ORALITY AND TEE SHORT STORY: JAMAICA AND THE WEST INDIES

HYACINTH MAVERNIE SIMPSON

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Programme in English York University North York, Ontario

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by Hyacinth Mavernie Simpson

a dissertation subrnitted to the Fâculty of Graduate Studies of York University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

OOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

@ 2000 Permission has been granted to the LIBRARY OF YORK UNIVERSITY to lend orsell copies of this dissertation, to the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA to microfilm this dissertation and to lend or seIl copies of the film, and to UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS to publish an abstract of this dissertation. The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the dissertation nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's written permission. Abstract - Oraiity and the Short Story: Jamaica and the West Indies

This thesis argues that the distinctiveness of modem short stones from Jamaica and the West Indies is evident in the writers' reconfiguration of the aesthetics oftheir art so that the oral imagination becomes the basis of their literaxy output.

Critical analysis is primarily concemed with identïfjmg traditional and contemporary uses of language within the Afio-Jamaican cormunity and tracing ways in which this oral context has impacted on narrative voice, structure, genre, characterization and themes.

Close reading of selected texte reveals that the connetion between modem short stories and theu oral context is demonstrable in a number of ways including:

1. The use of dialect as both the language of narration and dialogue in ways that

extend the meanïng of the story;

2. Experiments in genre which allow for the '%oicing"of the text, that is, the

recreation of the dynamics of speech events in the written text;

3. The use of myths, rituals, tropes and plot structures fiom the oral tradition

as the basis for creating socially relevant texts.

The study Iocates the close connection between orality and short story writing in the historicd and social circumstances which shaped literary tradition in Jamaica and the

West Indies. Examples fiom the growing body of Jamaican short stories are offered as representative of the shaping innuence of historical and social conditions on the deveIoprnent of an oral aesthetic.

In tracing ways in which the oral context has proposed methods of narration and rnodels of characterisation in modem short stones, the study repeatedly underlines the cornplementarÏty (in comrast to cornmon claims of their relationship of opposition) of oral and denforms. This complementarity, it is argued, proceeds from the writers' acknowledgment of, and active participation in, the creolisation process which has shaped

West Indian expenence and iiterary imagination.

One of the first fidi length accounts of the impact of orality on literary aesthetics, this thesis outhes the temof an oral theoretical approach in the analysis of short Stones fiom Jarnaica and the West Indies. Acknowledgernents

1 am gratefùl for financial assistance fiom the Canadian Commonwealth Scholars'

Trust and for a gant in the form of an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, both of which made research for this study possible.

1 am especially gratefùl to Frank Birbalsingh whose UllStinting weand generoçity as an academic supe~sorspeeded the cornpletion of this study. Without his guidance, the process of conducthg research and wnting the dissertation would have been far less enjoyable and productive.

I am also very much indebted to Susan Warwick and Paîrick Taylor. Parrick's eye for detail helped me produce a better paper and Susan's comments were invaluable in helping me clare my arguments.

Jan Pearson's support in diEicult times encowaged me to keep working even when the odds seemed too great.

Finally, but by no means least, special thanks to Sergei Shipilov for cornputer assistance, help with proof-reading, and for convincing me that 1 could finish what 1 started. Chronology of the Jamaican Short Story including major regional anthologies and movements

18% Selections From the Misceiianeous Posthumous Works of Philip Cohen Labatt, in prose and verse. PMp Labatt. Kingston, Jarnaica: RJ. Decordova.

1880 Ananci Stories. Folkway Records 3: Part 1, 53 54. W.A. Musgrave. London.

1 890 Marna's Biack Nurse Stories. Mary Parnela MilneHomes. Edinburg and London: Wiam Blackxvood and Sons.

1 896 "AReluctant Evangelist" and Other Stories. Nice Spinner. London.

1898-1 899 The Jamaica Times Weekiy Short Story Com~etition.

A Selection of Anancy Stories. Una Jeffiey-Smith. Kingston, Aston W. Gardner.

Anancy Stories. Pamela Colman-Smith. New York: RH- Russeii.

Newo humour, beiq sketches in the market. on the road and at mv back door. Graham Cruickshank.

Chirn-Chim: Folk Stories From Jamaica. Pamela Colman-Smith. New York: RH- Russeil.

Maroon Medicine. E.A. Dodd. Kingston: Times Printery.

Jamaica Song and Story. Walter Jecbll. London. Rpt. New York: Dover, 1966.

Pe~-rpot:a maeazine depicha the personal and liahter side of Jarnaican He. Ed. C. Thornley Stewart and R.M. Murray. Kingston: Jamaica Times P~tery.

Plummer 's Magazine. Ed. Oscar Plummer .

Short Stories of Jamaica and "The War". Elspeth Fielding. Kingston: P.A. Benjamin Mfg. Co. Press. 1916 Jamaica tales for big and little folks. Walter M. N. Henry. Kingston: Times Printery.

1920 The Cacique's Treasure (And Other Tales). Alexander MacGregor James. Kingston: The Gleaner Company.

1920-1945 Planter's Punch. Ed. H.G. DeLisser. Kingston: The Gleaner Company.

1921 Four Stories and a Drama of Old Jamaica. Alexander MacGregor James. Kingston: The Gleaner Company.

De mericle at Mona- a story of Alexander Bedward and some Jamaican sketches. M. Lopez. Kingston: Mutual Printing Company.

1924 Jamaica Anancv Srories. Martha Warren Beckwik. New York: G.E. Stechert and Co.

1927 Pimento. with a dram of common sense. Ed. Pat Beckett. Kingston:Mortimer DeSouza.

1928 A West Indian Pep~emot:or Thirteen "Ouashie" Stones. Thomas Reginald St. Johnston.

1929 Black Roadways. Rpt. New York: Negro University Press, 1969.

1929 and 1930 The Trinidad Magazine. Trinididad and Tobago.

1931-1933, 1939 The Beacon. Port of Spain, Trinididad.

Ginaertown. Claude McKay. New York: Harper and Brothers.

West Indian Review. Ed. Esther Chapman, Kingston.

The Public Ovinion. Kingston: City Printers.

Face and Other Stones. Roger Mais. Kingston: Universal Printers.

Anancy Stories and Poerns in Dialect. Louise Bennett. Kingston: The Gleaner Company Ltd.

And Most of Aü Man. Roger Mais. Kingston: City Printery.

vi Sheets in the Wmd. A-E-T.Henry. Kingston: The Gleaner Company.

1942 BM.Barbados.

1943 First Issue of FOCUS

These Mv People. Claude Thompson. Kingston: The Herald Printery.

''Rain For The Piains" and Other Stories. Cicily Waite-Smith. Kingston: The Gleaner Company.

1944 Bats in the Be&. AE.T. Henry. Kingston: City Printery.

"The Cow That Laughed" and Other Stones. RL.C. Aarons. Kingston: Printers Ltd.

Blue Mountain Peak (vrose and poetrv). John Figueroa.

1945 Bronze: Short Stories, Articles. A Poem and A Play Archie Lindo. Mandeville, Jamaica: Coilege Press.

2 945-present Kvk-Over- Al. Georgetown, Guyana.

1945-1958 The Caribbean Voices Propramme.

1946 My Heart Was Singinn: Poems and Short Stones. Archie Lindo. Mandeville, Jamaica: The College Press.

1948 Second Issue of FOCUS

Pickapema. A.E.T. Henry. Kingston: The Gleaner Company.

Two special issues of New Letters on Jamaican and West Indian Literature. Ed. Robert Herrïng.

1950 The founding of The Pioneer Press.

Anancv Stories and Dialect Verse. Louise Bennett, Dorothy Clarke, Una Wilson and Others. Kingston: The Pioneer Press.

14 Jamaican Short Stories. Kingston: The Pioneer Press.

vii "Scattered Petals7': A Collection of Verses and Short Stories. G.O.B. Wailace. Kingston: The Author.

"Slumberina Ernbers": A Collection of Verses and Short Stories. G. O.B. Wallace. Kingston: The Author.

Tales of Old Jarnaica- Clinton V. Black.

Stones and verses to read and share. Eiia Washington GdEn. Kingston: The Pioneer Press.

Caribbean Antholow of Short Stories. Kingston, Jamaica.

Third Issue of FOCUS

Anancy Stories and Diaiect Verse. Louise Bennett- Kingston: The Pioneer Press-

West Indian Stones. Ed. Andrew Saikey. London: Faber and Faber.

The Inde~endenceAntholoav of Jamaican Literature. Selected by AL. Hcndriks and Cednc Lindo with an Introduction by Peter Abrahams. Kingston: Ministry of Development and Welfare, The Arts Celebration Cornmittee.

Lau& With Louise Bennett: a pot- DO^ of Jarnaican folkiore. stories. songs and verses. Louise Bennett. Kingston: The Author.

The Caribbean Artists Movement began in London with Edward Brathwaite, Andrew Salkey and John LaRose.

1967-present Jamaica Journal. Kingston: Institute of Jamaica.

1970 SAVACOU'S fkst issue appears.

1973 Anancv' s Score. Andrew Salkey. London: Bogle L'Ouverture.

Now. Ed. Stewart Brown. St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.

1977 SAVACOU'S Women's Issue.

1978 "The Raa Doll" and Other Stories. Hazel Campbell. Kingston: Savacou. Jamaica Mento: A Collection of Short Stones. Loma Wdliams.

Anancv and Miss Lou. Louise Bennett. Kingston: Sangster's Book Stores.

Fifth issue of FOCUS. Ed. Me- Moms.

Woman' s Tongue. Hazel Campbell- Kingston: Savacou.

The One: how Anancy avenge the murder of his pasero with the help of Sister Buxton. Andrew Salkey, London: Bogle L'Ouverture,

'Bake-Face'' and Other Guava Stories. Opd Palmer Adisa- New York: Kelsey Street Press.

'Tisten, the Wmd" and Other Stories. Selected stories by Roger Mais. Ed. Kenneth Ramchand.

"Sumer Li~htnine"and Other Stones. Olive Senior. Heinemann.

Festival Literary Anthoiog. Kingston Publishers Ltd. Re-issued as Twenty-Two Jamaican Short Stories - an antholom of ~rize-winninpstories fiom 1967-1 983 in 1992.

Anancy, Spideman. James Berry.

Before Thev Can Speak of Flowers. Elean Thomas.

Considering Woman. Velrna Poliard. The Women's Press.

"Amval of the Snake Woman" and Other Stories. Olive Senior. Heinemann.

A Thief in the Village. James Berry. Hamish Hamilton.

Her True-True Name.Eds. Pamela Mordecai and Betty Wilson.

Baby Mother and the King of Swords. Lorna Goodison. Longman.

The Faber Book of Contemporaq Caribbean Stories. Ed. Mervyn Moms.

Caribbean New Wave. Ed. Stewart Brown. Longman. 199 1 A Boy Narned Ossie. Earl McKenzie. Heinemann.

1992 Two Roads To Mount JovfiiI and Other Stories. Earl McKenzie. Harlow: Longman.

Anancv. Traveller. Andrew Salkey. London: Bogle L'Ouverture.

Singerman. Hazel Campbell. Leeds: Peepal Tree Press.

"Satellite CiW and Other Stories. Alicia McKentie.

1994 "Karl" and Other Stones. Velrna Pollard. Harlow: Longman.

DreamStories. Kamau Brathwaite- Harlow: Longman.

1995 '?n The Border Countrv" and Other Stones. Andrew Sallcey. London: Bogle L'Ouverture.

"Discerner of Hearts" and Other Stories. Olive Senior. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

1996 "Flamine Hearts" and Other Stories. Garfield Ellis. Kingston: national Book Development Council of Jamaica.

The Penguh Book of Caribbean Short Stories. Ed. E.A. Markham. Penguin Books.

1997 'TiUv Bumfnie" and Other Stories. Hazel Campbell. Jamaica: Kingston Publishers Limited.

On The Edae of An IsIand (~oernsand short stories). Jean Binta Breeze. London: Blood Axe Books.

1999 The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories. Eds. Stewart Brown and John Wickham. Clarendon: Odord University Press. Table of Contents

Abstract

Acknowledgements

Chronology of the Jarnacian Short Story including major regional anthologies and movements

Introduction: Orality and the Short Story

Chapter One: Patterns and Periods: Oral Aesthetics and the Jamaican Short Story

Chapter Two: 'Myth and Metaphor": Agancy in Andrew Salkey's Anancv's Score. The One, and Anancv, Traveller

Chapter Three: ''Voicing the Text": The Oral Tradition in Olive Senior' s Summer Li&tninp; and Other Stones, Arriva1 of the Snake Woman and Other Stones, and Discerner of Hearts and Other Stones

Chapter Four: '2inguistic Calibanisms": Kamau Brathwaite's DreamStories

Epilogue: "Gohg Back to Corne Forward"

Selected Bibliography Introduction - Orality and the Short Story

Post-colonial and other theoretical models originating within academic circles

in North Amerka and Bntain have opened up space for interesting and ofien

rewarding readings and discussion of West hdian literature in recent years and have

sewed, in numerous instances, to promote fiction fiom the region in international

circles. These kinds of analysis, however, have tended to overshadow exciting critical

developments in the West Indies where the focus is often less on reading through

these grids and more on accounting for developments in the aesthetics and poetics of

est ablished and emerging writers.

Creative writers and critics alike in the West Indies have engaged in heated

discussion regarding literary rnodels, narrative techniques, fictional strategies, and the

fonn that writing should and is taking alongside an acute awareness of the political

context in which literature is produced. Central to this discussion is the theorising of

an aesthetic of orality. Since at least the 1940s, West Indians have consciously

attempted to define the terrns of an oral aesthetic and establish a practice of orality in

written works of fiction. Over the years there have been several shifis in emphasis, but orality broadly defined refers to aU foms of fictional experimentation in which the goal is to: find lexical and orthographie inscriptions for reproducing various linguistic registers on the page; explore speech acts as models for narrative structure; find ways in which the dialect - the spoken word - of the folk can be used to extend narrative rneaning; use traditional and contemporary oral stories and themes as the

fiamework for modem fiction; discover typographie solutions to suggest the

enunciation of the word and transfom the page in an aura1 experience; and create

fiction that is shaped in such a way that its visual and aura1 effects function as a

metaphor for orality .

In recent years, Kenneth Ramchand has been arguing that an aesthetic of

orality in West Indian fiction can be most readily demonstrated in the short story.

Ramchand's purpose in his essays is to establish the oral tradition and the short stoxy

as the two serninal influences on the development of West Indian literature. For him,

the two are inextricably linked. Short fiction, daims Ramchand, is the Younding

genre" of West Indian literature. He identifies the literary antecedents of the short

story as the songs and stories, myths and music which make up the region's rich oral

tradition. '?art of the distinctiveness in the form and flavour of the short story,"

argues Ramchand, "cornes fkom its obvious connection with narratives belonging to

the oral sphere." He identifies the short story as "the most distinctive literary product

of the meeting of oral tradition and writing." Consequently, he argues, it is possible to

demonstrate that "the oral tradition, in addition to consolidating the practice of telling

aories and listening to stories, [has] proposed methods of narration and performance

as well as models of audience participation which inform the modem literary shon

See KauiRh Ramchand's Introduction, Best West iudian Stories (Nelson Caribbean, 1982) 2; his article entitled, ''The West lndian Short Story," JoumaI of Caribbean Literatures 1.1 2 This view is being chorused by anthologists of the West Indian short story. In

the moa recent anthology of Caribbean short fiction,* The Oxford Book of Caribbean

Short Stories, editors Stewart Brown and John Wickham note that "rnany, probably

moa, West Indian short story writers have been conscious of, and to some extent

influenced by, those oral forms and the stories spun around figures like Anancy, the

West Indian trickster or Amerindian spirits like 01' Higue or ~anto~.''~E.A

Markham makes similar observations in his collection published three years e~lier.~

However, Markham's separation of the collection into what he perceives to be two

distinctive categones - "Folklore" and "[Short] Stories" - and his comments on ways

in which short story writers have "taken stories and characters out of the oral context

and reimagined them in a literary c~ntext"~appears to set up too definitive a split between "oral" and "literary".

Ramchand's statements provide a motivdstarting point for the present study and the feasibility of his claims is assessed by examining evidence of an Af?o-fok

(Spring 1997): 22; and his contribution on the history of the Caribbean short story in The Encvclapedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in Ennlish, eds. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly, vol. 2 (London and New York: Routledge, 1994): 1464.

2 Throughout this siudy, West Indian" refers to the English speaking countries of the former British empire while "Caribbean" encompasses these wmtries as well as tedories which were formerly under French, Spanish and Dut& deand still use those languages today.

3 Stewart Brown and John Wickham, eds., Introduction, The Mord Book of Caribbean Short Stories (Clarendon: Oxford Univers* Press, 1999): xvii .

4 See E.A. Markham's Introduction, ?he Penguin Book of Caribbean Short Stones (1996).

E.A. Markham, p. d. 3 inspired aesthetic of orality in short stories f?om Jamaica. Jamaican short fiction was

chosen for several reasons. The island' s literary history is representative of

developments in creative writing in the wider West Indian context. Rhonda Cobham-

Sander's ground-breaking PDdissertation, The Creative Writer and West Indian

Society: Jamaica 190&1950, makes and supports this argument very we1L6 In

addition, Afr-ican retentions and cultural influences in Jamaica are among the most

researched and documented of dlthe oral traditions in the West Indies, particularly in

the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuryY7and Jamaican short story

writers have produced, and continue to produce, short story collections of Iiterary

merit. Furthemore, Jamaican writers and critics have remained active among those

who openly discuss, and disagree on, the literary merits of the oral tradition and they

have made significant contributions to the growing body of books and articles that

6 Rhonda Cobharn-Sander, "Trie Creative Writer and West indian Society: Jamaica 1900- 1MO," diss., University of St. Andrews, 198 1.

7 The Institute of Jamaica originally founded as a centre for the Arts and Learning by Sir Charles Musgrave in 1874 was, up to the first half of the twentieth centwy, the hub of cultural research in the island and me of its kind in the West Indies. The InstÏtute helped undede the publication of several research projeas on the island's oral tradition. At -the beginning of the twentieth century' its director Frank CundaU actively promoted research in oral lore and wrote several articles himself. In recent years, the Institute of Jamaica Publications has been iiivolved in publishing foiklore &dies projects. Laura Tanna's Jarrican Folk Taies and hlHistones (1984) is one of the better known works. Olive Lewin's Jamaican Folk Music Research Project is one of the longest running oral projects in the West Indies. In addition, the Jamaican campus of the University of the West Indies has iniuated and now bouses a folklore midies project. Other impo* tities in midies on Jarnaican folklore include Walter Jeckyll's Jamaican Song and Story: Annancy Stones, Dipeùin Sinns. Ring Tunes. and Dancing Tunes (London, 1907. Kraus Reprints, 1967) and Martha Warren Beckwitb's Jarnaica Anansi Stones (1924. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1976) and Black Roadwavs (1929. New York: Negro University Press, 1969). theorise orality. Analysis of Jamaican short storïes, then, is a good starting point for describing and evaluating the terms of an oral poetics and assessing the impact that short story writing has had on the growth of both Jamaican and West Indian literature.

The implications of Ramchand's claims, particularly as they relate to the

Jamaican short story, need Merclarification and explanation. It can be argued that

Ramchand's assertions were made as a deliberate attempt to locate critical assessments of the short story within an understanding of the region's social and political history. This social and political history has impacted significantly on the complex dynamic between oral and scribai as a bnef summary makes evident.

The history of West Indian nations such as Jamaica is characterised by geographical and cultural displacement, migrations and multiple journeys in and out culrninating in the intermingling of several different races and cultures. In the

Jamaican instance, the two most dominant are represented by Atnca and Europe

(Britain). The theory of creolisation has been proposed in an attempt to explain the nature of the interaction between these two groups under the long years of colonialisrn and slavery, as wel as the implications of this interaction for contemporary social and political life. Edward Kamau Brathwaite's The Deveio~ment of Creole Socieîy in Jamaica: 1770-1820~ offers one of the more compeiling discussions of creoZi~on.Brathwaite argues that while there is irrefbtab le evidence that contemporary Jamaican society is the result of creolisation or the

8 Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Develooment of Creole Society in Jamaica: 177û-1820. (ûxfbrd University Press, 197 1). rninglinglmWng of ecanand European cultures (neither of which was indigenous to the island), colonial-inspired biases and prejudices have led to the denial and denigration of Afncan elements. As a result, Brathwaite7s theory of creolimtzon is concemed with dernonstrating cultural synthesis as well as challenging prejudices against acancomponents in Jamaican culture and society.

III the years immediately preceding the institutionalisation of slavery, West

Indian islands iike Jamaica were cultural tabula rasas largely as a result of Spanish extermination of native populations of Arawaks and ~aribs.~Although both Afncans and Europeans brought their cultural and social system to the New World and both contributed to the developrnent of a new and ccindigenous" JamaicadWest Indian society,10 Afncans and Europeans did not meet on equal terms nor were their contributions given equal value. The economic and social imperatives of colonialism and slavery meant that race and cultural ancestry were made issues of foremost

9 h must be noted that Spanish duence in Jarnaica before the establishment of English presence is stiU evident in several ways, such as in place names and in local legends. Likewise, the Mar- community in Jamaica has retained its Rs social and cuitural peculiarities, but it can be argued that the maroons were never fiilly a part of the larger creole society in the island. As such, the discussion of creolzsation focuses on the interaction between European planters/ colonial rnasters and Afiican slaves and the offspring of these last two groups.

10 The term creolisation itself points to the fàct that West Indian societies and cuttures are hm out of the transplantation of peoples and cultures fiom derplaces. The definition of the mot word "creole" as given by Brathwaite underlines thk point. The word "creole" is said to be derived "fkom a combination of two Spanish words, criar (to create, to imagine, to establish, to found, to settle) and colon (a colonist, a founder, a seüIer) into criollo: a cornmitted setâler, one identifieci with the area of setîlement, one native to the sedement though not ancestraüy indigenous to it." Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Contradidorv Omens: Cultural Divers* and integraion m the Caribbean (Mona, Jamaica: Savacou, 1974) 10. 6 importance, necessary not only to the philosophy which undergirded colonialism but also to the dynamics of everyday life. Underr Plantation System on which the economic life of the West Indies depended, the transported Afncan slaves were relegated to the barracks and the outer yard - a circumstance which corresponded to their lowly status in the social and economic hierarchy - while the European planters occupied the Great House and took contml of the reins of power.

Economic and social domination of th* Afkican slaves by the European planter class extended to cultural domination. ln the case of the Africans, their languages and cultures were made to bear the burden of their new and harsh experience. Oppression and subjugation of the Mcansector of the population took physical foms, but there were also many succes:;sfiil attempts at cultural domination resulting in the denial of the value of Afncan customs transported to the New World and the perpetuation of myths about the "culture-iIessy7Afiican. When not deliberately suppressed, the language and culture of the AfrScans were dismissed as inferior or condescendingly patronised. Denied access to education and letters, the Afiican slaves relied on the oral forms that survived the IMiddle Passage for intra- and inter- group communication, and these foms also helped to preserve a sense of cultural cohesion and identity. in several instances, born out of the necessity of expenence, these oral forms and methods of communication also became weapons in the slaves' more covert acts of resistance against their European masters.

One far-reaching (and still insidious) comsequence of the oppressive tactics sanctioned under the Plantation System was the effecting of a split between 'coral" 7 and "scribal" correspondhg with what has been temed the 'little7' tradition and the

"'great7' tradition. This split supported the erroneous notion that writing or a scribal tradition was the exclusive domain of Europeans and an oral tradition the mainstay of the AfTican. Both traditions were valued according to the social status of the group with which it was associated. "Oral" and "scribal" thus became very loaded terms which, in their use both among the descendants of ex-slaves and the off-spring of their former masters, betrayed a colonial-inspired value sy stem which continued to persist even fier the Emancipation Act of 1834 and the Independence movement which swept the West Indies in the 1960s. This eventually had a significant impact on the developmem of literature in Jamaica and other West Indian societies. Despite a flurry of literary activity in Jamaica at the end of the nineteenth century and talks of a

"national literature" by the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain was still held to be the cultural Centre. Language and letters, it was held, were products of Britain, not her colonies. 'Real" literature could only be created within the Centre, not the margins.

Consequently, attempts to create literature in Jamaica often amounted to little more than coloniai mimicry, that is the production of fiction which imitated British styles, themes and forrns at the expense of any real engagement with local contexts and alternatives. Still, there were real efforts in the wake of the fall of the British

Empire to create a literature that was "closer to the soil" and reflective of the expenence, concerns and culture of the local population identified largely as Mo- creole or the "folk". The history of fiction writing in Jamaica, and indeed for West 8 Indian literature as a whole, provides numerous examples of the struggle to right the balance in the estimation and assessrnent of, on the one hand Afiican, and on the other hand European, literary and cultural influences on contemporary writers and their work.

In the light of the above, Brathwaite's theory of creolzsation becomes highly relevant to a study that is concerned with defining orality and assessing the interplay between the oral and the scribal in Jamaican short stories. In the demonstration of the merging/synthesis of two Old World cultures to form a third New World culture, and in the recovery and reappraisal of Afncan elements in Jamaica, Brathwaite's theory of creolisation is not about reversing biases. It is concerned with acknowledging and giving epa2 value to Mcan and European influences, first in the society as a whole, and then more specifically in literary productions. Creolzsation is not complete. It is still in process, especially in the critical appraisal of Iiterature. Whereas colonial biases acknowledged onIy European (British) scnbal traditions as "literary influences," the local Afro-oral tradition and practices/experiments with voice and writing directly inspired by Afro-folk considerations are now being recouperated and invested with significance in accounts of literary history. The current analysis is itself an exarnple of critical creolz~on.To effect hl1 critical creolisation, Afiica has to be restored in the African-European equation that has created creole culture and literature of an island like Jamaica. Hence, following Brathwaite's practice of creolisotioz, the current analysis rads for both European and Afncan influences, but the emphasis is on recovering and explainhg the presence and effect of the Mo-oral on literary aesthetic in contemporq Jamaican short stories.

