Simona Hevešiová
In: Cudzie jazyky v škole 5. - Nitra: UKF, 2008. - ISBN 978-80-8094-416-2. - (2008), s. 170-173.
Abstract:
The paper discusses the development in the theoretical thinking concerning the human self and questions of identity, manifested by concepts of Freud, Lacan or Foucault, which the author seeks to utilize in order to reexamine the essence of the postcolonial subject. Since these theories foreground the concept of a decentered, fragmented self, they seem to support the notion of cultural identity as presented by Stuart Hall. Both Hall’s “collective true self“ and his concept of identity as a mater of becoming are reflected in the complex narrative strategies of the Kenyan author Ngữgĩ Wa Thiong’o in his famous novel A Grain of Wheat. The paper examines the textual connection between the process of constructing and conceptualizing one’s identity and its articulation and the tension between individualism and collectivity.
Exploring and understanding the essence of identity has become the primary subject of many different approaches in recent years. There has been an explosion of theories and new concepts of identity which aimed to investigate the mysterious depth of human mind. Since it has been scrutinized within a variety of disciplinary areas, e.g. from psychoanalytical, social constructionist and ideological perspectives but also in terms of its representation in the literary form through the views of essentialists or structuralists, Madan Sarup marked the “widespread, pervasive fascination with identity” as a “symptom of postmodernity” (1996, p. 28).
The concept of identity becomes much more significant when pondering about the postcolonial state of mind. The well-known concept of in-betweenness discloses the conspicuous colonial aftermath which “calls for an ameliorative and therapeutic remembering and recalling the colonial past.” (Ghandi, 1998, p. 8) Since it is impossible “to return to or to rediscover an absolute pre-colonial purity, nor is it possible to create national or regional formations entirely independent of their historical implication in the European colonial enterprise” (Ashcroft et al., 1989, pp. 195-196), postcolonial authors thus become the bearers of a “split consciousness or a double vision” (Ghandi, 1998, p. 152), being lacerated between the prospects of their post-colonial future and the necessary restoration of their respective colonial history.
The hybrid / fragmented condition of the human psyche has been examined and studied by various experts in psychology or psychiatry. When looking at the theories of identity provided by Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan or Michel Foucault, one may discover several conjunctions linking their concepts of the self with the postcolonial subject. For the purposes of our ensuing interpretation of Ngữgĩ Wa Thiong’o’s novel A Grain of Wheat, let us summarize the most essential conclusions of these theories which prove to be useful for our analysis.
Displacing the centre of the human world from consciousness to the unconscious, Sigmund Freud outlined a completely new perspective which opened some (until then) unexplored dimensions. According to Freud, human psyche consists of three systems: the consciousness, the preconscious system and finally, the unconscious. Every single process belongs in the first place to the unconscious psychical system from which it can under certain conditions proceed further into the conscious system. However, not all of them are capable of becoming conscious and these are termed as repressed. Then, the preconscious material includes those excitations that can succeed in becoming conscious but do not necessarily have to.
Simply, these three systems are operating within the human mind under very specific conditions. Indeed, what is happening in the unconscious is not visible to the consciousness; however, they both are in a close relation with each other. To be more specific, the unconscious is “not the simple outside of the conscious, but rather a division, Spaltung – a cleft within consciousness itself.” (Sarup, 1996, p. 29) Elaborating and expanding Freud’s work, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan supported the idea that “the unitary subject is a myth” (Ibid., p. 34). Here again, the unconscious, unknown to the self, plays the most significant role. Is the unconscious, then, the reason of the fragmentation of the self? How can the self stay integrated and unified if there is something inside its “body” that is uncontrollable? What is more, if this is the case, then the postcolonial hybridity or fragmentation of the subject acknowledged as a result of the colonial domination is preceded by a natural split of the self. Or do we face double fragmentation in this case?
The poststructuralist Michel Foucault, on the other hand, was interested rather in the influence of an external authority on shaping the structure of the human mind. His research focuses on the phenomenon of discipline and its effect upon individuals. He remarks that “the techniques of discipline distribute bodies to various places and activities. They prescribe the body’s movements, impose norms on its activity, watch out for any deviation, and exclude the non-conforming.” (Ibid., p. 73) In this way, since discipline controls and masters the individual, it thus ties the individual to an identity.
Later on, Foucault became concerned more with the technologies of the self than with the technologies of power. Examining and analyzing the development of self-understanding throughout the history, from Greco-Roman tradition to Christianity, showed the move from ‘cultivation of the self’ to the Christian ‘know thyself’. And precisely the Christian model of the self sketches out its future fragmentation suggesting that “there is something hidden in ourselves and that we are always in a state of self-illusion which is hiding something” (Ibid., p. 82). Is the hidden something the Freudian unconscious, unknown to the self? Is that the source of the rupture of the unity and harmony?
