatre is Media. Some Principles for a Digital Historiography of Performance” (2012) posits that theatre, dance, and performance history actually cannot be understood independently of digitized forms of media that “perform” documentation. The idea that media acts as an intrinsic part of performance history calls attention to the interdependent relationship between the act of archiving material and the actual process of generating and creating that material. Because recent documentation and digital technologies have complicated traditional archiving procedures by altering the processes by which we locate the available documents, how we reconstruct the event and the nature of the documents themselves.

In this sense, on materials and accumulated memories, settled in different layers and overlapping records, Bay-Cheng proposes,

Performance for more than one hundred and fifty years has responded to the effects of recording, first in photography, then cinema, and now digital recording and circulation. Our historiographic methods should account for the digital as performance as much we recognize that the performance event mediates. (Bay-Cheng, 2012, p. 37)

If we focus on the documentation of dance, in spite of the diverse systems and attempts of notation throughout the history of dance, bodies in movement escape from their own materiality and are essentially transformed into memory, a place where the logic of priorities is subjective. As we shall see, subjective memory is working its way into the new documentation methodologies, less rigid in regards to “scientific” criteria and more open to concepts that are more difficult to measure, such as emotion or the creative process itself.

But let’s return to the ephemeral character of performance arts. As was pointed out at the beginning, Phelan thinks: “Performance’s life is only in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so it becomes something other than performance” (Phelan, 1993, p. 51). However, technology has advanced nonstop since her book from 1993 and these innovations have also modified the theoretical discourses on live arts documentation.

During the same time period, in the 90s, on an international level there was a true “documentation fever” in the field of dance precisely to prevent the disappearance and the corresponding oblivion following the performance. The question is: How to produce a type of documentation that does not betray the event? We can discuss the example of the Re.act.Feminism 2—A Performing Archive travelling through six European countries from 2011 to 2013 where we can find works over 180 female artists and female artists collectives from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1980s. Indeed, the first country was Spain and continuing through Poland, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, and ending in Germany. The promoters of this interesting initiative, Bettina Knaupp and Beatrice Stammer, began investigating the veteran Basque performer Ester Ferrer who wrote in 1998: “To reenact a performance with documentation is like preserving the stage actions as if they were a taxidermic trophy” (Ferrer, 2011, p. 43).

It is interesting that in Spanish, Ferrer explicitly uses the verb related to the practice of taxidermy, which is defined as the art or process of preparing, stuffing, and mounting animal skins so that they have a lifelike appearance, facilitating their exhibition, study, and preservation. That is, the idea of lifeless bodies.

In this regard, it seems pertinent for me to quote—in the opposing sense—the opinion of the Portuguese researcher, Paula Caspão, who lives in Barcelona. She points out that documentation seen as a relic is not synonymous with dead material, as long as the relic continues to live on in the memory:

Our archives are full of corpses and we should better acknowledge that what we have experienced once in a lifetime is


457

not anymore and will never again be exactly the same way. That, in a way, is life, and performance performing life. Only, it is not that simple. Corpses or any other stiff bodies are seldom that dead. (Caspão, 2007, p. 145)

For her, documentation is as organic as creation.

Processes of Creation

Maybe we could point to a potentially new paradigm in dance and physical theatre documentation similar to the artist’s original process of creation: documents, interviews as a useful tool, exhibition documentation, and environmental parameters.

We consider that performance is a process and the public presentation is only the end result of several months of rehearsals, repetitions, and re-interpretations. Dance companies or physical theatre companies might create hundreds of hours of video footage of rehearsals and these records can be used in multiple contexts for both performers and researchers. However archives are often focused only on the end result. In order to reconstruct the artistry of dance or physical theatre production, records such as costumes, playbills, maquettes, viewing rehearsals, and talks with the creators, are also extremely important.

Documentation on the processes of creation portrays the archive as a presentation of art “in-the-making”.

Digital Archives

Digital archives relating to the performance arts should reflect their complexity and accommodate hybrid media as well as all the networking possibilities. As mentioned before, digital recording and storing processes now influence our notion of dance and physical theatre history. Archives are more dispersed and also democratic, accessible from anywhere, as opposed to a single archive location. Digital media present an innovative turn in archiving strategies that capture motion “in process”.

Visual recordings provide an expanding medium through performance and rehearsal which can be preserved in such a way as to demonstrate multiple viewing perspectives and the presence of live bodies. The transition to digitization exposes an expansion to the idea of the archive and its relationship to the preservation of the contemporary performance arts history. As such, the impulse to catalogue information on the Internet not only reiterates the aim of rendering performance arts history accessible to the public, but also reveals the utility of digital media in doing so. Now it is about digital media that store text, image, and sound.

We can consider that both documentation and performance in this context require careful attention not only to the multiple parts of the performance as such but also to the ways in which the performance, documentation, and reception are mediated through smartphones, websites, images, and social media exchanges including e-mails, video streaming and so on. All this takes part in the performance as well as its history.

With regard to this overexposure to information, the nostalgic attitude of certain creators should come as no surprise, as will be pointed out towards the end of this paper, underlining the need to live and defend the moment of the performance as a unique experience.

On other occasions, different audiovisual sources can be added to a composition produced with prerecorded images and sounds. Likewise, images captured live can be modified or computer graphics can be used. All these phenomena are made possible by the idea we call “real-time”, a term that has essentially emerged with the advent of digital media. We see this in shows such as those by the British company Blast Theory, The Wooster Group from New York, or La Fura dels Baus from Catalonia, among many other formations.


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The Archive of La Fura dels Baus

Very recently, the Documentation Center and Museum of Performing Arts of the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona (see from www.cdmae.cat) has welcomed the entire historical archive of La Fura dels Baus. The archive of this company, founded in 1979, is of enormous interest to researchers, as it gathers the creation processes of all its shows since the outset, from its beginnings in street theatre to physical theatre performance, the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games to their current opera productions.

This archive contains 2349 records (which include over 5,000 photographs, large numbers of posters, articles, and journalistic criticism, audiovisual recordings, drawings, budgets, and various materials on the process of creation…) corresponding to 172 productions of different types and theatrical formats.

Also this is an archive that will allow us to explore different methodologies and supports (from the initial story-boards drawn on paper to the most recent and sophisticated projects with 3D models and computer graphics). This wealth of languages is reflected in the documentation of their archive through combined sketches, previous interviews, photographs, and videos of the production processes and rehearsals.

On another level, this archive also shows us the speed at which technological changes have occurred in the field of audiovisual documental recording of the performance arts over the past 30 years. We find many recordings made on early Beta, VHS, DVD, and DvCpro tapes from the 80s that need to be transferred to a digital format in order to be preserved and shared. We have also found that the majority of the physical materials belong to the first decades of the company and how in later years the digital support has “immaterialized” the documentation.

It should be noted that the theatre company has always had an interest in documentation. Here we would underscore their proposal of documenting their creation processes, even incorporating them into commercial products such as the DVDs of their operatic performances, a genre that is sufficiently financed so as to publish high quality recordings with additional documentary materials.

For example, the opera Le Grand Macabre, by György Ligeti, staged in 2009 by Àlex Ollé. The DVD produced by the German company Arthaus Musik released in 2012 also contains quality documental extras. This operatic co-production between the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels and the Grand Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona required a complex production process that is wonderfully reflected in the extras featured in this audiovisual product. Fear to Death, a highly elaborate Making Of is designed more as a stand-alone product than a mere DVD extra. This 34-minute long audiovisual material, produced by Xavi Bové, gathers together interviews, original materials such as sketches and models, as well as images from rehearsals in La Monnaie.