The claim of literary stahis for the traditions associated with the historically denigrated Jamaican Afro-folk population may appear to be the kind of boldness that could only be attempted and countenanced in recent years, but the stimings of such sentiments were already discernible in Jamaica at lean as early as the nineteenth century. In 1868, in a Lecture on Negro Proverbs with Prelirninarv Notes on Nepro

Literature, Thomas Russell, an Englishman resident in Jamaica, was bold enough to offer the following:

We have no National Literature in Jamaica; for though about as large as Palestine, and larger than Attica, it has no race that can be regarded as sons of the soil, nor any storehouse of national recollection, which are the germs of national literature. If we have not, however, the literature of a nation, we have the literature of a race - the Negro race.. . There is thus, a large class among us that has a literature of its own, and a literature too, which like any other one - whether simple or grand - has its influence. The collection of Negro Literature - in its Mythology - its Proverbs - and its Songs - would be no unworthy undertaking for any individual, or any society in Jamaica. Nor would the Literature thus collected be uncomplimentary to the Negro or useless to others. It would be a gauge of the intellect of the people to whom it belonged, and would be a mental standard higher than many dreamed of. l1

Russell's assertion is in line with the agenda of contemporary proponents of MO-folk oral traditions such as Edward Kamau Brathwaite and Gordon Rohlehr of the West

Indies and Edouard Glissant of the French Caribbean who insist on a recognition of

11 Thomas Russell, Lechires cm Negro Proverbs With a Preliminary Note on Negro Literature (Kingston: Jamaica, 18 68). folidoral influences on literary production. It is now clear that when Ramchand argues that there in a direct connection between the poetics of contemporary short story writers and the oral tradition, he too is calling for a reassessment of the literary influence of West Indian folk.

Two other points raised by Ramchand's statements need to be clarified and qualified. Firstly, when he identifies the short story as the "'most distinctive literary product of the meeting of oral tradition and writing" and argues that "'part of the distinctiveness in the form and flavour of the short story comes fiorn its obvious connection with narratives belonging to the oral sphere," some readers might assume he is claiming oral connections as a generic feature of the short story. But

Ramchand's comments are less (if at all)12 about offering a theov of the short story as a genre, and more about drawing attention to the historical circumstances which simultaneously irnpacted on the development of short story writing and oral poetics in the West Indies.

The end of the nineteenth century in Jamaica, for example, witnessed definite attempts to encourage locals to write fiction and thus participate in establishing a national literary tradition. But the resources for encouraging and supporting a literary life and a culture of letters were meagre. Printing presses dedicated to the production

l2 In fad Ramchand, in his characteristicaily direct style, has announced that he has no interest whatsoever in offering to define the short story as a genre distinct from the novel, poeû~or drama: '7 have no interest in entering the disturbed universe of those who theorise about literature because they canna read books, and 1 would not dare to offer definitions of "the novei" or 'Yhe story." Kenneth Ramchand, "The West Indian Short Story," Journal of Caribbean Literatures 1.1 (Spring 1997): 22. Il of literature were not economically viable and the market for fictional works at home

was limited by the purchasing power, and to some extent, the lack of schooling of the

majority of the population. A remedy was found by encouraging the writing of short

fiction. Publishing short stoties was more economicai than publishing longer works as

short prose pieces could be printed and disserninated in commercial newspapers,

business journals and alongside advertisements for wares that were set by commercial

printing presses. The possibility of reaching a large audience was greater this way and

the marketing of fiction could "piggy-back" on the everyday commercial life of the

island. Hence, at the time that the short story was being granted literary status mainly

due to the influence of Edgar Allan Poe in nineteenth-century United States, a

fledging but nevertheless tangible culture of shon fiction was being assiduously

cultivated in Jamaica.

Early attempts at short story writing resulted in incidental fictions in the form

of travel narratives, planters' joumals and diaries, and sketches of life and

personalities on the island. Legends from the period of Spanish occupation in the

island inspired a number of stories. Traditional EngIish romances, gothic stories, and

tales of adventure also contrïbuted to a body of short fiction that was steadily growing

in the isiand and bore witness to the influence of established modes of British

fictional representation on the new short story culture. But the rich oral tradition which "marked a long-standing attachent to stories, and a defight in telling and listening to tales among the former slave p~~ulation~"~also influenced short story

writing, and writers were in fact encouraged to "mine" these resources to produce

Iiterature that could be deemed distinctively Jamaican. Would-be writers med to

Mo-folk culture and tales for inspiration. Auancy stories were particularly popular.

Mythological figures fiom the Mo-Jamaican comrnunity surfaced in stories

published, and ghost and horror stories were often inspired by local folklore and

beliefs. Popular entertainment among slaves such a crop-over and the music,

language and customs of the "folk" provided rnatenal for writers in search of novelty.

The vibrant culture of storytelling and oral performance among the Afro-folk existed

alongside, and in creative tension with, attempts to write and couId not be ignored.

Overtime, early attempts to simply absorb aspects of the local oral tradition into fiction (most of which did not even acknowledge that there was any literary value to the oral) for the sake of local colour exploded into conscious attempts to develop a distinctive shon aory poetics derived fiom the forms, rhythm and language use associated with the Mo-folk oral context. The practice of orality in fiction which grew up as a result is testament to the success of writers in overcoming the limitations of writing fiom a place long affected by the economic, political, and cultural biases of colonialism. The signincance of an oral poetics in the development of shon story writing in places such as Jamaica is succinctly sumarised by Mary Louise Pratt:

The tradition of ordity in the short story has special significance in cultures where literacy is not the nom, or where the standard literary

13 Kenneth Ramchand, "The Caribbean Short Story," Encvclwedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in Ennlish, 1464. 13 language is that of the oppressor... In such contexts as these, the short story provides not just the ""srnaIl" place for experimentation, but also a genre where oral and non-standard speech, popular and regional culture, and marginal experience have some traditron of being at home and the form best suited to reproducing the length of most speech events- Orality can be counted as one of the important factors behind the flourishing of the short story in the modem literature of many Third World nations and peoples, where, not incidentally, it is taken more seriously as an art form that it is elsewhere. l4

While the chapters which follow provide irrefùtable evidence that the ccdistinctiveness in the form and flavour of the [Jamaican] short story cornes fiom its obvious connection with narratives belonging to the oral sphere," and readily provide evidence that "the oral tradition Jhas] proposed methods of narration and performance as well as rnodels for audience participation which inform the modem literary short stoiy" as Ramchand argues no attempt is being made here to claim that the short story is distinct fiom other major literary genres (novel and poetry) because of its connection to the oral tradition- A verse anthology such as Voice~rint:An

Antholom of Oral and Related Poetw £iom the Caribbean (1989) could allow for sirnilar claims to be made for poetry, while works such as Jane and Louisa Will Soon

Come Home (1980) and Myal (1988) are IWO good examples of the "oral novel".15

Ramchand would argue that as the short story (due to historical circumstances

'' Mary Louise Pratt, 'me Shon Story: The Long and Short of 4"Poetics X (1991): 183. l5 Stewart Brown, Mervyn Morris, Gordon Rohlehr, eds., Voice Pnnt: An Antholow of Oral and Related Po- fiom the Caribbean (Kingston: Longman Jamaica Limited, 1989); Ema Brodber, Jane and Louisa Wiil Soon Come Home (London: New Beacon Books, 1980) and Mval (London: New Beacon Books, 1988)- affecting the development of literature outlined above) is %e founding genre" of

JamaicanlWest Indian literature, oral poetry and oral novels have benefited from the

oral aesthetic initiated by short story writers.

Secondly, although Ramchand tends to tatk only in terms of "the oral

tradition," his real interest is to define and describe an aesthetic of orality. "Orality" is

arguably a more precise term than "oral tradition" and is therefore used throughout

the study. "Orality" and "oral tradition" are not synonymous. A writer's engagement

with the oral tradition, that is, fonns and tropes Born traditional as well as

contemporary folklore represents just one of the numerous possibilities for creating

an aesthetic of oral& examples of which are given below.

Indeed, the argument is that the practice of orality and the development of an

oral aesthetic have given a strong national flavour and distinctiveness to the modern

short story fiom Jamaica. In addressing the term "short story" throughout the length of this study, care is taken to define ccstory" in terms that expand the reader's understanding of oral performance dynamics and story-telling methods. For example, the fantastic, otherworldly cast of certain kinds of oral stories such as the fable and the fairy tale foregrounds the fictionality of CLst~ry'y.Examples of West Indian fable include stories based on the exploits of Anancy the spider, a trickster figure from

Akan folklore transplanted in, among other places of the Afncan diaspora, New

World Jarnaica- West Indian fairy tales tend to take a sinister tum. Obeah and duppy/devil stories as well as accounts of the doings of La Diablesse, La Smcouyant,

01' Higue and Mmtop fa11 within this category. In the telling and reception of such 15 stones, mernbers of the comrnunity display a high degree of cornfort with the lack of any pretension to verisimilitude at the same time as they recognise that these stories often function to illuminate aspects of everyday experience. Other oral forms such as the ta11 tale, the ballad, and the Iocal coIour story (which both in structure and content represent a fiision of the oral traditions of Afiica and Europe) are more concerned with telling stories in which characters and events are portrayed as if they belonged to the "real" world. These modes of storyteiling hdan explanatory fiamework in the discussion of "realism" and "romanceyyin theones of narrative. The emphasis in this study will be on describing and analysing the oral basis of such stories, but narrative theory as applied to written texts will also be used to further anaiysis.

A story, simply defined, is a Yale that is told." This definition is even more appropriate in instances where a story is written in such a way as to emphasise not only its telling, but also the aurai quality of the telling. In oral story-telling contexts, the presence of the performer - body and voice - is pan of the experience of hearing the story and ofien serves (through gestures and intonation) to extend the meaning of the narrative. Performance theories seek to explain the significance of the teiier to the oral but so far, such theones have not been extended to the analysis of printed texts which simulate the oral performance. In-depth analysis of a number of stones in this study foregrounds the penormance dynarnics of the story on the page

-- -- '' 'This is the major focus of works such as Isidore Okpewho's The Epic in Afica: Towards a Poetics of the Oral PerfOrmance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979) and Richard Bauman's Verbai Art as Performance (Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbq House Publisbers, 1977). and assesses the various methods by which the printed text becomes an oral performance/aural experience. Stories which fa11 in t his category include those in which the telling is done wholly in the first person voice (the dialect being the language of choice in many of these stories), and cases where the entire text is a speech event. Stream of consciousness stories and monologues provide some of the best examples.

Stories are also narratives about people and their psychological and social expenence. This understanding of story has special significance in the Jamaican and

West Indian context in which the written stories of one group (the colonisers), oflen in the guise of history and the social sciences, created stories which silenced and rendered invisible another group (the colonised). A number of modem Jamaican short stones recreate the speaking voice in print in an attempt to break through the irnposed silence and, as a popular West Indian expression puts it, "tell the half that has not been told." Narrative strategies which create multiple stories within one story and rewrite stories previously told are, therefore, another concern in thïs study.

The theory and practice of orality in Jamaica and the West Indies takes severaI

(interrelated) turns. The earliest use of the term was in reference to a troubling question which still has currency in contemporary debates: the use of local dialects - the language used in everyday interaction by a large cross-section of the population - as a viable medium for, fiction. 'Dialect" is the tenn used to describe local language(s) produced out of the collision between the Standard and vemaculars of

English spoken by European colonialists and the Afiican Ianguages of slaves. In 17 Jamaica for example, a linguistic continuum ranging f?om the ccpuresty'of dialects to

Standard English is descriptive not only of the polyglossic nature of the society, but is

an index of social divisions and persisting prejudices. As the editors of Voice Print

make clear, the question of the legitimacy and viability of local dialects as a medium

for fiction was "an extension of the troubled nexus between education, speech, class,

status and power."'7 During and after colonialism, dialect use became associated with

the poorest class in society - slaves and their descendants. Hence, social distinctions

and identification were, and still are, often made on the basis of language use, and an

individual's social status is determined by the point at which s/he operates on the

continuum.

Among some of the earliest works of fiction f?om the West Indies, the practice was use dialect as the source of low comedy and buffoonery. The conventional association of dialect with comic characters or with characters on the periphery helped to create fictional stereotypes that perpetuated the social and cultural negations and misrepresentations of &O-Jamaicans/Mo-West Indians under colonialism.

Critics argued strenuously against such uses of dialect in fiction. Refusing to accept that West Indian dialects were nothing more than Prospero7s language broken and distorted in the mouth of caliban,18 critics argued for the creative potential of local

17 Stewart Brown, Me- Morris and Gordon Rohlehr, eds., "The Shape of That Hurt," Voice Print: An Antholonv of Oral and Related ~oetryfrom the Caribbean (Kingston: Longman Jamaica Limited, 1989) 1. ia nie ProsperoKaLiban paradigrn as it relates to the history of language use was introduced into criticism of West Indian Merahire through George Lamming's The Pleasures of Exile 18 languages. The expressive range of dialect, for example - its ability to plumb the depths of complex emotions and unspoken desires - was not only strongly defended but repeatedly demonstrated. The use of dialect in fiction became central to the attempt to reinscribe local presence in ways that proved more empowering. While critics did not claim that language itself embodied a West Indian they argued that reclaiming the languages spoken by the people and legitimising them in fiction was a necessary step towards self-representation and self-definition. As Gerald

Moore has argued, "the West Indies have languages of their own. Not curiosities for the linguist and ethnologist to study, but living and developing languages which have proved essential to the full revelation of West Indian life in 1iterature."lg

Jamaican short stories of the 1930s and 1940s marked a time when writers consciously attempted to move away f?om earlier stereotyping to explore other contexts in which dialect could be used. Since then, the island's literature has produced many examples of ways in which local dialects cm be used to extend narrative meaning- Shon story writers have explored a variety of narrative techniques which allow for the use of the island's various linguistic registers in developing, among others, the complexity of fictional characters; explorhg the nuances of social

(1960). Several critics have dirdy addressed the dismissal of dialect as an *or language unsuitable for fidion. See, fbr example, Ismith Khan's "Dialect m West Indian Literature," 'Ihe Black Writer, ed. Lloyd W. Brown (Los Angeles: Hennessey & hgalls, 1973) 14 1-165; Kenneth Rarnchand's, 'West Indian Literary History: Litera~ess, Orality and Periodization," Calialoo, 11-1 (1988): 95-1 10; and Mervyn Morris's, "1s Enelish We S~eakinn"and Mer Essays (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publisbers, 1999).

" Geraiù Moore, "Use Men Language," BIM. 57 (Mar& 1974): 69. interactions; and extending the expressive range of the printed text. Examples of these

narrative strategies and techniques are discussed at length in the chapters which

follow. Narrative strategies and techniques include playing one linguistic register

against another for ironic effect, and shifting dong the continuum and slipping

between registers to indicate changes in the emotional or psychological experience

adorvalues of a character.

The use of didect in fiction in such constructive and creative ways has helped

to pave the way for still more sophisticated and poiitically signifïcant experiments

with the voice and forms of expression fiom the oral tradition. The development of an

oral aesthetic also came to mean that writers began lookîng more ofien and seriously

to genres, tropes, plot structures and themes fiom the African-inspired oral tradition

for creative inspiration. Local myths and legends are tapped for their narrative

possibilities; figures fiom oral iore - such as Anancy - are used in traditional as well

as original ways; and various oral genres are used as the stnictural fiame for

startlingly original and highly engaging stories. As a result, more writers are

producing short stones in which the comection to the oral tradition is readily

discernible at both formal and thematic levels.

The te= by which oral traditional forms can be extended into modem fiction

writing to create distinctive nationai literatures within the region has been repeatedly

explored by a number of critics, several of whom are also creative writerszOThe last

20 See, for example, Gordon Rohlehr's seminal essay, "The Problem of the Problem of Fofm," Caribbean Quaxterlv 31 -1 (March 1985): 1-52; Eciward Brathwaite's, "Jazz and the 20 three decades, inspired mainly by the critical and creative writing of Edward Kamau

Brathwaite, have witnessed a number of experiments in "voice print," that is, the

creation of printed texts in which the arrangement and spelling of words, font and

type sizes, etc. emphasise the aura1 dimensions of the text. The body of the analysis of

Jamaican short stories considers each of the above expressions of orality.

Chapter 1 gives an overview of the rise of the short story in the West Indies

with special emphasis on Jamaica. It traces the comection between short fiction and

orality, and locates this connection within a historical framework. The chronology of

events identifies significant moments in the social and political context of the island,

and the region in general, which stimuiated an interest in and a return to the oral. Of

particular concern in this chapter are the various literary movements - organisations,

forums, publishing houses, etc. - which both actively promoted the production of

short fiction and helped writers clarie the terms by which the oral tradition could

inform literary aesthetics.

Chapter 2 is the first of three chapters which consider the short fiction of

individual authors. The writers chosen for in-depth analysis demonstrate some of the

more significant aspects in the conceptualisation and practice of orality in Jamaican

short fiction. As arranged, they provide a descriptive (though not strict) chronology of

West hdian Novel," BIM 44 (1967): 275-284 [part ïj; 45 (1967): 39-5 1 [part LI]; 46 (1968): 115-126 [part and "The Love Axe (1): Developing a Caribbean Aesthetic 1962-1974" published in three parts m BIM 61 (June 1977): 53-65; 62 (December 1977): 100-106; 63 (June 1978): 181-192; and Edouard Glissant's, "Free and Forced Poetics," Carïbbean Discourseytratis. J. Michael Dash (Chartattesville: University of Virginia, 1989): 120-1 34. the developments in the oral short story. Chapter 2 is entitled "Myth and Metaphor:

Anancy in Andrew Salkey's, Anancv7s Score, The One, and Anancy Traveller." It

gives a detailed analysis of three of Sallcey's collections of Anancy stories. The use of

dialect as the language of narration and dialogue connects Salkey with the first terms

of the discussion of orality and also looks forward to a simiIar use of language in

Senior's and Brathwaite's stones.

However, the main interest in reading Sallcey's collection is to study a specific application of the oral - the rem to traditional Afiican folk mythology in contemporary short stories. Saikey's adaptation of Anancy is one of the more sustained exarnples of ways in which writers have taken stones and characters out of the orai tradition and reimagined them in a literary context. A major interest of this chapter is with the mythic imagination, Myth is employed as a means of interrogating contemporary Jamaican, regionai and, in several instances, international experience.

The mythic sign allows for the fashioning of an aesthetic paradigm that draws on both

New World and Old World Aikan meanings as a means of explainhg social and political relations. In this chapter, the trickster principle that is Anancy emerges as a powerfbl metaphor of resistance, transformation and creation. Sallcey's use of rnyth represents an interpretation of the infiuence of the oral tradition on literary aesthetics which sprung up in discussions of writing and literary tradition in the 1950s.

Chapter 3 which is entitled, "'Voicing the Text': The Oral Tradition in Olive

Senior's Sumer Liahtnin~and Other Stories, Arriva1 of the Snake Woman and

Other Stories and Discerner of Hearts and Other Stories," chooses the most successfùl contemporary female short story derfiom Jamaica to demonstrate pose-1980 developments in the theory and practice of orality. The mythic imagination is also evident in Senior's short fiction. However, like writers of her period, she is more interested in extending the narrative possibilities of the trickster genre by reconfiguring the traditional spider in her presentation of male and female protagonists rather than reproducing traditional tnckster texts. Senior's stories are representative of a generation of writers (predominantly female) whose main achievement lies in their return to traditional oral genres such as riddles and proverbs and use of these oral sources as the narrative fiame for their stories. Senior's stones, in particular, are exempIary in the ways in which the speaking voice is used to anchor her narratives.

Chapter 4 is entitled "'Linguistic Caiibanisms': Kamau Brathwaite's

DreamStories." Although Brathwaite is Barbadian by birth, the major portion of the stories in this landmark collection was written during the thirty years he lived in

Jamaica. Consequently, they reflect the personal and public experiences which shaped his life in that island. Yet, this is only one of the many compelling reasons for including Brathwaite in this study.

Brathwaite is arguably the single most important figure and catalyst behind the theorising of, and literary experiments in, orality which have corne out of the region in the last thxîy years. His essays have helped to define orality for Jamaican and West Indian writers alike. His stories are thus usefùl in bringing this study of

Jamaican short stones closer to being an assessrnent of the achievement of the region 23 as a whole. In addition, a study oni the oral short story fkom the West Indies would be incomplet e without a reading of I)rreamStories. This collection demonstrates the most startling and original kind of expemrimentation to date with the text as an oral medium.

DreamStories returns to many of îzhe concerns with voice and form explored by other writers in this study, but also goees a step (several steps) beyond what anyone has dared to do with oraiity and the shmrt story.

The Epiiogue entitled "Gosing Back to Corne Forward" offers a comparative assessrnent of the works analysed thereby clarifying the wnters' individual achievements and providing a semse of how each relates to the tradition of the oral short story. It argues that the oral short story in Jamaica and the West Indies is still in its moment of flowering, and offers tentative comrnents on future developments. Chapter One - Patterns and Periods: Oral Aesthetics and the

Jamaican Short Story

[Ijt zs essential that West I~id.z wrzters] use the resources whzch have ahuays been there, but which have been denied them ... and which they have sometimes themselves denzed Edward (Kamau) Brathwaite

Critical interest in short fiction fiom the West Indies has increased significantly in the last decade. Interest is. fbelled by the abundance of short story collections published both locally and abroad during the last ten years as well as by theories of reading (such as the post-colonial) which have turned the spotlight on literatures of former colonies of the British Empire. Titles such as The Storv Must Be

Told: Short Narrative Prose in the New Enalish Literatures (1986) and Short Fiction in the New Literatures in Enelish (1989)'~ have helped to promote the region's short fiction internationally by using post-colonial theones in analysing short stories produced within former colonies of the British empire. Also, regular meetings such as the biennial International Conference on the Short Story in English, The Nice

Conference of the European Association f~rCommonwealth Literature (1988), and special colloquia such as the First International Conference on the Caribbean Short

21 Peter O. Stummer, ed., The Stow Must Be Told: Short Nanative Prose in the New Endish Literatures (Konigshausen & Neumann, 1986); Jacqueline Bardolphe, ed., Short Fiction in the New Literatures LI En~nnlish (Nice Conference of the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, 1989). Story in English (Angiers, 1995) have made short story writers and their work more

visible and more likely to be included on university syllabuses.

Although West Indian writers still comrnand only a small portion of the

academic and literary market, wrïters of short fiction today are more likely to find

their way into pnnt than their counterparts thirty years ago as both specialist

(Longman, Heinemann Carïbbean, New Beacon Books, Peepal Tree, etc.) and general

presses capitalise on the growing demand for these texts. The publishing of

anthologies, for example, is ofien a good indication of a vibrant market and, since the

196Os, West Indian short story writers have depended largely on anthologies to access a larger reading public. Between 1980 and 1990, for example, international demand for West Indian short stories was quickly filled through the publication of several anthologies. Some of the more familiar titles are, Best West Indian Stories (ed.

Kenneth Ramchand, l982), Jahaii Bhai: An Antholoav of Indo-Caribbean Literature

(ed. Frank Birbalsingh, 1988), West Indian Stories (ed. John Wickham 1989), Br

Tme-True Name (eds. Pam Mordecai and Betty Wilson, 1989), The Faber Book of

Contemporary Caribbean Short Stories (ed. Mervyn Moms, 19901, and Caribbean

New Wave: Contern~oraryShort Stories (ed. Stewart Brown, 1990).

Since 1990, however, the publication of single author collections has far outweighed the publication of anthologies, a development that suggests that the commercial and academic market stimulated by anthologies is now better able to suppon single-author collections. Consequently, between 1990 and 1999, the number of anthologies offered on the West Indian short story dropped significantly, although 26 Stewart Brown's Caribbean New Voices, E.A. Markham's The Penauin Book of

Caribbean Short Stones and Stewart Brown and John Wickham's The Odord Book

of Contemporary Caribbean Short Stories were published in 1995, 2996, and 1999

respectively. The list of single-author collections published during thïs seven-year

period is impressively long. Writers who had made reputations in other genres (for

example, Earl Lovelace, Kamau Brathwaite and Lorna Goodison) have since then

produced highly acclaimed short story collections, and several writers who were

introduced to the readimg public by way of short story anthologies in the late 1980s

and early 1990s have simce then had individual collections published.

The Earlv Years: 1890 to 1910

The current level of literary activity and the exploration of new foms in West

Indian short fiction are comparable to that of the Golden Age of the West Indian short

story - the decades of the 1940s and 1950s. The flowenng of short story writing

within those decades had its origins in small, locally produced literary and pseudo-

literary magazines and newspapers which have played an essential role in the

development of West Indian fiction. Critical enthusiasm is often reserved for the

magazines of the 1930s and 1940s, but the link between small publications and short

fiction has a much longer history. As Jamaica's importance as an early centre of New

World printing and publishing preceded many of the English-speaking territories in the Caribbean, the existence of small publications can be traced as far back as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Pre-twentieth century Jamaican publications with special significance to the development of the short story include The Jamaica

Quarterlv Journal and Literarv Gazette (1 8 18-1 8 19), The Trifler (1 822-1 826), The

Victoria Ouarterlv (early 1890~)~The Gleaner (1834-present), and the Jamaica Times

(18884950). Titles fkom the first two decades of this century include Pe~perpot

(19 13), Plummer's Magazine (19 13), KG. DeLisserYs irnmensely successfiil Planters'

Punch (192&1945), Pimento, with a &am of comrnon sense (1927) and The West

Indian Review (since 1934).

