University of Alberta Dons Harnbuch a Thesis Submitted to the Faculty Of

University of Alberta Dons Harnbuch @ A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Literature Department of Comparative Literature, ReIigion, and FilmMedia Studies Edmonton, Alberta Spring 2000 National Library Bibliothèque nationale l*m of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Sewices services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON Ki A ON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Cana& Yow ive votre drnnme Our liie Nolra refhce The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts f?om it Ni la thèse nl des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author' s ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. TUmy parents, Inge and Erich Harnbuch, to my sister hgid Kronenberger and her famiIy Thomas, Nadja, and Nina, and to the memory of my brother, Stefan Harnbuch Abstract Through comparative analyses of Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanie, as well as Dutch Caribbean texts, this study discusses the therne of displacernent and its relation to exile and migration as one of the crucial characteristics of a Caribbean resional consciousness, of what has corne to be caIIed Caribbeanness. Tracing the importance of theoretical movements such as négriçrrde, créoIiré, transculturation, and creolization for conternporary Caribbean writing, and engaging the discourses of postcoloniality as well as postmodernity, 1 situate the region within (post)rnodern global dispersion. I thereby contrast the concepts of transculturation and creolization, as they are envisioned by Caribbean intellectuals such as Édouard Glissant, Antonio Benitez-Rojo, Wilson Harris, and Astrid Roemer, with a US-centred notion of globalization. Stnictured in three parts, this dissertation first concentrates on the sense of displacement ~vhichresults fiom a history of colonization, of slavery and indentured labor, and which is thus located within the region itself. The hybridity engendered by this history always dominates the development of the are& identity and subjectivity. Among the texts discussed in this first part are Derek Walcott's Onzeros, Glissant's Les Irldes, Frank Martinus Arion's De laatste vr-ijheici, Jarnaica Kincaid's A Srnnll Place, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante's Tr-es tristes tip-es. The constructive concepts of the theories are at this point as important as the disillusionrnents of the region's reality. The study's second part concentrates on migrations to the so-called 'Old World', specifically Afnca and the European colonial powers. Analyses of Sam Selvon's The Lorlely Lorrdorzer-s, Astrid Roemer's Nergem er-gerrs, and Daniel Maximin's L Ysolé soleil foregound the situation of immigrant communities in European metropoles. The relationship behveen The Netherlands and former Dutch Guiana is singled out in the context of Astrid Roemer's Sziriizanze fi-iloe. The movement to the north of the Americas is the object of study in my final part. Here, 1 focus on a neo-colonial ethos created by economic rather than constitutional dependencies. Analyses include those of Dionne Brand's hz Armtlzer Place, Not Here, of Emile Ollivier's Passages, of Ana Lydia Vega's "Pollito Chicken," and of Walcott's T?ze Bozirz~. 1consider myself exceptionally fortunate with regard to the comrnittee 1have been able to work with. My sincerest thanks are therefore first and foremost to my supervisor, Georse Lang, and to the other comrnittee members, Anne Malena, Milan V. Dimie, Adam Krims, Jeny Varsava, at an earlier stage Elena Siemens and Cathy Den Tandt, and unofficially Ineke Phaf. 1also want to thank the grad student gang (especially the hvo Pauls, Barb, Richard, Abdul Rasheed, Johannes, Chris, Natalia, Bev, Monique, Dont, Jeny, and Sara) and the staff of the Old Arts Building, the staff at Rutherford Library, as well as Nancy Cheng and Jonathan Tankel at the University Health Center for their various kinds of support. 1am extremely grateful to Patricia Krus and Theo D'haen for their assistance in Leiden, and to the Daniel family for their hospitality in Castries. Finally, thanks to my husband, Ivh Jiménez, for encouraging the turns my Iive has taken during the final phase of this project. Displacements in Contemporary Caribbean Writing Introduction 1 I Displacements Within the Caribbean 16 1. Creating and Celebrating a Caribbean Environment: Orneros and Les hzdes (The Indies) 17 2. Caribbeanness in De Zaatste vr~heici(The UItimate Freedom) 36 3. Tres tristes tigres (Three Trapped Tigers), A S~naZl Place. and Other Disillusionments 74 LI Migration to the "Old World" 97 4. Destination Afica: KerenzaX-/2orzo1z(Waiting for Happiness) and Stenzmelz uit Afrika (Voices fkom AfXca) 98 5. Islands Within the European MetropoIis: