Stories of growth: Caribbean Women Writers (2)

Stories of growth: Caribbean Women Writers (2) Olive Senior & Michelle Cliff

Outline • Caribbean Women Writers: Major Themes • Michelle Cliff: Introd. • Abeng Chap 15-17 • hunting scene and its reasons; • bathing scene and what it reveals –gender and race • the issue of languages • Olive Senior: Introd. • “Bright Thursday” • color scheme and education; • the father’s (lack) of influence

Caribbean Women Writers: Major Themes • female Bildungsroman: • stories of growth and development--national or racial allegory: the personal as the political • racial and class issues and the process of socialization • Gender stereotypes and inequality • “Mother Country” vs mother land (relations to the Caribbean landscape) • education and mother-daughter relationship--usually alienation the grandmother as the positive figure

Working Miracles: Women’s Lives • absent father (mother) • child-shifting (adoptions –“Bright Thursdays” adopting to fill in an empty space for the grandparents 210) • Single mothers as breadwinners (1/2 of the Caribbean households are headed by women) • Outside children -- children born out of a father’s stable residential union; legitimacy is not an issue Olive Senior, Working Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean (Chapter 1)

Michelle Cliff--Introduction • born in Jamaica, educated in the US and UK and now resides in the USA • works: • Abeng (1984) –our excerpt • No Telephone to Heaven (1987) • “White Creole” Identity: • “My family was called red. A term which signified a degree of whiteness. . . . In the hierarchy of shades I was considered among the lightest. The countrywomen who visited my grandmother commented on my 'tall' hair - meaning long. Wavy, not curly (Cliff, 1985: 59).

Michelle Cliff--Major Themes • Interaction of gender, sexual, class, racial identities • the issue of language • the importance of history and oral culture • “colourism” or color prejudice in Jamaica • the issue of passing (129) • “Passing demands a desire to become invisible. A ghost-life. An ignorance of connections…. Passing demands quiet. And from that quiet--silence.” --“Passing”

Cliff on Clare Savage • Clare Savage "is an amalgam of myself and others, who eventually becomes herself alone. Bertha Rochester is her ancestor.Her name, obviously, is significant and is intended to represent her as a crossroads character, with her feet (and head) in (at least) two worlds. • Clare: a light-skinned female who has been removed from her homeland in a variety of ways and whose life is a movement back, ragged, interrupted, uncertain, to that homeland. She is fragmented, damaged, incomplete.“ (e.g. her missing her mother)

Cliff on Clare Savage • Savage: “Her surname is self-explanatory. It meant to evoke the wilderness that has been bleached from her skin, understanding that my use of the word wilderness is ironic, mocking the master’s meaning, turning instead to a sense of non-Western values which are empowering and essential to survival, her survival, and wholeness. ("Clare Savage as a Crossroads Character" 264-5)

The Meaning of Abeng • “Abeng is an African word meaning conch shell. The blowing of the conch called the slaves to the canefields in the West Indies. The abeng has another use: it was the instrument used by the Maroon armies to pass their messages and reach one another.” --Abeng

Characters in Abeng • (colonists; planters) Samuel & Judith; • Judge Savage • (landed, red) Albert & Mattie Freeman; • Kitty Freeman Boy Savage • Clare Savage; Jennie Savage • Ben (C’s cousin) & Joshua (half cousin) • Miss Ruthie (squatter, black) Zoe • the cane-cutter • Mass Cudjoe (the pig) • Old Joe (the bull)

Chap 15: hunting episode The natural world outside the plantation; Clare and hunting pp. 114 (Clare’s memory) – Zoe’s persuasion: against hunting. Pp. 116 Bathing pp. 119 (Clare’s reflection); Cane-cutter’s interruption Chap 16: implication and causes of Clare’s acts Why shoot? Robert Clare Boy vs. Kitty Chap 17: consequences: Zoe’s thinking Clare’s facing the grandmother Abeng: our excerpt

Abeng: Starting Questions • Why do you think Clare wants to go hunting? • Why is the cane-cutter’s sudden presence so embarrassing?

The Hunting Episode in Context • The history of natural lives//colonialism pp. 112 • the origin of the pig--the native of the island • the Maroon ritual and gender differences • the mongoose • from India (112) • “the true survivor” (113) • symbolic meaning—about hunting and survival; how the natural habitat has been changed by colonial practices • Does Clare enjoy killing wild animals? What is the symbolic meaning of this hunt for Clare?pp. 114, 115,

Clare’s motivation • She does not enjoy hunting (e.g. experience of eating goat and roasted birds); • Wanting to eat the pig’s testicles and penis; • Kitty, Kitty Hart, Anne Frank, Doreen Paxton • Joshua and Ben’s hunting for a pig.