The result of this special feature is a valuable insight into the entire creation process of the opera that, in this case, revolves around an initial image of a grotesque and gigantic body—Claudia—that gets its inspiration from the hyperrealist sculptures by Ron Mueck. The action of the opera, based on the 1934 play by the Flemish playwright Michel de Ghelderode, takes place inside the body of the giant doll—the colossal alter ego of the opera singer Claudia Schneider. The bizarre characters of this satirical opera inhabit the body. The characteristics of the 3D projections onto Claudia’s skin, the complexity of the construction of such a gigantic body, and the interaction with singers and actors provide extensive knowledge and documentation regarding the genesis and production of this magnificent mise-en-scène.


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Documentation as Performance

More recently, we should mention a series of performances constructed around re-readings of the documentation of performances or the testimonies of spectators as they recall the experience 20, 30, or even 60 years later. In these examples we do not speak of performance reenactments, as would be the case of the internationally renowned performer Marina Abramović regarding her own past performances.

Let’s consider the example of the Spanish choreographer Olga de Soto. Starting from a documentary process, she created the performance Histoire(s) in 2004. Olga de Soto not only transformed a documentation process into a performance, she also transformed the very act of performing into one of documentation, displacing both notions of documentation and dance performance.

She chose to pay tribute to the ballet The Young Man and Death (1946) choreographed by Roland Petit based on a libretto by Jean Cocteau. The première, shortly after Second World War, was at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris. Instead of reconstructing the ballet itself, Soto followed the thread of the witnesses’ memories of its première. The result doesn’t help us to follow the ballet in question. We see a choreographic recomposition of several moments, spaces, and memories constructed around a documentary film. Projected on four screens of different sizes, the film shows people in their homes talking about their memories of the ballet 58 years later at a very significant historical period: life after the war. The portraits of people speaking constantly change, as they visibly change in their mental and affective memories.

Unofficial Documentation

Returning to the subject of “documentation fever” that both institutions and creators have suffered recently, there are other disparate voices regarding unofficial documentation.

Consider the case of the Uruguayan choreographer Ayara Hernández Holz, now Berlin-based. She is only concerned with the traces that remain in the memory of viewers. However, just like a family photo, these memories evoke much more than the image itself: the memory that surrounds that photographic instant, inviting us to evoke its “aura” (according to Walter Benjamin’s concept).

She defines it as “organic documentation” (Hernández Holz, 2010). Nothing is set or fixed in this kind of documentation because by respecting the natural memory process, the “documentation” is continuously transformed into a never-ending game of translations and transpositions. The interesting thing is that she does not want to stage or preserve any record of these memories. In contrast to Olga de Soto’s project, she wants the memory of the performance to dissolve with the passage of time in the minds of her spectators, in the same way that time consumes their bodies.

Let’s consider now the example of the renowned international artist Tino Sehgal who has created a strong discourse on the (non)documentation of his works. As in the case of Hernández Holz, this statement has also resulted in the dissemination of his work basically by word of mouth.

Sehgal is a London born conceptual artist who has made his name by creating “constructed situations”. No material evidence of Sehgal’s work officially exists. He worked with the experimental choreographers Jérôme Bel and Xavier Le Roy and his refusal to allow documentation should not, however, be read as a rejection of new technologies but rather as more of an ethical and political decision. He wants to favor the transitory live exchange between audience and interpreters.

Dance and economy interact in his work, suggesting an interrelation between today’s economics models


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and the situations generated by live bodies. (Non)documentation has become his “label” of resistance against the production of tangible objects. This proposal seems attractive to us because it goes against an economic system based on excess, but in spite of this discourse, we cannot deny that he forms part of the contemporary art market and, for example, Sehgal consented to give several interviews on the occasion of winning the Golden Lion at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Maybe because, in short, in our consumer society, (non)documentation is equivalent to being forgotten.

Conclusion

We have sought to gather and defend a series of concerns regarding the documentation of today’s performance arts, with special focus on dance and physical theatre. We have quoted several theoretical arguments and also the emergence of new archival supports, interests and methodologies. Additionally we have highlighted how archives specialized in the performing arts are placing an ever-increasing importance on everything related to the creation process, study, and documentation, viewing these as an intrinsic part of live arts.

References Bay-Cheng, S. (2012). Theatre is media. Some principles for a digital historiography of performance. Theatre, 42 (2), 26-41. Benjamin, W. (2008). The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility. Westminster: Penguin Books Ltd.. Caspão, P. (2007). Stroboscopic stutter on the not-yet-captured ontological condition of limit-attractions. The Drama Review, 51

(2), 136-156. Ferrer, E. (1998). Ester Ferrer: De la acción al objeto (Since the action to the object). Sevilla: Centro Andaluz de Arte

Contemporáneo. Hernández Holz, A. (2010). La poética de la Desaparición (The poetics of Disappearance) (Master thesis Universitat de Girona). Knaupp, B., & Beatrice, S. (2011). Re.act. feminism 2—A performing Archive. Retrieved from

http://www.reactfeminism.org/archive.php?l=lb Phelan, P. (1993). Unmarked: The politics of performance. London: Routledge. Schneider, R. (2011). Performing remains: Art and war in times of theatrical reenactment. London: Routledge.


From Sunset Winter to Caetano’s Spring:

The Importance of a Song Contest

in the Portuguese Music Scene of the 1960’s and 1970’s

Sofia Isabel Fonseca Vieira Lopes

Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

I propose to introduce a few lines of analysis for the RTP Song Contest (Portuguese Radio and Television Song

Contest—Festival RTP da Canção). I intend to raise a few questions that will help us to understand the role of this

competition in the Portuguese musical and cultural scene of the 1960s. RTP Song Contest is the longest television

song contest in Portugal. This competition went through several crucial moments in the recent history of Portugal,

witnessing the change from dictatorship to democracy. In late 1960s, still under the authoritarian regime, several

social changes took place and music played an important role in these changes, as several studies have documented.

In 1969, Portugal bet on Simone de Oliveira to bring us the prize, but the result was not the expected. This event

brought us many questions about the importance of the Portuguese participation in the Eurovision Song Contest and

the fairness of the European evaluation. This paper intends to reflect the implications of this particular event and the

importance of the Contest for the Portuguese music scene at the end of the critical 1960’s. With this paper, I intend

to introduce some lines of analysis of the first ten years of the Portuguese Radio and Television Song Contest

(Festival RTP da Canção—RTP Song Contest). I intend to raise a few questions that will help us to understand the

role of this competition in the Portuguese musical and cultural scene of the late 1960s and 1970s, based on the

study of the daily press. RTP Song Contest is the most long-life television contest in Portugal. This competition

went through several crucial moments in the recent history of Portugal, witnessing the change from dictatorship to

democracy. For this reason, it is important to make a short historical overview of this period and the history of

television in Portugal. At the same time, the analysis of statistical data of audiences enables us to understand the

television phenomenon in the late 1960s.

