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Jamaican Landscapes in Post-Colonial Caribbean Literature

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Jamaican Landscapes in Post-Colonial Caribbean Literature The Land of Wood and Water: Jamaican Landscapes in Post-Colonial Caribbean Literature Denise Andrea McLeod A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Graduate Program in Geography York University Toronto, Ontario March 2019 © Denise Andrea McLeod, 2019 ii Abstract This thesis explores the representation of landscape in Caribbean post-colonial literature, focussing specifically on Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), Roger Mais’s The Hills Were Joyful Together (1953), and Orlando Patterson’s The Children of Sisyphus (1964). The three novels were published in the period immediately preceding or following Jamaica’s independence from British rule, an important period of emergent post-colonial criticism and thought. The thesis seeks to expand the inter-disciplinary fields of geography and literature by offering new insights into the contextual representations of landscape as these are depicted and read through the historical and socio-economic experiences of post-colonial Jamaica. The thesis draws on theories from cultural geography -- in particular, the ideas of landscape as veil, text and gaze (Duncan and Duncan 1988; Wylie 2007) -- to examine how fictional narratives employ literary landscape as an important reflection of contemporary Caribbean societies. The three novels selected for this study invite a critical examination of the representation of Jamaican landscapes from the historical post-slavery era of the nineteenth century depicted in Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) to the pre-independence slums and dung hills of Kingston during the 1950s and 1960s, as depicted in Roger Mais’s The Hills Were Joyful Together (1953) and Orlando Patterson’s The Children of Sisyphus (1964). Together, the novels permit us to see how the Jamaican landscape as visual object and “way of seeing” the world (Wylie 2007,55) both reveals and challenges the deeply entrenched political and social divides in Jamaican society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, where authority and power were dictated by white and brown skin privilege and British colonial ideals. Keywords: Post-colonialism, Caribbean Literature, Land and Landscape. iii Acknowledgments would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Jamie S. Scott for his unrelenting guidance and encouragement during the writing of I this thesis. I also thank my mentor and supervisor and dear friend Dr. Andrea A. Davis for her longsuffering support, from undergraduate to my graduate studies at York University, as well as her helpful comments and insightful reading of my thesis. I would also like to thank the late Dr. Paul Simpson-Housley for whom I am indebted for first posing the idea of the relationship between landscape and literature. I further extend my appreciation and heartfelt thanks to everyone in the Department of Geography at York University, particularly the indomitable Dr. Valerie Preston, Dr. Ranu Basu, and Dr. Richard Anderson, for the extraordinary opportunity to learn in a stimulating and supportive environment. It truly was as Paul the apostle quotes “and I was brought up and educated here in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel.” pecial thanks to my sister, soon to be Dr. Marie M. McLeod at the University of Toronto, whose invaluable constructive criticism, S aspiring guidance and friendly advice I could not have done without. I also acknowledge my family, and most lovingly my mother Muriel Anderson McLeod and my late father Sir Gilbert W. McLeod (or to us Wilmot McLeod) whose mantra in life was “there is nothing name ‘can’t’” which has been my life’s germ and constant go- to axiom that has kept me every step of the way. Finally, to Dr. Kosalka and the nurses at Humber River Hospital whose acute care sustained me during my time of illness over the past year and a half; saying thanks is clearly not enough. iv Table of Contents Abstract . ii Acknowledgements . iii Table of Contents . iv List of Tables . vii List of Figures . viii List of Maps . x Chapter Page 1. Introduction to Jamaican Landscapes in Post-Colonial Caribbean Literature 1 1.1 Opening Reflections . 1 1.2 Conceptual Frameworks . 3 1.3 Review of Scholarly Literature . 10 1.4 Methodology / Theoretical Approaches . 32 1.5 Significance of Research . 40 1.6 Chapter Breakdown . 41 Chapter 2. Representations of Landscapes in “Wide Sargasso Sea” (1966) 42 2.1 Jean Rhys - Biography & Background . 42 2.2 Landscape Representations . 52 2.2.1 Metaphors of the Veil and Text: Power and Hegemony in Post- Emancipation Plantation Landscapes . 53 2.2.2 Metaphor of the Gaze 1: Gender and Sexuality . 76 2.2.3 Metaphor of the Gaze 11: Insanity and the White Woman . 