In comparison, while Freud’s main concern was self-knowledge aimed to discover the forgotten messages of the unconscious, Foucault questions our attempts to discover truth in the formal rules that we have designed to discipline life’s experiences. Further, Foucault inverts Freud’s proposition about the relationship between knowledge and power. Whereas Freud demonstrated how knowledge gives us power over the self, Foucault pointed to the fact how power influences our knowledge of the self. Moreover, Freud emphasized the power of the past to determine our present behavior (applicable in the postcolonial context), Foucault, on the contrary, laid stress on the random, the fortuitous, and the discontinuous (Ibid., p. 86).
To avoid any misunderstandings while talking about Freud’s and Foucault’s concept of power, a clear distinction between them has to be made. Power, in Freudian sense, is linked with self-knowledge. That is, by deciphering the repressed messages of the unconscious and by putting all the fragments into a meaningful whole, one can approach the truth about oneself. And by doing so one gets the key to designing one’s own present. Foucault, on the other hand, identified power with discipline. It is an external authority that “fabricates” the individuals by distributing them to various places and that shapes them through different activities. Thus, the subject being put into numerous situations is gradually gathering a sum of information about itself.
While psychoanalysis questioned the traditional Cartesian model reasoning with a conscious, centered self and emphasized the power of the unconscious, there has also been a theorist who drew attention to the role of ideologies in constructing the identity. So to provide a distinguished insight into the history of identity, Louis Althusser has to be mentioned. In his essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Althusser asserts that identities are constructed through ideologies. This means, that identity is not viewed as an inherent quality nor as a self-construction in process, but rather as something conferred upon us through ideologies operating in ideological state apparatuses.
In short, Althusser believed that ideology represents the process by which individuals are constituted as subjects. The role of the other is implicitly stressed here as well since the ideologies are marked by what they are opposing. For example, by the end of the nineteenth century the colonialist system of the British Empire “became the principal ideological unifier across class and other social divisions” and the Empire “was to be the principal icon of national unity.” (Ashcroft et al., 2000, pp. 48-49). That is to say, the colonized peoples became one of the primary means of defining the British population in order to achieve the sense of unity in Britain. Contrary to the previous theories, the meaning and beliefs are rather given to us than selected by us. However, the superior position of the ideology over the human subject seems to refute or at least complicate the idea of a decentered self. If the self possesses an (imaginary) identity which is provided by an external authority, to what extent is the sense of being individual authentic? Further, where is the guarantee of an interiorisation of such an identity by every human being exposed to the same ideology? And how is this transfer achieved?
To conclude, the majority of the presented theoretical approaches towards identity support the postmodern / postcolonial image of a decentered, multiple self. The plurality of voices found in recent postcolonial writing can be explained either via the unconscious – the unknown or the hidden, or through external authorities shaping the self. Since the unconscious, in words of psychoanalysts, is misrecognized by the self and the subject is composed of several contradictory fragments, the insecurity and uncertainty about who we are remain an inevitable part of our lives.
Thus, when examining the novel A Grain of Wheat written by the prominent Kenyan author Ngữgĩ Wa Thiong’o, it is impossible to be oblivious to the numerous textual evidences of the abovementioned conclusions. The novel presents a seemingly straightforward story centered on the celebrations of the Independence Day (Uhuru) in the 1960s Kenya, in the Thabai village. Mugo, a solitary villager, having returned from the British detention camps as a hero, is asked to make a speech during the celebrations in honor of his friend Kihika who was killed by the colonial administrators. Mugo’s bravery is being idealized and praised by the villagers to such an extent that he is continually becoming a legend in his surroundings. No one knows, however, that it was precisely Mugo who betrayed Kihika – the popular resistance fighter – to the administrators and thus became responsible for his death. It is via the contradiction between the internal and external layers of the story that the author uncovers the complexities of the split human consciousness and the struggle accompanying the formation of culture identity.
The concept of cultural identity, as presented by Stuart Hall in his essay Cultural Identity and Diaspora, is inextricably linked with the question of representation, i.e. the positions of enunciation. According to Hall, “[w]e all write and speak form a particular place and time, from a history and a culture which is specific.” Moreover, as he states “[w]hat we say is always ‘in context’, positioned.” (1990, p. 110) Thus, the background of colonial administration in Kenya, its problematic coexistence with the native peoples and the rise of the independence movement which are positioned at the centre of the novel represents the principal point of departure. Being on the verge of a long-awaited historical moment, one step between the oppressive past and the promising, liberating future, the reader is invited to witness the very process of the nation’s identity formation and its articulation.
Therefore, an analysis of the intricate narrative strategies used by Ngữgĩ in his novel might give us an insight into the complexities of this process. The nonlinear plot interwoven with many flashbacks and multiple storylines repudiates any indication of coherence and chronology from the very beginning, thus suggesting that identity “is not as transparent or unproblematic as we think” and that we should rather think of it as “production, which is never complete, always in process.” (Ibid.) What is more, the disintegration of the main story line into several polyphonic mininarratives by continually opening new discourses endorses the crucial concept of fragmentation.
