Colonial
Ideology, (White) Guilt, and the lack of it in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother
Colonialist
ideology has many shapes and forms. These forms embrace linguistic, racial, and
economic constructions that give rise to the oppressive work of colonialist
ideology. The best way to point out these constructions at work is through
literary artifacts, narratives, and novels. These literary artifacts showcase
how colonialist social constructions work to oppress populations and empower
hierarchies of control. This essay will illustrate how these oppressive factors
work in J.M. Coetzee’s 1999 novel Disgrace
and Jamaica Kincaid’s 1996 novel The
Autobiography of My Mother and how these factors influence the behavior of
the major characters in these novels; it is also possible to demonstrate how
they ultimately hurt and influence those around them because of these
colonialist ideological factors. This analysis of these novels will be
complemented by a rigorous application of particular postcolonial theories by
authors and critics Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, and Ngugi wa Thiongo.
Disgrace
In
the novel Disgrace (1999) by J.M.
Coetzee the daughter (Lucy) of the disgraced professor David Lurie is raped by
three black men, one of them who might be Lucy’s neighbors. Both David and Lucy
are white South Africans living in the new South Africa, and yet the intricacies
of colonialist ideology influence almost every action they take. Lucy
internalizes colonialist ideology by believing that she has no power over herself,
over her body (child), and over her land. Internalized colonialism prevents her
from realizing the power she has over her land and her body. Legitimizing her
rape by keeping her child (rape child) is a product of her internal
colonization, or more specifically, white guilt.
White guilt (specifically in the new
South Africa) is a byproduct of the internalization of colonialist ideology. Both
David and Lucy (as white South Africans) were part of the powerful, privileged,
land-owning class, but in the new South Africa they are part of a
guilt-ridden class forever atoning for
the sins of their past. Albert Memmi in “Mythical portrait of the colonized”
suggests how internalized colonialist ideology works and creates a “dependency
complex”:
In
order for that legitimacy to be complete, it is not enough for the colonized to
be a slave, he must also accept this role. The bond between colonizer and
colonized is thus destructive and creative. It destroys and re-creates the two
partners of colonization into colonizer and colonized. One is disfigured into
an oppressor, a partial, unpatriotic and treacherous being, worrying only about
his privileges and their defense; the other, into an oppressed creature, whose
development is broken and who compromises by his defeat.
Just as the colonizer is tempted to
accept his part, the colonizer is forced to accept being colonized. (Memmi 155)
In
the new South Africa of Disgrace
these roles are somewhat reversed. While the white South Africans (the original
colonizers) in the novel still own much of the land, it is their (the whites)
“development [that] is broken” (Memmi 155) and who “compromise” by their defeat
(Memmi 155). This paper will argue that because of white guilt the roles of
internalized colonization are reversed in the novel, and that this reversal
dictates actions and reactions of David and Lucy to the world around them, in
the process both becoming the “oppressed creature” instead of the oppressor
(Memmi 155). This paper will analyze David’s actions and reactions to his sex
scandal, and Lucy’s actions and reactions after her rape as evidence that
internalized colonialist ideology still permeates in the new South African
society, but the roles of colonization have been reversed (at least, in the
South Africa of the novel)
Lucy’s rape by black South Africans,
in some sense, is the complete metaphor for the complexities of the new South
Africa. The rapists by their act of rape were taken on the role of the
“oppressor” (Memmi 155) who worries about his “privileges and their defense”
(Memmi 155). The act of rape legitimized their role and status in the new South
Africa. They were the colonizers, if only for an instant, taking over her land
and body. The dilemma arises after the rape is done. It is Lucy and David who
are forced to carry on the burden of the crime. Lucy’s response to the rape
signals her internalization of colonialist ideology and her understanding of
the reversal of roles in the new South Africa. David, on the other hand, has a
harder time coming to grips with the realities of the new South Africa.
“Lucy, Lucy, I plead with you! You
want to make up for the wrongs of the past, but this is not the way to do it”
(Coetzee 133), so David pleads with his daughter to recognize the danger she is
in and to call the police on Petrus and the young boy who raped her. But Lucy
refuses, she “compromises by [her] defeat” (Memmi 155) thereby becoming the
“oppressed creature” (Memmi 155) and justifies her silence and inaction to her
father by uttering the following words: “Wait until you have heard Petrus’s
side of the story” (Coetzee 133). Her white guilt and internalized colonial
ideology will not allow her to punish her black attackers, even when it seems
that their punishment is justified: “it is not enough for the colonized to be a
slave he must also accept this role” (Memmi 155). Lucy is accepting her role,
but her inherited stubbornness to change her way of thinking influences her as
well.