The years between 1890 and the beginning of the First World Wa. were an important period for the short story in Jarnaica, both for the promotion of the genre and in experiments in literary form. Interest in short fiction in Jamaica coincided with what KG. Wells called "the Golden Age" of the short story in England, so it is not surprising that several Jarnaican writers such as Claude MacKay and AE-T. Henry were reportedly successful in getting their stories published in British as wel as magazines. LocaUy, the Victoria Ouarterlv and the island's two leading newspapers,

The Gleaner and the Jamaica Times, were among the publications at the centre of local literary activity prior to the turn of the century.

Stones of this period covered a wide range of forms. Popuiar among these were (character) sketches, legends, taies of horror, travel narratives, historical romances and the re telling of traditional oral tales, and these early forms of fiction have iduenced later developments and narrative techniques in short fiction locally.

The word paintings of LM. Belisario's Illustrations of the Habits. Occupations and 28 Costume of the Nearo Population in the Island of Jarnaica (1 837-1 83 8), for example,

grew into the sketches of Jarnaican characters and life in Philip Cohen Laban's

Selections From The Miscellaneous Posthumous Works of Philip Cohen Labatt; in prose and verse (1855) which depended more on a carefiil selection and sequencing

of detail for theù "storyness" and less on the aesthetic formalism of plot championed by late nineteenth century American and British short fiction writers. Labatt's

sketches aimed at an objective descriptiveness intended to reveal psychological and

social realities of post-Emancipation Jarnaica. Stylistic similarities are evident between, for example, Labatt's aories and Elspeth Fielding's 1915 collection Short

Stories of Jamaica and 'The War." However, Fielding's combining of the sketch with

Western conventions of the then popular genre of travel narratives resulted in stories which differed in tone and cornmitment Ecom Labatt's and the 1940s satirical sketches cum anecdotal tales of A.E.T. Henry, thus providing examples of the various ways in which short fiction absorbs and transmutes other forrns of writing.

Both The Gleaner and the Jamaica Times promoted short fiction through sponsoring short story competitions, printing selected stories in their weekIy editions, and using their presses to p~tcheap local editions of short story collections. But it was the Jarnaica Times which had a definite policy of encouraging the production of local literature. In 1899, the paper inaugurated its weekly short story cornpetition which continued until well past the tum of the century. It was the first time that there was an attempt to provide a forum for the creation, and cnticism, of "Jmaican literature" and this was attempted through the short story because, one rnight argue, 29 the econornics of publishing and the creative climate were more conducive to shorter prose works. In its guidelines to would-be contributors, the Jamaica Times clealy expressed its interest in developing a local literary tradition:

Every week we shall offer a prize for the best stoq sent in. The story must treat of Jamaican subjects or Its scenes must be in Jamaica. It may be either original or selected, but if selected the source fkom which it was taken must be stated. It should be about 3,000 words in length. The wimer will be entitied to a copy of the Times fiee for a year, or five shillings in cash?

Response was such that the paper was able to print a story every week for that first year, and the cornpetition continued at intervals until 1912. The literary awareness prornoted by Tom Redcam, then editor of the Jamaica Times and a short story writer himselc helped hone the creative talent of Herbert G. DeLisser, Walter Adolphe

Roberts, Alexander McGregor James, E. A. Dodd and Claude McKay, among others.

While several of the stories fiom this early penod used Jamaican scenes and settings as atmosphere for what were Iittle more than traditional EngIish romances, the interest in 'Yhings Jamaican" produced a significant body of stones in which writers attempted to give old forms of fiction a peculiarly Jamaican flavour. But perhaps the most significant outcume of the far-flung literary activities which surrounded the Jamaica Times and its editor was a growing appreciation for indigenous cultural forms and local story telling traditions. This appreciation

22 Quoted f%om instructions to writers which appeared at the beginning of each winning entry in the Jamaica Times weekly short fiction coqetition for 1 899. 30 expressed itself in several ways in stories which turned to popular narratives in search

of models for narrative form and character development. Aetiological tales of the oral

tradition which offer a philosophy of causation and ongin for almost everythirig

within cultural experience and knowledge inspired a number of early short stories.

These stories reworked cornmon themes of oral origins ftom the istand's Amerindian,

Spanish and Afncan past to create legends around the significance of local place

names. F.J. du Quesnay and Ivy Baxter identiq 'Martha Brae," '2oversYLeap," "The

Golden Table," and c340untain ride"^^ as some of the more popular themes. These

thematic units fimilia. to participants in the island's oral histoncal lore formed the

building blocks for each performer's (in this case the short story writer) ccorigind"

telling. Henry Strachan's 'Mountain Pride" publishrd in The Victoria Ouarteriv (Jan.

1892), Tom Redcam's "The Legend of Lover's Leap" (Victoria Ouarterlv, 1891) and

'The Legend of Martha Brae" (Victoria Ouarterlv, 1892) and Philip Labatt's "The

23 Ivy Baxter in The Arts of an Island (Metuchun, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1970) explains the origins of one of these legends: "Another theme in Jamaican tales is the legend of the Golden Table. This taie is ofken associated with definite locations, like the lagoon between Discovery Bay and Runaway Bay in St Am, with the Blue Hole in Portland or the Rio Cobre River m St. Catherine. The gist of the story is that the Arawaks have said that a golden table lay hidden under the water and rose on certain nights. The Spaniards who heard the tale and determined to hdthe table procured a wagon and oxen. To this cart they attacheci ropes, the ather ends of which they carried out in a boat, to be tied to the table, which they did succeed in raising. But as they had hished doing this the table suddenly sank, dragging down the boat and the Spaniards to the bottom of the lagoon dong with the oxen and the wagon. A variation of this story tells how an indian Cacique had entertained the Spaniards royally, feasting them at a golden table. The Spaniards, usmg threats, demanded the table. The Indians told them to rehini the next day, but in the meanwhiie, cast the table in the centre of a deep pool. Some say the cacique cornmitteci suicide, &ers that the Spaniards killed him. In some versions there is an association of the theme of the golden table with the river maiden idea." @ . 12) Golden Table [A Legend of the Rio Cobre]" (Selections, 1855) are examples. With the story ending already familiar to readers who would usually deduce it fkom the title, narrative interest and effkct lay in each story's focus on the fast-paced and exaggerated conflict irnmediately preceding the cataclysmic event Eom which the place name was logically derived.

A number of collections of Jamaican oral taies were also published in the

1890s, another indication of an interest in the locd oral tradition and popular forms of storytelling. Anancy Stones were particularly popular and were routinely collected and published in foreign joumals by British and American anthropologists living or working in the island. The general attitude towards Anancy stories was disparaging or at best patronising which may be atnibuted to bias against the language (dialect) in which these tales were told and the close comection of these stories to the very recent pst of slavery. Collectors such as A& Wilson Towbridge were particularly vehement in their dismissal of Anancy stories as serious art. In an article on these oral tales,

Towbridge wrote:

Many of the stories in general favour with the natives are rambling and without point, and their charrn and attraction for the Negro mind seems to rest in repetition and a sort of metrical jingle.

She continued:

It is a significant fact that observation taught the Afncan as it did the Greek to invest the spider with attributes and rnake a human creature of it; but the superior intelligence of the Greeks gave rise to the beautiful little story of Arachne, and how the arts of weaving were taught to man by the cunningly woven fabric of the spider's web, while the iderior perceptions of the A£ncan taught him to see only the wiles and craft of a poisonous creature he feared.24

Not al1 collectors were as strongly opposed to Anancy stories as Towbridge, and the

Iate nineteenth century and early twentieth century witnessed a proliferation of

collections of Anancy stories. Una JeBey-Smith (pseudonym 'Wona") for example,

published a collection entitled A Selection of Annancv Stories in 1899. She prefaced

her collection with the following statement:

In the old slavery days it was the custom for the Nana, or nurse, to tell the breathless little "buckra pickney dem" these stories at night--.Asthe years flew on the custom declined, until now it has almost entirely disappeared. Now-a-days, the nurse is scarcely to be met with who, when asked to tell an Anancy story, will not promptly answer that she "don't know none," for the average Negro woman, like the average woman everywhere, dreads being laughed at. She knows that her dialect is not a beautifùl one, and that 'Mssus" won't fike to hear it fiom the lips of her darlings; so even if she does know one, she remains discretely silent. Besides, there has grown up among the Negroes themselves a strange, almost inexplicable feeling, somewhat akin to shame, which prevents their relating these stories, even in the privacy of their own huts ...In writing these Anancy stories that which has chiefly prompted me has been the desire to show that we Jamaicans, in relating Our curious legends, have nothing to be ashamed

Parnela Colman-Smith published a collection entitled Anancy Stories in 1899 and followed with another collection, Chim-Chim: Folk Stones From Jamaica in 1905.

Ada Wilson Towbndge, 'Wegro Custorns and Fok-Stories of Jamaica," Journal of American Folk-Lore IX. XXXV (Oct. - Dec. 1896): 282.

25 Una Jeffiey-Smith ("Wona"), 'Trefice," A Selection of Annanc~Stories. (Kingston: Aston W. Gardner, 1899): i. Una Jefiey-Smith attempted to retain the rhythms of Jamaican English in her stones, but significantly, the language of narration was Standard English and the English spoken by Anancy and other Jamaican characters in the stories bordered on the cornical. Pamela Colman-Smith discarded Jarnaican English alrnost entirely. The authors, for the most part, claimed to be simply transcribing versions of taies that they had heard, offering the tales as cultural artefacts rather than works of fiction. But in the process of translating the stories fiom one cultural space to another, the wllectors, by selecting and shaping the material for the comprehension of a foreign audience, became fiction writers. In several of the Anancy stories, particularly in the collections by Colman-Smith, the moral ambivalence of the trickster tales in oral sources is discarded in favour of the moral exemplum in p~tversions, a change which was most likely occasioned by the authors presenting the tales pnmarily as entertainment for young audiences.

In other collections such as Mama's Black Nurse Stones published by Mary

Pamela Milne-Homes in 1890, the author/collector in the role of storywriter is more obvious. In the final story in this collection, for example, the telling of the traditional oral tale by a young Jamaican servant girl is framed by another story told by her mistress, who is also the internal audience of the oral tale. The fiame-story device allowed the collectodauthor to preserve a sense of authenticity by presenting the traditional tale as if her reading audience, like the girl's mistress, were also hearing it directly fiom the servant girl. In 1904, the first extensive collection of Jamaican folklore, including thirty-

six Anancy stories was undertaken by Walter Jeckyll, an Englishman resident in

Jamaica. Entitled Jamaican Sonn and Story, it was published by the Folk-Lore

Society. It was subsequently republished in 1907 and in 1967 under the title,

Jamaican Song and Storv: Annancv Stones. Di- Sinns. Ring Tunes. and Dancing

un es.'^ Still consulted today by folklore and literary scholars, Jeckyl17s collection

was to have a significant impact on creative writers and literary critics in the years following its publication-

The 1905 publication of E.A. Dodd's Maroon Medicine by Tom Redcam's

Al1 Jamaica Library (a subsidiary of the Jamaica Times) was, undoubtedly, one text influenced by kkyI1 and earlier collectors of Anancy stories. A white Jamaican,

Dodd's collection signalied the beginning of a continuing trend in which the trickster principle represented in Anancy is adapted by short story writers in their treatment of contemporary themes. Anancy the spider does not appear directiy in Dodd's stones, but Maroon Medicine exploits the amoral trickster impulse of the mythic spider folk hero Anancy for comic effect in depicting "the lighter and more pleasant side of the labouring class in the hillsn2' of Jamaica. Dodd's main character Mr. Watson is, like his counterpart fiom Afko folk-lore, a cunning yet endearing character who uses his

26 See Walter Jeckyll's, Jamaican Song and Story: Annancy Stories. Dinaing Sinas. hg Tunes and Dancina Tunes (London, 1907. Kraus Reprints, 1967).

E.A. Dodd, "Prefàce," Maroon Medicine (Kingston: Times Printery, 1905). 35 wits and wiles to improve his personal fortunes and outwit figures of authority. On the dace, Mr. Watson is the typicai country dweller, but his comection to Anancy

is signalled in his small stature and his lisp. Kenneth Ramchand's analysis of Maroon

Medicine bears repeating in full here for its insights, into and assessrnent of, Dodd's

achievement in adapting trickster texts :

The first three stories present the cunning exploits of MrWatson who lives by his wits, seiling to gullible villagers miraculous medicina1 concoctions purportedly made by the Maroons, conducting a good trade in illegal bush rum under the eyes of the police, of 'borrowing' a champion cock to win big money at the gayelle in a neighbounng village. Mr. Watson is the first literary adaptation of the figure of Anancy, and Dodd gives the same trickster quaIity to Mr. Timson, the educated villager in the last story, 'The Courting of the Dudes". In the "Courting of the Dudes," a story in which writing draws upon orality and oral traditions with a subtlety lacking in many later authors, the middle-class Dodd pfays oE one finguistic variety against another to great comic and satirical effect, as Mr. Timson reads aioud to Miss Annabel the love letters supposedly written by the two courting dudes, the spontaneous and natural swain Thomas Bonito and the bombastic, unreal school-teacher Mr. Green.. . It is true that [podd] does not tackle poverty, race or colour, with the directness of later practitioners. @Camchand is thinking here of Salkey's Anancy stories] But comedy and humour are also characteristics of the West Indian short story [and one might add, of Anancy st~ries].~~

The practice of retelling traditional Anancy stories was to continue in the work of

Louise Bennett, Sir Phillip Sherlock and James Berry, while Dodd's art and ski11 in

28 See Kenneth Ramchand's, "The West Indian Short Story," Journal of Caribbean Literatures 1. 1 (Spring 1997): 24-25. adapting the tnckster p~ciplethat is Anancy found later expression in the work of

Andrew Sakey and Olive Senior.

Imaact of the First World War and Migration: 19161929

The surge of interest in short fiction and the inter relations between the oral and scribal traditions which marked literary activity in the 1890s continued through the early years of the twentieth century even though local life was destabilised firstly by mass migration to Panama, Cuba, and Central Arnerica, and secondly by the migration of key literary figures such as Claude McKay, Walter Adolphe Roberts and

(for a tirne) H.G. DeLisser. The years imrnediately preceding the First World War were highly productive for Jamaicans. Traditional folk stories and local, orally derived stories continued to gain currency. The publication of Jamaica Song and

Story in 1907 by Walter Jeckyll, a well known literary patron in the island, and Sir

Algemon Aspinallys West Indian Tales of Old (1912) were an added boost, and provided a context for collections such as Walter Henry's maica tales for big and little foks (1916). In 1913, the short lived Plummer's Magazine and Pepperpot: a magazine depictina the d ers on al and lighter side of Jamaican Iife both came into being and provided local writers with new avenues for publishing, which were especially needed as Thomas McDemotYsAl1 Jamaica Library had closed shop in

1905. Also, Jamaicans living abroad were having success with pubiishing their stories in Arnerïcan and European magazines, and Thomas McDermot7s colurnn

"Books Here7' in the Jamaica Times regularly gave news of publications and writers.

Stones fiom Claude McKay's Ginaertown (1932):' for example, had already been published in American and European magazines several years before the collection was released. The collection is among the first of the West Indian diaspora stories in which a gritty waisernbiiznce and a preoccupation with the theme (causes and effects) of migration became hallmarks. These characteristics were later expanded in stories and collections by West Indians "in exile" during the 1950s - the period of the second major wave of migration away fiom the islands.

Shoa fiction production was severely curtailed in the years immediately preceding and during the First World War for some of the most obvious reasons, but the War experience was to have a significant impact on the kind of short fiction produced during those years and in the 1930s and 1940s. The War Years helped to stir up latent Empire loyalties especially among some of the more conservative and transient members of the island's population, and the resurgence of empire rhetoric

29 Claude McKay is an important figure in Jamaican and West hdian wnting before 1950. Recognised internationally for his association with the Harlem Renaissance, McKay has -en poetry, essays, a novei (Banana Bottom, 1933), as weli as short stories. A large part of the significance of Guiaertom- is the author's use of dialect (however stilted and self- conscious in sections) as the ianguage of narration. McKay had earlier experimented with didect in his collections of poems, San= of Jamaica (1912) and Constab Ballads (1912). For a detailed assessrnent of Claude McKay's work, see Wayne F. Cooper's nie Passion of Claude Mckav: Selected Poew and Prose. 1912-1948 (1973), and Claude McKav: Rebel Soioumer in the Harlem Renaissance (1 987). 38 and coloniaiist sentiment resulted in a shifi in attitude towards local oral Iore, customs and traditions. Writers became condescending and patronising, sometimes even openly hostile. Signifïcantly, travel writing - the genre which readily accommodates the representational authority and etbographic biases of the outsider looking in - was very popular during this period. The promotion of the island as a tourist destination during those years also influenced the retum of this kind of writing and visitors were encouraged to view and assess the ccnoveity"of the island's sites and customs. Local magazines such as Planters' Punch actively solicited and published articles on travel to the idand." In many ways, writing fiom this period resemble travel accounts and journals of the nineteenth century such as the private diaries of Lady Nugent and the

30 The AustraIian writer Mary Gaunt, renowned novelist and traveiler and author of Alone in Africa was profiled in the Dec. 1920 issue and her "Impressions of Jamaica" was published in Planters' Punch (Vol. 1, No. 2, 1921). Other articles of the period include '?mpressions of Jamaica" by R-B.Cunningham-Graham (Vol, 1, No. 3, 1922-1923) and "Marden's Motor Tour: Jamaica As Seen By An Arnerican Author" (Vol. 1, No. 5, 1924-1925) Writings of travel continueci to be published in the magazine into the 1930s with articles such as Shirley Birbyshire's 'Wow Jamaica Impressed Me: Effect on a visitor of a first look at Jarnaica" (Vol. 11, No. 6, 1931-1932) and "Former Kingston - A Visitor's Impressions of Jarnaica h 1865" (Vol. 111, NO. 2, 1933-1934). Jamaica's populanty as a tourist destination before and after World War 1 owed a lot to an improvement m trade between Jamaica and the United Sates and the success of the banana industry which rescued the island fiom the econornic depression brought on by a deche in the sugar industry after Ernancipation and Apprenticeship. nie United Fruit Company, an American company with signifiant holdings in the island's banana mdusîry, operated a flet of cruisers which shipped people and produce between the Caribbean islands and the American mainland. Their steamship seNice offered 1st class passager and fieight seMces to both New York and Boston, via most of the major Caribbean islands, and underwrute the expenses for some of the more popular Jamaican resorts such as the Myrtle Bank Hotel at which DeLisser, editor of Planters' Punch, had his permanent residence. 39 letters of Matthew Gregory cMonK' ~ewis.~'Magazine contributions ranged fiom occasional journalistic pieces, to excerpts fiom personal journals and diaries, to serious attempts at writing short fiction. As in nineteenth-century non-fiction accounts of visitors or temporary residents in the island, early twentieth-century short stories were presented mainly as autobiographical, first person accounts of sights and experiences in the island. The irnmediacy of the autobiographical mode worked to establish the "authenticity" of the stories' narrative perspective, documentary description and cornmentary.

Stones fiom Elespeth Fielding's Short Stories of Jamaica and "The War"

(1 9 15lS2 are representative of the penod's disparaging attitude towards local oral lore, customs and language and demonstrative of the appetite for travel wrïting. In the first story, "A Jamaican Wedding" (subtitled 'The Best Man"), Fielding's first person narrator is a young British tourist, Mr. Stanton, who gives his readers an account of a three-month stay in Jamaica, the highlight of which was his atîendance at a wedding among "the Jamaican of the orange-grove, the banana patch, and the coffee ridge"

(4). Characteristic of the travel genre, Stanton's account of the wedding day events is

" See Lady Maria Nugent, A Journal of a Voyage to and Residence in the Island of Jamaica (1839; Landon, 1907; Kingston, Jarnaica, 1966) and Maahew Gregory "Monk" Lewis' Jounial of a West India Prcrprietor 1815-1817, ed. Mona Wilson (1834; London: George Routledge and Sons Ltd., 1929).

32 Elespeth Fielding, Short Stories of Jamaica and "The War" (Kuigston: P.A. Benjamin, 1915). interspersed with efisive descriptions of the island's matural beauty, but he finds social and cultural life devoid ofthe more "civilised" pursaits of Britain. He notes:

Picturesque, even to a fault, Jarnaica, in her xural districts yet lags behind in her supply of social functions, in their wariegated order, as known, in the "old country." Beautiful scenery she cm give, for nothing and be none the poorer, but a varied assortment of Old World games, and sports have yet to corne her WaY. (3)

Consequently, his attitude towards the peasantry is patromising, and the gap between the language of narration and that of the black Jarnailcm characters indexes his cultural condescension.

"A Jamaican Weddingy'is a gwd example of the rmisrepresentation and denial of Afro New World cuiturd forms typical of travel narratives. Language use among the Afro-folk received eaensive commentary in eighteenth and nineteenth century travel diaries and jods, and various kinds of verbal peri5ormances were descnbed in detail- "A Jarnaican Wedding" focuses on one such verbal performance - formal speechmaking - that is central to the "tradition of eloquence" carried over hm

Af?ican cultural practices. In the story, the object of Stanton's ridicule is the best man who is rewgnised in his community as a "man-of-words'" possessing great oratorical skill. Stanton attends the Afio-folk wedding with the purpose of listening to the speeches, especially the best man's, as his fiiends had infîrrned him that he would be well entertained by the ccqueer'' oration of the Negroes. The wedding speeches elicit

"roars of laughtef' fiom the traveller and his fiends, and - Stanton concludes that the wedding had afforded him "no end of amusement" (1Z). Unable or unwilling to 41 accept that the rhetorical strategies of the best man were based on a set of rules and expectations different fiom that of the Europeans, Stanton presents the best man's speechmaking as ludicrous, a poor mimicry of Mr. Murray, a planter %ho gave a toast in his usual nice style" (19)

In The Man of Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emeraence of

Creole Culture, Roger D. Abrahams argues that oratorical ski11 within Mo-New

World communities "has not received the approving notice of observers, perhaps because it flies in the face of the white image of blacks as linguistically and culturally defi~ient.'~'Furthemore, the European insistence on acculturation invariably led to misjudgernents that blacks were "trying to copy their masters' verbal practices but misunderstwd and therefore imperfectly reproduced them.y'34"A Jamaican Wedding" shows that Fielding was writing under the conviction that Afio-Jamaicans were devoid of culture and deficient in language, but his insistence (characteristic of the genre) on verbai misperformance is, ironically, evidence of the continuation of those same Afiican Ianguage traditions which he and others so vehemently denied.

In ccJacob's Wake" (subtitled "Afncan Superstition7'), the narrator launches a direct attack against Jamaican Mo-folk burial ceremonies known as "ninth-nights"

In the history of the world we read of the dark ages, when the world was wrapped in superstition and doubt and the thought comes

33 Roger D. Abrahams, The Man of Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emeraence of Creole Culture (Bahmore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983) 22.

Y Roger D . Abrahams, p. 3 1. 42 uppemost, how these things exist. In those days there lived wise men and they made wise laws, yet strange customs prevailed, then as now, dl over this fàir earth ... Of course we must make allowances for things past, but now in an enlightened age, when the people have the great and inestimable blessings of religion and education.. .one naturally expect s that superstition, obeahism and it s attendant ills, combined with superstitious fears regarding ghosts and duppies, howling noises, called 'kakes" and ninth nights, wiIl be speedily put down.. . Religion had preached, laws had been made to put down this lowering and degrading custom, but old grained superstitions are hard to kill; and deeper than religion with which they mix it, the superstition of 'kakes" have sunk into the karts of the uneducated, sucked in with their mother's milk. (48) ccJacob's Wake" tells the story of Fred Morgan, an Englishman resident in Jamaica whose sister had died because the "noise" of an Afro-folk wake had disturbed her night's rest during a bout of illness. Finding that the health of his recently delivered wife was to be similarly tested, Morgan enlisted the help of his fnend, Richard

Patterson, in an attempt to stop the wake. Morgan and Patterson concocted a scheme whereby they fooled the participants of the wake into believing that the dead man's spirit was displeased with the ceremony and came back in person to warn them off.

The humour of the story is dways at the expense of the Jamaican characters and the story ends (predictably) with the success of Morgan and Patterson and what they hoped would be a permanent end to ail Afncan-derived burial rites. The story is undeniably offensive to modern readers who do not share the protagonists' colonial sentiments, but what is interesting for the conternporary reader is evidence which suggests that Fielding had inadvertently fallen back on the same Mo-folk foms he set out to denigrate in his search for narrative effect. The plot and humour of "Jacob's WakeT7revolve on the trick rnechanisrn reminiscent of Anancy stories, and the wiliness ofRichard Patterson is a tribute to the cunning of the spider trickster himself-

Whatever his intent to the contrary, Fielding's story is inspired and influenced by the oral storytelling tradition of the country in which he lived, and "Jacob's Wake" is a fine example of the kind of creative tension that can exist - even when there are deliberate attempts to set up am opposition - between the Mo-oral context and

European traditions of writing.

"A Trip To Jamaica" (subtitled ''The Story of Crop Over Day") fiom the sarne collection gives another example of the shaping infiuence of the oral context on an author whose sentiments are unequivocally anti-oral, anti-folk. Another of Fielding's travel narratives, 'A Trip To Jamaica" provides a description on a then defunct local amual festival - "trop ove? - which originated during slavery for the benefit of a foreign audience. In keeping with the genre of travel, Fielding is concerned with establishing the authenticity of the account of crop over given in his stoty. As his narrator - Cameron - is a visitor in 1909 who had never witnessed crop over himself,

Fielding reverts to the fiame story device or the "story within a story." His first person narrator hears, like the reader, the first hand account of a man who witnessed crop over. Cameron's story (the outer or fiame story) follows the conventions of travel joumds - the descriptions of landscape, explmations of local peculiarities, etc.

