Reconciling The Past: A Post-Colonial Perspective On The Literatures Of The American South
Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter).
(Mark, 3:16)
The name Jesus re-inscribes Simon into the world is Peter, a name which means “rock”. Simon is given the name Peter as a designation or symbol used for the foundation of the modern Christian faith. Peter is recognized as by Roman Catholics as the first Pope of the Catholic church: “Jesus said, ‘Take my sheep’.” (John 21:16). Peter became the name by which Jesus wrote back to the centre of the Roman world. This is an early example of post-colonial theory. Jesus used language to re-name Peter, sending a message of defiance to the centre of the Roman Empire: Jesus asserted his voice. At that moment when Simon became Peter, “the rock”, the foundation for the Christian faith is designed. These same principles are employed today by post-colonial writers who choose to write back to European centres through the appropriation of language and literature in an attempt to carve out an identity of their own, reconciling the pre-colonial and post-colonial calendars of their cultures. This is not to say that post-colonial, or commonwealth, writers are the only ones using these techniques in contemporary times. The theory belongs to no one group:
Commonwealth literature, it appears, is that body of writing created, I think, in the English language, by persons who are not themselves white Britons, or Irish, or citizens of the United States of America. I don’t know whether black citizens are part of this bizarre commonwealth or not. (Rushdie, 367)
Although many would argue that Irish writers are indeed post-colonial writers, Rushdie considers them part of the commonwealth, and in point of fact black Americans, or at least those who choose to be, are a part of Rushdie’s “bizarre commonwealth” because of the method of their writing. Those writers who are attempting to reconcile their pasts, present, and futures, such as Frederick Douglas and Alice Walker, are in actuality using the techniques of post-colonial theory in an attempt to achieve similar ends as writers like Salman Rushdie:
A major concern with post-colonial literature is the concern with place and displacement. It is here that the special post-colonial crisis of identity comes into being, the concern with development or recovery of an effective identifying relationship between self and place.
(The Empire Writes Back, Introduction, 8–9)
These American writers are indeed displaced. They are all searching for their own sense of self knowing that they do not belong to the African culture of their ancestors but yet still have a claim to that heritage. Their writing is therefore post-colonial because these contrasting extremes of their lineage must be reconciled to create an identity for the future.
How the black American writer differs from those writers traditionally thought of as being post-colonial comes not in the writer’s agenda, but rather the target.
The idea of “post-colonial literary theory” emerges from
the inability of European theory to deal adequately with
the complexities and varied cultural provenance of post-
colonial writing. European theories emerge from particular
cultural traditions which are hidden by the falsenotion of
the “universal”.(The Empire WritesBack, Introduction, 11)
The post-colonial writer is responding to European elitism in literature, the black American writer uses the post-colonial technique to respond, or write back to, American elitism in literature. Black American writers are writing back to Herman Melville in the same way that Melville himself wrote back to Shakespeare with Moby Dick. The blank slate in Moby Dick, the “White Whale”, was meant to represent the American future, an identity to be inscribed which failed to fully include black Americans. Although it can be easily argued that Queequeg, a black character, is the most important character in Moby Dick, he is never fully accepted into the America of the Pequod. The Melvillian America is built on the rock of Ishmael, never acknowledging that Queequeg is the carpenter that laid the foundation through his sacrifice. Melville quite deliberately aligned Queequeg with Christ-like imagery, yet the American culture continued to persecute his cultural heritage. This makes Queequeg the black back on which America is founded in Melville’s narrative. Melville deals with black Americans the same way British writers deal with the cultures they colonize:
“Since British writers reflect the colonizer perspective on
the clash of culture, their chief concern is usually with
their English characters” (Outsiders And Insiders, Introduction, 3)
In the context of black Americans, the British are replaced by the white creators of “American Mythology”, like Melville, who are concerned with their Ishmaels but ignore their Queequgs. Queequeg is constantly outside the social circle of the Pequod, the Melvillian vision of American culture. Because Melville’s “melting pot” fails to include Queequeg, it fails on a conceptual level. It is the black American writer, the post-reconstruction writer, that must claim a place at the table of American fiction for Queequeg.
The land of free was built on the back of the black citizens, like the back of Frederick Douglas. Douglas rose up from the shackles of slavery to gain his freedom, and eventually create the narrative of his history by penning his autobiography in his work The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Douglas, in a sense, has no past because he does not know when he was born: “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen an authentic record containing it” (Douglas, 696). Douglass’ past is further complicated because he is not only a slave but very literally he is the logical conclusion of a melting pot culture:
My mother was of a darker complexion than either my
grandmother or my grandfather. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I everheard speak of my parentage” (Douglass, 696–697)
Douglass is the culmination of a cardinal act between two polar ends of the American culture of his era. Theoretically in a melting pot culture, this should have been meaningless or inconsequential, and class, race, culture, religion would not be how a person’s worth is measured. Douglass, however, was judged by his skin colour and thrust into a slave’s life; there was no voice for Douglass in Mellville’s America. Douglas uses this not to become a post-colonial style writer, but rather a post-colonial entity. Douglas did not write back against America and appropriate the tradition of literature, he fought back against America and asserted an identity; this he did through language and literature. Douglass has no past beyond slavery but he will make a future.