L 'Isolé soleil (Lone Sun), Nergens ergens (Nowhere, Somewhere), TIre LoizeZy Lorrdoner-s 122 6.Exile and Caribbean Transculturation in Astrid Roemer's Suriname Trilogy 149 III Movement to the North of the Americas 173 7. Pieces of a Canadian Mosaic: Dionne Brand's 112 Arrotlzer Place, Nor Her-e and Émile Ollivier's Passages 179 8. Choosing a Language: Polyglossia and the Caribbean Writer 200 9. Homecomings Without Home? Commuting Within a chaos r~rorzde2 17 Conchsion 233 Bibliography 243 Introduction The 1998-edition of T7ze New Encycbpedia Britnmtica includes an entry on "Caribbean literature," which it defines as "literary works of the Caribbean area written in Spanish, French, or English" (866). As a scholar of Caribbean studies, 1obviously welcome the inclusion of a literature which is popularly and intemationally still little known in such a classic reference work. 1 cm, however, not help but be alarmed by the fact that the contributor trusted with this entry should be ignorant of the considerable number of Dutch texts, as well as of the importance the Creole languages play in the literary landscape of the Caribbean. Unfortunately, this neglect reflects the general academic treatment of the area's cultures. In my own attempt to provide a comparative study of Caribbean writing, 1therefore emphasize the inclusion of texts from the Dutch-language part of the region. 1agee with Franklin W. Knight that "the Caribbean reality at the end ofthe tw-entieth century is tantalizingly difficult to define" (Knight 308) without claiming tliat the realities of other parts of the world are necessarily Iess complicated. In his comprehensive The Cai-ibbearz: The Genesis of a Fi-agrtzented Natio~zalisn~,Knight continues that "the nearly thirty million inhabitants scattered across hundreds of islands and the maidand enclaves of Belize, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana represent an eclectic blend of almost all the peoples and cultures of the world." Despite al1 linpistic, geographic, and political differences between individual parts of the area, 1 hold that a comon liistory of colonization, of slavery and indentured labor, which is largely responsible for the great cultural diversity in this relatively small space, has engendered sirnilar themes as well as ways of treating them in what 1 therefore cal1 "Caribbean" texts, be they written andlor set within the region itself or within the exile cornmuniities in Europe or North Arnenca One such theme, that of displacement, prevails in al1 the - texts discussed in the present study. Sorne fifteen years ago, Katie Jones cornpleted a dissertation entitled "A Comparative History of Caribbean Poetry in English, French, and Spanish" in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Alberta. Covering the time from Columbus' arriva1 in the area until the rnid 1980s' Jones regards the Caribbean as a distinct literary space, thus anticipating the approach taken up in the fewcomparative monographs published on Caribbean writing to date. Applying polysystem theory, Jones identifies Caribbean literature as a 'sub-system' on the European periphery until the turn of the twentieth century. Witli a focus on the Negitude rnovement, she continues to outline the development of a protest-poetry, which would now be commonly attrilbuted to the catejory of 'postcolonial' writing, a category 1challenge in the course of my second chapter. In the closing paragraphs of her conclusion, Jones addresses the progressing ermigration £kom the islands, as welI as its literary representation. She suggests that "a study O:f this diaspora literature is one of the many areas in the neglected field of Caribbean letters which demand the attention of the literary scholar7' (Jones 158). While my own focus is .on the diaspora in question, rny study is less concerned with justifications of the categoq 'Caribbean literature' as such, or consequently with its history. Building on the work cadI-ried forth by scholars like Jones, and taking the category for granted, I am today able to present the specific thematic approach 1 esplain below. Including theones developed by Caribbean intellectuals, I demonstrate how the concept of displacement is crucial to the area's re~ionaVcultura1consciousness, to what has come to be called Caribbeanness. If my study had to be attributed to one of the critical approaches currently cultivated in North American academia, then its classification would certainly be 'postcolonial discourse' with a leaning toward Marxist and ferninist cnticisrn. Since the leading figures of the respective movements, for example Homi K. Bhabha, Fredenc Jarneson, or Gayatri Spivak, are rnissing from my bibliogaphy, 1feel pressured to explain my affiliation with the discourse in question.

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