Half way tbrough his joumey a-round the isld, Cameron meets Rushworth, an old

Xrishman who had settled in Jamaica before Emancipation and was a witness to many crop over days. To entextain Cameron and his wife, Rushworth agrees to tell the story 44 of his involvement in one crop over celebration over a drink of mm punch. At this

point, Rushworth's account (the interna1 story) becomes the central narrative

perspective and voice, and Cameron recedes into the background as part of the

audience.

Fielding was able to achieve the travelogue7s authenticity in "A Trip to

Jamaica" by blurring the lines between fact and fiction, the ephemeral word and tangible print, story and reliable record. "A Trip to Jamaica7' is a work of fiction arnong several in a collection of short stories, but it is offered to the reader as a written record of time spent in Jamaica by Carneron and his wife. Similarly,

Rushwonh's account of crop over heard by Carneron and his wife is turned into an authentic "document" by Cameron who declared that it so rare and pnceless a taie it deserved to be ccimmortalised"in print for the edification and entertainment of others.

But the narrative structure of "A Trip to Jamaicay'is in tension with the story 's emphasis on the written word and documentation. Rushworth's account of crop over

(which is the focal point) has al1 the major elements of an oral performance. It is highly performative - Rushwonh punctuates the more vigorous parts of his narrative with body movements, points out a particularly ironic or amusing part of his story by winking at the ladies, switches between voices and linguistic codes to indicate his various characters, and verbally interacts with his audience secluded in the upaairs library at several points. The fiame story itself is a favoured device among authors who wish to simulate an oral storytelling event on the page. Furthexmore, the authenticity of the written document describing crop over festivities provided by 45 Cameron has to depend on Rushworth's oral witness. The truth claims made by the written word and the authority invested in print cm also, the story's deconstructive impulse suggests, be allowed for the spoken work. That the energy and centre of "A

Trip To Jamaicay7 is undoubtedly Rushworth's oral pedormance is compelling evidence that Fielding's story writing was (consciously or not) dialoguing with the oral tradition of storytelling among the people whose culture and Ianguage he so readily dismissed-

Caribbean Literarv Journals and Short Stories of the 1930s and 1940s

The 1930s and 1940s have been described as a "critical penod of change in

West Indian societies" for political, social, and economic reasons, and this is reflected in short stories written by Jamaicans during this penod. A number of factors contributed to a shift in political perspective and social awareness marked in the swift rise and overarching influence of labour movements and trade unions. "The origins of the literary movement in the 1930s and 1940~~"writes Reinhard Sander, "are essentially the same as tiiose of the labour movement and the nationalist political parties."35 These small, locally produced magazines openly embraced Independence and Federation sentiments. The close connection between the poiitics and literary aesthetics promoted by these magazines has helped to secure their status as harbingers

35 Reinhard Sander, ed., 4cTntrodudcm,"From Trinidad: An Anthologv of Eariy West Indian Writing (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978) 7. of a modern West Indian literature. Of the "Big Four," Trinidad produced

Beacon (193 1-1933 and 1939), Barbados BIM (since 1942), Guyana Kvk-Over-Al

(since 1945) and Jamaica Focuç (1943, 1948, 1956, 1960 and 1983).)~The magazines

were open about their agenda and explicit about the links between the political and

the literary. Accordingly, they developed a cultural and political emphasis in tandem

with their publication of short stories, and in instances published symposia on the

development of a West Indian perspective and the relation between art and life. Like

other editors of the period, Edna Manley of Focus was clear about the politicised

nature of the creative writing published in the magazine. In the Preface to the fmt

issue in 1943 she wrote:

Great and irrevocable changes have swept this land of ours in the last few years and out of these changes a new art is springing. Historically art gives a picture of contemporary life, philosophically it contains within it the germ of the future. This collection of short stories, essays, plays and poems fills both these roles; in them is the picture of our life today, the way we think, the acts we do, but underlying the picture of the present is the trend of the fiiture, when new values will predominate and a new approach to things will be b~rn.~'

The dominant political and literary philosophy which emerged around these

magazines was social realism. In his description of the "barrack yard" stones

36 For details on the roIe played by smali magazines in the region see: Emilio Iorge Rodrigues, "An Overview of Caribbean Literary Magazine: Its Liberating Function," BIM 17. 6-7 (June 1983): 121-128; Mervyn Morris, "Little Magazines in the Caribbean," BIM 17, 68 (1984): 3-9; L. Edward Brathwaite, "Kyk-over-al and the Radicals," spec. Guyana Independence issue of New World Quarterlv (May 1966): 55-57; and Stewart Brown, "Liale Magazines: Big Achievernents - A Sampling," BIM 17.68 (June 1984): 1615.

37 Edna Manley, Preface, Focus, (Kingston: lnstitute of Jamaica Publications, 1943). published in The Beacoq, Sander draws attention to some of the characteristics of the fiction produced. What The Beacon group advocated was writing which:

Utilized West Indian setting, speech, characters, situations and confiicts. It warned against the imitation of foreign language, especially the imitation of foreign popular literature. Local colour, however, was not regarded as a Wtue by itself A mere preoccupation with the enchanted landscape did not fiilfil the group's emphasis on realism and verisimilitude in writing. Realisrn combined with and supported by the Trinidadians' social and political ideology resulted in fiction that focussed on West Indian characters belonging to the lower

As evidenced in representative short stones, the practice of realism was not tantamount to a naive ernpiricisrn. Although most of these stories strove to recreate the texture and appearance of things as experienced in the familiar worId, their political and literary vision went beyond attempts to "rnirror" events in the narrow sense of the word. In these stories, the practice of realism was historically grounded with an aim to, in a Lukacian sense, laying bare the inner structure and dynamic typical of a society at a historically significant point of change. Conventions and strategies of representation in short fiction of this penod were, therefore, tailored to locating the dynamic of society in the struggle between economic, social and racial groups.

Alt hough not caricatures, characters were invested with specific social roles, with many of these stones foregrounding the experiences of the peasant class in an attempt to expose social injustices and inequality. Stones were concemed with

38 Reinhard Sander, p. 7. creating physical envkonments which complemented details of character and action.

However 'hue to life7' these details are, setîing has a primarily metaphoric function, extending theme and serving to heighten the codict at hand. In c~lackout'Jgfor example, a wartirne policy of conse~ngelectncity is the logical explanation for a story set in the darkened streets of Kingston. But, as the story unfolds, '%lackout" becomes a rnetaphor for the inability to see - the act of reducing individuals so that they become mere shadows of thernselves glimpsed through the darkness of prejudice. The story details a brief and unpleasant encounter between a young

Jamaican black man and a white American wornan who was blind to al1 other particulars and noticed only 'the fact that he was black." The story's theme is the artificial barriers between white and black, male and fernale, rich and poor. In the darkened Street, the young man was able to emerge fiom the shadows of the woman's prejudice to challenge "ber supreme confidence in some important sense.'* But, in the unexpected and disturbing ending, the aory suggests that even though the barriers are artificiai, their effects on people's lives are none the less real.

Jamaican collections with varying degrees of cornmitment to the social realist mode of writing include Claude Thompson's These Mv Peo~le(1943)' Cecily Waite-

Smith's '%in For The Plains" and Other Stories (1943), R.L.C. Aarons's "The Cow

That Laughed" and Other Stones (1944)' Archie Lindo's Bronze (1944) and Roger

39 Roger Mais, And Most Of Al1 Man (Kingston: City Priotery, 1942) 23-26. Mais's "Face'' and ûther Stones (1942) and And Most of Ail Man (1942). Of these

writers, Roger Mais stands out as the most self-conscious about his art. In his

Author's Foreword to And Most of Al1 Man, Mais identified his specific style of

social reaiism:

The incidents recounted in this book begin and end ...al1 around ...telling the story of man...Man the eternal protagonist amid the eternal theme. In the absence of any carefully formulated plot and counterplot, 1 commend to your attention the picture of eternal struggle, the indefatigable unceasing process al1 dong the way, and submit my contention that what is understood as plot is not necessarily a highiy complicated matter involving a number of improbable incidents, of predicaments and escapes, but rather one of the pure essence of conflict. ..41

Modernist infiuences are evident in his minimal dependence on traditional notions of plot in favour of in-depth penetration into the psychological dimensions of minute episodes. The turbulence - and promise - of the 1930s and 1940s was the immediate stimulus for Mais's political vision and literary aesthetic, but there is also evidence that he and his contemporaries found a parallel for the form they were developing in

Marxist literature on the European ~ontinent.~'

41 Roger Mais, Author's Foreword, And Most of Al1 Man (Kingston: City Printery, 1 942).

" Between 1940 and 1945, Roger Mais wntributed 26 nories to The Public Opinion, only one of which, "Listen, The Wind," had been published elsewhere. Inaugurated in 1937, The Public Opinion was a weekly Jamaican newspaper which saw itself as a periodical which filled the need "hr some organ existing solely for the presentment of topics with a direct bearing on the weifàre of ~&ca" and gave-an oppo&ify to "those who have at hem projeds of a social, economic and political reform," a knun in which to "'pool their ideas.. [and] understand their own strength." ('Editorial," Public &inion 20 Feb. 1937: 1) The paper often reprint& Eufopean articles with Ma&-leftist leanings and reviewed political and social te& of like sympathies. A direct connection between politics and literature was again strongly

articulated in the 1970s, although with different effects on literary form in the short

story. In the interim, the strong nationalkt and pro-labour sentiments aroused in the

1930s and 1940s helped prepare the way for talks of a West Indian literature as the

natural outgrowth of an emerging political entity. The BBC radio journal, Caribbean

voices," was at the centre of these talks.

Caribbean Voices: 1945-1958

The '%irth" of West lndian fiction as a category of Commonwealth and

international literature in London during the 1950s was a direct result of the

symbiotic relationship between small, local West Indian magazines of the 1930s and

1940s and Caribbean Voices, both of which were actively involved in promoting and

publishing short fiction. Especially in its early years, Caribbean Voices drew heavily

on short stories previously published in West Indian joumals." Without the small

43 Caribbean Voices was hunded by Jamaican poet and journalist, Una Marson. The programme began in 1940 as a service to aliow West Indian soldiers based in London to maintain contact with fnends and Eamily at home. By 1945, the programme had changed its name fiom Callina the Caribbean to Caribbean Voices and had become exclusively literary in focus.

44 in a note accompanying programme scripts fiom Caribbean Voices, Henry Swanzy (programme producer ffom 19461954) recalled that after (edited versions of) stories were aired on the programme, writers usually sent their complete scripts to the "littie reviews, especially to BIM, under tfie editorship of Frank Collymore in Barbados." In tum, smaIl magazines from the West Indies were actively promoted on Caribbean Voices. A programme of greeting for Frank Coliymore's birthday and a celebration of his work as editor of BIM were aired on January 3, 1953. Nos. 24 and 25 of the same magazines were also reviewed magazines and Caribbean Voices, many West Indian writers would have had to

continue to brave the cost and difficulty of printing and marketing their collections- In

Jamaica, for example, the author as publisher was a familiar scenario between 1905

when the Ail Jamaica Library publishing venture closed and 1950 when the Gleaner

Company underwrote the expenses for the Pioneer Caribbean Voices was not

only a welcome opporturxity for short story wrïters to "publish their work but, as

Rhonda Cobham has noted, the programme was their most significant source of

remuneration? The length of weekly broadcasts - between 11 : 15 p.m. and 1 1:45

p.m. on Sunday nights - was best suited .for shorter prose forms, and programme producers made a policy of employing sorne of the more regular short story contributors as on-air readers and critics.

By 1948, through the agency of Caribbean Voices, short stories fiom the West

Indies had so attracted the attention of a wide cross section of readers that Life and extensively on the programme. A cross check of stories broadcast and stories published in srnail magazines fiom Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Guyana reveals the closeness of the relationship between the two publishing endeavours.

45 In a preliminary checklist of literary works published in Jamaica between 1900 and 1976, Alvona Alleyne shows that nearly al1 ofthe short story collections published during the 1930s and 1940s came out of private printing houses owned by local newspapers or businesses. Wnters usudy soliciteci adverhsing to cover the cost of printing and were responsible for marketing the finished product. See AIvona Alleyne's unpublished paper, "Literary Publishing in the English-Speaking Caribbean" presented at the 21st Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin Amencan Library Materials in Indiana, 1976. These self-published collections and the smail magazines which made up the "Big Four" were the source of much of the fiction aired on Caribbean Voices in its early years.

46 See RhonQ Cobham, 'The Caribbean Voices Programme and the DeveIopment of West Indian Short Fiction: 1945-1958," The Storv Must Be Told: Short Narrative Prose in the New Enalish Literatures, ed. Peter O. Snunmer (Konigshausen & Neumann, 1986) 146. Letters published two anthologies devoted to fiction fiom the region. The first drew on writings fiom across the West Indies and the second focused on Jamaican fi~tion.~'

Peter Abrahams in the Introduction to The Inde~endenceAntholoav of Jamaican

Literature recalls that at the time "prose fiction had corne into its own and when

Robert Herring devoted an entire issue of Life and Letters to Jarnaican writing in

1949 [sic], he could not find space for al1 the publishable short stones he received fkom ~amaica.'*~

In his editorial note to the Life and Letters issues, Robert Herring praised short stories selected for their 'tritality," a term which was intended to suggest a special quality and uniqueness which made West Indian prose fiction distinct fiom other traditions in prose writing. Caribbean Voices was also actively promoting the idea of an indigenous fiction with distinctive characteristics. Under the direction of

Henry Swanzy, the programme identified a number of aims which included encouraging writers to have "more confidence in the use of local raw materials - a greater use of words, style and incidents of a 'truly West Indian nature"' and to develop in the literature "a sense of hiao~and a sense of Caribbean ur~it~.'*~By

1950, the production team on Caribbean Voices was organising critical symposia and

" See Life and Letters 57. 128 (March 1948), and 59. 135 (Apnl 1948) respectively. a A.L. Hendriks and Cedric Lindo, edç., Indaendence Antholom of Jamaican Literature, Intro. Peter Aorahams (Kingston: Arts Celebration Committee of the Ministry of Development and Weifàre, 1962) iii.

" Arthur Caldwell Marrhd, 'mat 1 Hope to See From The West Indies," Caribbean Voices. i Feb. 1948. inviting West Indian wnters and critics resident in London to discuss West Indian aesthetics and the ftture of West Indian writing. The decision to wnvene these syrnposia was a significant shifi in critical practice and orientation for programme producers. Earlier, in segments called "Critics' Circle," short story criticism had focused on generalities - economy of diction, plausibility of plot, the best use of action, description or suspense - and short stories by European writers were occasionally read as models for aspiring West Indian writers.

These symposia discussions helped to reorient concerns of Iength and narrative effect to politicalIy charged issues such as the use of local forms and styles of storytelling, and questions of authenticity. Central to these discussions was the encouragement and re-emergence of oral emphases. Jamaican authors of both fiction and non-fiction made a significant contribution to the development of oral-based writing during the Caribbean Voices years. Non-fiction segments such as Clinton V.

Black's 'Folklore of ~amaica"~~encouraged raconteurs to collect and record stories fkom the oral tradition. Louise Bennett of Iamaica became a regular contributor on

Caribbean Voices, both as a storyteller and participant in the programme's critical symposia. Her retelling of Anancy stories was popular with both critics and radio audiences. Bennett's association with Caribbean Voices built on her earlier achievement in Jamaica and introduced her work to a larger audience. Braving the displeasure of members of the establishment and the Jamaican middle-class in the late

" Chton V.Black, "Foiklore of Jamaica," Caribbean Voices, 19 Aug. 1948.

54 1930s and early 1940~~Bennett had given a number of local performances of Anancy stones and her own verse in the language of the foik. Amidst the controversy over the use of "dialect" or cccreole"as a medium for fiction and arguments against the literary value of Anancy and other oral stories, The Gleaner began pubhhing her work in the early 1940s. Over the years, Bennett has consistently championed the value of dialect as a literary medium and has humorously cnticised colonial attitudes to Jamaican

Engiish. Bennett's comments on the status of the dialect/Jamaican English, such as in the excerpt below quoted fkom her radio series titled Miss Lou's Views which ran on both major radio stations in Jamaica fiom 19661982, are typical of her work:

My Aunty Roachy seh dat it bwile her temper and really bex her fi true anytime she hear anybody a style we Jamaican dialec as c'corruption of the English language." For if dat be de case, den dem shoulda cal1 English language corruption of Norman French an Latin and al1 dem tarra language what dem seh dat English is derived fiom. Oonw hear de wud? 'Derived." English is a derivation but Jamaica Dialec is corruption! What a unfairity! hnty Roachy seh dat if Jamaican Dialec is corruption of de English Language, den it is also a corruption of de Mrican Twi Language to, a oh!

Bennett's work on educating the public on the vaIue and status of Jamaican dialect cannot be over-emphasised especially when one remembers that as laie as 2956

Jamaica's second poet laureate, J.E. Clare McFarlane, was of the opinion that the

"'dialect.. .is a 'broken tongue' with which it is impossible to build an edifice of verse

51 The above excerpt and forty-nine other scripts fiorn Miss Lou's Views are available to the reader in Louise Bennett's, AmRoachv Seh (Kingston: Sangster's Book Stores, 1993). For another example, see Bennett's poem "Bans a Killing" in her Selected Poems (Kingston: Sangster's Book Stores, 1982) 4-5. possessing the perfect symrnetry of finished artYms2and in 1993 Mervyn Moms wrote that '?hou& there is now greater acceptance of Creole [dialect] than obtained two decades ago, there is still, within the Caribbean region, many pockets of hostility to

Creole, and especially to the use of Creole in school~."~~

Bennett has also worked to bridge the so-called "gap" between the oral and the literary as is evident in the opening story to her 1942 collection, Anancv Stones and Poems in ~ialect.~~A fine example of what is described as rnetafolkl~re,~~

52 J.E.Clare McFarlane, A Literature In The Malang (Kingston: The Pioneer Press, 1956) 84.

'' '7s English We Speaking" by Mervyn Moms was first published in 1993 by The British Libray Centre for the Book and subsequently republished in '7s English We Spaking" and Other Essavs (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers) 1-16.

" Louise Bennett, Anancy Stories and Poems in Diaiect (Kingston: Glaner Company Ltd., 1942). "'Anancy An' Him Story" also apens the 1979 coilection, Anancv and Miss Lou, published by Sangster's Book Stores in Kingston. There are several changes to the 1942 story in the 1979 version.

5s The tenn was first used by Alan Dundes in his article "Metafolklore and Oral Literary Craicism," ïhe Monist 50 (1966)): 505-516 and elaborated on in Richard Baurnan's Story, performance and event: Contextual -dies in oral narrative (Cambridge University Press, 1986) especially pages 98-101, and in Barbara Babcock's '"nie Story in the Story: Metanarration in Folk Narrative," Verbal Art As Performance, ed. Richard Bauman (Illinois: Waveland Press, 1977): 61-79. Briefly, "mecafolkiore" is a term that is closely related to "metanarrative". It refers to any type of storyteihg event which fiifiis at least two critena. First, the story references itseif- whether in terms of "its message, genenc forrn and fùnction and discourse" (Bauman, p. 99), that is, the story itseif is the subject of the story. Second, the story comments on the stomellmg event by drawing aaention to the performer or der aspects of the performance. "Anancy An' fiim Story" me- bdth criteria. In addition, Barbara Babcock argues that the kind of nanative selfkonsciousness characteristic of metafolklore is evidence that umat is deemed a "singularly modem and literate phenornenon" has long been a cornmon aspect of oral storytelling among the so-caiied folk. Babcock's work is an attempt to acknowledge the aesthetic complexity of oral narratives and to disprove the claims of those assessments which, in the words of Ruth Finnegan, '"implicitly insinuate that, to put it crudely, 'primitive peoples' have no idea of aesthetics. Or at best that they simply tell nones without any conscious articulation of the aestherics thereof' Ruth Fiunegan, Oral Literature in Afnca (CMbrd University Press, 1976) 33 1. "Anancy An' Him Story," is an Anancy story about how Anancy stories came into being. It deliberately blurs the line between Anancy stories as oral tales and Anancy stories as denfictions. In her account of the means through which Anancy finally got himself into the story-books, Bennett constructs an Anancy story which filfils the major requirements of the genre - the story revolves on the trick mechanism and ends with an aetiological explanation. To accomplish this, Bennett returns to a well-known

Anancy mory - how Anancy tricked Puss and Rat into becoming enemies - as the basis for her original composition. In Bennett's version, Anancy is envious that Puss and Rat found their way into print and so he hatches a plan to break up the fkïendship between thern. Puss and Rat fa11 prey to Anancy's schemes and fiom henceforth (so goes the explanation), cats and rats have been the worst of enemies. Gratefûl that

Anancy broke up the alliance between Puss and Rat who regularly raided households, an old woman promised Anancy that she would make him famous by telling her grand-children stories about him every night. Up to this point Anancy has managed to get his own stories but books are still closed to him. However, in time Anancy stories get passed dong word of mouth - "So dem tell dem pickney Anancy story, de pickney dem tell smaddy else, dat smaddy else tell and tell" - until the story writer,

Bennett, finds herself engaged in telling Anancy stories - "[Slo till me an al1 dah tell

Anancy story" (1). The shift fiom telling Anancy stones to children at night to hing Anancy stories for publication is imperceptibly made, and oral and scribal versions are offered as being dependent one upon the other. Moreover, the version that the reader gets in print is offered as an unedited transcript of the oral performance 57 told in the dialect cornmon to oral performances. Bemett is acknowledgetd as the

author in print, and in the context of the story she also references herself as orne of the

many oral storyteliers caught up in telling Anancy stones. Not only has Anancy found

his way into print, but he has done so on his own terms. Philip Sherlock amd James

Berry have also published Anancy stones but neither one of these authors has

managed to achieve the dramatic intensity of Bennett. One reason is that in an-attempt

to reach a wider international audience, Sherlock and Berry have discarded tthe pure

dialect used by Bennett in favour of Standard English on the one handl, and a

modified dialect on the other. In so doing they have lost the ring of authenticity.

Bennett's influence is very evident in the work of Andrew Salkey, perwaps the

only other Jamaican author who is readily associated with Anancy stories in tihe mind of the reading public. Andrew Salkey's story-telling talents were also honeed under

Caribbean Voices' oral emphases. Salkey developed his signature sttyle by reformulating traditional Anancy stones to create beast fables with a sharp satincal edge. Sallcey's significant contribution to the tradition of short story writing fiom

Jamaica and to an oral aesthetic is most evident in his use of the mythic imagination in folklore as a tool for interrogating contemporary Caribbean social and poli tic al realities and in his (re)visioning of the region's past and fùture through the rnythic sign. Combining the satincal purpose of Anancy stories in OId World Afnca and the resistance motive of Anancy and other tales in New World Plantation sacieties,

Salkey has not oniy produced a distinctive body of stories but has dso restmred the social relevance of Afro-Jamaican mythology. Some of his early stones such as 'The 58 Rains Wi11 Corney7and "'Anancy and Ghost ~restler"'~prefigure the kind of story

writing which he made famous in his 1973 collection Anancv's Score, and later in

The One (1985) and Anancv. Traveller (1992).

A number of other Jamaican short story writers of the period who did not

manage to produce short story collections also contributed oral based stories of ment.

Tnez Knibb Sibley's "The Terror Bull and the Taunt Song," for example, was warmly

received when it was aired in 1951. In the words of programme producers, it "retailed

folklore as alive as beefmS7''The Terror Bull and the Taunt Song" replayed themes * and plot structures fkequently found in literature derived from oral sources. In a story about the revenge motive, the appearance of a good spirit gives the young hero information vital to the success of his mission, and the hero's acquisition of a charm helps him overcome his adversary. As the title suggests, the story is bas& on popular

Jamaican ghost taies about the dreaded apparition of the "rolling calf' which haunts crossroads on moonlit nights and preys on unsuspecting travellers. Set during the plantation period of Jamaica's hiaos> the plot tums on the young hero's desire to avenge the death of his lover at the hands of the Terror Bull. As he works on fiis battle plan, the spirit of his grandfather appears and gives him the secret weapon - a

Song that would make the Terror Bull destroy itself. The story's ending is an example

56 Caribbean Voices, 5 Nov. 1953; June, 1958.

" Caribbean Voices (2 1.10.51). Also published in Focus (1956). 59 of one of the ways in which oral performance techniques are successfùily translated into print. In the codkontation with the bull, the hero climbs up a tree and sings the charm Song seven times. Each times the bu11 charges into the tree and loses one of its seven ho- Tension and expectation mount each time the Song is Sung, thereby moving the story towards its climax (the bulh death and the hero's tiumph) through the ritual of song and repetition.

The enthusiastic response to stories by Bennett, Salkey and others did not mean that al1 writers and critics at the tirne were deeply invested in the oral, or agreed on the terms of its use and assessment. The idea that aspects of West Indian culture should play an intepal part in shaping literary aesthetics engaged almost everyone, but the temby which that culture was defined was often the cause of heated debate.