Keywords: music and television, Festival RTP da Canção, Eurovision Song Contest, ethnomusicology

Introduction

The studies in music and television are recent in Portugal. For a few years now, the Portuguese

ethnomusicologists have been developing research in this field. Some research has been presented (i.e. Lopes,

2012), and others are still under development (i.e. Pinto, 2014). At international level, studies on Eurovision

Song Contest and the various national competitions have been growing and this academic field has been

claiming through various publications. In Portugal, this subject is very recent in the academic scope and

Sofia Isabel Fonseca Vieira Lopes, Ph.D., Instituto de Etnomusicologia, Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança, Faculdade de

Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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FROM SUNSET WINTER TO CAETANO’S SPRING

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ethnomusicology is being developed the first systematic work (Lopes, 2013).

This article presents a reflection about the RTP Song Contest in late 1960s. I chose one of the most

controversial examples of the contest’s history that is still present in the Portuguese memory. I start by

presenting some topics related to the historical context to better understand the importance of this episode.

After some reflection on the television in Portugal and the role of music in this medium, I present the case of

the Portuguese representation in ESC 1969. In that year, the expectations on political openness and renewal of

Portuguese music, separating it from the aesthetic music National Radio, have been transposed into the song

played by Simone de Oliveira. The expectations were not met and the boldness of Ary’s lyric had no

international echo which gave rise to a “national disappointment”.

This research was presented at A Transnational Vision for Europe?: Performances, Politics and Places of

the Eurovision Song Contest International Conference, at Malmö University, Sweden in May 2013 and results

of the primary research work of my Ph.D. project.

Portugal—A historical overview

Between 1926 and 1974, for almost fifty years, Portugal went through a dictatorship. From 1932 on,

António de Oliveira Salazar was the Prime Minister that influenced all venues of Portuguese administration.

His office became known as Estado Novo (New State). During his thirty-six years of government, Salazar

created a propaganda and a security organization that became essential for the establishment of the dictatorship.

The absence of freedom of speech, of expression and association were effectively controlled by the censorship,

the secret police, and Inspecção Geral de Espectáculos1 that examined all public demonstrations, including the

media.

Like all authoritarian states, its image, inside and outside borders, was carefully planned. From 1933, SPN

(National Propaganda Office), directed by Antonio Ferro, assumed the task of designing and implementing

Salazar’s cultural policy according to the regime’s principles. Ferro had a clear perception of the role of culture

as an instrument of power in service of a political regime, building a national rhetoric and promoting a good

image of the nation. However, the State never sought to define an official aesthetic line for music, integrated in

its political and ideological principles. As Côrte-Real explains,

the individual creativity and expression was inevitably conditioned by the image of the inspectors—militaries, lawyers and white collar workers in their majority—created for “acceptable” and “proper” expressive behavior. Not only the texts, but also the “attitudes”, the “wardrobe” and the “gestures” were among the most frequent objects of censorship.

(Côrte-Real, 2000, p. 32)2

Since its foundation in 1933, the National Broadcasting Station (Emissora Nacional) was considered one

of most important and effective agents of ideological propaganda. In 1947, the Artists Training Center (Centro

de Preparação de Artistas) was created within the National Radio with the intention of selecting and preparing

new singers. Many of the singers who were trained at the Centro de Preparação de Artistas participated in the

RTP Song Contest until 1974.

1 “This institution, of crucial importance as a link between cultural policy and musical expression, was organized in 1929 and reorganized in 1962. (…) After being authorized, the performances were examined, as much as possible…” (Côrte-Real, 2000, p. 31). According to the author, for the state (Estado Novo) the concept of Espectáculo (show) was a synonym for expressive behavior liable to convey ideas and behaviors. Therefore, the need for their constant was checked by the state officials. 2 Côrte-Real (2000): text originally in English; other texts translated by Sofia Vieira Lopes.


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Its practice was based on the

transmission of an interpretative style that was associated with “light music”3. Here, musical education was based on

the development of individual vocal expression, privileging good diction, voice adaptation to the microphone and studio and the relationship with the audience. (Moreira, Cidra, & Castelo-Branco, 2010, p. 874)

Television would arrive in September 1956, twenty-four years after the regime’s establishment, and under

the “mistrust” of the Prime Minister. Censorship became a structural force and the basis of the whole political,

technical, and discursive strategy in news magazines, configuring the instrumental device that TV was proving

to be. As recent studies indicate, despite effective control of the press, radio, and television seem to have been

somewhat apart this strict control (Cravinho, 2014; Pinto, 2014).

In September 1968, for health reasons, Salazar found himself unable to fulfill his political duties and the

President of the Republic, Américo Tomás, appointed Marcello Caetano to assume the position of Prime

Minister, a position he would occupy until 1974, the date of the 25th April Revolution (the “Carnation

Revolution”) that put an end to the dictatorship in Portugal. Marcello Caetano was considered a man with a

cosmopolitan attitude and this change of attitude in the government brought the Portuguese people a hope of

political openness. In fact, some political measures seem to aim the long desire and need to change; however,

fundamental rights remained restricted. The truth is that between 1968 and 1974 Portugal witnessed an

important opening to the outside4. The six years of Caetano’s government were called by some people

“Marcello Caetano’s Spring” (Primavera Marcelista), but for others they were seen as the Autumn of the

regime, that is, the beginning of its end.

RTP—Radio Televisão Portuguesa—Portuguese National Television

RTP (National Television) began its experimental broadcasts on September 4, 1956. As well as the

National Radio and RTP was directed and controlled by the State. Six months after the first television broadcast

in Portugal, in March 1957, RTP began regular broadcasts and definitely became part of Portuguese daily lives.

The analysis of RTP programming schedules leads us to conclude that television, in the early years, followed

models and procedures of the radio (Pinto, 2014). Until 1969, Portugal had only one television channel. The

public channel RTP 2 premiered in 1969 and private television broadcasting began in the 90s.

TV sets had mandatory to be State licensed. In 1959, with an estimated thirty thousand television licenses,

RTP joined European Broadcasting Union (EBU) 5 and had its first audience analysis made. In Lisbon, 77%

of viewers watched TV in their homes, whereas 23% watched in public places; but the data reversed when

analyzing the rest of the country. In Oporto region (the second largest urban center), 65% of viewers watched

3 In Portugal, and according to Encyclopedia of Music in Portugal in 20th Century, Light Music is a generic classification in the field of music production associated with mass media, music industry, and new forms of urban entertainment. It includes a diversity of musical styles and songs as the main genre, often called the light song. It is used since the end of the 19th Century. Its meaning is close to the Anglophone concept of popular music. It is a genre between art music and popular music associated to the lower social classes (Moreira, Cidra, & Castelo-Branco, 2010, p.874). 4 This doesn’t mean that Portugal was completely closed to foreign influences. It is possible to see many external influences in music and television. For example, RTP broadcast several programs of foreign source production (in 1964, 4.6% of programs were produced abroad, in 1968 this number rose to 30%). 5 According to EBU’s website, “The European Broadcasting Union (EBU, UER in French) is the world’s foremost alliance of public service media (PSM) with Members in 56 countries in Europe and overseas. Its mission is to safeguard the role of PSM and to promote its indispensable contribution to society. It is the point of reference for industry expertise and a centre for European media knowledge and innovation” (http://www3.ebu.ch/en/about, June 12, 2014).


464

TV in public places; in the rest of the country, the overwhelming majority watched TV in public places (81%).

Watching television had a community character. People would gather together to watch television. So, RTP’s

live broadcast shows became important national events.

