Breaking The Silence First-Wave Anglophone Mrican-Caribbean Women Novelists and Dynamics of History, Language and Publication Joan Lilian Anim-Addo Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Goldsmiths College, University of London 2001 1 Breaking The Silence First-Wave Anglophone African-Caribbean Women Novelists and Dynamics of History, Language and Publication ABSTRACT This thesis identifies and historicises an emergent tradition of Anglophone African­ Caribbean women's fiction, analysing the silence(s) broken through publication. I argue that voicelessness relates to dominant traditions of being 'spoken for', characterised by representations of African-Caribbean women as bodies without minds. Exploring meanings of 'Relation' (Glissant, 1997) replicated in first-wave novels, particularly in selected texts by Erna Brodber, Merle Collins, lee Edgell, Beryl Gilroy and Joan Riley, I develop, in the intersections of feminism(s), Foucauldian theory, hermeneutics and narratology, carnivalised strategies for reading the silence-breaking texts while privileging meanings drawn from within the culture. Part One explores through Black female figures in portraiture, poetry, fiction, and autobiography, the historical constructions of African-Caribbean womanhood, the processes of silencing and the first claiming of authorial voice. Engaging with pre­ EmanCipation testimonies from enslaved women, I argue the relationship between the distortions of plantation culture and the institutionalising of silence and, focusing on the years between Mary Prince's slave testimony (1833) and Sylvia Wynter's Hills of Hebron (1962), I address questions of the changes allowing publication of the first African-Caribbean woman's post-slavery novel. Part Two focuses on a reading of African-Caribbean texts concerned with a traumatic and silenced past, and investigating meanings of creolisation within the texts, I develop a carnivalised discourse. This discourse deriving from a dialogic, cross cultural tradition is inclusive of women's poetic voices, such as M. Nourbese Philip's, and specifically addresses issues of reading. Particular attention is paid to tailoring feminist literary theory attentive to meanings of 'Relation' and critical silence. Borrowing notions of voice and the construction of gender from Lanser's narratology (1992), I conclude by stressing the vital importance of attending to the theorising internal to the works of African-Caribbean women writers themselves. 2 CONTENTS i\bstract -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 List of figures/ill ustrations ----------------------------------------------------------------- 4 i\cknowledgements ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Preface---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Introduction: 'That Silence; Those Differences' ----------------------------------------- 9 Pi\RT ONE: HISTORY 1 Touching the i\frican-Caribbean Woman's Body: Myth, Meaning and Silences of the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century -------------------------------- 32 2 Sister Goose's Sisters: Voice, Body, Testimony and Nineteenth-century Publication --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 79 3 The Emergence of i\frican-Caribbean Women Novelists --------------------- 122 Pi\RT TWO: THEORY 4 Writing Women: First-Wave Novels and Creolisation of the Master Discourse ------------------------------------------------------------------- 167 5 Carnivalising Theory: Countering Hegemony ---------------------------------- 215 6 Theorising Texts: Reading the Carnivalised ------------------------------------- 258 Conclusion: Yemoja Smiling ----------------------------------------------------------- 301 Selected Bibliography ------------------------------------------------------------------- 306 3 LIST OF FIGURES/ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Johann Zoffany, Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Lindsay and Lady Elizabeth Mary Murray, oil on canvas, c.1779, collection of the Earl of Mansfield, Scone Palace, Perth ................................................................................... 34 2. William Blake, Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave, line engraving after the author's drawing, 1793 ................................................................ 79 3. Eloi peoples, Nigeria, Maternity Figure, wood, 19th century, Horniman Public Museum and Public Park Trust, London ....................... 79 4. Joan Anim-Addo, Caribbean women writers: Opal Palmer Adisa, Merle Hodge and Merle Collins (Florida), photograph, 1996,London ......... 122 5. Jacob Ross, Voice Memory Ashes: Lest We Forget, photograph for book cover design, 1994, London ................................................................... 