enjoyin´ literature: 2006

Sunday, November 12, 2006

English literature of the 20th century

THEORY:

1. The basic attributes of realist, modernist and postmodernist literature.
2. Theories of postmodernism (Lyotard, Baudrillard, Jameson, McHale)
3. Comparison of modernism and postmodernism.
4. James Joyce – epiphany, cyclical theory of G.B. Vico, Ulysses (setting, characters, genre, narrative technique, pretext – Homer’s Odyssey, name and comment some chapters by drawing parallels to Homer’s work)
5. Samuel Beckett – existentialism, solipsism, quietism, literature of silence, cultural code, subject matters of his novels, characters (Everyman), narrative technique
6. George Orwell – dystopia, manipulation of language and history, political fiction
7. Graham Greene – catholic novel, special type of character (sinful saint / saint sinner), major conflicts
8. Feminism – cultural and literary definition, some representatives (V. Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millet), major objectives
9. Fay Weldon – major themes
10. John Fowles – experimental fiction, metanarrative
11. Anthony Burgess – experimental fiction (language – its form, function, effect)
12. David Lodge – campus novel, characters and setting, experimental features in ‘Changing Places’ (narrative techniques)
13. Graham Swift – new historicism, themes, the concept of history
14. Colonial Literature - Joseph Conrad
15. Postcolonial Literature - postcolonial discourse, main subject matters and issues

DISCUSSION:

* books from the syllabus - focus on interpretation and critical thinking

Hanif Kureishi’s Quest for Articulateness

In: New Literatures in the Context of Post-Colonialism, Postmodernism and the Present. - Prešov: Prešovská univerzita, 2007. - ISBN 978-80-8068-680-2. - S. 117-123.

Simona Hevešiová

Abstract:
The article discusses the problem of identity and the importance of articulateness in the context of postcolonial fiction, focusing primarily on its manifestation within the narrative. It points to the fact that the majority of postcolonial works move away from the unified and centered narrative voice and rather incorporate a polyphony of voices which corresponds with the fragmentation of the postcolonial Subject. In Hanif Kureishi’s novel The Buddha of Suburbia, the fragmented and polyphonic Self is displayed through several modes of articulateness – the storytelling, theatre practice, employment of diverse registers and the proliferation of false / imitation selves.

Key words:
articulateness, polyphony, fragmentation, hybridity, identity, narrative strategy, imitation

The search for one’s identity and the process of its (re)construction represent some of the most frequent discourses in postcolonial writing. Due to the distorted and deliberately perverted portrayals of the colonized peoples in the works of colonial authors which have, to certain extent, shaped the consciousness of the affected population, postcolonial writers tend to respond with compelling narratives of their own displaying the consequential influence of colonialism on one’s self-concept. The manifestation of identity within these narratives reflects the urgent need of the postcolonial community to tell their stories which would capture the past from an alternative perspective, often revealing the struggle of the self for its own mode of articulation. And precisely the process of articulating one’s identity or experience stands in the foreground of numerous postcolonial works and is exteriorized in the variety of different narrative strategies.
In words of Amy Ling, “finding one’s voice and telling one’s stories represents power, just as having one’s stories burried is powerlessness.” (1999, p. 157). Juxtaposing writing to the basic instinct of human beings, Ling implicitly stresses and elevates the importance of storytelling and its meaning for oneself. She says that “writing is an act of self-assertion, self-revelation, and self-preservation. One writes out of a delight in one’s storytelling powers, out of a need to reveal and explain oneself, or from the desire to record and preserve experience”. (Ibid., p. 135) In the context of the postcolonial condition, these statements take on a new, much more significant dimension. Indeed, the textual form provides an intact space for the presentation of the self, for revealing and promoting an alternative record of the process of identity formation. Words call forth emotions and thus the self is given a remarkable opportunity to be displayed in its complexity and multiplicity.
However, the literary form of such a disclosure of the self-searching process has altered together with the changing circumstances. The twentieth century brought about numerous debates about the history and essence of identity projecting constantly changing and redefined concepts of the self. 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) and it may also be added, as a symptom of postcolonialism.
Simply stated, the postmodern / postcolonial world is a world of dynamism that leads to the reconstitution of the self which no longer possesses stability and fixedness. Instead, contradiction, inconsistency and hybridization take their place. In consequence, identity becomes a multi-dimensional space in which both psychological and sociological aspects have to be taken into consideration, giving rise to a relational self. Thus, identity becomes a “mediating concept between the external and the internal, the individual and society […]” (Ibid., p. 28), adjusting the self-definition to the changing relationships with others. Certainly, there are numerous examples of literary characters who negotiate their own identity through the inevitable contact with both the members of the postcolonial community and the Western society. Thus, an intercultural dialogue is established forcing both of the parties to reconsider their mutual relationship.
Put another way, the self was exposed to a crucial and dramatic transformation. The (re)evolution of the self contributed to the alteration of its essential characteristics as the homogeneous and unified to the transitory and polysemic. Thus, the idea of a coherent, centered and integrated self disappeared and was replaced by its flexible, fragmented and ambiguous counterpart. The traditional view stressing the significance of a fixed and stable identity was undermined by a new concept regarding identity as “fabricated, constructed, in process.” (Ibid., p. 14) Indeed, in many postcolonial works the unified and coherent narrative voice suddenly disappears and is substituted by a multitude of seemingly dissonant voices which represent an attempt to put together a mosaic of stories in order to recreate the personal chronicles of global narratives.
The proliferation of polyphonic novels during the twentieth century also demonstrates the split of the self which no longer possesses stability and fixedness. In order to reconcile with the colonial past and the multicultural reality of the present, authors like Caryl Phillips or Zadie Smith attempt to engage both communities in a meaningful dialogue. In doing so, they make use of several viewpoints, i.e. narrative voices which help to create a fragmented, collage-like portrait of their characters’ hybridization. Sometimes the polyphony results in a tangible fragmentation of the text, like in the case of Phillips’s novels, the other times it is manifested on the thematic level. The British writer Hanif Kureishi also joins this orchestra, however, by employing much more subtle forms of both the polyphony and fragmentation. In his novel The Buddha of Suburbia these devices are rendered invisible at the first sight but are undoubtedly present.
The book recounts the details of Karim Amir’s teenage adventures in the suburban London of the 1970s. Karim, who is not only the protagonist but also the narrator of the novel, introduces himself as “a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed as it were, having emerged from two old histories” (Kureishi, 1990, p. 3). From this moment on, a careful reader discerns the diffusing powers behind the narrative that both connect and disengage Karim and the other characters on their voyage through the British post-imperial reality. There are copious reverberant voices behind Karim’s seemingly unified and homogeneous voice bringing about an unusual form of fragmentation. It manifests itself not only in the variety of episodes Karim interweaves into his narrative but also in the novel’s carnevalesque character.
In other words, the book is centered not only around a single character, the narrator himself as we might expect, but it also provides a glimpse into the realities of life of several other people. Encapsulating various episodes from the lives of his relatives and friends, Karim presents a compendium of distinctive stories which alleviate his own identity-search process. Each story that the narrator presents is an effort to enhance the necessity of articulating one’s struggle for self-revelation and facilitates the characters’ quest for resonant voices. Step by step, Karim permeates his life-story with the stories of his father Haroon and his dysfunctional family, of his best friend Anwar with a rebellious daughter Jamila and her India-imported husband Changez, then Charlie who happens to be the object of Karim’s affection and several theatre actors whom he cooperates with. By juxtaposing miscellaneous episodes from the lives of Karim’s acquaintances, Kureishi succeeded in creating a collage of the British multicultural environment. In fact, taking into account Karim’s sarcastic comments, one might also label these portrayals as caricatures.
First of all, there is Karim and his constant discontentment with his life. Growing up in the suburbs of London (that is to say the periphery), Karim feels himself isolated from London (the center) with its endless opportunities for adventures. He struggles not only with his family (especially his India-born father who decides to leave his English wife) but also with his sexuality and ambitions at the same time. To a large extent, the story of his life is a combination of confusion, ambiguity and indecisiveness. However, the process of growing-up and his so called pilgrimage to London and America later on transform Karim into a self-aware, composed young man.
It seems to be precisely Karim’s episodical verbalization of the events in his life and life of his relatives or acquaintances that provides his narrative with certain framework. By depicting more or less bizarre events from their lives, juxtaposing various life-styles and philosophies, Karim creates a collage of stories which, in consequence, produce the final portrayal of multicultural Britain and its race relations in the 1970s. However, beyond the seemingly homogeneous narrative voice, there is an incontestable trace of fragmentation. Karim’s satirical commentaries which range from sophisticated, intelligent remarks to swearwords and vulgarisms, demonstrate his own identity crisis. Moreover, his own confusion results in the proliferation of fragmented selves which he transfers to his relatives and friends by referring to them in number of various names. Thus, his father Haroon Amir is introduced not only as an Indian immigrant, but also as Harry, God, Daddio or the Buddha of Suburbia depending on Karim’s point of view. Similarly, his friend Jamila is referred to as Jammie or Princess, her husband Changez both as the Bubble and Dildo Killer or the theatre producer Shadwell appears as Shitwell.
Furthermore, Kureishi succeeded in employing another mode of articulateness and of subsequent fragmentation into the narrative. Throughout the story Karim yearns for self-realization and he finally finds himself in the world of theatre.