In the first eight years, RTP shows were mostly live broadcasts and there was no effective technology for

recording and subsequent transmission. All entertainment programs produced by RTP were performed and live

broadcast. Only from 1964 on, videotape technology became available, and it allowed easy recording and later

television broadcast. 6 Because of the concerns related to unpredictability of public participation in

live-broadcast or in the recording of programs, it was only in 1969 that live-programs could accommodate an

audience. One of the first programs in the history of Portuguese television broadcast with public presence was

the1969 RTP Song Contest, in February in São Luiz Theater. However, this program was designed, produced,

and broadcast as a live show and not as musical television product.

In 1968, the RTP administration changed its outlines with the entrance of new administration chairman,

Ramiro Valadão, directly appointed by the new Prime Minister. A newcomer from the United States, with a

cosmopolitan spirit, Valadão had the important and difficult function of modernizing television, reflecting an

apparent political liberalization advocated by Caetano and he also carried out an efficient job of controlling the

TV content. Valadão had always in mind that television was the most important medium of political

propaganda, especially at a time of increasing social protest of the late 1960’s in Europe, when television began

to be the center of the living rooms in the Portuguese homes.

RTP Audiences and Schedule

In the 1960’s and 1970’s, RTP had two types of musical programs: Art Music shows and Light Music

shows. Within light music shows, the 1964 RTP Yearbook highlights the annual organization of RTP Song

Contest, making evident the “attempt to enhance the quality of light music, not only in quantity but also on

interpretive and production aspects” as well as the “contribution to the Portuguese music growth, encouraging

the production of new compositions” (Anuário RTP, 1969). In the first editions, the singers, the composers, and

the lyricists were already well-known to the public for their work on the National Radio. These factors may

have contributed to the success of the competition. Therefore, according to RTP executives, light music

programs “have always recieved great applause and approval” (Anuário RTP, 1969). We can see that they were

more focused in what is accepted by the general public. Thus, it is a clear visible adequacy of the program’s

typology to a target audience. In the first audience study, we can see music programs ranked in second position

of preferences, just after drama. Between 1961 and 1974, musical programs had an average of 12% of RTP

broadcast time and, within these, light music programs had a 5% of total broadcast time (see Figure 1).

Between 1958 and 1974, the broadcast time of RTP increased gradually to almost three thousand hours a

year. The six years of Valadão’s management showed a decrease in the time devoted to the broadcast of music

programs. This decrease may be related to the substantial increase in time for sports, drama, and special

programs (some dedicated to the military events of the Colonial War—1961-1974).

6 The use of this technology since 1964 has enabled Portuguese participation in the Contest since sharing the recorded program with other members of the EBU was a precondition for participation in the Contest.

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(jury) that analyzed the lyrics and music of each song. Later, during the orchestration, the composers selected

the singers who would present their songs. On the final stage, during the TV show there was usually a featured

jury panel representing the different parts of the country. This final stage and this voting model had been

changing over the years according to the emerging policy of the State. This model continued until 1974. After

that there has been a further democratization in the voting process and consequently a closer relationship with

the audience.

In the late 1960s, though shyly, a new generation of musicians from Conjuntos Musicais8and the new

styles of international pop music began to be represented in RTP Song Contest. This new generation tried to

follow not only the trends of international popular music but also to feature a style and attitude as a

counterpoint to the performers of the Radio, introducing many contemporary elements. New singers claimed an

opposite position of the so-called nacional-cançonetismo9. For example, in 1970 we saw important changes in

RTP Song Contest performers when singers who became popular and well-known from another RTP

program—Zip-Zip (RTP, 1969)—participated in the Contest. Zip-Zip promoted to the emergence of new

singers and new lyricists who became known for their songs with political and social messages (Lopes, 2012).

Later, RTP Song Contest gave them an international visibility.

Desfolhada Portuguesa—The Revival of the Portuguese Light Music10

In the course of my Master’s research work about Zip-Zip, which I’ve mentioned above, I found an

interesting issue about the Portuguese participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.

In the 1969 edition of RTP Song Contest, Simone de Oliveira, a widely known cançonetista11, who was

seen at the time as a radio star, participated for the fourth time in this contest12. Simone de Oliveira sang a song

entitled Desfolhada Portuguesa (Portuguese husking), with José Carlos Ary dos Santos’ lyrics, Nuno Nazareth

Fernandes’ melody, Joaquim Luís Gomes’ orchestration and conducted by Ferrer Trindade. This was the first

edition of the Festival under Marcello Caetano’s rule and the competing songs tried to echo the overall

expected social and political change.

Nuno Nazareth Fernandes, the music composer, was not a newcomer in the Festival. In the previous year,

the winning song had been written by Fernandes and sang by Eduardo Nascimento. The song highlighted not

only an “aesthetic content oppositethe ‘Nacional cançonetismo’, but also a strong ideological attitude in the

lyrics that revealed the political and social situation at the time” (César, 2010, p. 474). His co-work with the

lyricist José Carlos Ary dos Santos had started in 1968 and it was known, according to Encyclopedia of Music

in Portugal, as the “renewal of the aesthetic and ideological content” (César, 2010, p. 473). In the following

two years, this pair competed at the RTP Song Contest, winning the first prize again in 1971. Ary dos Santos

8 Term used to describe a small musical group. In the 1960s, these groups played pop music according to the Anglo-Saxon model. 9 Concept firsthand used by journalist João Paulo Guerra in an article published on July 19, 1969 in Diário de Lisboa. This derogatory term refers to the singers from the National Radio musical production whose songs were based on a patriotic vision and the rejection of foreign influences. 10 Expression used in Joaquim Luís Gomes’ interview—orchestrator of the 1969’s winning song—published in New Antenna magazine (March 21, 1969). 11 A singer related to nacional-cançonetismo. 12 Simone participated in the First Portuguese Song Festival in 1958 (broadcast only by radio) and “thereafter, their media coverage was due largely to the participation in several festivals” (Silva, 2010, p. 934). She won the Festival da Canção Portuguesa in 1959 and 1960, the Festival da Figueira da Foz in 1962 and the RTP Song Contest in 1965 and 1969, and was awarded Queen of the Radio in 1964. In 1965, Simone represented Portugal in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Winter Sun (Sol de Inverno).


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and Nuno Nazareth Fernandes and their team work were known for their contribution to the renewal of both the

music and lyrics of the Portuguese light music. The lyrics of the winning songs brought Ary dos Santos an

important public recognition. With his lyrics, Ary dos Santos had the opportunity to share his poetic imagery

and political ideas, as the song was for him “a lyric wrapped in music (…) with the purpose of communicating

with the general audience”13 (Felix, 2010, p.1178). The use of metaphors, satire, irony and sometimes

aggressive everyday language, and imagery gave Ary dos Santos’s lyrics an important role in social

intervention, which contributed to the renewal of the lyrical content of music. Besides the implicit ideological

message, his lyrics have an outstanding part in the Portuguese literature. Ary dos Santos sometimes “was

described by journalists and literary critics as a pamphleteer poet–which comes from his political engagement

and the fact that many of his lyrics have become a political reference” (Félix, 2010, p. 1179).

Running through March21, 1969, Nova Antena magazine, one of the highlighted issues was the interview

with Maestro Joaquim Luís Gomes. Maestro, called here as one of the “biggest names engaged in the rebirth of

Portuguese light music” (Gaspar, 1969, p. 24), highlights the role of orchestrators for the continuity of festivals

songs like RTP Song Contest. In Maestro’s opinion, 1969 RTP Song Contest had introduced a higher literary

level; however, he believed that music did not follow this trend, as a result of an excessive amateurism.