While writer/critics such as Denis Williams and Jan Carew concluded that a West

Indian culture from which writers might draw inspiration was rooted in the lore of the folk, others such as Mittelholzer wanted to make it clear that West hdian ancestral and cultural roots were wider than the folk base (understood chiefly as Afncan and

Amerindian) which was, he argued, perhaps not even the most dominant influence.58

The concern was not only with the kinds of fiction that writers should be encouraged to create, but also with how to establish critical standards. On the one hand, some

West Indian critics agreed with English programme producer Henry Swanzy that the

58 Symposium on "The West indian Arhst in the Contemporary World," Caribbean Voices, 21 Oct, 1951. establishment of critical standards could oniy emerge out of the tradition of writing

that was in the process of naming its own terms, and that part of the critic's role was:

[TJo keep a clear current of fiesh ideas moving among [us], writers and readers alike, to note the landmarks, to debunk the useless so that there will be a sernblance of a tradition, a body of accepted practice defined in order that the great poet for whom we wait may have something to use, a set of symbols which, in the way of genius, he may accept or reject .5g

On the other hanci, some critics were wary of assessments which did not conform to

the familia. strictures of English literary criticism and which did not consider English

literary influence.

"Ars Longa: Vita BrevislLife is Short: Art ~emains,'~a short story by the

Jamaican writer John Figueroa is a bitingly fumy fictional rendition of this highly

charged critical climate. The story challenges both the position that unilaterally

declared that the ody 'hue West Indian" writing was the kind that celebrated

'cgrassroots" culture however hackneyed, and that which insisted on continuing old

English writing traditions even at the nsk of producing ridiculously stilted and

irrelevant work. Set at a dance in Jarnaica, the story parodies the excesses of a motley

crew of Jamaican poetasters and their European fnends. Its sly tone mocks a naive

sentimentality which could conceive of cccuIture"oniy in terms of either the trappings

of English respectability or the 'titality" of the folk. SMfülly avoiding a didacticism

" Henry Swanzy's preliminary comments to the symposia discussion cm ''The West iudian Artist in the Contemporary World," Caribbean Voices, 21 Oct. 195 1.

60 "Ars hga:Vita Brevis" was first aired on Caribbe. Voices on 15 Idy, 1956 and later anthologised in West hdian Stories (1960). 61 into which he could have easily slipped, Figueroa's story argues that gwd writing defies neat and narrow classifications, and that the only critical standard which matters is a work's ability to cross generic, cultural and temporal boundaries and still retain its power for al1 readers.

Post Caribbean Voices Deveio~ments

The success of Caribbean Voices had several long-term eEects. Ln Jamaica, it resulted in a boosî to local commercial publishing. Una ~arson,~'the Jamaican poet who helped launch Caribbean Voices, cirafted and executed plans for a publishing firm. Contracts were made with the authors, and the publishers undertook the task of printing, editing, marketing and paying royalties to writers. Of the £ïrst four titles released on September 2, 1950, three were short story collections: Louise Bennett's

Anancy Stones and Other Dialect Verse, Laurice Bird's 'Maxie Mon~oose"and

Other Stories and the anthology, 14 Jarnaican Short Stories. In 1953, Pioneer Press released the first anthology of regional short fiction published by a local commercial firm under the title Caribbean Short ~tories.~'By 1958 when Caribbean Voices aired

61 Una Marson is recognised as the first considerable female poet fiom the West Indies. This Jamaican worked as a publisher, joumaiist, and playwright bath a? home and abroad. She contributeci to the development of short fiction by initiating the radio programme wbich led to Caribbean Voices, and was also instrumentai in setting up the Pioneer Press in Jamaica wfiich published some of the earliest short story tities.

62 A useful source for detennining the tales and the order of publishing in the Jamaica up to 1976 is Alvona Alleyne's "Literaq Publishing in the English Speaking Caribbean," an its last broadcast, the stage was set for the emergence of West Indian literature, in the form of the novel, in the international literary marketplace. But the rich tradition in the short story did not die. While many of the more successful short story writers went on to become novelists because novel writing was more remunerative than any other genre, the evidence suggests that the short story tradition "remained active, muscling the n~vel."~'Locally produced small magazines continued to publish new stones, but it was the literary anthologies of the 1960s and 1970s (published by

British and American presses) which kept short fiction in the public eye. Hence, the decade of the 1960s opened with the influentid West Indian Stories (1960) edited by

Andrew Sakey. Saikey and his publishers responded to the enthusiasbc reception of

West Indian Stories with another anthology, Stories From The Caribbean (1965), which was reissued in 1970 as Island Voices: Stories From The Caribbean. G.R.

Coulthard's Caribbean Eiterature: An Antholonv of West Indian Writing (1966), 0.R

Dathorne's Caribbean Narrative: An Antholom (2966),West Indian Narrative: An

unpublished paper presented at the 21st Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library materials at the University of Indiana in 1976. Although the titie implies that the paper looks at the English speaknig Caribbean as a whole, Ms. Aileyne admits in her opening sbtement that 'Wie title of this paper amid be more appropriately be expanded to read "Literary Pubiishing in the English-Speaking Caribbean with Specific Reference to Jamaica."" As such, the paper gives a comprehensive listing of literary works published in Jarnaica from 1900-1976 and includes usefil information cm publishers and pubIishers' list from publishing houses such as The Pioneer Press. Ms. Alleyne's paper is available in photocopy in the Special Collections in the libraw of the University of the West indies, Mona.

63 Kenneth Ramchand, "The West Indian Short Story," Journal Of Caribbean Literatures 1.1 (Spring, 1997): 22. Introducto~Antholooy (1969) edited by Kenneth Ramchand, Barbara Howes' s From

the Green Antilles: Wntinas of the Caribbean (1967) and Salkey7sCaribbean Prose:

An Antholoav for Secondarv Schools (1967) rounded out the decade's anthologies.

Small magazines such as BIM continued to publish short gories fiom the region. In

Jamaica, the fourth issue of the local magazine Focus appeared in 1960, and in 1962

in celebration of Jamaica's political independence, the Celebration Committee

undennote the publication of The Independence Antholom of Jamaican Fiction

which reprinted several of the more popular stones previously aired on Caribbean

Voices andfor published in small magazines.

The market for anthologies remained energised throughout the 1970s. Titles fkom this period include Commonwealth Short Stories (1971), New Writine in the

Caribbean (CarifestaY72),Caribbean lüythms: The Emergina Enalish Literatures of the West Indies (1974), and Caribbean Stories: 15 Short Stories Ecom Writers of the

Caribbean (1978). Andrew Salkey 's Stories From The Caribbean was reissued, again, in 1972 under the same title. By repeatedly showcasing certain authors and repnnting selected stones, these anthologies helped to create a West Indian shon story canon.

The Caribbean Artists Movement: Chartinn New Directions in Oralitv

The decade of the 1970s saw new directions in the theory and practice of orality which impacted significantly on short story writers who emerged during the period. An important catalyst was The Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM). Founded 64 in London in 1966 by Edward (Kamau) Brathwaite, John LaRose and Andrew

~alke~,~~the movement becarne one of the most important catalysts to literary

experimentation. Drawing on the talent and intellectual expertise of writers and critics

in Britain and the Caribbean, CAM'S dominant concem was to ccrevolutionisethe

arts" by integrating old and new Caribbean cultural foms into fiction. In her

assessrnent of CAM's early years Anne Walmsley, one of the movement's most loyal members, States that the dual emphasis on culture and literature was a direct reflection of the need for "creative change" and ccculturalde-colonization7' in the wake of "post-

Independence, post-Federation disillusionment and depression of the late 1960s.'~~

The transcnpts of meetings and newsletters produced by CAM attest to the movement's wide-reaching influence and detail the sometimes contentious discussions concerning the nature of the connection between culture and literature?

But it is the pages of CAM's journal, Savacoy that evidence of a new oral poetics is most readily found. Savawu was launched in Jamaica in 1970 and was immediately

" For details on the Caribbean Artists Movement see Anne Walmsley's The Caribbean Artists Movement. 1966-1972: A Literary and Cultural History &ondon: New Beacon Books, 1992).

65 Anne Walmsley, ''Charthg New Directions: Caribbean Literary Journals and Creative Change; Savawu, Journal of the Caribbean Artists Movement," Aspects of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 1, Collecteci Seminar Papers # 39 (University of London: institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1990) 128.

66 Anne Walmsley's monumental and invaluable book on CAM, The CCaribbean Artists Movement. 1966-1972: A Litemy and Cuitural Historv (London: New Beacon Books, 1992) provides the reader with long excerpts fiom meeting transcripts, copies of laers that passed between CAM members over the years, descriptions of papers presented at CAM syrnposia, etc in its comprehensive coverage of the movement's contribution to culture and literature in the Caribbean. hailed by scholars as c%aluable7"7and ccinfluential.'"8 The journal, like other journals and magazines in the region before it, raised questions as to whether it should be purely literary, or present literature in a wider context; how best to present creative and critical writing; what aiteria should be applied in selecting material for inclusion; and how to balance an acadernic and more popular approach. But it was clear what the journal was meant to achieve. In a brochure launching the journal, its founding editors - Edward (Kamau) Brathwaite and Kenueth Rarnchand - set out the journal's aims:

1. To present the work of creative writers - established, unknown, in exile or at home; 2. To examine and assess the significance of artistic expression through slavery and in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a view to recognizing continuities and submerged or "10 st" traditions; 3. To help towards the recognition of the whole Caribbean area as a meaningful histoncal and cultural er~tity~~

One ernphasis which grew out of the above stated aims were repeated attempts to establish in prose and verse an Afro-centric oral aesthetic in which New World

Aûican music (reggae, dub, caiypso, jazz, rhythm and blues, etc.), religions (shango, myalism, pocomania, etc.) and other folk forms inspired both thematic content and poetic structure, and writers (mainly poets) explored on page and in performance the

67 See Mervyn Morris's, '%Me Magazines in the Caribbean," BIM 17.68 (June 1984): 8.

61 See Rhonda Cobham's 'me Background," West indian Literature, ed. Bruce King (London and Basingstoke, 1979) 28-

69 Promotional brochure on Savacou dated March, 1969. 66 interplay between speech and writing as a mode1 for their fictional creations. The

Mo-centric aesthetic which dominated creative writing in this period was directly

impacted on by the Black Power movement which swept the Caribbean in the wake

of Civil Rights confiicts in the United States. Rhonda Cobham draws attention to the

comection between CAM'S work and the Black Power movement when she identifies Savacou as "one of the most influentid publications to emerge fiom the

flurry of literary activity which foilowed the Black Power cri si^."'^ CAM3 awareness

and embracing of Black Power and Black consciousness dated back to its pre-

Savacou days in London of the late 1960s as evidenced in CAM newsletters, symposia papers and outreach activities to Britain's embattled Black community.

The Afro-centric interests of Edward (Kamau) Brathwaite who eventually assumed sole editorship of Savacou also had direct bearing on the kind of material selected and published in Savacou. Social theorist, historian and acclaimed poet of a verse trilogy which made extensive use of Afncan and New World African cultural forms and voice texts in its composition, Edward (Kamau) Brathwaite's agenda was to actively promote writing which, as he wrote in his Folk Culture of the Slaves in

Jamaica, demonstrated that Afiican traditions were not lost in the Caribbean:

The Afncan, imported fkom the area of his "great tradition," went about establishing himself in a new environment, using the available twls and memones of his traditional heritage to set going something new, something Caribbean, but something nevertheless recognizably Afiican.. . It is in the nature of the folk cultures of the ex-fican slave, still persisting today in the iife of the contemporary fol^" that we can

70 Rhcmda Cobham, 'me Background," West lndian Literature, ed. Bruce King (London and Basingstoke, 1979) 28. 67 discern that the "middle passageyywas not, as is popularly assumed, a traumatic, destructive experience, separating blacks fiom Africa, disconnecting their sense of history and tradition, but a pathway or channel between this trafition and what is being evolved, on new soil, in the ~aribbean."

Savacou (3/4) mbtitled 'Wew Writing 1970" demonstrates the kind of Afio-centric oral aesthetic which stimulated startling and exciting Iiterary experiments and fuelled intense and fierce debate among critics. The issue inchdeci poems and prose pieces which were inspired by the rhythm of reggae and dub, made extensive use of the language patterns and metrical movements of Caribbean creole speech, and addressed issues of slavery, black consciousness and Afiican cultural retentions in New World societies. Young poets such as Audvil King and Bongo Jerry submitted verse in which the arrangement of lines or the size of the typescript "screamed" in anger against injustice and orthography insisteci on sounding the language of the "common tongue." The writing in Savacou 3/4 was predominantly Jamaican, but it initiated cntical reaction across the English-speaking islands. Some cntics like the Trinidadian poet Eric Roach reacted strongly against the oral and Afio-centric aesthetic and expression promoted in the pages of Savacou as evidenced in his review of the issue:

Colour, tnimpeted on so many pages, gives the impression that one is listening to "Air on the nigger string" or to the monstrous thumping of a mad shango dnimmer.. .We must write out of the totality of Our history, our environment and our feeling. To thrash out widely like [Audvil] King and [Bomgo] Jeny in the murky waters of race, oppression and dispossession is to bury one's head in the stinking dunghills of slavery.. .We have been given the European languages and

" Edward Brathwaite, Foik Cuiture of the Slaves in Jarnaica (&ondon: New Beacon Book, 1970) 4-5. forms of culture - culture in the traditional sense, meaning the best that has been thought, said and done."

Other cntics such as Gordon Rohlehr were more receptive to the issue. While he thought that some of the pieces were not "'finished" and criticised the selectivity of the editors, Rohlehr recognised that the publication was intended to reflect "'as broad a cross-section of what is actually being written, good or bad, so as to indicate as many trends as are current in the feeling, sensibility and creative effort of the pe15od."~Reminiscent of the debate on Louise Bennett's dialect verse ear~ier,'~the issues were again whether forms and styles of writing unapologetically Iinked to folk culture and expression were "suitable" for print and qualified as literature. The polarisation which develsped between the "'tribe boys" (those sympathetic to the

Afro-oral emphasis) and the ccAfio-Saxons" (those against) cari be traced in a number of publications inspired by the anthology. As Laurence Breiner notes, "the advocacy of "speech" [oral forms practiced by the folk] or ''~riting'~[the composite of British

72 See Eric Roach's review of Savacou 314 m the Trinidad Guardian of 14 July, 197 1. This passage was also quoted by Gordon Rohlehr in 'West Indian Poetry: Some Problems of Assessment" in Tapia of 29 August 1971 and by Edward Brathwaite in Savacou 14/15 (1979): 4.

73 Gordon Rohlehr, 'West Indian Poetry: Some Problems of Assessment," Tapia 29 August, 1971: 11. Reprinted by Rohlehr in his Mv Strannled City and Other Essays (Trinidad: Longman, 1992) 107-132.

74 In "On Reading Louise Bennett, Seriously," Jarnaka Journal 1 @ec. 1967): 69-74, Mervyn Moms outlines the problems Bennett encountered as a poet working in the dialect and using speech models &om the oral tradition. She was accepfed as "an entertainer" but nat as a poet worthy of serious consideration. There are disturbing similarities between the response to Bennett and some of the critical commentaries on the Savacou anthology. literary and cultural influence] as a mode1 for poetic practice clearly carried a strong

political charge."7s Brathwaite's DrearnStories which is really a collection ofproems,

destabilises generic categones by transposing rnuch of the experiments with voice

and laquage which developed around poetry of the 1970s into prose fiction.

During this penod, Brathwaite was also among the leadïng critics calling for a

return to the "submerged traditions" of the Afro-folk in essays such as "The Love

Axe (1): Developing a Caribbean Aesthetic 196~-1974.'~~Prose hters as well as

poets were challenged to find ways to make their work reflect the oral milieu beyond

simply incorporating "oral elements" and "oral strands" into their work. Writers were

chdlenged to reconfigure the aesthetics of their art and refashion aesthetic paradigms

so that Afkosral traditions, forms and voice patterns would become the pivot of their

work. This is the kind of oral poetics that the female short story writers who emerged

in full force in the 1980s and 1990s were to claim as their own.

The Female Writinn Tradition of the 1980s and 1990s

As a result of the far-reaching influence of The Caribbean Artists Movement,

many of the short stories published during and &er the 1970s use oral sources as

7s Laurence Breiner, "Mow to Behave on Paper: The Savacou Debate," Journal of West Indian Literature 6.4 (1989): 4.

'' EdWard Kamau Brathwaite, 'The Love Axe (1): Developing a Caribbean Aesthetic 1962- 1974," BIM 61(June 1977): 5345; 62 @K. 1977): 100-106; 63 (lune 1978): 181-192- their narrative base. This emphasis enabled writers to transform existing prose genres, extend the narrative potential of oral forms into print, and explore personal and communal histories hidden in songs and other voice texts- Writers who have taken short fiction to new levels in the 1980s and the 1990s are, for the most part, female.

Commenting on the dominance of the short story in the 1980~~Kenneth Ramchand notes ".. . if we limit Our observation to the newer writers, this dominance coincides with the dominance of women writer~,"~and in his Introduction to Caribbean New

Wave: Contem~oraryShort Stories, Stewart Brown notes that the representation of women writers in recent short story collections has improved compared to earlier decades: 'More than a third of the stories in this collection are written by women, still short of a 'democratic' representation but, when compared with Andrew Salkey's two major and comprehensive anthologies of the '60s and '70s in which no women dters appear, that representation suggeas the impact that women have had in changing the focus and voice of West Indian writing in recent years."78 Women- authored Jamaican short story collections of this period which actively engage with ordity in its different forms include Olive Senior's "Summer Liehtnine" and Other

Stories (1987), ccArrival of the Snake-Woman" and Other Stones (1989)' and cDiscener of Hearts" and Other Stones (1995); Opal Palmer Adisa's Bake Face and

77 Kenneth Ramchand, 'The West indian Short Story," Journal of Caribbean Literatures 1.1 (Spring, 1997): 23. n Stewart Brown, "Introductian," Caribbean New Wave: Contemporary Short Stories (Heinemann, 1990) viii. 71 Other Guava Stories (1986); Hazel Campbell's Sinaerman (1992) and "Tilly

Bummie" and Other Stories (1997); Velma Pollard's Considerina Woman (1989);

Loma Goodison's Babv Mother and the King of Swords (1990); and Alicia

McKenzie's "Satellite City" and Other Stories (1992).

Many of these women-authored stories engage with the social changes taking place in the island and explore the economic, social and psychological effects of these changes through a central female perspective or through women characters. The treatment of these and other themes are as varied as the stones themselves but the centrality of female issues is a common concern to all these writers. Olive Senior's

"The Two Grandmothers" ("Arriva1 of the Snake Woman" and Other Stories) and

Loma Gmdison's "Bella Makes Life" (Babv Mother and the King of Swords) probe the cultural dienation and the corresponding dislocation of gendered identities which result from their women characters' attraction to the materialism of the United States.

The tenuous nature of malelfemale relationships is explored with sensitivity and insight by Velma Pollard in "Cages 1, II and III'' (Considerina Woman) and Hazel

Campbell's ''Lying Lips" (Sin~erman).The difficult and cornplex relations between mother and daughter is humorousIy probed in Alicia McKenzie's Tu11 Stop"

("Sattelite City" and Other Stones) and hauntingty depicted in Velma Pollard's 'My

Mother" (Considering Woman).

The oral connection is also clearly evident in these texts. Pollard's 'Tarables 1,

II, and III'' (Considerina Woman) draws on the tight, pithy structure of parables to create texts of warning/advice conceming issues relevant to women's emotional well 72 being . In "Carnival" {S ingerman), Hazel Campbell finds inspiration in the masks

wom at caniival time and the spirit of make belief which surrounds this Caribbean

festivai for a story about truth and illusion and the hidden desires of the female heart.

In '?-Calypso" (also fkom Singerman), the calypsonian's art of immortalising

scandals and creating social commentary in Song constitutes the refrain in a story

about the sexual indiscretions of modem women. Female mythological figures such

az 01' Higue reappear in contemporary garb in Hazel Campbell's "Tilly Bummie"

and Lorna Goodison's 'Baby Mother and the King of Swordsy'fkom collections of the

same name. OLive Senior draws on various speech performances - cursings, riddles,

etc. - creates stones based entirely on the direct speech act of one character in her

ironic exploration of various aspects of Jamaican life. In narrative point of view as well as in dialogue within texts, the linguistic continuum which characterises the

spoken word in Jarnaican is used extensively in these collections-

The 1980s and the 1990s may belong to the female writer, but a number of

significant collections of short stories by Jamaican men were also published in this

period. James Berry's Anancv. S~idennan(1988) acknowledges its debt to the

storytelling of Louise Bennett and the collections of early folklorists in its return to the tricky spider of Afro-Jamaican lore. Earl McKenzie's A BOYNamed Ossie (1991) and "Two Roads to Mount Jovfiil" and Other Stories (1992) delight the reader in recaptunng the tone and quality of life in pre-Independence Jamaica through a child's perspective, and Owen Eilis's stones of adult love in Tlamina Hearts" and Other

Stones (1996) are set against the backdrop of scenes fiom contemporary Jamaica and 73 are powemil in their subtlety and insight. DreamStories is perhaps the best "last word" in an ove~ewof orality and the short story from Jamaica. In its techniques as well as its themes, it retums to, refines, and moves beyond the various expressions of the oral as demonstrateci in most if not al1 of the short Story collections preceding it.

Admittedly a challenge for the reader who is not intimately acquainted with the terms by which orality bas been defined in Jamaica and the Caribbean, DreamStones nevertheless rewards multiple readings by continually startling the reader with its ingenuity and origindity.

In the chapters which foilow, stories by Andrew Sakey, Olive Senior and

Edward Kamau Brathwaite are analysed to give a fùiler sense of expressions of orality in Jamaican fiction, but the analysis also invites the reader to view each writer as an accomplished artist whose work can stand on its own. Chapter Two - Myth and Metaphor: Anancy in Andrew Salkey' s,

Anancy's Score. The One, and Anancy- Traveller

Every generation imagines fricMer anew. Paul Radin

men a story flourishes in the heart of afolklore, it is because in one way or another it expresses an aspect of "the spirit of the graup. " Frantz Fanon

Anancv: Meta~horof Creativitv

Anancv's Score opens with a story entitled "How Anancy Becarne a Spider

Individual Person." An aetiological story, it gives an explanation of how Anancy came to be a mythical spider with both good and creative, and evil and destructive characteristics. The ambiguity in Anancy's character observed in the stories in the collection is, therefore, established fiom the outset.

Foregrounding Anancy's Old World Afiican characteristic as a source of creativity, Salkey uses the spider as a metaphor for the Caribbean writer. The creative hter as Anancy is a deliberate act of locating within folk mythology the possibility of using language to enter the destructive aspects of Caribbean experience (past and present) and to creatively envision and transform the fùture. In this use of Anancy,

Salkey participates in a literary tradition in which writers return to elements of Afio- 75 folk culture as a medium for translating Caribbean experience into fiction. This

underscores a deliberate intent to articulate the Caribbean in fonns and aesthetic

paradigms rooted in the region's local culture.

The political nature of this aesthetic decision is underscored in Salkey's

choice of the now well-known quotation fiom Brathwaite's Folk Culture of the Slaves

in Jamaica as the epigraph to the collection:

It was in language that the slave was perhaps most successfùlly imprisoned by his master; and it was in his misuse of it that he perhaps most effectively rebelled. Within the folk tradition, language was (and is) a creative act in itself; the word was held to contain a secret power 79

Salkey's Anancy functions in ways which recall his use in Old World Afiica. But the

spider is also a distinctively Caribbean reinvention in several ways. This is evident in

the stories to which Salkey has added a third factor in the presentation of Anancy -

the author's own fertile imagination. That these three aspects are combined in

Anancv's Score is made clear in the Author's Note to the text:

Where would Afro-Caribbean fok tales be without the seminal support of the African Anancy? Indeed, how couid this book ever have been written without it, or without Anancy's historicai authority, or without my having tapped Anancy's score in his first home country? The traditiond Anancy is a crisp, cool, cdculating spider, a persuasive, inventive, anarchic spider-man.

1 have wilfully used his name, and even more wilfùlly tried to understand his nature, and remoulded it for my own ends. 1 have plucked my Anancy fiom the great folk tales of West Afnca and the Caribbean, and I have made him inhabit both worlds, the old and the new, locked deep in my own imagination.. .

79 Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Folk Culture of the Slaves m Jarnaica (London: New Beacon Books, 1970) 31. In this personal collection, the fanguage and the plots are mine; and the twists, hrms and flights of invention are also mine.''

The creolisation process which produced cultures of the Caribbean such as Jamaica's necessitates a restnicturing and a metamorphosis of inherited forms to suit the new

social realities of the region. The historical expenence of the Caribbean and the psychosocial dimensions of that expenence provide the raw material which Anancy, as metaphor of the artist, weaves into the substance of Iiberating fiction.

The artîstic function of Anancy emerges in a story that fuses the creation myths of Mcaand Europe. in "How Anancy Became a Spider Individuai Person," the prototype for 'The Beginning" is both the Edenic garden of Judaeo-Christian mythology and the liminal realm - caught between earth and sky - of Afncan divine stones in which animals and humans consort and have interchangeable characteristics. 'The Begiming" is the place where Anancy lived before expulsion fiom this Edenic world caused his transformation fiom man into spider. 'The

Beginning" is also that moment/place which anticipates the violence which would erupt into a new world order and create a history characterised by destruction. Yet

"The Beginning" also holds the possibility of renewal, for it symbolically represents the beginning of the Caribbean and Anancy, the "first witness" of this beginning of time and history, is he who is able to tell the story in ail its complexity. From the start, Anancy was "shaping like a poet person" -e 18). The web he spins "is because of the goodness of the poet-person in Anancy own first 01'-time

10 Andrew Salkey, Author's Note, Anancy's Score (Landon: Bogle L' Ouverhrre, 1973) 77 self," and the reader is advised to give attention to the stories he creates: "So, if you

see a chance web somewhere, don't break it too sharpish and quick without thinking

about the poem it might be writing out for you" (Anancfs Score 27).