“Until this moment I’d felt incapable of operating effectively in the world; I didn’t know how to do it; events tossed me about. Now I was beginning to see that it didn’t necessarily have to be that way. My happiness and progress and education could depend on my own activity – as long as it was the right activity at the right time.” (Ibid., p. 155)

Thus, besides its verbal manifestation embodied in his storytelling powers, Karim’s quest for articulateness acquires a new medium for its presentation. Paradoxically, the theatre represents a devious instrument since the original enthusiasm is soon supplanted by unexpected consequences. Karim is cast into an experimental piece of drama which is an adaptation of Kipling’s Jungle Book. Later on he finds out that he was cast “for authenticity and not for experience” (Kureishi, 1990, p. 147) and part of his task is to learn how to feel “comfortable as a Bengali” (Ibid.) Thus, in words of Cynthia Carey, “the protagonist-narrator’s own quest [...] is presented as a personal struggle with his many false, imposed or imitation selves.” (p. 121, 25.10. 2006). Indeed, on one hand the theatre gratifies Karim’s penchant for imitation and exhibitionism and Carey marks the use of theatre and acting as one of the main leitmotives of the novel (Ibid.). On the other hand, Karim is suddenly forced to negotiate his identity not only between the former binaries but he must consider the triple element (his false identity) as well.
Ironically, while Karim becomes part of the center, he is compelled to present himself only as an exotic caricature of himself. Despite his ignorant stance towards his ethnicity and his multicultural, creole background, Karim fails to recognize the ridiculousness of his own situation. His exotic looks are presented as an interesting, sought-after commodity which the West longs for in order to break loose from the quotidian greyness of their reality. However, with his impersonations of ethnic characters, Karim contributes to the dissemination of false and distorted conceptions of ethnic minorities. One of his co-workers confronts him with a passionate comment which he is not able to understand:

“Your picture is what white people already think of us. That we’re funny, with strange habits and weird customs. To the white man we’re already people without humanity, and then you go and have Anwar madly waving his stick at the white boys. I can’t believe that anything like this could happen. You show us as unorganized aggressors. Why do you hate yourself and all black people so much, Karim?” (Kureishi, 1990, p. 180)

Indeed, through Karim’s caricatures of ethnic communities, Kureishi “highlight[s] the problem of colonized false identities, of longing for borrowed selves in a post-colonial context when recovering a dignified and authentic identity requires a constant battle with wrong perceptions, racial clichés and imitated behaviour” (Carey, p. 121, 25.10. 2006). The reason why Karim fails to recognize this may be rooted in his ignorance of his ethnic background or his lack of awareness of his own ethnicity. Karim instinctively distances himself from the immigrant community since he does not perceive himself as its member, nor identifies himself as a displaced subject. The split of his personality is rather unconscious in his case. Only later Karim realizes that he feels certain togetherness with his people.

“But I did feel, looking at these strange creatures now – the Indians – that in some way these were my people, and that I’d spent my life denying or avoiding that fact. I felt ashamed and incomplete at the same time, as if half of me were missing, and as if I’d been colluding with my enemies, those whites who wanted Indians to be like them.” (Kureishi, 1990, p. 212)

When analyzing the father-son relationship in the novel, one can clearly see that part of Karim’s identity problem stems from his father’s ephemeral sense of belonging. Haroon, the novel’s namesake, floats between his Indianness and his British identity and constantly changes his preferences. In words of Berthold Schoene, “[f]orced 20 years previously to mimic stereotypical Englishness in order make a living in Britain, he now prospects on what he can retrieve of his Indian past, conflating it with Eva and her friends’ spurious conception of Indianness” (1998, p. 116). In fact, Haroon decides to occupy the profitable space in-between. He abandons the identity of the former Indian Other only to reposition himself to the Indian territory again which he in turn substitutes for a neutral Orientalism. Indeed, Haroon is neither Western nor Indian and Karim describes him as “a renegade Muslim masquerading as a Buddhist” (Kureishi, 1990, p. 16). Again, the employed device of imitation points to Haroon’s fragmented identity which keeps masking his authentic self behind Buddhist teaching and shallow spiritual seances.
Similarly, both Karim and Haroon sell their ethnicity as a market commodity satisfying the consumer’s need for otherness and exoticism. Nevertheless, while Karim’s lack of awareness and his ignorance towards his ethnicity make him a mere victim in this multi-culti business, Haroon’s motivation is rather ambiguous. Certainly, he seems to find no gratification in his boring clerk job which he later abandons in order to become a suburban guru providing a small bunch of outlandish neighbours with dubitable solace. His following statement, however, casts certain suspicion over his incentives.

“I have lived in the West for most of my life, and I will die here, yet I remain to all intents and purposes an Indian man. I will never be anything but an Indian.” (Ibid., p. 263)

As it was already mentioned, Haroon experiments with his ethnicity to such an extent that he anything except an Indian. In order to find a respectable place within the dominant social circle, he does not hesitate to recklessly abandon his Indianness for a flimsy and unsubstantial mixture of Buddhism and charlatanism. Haroon’s hybridization seems to be both inevitable (as a result of the postcolonial displacement) and elected by himself. Consequently, Haroon’s longing for authenticity is replaced by a fake concept of his cultural heritage.
To conclude, Hanif Kureishi succeeded in manifesting the hybridity and identity confusion of the postcolonial community by using subtle literary and thematic devices. The protagonists’ quest for articulateness is displayed on several different levels, all of which contribute to the novel’s fragmentation. First and foremost, it is the narrative strategy itself which is highly episodical and collage-like that provides the narrative with an ultimate sense of ambivalence. The characters’ identity crisis is also reflected in the diverse register of styles and diction together with the proliferation of various false and imposed selves. Moreover, the urgent need for articulation is also demonstrated through the characters’ longing for self-authenticity. Thus, the fragmented postcolonial subject is reflected not only in the narrative level but also in the usage of the theatre and imitation devices. In fact, Kureishi sets the mirror to the perverted images of post/colonial identities by creating them himself. However, one has to realize that behind these desperate attempts to gain attention and by the same token self-esteem as well, there is an unmistakable longing for self-assertion and articulateness. In a world where the postcolonial community still has to face the colonial anachronisms on a daily basis, one cannot remain silent and relinquish to the power of the majority.

Bibliography:
CAREY, C. Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia as a Post-Colonial Novel. www.csupomona.edu/~delashgari/450/TboS_as_PC_novel.pdf, pp. 119 – 125, 25.10. 2006, Available on Internet.
DOYLE, W. The Space between Identity and Otherness in Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia. www.csupomona.edu/~delashgari`/450/the_space_between.pdf, pp. 110 – 118, 25.10. 2006. Available on Internet.
KUREISHI, H., 1990. The Buddha of Suburbia. London: Faber and Faber.
LING, A., 1999. Chinese American Women Writers. The tradition behind Maxine Hong Kingston. In: Wong, S.C. (ed.). Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. A Casebook. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 135-158.
SARUP, M., 1996. Identity, Culture and the Postmodern World. Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
SCHOENE, B., 1998. Herald of Hybridity. The emancipation of difference in Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia. In: International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 1. London: SAGE Publications, pp. 109 – 128.
SLEPOY, G.M. The Legitimising of His/Her-stories in Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia. www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/post/uk/kureishi/gms5.html, 25.10. 2006, Available on Internet.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

A Glimpse Beyond Postcolonialism

In: Aspects of postcolonial literature. - Nitra: Filozofická fakulta, UKF, 2006. - ISBN 80-8094-065-7. - (2006), pp. 40-44.

Simona Hevešiová

Abstract:
The article discusses postcolonial literature in terms of its development throughout the twentieth century and points to its most frequent subject matters and problems. Through the analysis of Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, the author tries to foreshadow the future tendencies in the literary development that would abandon the one-sided optics of earlier postcolonial books. While Smith does not reject the colonial past and its impact on her characters, she also portrays a second generation of immigrants who try to acknowledge their hybridity in the multicultural context of their everyday reality. In other words, she tries to answer the question if it is possible to view hybridity as a non-issue and what would happen in that case.

Key words:
post-postcolonial, hybridity, multiculturalism, integration, history, colonial and postcolonial literature

The process of decolonisation in the second half of the 20th century induced a massive wave of literary response accompanied by an impressive counter-discourse which has brought about a dramatic shift of rhetoric. Inevitably, the formerly colonized people were talking back, addressing their former oppressors, forcing the colonizers to reconceptualize their identities. By interrogating the literary practices of colonial writers who had, in fact, justified colonialism as such, and by exposing the limitations of the representations of the colonized people in these works, postcolonial writers succeeded in their attempt to point not only at the dehumanization of the colonized but at the whole complex of solemn consequences of the colonial era.
In her essay Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse Helen Tiffin states that the project of postcolonial writing has been “to interrogate European discourses and discursive strategies from a privileged position within (and between) two worlds; to investigate the means by which Europe imposed and maintained its codes in the colonial domination of so much of the rest of the world” (1995, p. 95). This resulted in the rereading and revaluing of the European so called great works of art (or canonical literature) and in providing different perspectives and insights into their worth and importance.