Maestro describes Desfolhada as: “a symbiosis of folklore-fado, fado incorporated into folklore, emphasizing

the local colors, which makes Desfolhadaa unique song” (Gaspar, 1969, p. 24), pointing out the inclusion of a

Portuguese guitar for the first time present in Eurovision Song Contest.14 In Gomes’ opinion,

this year there is more truth in our representation. Things are much more rooted in our musical language. (...) If something is expected on an international festival, I think it is the local color, the representativeness of each of the songs, their ethnic features. (Gaspar, 1969, p. 24)

On the Eurovision Song Contest proceeding days, the Portuguese press highlighted the participation of

Simone de Oliveira. On a trip to Madrid, Diário de Lisboa, a Portuguese daily newspaper reported the presence

of hundreds of fans at the train station that “surrounded the cançonetista, pushed her against the train carriage,

asked autographs, gave kisses, said goodbye, sang the first bars of Desfolhada and shouted "Simone! Simone!

Victory!”, possessed by an enthusiasm which became difficult to report in detail” (Diário de Lisboa, March 25,

1969).

For Simone, the country had assumed victory. In the following days, there were several reports claiming

that the Portuguese song was one of the best, mainly due to the quality of the lyrics and the performer’s voice.

For the Portuguese journalists, Simone brought a “new soul” and a “smile of hope”. It is interesting to read

what Diário de Lisboa published on March 29:

A couple of hours from the epilogue, the festival remains a mystery. If the jury faces the problem under political aspects, we have Germany or Yugoslavia at the top positions. If they watch the issue in terms of business, it is certain that only England or Spain can win. If we size up the artistic value, Portugal, Switzerland, Holland or Italy are the favourites. But if the “great ruler” fancies to “pop music” or overwhelming feelings, it may be time for Belgium or Monaco (Faustino, 1969, p. 1)

On the same day, César Faustino a journalist from Diário de Lisboa predicted:

13 Citation from SéculoIlustrado, March 1, 1969 14 In the Portuguese contest, the Portuguese guitar melodic line was played by a female integrated in a chorus of three female voices.


468

Beware optimists either I am mistaken—hopefully—or we’ll see Portugal again in one of the last positions in spite of the song credits or the performer value. Without doubt, the Portuguese song is a very good song. Final voting is a sham every year. A grotesque comedy of pre-fabricated scores and falsified ratings, combining neighbourhood games and linguistic groups solidarity or morbid political retaliations. (Faustino, 1969, p. 8)

The winners were France, Spain, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. In Madrid, the Portuguese song

was ranked in the fifteenth place with four points (the last but one). The press wrote about the Portuguese

disillusion, reporting the warming welcome back to Simone de Oliveira at her arrival. For Maestro Nóbrega e

Sousa, interviewed by Nova Antena on May 2, 1969,

The result of the vote of the Eurovision Song Contest was unfair. Our song deserved a better score. This I considered a weak festival. Singers did not satisfy me greatly; and our Desfolhada wasn’t fully appreciated by the European jury. I repeat, that it is a good song, but it seems to me that we have overstated, perhaps, when proclaiming that this song marked a new level in the evolution of the Portuguese light music. (D’Almeida, 1969, pp. 20-21)

For Mário Castrim, one of the leading television critics of the time, Simone seemed to “mourn their

sorrow”, with a dramatic, ultra-romantic and a little careless song, “barely thought for those who wish to win

European festivals”. According to Castrim, “universal refrains and lots of beautiful legs is what it is necessary”

(Castrim, 1969, p.10), since the winning songs reflected the weakness of the Western European music. In spite

of criticizing the importance of the business word in the choice of songs, Castrim did not doubt to say that

Simone de Oliveira sang badly a poorly orchestrated song.

To the journalists, the song by Simone de Oliveira reflected a shifting paradigm in the songs that

increasingly tried to move away from the rhetoric of the New State. The comparison between the carnal love

expressed in the sentence “who makes a baby makes it with pleasure” and love by the motherland made the

audience speak about Simone and Desfolhada. In an interview, Simone declares: “They told me everything.

Insulted me in restaurants at lunchtime, at dinner time, just do not hit me by chance”15 (Costa, 2013). In

Castrim’s opinion, to bet on a “Slavic song” was one of the causes for the Portuguese defeat and he makes a

point that “both in songs as well as in history, you never win when you bet on the old recipe” (Castrim, 1969,

p.10). The author criticized the orchestration and the introduction of the Portuguese guitar. Due to the political

engagement of its authors rather than a new message of the song or the different style of musical composition,

Desfolhada Portuguesa was the greatest success of Simone de Oliveira career and it is still one of the most

famous songs of the RTP Song Contest. A few months after her defeat, between 1969 and 1972, Simone

interrupted her career due to vocal tract problems.

After the Portuguese defeat in 1969, RTP decided not to participate in next year’s edition. In a moment of

longing desire for a change such as Portugal was going through, Desfolhada was also a synonym for change

and hope but the bad result discouraged the Portuguese people. In the media, there were several references to

the unfair Portuguese result on Eurovision. Political relationships between countries are often presented as

justification for the Portuguese defeat. Once again, Portugal felt “proudly alone” (expression used by Salazar)

at a time when the international community was increasingly challenging the Portuguese colonial policy.

Conclusion

For many years, the RTP Song Contest was able to gather Portuguese people around the television, and it

15 Diário de Notícias online: http://www.dn.pt/revistas/ntv/interior.aspx?content_id=3147394 (September 1, 2014).


469

was a subject of conversation for audiences of different generations, what stands out the status and importance

of television in the Portuguese community. It is important to mention Spigel’s statement (1992) when he refers

to the difference between films and television, but that is easily transposed to this context:

Whereas film allowed spectators imaginatively to project themselves into a scene, television would give people the sense of being on the scene of presentation—it would simulate the entire experience of being at the theatre. (Spigel, 1992, pp. 138-9)

This is always an audio-visual experience to the audience. And this is an emotional experience, too.

Audience is exposed to the competition and the expressive behavior. This involvement is only possible via

television as an interactive musical experience. It creates empathy between the audience and the performers in a

way that I consider more effective compared to the radio broadcast.

Moreover, beyond the jury’ scrutiny, there is a parallel audience’ scrutiny that takes place in two distinct

contexts: in private context, when watching the program at home; in public context, since it was common

practice for viewers to watch TV in public places. This scrutiny is assumed as a major factor for the success of

this contest. Thus, the public is no longer a passive viewer, but is a part of the action on an interactive

relationship.

RTP Song Contest and the Eurovision Song Contest were thus fundamental to music production in

Portugal in the 1960s and 1970s. In fifty years, the RTP Song Contest promoted the production of thousands of

original songs, enabled the widespread of approximately 450 songs, encouraged and cemented the popularity of

more than four hundred singers.

From the transmission of regional competitions and, after 1964, with the regular organization of FRTPC,

public television cherished the events that were considered fundamental for the development of Portuguese

music (emic concept used by journalists, composers and performers) as a way to curb the dominance of foreign

music in the Portuguese music scene.

The 1969 edition had a most special impact, since it was believed that Simone de Oliveira’s song

represented the changing political attitude, the “Spring” of Prime-Minister Marcelo Caetano.

Cádima (1996) conveys the idea that due to the power of the image, TV, and specially RTP Song Contest

fulfils, in a way a very particular function: being phatic, shaping people’s identity, being connected.