92 2.3 Summation and Introduction to next Chapter . 99 v Chapter 3. Representations of Landscapes in “The Hills Were Joyful Together” (1953) 101 3.1 Roger Mais – Biography & Background . 101 3.2 Landscape Representations . 110 3.2.1 Metaphor of the Veil 1: Urban Poverty in Yard Landscapes . 112 3.2.2 Metaphor of the Veil 11: Social Alienation in Yard Landscapes . 122 3.2.3 Metaphor of the Veil 111: Social Protest in Prison Landscapes . 135 3.2.4 Metaphor of the Veil 1V: Hope and Renewal in Yard Landscapes 144 3.3 Summation and Introduction to next Chapter . 149 Chapter 4. Representations of Landscapes in “The Children of Sisyphus” (1964) 151 4.1 Orlando Patterson - Biography & Background . 151 4.2 Landscape Representations . 159 4.2.1 Metaphor of the Veil: Social Realism and Communal Experience 166 4.2.2 Metaphor of the Text: The Biblical Call - Religion in Dungle Landscapes . 172 4.2.3 Metaphor of the Gaze: Black Female Geographies in Urban Landscapes . 189 4.3 Summation and Introduction to next Chapter . 205 Chapter 5. Conclusion 207 5.1 Conclusion . 207 vi Works Cited . 220 Endnotes . 240 Appendices . 241 Appendix A: Pictorials of Jamaican Land and Landscapes . 241 vii List of Tables Table Title Page Table One: Data Needs Chart for Interdisciplinary Geography and Literature Research 39 Table Two: Compilation of a Selection of Great Houses / Plantation across all fourteen (14) Parishes of Jamaica showing their impact on Jamaican Landscapes. 244 - 247 viii List of Figures Figure One & One (a): University of the West Indies (Mona) – Archival Department & Library. 248 Figure One (b): Cover Art of his Royal Highness King George VI on the Exercise book from the Mais Collection (Recreation) . 249 Figure Two: Jean Rhys’s House . 250 Figure Three: Jean Rhys as a chorus in Paris in the 1920s . 251 Figure Four: Jean Rhys visiting her ancestral Plantation in 1936 . 252 Figure Four (a): Remnants of Jean Rhys’s Geneva Plantation Home and Garden in Dominica 1936 . 252 Figure Five: Jean Rhys at home in Devon England . 253 Figure Six: Cover Art of The Jamaica Daily Gleaner in 1938 . 254 Figure Six (a): Cover Art of The Jamaica Daily Gleaner in 1938 . 255 Figure Six (b): The Jamaica Daily Gleaner Company - Roger Mais’s Workplace . 256 Figure Seven: Roger Mais’s Article “Now We Know” Published 1944 . 257 Figure Eight: Roger Mais’s Artwork . 258 ix Figure Eight (a): Roger Mais’s Letter speaking of his Art Exhibition . 259 Figure Eight (b): Cover Art of his Royal Highness King George VI on the Exercise book from Roger Mais’s “The Hills.” (Recreation) . 260 Figure Nine: Pictorial illustration of a Tenement Yard . 261 Figure Nine (a): Tenement Yard - 18 Chestnut Lane Downtown Kingston . 262 Figure Ten: 45 Hanover Street after the Great Earthquake 1907 . 263 Figure Eleven: 45 Hanover Street in Central Kingston 2013 . 264 Figure Twelve: Spanish Town General Penitentiary (Aerial View 2015) . 265 Figure Twelve (a): Spanish Town General Penitentiary Outer Prison Walls and Prison Cell . 266 Figure Thirteen: Spanish Town General Penitentiary . 267 Figure Fourteen: The original 49 students at Kingston College in 1925 . 268 Figure Fourteen (a): The Myth of Sisyphus . 269 Figure Fifteen: Tivoli Gardens West Kingston Jamaica . 270 x List of Maps Map Range: Geographies of Scale: Jamaica, West Indies Map 1: Map of the Caribbean (Overview of the Caribbean Islands / Basin) . 241 Map 2: Map of Jamaica . 242 Map 2.1: Map of Jamaican Great Houses - Map of Jamaica showing the Geographical Positioning of all fourteen (14) Great Houses and Plantation Houses taken from Table Two . 243 1 Chapter One Introduction Opening Reflections Death. The house burn down. The landscape devoured it. The bird song was the only cry that was heard before the great fire, an omen of the danger that was to proceed. Next came rocks and stones pelted at the white people as they fled the burning Great House. Violence sprung in the air as the fire lit and consumed the garden. Get Away! Get away! The landscape is destroyed. I raised my head with a thud, only to realize where I was; it was the last day of a two-month-long geography research field trip to Jamaica. I was in the archival department of the University of the West Indies (Mona). My goal was to investigate the writing of Jean Rhys, Roger Mais, and Orlando Patterson to see how varying interpretations of landscape were represented in their post-colonial novels. I looked around, but there was not a sense of quiet as was usually the case. The flurry of activity that surrounded me was due to the coming hurricane. Hurricane Matthew was to hit the island the next day and the librarian and her staff were in a fit trying to stack the books in a dungeon and get everything secured. What a day to pick to come to the library, just before a hurricane. Still, the coming hurricane personified the herculean task ahead. I looked at the table where I was sitting.
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