In fact, one has come to the conclusion that the majority of these books has produced portrayals of the native citizens of the colonized territories which are distorted and deliberately perverted. In his incensed critique of Conrad’s so admired and discussed novel, and by the same token an ultimate colonial book, The Heart of Darkness, Chinua Achebe provides a list of Conrad’s unflattering and even insulting references to African people. To mention just few of them, they included expressions like “prehistoric man”, “ugly”, “inhuman”, “savage” or “rudimentary souls” (1977, pp. 325-326). His essay implies how these references enforced upon the native Africans could have influenced and shaped their own self-esteem and self-awareness. Moreover, by labeling the book as “offensive and totally deplorable” (ibid., p. 330), Achebe calls into question the very value of colonial literature and points to its unpalatable and unfathomable consequences.
Naturally, the affected population could not remain silent and not to react to these contemptible implications. The literary fertility of postcolonial writers only exemplifies the urgent need to give distinctive voices to those who were for a long period of time unable to speak for themselves or who were denied the right to speak. These remarkable narratives enabled them to record stories which were unwritten, unspoken and thus had the tendency to become forgotten. Being permeated with fascinating and invigorating stories recapturing and restoring the experiences of the colonized people, these narratives have also necessitated the quest for resonant voices that would put a definite end to the long-lasting silence.
Furthermore, we have to mention another function of postcolonial literature and that is the providing of a different perspective of the reality in comparison with the standardized versions of colonial works. In words of Bronwyn T. Williams, postcolonial literature “endeavors to reconfigure these relations of dominance and resistance, to reposition both the dominant and the marginalized on the stage of cultural discourse, and to challenge the static borders of national and cultural identity” (http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v3i3/ willia.htm , 12.5. 2006). By writing down these alternative stories, the formerly colonized people strengthened their voices and implicitly the voices of other oppressed sojourners so that they will not be soft or nonexistent any longer.
Because of the impossibility to respond to or affect the historical events and because of the impact the colonial past has had on the colonized people, history and the reconciliation with it reflected in the process of reconstruction of one’s own identity belong to the most frequent subject matters of postcolonial literary works. Some of the books breed angry voices unable to acquiesce the unacceptable past, some of them are melancholic or despondent but almost all of them are serious in their tone. They do herald the trauma and the sense of alienation, disruption, fragmentation and hybridity mirrored in their remarkable characters.
However, despite the fact that postcolonial literature enunciated and promoted an alternative record of the colonial past, one has to admit (no matter how oddly it sounds) that it bears certain parallels with colonial literature. The most obvious one being their one-sidedness. Similarly to the colonial works which offered no significant space nor dignified voices for the colonized people, early postcolonial literature does not seem to provide this opportunity for the colonizers either. Event though there are certain hints at initiating a dialogue with the (former) oppressors (e.g. in Achebe’s Things fall apart), the books do not seem to overcome certain stereotypes in their portrayals and so their only function in the novel is to show the negative impact of colonialism. Indeed, the white characters are only rarely given a distinctive position within the narrative and they are almost never given the chance to develop fully. As a consequence, they remain flat throughout the story and act only in accordance to the postcolonial ‘ideology’.
Nor does the earlier postcolonial literature seem to acknowledge and accept the multicultural and multiracial settings of present-day societies. It rather responds, talks back, questions and criticizes in a, more or less, authoritative undertone. The characters in the books, living in mixed cultures, often keep themselves isolated in their own communities, trying to avoid the ‘other’ citizens and rather look back instead of concentrating on the future.
However, the inadequate development of white characters and the following accusations may be simply caused by the fact that the majority of earlier postcolonial works are set in former colonies and its citizens, i.e. the authors as their spokespersons are reacting predominantly to those elements of Western culture to which they had been exposed through colonialism. Therefore, one has to make a distinction between early postcolonial fiction and more recent works which differ immensely since the postcolonial community does not fail to react to the changing conditions. Due to the globalisation and the growing number of immigrants, both in the United States and Europe, multicultural contacts have become parts of our everyday lives (yet they are not always smooth). And precisely these failures manifest that the mutual communication is still inevitable in order to come to terms with the history and thus with the present as well.
Undoubtedly, there are numerous artistic voices in the current literary tradition calling for a dialogue to be established. Since the setting of most of the recent postcolonial works shifted from former colonies to Europe or America, white characters‘ position within the narratives has become much more significant. It would be almost impossible to portray the existence of the multicultural and multiethnic communities in most of the European countries without pointing at their mutual, quotidian contact. Therefore, it is quite comprehensible that second or third generation immigrants develop closer relations with the Western population who are thus integrated in the narratives as their inextricable parts. The Caribbean-British writer Caryl Phillips, for instance, gives a powerful voice not only to his black characters (usually slaves or their descendants) but also to the white characters who have a decent place in his narratives and an opportunity to take an active part in the events described. Thus, they become the protagonists of his novels and due to the interaction and communication with the postcolonial community, these characters are provided with an equal opportunity to develop.
Similarly, Hanif Kureishi’s novel The Buddha of Suburbia presents a portrait of multicultural Britain in the 1970s although with a harsh critique of former race relations. It touches on the subject of an interracial and intercultural marriage / relationship perceived through the eyes of the young and rebellious narrator Karim Amir who characterizes himself as “a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed as it were, having emerged from two old histories“ (Kureishi, 1990, p. 3). Although the mixed marriage of Karim’s parents does not work and the couple separates, his father, an India-born immigrant, starts a new relationship (however not without certain prejudices and objections from his relatives) with an extravagant Englishwoman Eva, under whose influence he rediscovers his “Oriental“ roots. Karim, on the other hand, strives for a certain balance between his Indianness and his British identity which seems to dominate in his life for a certain period of time. In the end, it is precisely due to the somewhat promiscuous and experimetal contacts with members of both communities that he seems to be able to accept both of them as an inseparable part of his personality.
Indeed, there is a visible effort in contemporary postcolonial fiction to initiate a mutual dialogue instead of depriving one of the parties of its right to speak. A new generation of writers has appeared in the last decades who, instead of generating multicultural trepidations, attempt to acknowledge the hybridity and multiculturalism as practices of everyday life rather than some awkward consequences of colonialism. According to Laura Moss, that might be because “the current state of globalisation, diasporic migration, and contemporary cosmopolitanism has brought about a ‘normalisation’ of hybridity in contemporary postcolonial communities” (2003, p.12) The question then is: “What happens when the centre has been moved, at least partially, and the mind has at least begun to be decolonised?” (ibid., p. 12) Can hybridity and multiculturalism become a non-issue?
These are the milestones which are waiting for the new-generation writers. And in the process of their mapping, one must inevitably mention the young and talented British writer Zadie Smith who has, with her debut novel White Teeth, succeeded in displaying the sketches of what may be entitled as a post-postcolonial era. Smith’s novel not only captures all the struggles of first generation immigrants in modern multi-Britain, it also provides a glimpse into the future by embracing the destinies of their children as well. White Teeth may be viewed as a form of family and at the same time cultural saga, depicting “three cultures and three families over three generations” (back cover, 2000). Smith brings together Bangladeshi immigrants fixated on their homeland, culture and religion with British liberal intellectuals, devout Jehovah’s Witnesses inextricably linked with Islamic fundamentalists and Animal Rights activists and creates a multiracial, multicultural and multireligious orchestra.
Smith, brought up and still living in the multicultural London, seems to belong to these new literary voices who do not see ethnicity or hybridity as a problem but rather as a part of one’s everyday reality. In one of the interviews, when asked how she tried to approach multiracial London, Smith answers: “I was just trying to approach London. I don’t think of it as a theme, or even a significant thing about the city. This is what modern life is like. If I were to write a book about London in which there were only white people, I think that would be kind of bizarre.” (www.pbs.org/wgbh/ masterpiece/teeth/ei_smith_int.html, 11.9. 2006)
Nonetheless, one cannot assert that White Teeth is completely devoid of the traditional postcolonial agenda. Far from it. Nor does it represent an ultimate post-postcolonial literary work which would abandon the black-and-white optics. In fact, White Teeth may be viewed as a hybrid text that combines both these tendencies which are embodied in the novel’s main protagonists, i.e. first and second generation immigrants and their British counterparts. Being composed of several parallel stories, Zadie Smith outlines the tenuous transformation that may take place in the course of few generations but which is anything else but smooth and uncomplicated.
The book is centered around the lifelong bond between Samad Iqbal, a first generation Bangladeshi immigrant, and Archie Jones, a simple and unworldly Englishman who has, after a failed suicide attempt, married a black Jamaican-English woman. This unusual and precious friendship together with Archie’ s interracial marriage provide a unique opportunity to exhibit the testimony that diversity and difference can live together side by side. Smith, of course, does not delineate an ideal image of the society since both Archie and Samad have to face and come into terms with a deep seated racism (and their life-long friendship is not devoid of some ups and downs either). This illustrates Smith’s literary maturity since she does not erase it from her book nor does she exaggerate or foreground its impact on the characters. The novel simply captures the quotidian postcolonial reality.
As it was already mentioned, the novel moves between the traditional postcolonial framework and the new, post-postcolonial horizon. The division line can be, in fact, detected quite easily. It has sublimated into Archie’s and Samad’s children and the clash between these two different generations. As Marcus Chalfen, the middle-class scientist and Magid’s (Samad’s son) patron, implies “first generation are all loony tunes, but the second generation have got heads just about straight on their shoulders” (Smith, 2000, p. 349). Samad’s identity stems predominantly from his pride in and devotion to his roots (impersonated by his ‘famous’ great-grandfather Mangal Pande whom he believes to be a hero of the Indian Mutiny) and he is not willing to accept his children’s integration, that is to say, assimilation in the host culture. He and his wife Alsana represent the vulnerability and the in-betweenness of their generation who hold everything that is English or Western in contempt.
On the contrary, Samad’s twins Magid and Millat, and Archie’s daughter Irie in particular desire to merge with the non-hyphenated and shake off the historical burden from their shoulders. Each of them, however, tries to come into terms with his or her roots differently. Laying hopes on a tough decision, Samad sends Magid, the brainy one, back to Bangladesh in order to get a rigorous and proper Bengalese education in his motherland. What a surprise it must have been to Samad when eight years later Magid returns home and istead of being a devout and proud Bengali Muslim, he is “more English than the English”. The trouble-maker Millat, on the other hand, who remained in London drifts into a group of Islamic fundamentalists and proves to be another disappointment for his disillusioned father. Despite the fact that none of his sons had fulfilled Samad’s expectations, they both grow up and seem to live a life according to their beliefs; both of them being integrated into the British culture.
In her passionate outbursts, Irie often communicates her vision of the near (post-postcolonial?) future “...when roots won’t matter any more because they can’t because they mustn’t because they’re too long and they’re too tortuous and they’re just buried too damn deep” (ibid., p. 527). Moreover, Irie’s desire to interdigitate with the Western population results not only in the disastrous straightening of her unbending hair but it also causes the alienation from her own family when she seeks refuge by the Chalfens. “She wanted it; she wanted to merge with the Chalfens, to be of one flesh; separated from the chaotic, random flesh of her own family and transgenically fused with another. A unique animal. A new breed.” (ibid., p. 342).
Actually, Smith plays an intricate game with her readers who, in fact, have the chance to observe the genesis of a “unique animal”, the FutureMouse that is a product of genetic mutation. Paradoxically, this concept crossing the borders both of genetics and ethics is a part of a courageous but publicly condemned cancer project of Marcus Chalfen. The mouse, similarly to Irie, Samad, his sons and basically everyone with ethnic roots, presents a hybrid. The fact that it is artificially engineered may serve as a clear parallel to the aforementioned individuals whose identity happens to be “culturally engineered” (Head, 2003, p. 117).
In order to persuade the public that this experiment is harmless and after all beneficial for everyone of us (how symbolical), Marcus decides to put the mouse in a cage and ostentatiously display its otherness in public so that everyone can watch its evolution. However, during the final apocalyptic scene, mingling “lust-filled Animal Rights lobbyists, stoned Muslim militants, octogenarian Jehovah’s Witnesses, self-aggrandising war vets, media-savy scientists, and dysfunctional family members” (Moss, 2003, p. 15), the mouse sets itself free and runs away to the (hopefully) promising future where no one will ever doubt its significance and worth.
Last but not least, when analyzing White Teeth one must definitely mention its unique serio-comic tone which pervades the whole narrative and which also demonstrates Smith’s liberation from the nostalgic, melancholic and serious literary predecessors. The author has argued that “there has been an incredible rash of solemn fiction in the late eighties and nineties” (www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/teeth/ei_smith_int.html, 11.9. 2006) and that she wanted to write something that would make her readers laugh. Indeed, it seems to be extremely difficult to shake the right portion of humour, satire and esteem in order to produce a literary cocktail that would both celebrate the diversity but also point at the bitter, sometimes even bizarre situations that spring from the weighty part of our history.
In conclusion, White Teeth may be added to the vast number of postcolonial books which seek to address the perplexing reality of the multicultural society. The text proliferates with examples of confusion, sense of exile and alienation which manifest Smith’s lingering awareness of the perturbation of the postcolonial community. Nevertheless, the novel also displays the germination of a new era, the first contours of what might become the near future. It is thus based on the dichotomy between the past and the future by presenting the question whether the colonial past and its consequences can and should be thrown overboard. Because after all it may happen that they “will race towards the future only to find they more and more eloquently express their past, that place where they have just been. Because this is the other thing about immigrants (‘fugees, émigrés, travellers): they cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow” (Smith, 2000, p. 466).