Douglass discovered his emancipation on literacy when he heard Mr. Auld, his then “master” state:
If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read,
there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him
to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable,
and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him
no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him dis-
contented and unhappy. (Douglass, 711)
This rant of Mr. Auld’s afforded Douglass the insight he needed to assert up[on the world: “From that moment on I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I least expected it” (Douglass, 711). Douglass has begun to use literature and language, the tools of the post-colonial writer, to escape his oppression. Douglass even gained his command of language from white children, appropriating language from his colonizers in the most real way:
The plan which I adopted, and the only one by
which I was most successful, was that of making
friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the
street. As many of these whom I could, I converted
into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at
different times and in different places, I finally
succeeded in learning to read. (Douglass, 713)
Frederick Douglass went on not only to appropriate language from America, but he also mastered capitalism, the foundation of the American culture, and he uses it in his escape: “I applied to Mr. Hughes for the privilege of hiring my time” (Douglass, 742). Douglass would go on to obtain the finances necessary for his journey to New York. From this point on, Douglass would remain free.
Douglass would change his name several times before settling on “Frederick Douglass”. Douglass would go from Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey to Frederick Bailey, to Frederick Johnson, and then finally settle on Frederick Douglass. These name changes are significant because he never changes his first name:
“I gave Mr. Johnson the privilege of choosing me a
name, but I told him he must not take from me the
name ‘Frederick’. I must hold on to that to preserve
a sense of my identity” (Douglass746).
Douglass will not abandon his past, he will remain true to his recent roots by keeping the name his mother gave him, “Frederick”. The name “Douglass”, suggested by Mr. Johnson, came from Sir Walter Scott’s “Lady Of The Lake”. It is a post-colonial technique to take a name from the existing literature and change it to mean or identify something new. Frederick Douglass asserts the power of identity through his post-colonial mastery of language as he chooses the language of his concluding words to read: “I subscribe myself, Frederick Douglass” (Douglass, 752). Like a post-colonial writer, Frederick Douglass asserts power through his command of language and name by taking those very things from the culture around him.
The issues of “name” and “identity” are also prevalent concerns for Alice Walker. Walker’s short story “Everyday Use” connects the importance of name and heritage. The recent past of blacks in the American south, Walker would claim, is every bit as important as their African heritage, and without knowledge of the recent past, they can not forge solid identities. “Everyday Use” is an allegory for the cultural reconciliation between the past and the present of the oppression of black culture in the American south; this is made clear in the conversation Dee and her mother where the origin of the name “Dee” is explored:
-”Well,” I say. “Dee”
-”No Mamma,” she says. “Not Dee, ‘Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!”
-”What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know.
-”She’s dead,” Wangero said. “I couldn’t bear it any longer,being named after the people who oppressed me.”
-”You know as well as me you was named after your auntDicie,” I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee.We called her “Big Dee” after Dee was born.
(Walker, 565)
Dee is complaining that she is oppressed by carrying the name “Dee”, although her mother points out that the name “Dee” actually has a proud history in their family: “I probably could have carried it back beyond the civil war” (Walker, 565). Dee makes the name out to be lighter than air by saying she could “carry” it back beyond the civil war” (Walker, 565). Dee makes the name out to be a burden, something that is too heavy to carry. Dee’s mother, however, makes the name out to be lighter than air by saying she could “carry” it back beyond the civil war, a distance of several generations. This accomplishes two things: first it demonstrates that the name “Dee” is not difficult to carry, and second, it displays the legacy of the name “Dee” within the family’s own history. For Dee to forsake her name is the equivalent of forsaking the last few generations of her family, her recent past, indicating that either she feels burdened by this heritage or that she has no respect for her roots. The history of the name “Dee”, has more to do with her present state and recent ancestors than the African heritage she claims without knowing. Dee is unable to reconcile her past, and therefore she is never able to cement an identity of her own.