Clare and Zoe • What are the differences between Zoe and Clare? How are they similar to or different from Antoinette and Tia? • Zoe: • calls Clare “town gal” class difference • is afraid of being thought of as “Guinea warrior, not gal pickney.” (117-118)  gender limitation • Clare • split; “limited” (119); • recognize her “selfishness”; her lack of understanding of property and ownership (121)—Clare’s alienation from the native code; unconscious of her own class privilege

Zoe & Clare (2):bathing scene • What is the significance of the bathing scene (119-120, 124) in the episode? Is the relation between the two girls lesbian? • Why is Clare so afraid of being seen by the cane-cutter? • Why does Cliff follows it with a narration of “battyman” in Ch. 16? • How does the family describe the “battyman” Robert (125-126)? What has happened to him? What is the connection of Robert’s story with the relationship between Clare and Zoe? • What divides Clare and Zoe?

Zoe & Clare (2):bathing scene • Communication & Self-definition p. 120; 124 • Robert and the American negro // Clare and Zoe  transgression of racial boundaries p. 127

Clare’s Split Racial Identities • Boy’s teaching of “race and color and lightening” (127) • Kitty’s influences: • Kitty’s cherish of darkness (127-128)—”keep darkness locked inside” (129)—melancholic • Kitty’s dream of setting up a local school (129-130)--her distrust of British education and love of black culture--“Daffodils” vs the Maroon Girl (129) • Kitty’s preference for the darker daughter Jennie (129) and Clare’s sense of alienation from the mother (128) Clare’s love for Zoe (131) • Thinks Clare likes passing (129)

Languages--English and Patois • What kind of language does Zoe use? What is the significance of different languages in the novel? (e.g. Clare to Zoe, to the cane-cutter, and to Ms. Mattie) (122, 134).

The daughter of peasant farmers, she grew up, after four, with well-off relatives whose lifestyle was the opposite of what she had known as a child.  tension between two different households, between rural and urban settings  “two Jamaicas”;(source: http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Biography/bio_OLIVESENIOR_Jcanauthor.htm ) Olive Senior: an Embodiment of Conflicts

“Bright Thursdays”--Genealogy • Dolphie Watson Miss Christie • Mina Bertram Myrtle Johnstone (white U.S.) (brown) (dark) Laura 2 sons (2 fathers) (Bertram’s Mistake; Bertram’s stray shot) • A child’s perspective—a gradual process of alienation

“Bright Thursdays”--Questions • Why is Laura’s story not like ours visits of our grandparents? • If we divide up the story into the beginning, middle and end, where is the “middle” part in which the action starts? • Why does the story have a long introduction? What does the intro. show about Laura? Why does she feel alienated from her siblings? What is she afraid of? • What is the significance of the photographs, mirror, the mountains vs. the wide open space, and the clouds? • What does the ending mean?

Color System in the Caribbean Society • Ms. Christie: “Dying to raise their color all of them” (199) • The color triangle: white brown dark

“Bright Thursday”: intro. • Intro. Pp. 194 - 207 • Myrtle as a single mother • Myrtle’s view of Laura’s father (p) • Myrtle’s dream (197-98; 200) • Myrtle vs. Ms. Christie (pp. 198-99;) • Laura in the two households • at her mother’s: p. 200 • at Ms. Christie’s: p. 195; 196;

Contrasts between the two households • Mountains vs. hills pp. 203 – 204  sense of insecurity

Space and its Symbolic Meanings • Spatial imagery • Laura’s sense of displacement • transported from mother’s house to father’s • out of place or no space (photos on the bureau195) • Laura’s sense of inferiority • enclosed and protected(mother’s house in the mountains, hemmed in 203); • empty space (the dinning table 196; father’s house 204-05) • fear of open space ( blue bowl 204-205) • Fear of bright Thursday 206-207 (the bus) • Need protection and safety from the earth (digging potatoes 207)

Middle part • The father –present only as a photo 208; few fathers around • dreaming about being rescued by her father; • will bring nothing but bright Thursdays (208)

Ending: final revelation and initiation • Color hierarchy p. 210 • A story of disillusionment—the breaking up of her hope and dreams—“bloody bastard” (211) • Turned into an orphan

References • Cliff, Michelle. "Clare Savage as a Corssroads Character." Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the First International Conference. Ed. Selwyn R. Cudjoe. Wellesley, MA: Calaloux, 1990. 263-68. • Michelle Cliff http://www.cc.nctu.edu.tw/~pcfeng/Cliff/Cliff.html

Stories of growth: Caribbean Women Writers (2)