Bibliography:
Achebe, Ch., 1977. An Image of Africa. In: Richter, D.H. (ed.), 2000. Falling into theory. Conflicting views on reading literature. Boston / New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. pp. 323-333
Head, D., 2003. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth: Multiculturalism for the Millenium. In: Lane, R.J. (ed.), 2003. Contemporary British Fiction. Cambridge: Polity. pp. 106-119
Kureishi, H., 1990. The Buddha of Suburbia. London: Faber and Faber.
Moss, L., 2003. The Politics of Everyday Hybridity. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. In: Wasafiri. Vol. 39, Issue 6. pp. 11-17. http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/muana/zadiehybridity. pdf, 11.9.2006. Available on Internet.
Smith, Z., 2000. White Teeth. London: Penguin Books.
Tiffin, H., 1995. Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse. In: Ashcroft, B., G. Griffiths, H. Tiffin (eds.). 1995. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge. pp. 95-98
Williams, B.T. “A State of Perpetual Wandering”: Diaspora and Black British Writers. htttp://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v3i3/willia.htm, 12.5. 2006. Available on Internet.
An interview with Zadie Smith. www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/ teeth/ei_smith_int.html, 11.9. 2006. Available on Internet.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Students´ corner

Stuck for an idea for your presentation?

GET INSPIRED!

Students' corner is a space dedicated mostly to students' ideas which were used during their presentations. It includes parts of students' activities with short descriptions and final products. They can be adapted to fit a variety of classroom situations and topics.

So here are a few ideas that might help to get you going.

* HOW TO MAKE A GOOD PRESENTATION

* GETTIN' STARTED

* PLOT

To make your presentation more engaging for your classmates, feel free to use some special activities or help them to remember to stuff easily with handouts.

* ROLE PLAYS : Hamlet

The Picture od Dorian Gray

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

* POEMS

* DRAWINGS: The Miller's Tale

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Great Expectations

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

First Love

* HANDOUTS

Essays

For more information on particular authors or literary phenomena, click on the links below.
!!! © blog_admin: Passages from the essays may be quoted only when acknowledging the source !!!

English:

Slovak:

Teaching Foreign Language Literature through Drama

Simona Hevešiová

In: Communication, Interaction and the Process of Teaching Foreign Languages after Joining the European Union. - Bratislava: RETAAS, 2007. - ISBN 978-80-89113-31-6. - pp. 94-99.