References Anuário RTP (RTP Yearbook). (1969). Lisboa: RTP. Cádima, F. R. (1996). Salazar, Caetano e a Televisão Portuguesa (Salazar, Caetano and the Portuguese television). Lisboa:

Editorial Presença. Castrim, M. (1969, March 30). O Festival terminou quadrúpede (The ESC ends quadruped). Diário de Lisboa, 10 César, A. J. (2010b). Nuno Nazareth Fernandes. In S. Castelo-Branco (Ed.), Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no Século XX

(Encyclopedia of Music in 20th Century Portugal). Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores/Temas e Debates. César, A. J., Tilly, A., & Cidra, R. (2010a). Festival RTP da Canção (RTP Song Contest). In S. Castelo-Branco (Ed.),

Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no Século XX (Encyclopedia of Music in 20th Century Portugal). Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores/Temas e Debates.

Côrte-Real, M. S. J (2000). Cultural policy and musical expression in Lisbon in the transition from dictatorship to democracy (1960’s to 1980’s) (Ph. D. dissertation, Columbia University).

Costa, R. (2013, April 4). Simone de Oliveira: “Tenho uma solidão minha, que não é explicável por palavras” (Simone de Oliveira: “I have a myloneliness, which is not explained by words”. Diário de Notíciasonline. Retrieved 2014, September 1 from http://www.dn.pt/revistas/ntv/interior.aspx?content_id=3147394


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Cravinho, P. (2014, February). “Vinte Minutos de Jazz...” Os primeiros programas de jazz na televisão em Portugal (1958-1963) (“Twenty minutes of Jazz…” The first jazz programs on Portuguese television (1958-1963)) (Paper presented at the Conference Musicologia Criativa, Porto).

D’Almeida, C. (1969, Mai 2). A música portuguesa em discussão: Há ainda muito a fazer—opinião de Nóbrega e Sousa (The Portuguese music under discussion: There is still much to do—Opinion of Nobrega e Sousa). Nova Antena, 20-21.

Eurovision Broadcast Union. (2014). Retrieved 2014, June 12 from http://www3.ebu.ch/en/about Félix, P. (2010). José Carlos Ary dos Santos. In S. Castelo-Branco (Ed.), Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no Século XX

(Encyclopedia of Music in 20th Century Portugal). Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores/Temas e Debates. Fautino, C. (1969, March 29). Estanoite a Europa sentada em frente ao pequeno ecrã (Tonight Europe will be sitting in front of the

small screen). Diário de Lisboa, 1, 8-9. Gaspar, F. (1969, March 21). Joaquim Luís Gomes: uma guitarra para a “desfolhada” (Joaquim Luís Gomes: a guitar for

“leafless”). Nova Antena, 24. Lopes, S. V. (2012). Duas horas vivas numa TV morta: Zip-Zip, Rádio e Televisão no preâmbulo da democracia em Portugal

(“Two alive hourson a dead TV”: Zip-Zip, MusicandTelevision in thedemocracy’spreamble in Portugal) (Master thesis, FCSH-UNL).

Lopes, S. V. (2013). “Em play back”: O Festival RTP da Cançãonaprodução e mediação da músicaem Portugal (1964-2012) (“Playback”: The RTP Song Contest in the production and mediation of music in Portugal (1964-2012)) (Ph.D. project at FCSH-UNL).

Lopes, S. V. (2014). O concurso enquanto espectáculo musical—Reflexões acerca dos antecedentes do Festival RTP da Canção (The contest as musical show—Reflections about the RTP Song Contest ancestors) (Paper presented at the Conference Musicologia Criativa, Porto)

Moreira, P., Cidra, R., & Castelo-Branco, S. (2010). Música Ligeira (Light Music). In S. Castelo-Branco (Ed.), Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no Século XX (Encyclopedia of Music in 20th Century Portugal). Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores/Temas e Debates.

Pinto, J. R. (2014, February). Da Rádio para a Televisão: Modelos e processos de produção musical nos primórdios da televisão em Portugal (From Radio to Television: Models and music production processes in the early days of television in Portugal) (Paper presented at the Conference Musicologia Criativa, Porto).

Silva, J. (2010). Simone de Oliveira. In S. Castelo-Branco (Ed.), Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no Século XX (Encyclopedia of Music in 20th Century Portugal). Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores/Temas e Debates.

Spigel, L. (1992). Make room for TV: Television and the family ideal in postwar America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Simone a caminho de Madrid (Simone goes to Madrid). (1969, March 25). Diário de Lisboa, 1-2.


The Impact of Handicrafts on the Promotion of Cultural

and Economic Development for Students of

Art Education in Higher Education

Yassir M. Mahgoub

University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan

Khalid M. Alsoud

King Faisal University, Al-Hasa, Saudi Arabia

This paper studies the impact of handicrafts on the promotion of cultural and economic development for students

of art education in higher education through handicrafts based on local customs and traditions. Descriptive,

analytical, and experimental methods are used in this research. The results of the study are expected to benefit

from the results of this study to provide planners handicrafts in the Ministry of Education. An effective strategy

can affect the teaching and learning of handicrafts, the protection of its features and its presence and identity. The

study sample consists of 45 students of the third level, batch 2012–2013, from the faculty of Education at the

University of Khartoum, Republic of the Sudan. The researchers to prepare topics for handicrafts depend on the

use of local materials and units which are derived from the environment and represent the Artistic heritage that is

shown through handicrafts (pottery, ceramics, calligraphy, decoration, carpet weaving and textile, sewing,

embroidery, sculpture and engraving on wood, metal works, and printing works). The researchers focuse that the

students learn the value of handicrafts in terms of economic and method of production and take advantage of it to

increase the income of the individual product. The results confirms the existence of a difference in the quality and

value of handicrafts for students in both groups: the experimental and control group, which confirms that the

handcrafts lead to the promotion of cultural and economic development for students of art education in higher

education. The researchers are recommended to consider of this topic as a main component which enables an area

for further studies to develop different strategies in the field of handicrafts, for students to recognize the

importance of the handicrafts value in terms of economic and method of production and take advantage of it to

increase the income of the individual product.

Keywords: handicrafts, cultural, economic, art education

Introduction

Handicrafts are unique expressions of a particular culture or community through local craftsmanship and

materials. With increased globalization, however, products are becoming more and more commoditized and

artisans find their products competing with goods from all over the world. It is no longer possible to look at

Yassir M. Mahgoub, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Art Education, University of Khartoum. Khalid M. Alsoud, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Art Education, King Faisal University.

DAVID PUBLISHING

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THE IMPACT OF HANDICRAFTS ON THE PROMOTION

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traditional artisan communities and their products in isolation from global market trends and competition.

Handicrafts are part of a much larger home accessory market, which includes handcrafted, semi handcrafted, and

machine-made goods. The home accessory market is strongly influenced by fashion trends, consumer purchasing

patterns, and economic conditions in end markets. In many cases, artisans are out of touch with those end markets,

which presents a challenge to those seeking to export their products (Barber & Krivoshlykova, 2006).

Handicrafts are unique expressions of a particular culture or community through local craftsmanship and

materials. With increased globalization, however, products are becoming more and more commoditized and

artisans find their products competing with goods from all over the world. It is no longer possible to look at

traditional artisan communities and their products in isolation from global market trends and competition.

