Caryl Phillips Crossing the River (1993)

1. Caryl Phillips Crossing the River (1993)

2. PLOT • A voice speaking from the past describes the consequences of his desperation: his two sons and one daughter sold as slaves. • Nash: in 1803 sent to Liberia as a missionary after receiving a Christian education: he becomes part of this world. • Martha: trying to settle into the “wild west” of the 19th century after seeing her daughter and husband sold. • Travis: soldier during the Second World War. He finds acceptance in England.

3. THEMES • Paternalism: troubling relationship between Nash and his former master Edward. • Marginalization: especially Martha and Joyce (English woman who falls in love with Travis). • Memory: Martha’s memory of her lost family. • The middle passage: the board journal of a slave trader is reported in part III. Dehumanization. • Interracial relationships: relationship between Joyce and Travis.

4. Caryl Phillips A New World Order selected essays (2002)

5. INTRODUCTION • Caryl Phillips: African ancestry Caribbean birth (St Kitts) British upbringing (Leeds) American present-day residence • Feeling of displacement, of not belonging to any place: “I recognize the place, I feel at home here, but I don’t belong. I am of, and not of, this place.”

6. WHY “A NEW WORLD ORDER”? • We are moving towards a new model of society with “one global conversation but limited participation open to all, and fully participation available to none. In this new world order nobody will feel fully at home”. • Attempt to embrace the Africa of his ancestry, the Caribbean of his birth and the United States where he now resides as one harmonious entity. • Possibility to go beyond a concept of identity based on nationality or race.

7. THE UNITED STATES • Centrality of the so called “color-line”: racial polarity, tacit understanding of a permanent division between blacks and whites. • Serious racial discrimination in law suits • “Twoness” of white immigrants: prejudices could be overcome by taking a place into the white society. • Uniqueness of the African-American position: they experienced institutionalized racism.

8. THE UNITED STATES 2 • Progress of African-Americans (in music, sport, the arts): white reaction= “they are taking over” black reaction= “in your face” attitude • Black frustration: symbolized by the aggressive attitude of gangsta rappers, but also of many scholars and university professors. • Phillips condemns this attitude: cultural complexity cannot be reduced to a mere matter of race.

9. THE UNITED STATES 3 • Artists’ possibility to reduce the gap (looking for connections, not divisions). • Two examples: Richard Wright’s Native Son (successful attempt) VS Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (unsuccessful attempt).

10. THE UNITED STATES 4 Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940) • Source of inspiration for Phillips to become a writer • Wright’s incredible ability in introspection: despite the brutality of the black protagonist (rapist and killer) the reader sympathizes with him: understanding of the reasons of this violence. • Violence as an act of liberation: white people cannot control destructive force.

11. THE UNITED STATES 5 Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997) • Acknowledgment of Spielberg’s talent as a film-maker BUT disappointment with his rendering of African-American history. • Many mistakes in the film: • anachronistic language • exploitation of the black male body’s attractiveness • Immobility of the characters (no psychological development)

12. AFRICA • Disappointment of the African-Americans who return to Africa: alienation, deep frustration. • Confutation of the Pan-African ideal theorized by Crummel and Bryden. • No sense of belonging: shared blackness does not help (“figment of the pigment”). • Phillips’s rejection of this attitude: Africa does not need harsh criticism, but intellectually constructive debate.

13. THE CARIBBEAN • Phillips’s discovery of Caribbean literature due to Frantz Fanon (Black skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth): source of inspiration. • Caribbean literature marked by restlessness and desire to migrate. Sense of displacement as a gift for writers. • Tensions generate creative energy. • Caribbean as model for our age (migration).

14. THE CARIBBEAN 2 Cyrill Lionel Robert James • Writer who embodied these ideals. Born in Trinidad, where multiculturalism ruled. • No racial prejudices in Trinidad: reason why he never focused on race in a simplistic way. • Engagement with Marxism: connection between racial question and problems of the working class. • Critique of black essentialism and nationalism. • Critique of the lack of national identity in the Caribbean and the “protection” from the United States.

15. THE CARIBBEAN 3 Real independence and the question of St. Kitts • St. Kitts as mother colony of the British empire. Independence in 1967: new state of St. Kitts-Nevis. • Great celebrations for independence: boycotting by the Labour Party. • In the country: people’s situation did not change with independence. Misery. • Returnees disappointed by the present-day situation.

16. BRITAIN • Emigration from the Caribbean to Britain in the 1960s. • These emigrants and their offspring found difficulties in being accepted. • 1976-1977: Notting Hill riots. • Great problem: miscegenation. • First emigrants: able to survive and take their place in the British society. Next generation: lost and frustrated.

17. CONCLUSION: WHAT IS “HOME”? • Robert Frost: “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in”. • Phillips’s “Atlantic home”: triangular.