1 Drama as a teaching technique

The potential of drama in the educational context has been discovered years ago while the attention of researchers and scholars has been focused on the usage of drama in foreign language study. Many teachers contend that drama presents a highly valuable teaching technique since it helps to develop the communicative competence of the language learners and increases their creativity, sensitivity, fluency and flexibility. In addition, drama activities foster mutual interaction and communication between the teacher and the students while they explore their emotions, thoughts and attitudes. However, teachers are still reluctant to incorporate drama in their lesson plans and as Alan Maley observes „all to often, acceptance of an approach does not guarantee its implementation” (Wessels, 1987, p. 3). It is ironic that despite the proliferation of numerous books and articles dealing with the benefits of drama as a teaching technique, the vast majority of students has never been introduced and made familiar with an alternative way of teaching and learning. It is not the teaching process that stands in the centre of attention but rather its results. Hence, the focus needs to be shifted from what to teach to how to teach it. This problem applies not only to foreign language teaching but also to teaching of foreign language literature as an academic subject.
By the same token, the area of teaching literature through drama activities was rather neglected and remained in the background. In the last decades, the study and teaching of literature have been centered around an analytical or rather mechanical approach toward a literary text. It has been viewed and analysed in relation to its author, the relevant literary context and literary theory. The students of literature have been asked to memorise facts related to the life and work of a particular author or the characteristic features of various literary movements and periods. Charlyn Wessels points to the fact that “students are rarely allowed to view a text as anything but abstract, flat piece of printed matter, isolated from and irrelevant to their lives” (Ibid., p. 93).
Besides, there are also other challenges the teacher of literature is facing today. Due to the rapid technological progress, facts are easily accessible to anyone who is skillful enough to work with a computer. Finding appropriate information on internet or in other informational resources is a matter of few minutes. Even though the importance of the theoretical background is not to be undermined, it should be restricted to the lectures while the seminars should be more student-centered and interactive. Furthermore, we live in a “visualised“ era and it is far more demanding and challenging for a teacher to make reading appealing and motivating for students. Therefore, new techniques of presenting and discussing literature in the classroom need to be incorporated in the teaching process to make it more innovative and to activate learners‘ knowledge, experience and emotions. There are several reasons why the study of foreign language literature provides an ideal territory for the employment of drama activities.
First of all, despite its clearly defined physical borders, every literary text represents an open system, i.e. it is bound to be interpreted. As a matter of fact, the very term interpretation indicates plurality and thus diversity of explication. When analysing a piece of literature, there is not just one, objectively given and thus the only “correct“ understanding of the text. The response to the literary work varies from reader to reader. It is precisely this fact that adumbrates and creates ideal prerequisites for the implementation of drama activities in the learning and teaching process. According to Bruce Robbins, “classroom drama is most useful in exploring topics when there are no single, correct answers or interpretations, and when divergence is more interesting than conformity and truth is interpretable“ (http://www.vtaide.com/png/ERIC/Creative-Dramatics.htm, 11.12. 2005).
Moreover, every literary text functions as a communication bridge between the author and the reader; it aims at delivering a particular message. Despite the fact that the author plays a more dominant role in this communicative situation, the role of the reader - the recipient is far from being passive. It is the reader who completes the literary work since he is forced to make connections and read between the lines, to fill the blank spaces which the writer had (intentionally) left unfinished or covered with a mysterious veil. In addition, the reader is invited to confront presented ideas and experiences with his own and to process emotions and thoughts the text had evoked. Thus, the recipient (in our case, the learner) takes a significant part in the communication process and rounds it off.
Accordingly, it is rather incomprehensible that teachers still aim at transmitting the knowledge to students by imposing their authority and playing the dominant role in the classroom. It is undeniable that the rigid lessons ask for something innovative and appealing that would motivate the students to raise their eyes from the exercise books, or even raise the students from the chairs. Since literature invites dialogue and communication, students should be provided with the possibility to engage with literary texts and bring them to life. The functions and roles of the reader should be transferred to the learner who will activate or even initiate mutual dialogue and interaction. Similarly, as Carter points out “literature is something we can relate to as individuals“ (1992, p. 17) so students should be encouraged to make use of their own personality, experience, creativity and originality and contribute to the attractiveness of the classroom sessions.

2 Applying drama in the study of literature

There are several ways how to incorporate drama into the teaching of literature. Firstly, it can be used during the warm-up stage at the beginning of the seminar. The aim of warm-up exercises is “to foster a climate of trust, awareness and group cohesion in which creative collaboration can take place“ (Dougill, 1991, p. 9) In this way, the teacher can make use of mime, vocal warm-ups or simple sensitivity activities aimed at generating reader‘s ideas, impressions or problems related to the understanding of a given literary work. Assuming that the students come to the class with the book already read, the teacher may count upon the fact that they are familiar with the basic features of the work, such as plot, protagonists and their characteristics, the structure, form of the work, etc. These are the building stones which the lead-in to the text can be based on and which help to raise the awareness to internal as well as external links associated with the text.
However, drama can be applied in a more extensive and elaborate way as well. Actually the whole seminar may represent one drama activity, or rather a theatre stage where any action or adventure can take place. Such an approach is really challenging both for the teacher and the students but its benefits are unquestionable. It provides a possibility to progress from a teacher-centered lesson to a session which invites the learners to formulate and express their own ideas, emotions and attitudes to the text. Moreover, since drama includes an element of “let‘s pretend ...“, students have a unique opportunity to experience the problems, dilemmas and conflicts of the characters first hand (without any mediator) and explore the text in a natural and spontaneous way.
As far as the basic principles are concerned that the teacher needs to take into account, these are, in fact, almost identical with the guidelines for setting up any drama activity in a language classroom. They involve a well-thought-out plan, clear instructions, leading by example, a friendly and encouraging atmosphere, collaborative setting, positive reinforcement and a feedback provided by the teacher at the end of the performance. (Dougill, 1991, p. 130). Similarly, the risks and potential problems associated with running these activities are the same as with drama in general. For example, the teacher lacks the confidence or enthusiasm, he fears that the task will result in chaos, students show no interest to participate in the activity or the setting and spatial conditions are unsatisfactory. Undoubtedly, drama is not a universal or ideal solution for all the problems but its benefits by all means outnumber the risks connected with it. Moreover, these can be easily eliminated by proper management on the part of the teacher.
Yet, there is one significant factor that is closely connected with drama and that is motivation. In his book Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom (2001), Zoltán Dörnyei mentions several features of task content which make it more attractive for the learners and hence increase their motivation. According to him, the task should be challenging enough and it should include the novelty element (something new, unexpected or different), the intriguing element (ambiguous or controversial material which stimulates curiosity), the exotic element (unique setting or protagonists), the fantasy element (involving imagination, “let’s pretend”) and finally the personal element (related to the learners’ own lives). By close inspection of these elements, one discovers that drama activities accomplish all of them and have the potential to make learning stimulating and enjoyable.

3 Drama in action (Sample lesson: The Picture of Dorian Gray)

To provide a specific example of a drama-based lesson, let us describe one of the alternative ways of presenting and discussing Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The teacher may, for example, organize a press conference with main characters of the novel aiming at elucidating characters’ conflicts or dilemmas. Students thus face a unique opportunity to confront them with their questions and to clear up any opacities they have encountered during the reading. The class can be divided into two sections – main characters and journalists. At the beginning of the seminar, every student picks a piece of paper (a role-card) from an envelope containing the description of his role during the seminar. Thus, the teacher forms new pairs or groups of students and fairly distributes the roles among them. One group of students stands for characters from the novel, e.g. Dorian Gray, Basil Hallward, Lord Henry Wotton and Sybil Vane. Moreover, one of the students may even represent the writer himself. The rest of the class would act as journalists instructed to ask questions which would interest their readers..
In order to involve every student in the activity and to ensure a thorough analysis of the novel, the teacher may complicate the roles even more. Students-journalists would be divided into smaller groups, each representing a different kind of newspaper or magazine. For example, the artistic magazine would map the aesthetic features projected in the novel and characters’ opinions on art; the tabloid journalists would be interested in the private lives of the characters and by looking for stunts and affairs they would illuminate their inner motivations and feelings; a magazine of a homosexual community would point to unclear relationships between male characters in the novel and so on. The possibilities are endless. However, it is advisable that the role-cards contain some prompts such as key words which would help the learners to formulate their questions and direct the discussion. Moreover, classroom furniture may be rearranged to create a realistic setting – a special guest table with name-plates and bottles of water for refreshment may be placed in the front of the classroom.
Even though the learning is entrusted mainly to the learners themselves and the role of the teacher is a minor one, it is still very important. Despite the fact that he prepares and sets up the whole process, his official function may be that of a host who keeps the discussion within certain borders and provides background information or prompts when necessary. In addition, the teacher monitors the activity and the content of the discussion, ensuring that learners’ interpretation of the text is valid and their responses appropriate. At the end of the seminar, the teacher may sum up the most relevant pieces of information related to the literary work and he should also evaluate the activity as such. By providing students with the feedback or concluding remarks and praising their effort to take responsibility for their own learning, the teacher supports the collaborative and decentralized character of mutual communication.
There are numerous modifications and other drama-based activities the teacher of foreign language literature may implement in the teaching process. To mention just some of them, the classroom may be turned into a TV talk-show featuring famous writers or memorable characters; learners may be involved in a competition which would check their knowledge of selected literary periods; they may step into the roles of secret agents or investigators clarifying enigmatic actions; further, a trial (employing a team of lawyers) may be set up with characters defending and justifying their actions by giving a defense speech; students may seek to establish a personal relationship with a particular character by writing a letter containing personal questions or remarks and so forth. To make the setting even more realistic and attractive, there can be a prop box in the classroom containing some useful objects, such as old glasses, a piece of cloth, hats, wigs, puppets or artificial flowers. These would enliven the whole scene and help the learners get into the role more easily.