It might be argued that Lucy mimics
David’s behavior and independent way of thinking, but a better answer might lie
in inheritance. This genetic trait towards stubbornness has dire consequences
for both father and daughter. Of course David seems thrilled when talking about
his daughter’s demeanor: “he recognizes a statement of independence,
considered, purposeful [. . .] Making her own life. Coming out of his shadow.
Good! He approves! (Coetzee 89). He feels happily satisfied that his daughter
has taken on his penchant for independent thinking. Like her father, Lucy, is
reluctant to find any faults in her way of thinking or acting.
After the home invasion and
consequent rape of Lucy, David finds that he cannot influence his daughter to
take the actions he feels necessary. Because of her internal colonization, as
mentioned by Memmi above, Lucy takes on the role which was thrust into her: the
role of mother, housewife, and more importantly as a scapegoat for the sins of
her ancestors. She legitimizes her rape by atoning for the sins of her ancestors. More importantly, David finds that her
independent thinking, and reluctance to listen to others, is a nuisance and
hindrance, especially when it comes to her own personal safety. She refuses to
move out of the farm, even when it seems that her own neighbor might have had a
hand in the attack. His stubbornness becomes her stubbornness. Furthermore, she
is unapologetic about the pain she is causing to herself and those around her.
Lucie’s
decision to atone for the sins of her ancestors can be further analyzed through
a postcolonial frame. Frantz Fanon in Black
Skin, White Masks (1967) delineates how the imposition of the “Negro”, or
black, identity robs him his own consciousness and ultimately his history.
Fanon describes how a black man among other black men does not understand nor
grasp the “moment his inferiority came into being” (110), but once he meets the
white man’s eyes a whole new identity is imposed upon him, based on
misunderstandings, that he neither asked for nor understands. Most importantly,
in this moment he is no longer simply a man, but an Other responsible not only
for his own body, but for his own race, and his ancestors’ history (Fanon 112).
It is this act historicity behind racism that makes it vile and violent. By
imposing the identity of “Negro” upon an individual, the whole history of that
one individual’s race is imposed upon him as well. In the new South Africa
where roles are reversed Lucy is burdened with the historicity of her race as
well. She too becomes responsible for her own race and her ancestors history,
in the process sacrificing her own body and freedom. Overall, an unsafe understanding of guilt
influences both major characters.
The
Autobiography of My Mother
If
guilt is the major theme in Disgrace
then a lack of guilt in The Autobiography
of My Mother especially as it relates to racial prejudice, discrimination,
and self-hatred might be the over-arching theme of the novel.
“And when finally I was a true orphan, my
father had at last died and he died not knowing me, not ever speaking to me in
a language in which I could have faith, a language in which I could believe the
things he said” (Kincaid 223), these are the last thoughts that Xuela, the
narrator of Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother (1997)
has of her father, a half Scot half African father that that throughout the
novel she came to despise or at least view in a negative light. In order to
understand the metaphoric, racial, and emotional distance between Xuela and her
father we must first understand the father’s identity as seen through the eyes
of Xuela. In order to extrapolate the full meaning behind the above quote (the
last mention of Xuela’s father in the novel), this section will interpret
Xuela’s father through a post-colonialist lens utilizing Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and wa Thiongo’s
Decolonising the Mind in order to
showcase the colonial ideology inherent in his character and identity and argue
that this colonial ideology was the real distance between them (Xuela’s
rejection of it, and her father’s unapologetic embracing of it).
Jamaica
Kincaid’s short, but painful novel The Autobiography of My Mother (1997)
focuses on Xuela and her search for an identity in a postcolonial world. In my
view, she is the ideal victim of postcoloniality, daughter of a Carib mother
and a father who is half Scot and half African, whose search for identity is
constantly hindered and haunted by her father’s racism and embracing of
colonial ideology. Although the novel is structured around Xuela’s search for a
real image of her mother, it is Xuela’s father, and his piercing racism, that
haunts Xuela in her search for identity. More importantly, it is her father’s acceptance
colonial ideology’s close cousin, imperialistic capitalism and money, that
hinders their relationship in a negative fashion.