Handicrafts are part of a much larger home accessory market, which includes handcrafted, semi handcrafted, and

machine-made goods. The home accessory market is strongly influenced by fashion trends, consumer purchasing

patterns, and economic conditions in end markets. In many cases, artisans are out of touch with those end markets,

which presents a challenge to those seeking to export their products. The response of consumers to handicrafts is

unpredictable and lends itself less to research and generalization than does the response to other products.

“Consumers buy handicrafts because they like to feel connected with indigenous traditions and cultures in a

global and increasingly commoditized world”.

Handicraft production is a major form of employment in many developing countries and often a significant

part of the export economy. With increased globalization, however, products are becoming more and more

commoditized, with artisan producers facing increased competition from producers all over the world,

particularly in China and other Asian countries. The home accessory market, often used to estimate the demand

for handcrafted goods, is strongly influenced by fashion, consumer purchasing patterns, and economic conditions

in end markets. Keeping up with frequently changing market trends presents a major challenge for handicraft

exporters.

Handicrafts are an important productive sector and export commodity for many developing countries. The

growth of international markets for home accessory products and an increased interest in global goods have

opened up new market opportunities for artisans. Despite widespread production, however, there is a lack of

common definition of handicrafts, although various attempts have been made to characterize this broad and rather

unstructured sector (Mikkelsen & Hagen-Wood, 1998).

Crafts, by their very nature, are not mass produced. But if people are working with their hands, albeit with

the assistance of tools and machines, producing goods required in a wide market space, selling to make profits

and thereby contributing to national wealth, crafts can be termed as a decentralized creative industry where the

human mind and hand are more important than the small machines and tools they may use. Here the machine is

the instrument of the maker, owned by the maker or by the community. To that extent, craft is free of domination

and exploitation. Therefore, There is a world of industry without industrialization in the traditional sense and

there is both ample scope and need for it to come out of the disorganized, diminishing, and low-end profile that it

has been carrying for long (Jaitly, 2005).

Historical Background

The official date of incorporation of the Arts and Crafts Movement in America is 1897, but that era started


473

long before this official date. The movement was the start of a transition from the traditional manufactured

Victorian designs to handcrafted simple craftsmanship. This new movement originated in England around 1888,

as the Industrial Revolution was eliminating craftsmanship to quantity. Hand tools were replaced by machines

(Gomez, 2001). The industrialization was eliminating the skills and trades that had been handed down for

generations among craftsman and craftswomen. The Arts and Crafts Movement proved to be widely influential,

popular, and long lasting, spreading across the Atlantic to Boston to be established in the states starting in 1897

after a showing. A small group of architects, educators, craftspeople, and collectors organized the first crafts

exhibition held in this country. The show promoted excellence in design, technical mastery, and usefulness in

ever day life. Arts and crafts relied on the past medieval designs, simple and practical, straight lines and solid

craftsmanship for longevity. The Gothic revival of the first half of the 19th century was an important influence of

the arts and crafts movement by revisiting the influences of the middle Ages architecture and cathedrals. It also

revived the skills and traditional materials used by the medieval craftsman (Gomez, 2001).

Importance of the Study

The researchers are expecting to teach the subject of handicrafts to students of art education in higher

education, whereby enhancing the creative and creation.

The study will provide teachers with an effective strategy to develop their performance and improve the

current teaching methods.

The researchers predict that this study enables an area for further studies to develop different strategies in the

field of handicrafts.

To recognizes the importance of teaching student to learn the value of handicrafts in terms of economic and

method of production and take advantage of it to increase the income of the individual product.

The Objectives of the Study

To develop means and methods to ensure the development of student’s skills and knowledge, and to identify

handicraft aesthetics.

To enable students to understand the relationship between economics, culture, and aesthetics.

To enable students to explore the linkages between environment, craft traditions, and society through field

studies.

To develop a respect for the diversity of craft traditions and to uphold the dignity of its practitioners by

understanding the difficulties that they face.

To introduce society’s culture through the crafts, so that school students appreciate the variety of skills and

expressions of the artist in societies.

To provide students a creative aesthetic experience of the unique visual and material culture of societies and

develop values of conservation, protection the environment, resources, and heritage of the country.

Hypotheses of the Study

Handicrafts could positively impact students on the promotion of cultural and economic development for

students of art education.


474

Methodology of the Study

The descriptive, analytical, and experimental methods were used in this research. The target population

consists of students from the Faculty of Education, University of Khartoum, Republic of the Sudan. The study

sample consists of 45 randomly selected students from the Faculty of Education—students of years (2012–2013).

Firstly, the 45 students were asked some of works from (pottery, ceramics, calligraphy, decoration, carpet

weaving and textile, sewing, embroidery, sculpture and engraving on wood, metal works, and printing works).

This test was marked out of 10 by using the criteria below. Then there was a two-week wash out period. After this

period, the specific handicrafts program was taught which included the student to learn the value of handicrafts in

terms of economic and method of production and take advantage of it to increase the income of the individual

product. Each student was then given the same task to undertake: Make another design based on creativity. The

task was marked out of 10 marks. The task was chosen as a valid measure of promotion of cultural and economic

development for the handicrafts for students.

The total score for the test is 10 marks and the marks were distributed as follows:

Idea and design: Three marks.

Understanding of the relationship between tradition and contemporary trends: Three marks.

Exploration of the linkages between environments, craft traditions: Four marks.

The collected data was analyzed by the statistical program (Statistical Package for Social Science, SPSS)

using the appropriate statistical treatments. The T-test for independent data was conducted to verify the

significant differences between test scores before and after the implementation of the handicrafts program.

Sample of the Study

The study sample consists of 45 students of the third level, batch 2012–2013, from the faculty of

Education at the University of Khartoum, Republic of the Sudan.

Crafts Traditions

Some people think folk art is only the work of uneducated, rural, older artists; some think that folk art is any

handmade object that looks rustic, crude, and idiosyncratic; and others think it is solely the work of ethnic artists.

Some people think that any artist who uses traditional techniques, designs, or forms in the production of, for

instance, a broom, quilt, pot, decoy, paper cutting, or woven rug is therefore a folk artist. (Dowell & Avery,

2006).

In Britain, men such as John Ruskin, William Morris, and Charles Ashbee looked to the Medieval Period as

a model for crafts guilds which fostered a more direct and meaningful connection between the workers and their

work, with Ashbee setting up his own guild. They preserved more traditional methods of production, used more

traditional materials, and turned to nature for inspiration for their designs. In America, the movement was led by

Gustave Stickley (1858-1942), whose handcrafted furniture emphasized natural materials and whose Craftsman

Style homes emphasized harmony between the architecture and the site (Stickley, 2009).

Stone Work

Another basic material that does not need much processing and technology is stone. Different types of

stones from the most common ones to region specific ones or to precious gems have been used in different ways


475

from architectural construction, to sculptures, to making jewelry and so on. One would need to discuss different

aspects of stone works that have existed through thousands of years.

Metal Crafts

Metal working dates back to prehistoric times. At the beginning, craftsmen had worked only malleable cold

materials, followed by several forms of casting. It is much later that blacksmithing appeared, where metal was

soften by intense heating and hammered into shape. Obtaining the wanted shape out of a durable material was a

great step in the evolution of humanity. Modern investigation methods allow us to study the complex

development of metallurgical knowledge, to determine the technologies of alloys involved, and to follow the

traditional craft of blacksmiths and many others. Understanding the properties of each metal compounded in an

alloy also gives us an overview on the behavior of the finite object (Gerelowitz, 1988).