As a metaphor of the dst, the source of creative possibility, the nineteen

other stones in the volume are also Anancy's creation - they are both Anancy stories

and Anancy's stones. Sallcey's artistic anxiety in using Anancy is evident in his side-

glances at the literary cntic who he expects to dog his every creativemove with mis-

readings. "Spider Hel1 Hole" expands on this artistic anxiety. No longer simply

"shaping like a poet person" but a full-fledged writer, Anancy "decide he going write

in him own sort of way a number of newspaper article, leader, editonal, stop press

item and sport result" (Anancv's Score 129. Italics mine). Anancy's list, as Mervyn

Morris points out, "would seem to suggest, metaphorically, certain tendencies in

Anancy's Score: the collection editorialises, is close to the topical, is concerned with

who wins when."" 'When he done finish the score, he empty" (Anarcy's Score 130)

and Anancy as the artist - who is also Salkey imaginative reworking Anancy Stones -

grows increasingly concemed with "the critic people and what they going say" about the "change-ups" he made to the score. Moms's comments fùrther elaborate on

Salkey's fictional self-consciousness:

The 'change-ups' is a reference, presumably, not only to Anancy's revisions of earlier work but aIso to his [Salkey's] 'change-ups' of what many people think of as the normal patterns of language.. . There are twenty short stories in the collection, a score of them. But 'score' is (or was) also a Jamaican slang for 'the story, the news'. A third

81 Mervyn Moms, "Anancy and Andrew Salkey," Jamaica Journal 19 -4 (1986): 41. 78 suggestion score, the notations to be translated into sound. .. The stories are oral. Salkey has read some of them on the BBC and been much comrnended ... Although we have them in a book, the stories have been written for the ear and are often more attractive when readaS2

The collection draws on the spirit and name of Anancy within Mo-Caribbean

cultures, but Salkey's peculiar style with this cultural idiom has evoked widely

different responses fiom the cccriticpersons." In his review of Anancv7sScore, Victor

Questel has remarked on Anancy's "gift of style," his ccslickness"with words. h is a

style, says Questel, which depends on the sheer energy of words and dislocation of

traditional grammatical structures for its impact. Helen Tiffin is less approving:

'Ultimately," in her judgement, %ere is rather too much self-consciousness in

Salkey's use of Anancy in his stories. The style and language draw attention to

themselves as if the use of Jamaicanisms (and some eccentric Salkeyisms) were still

an inherently rebellious activity." Jean Purchas-Tulloch thinks Salkey 's language is

"stilted bourgeois patois, a blend of "Jamaican English" and Tnglish English"".

Moms counters convincingly that "Salkey has chosen and developed a highly self- conscious form, the didactic prose poem story" which exemplifies Salkey's intent "of extending the Anancy story tradition."" These comments again raise the vexed question of language use - particularly the dialect - in stories. But the reaction of

82 Mervyn Morris, p. 4 1.

83 Victor Questel, 'Towards Anancy Becoming One Total Person: A Review of Andrew Salkey's Anancy's Score," Kairi 2 (1974): 6; Helen TifEu, '"Ihe Metaphor of Anancy in Caribbean Literature," Myth and Meta~hor,ed. Robert Sellick (Adelaide: Centre for Research in the New Literatures in English, 1982) 28-29; Jean &chas-Tulloch, Jamaica -Anansi (Am Arbor: University Microfilms international 1978); and Morris, p. 43. these critics indicates that the response to diaiect use in fiction can be and is far more complex than ongoing local prejudices against the use of dialect in formal and literary

settings. The success of Samuel Selvon's (aibeit somewhat modifieci) dialect novels of the 1950s and after have awakened an appreciation and appetite for the use of local uses of English in the literature of former colonies. In such instances, the question is not whether or not to use dialect, but how and if local language use is accurately and authentically represented in works of fiction. Mervyn Morris's work on "pnnting the performance" draws attention to problems inherent in writing and editing Jamaican dialect for the page, from what orthography to use to whether or not authors should modie the dialect out of deference to the "ears" of international reader~.~~

What is less in dispute is Sakey's successtùl use of Anancy to analyse, simultaneously, the destructive aspects of CaribbeadJamaican history and the potentialiy rebellious, reconstitutive and creative power of Mo-folk heritage. The ambiguous nature of the traditional spider serves Salkey well here. The Janus-faced, contradictory nature of Anancy which emerges clearly in the lore fiom ficaand the

Caribbean is sourced, in the opening story, in the conflict between the genders embedded in the Edenic myth. This plot line is reminiscent of Robert Pelton's description of Anancy in his Old World acancontext. Eluding strict oppositions, especially those of good and evil, order and chaos, destruction and creativity, Pelton accounts for Anancy's duality by recailing the Ashanti's belief that Anancy retlected

M See as example, Mervyn Morris, "Prirrting the Performance," "Is English We Speakinn" and merEssap (Kingston: Ian Randle hiblications, 1999) 45-52. 80 the twin, yet unifie& personalities of the se-god Nyame and the less visible Queen of the Earth, Asase ~aa.~'In Salkey's reimagining of Anancy, the ambiguity is explained in the fùsion of the cuining, deceitfiil personaiity of Anancy's wife with her husband's mxe contemplative, peaceful and creative disposition in one body that will receive punishment for eating the forbidden hit: ccAnd,1 know that you won't believe me when 1tell you this, but, tiom that day until this very hour, this very minute, nght here and now, in point of fact, Anancy and his wife did become one spider individual person, and the cunning ways Anancy is famous for are the cunning ways of his wife locked way deep down inside him and the pretty web you see him spinning so is because of the goodness of the poet person in Anancy own first 01'- time self' (Anancv' s Score 27).

Although the twenty stories are not arranged in any kind of chronological pattern, the collection is a short story cycle suitably fiamed by the story which paradoxically narrates creation and the begi~ingof destruction at one end, and the story of redemption and hope ("New Man Anancy") at the other. The reconciliation of the codicting personalities in Anancy, which is symbolic of a culture divided against itself because of its history of violence, is the theme which holds the collection together. Anancy's ambiguous nature serves to explore the various codicts which shape lived experience in the CaribbeadJamaica, not the least of which is an encoding of a latent hostility between the genders in cultural forrns.

'' Robert Peb,'Ibe Tricher m West Afnca: A SNdv of Mvthic irony and Sacred Deligh (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980) 45. 81 However, the main conflict is identified in the clash of cultures and traditions that took place during slavery and plantation society, and which, in its turn, produced numerous other confiicts including those of rawe and class. Race, class and economic exploitation are explored, in varying degrees, in stories such as "Gold, Silver and

Brass, Yessing Mount" and "Anancy not no* Pyaa-Pyaa Spider Man corne from

Balcarres F'get a Gardener Job fiom A Brown "Oman Living in a Big 01'-time Boa'd

'Ouse up a Sain' Andrew Top." Stones whiach dramatise the community divided against itself - "Political Spider" and "Sevenïteen" are examples - delve into the social consequences of colonialisrn for corntemporary Caribbean people. The psychosocial ramifications - the self dividedl against itself - originating in the violence of colonialism and the neuroses which undermine mental and intellectual liberation are explored in, among others, "Ananicy and the Queen Head7' and "Anancy and Ghost Wrestlers." Gender problerns are faiced squarely in "A Real, Real Short

Story as to How Anancy Actual Reach Up Though F'him One Wife to Equal Life with all Total 'ûmankind, Baps!" Returning to the complex mythical function of the traditional Anancy, Sakey changes and upâates the form to speak to the wncerns of his day.

Anancv: Metaphor of Resistance

In ail their configurations, the stories in Anancv's Score are socid and politicai satires. The satirical fùnction of Anan~ystones can be traced back to their 82 original Mcan context. Ruth Finnegan makes this connection in her Oral Literature

in Afiïca. Commenting on stories in which small, wily creatures such as the spider

appear, she remarks:

What is often involved in the animal stories is a comment, even a satire, on human Society and behaviour. In a sense, when the narrators speak of the actions and characters of animals they are also representing human faults and virtues, somewhat removed and detached fiom reality through being presented in the guise of animals, but nevertheless with an indirect relation to observed human action.. . We can see these animal stones as a medium through which, in a subtle and complex way, the social and literary experience of narrators and listeners can be presented. The foibles and weaknesses, Wtues and strengths, ndiculous and appealing quaiities known to al1 those present are touched on, indirectly, in the telling of Stones and are what make them meaningfil and effective in the actual narration.. . In a way cornmon to many forms of literature, but doubly removed from reality in being set among animals, the animal tales reflect, mould and interpret the social and literacy expenence of which they form part.86

Laura Tanna's description of the performance and reception of Anancy mones in contemporary Jarnaica sounds a simiIar note:

The duality of the insecthiman character causes no confüsion in the minds of Jamaicans. Both audience and performer know they are dealing with basic human behaviour in these narratives, but maintain and observing animal behaviour."

In both the Afiican and New World Caribbean contexts, it was ofien necessary to protect the storyteller and his/her listeners from the nsk of censure. Within the plantation system, the telling of stories which might prove critical of the political

'6 Ruth Fbegan, Oral Literature m Anica (Oxford University Press, 1970) 35 1.

17 Laura Tanna, Iarnaican Oral Tales and Oral Histories (Kingston: Institute of Jamaica Publications, 1984) 78. 83 siatus quo was a reai risk that the transported Afncans had to avoid. Criticism and resistance were effectively masked in the satire of animal tales and the practice has remained as an aesthetic feature at a time when the dangers are less palpable. While the political and social hnction of language, characterisation and plot structure cm be readily assessed, the tales provide more than social commentary. The entertainment value of storytelling among Africans persisted even under the strictures of slavery, and the importance placed on the vimiosity of the storyteller rn&t that careful attention was given to generic elements and composition. The fictiveness of Anancy stories - their purely literary interest - is also an aspect that any analysis of these tales should address.

The mythical nature of Anancy stories militates against their reduction merely to particular events that are satirised. "The mythic form," as Rattray observes, "allows for both the incorporation of new content and the possibility of pointed satire. In fictionalising a particular event, a tale both camouflages that particular meaning and generdises so that other events are encompassed by its meanings."88 Salkey repeatedly applies the hancy story form to specific themes and periods in

CaribbeadJamaican history, each tirne managing to give the message of each story a wider appf ication.

Racial division or discrimination is the subject of "Gold, Silver and Brass."

The story locates the origins of racism and ciass divisions in the political and

" RS.Ratîray, Akan - Ashanti Folk-tales (Mord: Clarendon, 1930) xi. 84 economiic project of nations and peoples interested in securing and maintainhg a

position power in relation to others. Anancy stumbles across this awareness when he

takes a bip abroad and discovers that, although they are spiders like himself, are

"different with a bitch difference.. . and most proud flesh." They behave 'like they

special gold, silver and bras things on the little piece of ground. That spin round the

other way go so: the gold thing adding up to another class; the silver thing to another

class; agd the bras thing to third and last class" (Anancy7s Score 113). Thinking

through the ongins and motives of racism and class division, Anancy concludes that

'Vie lan' they 'habiting not invasion-proof He get to hear say that the three divisions

of living= ruling and dying really go so, 'cause the lad not the sort of lan', fiom early

o'clock, that wuld do without division. To keep the spider living going, the people

had was to chop up things and rule them 'cording to that. Thinking through al1 this

division ~usiness,Anancy link the age gone with the present days of gold, silver and

brass, and he fkd that the linking fitting linen glove" (Anancy's Score 113-1 14).

Anancy's insights effectively parody the motivation and mentality behind

imperialist enterprises. Foms of imperialism, such as colonialism, depend on the

discourse of difference as justification for econornic exploitation. By articulating and

'cnormalisingy'ontological and physiological differences between races, imperidkm

creates a raceklass system which it then uses to sustain itself.

The ultimate purpose of Anancy's political insight is to halt the progress of imperialist systems in his homeland. Anancy escapes the debilitating effect of imperialism abroad only to discover that similar interems are creaîing divisions at 85 home: c'As he lan' in the place and about to kiss dutty, blessing it say he gIad he get back to rock and al1 so, what you think he seeing standing up in fiont of hirn, right

'pon the home ground? He seeing a bitch-time sign cdng up the lad saying

'SPACE F'ALL. ROOM F'SOME. NEW PROSPERITY CATCH WE. GOLD,

SILVER AND BRASS"'@nancv's Score 114). The possibility of a revolutionary action arising within home territory in response to the division is implicit in Anancy's new consciousness.

The revolutionary impulse implicit at the end of "Gold, SiIver and Brass" is overtly expressed in "Anancy not to Pyaa-Pyaa Spider Man corne fkom Balcarres

F'get a Gardener Job fkom a Brown 'Oman Livin' in a Big 01'- time Boa'd 'Ouse up a San' Andrew Top." This story reflects a peculiarly Caribbean meaning invested in

Anancy tales which, as Patrick Taylor notes, grew out of their adaptation tiom Old

WorId Afiican to Caribbean plantation society:

The Caribbean trickster tale is essentially Afican in its form, though it has been creolised and transformed in the Caribbean. SIavery resulted in the intermixture of different Afncan cultures with European and Amerindian cultures, but in many cases Afncan foms and structures were retained. Even if they underwent ody minor changes in form in the Caribbean, however, folktales underwent a radical change in meaning. In Africa, foiktales instructed young and old in the way of culture and fiinctioned as a means of psychic relief and satire. They were aesthetic works that rendered reality meaningfbl and constantly opened up new insights into existence. In the Caribbean, folktales had similar fiinctions, but they had to address, in addition, the problem of su~valin a completely new social situation: the sy stematic domination and enslavement of one race by another on the Caribbean plantation. Anancy, the spider trickster of the Akan, had to spin a new web of meaning whenever he appeared in the fields, at social gatherings after dusk, or at ~akes.'~

Anancy stories and the telling of Anancy stories in pre-Emancipation Jamaica came

to embody the covert spirit of resistance which at moments erupted in acts of

revoiution and represented techniques of survival at their most ingenious. In such

instances, the cunning ways of Anancy encoded the subversive response of the slave

population to the deprivations of colonialism. Anancy came to symbolise "the

possibility of the underdog emerging tkphantly in a world which pits the weak

against the ~tron~''~~and opened up the possibility for the slaves to reorder social

meaning in their everyday reality along lines which proved (at least potentially)

liberating to them.

European foiklorists such as Walter Jeckyll who collected Anancy stories

fiom Afio-Jamaicans often marvelled at the impish delight their informants took in

relating the details of Anancy's scumlousness. Jeckyll's description is an accurate

summary of Anancy 's legendary chicanery.

Anancy is a iegendary being whose chief characteristic is mckery. A strong and gwd workman, he is invariably lazy, and only to be tempted to honest labor by the offer of a large reward- He prefers to fil1 the bag, which he always carries, by eaud or theft. His appetite is voracious, and nothing cornes amiss to him, cwked or raw. No sooner is one gluttonous feast over than he is ready for another, and endless are his shifks and devices to supply himself with food. Sometimes he will thrust himself upon an unwilling neighbour and eat up al1 his

89 Patrick Taylor, me Narrative of Liberation: Perspectives on Afro-Caribbean Literature, Pwdar Culture. and Politics (Corne11 University Press, 1989) 133.

90 Leonard Barretî, The Sun and the Dm:Afncan Roats in Jamaican Folk Tradition (Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster's Book Stores, 1977) 34. 87 breakfast. At another the, he carries out his bag and brings it home full of flesh or fish obtained by thieving. He is perfectly selfish and hows no remorse for his many deeds of violence, treachery and cruelly. His only redeeming point is a sort of hail-fellow-well-met- ness, whïch appeals so much to his associates that they are ready almost, if not quite, to condone his offense^.^'

As Sharlene May Poliner points out, "Jeckyll's portrait of Anancy as a lq, lying,

immoral, selfis h thief wit h 'countrified speech corresponds exactly to the racial

caricature of the Sambo or, in Jarnaica, the 'Quashee' stereotype originally imposed

upon Blacks by master wishing to justie the institution of sla~er~."~~Refusing to

take the Quashee stereotype at face value or accept it as a description of "slave

personality," resistance readings of Anancy stories point to the subversive intent

behind Quashee' s shuffling, gtinning exterior. Roger Abrahams describes Quashee as

"a convenient mask to Wear; in assurning this roIe consciously or reflexively, blacks

could achieve aggression and protection at the sarne time."93 Thus, through dissimulative behaviour, the slaves performed many acts of sabotage while protecting themselves fkom the punishment that overt confrontation would bnng. Anancy as

Quashee, exploring and exploding the stereotype, effects an "appropriate rectification

91 Walter Jeckyil, ed. Jarnaican Song and Story: Annancy Stories. Digging Sinas. REin Tunes, and Dancing Tunes (London, 1907; Kraus Reprints, 1967) 1-2.

92 Sharlene May Polmer, "The Exiled Creature: Ananse Tales and the Search for Mo- Caribbean Identity," Studies in the Humanities l l. l (June 1984): 16.

93 Roger D. Abrahams, Positivelv Black (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prdce Hall, 1970) 7. of power .. . gained through a deliberate reversal based on the oppressor's own image of the ~~~ressed.''~~

This is the mythos or plot Salkey draws on for his satirical portrait of neo- colonial relations in pre-independence Jamaica. In "Anancy not no Pyaa-Pyaa Spider

Man...," the economic and social imperatives of colonialism are dlevident in contemporary Jamaica- The %rown 'oman in the big 01'-time boa'd house" is the corollary of the white woman in the Great House. Anancy's house in the backwoods of Balcarres is the 'iard" separated fiom the Great House by an economic guK

Urged on by the inescapable econornic limitations at home, Anancy's fkiends in

Balcarres - Zacky, Man Boy, Cephas and Macky - immigrate to the United States and Britain, the solution that many Jamaicans sought in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite his de's entreaties, Anancy refùses to follow suit. On the surface, and especially to his wife, his reluctance srnacks of laziness and shiftiness. He appears the consurnmate country bumpkin content to wait idly for extemal forces to change his circumstances.

But in typical Quashee fashion, Anancy is 'playing fool to catch wise" and biding his tirne until he can find the way to transform the economic inequities on home ground: convinceci, as he was, that "Money right yah so, special down by Sain'

Andrew top" (Anancy's Score, p. 157). Taking a job as a gardener in Saint Andrew, he encounters fkst hand the dangers pose-by the ruling/employer class:

The set-up in Sain' Andrew different f?om Balcarres with a vengeance. Balcarres got plenty conceal goodness Iock up tight in the ol'ground, hitch up in the people them head and fasten under everything, w Poher, p. 16.

89 everywhere Sain' Andrew have a gwd looks but that stop there rap. It have sorne funny things going on, iike Say thing that got to do with cool studies how f capture a man brains and how fput down heavy 'pan man neck-string and how f keep hirn check and control and eating out o'hand and sucking salt t'rou' wooden spwn and wearing sack clot' and ashes and al1 so. (Anancv's Score 158)

Anancy's response to his oppressive environment is Quashee's response - sabotage and subternige: "ButAnancy catching on to the gardener work and drinking milk and not counting ww one blast" (Anancy's Score 158). In an ironic reversal of the sexual exploitation of slave women by their colonial rnasters, Anancy willingly responds to the sexual advances of his employer (and her fi-iends), and so makes the move nom the yard into the big house: "Mer some sweet hot sun rudeness, Anancy finding that he not doing so much gardening.. . By this time, Anancy took himself straight inside the set-up. He install like fixture.. . She hand over the big 01'-tirne boa'd 'ouse to him, and the lan' value 'pon top O' it ... So, the spider man fiom Balcarres setting up himself as propem developer cocksman and master spider right round the Islan' "

(Anancv7s Score 159).

Anancy's behaviour in such instances is not amoral nor does it sanction anarchy for its own sake. The immorality of the trickster's cuming and deceitfül behaviour in relation to the master class is accounted for by the pragmatics of resistance. In his reading of Mo-tricksters' cunniog and deceit as reflective of the mode of conduct embraced by the slave population, Lawrence Levin argues that

""althoughslaves were forced by their situation to create their own practical set of values and noms of behaviour, these did not necessarily replace those of their heritage, their religion, and of the outside society but rather were used to 'neutralize'

them." He adds:

It was possible for slaves to rationalize their need to lie, cheat and steal without holding these actions up as models to be followed in al1 instances, without creating that is, a counter morality. In their dedings with whites the conditions pennitting the application of their moral values were fiequently absentg5

Anancy's moral dilemma supports this interpretation: 'But stock bound to take.

Anancy telling him Balcarres conscience that he only going on so wild and loving

'cause he tùlling up a space that need fulling up, and that al1 he realIy doing is

supplying grocery like John Chinaman. As the conscience swallow that, Anancy get

emancipate quick, and he pull foot and move bnsk. One thing causing the nex' thing to bom. Anancy get big as bitch" (Anancf s Score 159).

The tragic outcome of this stoq illustrates that trickster tales as narratives of resistance were not simply clever tales of wish-fulfilment through which slaves could escape from the materiality of their world. These tales could also be painfully realistic in their depiction of the failure of the trickster-hero. The oppressed may win some battles, but fiemay also lose. Ai the height of his success, Anancy emerges as a new nationalist, who transforms the political and social system at home: 'When five, ten years gone.. .. Anancy reaching the stage O' the biggest lan' leader plamer in the world O' lan' - leader planners anywhere at dl... The people notice he not living in

9s Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and BIack Consciousiess: Afro-American Folk Thouaht From Slaverv To Freedom (New York: Mord University Press, 1977) 123-124. 91 no big 'ouse 'pan no hi11 top; he living right slap 'gainst the people them" (Anancv's

Score 160). Yet, his wife is able to trick hîm and destroy al1 that he accomplished.

When Anancy runs out of land to restore, she suggests he explore the world inside his head and Lock himself away while doing so. Anancy discovers that his own mentality/mind space is his most dEicult challenge yet, and his wife takes advantage of this moment of weakness. Secure in having the last laugh, "she get a big everlasting tmck and put Anancy and the Iock-up thing living inside it and make a bee-Iine back to Baicarres" (Anancv's Score 164) where Anancy is made to spend the rest of his days impotently spinning webs in the top of a tree.

Although he is duped by his wife, Anancy's real problern is his inability to conquer the space in his head which leaves him Milnerable to assault. The story strongly irnplies that the cunning ways of QuasheeMnancy are inadequate to effect full political emancipation in contemporary life, without attendant mental liberation.

Anancy's wife, whenever she appears in this collection, is described as inseparable from Anancy himself. The conflict between the two is, therefore, a conflict of the self.

The madness implied in Anancy's stmggle with the world inside his head indexes the kind of social neurosis which threatens to undennine, fiom within, the move towards self liberation. Read in the context of the fervour of the nationalist rnovement in the

Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s (when the stones in the collection were written), this story is a cal1 to political self-awareness and consciousness in the region's population and leaders. The emphasis in post-Emancipation, pre-Independence Jarnaica and the wider

Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s was the necessary CO-operationbetween political

activism, cultural reappraisal and an appreciation for indigenous products over those

originating from or dorninated by cultures of the West. Following political

emancipation, mental e&anchisement was deemed imperative before a new and

whole national/regional consciousness could be realised. A renewed cultural

consciousness involved a revolutionary (both persona1 and communal) reclaiming of

one's heritage and a determined move toward a new critical self-understanding.

Without seIf-knowledge, self-awareness . and seKappreciation, the nationaiistl

regionalist movement was doomed to fail.

Sakey embraced the notion that the creative artist had an important role to

play in facilitating critical self-understanding and the short story seemed to him to be

one of the most effective means whereby writers - through different stylistic choices

and themes - could achieve this end. His role as a short story anthologist was

understood in these terms as evident in his Introduction to what is arguably the most

important collection of short stories to emerge fiom the turbulence and promise in the

Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s: 'T have selected as many as twenty-five stones in

order to give as complete an overall picture as possible and to illustrate, indirectly, the

direction in which West Indian writing seems to me to be heading: to self-conscious realisation of West Indian values through self-criticisrn. If self-criticisrn and, in certain instances, re-evaluation are going on, then the form of the short story fends itself admirably to just that sort of sit~ation?"'~

The curining ways of Quashee Anancy proved ineffective without the necessary critical awareness and self-understanding. The self-confiict and subsequent betrayal of self, metaphoricaliy depicted in the rift between Anancy and his wife, is taken up in other stories as well. In "Anancy and Ghost Wrestler," Anancy defeats many formidable shape-shifting ghosts. He encounters bis greatest dificulty when he is set to fight his own spirit, which proves to be the "one-time conqueror and ody conqueror of Anancy" (Anancv's Score 49). In "Seventeen," self-conflict ends in matricide. Unable to corne to terms with the history (symbolised by his seventeen mothers) that had borne hm, and tormented by the memory of the economic exploitation and physical brutality of his past, Anancy kills sixteen of his seventeen mothers whose "mother welfare state" had a similar mental strangle hold on him. In the moment that the seventeenth mother attempts a healing embrace, hancy7s tonnent, "like a creeping nausea running direct to him brains, where the history narnes lurking like t'ief' (Ananc~'~Score log), overcomes him and he kills her too.

The negative association given to the female presence throughout the collection invites analysis. The "deadly to the male7' motif that runs through a significant portion of Carïbbean popular forms emerges in full force in these stories.