4 Conclusion

To conclude, not only teachers but also many students “share the belief that serious learning is supposed to be hard work, and if it is enjoyable, it is doubtful that it is serious or significant” (Dörnyei, 2001, p.72). This article aimed to demonstrate that this statement is not necessarily valid and that the change in thinking is in the hands of the teachers. It does not, by any means, exhaust the topic presented. There are other factors that need to be taken into consideration, such as selection of books, classroom atmosphere, manner of presentation, students’ and teacher’s personalities and relationships, etc. However, it aims to demonstrate the potential of drama in teaching foreign language literature and to encourage pedagogues to reach for an alternative way of teaching. Moreover, since there is no coherent theoretical and practical framework, it also attempts to point out that a continual research in this area is needed.
On the whole, adding excitement to learning tasks and creating learning situations which would increase student involvement might result in a better and more personal understanding of literary texts. Moreover, drama proponents claim that personal engagement with literature leads to its enjoyment. In words of Ronald Carter, “the greater the invention and enthusiasm of the literature teacher, the greater the likelihood that learners will like, or come to like, the literary text which has been presented, and from there proceed to look at further texts and teach themselves to like them too“ (1992, p. 23).

Bibliography

CARTER, R.& M.N. LONG. 1992. Teaching literature. Harlow: Longman Group UK Limited
DOUGILL, J. 1991. Drama activities for language learning. London: Macmillan Publisher Ltd.
DÖRNYEI, Z. 2001. Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
HILL, J. 1986. Using literature in language teaching. London: Macmillan Publisher Ltd.
MALEY, A.& A. DUFF. 1992. Drama techniques in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ROBBINS, B. 1988. Creative Dramatics in the Language Arts Classroom. http://www.vtaide.com/png/ERIC/Creative-Dramatics.htm, 11.12. 2005. Available on Internet.
SHORT, M. 1989. Reading, analysing and teaching literature. London: Longman Group Uk Limited.
WESSELS, CH. 1987. Drama. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Voices of immigrants in Maxine Hong Kingston’s ‘The Woman Warrior‘

Simona Hevešiová

In: Emigration to the English Speaking World. - Ružomberok: Faculty of Philosophy, Catholic University in Ružomberok, 2006. - ISBN 80-8084-090-3. - (2006), pp. 47-62.

1 Celebrating diversity

The enormous diversity of races and ethnic groups which settled down on the territory of the United States throughout the history establishes the country’ s distinctive character often explained through the metaphor of the “melting pot”. Indeed, the massive waves of immigration brought about by religious, political, and economic causes on the continent contributed to the “strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country” (Luedtke, L.S., 1988, p. 8). The concept of ethnicity, thus, becomes the most distinguishing and identifying mark of the country’ s character. However, to define these citizens as minority populations is, according to Luther S. Luedtke, “misleading, for the nation has no clear ethnic majority” (Ibid., pp. 8-9). In fact, the United States gradually absorbed millions of foreigners elliminating the population of British ancestry, the largest specifically identifiable ethnic group. Furthermore, the increase of the minority’ s population is enormous. The fastest growing minority group in the United States, the Hispanic, grew from 22,4 million to 35,3 million, a 58 percent increase between 1999 and 2000. The Asian-American grew by 48 percent in the 1990s (www.encarta.msn.com, 30.10. 2004).
The coexistence of numerous ethnic groups on a restricted landscape provokes many debates. Undoubtedly, the ethnic variety of the US population contributes to the complex patchwork of modern American society. However, the emergence of ethnocentrism carries the issue a major step further. To judge others by one’ s own frame of reference is often a result of unawareness and unintentionally false assumptions. But the interrelatedness of the deceptive judgements and consequent misunderstandings about ‘the others’ is apparent. Moreover, intentional and misleading generalizations about other people’ s cultures cherish the proliferation of ethnic bias.
Nevertheless, the cross-cultural encounters open a new dimension for the diversity based on cohesiveness, recognition and respect of the differences. Otherwise, it can have ruinous consequences. Homi K. Bhabha, for example, posits the necessity of reconsiderating the modes of cultural apprehension: “My position is that you don´t have to first homogenize cultures, and then as a gesture allow different cultural groupings their right to expression. You’ ve got to look at it the other way around. We have to respect difference before we can truly think about the ways cultures can speak to each other”.(http://chronicle.uchicago.edu, 10.5.2006)
The acknowledgement of the differences leads inevitably to the question of their representation. How to capture the essence of belonging to a marginalized ethnic group distinguishable from the ‘majority’ population? What means are there to their disposal? First of all, one thinks of the political representation and more or less pragmatic steps towards one’ s identification. Although these can lead to the actual improvement of the recognition of ethnic reality, they often fail to emotionalize and personalize the issue what is the very advantage of artistic representation.
Therefore, art and literature predominantly, seem to have the power to present the tremendous potentials humans have for being human. The strength of artistic expression lies precisely in the fact that it embodies the essence, the fundamental stones, of the communication bridge. The images that are evoked via language can demonstrate how cultures can relate to each other. Then, to annul, abolish the pervasive idea of the ‘irreconcilable’ differences within a cultural framework, means to look at them in a complementary perspective. Therefore, diversity and variety must be displayed in literature (or art in general) as well.
However, it was only in the 1960s that the discourse of ethnicity started to emerge in the literary field. The essential characteristics of the period named “ethnic renaissance” by A. Robert Lee resides in the fact that ethnic writers succeeded in attracting significant attention from mainstream publishers, critics and readers. In addition, the issue of ethnic recognition brings up some questions that accompany the very process: How does the perception of an ethnic group change after breaking up their isolation? What implications do these changes have for both the mainstream and the “reborn” population?
Moreover, the proliferation of distinctive stories draws attention to the very motives and intentions of the writers. Why does one write? Out of what need does one’s desire to tell stories spring? What does it mean for oneself to hear his/her own voice among plurality of other voices? In words of Amy Ling, “finding one’s voice and telling one’s stories represents power, just as having one’s stories burried is powerlessness.” (in: Wong, S.C., 1999, p. 157). Juxtaposing writing to the basic instinct of human beings, Ling implicitly stresses and elevates the importance of storytelling and its meaning for oneself. She says: “Writing is an act of self-assertion, self-revelation, and self-preservation. One writes out of a delight in one’s storytelling powers, out of a need to reveal and explain oneself, or from the desire to record and preserve experience”. (Ibid., p. 135) Indeed, the textual form provides an intact space for the presentation of the self, for revealing and promoting one’s character, views, intentions, feelings or worries. Words call forth emotions and thus the self is given a remarkable opportunity to be displayed in its complexity and multiplicity.

2 The postmodern self and the narrative

The search for one’s identity and the process of its (re)construction represent some of the most frequent discourses in ethnic writing. Of course, the author’s ethnic background (as in the case of Maxine Hong Kingston) is a rich source of inspiration for the writer and therefore is necessarily reflected in the work, usually playing a dominant role. Furthermore, ethnicity often seems to be the very motive for writing since it stigmatizes its bearer. That is to say, since ethnocentrism is still present in our societies, in the surroundings where (in our case) a Chinese American belongs to the minority and is easily distinguishable from the rest, the ‘stranger’ inevitably faces and has to cope with cross-cultural encounters. These confrontations, then, may result in a strong feeling of alienation which urges the person to locate his or her position within the society.
However, the manifestation of identity within the narrative has undergone a significant shift and resulted in the transformation of the autobiographical genre, the most obvious medium of its representation. The 20th century brought about numerous debates about the history and essence of identity projecting constantly changing and redefined concepts of the self. 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)
In fact, the self was exposed to a crucial and dramatic transformation. The (re-)evolution of the self contributed to the alteration of its essential characteristics as the homogeneous and unified to the transitory and polysemic. Thus, the idea of a coherent, centered and integrated self disappeared and was replaced by its flexible, fragmented and ambiguous counterpart. The traditional view stressing the significance of a fixed and stable identity was undermined by a new concept regarding identity as “fabricated, constructed, in process.” (Ibid., p. 14)
Clearly, the postmodern world is a world of dynamism that leads to the reconstitution of the self which no longer possesses stability and fixedness. Instead, contradiction, inconsistency and hybridization take their place. In consequence, identity becomes a multidimensional space in which both psychological and sociological aspects have to be taken into consideration, giving rise to a relational self. Thus, identity becomes a “mediating concept between the external and the internal, the individual and society…” (Ibid., p. 28), adjusting the self-definition to the changing relationships with others.
As it was already mentioned, the notion of autobiography within the new context did not avoid its metamorphosis either. As the self kept adopting a new face, so the medium of its presentation underwent a thorough change in its form and character. The traditional retrospective narrative displaying the events in a chronological order and related to the construction of a unified subject was supplanted by plurality of voices which aimed at the exposure of the gaps and exclusions in the narrative. All the differences, the multiple ‘selves’ within the individual that accompanied the decline of an integrated self called for their acceptance and adequate interpretation.