Xuela’s
word choice and description of her father speak volumes about the racial
complications inherent in a postcolonial space. The narrator describes how her
father’s racial identity was one of complexity: “his father was a Scots-man,
his mother of the African people” (Kincaid 181). Notice how one racial category
of Xuela’s father is descried as “man” and the other category as “people”.
“Man” has an individualistic, patriarchal connotation behind it, whereas
“people” has a collective sameness behind it. In other words, it’s much easier
to discriminate against a “people” than against a “man”. That’s how prejudice
works, it is an image and opinion of a whole “people”. The narrator (Xuela)
makes this distinction clear: “one of them came off the boat as part of a
horde, already demonized . . .; the other came off the boat of his own
volition, seeking to fulfill a destiny” (Kincaid 181).
Furthermore,
Xuela’s father connects, through colonialist ideology, the African people with
the conquered and the Scot-man with the victor. Xuela narrates how her father
“rejected the complication of the vanquished; he chose the ease of the victor”
(Kincaid 186). This is how colonialist ideology works, it makes you reject a
part of you that society says is not worthwhile. Colonialist ideology makes a
“people” out of a “man” and connotes those people with the “defeated, doomed,
conquered, poor, diseased” (Kincaid 187). Xuela’s father “came to despise all
who behaved like the African people” (Kincaid 187) thereby rejecting a part of
him (the female/African side of him from his mother) that he found
unsatisfactory and succumbing to a patriarchal and imperialist society that
worships white skin.
But
what separates Xuela and her father is that Xuela rejects this patriarchal
imperialist ideology (i.e. colonialism) or at least recognize its workings. “My
father’s skin was the color of corruption” (Kincaid 181) is how Xuela describes
her father and this detachment between her father’s colonialist ideology and
Xuela’s rejection/recognition of it is what causes the lack of grift between
them, that ultimately causes her pain and misunderstanding over her identity.
Furthermore, language is crucial to this colonialist ideology that Xuela’s
father embraces. In one of the most painful scenes of the novel Xuela’s father
pushes her into a barrel full of nails speaking patois, the language of the
island, the whole time: “and I associated him speaking patois with expressions
of his real self and so I knew that this pain he was causing me, this
suffocating me in a barrel of nails, was a true feeling of his” (Kincaid 190,
emphasis mine). The real father is a patois speaking individual who hates his
multi-racial daughter as much as hates his multi-racial self.
Ngũgĩ
wa Thiongo states in Decolonising the
Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (1986) that the choice
of language and its use “is central to a people’s definition of themselves in
relation to their natural and social environment” (4). But the role of language
does not stop there as wa Thiongo makes it clear that language is behind both
imperialism and Africa’s struggle towards “communal self-definition” (4). In
other words, Euro-based languages are at the heart of imperialism, but the road
towards liberation and self-definition lies in native languages.
But this road is not easily
travelled and, as wa Thiongo points out, is full of ironic coincidences. The
irony lies in the fact that African writers came to see European languages (the
languages of imperialism) as “having a capacity to unite African peoples” and
as a “common language with which to present a nationalist front against white
oppressors” (wa Thiongo 7). The irony lies in the fact that African writers
were going back to the language of the center of imperialism in order to
achieve self-definition and liberation, while at the same time moving away from
their native languages. Herein lays the most crucial paradox, as wa Thiongo
describes it: “using mother-tongues provokes a tone of levity” (7) while
foreign languages “produces a categorical positive embrace” (7). So, the
question to ask is: where does the African literature lie? Or, what has to be
accomplished in order for African literature to be truly African again? The
answers lie in decolonization.
wa Thiongo makes it clear that colonization
was achieved through language; that is to say, language carries culture, and
culture carries “the entire body of values by which we come to perceive
ourselves” (wa Thiong’o 16). In order to achieve true colonization the English
had to control the language of Africa, thereby controlling the culture, and
thereby placing their English language and culture above the rest. This is how
domination was achieved, through language. But the domination of domination of
culture and language had a bigger aim, and that was the domination of “the
entire realm of the language of real life” (wa Thiongo 16), or in other words,
the domination and total control of Africa’s wealth.