Although the purpose in "Anancy not no Pyaa-Pyaa Spider Man. .. " is the treatment

" Andrew Salkey. "Introduction," West Indian Stones (London: Faber and Faber), p. 12. 94 of a debilitating self-dienation, the narrative sources the problem in the vengefulness of a jealous wife who plotted and schemed her husband's downfall. Similarly, the terror of a painhl history is symbolically depicted as stïfling mother-love in

"Seventeen." In c'Anancy, Don? Give Up," Anancy 's mission to Save the world with ideals of brotherly love was almost destroyed by the temptress Mira who is a combination of European and Afko-Caribbean mythologies of the deadly female. Her burning eyes and snake-like, venomous hold (Anancv's Score 151-152) recall the

Gorgon of Greek mythology; her "Adam and Eve dressing wrap" identifies her with the original temptress of Western Christian mythology; and her beautifùl, alluring shape-shifting young body which betrays an ancient killing wisdom, is a combination of La Diablesse and Lu Smcouyant of Caribbean mythology. A mirage herself (she appears to Anancy in a sexually charged dream), she attempts to trade the love that will Save the world for the iIlusion of the pleasures of her body. In refüsing her - 'Xe looking, but he seeing no shape, no body, just a heap of small chains" (Anancy's

Score 149) - Anancy recovers his masculine autonomy and power.

The practice of displacing, metaphorically and rhetorically, negative meanings ont0 the female in the collection is arguabiy a reflection of a similar tendency in the historical and cultural consciousness of the region. In 'The Shadow of the Whip: A

Comment on MalelFemale Relationships in the Caribbeaq" Merle Hodge locates the antagonism toiiards the female in the brutalising effects of slavery on a large portion of the male population. The loss of traditional male roles of father, provider and protector under slavery and the corresponding increase in women's responsibility for 95 the survival and upbringing of the race, Hodge argues, created a deep-seated resentment in Afro-males for women based in their own sense of insecutity and fear for the loss of masculine autonomy. J.D. Elder fûrthers that thesis in his pîoneering study of the calypso. Elder's study of the calypso - songs of social protest and commentary - claims that deep sociological and cultural conditions in plantation society have had a far-reaching effect in creating a context for contemporary expressions of maleXemale cor~flict.~'The theories that could account for the negative portrayal of women in JamaicadCaribbean cultural expressions are, perhaps, numerous. But Carole Boyce Davies reminds us that, as the product of a complex process of creolisation, Caribbean oral tradition is in many ways a composite of other folk traditions (Afkïcan, Indian, European, Amerindian, etc.) and has thus inherited and incorporated many unsavoury Old World attitudes towards ~ornen.~'

Salkey's use of one of the more popular oral story forms which perceives the world through male consciousness is, however, more than a simple reflectiod embracîng of a cultural neurosis. There is evidence to suggest that Sakey understands the way in which a histoncally abused consciousness has consistently inscribed its feus and terrors on the female body and views this as part of the problem which

97 See Merle Hodge, 'The Shadow of the Whip: A Comment on Male/Fernale Relationships in the Caribbean," Is Massav Dav Dead?, ed. Orde Coombs (New York: Anchor Books, 1974): 111-118 and Jacob Delworth Eider, "The MaldFemale Conflict in Calypso," Caribbean Ouarterlv 14. 3 (September, 1968): 23-41.

98 Carole Boyce Davies, " 'Woman is a Nation.. .' : Women in Canbbean Oral Literanire," Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literabire, eds. Carole Boyce Davies and Elaine Savory Fido (Trenton, New Jersey: Afîica World Press, 1990) 174. requires transformation. In the penultirnate story, "A Real, Real Short Story As To

How Anancy Reach Up Through F'Him One Wife To Equal Life With A11 Total

'Omankind, Baps !," Salkey effects a reconciliation of historically and culturally constituted gendered rneanings through a peacefiil reintegration of Anancy and his wife. Anancy finally arrives at "a new sharing idea, and he promise that nothing but a different view of wife going fix up the new view of 'omarikind deep down inside him head, one time, like Say equal life is one love." Although "the 01'-time macho sign- post thern still bright bad," Anancy knows that he must adjust to his new view of womankind "or else the lm7going stay there and dead under hirn foot, jus so." With this new awareness, when Anancy looks at his wife, 'he seeing her so like he seeing fhim own self," and concIudes, 'Me is she. She is me. We is one7' (Anancy's Score

167). For her part, Anancy's wife admits that she too needs to adjust to the new equality and accept her husband's new-found maturity: Tive or fifty, al1 O' you is boy. So, now that you equal up yuself wit' me in you mind, I goin' 'ave to midy me head and change to accept that rapid growt', yes" (Anancv's Score 169)-Reaching up through Anancy, Salkey symbolically liberates disrupted gendered meanings in the cultural psyche.

Lawrence Levine's text once again proves illuminating in under standing the muitifarious ways in which the trickster functions in Mo-New World cultures:

On one level, then, the animal trickster tales were expressions of the slaves' unrestrained fantasies: the impotent become potent, the brutalized are transformed into brutalizers, the under-men inherit the earth. But so many of these taies picture the tickster in such profoundly ambivalent or negative terms, so many of them are cast in the Afïican mold of not depicting phenornena in hard-and-fast, either- or, good-evil categones, that it is difficult to fùlly accept Bernard Wolfe's argument that it is invariably "the venomous American slave crouching behind the Rabbit." Once we relax the orthodoxy that the trickster and the slave are necessarily one, other crucial levels of meaning and under standing are revealed."

In "Political Anancy" and "Anancy, Sweet Love Powder Merchant," Anancy assumes the role of the villain who preys on the innocent and defenceless. The trick rnechanis~ricentrai to the tales still obtains, but in this instance, Anancy is no longer representative of the people - he is in opposition to them.

The spatial arrangements which in "Anancy not no Pyaa-Pyaa Spider.. ." denote economic and social division arnong the people are here again in "Political

Spider." The policies of the Boss Man in the Manor House on North Hill has lefi the spiders, fleas and leeches in economic depression. Their plight is symbolised in the drought which settles on the land. Anancy, wearing a green coat of Hope, offers to be the insects' agent of deliverance and act as their go between in negotiations with

North Hill. Anancy's integrity is questioned by some of the insects - "He's one green coat spider bom to rub up 'gainst high wall an' talk deep talk with a heap of strange people. Sometimes 1 Pink that Anancy tw much of a political spider for his own spider good an' Our own" (Anancv's Score 32) offers one insect. But a long-schooled gullibility, appropriately signaifed in the words of oldest among them, prove too great. Chastising the young spiders and neas for questioning Anancy, 01'-time spider

* Lawrence Levine, Black Cuiture and Black Conscioumess: Mo-American Foik Thousht From Slaverv To Freedom (New York: Mord University Press, 1977) 1 18. 98 asserts: 'You know that Anancy is a spider is Hope ris a green t'hg.. ..Weil, now, if

that is so where.. .you expec' Hope to spend his timee an' muscle energy, excep' on

'igh places where he can put telescope on our wants sui7 sufferin'?" (Anancv's Score

33). Trusting in Anancy's instructions, the insects ciiutifuliy leave their possessions

behind and mach to North Hill where Anancy told t3em a better life awaited them.

But this was a ploy the political spider used to -die the insects out of their

property. Exchanging the possessions for cash wkch he pockets, Anancy then

escapes the country so that he could not be held accountable. At the end of the story,

the insects are even more depressed than in the begieg.

An allegory of representatives of the people who use their position to secure persona1 riches, usually at the people's expense, "'Political Spider" is meant to function as hard-eamed instruction for those who iden~ifywith the insects. Two of the few remaining spiders, Brother Flea and Sister Leech are 'hmping brick hard experience round with them and still waiting like gneen fhit ripening" (Anancv's

Score 38). Together, they struggle towards an awareness that it is their credulity that was largely responsible for their plight. 'You know somet'ing, Brother Flea," says

Sister Leech. '3 been t'inking that al1 this is a job lesson Anancy teachin' we. It a deep somet'ing 'bout we an' 'bout we rockstone stmuggles on the ian' in the 01'

Country. That so" (Anancv's Score 38).

In the end, the story clearly suggests that thep will not be so easily duped a second time around. Standing by a pipe in the midd1.e of the arïd land, they hem a gurgling, rumbling sound of promised water coming Hkom the pipe. Listening to the 99 gully at evening the: '7 imow I could fix the village. Now I goin' be a rotten rich

spider personality in the Glemer at las'. Never 'fore now so much 'usban' take so much fool-fool powder in the name O' so much love to ras! An' the wife them? They stupid bad. Man, you can sam people easy no cheese in the country bush, eh? What a bitch!'"' (Anancy's Score 55). When his ruse is discovered (significantly, by the

English medical officer and his wife), Anancy escapes the people's ire by hopping a night train to the city. The village returns to its routine but a new wisdom is discernible among the people as indicated in the last line: 'Mount Calm is one country village that Anancy can't sam again, Englan' or no Englan"' (Ananc~'~Score

58).

Ananefs Score repeatedly emphasises the need for politicai awareness among the population. In stories where Anancy assumes the role of the villain, he acts as a catalyst, helping to prepare the way for an awakening. The very process of describing credulity and naïveté cm initiate movement in the opposite direction. Salkey, however does more. His characters grow in awareness and in the moment of their awakening, they move doser to assuming cuntrol of their own lives. Me- Moms accurately sums up the communal value of stones in which Anancy appears as a

Anancy may be shrewd but he is still a rogue. Perhaps we have too readily accepted the notion that he, in particular, expresses Iamaican personality. There are plenty of other Jamaicans in the stones. Among them are the anirnals who are too easily trusting, the ones who go fiom story to story forever asking, "True, Brer 'Nancy?" in appailing innocence, as Anancy tells them yet another lie. Now perhaps is a good time as any to re-read Anancy stories as waming against credulity.'O0

The final story, 'New Man Anancy," envisions a beîter world in which the old hostilities, insecurities, betrayds and blindness are no longer barriers to self and national realisation. Anancy wakes up to the realities at home and challenges himself to find a solution. The rebirth that is necessary is hard to corne by. Anancy first has to face the facts of his (and his community's) compliicity in creating their problems and understand their responsibility in the process of transformation. Contemporary realities of international economic policies are the logicd outgrowth of past systems of impenalism: "A World make out O' the riches a' C. World; B. World make out O'

A. World an' C. World an' C. World (which , after al1 is nothing else but Anancy own world) make out O' wha' lef, ' approx. dregs an' leavin's" (Anancv' s Score 175).

This situation exists despite "the fac' the C. World is a strong peopie-world, too, where al1 the power is people, no matter how them poor, maltreat and develop under, people with a heap O' invention coi1 up inside them like watch-spring" (Anancv's

Score 175). The story insists that whatever damage history has done can be reversed by a new-found sense of vision and responsibility.

Economic irresponsibility within Third World cornmunities is part of the problem. Anancy's encounter with the misused resources of the land underscore this.

The coffee leafs accusation of Anancy points directly at the Jamaican situation: "1

100 Mervyn Morris, lntrduction, Ananc~and Miss Lou (Kingston: Sangster's Book Stores, 1979) ix. grow in this grouri' but 1 belongs, over so, after crop tirne, an' is di like you, Anancy, that cause that to 'appen to the green things on the lan' " (Ananc~'~Score 176). The

red-dirt bauxite flew into Anancy's face with similar indignation: "I make plenty riches under you foot an' you cause all O' it to leave the lm' an' go by foreign. Wha' the rass hole you think this is, at dl, though, eh? Freeness or wha'? 1s jackass you like play, nuh? Oonuu better lay clah to the dirt an' own it, out an' out, or else is the sea you goin' find youself into, down a' bottom, tm!" (Anancy's Score 176). Anancy discovers that C. World is draining away in riches and future because of the greed of govemments willing to sel1 out their communities for persona1 profit. Anancy has a series of such revelations. His acceptance of the responsibility to share this knowledge with his community and assume leadership of a new way of life presents an alternative to the real state of affairs that still hampers development in the region. in the story's closing moments, both the future (represented in the figure of a Little boy %ho could be Anancy self son'') and the past (figured in a blind old man who is led by the boy) turn their backs on the approaching A. World trade ships to listen more closely to Anancy's Red Dirt meeting.

Sakey's Anancy is clearly figured as an agent of transformation and change at the narrative level, thus symbolically effecting change at the political and social levels. Other Caribbean writers (for example, Kamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott) have used configurations of the trickster in a similar manner and confirm that the contemporary Caribbean interest in replacing disintegration with a sense of wholeness, and paraiysis with agency and action is accurately reflected in the creative re-imagining of Anancy.

In her reading of Ananc~~sScore, Helen Tiffin argues that Salkey's Anancy falls short of this ideal:

While the two stones that enclose the other eighteen do seem to provide a structural and thernatic fiamework that encompasses Old World fa11 and New World redemptiog the overail effect of the volume is stasis. In so far as Anancy stands for Caribbean man in Anancv's Score he seems unable to move beyond an imprisoned present which, for al1 the forms in which he appears, denies his inherently transformative character and the apparent philo sophical structure of the volume. It is in the work of Edward Brathwaite and Wilson Harris, where Anancy 's protean character can simultaneously express negative past, static present, fbture possibility and the mechanism by which these becorne the creative fiiture that he is a volatile metaphor and archetype rather than arbitrary equation in a series of set piece satires. 'O1

However, the details of the collection clearly support another interpretation. Stasis is central to the collection, but as its subject, not its political vision. In his different roles

- Quashee' gullible villagers, malevolent tnckster, impotent dreamer - or as an archetype for JamaicdCaribbean wo/man, Anancy penetrates the cultural and hiaoncal causes behind what the author recognises as a debilitating psychology so that his readers can "break out of the C. World paralysis thing" (Anancf s Score 176).

Each story, in its own way, is a variation on this theme. While, as indicated earlier, a strict ordering of the stories should not, and is not meant to be attempted, the story cycle does narrate a move towards awareness and a growing consciousness

'O' Helen Tiffin, "The Maaphor of Anancy in Caribbean Literature," Myth and Metaohor, ed. Robert Sellick (Adelaide: Centre for Research in the New Literatures in Engiish, 1982) 29. 104 which, it is strongly suggested, will lead to visible change. The pensive, questioning

Anancy of the opening story who knows something is amiss but cannot name it @es way to the Anancys of the other stones, whose relations with other characters identie the problem as an ingrained paralysis and name its social, political and psychoIogical manifestations.

Fittingly, in the last story, Anancy's new-found knowledge leads him to initiate action in the form of the Red Dirt meeting. The awakening - which is the appropriate and necessary response to the opening bewilderment and its nicceeding expressions of credulity, impotence and stifled rage - is pointed to dong the way and is compIete at the end of the collection. Anancv's Score insists that revolution without a liberating self-consciousness is fùtile. Armed with the confidence and power of self- knowledge, Anancy as Jamaican/Caribbean wo/man is last seen on the threshold of revolution. This is looking forward to Independence. Hence the notion of responsibility is tied to self-awareness. Effective self-government, of the kind anticipated in the political independence movement that was sweeping across the

Caribbean, was possible only after the awakening.

Anancv: Meta~horof TransformationKhanpe

In his reading of Anancy stories as narratives of resistance, Patrick Taylor questions their ability to move beyond what he describes as the increasing impotence of subversive camouflage to express the kind of resistance necessary to effect 105 meaningful political transformation. Taylor argues that: 'Nom oniy the structure of the tickster narrative but also the aesthetic techniques used in pdorrnance are factors in the indirect acceptance of the system: the language, symbolism and humor camouflage the resistance of the colonized, thus failing to b~ngthe conflict out in the open."102 Speaking specifically to the Jamaican situation, Rex Nettleford argues that the ccelusivecunning" and sabotage characteristic of the Amancy syndrome, though important historidly as a survival mechanism, does not conmibute to the struggle for national development today. 'O3

Robert Darton' s reading of subversive techniques in imtemat ional trickster lore is simitarly concemeci about the real revohtionary possibilities of these tales:

[T]ricksterism does not offer a recipe for revolution. It shows that the clever underdog may exploit some marginal advanta~eby playing on the vanity and stupidity of his superiors. But the trickster works within the systeni, turning its weak points to his advantase and therefore ultimately confirming it - 'O4

These comrnents cal1 for a new kind of folk hero and mew rnythoi of resistance in which direct conftontation replaces subtemige, and the amlbiguity of the tickster is

102 Patrick Taylor, The Narrative of Liberation: Perspectives on Afb-Caribbean Literature, Pwuiar Culture. and Politics (Comell University Press, 1989) 147.

103 Rex Nettleford, Cultural Action and Social Change: The Case oof Jamaica - An Essav in Caribbean Culturai Identity (Oaawa: International Development I Research Centre, 1979; Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1978) L96-197, 215-216; see &O "'Jamaican Song and Story and the theatre" in Jeckyll, p- xiv-

104 Robert Damton, 'The Meaning of Mother Goose," New York Review of Books 2 Feb. 1984: 46. exchanged for clearly dehed her~ism'~~We can see this change in Anancy.

Traveller, another collection of stories in which Sakey follows up on the political workings of Anancy twenty years after the first collectioq and in which he has updated Anancyystactics to meet the demands of the present. Salkey, however, is careful to balance '"ee old and the new" so that new representations of Anancy do not supersede those of the old, nor is one presented as a logical development on the other. hstead, Anancv. Traveller makes it clear that both the old subversive techniques and the new practice of direct confiontation have a place in contemporary struggles. The romanticism of the hero taking on the forces of oppression and winning against al1 odds does not ring tme in a world where the inticacies of regional and international politics ofien make force inadvisable. In Salkey's stories, direct confrontation is employed when it is deemed the most expedient form of resistance. When subterfbge is used, it is not characterised as acquiescence to the status quo but is portrayed simply as another, and equally effective, strategy.

One of the pressing political concerns in the conternporary Caribbean, is the problem of a neo-colonial governing elite which attempts to control the labour and

1os Lawrence Leviue's account of growth and changes in Afro-Arnerican trickster lore demonstrates ways in which the subterfiige and camouflage practised by early trickster figures have given way, in contemporary times, to folk heroes who directly confront authority without resortiug to cunning and guile: "The wiles of the trickster have remained important, then, but through-out the twentieth century black folklore has made it abundantly clear that they no longer proved sufiicient; the central trickster figures increasingly found themselves forced to supplement their traditional tactics. Antebellm animal tricksters had never been beyond murder to accomplish their ends, but they almost always murdered through trickery. Now they frequently did so in direct confkontation with their more pwerful adversaries." See Levine, pp. 384-385. resources of the people in ways which echo the injustices of the past. The political

disillusionment that grew up in the wake of the Independence Movement in the

Canbbean is poignantly captured in lines £iom Derek Walcott's poem 'Tarades,

Parades":

There7sthe wide desert, but no one marches except in the pads of old caravans, there is the ocean, but the keels incise the precise, old parallels, there's the blue sea above the mountains but they scratch the same lines in the jet trails - so the politicians plod without imagination, circling the same sombre garden with its fountain dry in the forecourt, the gri-gri palms desicating dung pods like goats, the same lines rule the White Papers, the sarne steps ascend Whitehall, and only the name of the fool changes under the plumed white cork-hat for the Independence Parades.. . 106

The emergence of native black, one-man, totalising regimes of the kind led by Eric

Williams of Trinidad and Forbes Burnham of Guyana have been repeatedly chdlenged and satirised in Caribbean writing and indigenous folk forms such as the calypso.

In 'The 0ne,"'07 Salkey rems to the real situation of the brutal murder of academic historian and political activist, Walter Rodney, in the streets of Guyana in

------. .- . - Derek WalcotL "Parades. Parades." Selected Po- (Heinemann, 198 1) 72-73.

107 'This story was originally published as a separate title by Bogie L'Ouverture in 1985. 108 1980 as the inspiration for an overt aîtack on Caribbean totalitarian politics, and on

despotic authontarian govemments as a whole. In using the Anancy story as the

vehicle for the expression of overt politicai resistance, Salkey revises his earlier

representation of the trickster. Here, the trickster's arnbiguities are less, if at dl,

apparent. Clear lines of demarcation are drawn between gwd and evil, oppressor and

oppressed. The humour and "kiff-kiff' laughter of traditional tales is replaced by a

language of aggression which is used to bludgeon oppression, and 'which does not

apologise for its violence. Anancy is still his old self in many ways but his cccu~y"

ways are traded for direct confkontation and ofien, the negative connotations of the

trick become exclusively attached to the agents of oppression.

All of these ccchange-ups7'are evident in 'The One." On hearing the news that

"a man he respect and have plenty feelings and love for get chop down in One Man

land," Anancy is urged by his &iend Caribbea and Brother Tacuma to put his "spider

foot right on spot and £ïnd out what wrong with a kader-man who Feel that killing

him own people is a co~ectthing to do" (Ananc~Traveller 7). On arriving in One

Man Iand, The One's head agents are sent to investigate Anancy and their report identifies km with the figure from traditional lore:

REPORT ONE To: The One From: Head Agent About: The Foreigner The Foreigner name Anancy. Spider and man. Afkican by origin And nature. Caribbea adopted son. Triclq, bad. Facety. Own way. Born to subvert. Dangerous to One Man rule. Corne to 'vestigate most recent Movement dead. (Anancv. Traveller 10)

Some of the old subversive slipperiness is still evident in Anancy: "As a master of

dodge-and slip himself, from way, way back, he just spin round and shay-shay into a

shop that seil fkock-woman wig; he buy a set of things for hirn wife, so hirn tell sales

woman, and corne out dress up different f?om hirn natural spiderman self' (Anancv,

Traveller Il). For most of the narrative, however, Anancy discards the disguise and

appears to The One and his political agents as none other than himself

While them [Anancy and Sister Bwcton] flying, them talking about the necessary disguises that them wearing, and Anancy say that he might as well rest the fiock and woman wig and go back to hirn spiderman self, as per usual. (Anancv. Traveller 27)

and he does not shrink fi-om direct confiontation:

As [Anancy] wak outside the Movement headquarters building, he notice some shifty shanks One Man rule agents clicking camera and taking notes. Anancy feeling so much deep dom contempt for the whole One Man rule that he actual walk right into the sunlight in the middle of the Street and strike a bold face pose for the camera and notebook agents them. But what them didn't know is that while Anancy doing that he causing thern to show themself, clear as day, and was fixing every single agent face in hirn spiderman memory box, click, click, click, bavs! (Anancv. Traveller 8)

In contrast to "Political Spider" where Anancy assumed the role of the exploiter,

villainous trickery is exclusively the domain of The One Man who consistently

engages in subterfuge to sustain his dirty-dealing, exploitative "politricks." The One

Man plays both sides for his own advantage. Interested in ''just bu11 power politics," 110 he at fist "join the bound-to join stmggle gainst the Englisher them, as a correct move. Then he hux-out him fiiend them in that stmggle and connive with two sets O' foreign rule who set hirn up as the favourite hemisphere sort O' leader-man. He play lefi. He play right. And as power tip and reach him, kll, fùll, he decide it too sweet f share it every four, five years with somebody else Party" (Anancv. Traveller 10).

The language of the text is harsh, violent and direct in contrast to the humorous double-speak of traditional Anancy stories. Where there is a hint of humour, it is ofien of the WIY, knowing kind. The offensiveness and violence are intentional. The language of aggression underlines the movement fkom covert rebeliion to direct confrontation as demonstrated in the following excerpt which describes a clash between the people and the One Man's agents:

Down by a street corner, near by the said church, a tall, well set-up Buxton woman who you would think is a close, tie- sbbuddy O' the One Man, seeing as how the One Man ain't no stranger to the strong will village, grab hold O' one likkle fingle foot Party member who usual torrnent her bout this and that, including fiee pussy, and drape him up by him pants belt, you see, and scrunch up hirn balls for al1 the personal bothers he cause her, especial on Saturday night time when he tek up him waters and looking easy food and rest. She have hirn off the ground by inches. She box him face, three, four time and punch him good in hirn puff up Party chest. Hear him: Tou don't have no respect fthe Party, nuh, woman?' Hear her: 'T going teach you respect for thïs Party' you lickle tumpa- tail rass, you! And she buck him with her head, wp, vuvup. wp, and drop hirn in the street like mango rejec' . Poor fingle foot Party member! You should a see how hirn face fene with shock, when the Bmon woman shay-shay up to him, square off, tum round, lift up her dress, squat wide and piss al1 over him just- press white shirt-jack and white pants! When she back off him, she point finger in him face and say, "If 1 ever ketch you Jesus Chris' leader-man is the same way 1 going do km.(Anancv, Traveller 18-1 9)

Here, although Salkey updates his Anancy to respond to the moment's need for more confiontational methods of resistance, Anancv, Traveller makes it clear that less direct methods of resistance still have a place in contemporary movements.

"Anancy and Caribbea" ernbraces both old and new forms of resistance as demonstrated in the following conversation between Anancy and Caribbea:

- "What you ever do for anybody, Anancy?" - "Show them how to survive in this set-hand world we living in."

- 'How?" - 'Tootwork." - 'Wow else?" - 'mead work" - "And how else?" - "By twisting up the realness facing we." - 'Wow so?" - "Tricks, cunning head, yes when you mean no, no when you mean yes, dodging, out and out lying and ringing nngs round master class, walk and run same time, talking shadow and air, and always, always, being where you not suppose to be and vicky

verky. 7' - '2s playing fool you Like, yes?" - ''Fool is special person in the world, Caribbea." - Not a sou1 sharper than who play fool to catch wise man. Power into play, and fool for ever got a look-see on the world that powerfiil. That is yes. And that is what I been doing, since 1 cross over fi-om old to new." (Anancy, Traveller 27) The importance of combining old and new strategies of resistance is underscored in

"Biding Patience, People, Time and World." In his travels, Anancy visits Afnca and

meets with his ancestor, Old World Anancy:

Old Anancy : 'You continuing the cunny ways?"

New Anancy: .. . . ccYes."

Old Anancy: 'You using cunny gainst boss man them and oppressor?"

New Anancy: "Same way as you-"

Old Anancy: "And you making sure you don? get capture?"

New Anancy: .. . Tes."

Old Anancy: .. . "So, you tradition up the old tradition?"