Weaving

There are many natural materials found in and around your garden that can be harvested for weaving

projects such as baskets, mats, and wreaths. Winter is an optimal time to gather woody vines, such as honeysuckle,

grapevine, and wisteria, in preparation for weaving projects. Baskets can be woven from these different materials

and making them is a satisfying and relaxing activity. It’s also a very useful garden craft—students can use their

baskets to collect harvested garden to produce or to gather clippings for compost.

Weaving is thought to be the most ancient of the arts. Some say humans mimicked the intricate nests of the

weaver‐bird or the graceful patterns of a spider web. Others credit the combination of human ingenuity and

survival needs.

Textile Crafts

Clothing and textile being one of the three basic needs of human beings, apart from food and shelter, find

place almost everywhere from the most common material of cotton to the expensive silk and wool. Most of the

textile crafts are self-sufficient systems where the process starts right from acquiring raw materials to making

them worthy to be woven, dyeing, printing, painting, embroidery, etc.. Some of these traditions are hundreds of

years old.

Materials, Processes, and Techniques

The students would examine much of the following description of a broad range of materials used for crafts

and alternatives adopted in changing circumstances (bone instead of ivory, mango instead of sandalwood,

polyester and other synthetics, plastics, etc.), nature of craft depending on the quality of the material used,

varieties and qualities of wood, stone, metals, alloys, grasses, bamboo, cane, and naturally cultivated fibers

(cotton, silk, wool, jute, coir), gems/glass, animal products(leather, horn, bone (with emphasis that these are

harvested only after the death of the animal)), shells, shola pith, paper dough, nature of dyes and colors (mineral,

chemical, vegetable), handmade paper out of different materials etc. Each of these materials undergoes different

stages of process before converting them into objects. Different techniques to handle materials each of which

require various tools, possibilities of recycling by using waste materials creatively for economic purposes, and

chemical waste processing etc., are other dimensions which need to be discussed.


476

Results and Discussion

Data Analysis of the Hypothesis



Table 1

Paired Samples Statistics

Variable N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Experimental Before Experimental After

45 45

104.87 113.87

31.171 35.062

4.647 5.227

Table 2

Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences

95% Confidence Interval of

the Difference

Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Lower Upper T.Test df Sig. (2-tailed

Pair-Experimental Before-total Experimental After–total

-9.000 18.695 2.787 -14.617 -3.383 -3.229 44 .002

Since the potential value = (0.000) is less than (0.05), it means there is a significant difference between the

students’ test grades before and after the handicrafts program.

The above tables (1-2) show that there is a significant difference between the students of the experimental

group before and after the implementation of the program through the potential value, which amounted to (0.000).

This potential value is less than the level of error allowed (0.05%) for the benefit after applying the program

through the arithmetic mean value, which is amounted to (113.87) that is greater than the arithmetic mean value

before implementing the program, amounting to (104.87).

Through analyzing the results, the researchers noted that before the implementation of the handicrafts

program, the students were not able to use of hand skills and did not use nature materials in their implementation.

The results show there is a significant difference between group’s performance before and after the program. This

confirms that the handicrafts could positively impact students on the promotion of cultural and economic

development for students of art education.

After an analysis of the result hypothesis can be accepted. Obviously the handicrafts sector could positively

impact students on the promotion of cultural and economic development for students of art education to wider

through applied handicrafts.

The results reveal that the handicraft skills for students improved after the handicraft program. Therefore, it

could be argued this program to assist the students’ to introduce society’s culture through the crafts, so that school

students appreciate the variety of skills and expressions of the artist in societies. Handicraft can teach students

that everything in nature is the source of all the raw materials that are functioned into handicrafts. This study has

demonstrated that students will practice applying handicrafts to arrive at sustainable think solutions. To

accomplish this objective, students must understand that implementation of handicrafts as skill is more complex


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than simply viewing of handicrafts as a model. But if people are working with their hands, albeit with the

assistance of tools and machines, producing goods required in a wide market space, selling to make profits and

thereby contributing to national wealth, crafts can be termed as a decentralized creative industry where the human

mind and hand is more important than the small machines and tools they may use. Give particular attention and

traditional handicrafts to meet the needs of low income rural and urban poor men and women, young men and

women, and the disabilities.

Practical recommendations from this research include the need to give particular attention and traditional

handicrafts to meet the needs of low income rural and urban poor men and women, young men and women and

the disabilities.

And the practical recommendations also include the need to consider this topic as a main component to

enable an area for further studies to develop different strategies in the field of handicrafts, for students to

recognize the importance of the handicrafts value in terms of economic and method of production and take

advantage of it to increase the income of the individual product.

Result



Recommendations

Government should organize regular seminars for up gradation of technology and production techniques.

Efforts should be made for collaboration of handicraft and handloom sector, integratingwith other

departments and creation of a “handicrafts cell”.

Need to consider of this topic as a main component that enables an area for further studies to develop

different strategies in the field of handicrafts, for students to recognize the importance of the handicrafts value in

terms of economic and method of production and take advantage of it to increase the income of the individual

product.

Conclusion

It was concluded that handicrafts could positively impact students on the promotion of cultural and

economic development for students of art education and a means of fostering students’ creativity and practices in

art education, and provides to students the opportunity of learning with practice. The contribution to new

knowledge in this study included the development of advice for all participants working within and related to the

field of education and in particular of art education.

The researchers are recommended to consider of this topic, as a main component, which enables an area for

further studies to develop different strategies, in the field of handicrafts for students to recognize the importance

of the handicrafts value in terms of cultural and economic, and method of production and take advantage of it, to

increase the income of the individual product.

References

Barber, T., & Krivoshlykova, M. (2006). Global market assessment for handicrafts, 1(July). Bennet, C. A. (1937). History of manual and industrial education 1870 to 1917. Peoria IL: TheManual Arts Press.


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Dowell, M., & Avery, J. (2006). A report on traditional crafts and economic development in Michigan. Michigan State University Museum. (This report was prepared under a grant from Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. A downloadable copy is available at: www.craftworksmichigan.org)

Gerelowitz, M. N. (1988). Iron production in prehistoric Europe. Journal of Metals, 40(6), 52-53. Gomez, A. (2001). Manual arts movement. Retrieved from https://www.imagine101.com/manual.htm Grue-Sorensen, K. (1961). History of education. Porvoo: WSOY. J.R. Burrows & Company. (2003, October 1). Arts & crafts movement furniture for the Idaho building at the Columbian exposition,

Chicago, 1893. Retrieved from https://www.burrows.com/founders/furniture.html Jaitely, J. (2005, September). Crafts as industry. Retrieved 2007, April 4 from http://www.india-seminar.com/semsearch.htm Kerschensteiner. G. (Ed.) (1910). Fundamental questions of school organization; a collection of speeches, articles and examples

organization. Leipzig, Teubner, 23-43. Mikkelsen, L., & Hagen-Wood, M. (1998). Experiences in taking crafts to market. New York: Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise

Division Publications. Stickley, G. (1972). Simplicity and domestic life. In L. Mumford (Ed.), Roots of contemporary American architecture. 37 essays

from the mid-nineteenth century to the present (pp. 299- 305). New York: Dover Publications, Inc.. Stickley, G. (2009). Craftsman homes and bungalows. New York: Sky horse Publishing, Inc..


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Appendix

Some of student’s works from (carpet weaving and weaving, sewing, embroidery, and wood works).

London in Love

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