For African’s to take control of
their wealth first they must take control of their culture, and in order to
this this they must take control of their language. The road towards
decolonization starts with the re-introduction of native languages. Thiong’o
asks if by “continuing to write in foreign languages [. . .] are we [meaning
African writers] not on the cultural level that neo-colonial slavish and
cringing spirit?” (26). His obvious answer is a definite “yes”. But the
solution is not that simple or easy. In other words, simply eradicating all
European languages will not solve Africa’s problems. The problems go much
deeper than that and have their root in ideology. In other words, the problem
is in the mind and Africans must first learn to decolonize their minds in order
to further their cause. wa Thiongo writes: imperialism “has turned reality
upside down: the abnormal is viewed as normal and the normal is viewed as
abnormal [. . .] Africa is made to believe it needs Europe to rescue it from
poverty” (28). Europe is the problem, but only part of the solution. Africans
must first realize the “negative qualities of backwardness” (wa Thiongo 28)
associated with their culture are a product of racist ideologies meant to
distort reality for maximum profit. Until they come to this reality, the
process of decolonization cannot begin.
As
wa Thiongo makes it clear the road towards decolonization lies in native
languages, in the case of this novel (Caribbean) patois, and not in the
embracing of Euro languages. The embracing of Euro languages leads to the
acceptance of imperialistic capitalism and its thirst for profit at all costs.
But in the novel Xuela’s father does not grasp the complexity behind this
ideology. He turned his back on his race for the pursuit of money, power, and
achievement. In the process he lost those most close to him, his wife and
ultimately his daughter.
The
narrator’s father does not understand life or love, except when it relates to
money. The narrator mentions that her father did not understand love as it
relates to people, but only love as it relates to money. Most importantly the
narrator mentions the following idea about her father, “[he] understood that it
was in the small parts of something that its true whole is expressed, it is in
the small parts of something that its real beauty lies” (Kincaid 184), of
course the narrator is relating the idea of how her father understood money,
but this same idea could relate and transfer to his racial identity.
The
father’s identity consists of a confluence of racial categories. The “man” is
the Scots-man in him, and the “people” is his African part: “inside my father,
the Scots-man and the African people met; I do not know how he felt about that”
(Kincaid 185). The successful meshing of racial identities in an individual
consists of embracing both identities concurrently; or in other words,
realizing that “it is in the small parts of something that its true whole is
expressed” (Kincaid 184). The beauty of a multi-racial individual lies in the
distinct racial “parts” of his/her identity. Combining and embracing all racial
parts in order to complete a beautiful and distinct whole is the only way for a
multi-racial individual to create a true identify. The only way that the
narrator’s father understands money is by coming to the conclusion that its
true whole lies in its small parts, and the only way that he can come to grips
with his identity is by realizing that his true self and beauty lies in its
parts as well. But he does not come to this conclusion and instead fails to see
and realize his true identity (in other words, he fails to transfer his
metaphor of money into his racial identity).
The narrator’s father fails to see that his
understanding of money could very well help him realize his true identity.
Instead, he takes sides and choses the “man” over the “people”. The narrator describes
how her father “rejected the complications of the vanquished; [and] he chose
the ease of the victor” (Kincaid 186). The problem is that he himself is part
of the vanquished, or the African people. By rejecting one half of himself he
is re-creating the ideology and history of colonialism in his own personality.
The narrator makes this clear: “inside my father [. . .] an event that occurred
hundreds of years before, [. . .] continued on a course so subtle that it
became a true expression of his personality”
(Kincaid 187). Here Kincaid is relating her father’s battle with his identity
to the ideological maneuverings of colonialism.
In Black Skin, White Masks (1967) Fanon writes of his desire to become
“a man, nothing but a man” (113), but unlike Xuela’s father in the novel, Fanon
accepts his relation to his African people: “Some identified me with ancestors
of mine who had been enslaved or lynched: I decided to accept this” (Fanon
113). Fanon comes to grips with his African ancestry in his pursuit to become a
“man” in the world’s eyes. Xuela’s father, on the other hand, rejects his
African ancestry in his pursuit to become a “man” and in the process duplicates
or continues the ideological work of colonialism.
Works Cited
Coetzee,
J. M. Disgrace. New York: Penguin, 1999. Print.
Fanon,
Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove, 1967. Print.
Kincaid,
Jamaica. The Autobiography of My Mother. New York: Plume, 1996. Print.
Memmi,
Albert. The colonizer and the Colonized. Trans. Howard Greenfield. London:
Earthscan, 1965 (1990). Print.
Wa
Thiongo, Ngugi. Decolonising the Mind: The Poloitics of Language in African
Literature. Harare: Zimbababwe House, 1981. Print.