As it was already mentioned, the story of the villager Mugo and his internal struggle to reveal the truth of his betrayal to the villagers is one of the central ones. It is, however, accompanied by the stories of other villagers, e.g. Kihika’s sister Mumbi and her malfunctioning marriage with Gikonyo who has spent several years in a detention camp. Despite their mutual love, the unfavorable social and political circumstances tear them apart when Karanja, collaborating with the British, forces Mumbi to spend a night with him. Gikoyo then starts to question the very essence of their union: Mumbi “had betrayed the bond, the secret, between them: or perhaps there had never been any communion between them, nothing could grow between any two people.”(Thiong’o, 1986, p. 117) Thus, once an inseparable couple, they have to start anew to rebuild the foundations of their relationship and mutual confidence.
Interestingly, this particular narrative layer of solidarity and betrayal may be perceived as analogous to the betrayals of other local people. By collaborating with the British administration in order to acquire certain social status and wealth, many villagers (like Karanja) have stood against their kinsmen and renounced their traditions. Trying to assimilate with the foreigners and copying their superiority, distinctions and boundaries seem to grow and separate the whole community which is meant to mirror the situation in the whole Kenya. Karanja’s self, for instant, splits into several fragments; when working for the administration and facing other villagers, he is trying to adopt British manners and the air of superiority which is bestowed upon him via his position. The domination, however, is only illusory since the British administrators do not make any difference between him and the rest of the unidentifiable black mass. Thus, the attempt to reject his otherness imposed upon him by the colonizers by becoming ‘one of them’ does not work at all; what is more, he (unconsciously) takes on another stain of otherness by becoming distinguishable, i.e. the Other, for his own community.
The consequences of such an alienation and disloyalty which are, in fact, presented in Achebe’s Things fall apart (a Nigerian version of the nation’s struggle for independence) as well, are not of a short-term nature and they seem to present an indelible stigma. Whether it can and should be effaced is questionable. However, it is certain that the process of recovery will last a while. Mumbi’s words to Gikonyo at the end of the novel may be addressed to the whole nation:
People try to rub out things, but they cannot. Things are not so easy. What has passed between us is too much to be passed over in a sentence. We need to talk, to open our hearts to another, examine them, and then together plan the future we want. (Ibid., p. 247)
Returning to Hall’s concept of cultural identity, these differences, “ruptures and discontinuities” (1990, p. 112) within the community itself come under the second concept of his twofold understanding of cultural identity. Culture identity is, in this sense, “a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’” (Ibid.) since it undergoes constant transformation and is “always constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth.” (Ibid., p. 113) Coincidentally, these discontinuities in identity formation are paralleled by the narrative strategy used by Ngữgĩ Wa Thiong’o. The constant, at times confusing, shift of narrative perspectives does not only alter reader’s point of view but it also mingles several disparate voices. The somewhat jumbled narrative thus corresponds to the chaotic state Kenya finds itself in.
The other concept of Halls’ understanding of identity defines it as a “collective ‘one true self’, hiding inside the many other, more superficial or artificially imposed ‘selves’, which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common.” (Ibid., p. 111) It means that cultural identities “reflect the common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us, as ‘one people’, with stable, unchanging and continuous frames of reference and meaning…” (Ibid.) In this case, the personal stories of Mungo, Mumbi, Gikonyo and Karanja unfold on the background of the state’s own struggle for existence. The collective self is manifested in the form of lyrical, collective narrative voice which permeates through the novel and which, according to John McLeod, “contributes to the construction of a national consciousness.” (2000, p. 94). In other words, this communal ‘we’ unites all the other individual voices in order to gather a national orchestra which would sing in unison but without repudiating the present diverse elements. And this seems to be the message the author attempts to pass to his own people: “Don’t go against the people. A man who ignores the voice of his own people comes to no good end.” (Thiong’o, 1986, p. 226)
The tension between the individual and the collective is manifested not only on the level of narration, but is voiced by the mythic resistance fighter Kihika himself. By advocating collective action against individual attempts to struggle with the colonial presence, he tries to raise people’s national awareness to unite themselves against the British. Even though it is an individual who stands at the core of this national revival and Ngữgĩ “recognizes the necessity for figures around which collective action can be instigated and organized” (McLeod, 2000, p. 96), he “remains suspicious of the cult of personality that is often created in their wake.” (Ibid.) Therefore, despite the interrelated personal narratives which build up the story of the newly independent Kenya, it is always the unnamed collective narrator who unites these stories and preaches the importance of togetherness.
We shall never rest
Without land,
Without Freedom true
Kenya is a country of black people. (Thiong’o, 1986, p. 21)
Bibliography:
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Ashcroft et al., 2000. Post-Colonial Studies. The Key Concepts. London/New York: Routledge.
Freud, S. 1966. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. New York: Washington Square Press.
Ghandi, L. 1998. Postcolonial Theory. A critical introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hall, S., 1990. Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In: Mongia, P. (ed.), 1996. Contemporary Postcolonial Theory. A Reader. London: Arnold. pp. 110 – 121.
McLeod, J., 2000. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press.
Sarup, M. 1996. Identity, Culture and the Postmodern World. Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Thiong’o, N.W., 1986. A Grain of Wheat. Oxford: Heinemann.