167 6. Newton Brown, Cocoyea: Plantations, photograph, 1986, London ........... 215 7. Joan Anim-Addo, 'Tim Tim Bois Sec' Banner - Grenadian Ole Mas Band, photograph, 1992, Grenada ................................................................... 258 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Tlu.nks ~ue due to a grc:1t many people for the dc\'clopment and pruduLtiull l'Jf llllS thesis. I acknowledge Petronella Bremberg who first insisted that it was possIble and Alan Dur:1nt who began the supervision process. I thank also many colleagues and friends who conlmented upon earlier drafts, particularly Alba Ambert, Helen Carr, Ciovanna Covi, Hayley Davis, Moira lnghilleri, Bill McCormack, .Jean Radford, John Shaw, Elsie Warren and Charles 'vVarren. Special thanks arc owed to Jane Desmarais whose sterling support and guidance has seen this project to ul111plelion. Closer tn hOln(', I acknowledge my !alter day shipmate, Viv C;olding and my pal, Diana Birch whose unstinting support nlade even the last laps bearable. To my children, An'Yaa and Kurt, who made It not only necessary, but urgent, lo\'c ~Hld thanks. And for my mother, Jane Joseph, a woman l)r auiun who re-crossed all ocean with her daughters, words are inadequate. Respect! Most importantly, this work must acknowledge the unnamed, unschooled African-heritage women who have gone before me, !lInking it all possible. [t is with special pride that 18m ab1e to name my grand mother, Juliana 'Lily' Joseph, nee Mulzac (1886-1969), my storyteller from whom 1lcarnt the love of narrative. I remenlber. How could I forget? In this far orf island place wltnessmg what we could nol Srw8k know your children have kept faith (from 'Saraka') PREFACE Discourse on the Logic of Language l English is my mother tongue. A mother tongue is not not a foreign Ian Ian lang language lJanguish anguish EDICT I - a foreign anguish. Every owner of slaves English is shall, wherever possible, my father tongue. ensure that his slaves A father tongue is belong to as many ethno­ a foreign language, linguistic groups as therefore English is possible. If they can- a foreign language not speak to each other, not a mother tongue. they cannot then forment rebellion and revolution. What is my mother tongue my mammy tongue my mummy tongue my momsy tongue my modder tongue my rna tongue? I have no mother tongue no mother to tongue no tongue to mother to mother tongue me I must therefore be tongue dumb dumb-tongued dub-tongued damn dumb tongue M. Nourbese Philip, 'Discourse on the Logic of Language', in She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks, London, 1993, pp.30 and 32 (hereafter Tongue). 6 ~~VlVl~ 0::C::C::C::c But I have tT1tT1tT1 A dumb tongue C°~VltJj~~ ::c tT1ro O tongue dumb . 00 C ~ father tongue '"T1~n::c ::C Vl ::C and english is tT1 ......... tT1:;otT1 :;oZVl my mother tongue ~~::c~ IS O° tT1 tT1 ~~:;oZ my father tongue ::c 1 ~ "lj tT1::cOC is a foreign Ian lang lang ~>-Z~ language Vl:;oGl::c l!anguish ~uCtT1. tT1 OVl~:;O anguish ~::C02J a foreign anguish ::CtT1~Z ~~::CGl is english - ~ ~ tT1 tT1 >-Vln:;O another tongue ZtJj Vl my mother ur~Z >-Or~ mammy rr~qo ......... Vl mummy EDICT II ~Z~::c moder ::CGlOtT1 tT1~Z:;O mater Every slave SdOGln macer caught speak- ~:;oC~ OuJT1r moder ing his native ~Vl>-q tongue language ::c 1 ZVl tT1::Cu~ mothertongue shall be ~~::c0 severely pun- tJj~OC tongue mother ished. Where tT1 r~ '"T10u::C 0:;0>--'1 tongue me necessary, :;OuZGl mothertongue me removal of the tT1VlGltT1 1 ~ ~ Z mother me tongue is ZtT1>--'::c::c~ touch me recommended. ~:;otT1Q with the tongue of your The of- o~j'"T1 ::COZO Ian Ian lang fending organ, tT1~>-<:;O language when re- :;O::C~n utT10Z l!anguish moved, should >-~CGl CVl~ ......... anguish be hung Gl~::C~ english on high in a ::C OOO ~:;O"lj'lj is a foreign anguish central place, tT1utT1tT1 ~VlZZ so that all may Vl~ ~ ~. see and tremble. 7 Introduction: 'That Silence; Those Differences' That body might become tongue Tempered to speech And where the latter falters Paper with its words the crack of silence. l In this thesis I address the issues of historiography, conditions of literary production and critical practice impacting upon first-wave novels by anglophone African-Caribbean women writers. While writing by Sylvia Wynter (1928- ) and Merle Hodge (1944- ) are of particular interest for their pioneering novels in the decade beginning 1962, I also explore fiction by Erna Brodber, Merle Collins, Zee Edgell, Beryl Gilroy, and Joan Riley published in the 1980s and 1990s. These authors are important to the thesis by virtue of publications, two or more novels, and the relative critical silence characteristic of the reception of their texts. The recency of this publication is indicated in Brenda Berrian and Aart