3 The notion of “I” in The Woman Warrior

In her novel The Woman Warrior (Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts) Maxine Hong Kingston, a descendant of Chinese immigrants, communicates her feelings of displacement and confusions about who she is and in which world does she belong. By (re)telling the stories of her mother Brave Orchid who left China and emigrated to the United States, her nameless Chinese aunt, her mother’s sister Moon Orchid, the famous avenger Fa Mu Lan and finally her own, Kingston articulates her struggle for a solid identity. The apparent conflicts of her two cultural bases force her to consider the possibilities for establishing a meaningful dialogue so that, consequently, a mutual communication can take place. Her ethnic roots represent therefore the engine generating this avalanche of self-discovery which results in her attempt to mediate her struggles precisely via writing. Hence, we can assume that it was the intricacies of being a Chinese American which inspired the writer to articulate her experience through literature.
To trace the birth and formation of a postmodern self in Kingston’s exhilarative is not an easy task. The problem of identity is, unquestionably, one of the major themes of the book. However, the author complicates its status by interweaving the plot with vivid imagery, fantasy and blurry ‘facts’. Therefore, before we start to analyse the narrative structure and search for the voice(s) in the text, there is another fact that directs our attention towards a more complete understanding. Namely, the book became the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. And precisely this last word – nonfiction - provoked a wave of discussions about the very genre of the book.
The question raised by the critics is of crucial interest in our investigation since it provides the answer to the real identity of the narrator. The Woman Warrior definitely challenges and even outsteps the traditional concept of autobiography which tends to follow a linear narrative pattern and maintains a stable narrator. We have already scrutinized the change the autobiographical genre went through in the postmodern era. Indeed, it is no more a unified, chronological and integrated whole but rather a laboratory of hybrids and fragments. However, to what extent fictional elements, imagination, myths and a ‘floating’ narrator are acceptable in a “factual account of a person’s own life” (Wong, S.C., 1999, p. 30)?
Analogously to our previous thesis concerning the transformation of the autobiographical genre, one can exemplify the truthfulness of these assertions by providing numerous evidences from the book. First of all, the reliability of the narrator and the verifiability of the events presented are, at least, doubtful. The readership is dragged into a carousel of “recollection, speculation, reflection, meditation, imagination” (Ibid., p. 32) where the inner world of the narrator absorbs all its attention while the outer reality plays only second fiddle. Kingston herself draws implicitly a parallel to her own writing strategy: “Night after night my mother would talk-story until we fell asleep. I couldn’t tell where the stories left off and the dreams began, her voice the voice of the heroines in my sleep.” (Kingston, M.H., 1977, p. 25)
Yet the fiction and fact dichotomy is not the only peculiarity of The Woman Warrior. Maxine Hong Kingston symbolically manifests her willingness to disclose and thus strengthen not only her own battle for articulateness but also the voices of her whole ethnic literary family. The plurality of voices that resonate behind the narrator‘s “I“ implies that Kingston embraces her ancestors‘ and her forerunners‘ words in an act of self-assertion and supports the thesis that the postmodern self is no longer unified and homogeneous but rather fragmented, polysemic and decentered.
Indeed, Maxine Hong Kingston puts together a mosaic of stories in which one can hardly distinguish a reality-based, lucid fact from a personal, highly subjective perception, illusion or even an invention. But isn’t that a natural consequence of relying on one’s own presentation of events? No matter how objective and impartial the writer tries to be, an autobiographical text (whether romantic, modern or postmodern) unavoidably soaks with the unique, firsthand and thus subjective portrayal of one’s life. Since every writer has the possibility of making a “choice between faithfully recording or willfully distorting this external reality” (in: Wong, S.C., 1999, p. 36) spiced with the flavour of its internal reflection, every single autobiographical work has the right to claim that the author is its only authorized arbiter.
Clearly, the objective that The Woman Warrior purports to be universally representative does not hold out. The reason is simple. In general, an autobiography written by a member of any ethnic group tends to be seen as a “microcosm of the community” and the author as its “exemplar and spokesperson” (Ibid., p. 37). However, the stereotyped delusion that it should reveal the secrets, struggles or simply the richness of their heritage otherwise unattainable to the white population slowly loses its steadiness. Because of Kingston’s ethnic roots, many readers and critics (especially those not familiar with the subject) mechanically viewed the book as a chronicle of Chinese culture and traditions without ever questioning the very source they get the information from. But instead of providing accurate decriptions and reliable accounts of her ethnic background and Chinese culture, the author knowingly blends the traditional material, such as the legend of a female avenger Fa Mu Lan, with her own imagination giving rise to a completely new fantasy. Simply, the autobiographical genre entitles her to be the only master of her reality.
Furthermore, the book is not centered around a single character, the author/narrator herself as we might expect, but it provides a glimpse into the realities of life of several other people, all of them being women. The voice of Maxine Hong Kingston is still heard somewhere in the background but is no more the central one which seems rather atypical in connection with autobiographies. Encapsulating various episodes from the lives of her relatives, Kingston tries to grasp her own personality and thus, finally, accomplishes its transformation. In doing so, she supports Isabel Durán’s concept of the relational self which aims at its construction within a network of numerous relationships.
Nevertheless, individuality still remains the key term in the framework of our discussion. The external reality seems to be of minor importance in The Woman Warrior and no one, except the author, can fully distinguish the real from the fictitious. Having a more intimate focus and being based, besides author’s imagination and fantasy, entirely on her memory, this book (as well as no other autobiography) cannot be fully trusted. In such a case where all the information we get are mediated only from one person’s perspective, Kingston’s unreliability cannot be attacked. So to return to our initial question whether The Woman Warrior should be classified as fiction or nonfiction, one cannot provide a definite answer. It is neither wholly fictional nor factual, but rather a mix of both. In fact, Maxine Hong Kingston succeeded in creating something specific – a hybrid, a combination of reality, visions, imagination, tradition and speculation all interwoven into an autobiographical form.
As the preceding passages demonstrate, the borders between fiction and fact in The Woman Warrior are (intentionally?) blurred to such an extent that the reader can hardly distinguish one from another. The more we are lured into the intricacies of the novel’s peculiarities, the more we become lost in the network of facts, dreams and fabrications. Therefore, the traditional fact and fiction dichotomy is elevated to another level enabling the readers to follow both real and imaginary layers in their complexity at once. What should, then, guide us to the core of the narrative? Does Maxine Hong Kingston offer the readers a compass to rely on?
First of all, the mystery the narrator(s) enfolded in has to be disclosed. Who does stand behind the elusive, multifaceted “I” constantly taking on so many voices? Sometimes curious, imaginative, submissive, the other time rebellious, angry and powerfull. Is it still the same person? Is the reliable? Though one cannot find the answers to these questions immediately, the multiplicity of the voice(s) is impossible to dispute. The narrator is, indeed, oscilating between different poles, masquerading herself (for it is always a woman except the fourth, third-person narrative) only to announce a new role taken on with an endless appetite. However, strictly taken, all of these voices have the same denominator. The shadow of Maxine Hong Kingston is present behind every single word the narrator utters. She is the one possessing the authority to insert the words in the narrator’s mouth.
In addition, the role of the narrator protrudes beyond its general horizons. Resting in the foreground and then disappearing behind the curtain, the position of the narrator is far from being stable. As the stories keep developing, so the self progresses in its creation and transition. The very process, its completion being postponed by every other step, brings about new questions. To what extent is the construction and presentation of the narrator related to the process of unfolding the theme of each chapter? Does the status of the narrator change? How powerful is her influence on the final shape of her own history?
In short, the narrative techniques Kingston uses are rather complicated. The constitution of the self is forced to undergo a long journey until it reaches its “final” face. Despite the fact that the self has to struggle to find its own mode of articulation and that the reader might get confused in the mingling of voices, there is a key to deciphering Kingston’s strategy. Consisting of five seemingly separate units, each of them being a self-consistent portrayal of womanhood, The Woman Warrior presents a compendium of distinctive stories which, to certain extent, allude to the process of identity formation. The readers are invited to witness a fascinating transformation of the “I” pointing to the self which is so elusive, floating and ever-changing. However, what makes this adventure so alluring is the omnipresence of a mysterious voice resonating from the depth of the “I” and the urgency with which it calls for a powerful echo.
By attempting to create the biographies of her ancestors and her forerunners, her own subjectivity and autobiography are being constructed. As the stories of her mother, her aunts and of the legendary Fa Mu Lan develop, Kingston’s search for her roots and her identity culminates.
In truth, the self is characterized not only by its fight for subjectivity but it is also portrayed in its vulnerability and helplessness exemplified in the fates of Moon Orchid and the nameless aunt. Being unable to speak for themselves or denied the right to speak, Kingston gives distinctive voices to these oppressed women who in turn become a part of her. Therefore, the narrator also functions as a mediator, a storyteller and precisely this position enables her to create her own narrative by recording stories which are forgotten, unwritten or unspoken. Simply, her autobio-graphical possibilities are dependent on the dialogues with her predecessors.
To conclude, there is only one and the very same self that is displayed in the multiplicity of voices. These voices belong both to Many and to One at the same time. Their apparent ambiguity and incompatibility unite (however, in their diversity) in the form of a dominant medium. This medium keeps standing in the background, until its final revelation, and filters the discourses in which it is positioned.