Just as Dee is unaware of her past, her sister Maggie is almost trapped in hers. Unlike Dee, Maggie has a deeper understanding of her family roots in America. This becomes known only because of the controversy over the family quilts. Dee wants to make them museum pieces in her own home because they are fashionable, not because she is embracing her past. This point is evident since she has forsaken the name of her recent past but still desires the quilts to show off the past like a tapestry exhibit in a museum. Dee does not want Maggie to have the quilts because she will put them into everyday use. This is significant because it is exactly what her recent ancestors would have done with the quilts, and it is how they would have intended the quilts to be used. Maggie’s ultimately understanding of her past is made evident when she recedes from the fight over the quilts and resigns them lost to Dee: “She can have them, mamma’, she said, like somebody never used to never winning anything, or having anything reserved for her. ‘I can remember Grandma Dee without the quilts” (Walker, 567). Maggie has a greater appreciation for her lineage, and ironically the quilts belonged to one of the family’s recent ancestors, grandma Dee, the very name of the current Dee, or Wangero, feels unbearably oppressed to hold. Dee could have had the name, the most important legacy, of their grandmother, but preferred instead the more stylish quilts. This may be why the mother decides to keep the quilts for Maggie, because Dee already had something of their grandmother’s, her name, and she threw it out which is worse than destroying it in everyday use. When the quilts, like the name “Dee”, are no longer stylish enough for Dee she will likely disregard them as well.
Dee has another important exchange with her mother when she is leaving:
-”You just don’t understand,” she said, as Maggie and I came out to the car.
-”What don’t I understand?” I wanted to know.
-”Your heritage,” she said. And then she turned to Maggie, kissedher, and said, “You really ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It’s really a new day for us. But the way you and mama still live you’d never know it.
(Walker, 568)
This exchange is significant partly because it is Dee who has the least understanding of her heritage, as indicated by her disregard for her name. At the same time, Dee’s words hold some truths. Maggie not only understands the past, she lives in it. Maggie has the opposite problem as Dee. Dee is chasing trends and moving on, away, from her past. Dee’s visit is very brief and comes after a lengthy absence; she is drifting away from her roots and each visit could be her last. Maggie, on the other hand, is living as though she belonged to the previous generation, that of her mother. Maggie’s life mirrors her mother’s exactly, which resembles the life of the generation before that, and so forth. Just as surely as Dee is unable to reconcile the past, Maggie is unable to forge a future. When Maggie’s mother passes on to the other side, Maggie will truly have nothing outside of the past: she will have no patch to and to the quilt.
Maggie’s mother is the advocate between the two girls, the bridge between the past and the future: she is the present. The present though, like time, is fleeting, and unless her mother encourages Maggie to forge a path of her own in the world, the family legacy will be lost in the generation of the daughters. Dee will leave the past behind never to regain or reconcile it with her future, and Maggie will live in the past unable to progress; she will fade into the past she loves and leave no mark on the world to indicate her existence.
Alice Walker’s fiction and Frederick Douglass’ narrative history are cast in the mould of post-colonial theory. The centre for them is not Europe, as it is for writers like Chinua Achebe, but instead, it is in the America of Melville’s vision, the melting pot that does not include them. Because no one has spoken for them, writers like Walker and Douglass must assert a voice not only for themselves but for those others who do not have a voice. Michael Harris cites Achebe in his book Outsiders And Insiders to explain the similar role of African writers:
The writer cannot be excused from the task of re-
educating and regeneration that must be done. In
fact, he should march right in front. For he is after all…
the sensitive part of his community. (96)
Achebe’s words can apply to black writers of the American south just as easily as they do to African writers. It is up to the writers to bring the plight of their cultures, the sound of their voices, to the forefront of their literary communities. These writers, African or black American, must unite the elements of their pasts to improve the quality of their future. They must leave a written history that explores their culture or their culture will surely be lost. They must, therefore, put the reader into the narrative from their own angle and use the power of language and literature to write their legacy on the blank slate of Melville’s “White Whale”. Walker and Douglass are both reconciling past and present while at the same time making their works and words accessible to the reader and claiming their forgotten place in the Melvillian America; they become the “Peters”, the rock foundations, of their culture.
WORK CITED
Ashcroft, Bill. Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature. Ed. Terence Hawkes. London, England. Routledge. 1989
Book OF Mark. Holy Bible: New International Version: Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zondervan Publishing House. 1984.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative Of The Life Of Frederic Douglass, An American Slave. University of New Brunswick, Saint John. Cancopy. 2002.
Harris, Michael. Outsiders And Insiders. Ed. Norman Cary: New York, NY. Peter Lang Publishing, 1992.
Rushdie, Salman, “Commonwealth Literatures Do Not Exist”. Concert Of Voices: Anthology In World Writing In English. Ed. Victor J. Ramraj: Peterborough, Ontario. Broadview Press. 1995, 1997
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use”. University of New Brunswick, Saint John. Cancopy. 2002.