4 Stories and identity

The narrative is permeated with fascinating and invigorating stories recapturing and restoring the experiences of Kingston’s precursors and hence her own as well. In fact, we encounter a narrator who resurrects old stories while encompassing and creating new narratives at the same time. In this sense, without giving life to Brave Orchid’s stories and awakening the long-forgotten or oppressed voices, there would be no story reshaping the journey of Maxine Hong Kingston either. Indeed, the relation of storytelling to the construction of one’s identity is being displayed in its complexity here. We have already implied that identities are not fixed and stable but rather processual. So in this case, the thematical and organizational framework of The Woman Warrior resembles a gradually unfolded lifestory held together by a mosaic of ambiguous and confrontational elements. Each story the narrator presents is an effort to enhance the necessity of articulating one’s struggle for self-assertion. That is, before she was able to constitute her own subjectivity, Kingston had to acknowledge and experience the anxieties of her ancestors by listening to and then retelling the stories of their lives.
Despite their healing and vital influence on the self, the stories often represent a minefield hiding unpleasant secrets one does not want to discover. The tension between curiosity and fear of the unknown and unwanted, which is related to Maxine’s Chinese background, is brought to its final point. Kingston writes about her mother’s stories: “I did not always listen voluntarily, though. She would begin telling a story, perhaps repeating it to a homesick villager, and I’d overhear before I had a chance to protect myself…I have wanted to say,‘Stop it. Stop it,’ but not once did I say,’Stop it.’” (1977, p. 86)
Brave Orchid’s stories interpenetrate her daughter’s mind who desperately tries to sort out what is true and what is invented. Moreover, camouflageing delicate episodes of the family history, Brave Orchid forced Maxine to complete the kin-puzzle with her own imaginary inventions which are mere substitutions of the inaccessible knowledge. The search for her ethnic identity is thus complicated by her mother’s ambivalent approach to the truth. Indeed, the allegorical vision of life that constantly reiterates the complexities of what it means to be Chinese does not put an end to this drama of self-construction.
Hence, the confrontation with the stories functions as a filter. It may seem paradoxical but they are both liberating and frustrating for the teenage girl. This dualistic impulses diversify Maxine’s engagement with her mother’s narratives and continually open new discourses. Thus, the stories stand behind her fears, insecurities, disappointment and confusions, on one hand, leaving her without definite answers to her persistent questions. As a little girl, the ghosts from her mother’s tales kept haunting her in her dreams as well as the images evoked by the stories made her feel displaced. She had to learn how to confront the Chinese traditions (or what has been presented as a Chinese tradition) and the “invisible world” she was raised in with her American reality.
Moreover, Maxine has to reconcile with what Victoria Chen calls a “double alienation”. Not only the white Americans perceive her as the ‘other’ and the ‘different’, even her own community intesifies her marginalization. Since she has been born “among ghosts”, she herself is “ghostlike” and this label imprisons her in an alien vacuum. The stories seemingly prolong the distance that keeps her detached in the interzone. For to win this battle, Maxine cannot swallow her words any more. She needs to yearn (and she does) for deciphering the messages hidden in her mother’s narratives and to establish some grounds for her own subjectivity.
Nevertheless, the stories are, on the other hand, both liberating and inspiring for Kingston. Precisely because of the gaps and exclusions in her mother’s tales, she suddenly possesses the freedom to interpret them and even fabricate new ones. Not being tightened by any limitations or constraints, Kingston loosens her fantasy and communicates her stories, her alternatives. By demythologizing the family secrets and consequently her cultural heritage, Kingston poignantly bridges the boundaries between China and America. Furthermore, this act of rebellion enables her to embellish the tales with her own subjectivity and thus create a mysterious alliance with her mother.
To conclude, even though Brave Orchid’s talk-stories can generate confusions and be turned into nightmares, they still can be exhilarating and stimulating. That is to say, Kingston’s creative expression provides her with the possibility to find the missing pieces of the family jigsaw puzzle. Her own identity is being (re)constructed in this process of acknowledging her ancestors’ biographies and facing the ghosts of her ethnic background. In order to localise her position both in Chinese American community and American society, Kingston recognizes and articulates the ambiguity, uniqueness and the importance of the cultural multiplicity embedded in the stories.
Embracing the dichotomies of living on the edge and belonging fully to neither of the sides, Kingston communicates what it is like to be Chinese American and how does it feel to be torn between two different worlds. The cultural bonds are tight but so is the other, the American shell. To achieve stability means to find a sense of belonging and in the case of ethnic minorities it also means to cross the frontiers. For the subjectivity to be recomposed, one has to open oneself to a transformation to take place. And it is through writing that Maxine Hong Kingston exposes herself to this change, however, not repudiating any of the two territories. Instead, she attempts to shake a multicultural cocktail out of Chinese and American ingredients that would quench her thirst for an acceptable compromise.
In short, keeping track of the stories provides the narrator with a necessary perspective which helps her to convert the ambiguous messages into a useful and solid foundation for her self-authority. Not only does the tradition accentuate the importance of keeping the family knot, moreover, listening to, filtering, dusting off and, consequently, writing new stories opens the door to engaging the readers, the outsiders in a meaningul dialogue. Such a conversation can contribute to burning down the walls standing between representatives of diverse cultural backgrounds and enable the deepening of our awareness of cultural plurality and differences.

5 Message from the dismissed

There is no doubt that Maxine Hong Kingston succeeded in mediating the peculiarities of the struggles for one’s identity and communicating the conflicts a member of an ethnic group is necessarily confronted with on his or her path to self-construction. In doing so, she exhibited her awareness of the importance of such an act and, thus, she opened the door for those who are willing to cross the boundaries dividing these two ‘disparate’ worlds. As Cherrie Moraga pointed out, “silence is like starvation” (in: Young, B., 1999, p. 46) and Kingston too fights for eliminating the shortage of ethnic confrontations in a cultural, social and academic field.
In particular, Kingston was not only able to resist the silence imposed upon her both by her mother and by the dominant American culture, she has also necessitated the quest for a resonant voice(s). Finding her own way to advocate the plurality of voices, the writer attempts to capture the very onset of one’s articulateness. In this sense, she obviously exemplifies the ultimate stages in the process of establishing an ethnic-centered discourse. At the expense of demasking her weaknesses, worries and imperfections, even her anger, disappointment and her powerlessness, Kingston implicitly expresses her urgent determination to start an essential, yet inevitable dialogue.
Ethnic literature, therefore, undoubtedly embraces the potential to extend our awareness of ethnic or racial issues and incorporate them into our daily reality. Despite the fact that ethnic minorities were always present as an inevitable component of American society, it was also due to their writing that they could have been noticed, identified and respected. Since the ‘opening’ of the canon in the 1960s, the American readership has been invited to get deeply involved in the lives of their hyphenated neighbours.
Writing themselves into existence, ethnic authors have made the first step towards being recognized and included in the historical process. Moreover, they have attempted to achieve a significant change of their status so that they remain no longer on the margin but rather move to the center. The process of identification and the following public recognition may become the beginning of a new era in which otherness and difference will be respected and appreciated. In words of Patrocinio Schweickart, “literature acts on the world by acting on its readers” (in: Davis, R.C., Schleifer, R., 1989, p. 124) and thus it may establish a discourse which could stop the proliferation of misleading generalizations and prejudices.

Bibliography:

CHEN, V. (De)hyphenated Identity. The Double Voice in The Woman Warrior. www.roxbury.net/images/pdfs/0V4_Web.pdf, 10.5.2006. Available on Internet.
KINGSTON, M.H. 1981. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. London: Picador.
KLEPP, S.E. United States (People). Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2005. 1997-2005 Microsoft Corporation, www.encarta.msn.com, 30.10. 2004. Available on Internet.
LING, A. 1999. Chinese American Women Writers. The tradition behind Maxine Hong Kingston. In: Wong, S.C. (ed.), Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. A Casebook. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 135-158.
LUEDTKE, L. (ed.). 1988. Making America. The Society and Culture of the United States. Washington: United States Information Agency.
MAKOS, J. 1995. Rethinking experience of countries with colonial past. The University of Chicago: Chicago Chronicle. Vol. 14. No. 12. http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/950216/ bhabha.shtml, 10.5.2006. Available on Internet.
MORAGA, Ch. 1999. La Guera. In: Young, B. (ed.), Fracturing the Canon. An Interdisciplinary Humanities Reader. New York: Forbes: 45-49.
SARUP, M. 1996. Identity, Culture and the Postmodern World. Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
WONG, S.C. 1999. Autobiography As Guided Chinatown? Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and the Chinese American Autobiographical Controversy. In: Wong, S.C. (ed.), Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. A Casebook. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 29-53.

enjoyin´ literature

Sunday, November 12, 2006

English literature of the 20th century

Hanif Kureishi’s Quest for Articulateness

Thursday, October 19, 2006

A Glimpse Beyond Postcolonialism

Monday, October 16, 2006

Students´ corner

Essays

Teaching Foreign Language Literature through Drama

Voices of immigrants in Maxine Hong Kingston’s ‘The Woman Warrior‘

Links

Blog Archive