New Anancy: c'Rightful." (Anancy. Traveller 9 1)

The pragmatism of the subversive trickster cornes into play when the odds are

too great: Anancy learns that, "If you can't win, you got to settle for manage." The

seeming contradiction between old and new strategies of resistance is not glossed

over by Anancy: 'You see, 1 lick [the people] with things that contradict, sometimes.

1 say one thing, like settle for manage when you can't win. Then, 1 Say mother thing, like chance you life for what is yours and for what you want to get back into your righttùl ownership" (Anancy. Traveller 27).

For Salkey's new Anmcy, political transformation is a cornplex, ongoing process that demands flexibility on the part of those who resist. Sometimes, transformation is as much dependent on level-headed patience and increments of 113 change overtime as on one decisive act of direct confrontation: "Time slower than slow, but moves creeping ...small make big, very big, and that big stay very big because small stay small under system and trap and such like order and arrangement"

(Anancv. Traveller 92). In "Anancy, Caribbea and Proverb," Anancy also recognises that faihe to transfonn an oppressive system does not necessarily translate into defeat. Anancy draws on folk wisdom available in Jamaican proverbial expressions to articulate this insight: Toucawn stop bird fiom flying over you head," says Anancy,

'But you can stop him fiom making nest in you mind" (Anancv. Traveller 3 l), and

"When chair collapse, bam,bench get up" (Anancy, Traveller 32). Transformation is not dways visible, nor is it readily and easily achieved.

The relevance of Anancy as a metaphor of resistance and transformation in contemporary times is pointed to in 'Middle Passage Anancy ."

Heavy with the voice of prophecy and waniing, the story makes it clear that the oppressive systems of the past have not been destroyed. They simply manifest themselves in new and more subtle ways. Anancy lands on a rock in the middle of the

Atlantic, and is visited by spirits of old Afncan slaves still deformed by the harsh experience of slavery and colonialism. Reaching beyond the years and the watery depths, they awaken insight in Anancy ('%ho is us"):

The sou1 touch Anancy shoulder and Say, 'We dead but we not dead. We don? know a thing but we know ail. The triangle trade don? stop. It still happening in different shape and form. It dress up and ws?lkùig and talkîng another style, according to how the nowadays parangles go. Watch yourself: Anancy!" (Anancv. Traveller 12) Part of the process of effecting transformation is learning to recognise what

needs to be transformed and knowing the various disguises assurned by old

oppressions.

The political concerns addressed in Anancv. Traveller range f?om the

problems of neo-colonial govemments in post-independence Caribbean, to the

nuclear standoff between super-powers ("Holocaust Anancy"), to the barriers erected

against wornen's equality ("Anancy and the Land of Super-1, Nowadays"). In its

abject matter, Anancv. Traveller acknowledges the international flavour of

contemporary experience. While its focus is still largely Jamaica and the Caribbean, it

allows that national and regional experience is influenced by international politics and

policies. To effect real and meaningful transformation on home ground, the

revolutionary has to understand the impact of hislher actions within the international

context. As a traveller, Anancy gains experience and insight fiom the workings in other lands which help to give him a sense of the events that happen in his home place. One of the epigraphs to the collection which States that "the importance of place is knowing who you are when you get there" points to a condition necessary to self-apprehension, that is, understanding oneself in relation to the rest of the world.

The collection suggests that the sociat and political transformation that is necessary in

Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean will be realised only when the limited lens of the parochial is rernoved.

The relationship between Anancy and Caribbea in this collection offers a paradigm for the kind of broadened consciousness necessary in the oonternporary 115 revolutionary. As the sea which su~oundsthe islands of the Caribbean, Caribbea has always stayed "close to shore." She is intimate with the daily developments that take

place on her Sister Land and has, over the centuries, witnessed the journeys in and out which have contnbuted to current state of affairs. She, however, is unable to move about as Anancy, but she does not view this as a disability. From time to time,

Anancy returns fiom his travels to update her on developments in the rest of the world and in his tum is updated on local events. The interest of each is the welfare of

Sister Land and the information exchanged provides a fuller background against which the movement towards change can be more effectively attempted. Anancy's travels to and involvement in the resistance movements of other lands also signals that his potential as a figure of transformation cm be realised beyond the shores of the Caribbean. This wider applicability of Anancy is no doubt a factor of the migration of Anancy's people to other shores and their transportation of a powertùl cultural metaphor which can meet the challenge of oppression wherever in the world and it whatever fom it rems its ugly head.lo8

There is a twenty-year gap between Anancy's Score and Anancv. Traveller.

Yet, the political meanings of Anancy in the first collection are still applicable to the

Caribbean in its continueci search for liberation and self-empowerment. Anancy has responded to the demands of the moment. Yet, Anancy is also rùoted in the past.

108 For a discussion of Anancy's potential as a symbo1 of migdon and exile, see Orlando Patterson, "Migraticm in Caribbean Societies: Socio-economic and Symboiic Resource" in Human Mimation: Pattern and Policies, eds. William H. McNeill and Ruth S. Adame (Bloomington Indiana: indiana University Press, l9?8) 133-1 34. 116 Crossing temporal boundaries, Anancy connects past, present and fiinire meanings. A

body of narratives whose meaning were shaped by the harshness of slavery and

colonialism is able, in accordance with the protean nature of its centrai figure, to

adapt to new meanings and possibilities overtime Anancy, like the culture he

represents, is always at a new beginning. His stories are constantly being repeated and

revised as the search for political, social and literary identity in Jamaica and the

Caribbean continues. As Sharlene May Poliner attests: "Part and parce1 of hanse's

role has always been to rnirror and challenge this reality, while simultaneously calling

forth his people's imagination, creativity, and wit, even - and especially - in the face

of their continuing struggle." log

'" Sharlene May Polmer, p. 20 Chapter Three - "Voicing the Text": The Oral Tradition in the

Fiction of Olive Senior's Sumrner Lightnina and Other Stories,

Arriva1 of the Snake Woman and Other Stories, and Discerner of

Hearts and Other Stories

Stories are at the hem of what wn'ters have to say abmt thezr world, the rnefhod used to assert their own identity, and the existence of memuries, of histories. Edward Said

Writinn for the Listener

With three highly acclaimed short story collections to her credit, "Sumrner

Linhtnina" and Other Stones (1986), CCArrivalof the Snake Woman" and Other

Stones (1989) and 'Discerner of Hearts" and ûther Stories (1994), OLiver Senior is arguably the most niccessful contemporary female writer in the genre from Jamaica and the English speaking Caribbean. Acknowledging her commitment to a 'literature that is being written fiom the inside instead of the outside looking in, ,YI10 Senior's use of oral storyteliing techniques and devices which move the modern short story closer to its oral origins, has distinguished her in a genre dorninated by Amencan and

British rnodernists.

"O See C. Rowell, "An intewiew With Olive Senior," Callaloo 11. 3 (1988): 486. 118 Although Senior did not corne to international attention before 1987 when her

first collection won the Commonwealth Writersy prize, several of her stories,

especially those in "Summer Linhtning" and Other Stories, were written during the

late 1960s and early 1970s.11' Her story writing has spanned two and a half decades,

during which time she has worked consistently at defining an oral poetics. The

development and refining of Senior's oral poetics parallels a tIurty year old

theoretical tradition in which ordfolk forms were extended into both prose and

poetry that were considered to express an indigenous Caribbean aesthetic. To date,

the mom insightfùl commentaries on the oral origins and dimensions of Senior's short

stories have come Erom the author herself in a series of interviews and a 1996 article

entitled 'Zessons From the Fruit Stand: Or, Writing for the ~istener.""'

Stones in al1 three collections span the decades fiom the turn of the century to

the present. The protagonists in 'cSummer Linhtnina" and Other Stones for the most

part are children bewildered by their adult environment, a circumstance used by

Senior as aa occasion for commenting on contlicts of class, race, religion and language within Jamaican society. "Amval of the Snake Woman" and Other Stones and 'Discerner of Heans" and Other Stones lend themselves more readily to feminist readings, but both continue and expand on major themes in the first collection - the effects of living in a world caught between colonial values and the exigencies of the

-- 111 See Anna Rutherford, "Interview wÏth Olive Senior," KUna~ipi8.2 (1986): 19.

112 Olive Senior, 'Zessons From the Fruit Stand: Or, Writing for the Listener," Journal of Modem Literature XX (1 996):3W. 119 modem world; the search for personal and cultural identities; and liberation from oppressive social systems. The stories engage in a dialogue, both internally and with readers, about the joys and pains of living in a complex society which sometimes seems resistant to change, but is also surprisingly resilient at other times. In al1 three collections, the comic and the tragic vision are equally represented, and often humour is used to explore some of the more serious social themes.

The tradition of the spoken word manifests itself in Senior's collections in several ways. Trickster figures and trickster texts fiom Jamaican lore as well as oral forms like ballads and riddles form the basis of stories such as ''Ascot," '730 Angels

Wear Brassieres?" and 'Ballad." The dramatic quality of "The Two Grandmothers,"

'You Think 1 Mad, Miss," ''The Lizardly Man and His Lady" and interior monologues such as 'The Boy Who Loved IceCream" and "Swimming in the Ba'ma

Grass" is enhanced by their narrators telling the story as if they were speaking directly to the reader. Neither does Senior's prose form detract from performance dynamics. Indeed, the rnethod of storytelling often permits a reading back frorn the page to the voice. The '%oice texts" created in this way slide easily between the many varieties of Jarnaican English, fiom "pure" dialect to more "standard" registers to produce the language of fiction. The varieties of English within and across stories also act as an aid to characterisation by identehg the social values and positions of those who people the narratives. In addition, the polyphony of speaking voices in stones such as 'Xily, Lily" and "Zig, Zag7' helps to create textures and layers of reality which penetrate the dominant discourses that strate the society. 120 Although Senior has pnvileged the oral tradition as the source of her inspiration, she also acknowledges the influence that her formal education in the scribal tradition of English literature has had on her creative writing. Hence the denand oral traditions are not presented as antithetical in her work. In an act of

"literary creolisation," Senior adroitly &ses both by using, for example, long established poetic genres such as the dramatic monoIogue to facilitate her "narratives in the moment of performance," and in other instances, she draws on a literary tradition of inter-textual revision as a context for allowing multiple "tellings" within the fiame of one story. The result is a body of Stones which are highly entertaining? deeply moving and sharply insightful, while their oral component lends a Jamaican particularity that helps to shape the contours of a distinctive national tradition.

In The Trickster Tradition

"Ascot" has its rwts in contemporary tales fiom the oral tradition. Both in the conceptualisation of the main character and in its plot, the story is closely Linked to the infamous Big Boy stones popular among Jamaicans, although they ofken do not appear in pnnted collections of Jamaican folklore. In Foklore From Contemporary

Jamaicans, Daryl Dance describes her experience gathering these tales:

One of the best kept secrets of Jamaican folklore is the popular Big Boy. No published collection of Jamaican folk materials even mentions this figure, and yet 1 have found during my quest for Jamaican folklore that he is one of the most popular of dl Jamaican folk heroes. 1 had been in the field collecting for a couple of months before 1 even heard his name mentioned. Jamaicans are inclined to give collectors the Anancy tales and a couple of other traditional pieces. They tend not to even mention to outsiders some of the more popular contemporary tales, particularly if they are at al1 ribald. Il3

The central character in Big Boy stories is a (deceptively) simple-minded young man whose physique is indicated in his name. His presentation in oral lore ofien does not go beyond comic caricature. Big Boy is one of Jamaica's contemporary tickster figures whose antics recall those of the traditional spider trickster. Both subvert the codes of their society, and both &en gain personal advantage in situations where they are placed in opposition to more dominant, powerfùl, and authoritative figures. Yet, there are differences. Whereas, for example, Anancy is sharp, shrewd and cunning'

Big Boy seems to succeed in spite of himself. Similarly, in th; celing of Anancy stones, the spider's more flagrant transgressions are contained by the traditional disciaimer "Jack Mandora, me no choose none," but Big Boy's violations are openly relished in the telling and the reception of the tales. Storytellers who repeat or compose their own Big Boy tales know that their audiences have certain expectations which must be met if their compositions are to be accepted as part of Big Boy lore.

113 Daryl Dance, Foiklore From Contern~orarv Jarnaicans (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985) 53. In a publication which pre-dates Dance's, Lama Tanna also mentions the relucbnce of members of the local population to share Big Boy stories with outsiders. Like Dance, Tanna attributes this reluctance to the subject matter of the tales and stops short of providing her readers with examples. See Laura Tanna's Jamaican Folk Tales and Oral Histories (Kingston: InstiNe of Jamaica Publications, 1984). Bath Tanna and Dance recognise Big Boy as a contemporary version of the trickster figure, just as popuiar to Jamaica's pantheon oftrickster heroes as Anancy. Although details Vary fkom tale to tale, plot foIlows a standard pattern- Dance sumarises some of these aspects of the tales:

Big Boy is; often pictured as very much the fool, the moron; but even in his ignormce, he usually succeeds- ..me is absolutely lacking in moral and social values and is motivated purety by his own desires, appetites and passiams .... We wouid perhaps not love Big Boy so much if he were not such a moron; for if he were more intelligent, we might not be able to fmrgive him some of the transgressions for which a more responsiblai person would be condemned.

Big Boy stories me popular iargely because they are comic tales and are thus, at one level, enjoyed punely for their entertainment value. They are also relished for their shock effect. No abject, person or situation is exempt f?om Big Boy's subterfuge.

The more authorkative the figure and the more sacrosanct the object, the greater the audience's delighrt in Big Boy's transgressions. Dance suggests this latter quality indicates that the audience takes vicarious pleasure in mocking the society's restrictions and smcial values, and in expressing the anti-social behaviour they rnust suppress. Therefone, she adds "it is no surprise then that the butt of the humour in most of the Big Boy stories is [someone such as] the teacher or the parent."

Historïcall~ai, the single most cornmon significance overtly attached to tricksters and thein antics in Western cultures is their ability to hnction as a vent through which the pressures of life can be dissipated. This is typicai of readings given to tricher figures in Anican New World cultures. Their political subversiveness directed at fictiond surrogates of colonising authority is often emphasised within

114 Daryl Dance, FolMore From Contem~oraryJamaicans, p. 54. 123 Mo-diasporic histories of subjugation and oppression-"5 While the continuation of

systems of political and economic oppression afler Emancipation makes the above a

viable reading of tricher narratives, neither the tricksters, changing social

circumstances and needs, nor the original consciousness that shaped them can be

contained within a single explanation. The appearance of new heroes, the alteration of

old ones, and the continuous blending of new and old Say a great deal about the

trickster whose protean nature defies definitive analytical categories and conclusions.

The range of theories that explain the fûnction of tnckster texts within

societies also allows for their use in reaffirming codes of ethics and behaviour in the

very act of challenging these codes. In trickster narratives, the trickster is made to

affirm the very thing he profanes, as William Hynes explains:

Each time [the tnckster] causes laughter by his imitation of the powers and prerogatives of another being, the relative wisdom of the Iocus and boudaries of these rights and privileges is reconfhned. Each time [the tnckster] breaks a taboo or boundary, the same taboo or boundary is underlined for non-tncksters- Thus examples of the trickster's negative activity, such as the profaning of sacred beliefs, being seduced by pride, or engaging in antisocial behaviour, can be understood as an

Il5 Among them is Lawrence Levine's reading of trickster narratives in the New World as examples of slave taies. The context for interpreting these narratives is the universe of econonnic and social oppression, of white rnasters versus black slaves: "me tales] encourageci trickery and guile; they stimulated the search for ways out of the system; they inbred a contempt for the powerful and an admiration for the perseverance and even the wisdom of the undermen; they constituted an intra-group lore which must have intensifiec feelings of distance fiom the world of the slave holder," See Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Mo-American Folk Thouaht From Slavery to Freedom. (Oxford University Press, 1977) 132. Levine's reading of trickster texts in the Mo-American context argues that aithough the îrickster became so transmuted by the Middle Passage that he is rightly a "hero with a thousand fàces" in New World Black cuitures, their continuation in a strange environment speaks of a shared need across the Black diaspora for stories which allow the oppresseci to transcend their situation both psychically and socially. adroit reverse stressing of the need for reverence, humility, or dedication to the common gwd. Because tricksters are so &en the official profaners of the central beliefs of a given systems, they cm act as a cmera obsnrra in which the reversed mirror image semes as a valuable index to the sacred beliefs of that same system. '16

Sharlene May Poliner links the above explmation directly to an Old World African

cosmology and cultural practice which she explains has survived among the

meanings/fûnctions attributed to trickster tales in transplanted cultures such as the

Caribbean. The trickster's rascality enables social satire by inspiring censure- His

greed and misuse of his power is typically "balanceci and containeci by an ethical and metaphysical context found both within the tales and in the community that produced them-"Il7 The object of ambivalent laughter, of both admiration and derision, the trickster's lawlessness teaches as it entertains. But laughter is hardly ever innocent.

The humour evoked by trickster narratives works to make sharp criticism or moral censure paiatable to those for whom criticisrn or censure is intended. Thus, the trickster stands at the centre of an inherited oral literature which provokes a community into testing its values in the moment of giving expression to them.

In "Ascot," Senior has created a Big Boy story true to its oral genre. The similarities between Ascot and Big Boy are unmistakable. Ridiculously ta11 with a big

'16 William J. Hynes, "Tncmclusive Conclusions: Trichers - Metaplayers and Revealers" in Mvthical Trickster Fiaures: Contows. Conte- and Cnticisms, eds. William J. Hynes and William Ddy (Tuscalwsa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1993) 208.

117 Shariene May Poher, 'The Exileci Creature: Ananse Tales and the Search for Afro- Caribbean Identity," Studies in the Human fies 11. 1, (June 1984): 17. 125 mouth and big feet, Ascot is iiterally a "big boy". Seemingly dull-witted, Ascot nevertheless manages to achieve goals beyond what hjs personal circumstances and history alIowed. The story of Ascot's life as told by Lily, the nmator, consists of a series of tnckster episodes. Ascot begins by stealing a bunch of bananas the narrator's father was saving for the harvest bazaar simply to satisfi his appetite. As the story unfolds, Ascot takes greater risks and breaks bigger rules to get what he wants. His life's ambition is to "dress up in white clothes and drive a big white car" ~Surnmer

Liahtninq" 29). To this end he convinces the narrator's brother, Kenny, to help him fmd work in the city. When Kenny obliges, Ascot refuses to work and spends his time day-dreaming - "AU he do al1 day is jump behind the wheel of a motorcar the minute people back tum and make noise like Say he driving" ("Summer Liahtninq" 29).

Ascot is interested only in the fastest and easiest route to his goal. After stealing some of Kenny's belongings and disappearing for a whiIe, Ascot retums home with news that he is a step closer to his dream. He had learned to drive in Kingston during his unexplained absence.

Next, through mysterious circumstances (dishonesty is strongly implied),

Ascot acquires a fmworker's contract to Florida, but on arriving in the US he

"skip fmwork," bafning immigration authorities. During his years of self-imposed exile, Ascot's letters to his mother tell of his contiming self-absorption and hint at ongoing chicanery:

Dear Ma wel i am her in New York is Big Plase and they have plenty car 1 am going to get one yr loving son Ascot. and

Dear mother wel here 1 am in Connecticut. Connecticut is Big Plais. 1 driving car two year now but is not wite yr loving son Ascot. and again

Dear Mother Chicago is Big plais 1 dreving wite car for a wite man but he don make me where wite is black uniform so I mite leave yr loving son Ascot. ("Summer Liahtning" 30)

Many years later, Ascot retums home for a visit having fblfilled his dream. He is dressed in white, drives a big white car, is accompanied by a well-educated Arnencan wife and speaks with an Amencan accent "so thick you could cut it with a knife"

("Summer Liahtninq7' 3 1). Ascot still has a knack for duplicity. He tries to deceive his wife that Lily's more prosperous family is his also. When his ruse fails, he resorts to insulting his real family. As in everything else, Ascot is concerned only with what he wants and is prepared to sacrifice even his own family to his desires.

Ascot is obviously an object of censure, but more importantly, his self-serving and transgressive acts expose the value system in a fictional rurai Jamaican cornmunity and invite the reader to test her own values against those espoused by the characters in the story. B y flagrantly transgressing time- honoured values of truth, honesty and respect for property, farnily and the law, Ascot raises questions about personal boundaries and limitations, and about personal gratification versus social responsibility. The way in which the other characters react to Ascot's exploits is a test of their value system. Ascot's retm creates a stir in his community. The women welcome hirn with open arms. "I did know he was goin get far you know" ("Surnrner Li~htning"34), says Lily's mother and her sentiments are echoed by Ascot's mother with fierce pride even after her son slights her. On the other hand, the men, especially Lily's father, have only words of censure for Ascot. The opening lines of the story, which in strict chronology belong at the end of the narrative, are indicative of the opposing reactions generated by Ascot's behaviour:

"That Ascot goin go far," Marna Say, "Mark my word."

'Yes. Hun going so fm hirn goin ennup clear a prison," Papa say. Every time you mention Ascot name to Papa these days the big vein in Papa forehead tighten up and you know he trying hard to control himself.

"Oh gawd when al1 is said an done the bwoy do well Jackie. Doan go on so," Mama say.

"The bwoy is a iivin criminal. Do well me foot. Look how him treat hirn family like they have leprosy. Deny dern. 1s so you wan you pickney behave. Cho woman. Yu was aiways a fool," and with that Papa jam hirn hat on hirn head and take off down the road. ~Sumrner Liahtning" 26)

The ethical alternatives are built into the story and are presented in this exchange: containment and the re-establishment of moral order through censorship of the tickster (Papa), or social anarchy brought on by uncritical admiration of the trickster

(Marna). The difTerence of interpretaîion set out in the opening exchange is indicative of more than a moral crisis. It is also the point at which the trickster text as a genre gets defined in the act of reading. To agree with Papa's response is to restore the

128 integrity of the genre by allowing it to fiifil its social function. To agree with Marna's response is to misidentify the genre by ascribing other significations to its narrative codes.

The problem of reading appears to remain unresolved. It seems as if it is lefi entirely up to the reader to decide which response should prevail, with the consequence that the genre is left hanging in the balance. However, in their readiag of

"Ascot," Allison Donnell and Richard Patteson identie an aspect of the narrative which works to restore the genre.''* Donneil writes that it is Lily, the narrator, who is at the centre of the story. As the one who tells of Ascot's misdeeds, Lily has control over the composition of the story. She, as surrogate to the invisible author, arranges the story according to the formula of Big Boy trickster texts. Therefore, her response to Ascot is significant in detennining which of the two responses has narrative validity. 'l9

Following Donnell, Patteson argues that Lily's disapprovd "casts a shadow7' over the admiration of the other women, "strongly suggesting that too casual an adoption of the materialistic anci-racist values of the West is a high pnce to pay for

Western prosperity."120 Ascot's anempt to %hite wash" his past by denying his

118 Allison Donnell, 'The Short Fiction of Ofive Senior," Caribbean Women Writers: Fiction in Ennlish, eds. Mary Conde and Thom Lonsdale (Macmillam, 1999) 55-78 and Richard Paüeson, Caribbean Passages: A Critical Permective on New Fiction fiom the West Indies (Boulder, Colorado: Ly~eRienner Publisbers, 1998).

Il9 Allison Donnell, p. 63

120 Richard Pattesan, p. 25. family and adopting the narrator's parents is as disturbing as the women's belief that

he would make good because of his racial heritage. His insistence on achieving his

material goals at al1 costs parallels the women's insistence on ignoring his glaring

faults because of his new social standing. Hence, Lily's overt disapproval of Ascot is

also a tacit disapproval of those who do not censure him.

In his Introduction to The Penmin Book of Caribbean Short Stones, E.A.

Markham quenes the role and relevance of trickster tales (he uses the seminal

trickster figure Anancy as his trope) to contemporary Caribbean writers of short

fiction:

Perhaps it's time to ask cenain questions of Anancy: to what extent does a tradition with its rnind set on subterfuge, the self-obsession and maleness of the wnceit, the tendency to shirk responsibility because responsibility without power is impossible and power lies elsewhere - to what extent has this way of thinking become something of a burden to us? 1s this a caricature whose political force is now spent? Many of the present short story writers - and not only the women - are toying with these notions. 12'

Markham' s description of the cultural imagination and social practice embodied in the figure of Anancy recalls a way of thinking in which the trickster, in Jungian terms, is held to be representative of the "dark shadows" lurking within the individual ancilor cultural psyche. These dark desires and urges must be suppressed if anarchy is to be held in check.

E.A. Markham, ed., Introduction, The Penpin Book of Caribbean Short Stories (1996) xix. However, archetypai readings of trickster, such as that offered by Jung, often

fail to account for cuiturdly specific meanings of trickster. The more threatening

aspects of trickster figures can be used, as demonstrated in "Ascot" to effect a

reversal of the anarchic, anti-social impulse. Similarly, the many faces of the trickster

makes it difficult to pin hider down to one meaning, or even one gender. Senior is

well aware of the many faces of the trickster and seeks out, in contrast to Markham's

observations, the political and social relevance of the trickster in contemporary

society.

The highly entertaining 'Do Angels Wear Brassieres?" demonstrates that the

trickster can be a positive figure, and can assume a fernale identity when necessary. In

the story, the social value of the trickster's antics is realised and enhanced by the form

the narrative takes, which is the ancient foikloric practice of riddling. The story's title

is derived fiom the cleverest of the riddles posed on which the denouement depends.

Contemporary thinking often dismisses riddles as little more than amusing word

puzzles but, as this story shows, riddles can and have traditionally been used for

instruction.'" Riddling, not surprisingly, characterises the tnckster's linguistic

performance in this story as the protean nature of tickster figures finds expression in

122 Glossing the meaning of the word "riddle," the editors of the Funk and Waanalls Standard Dictionarv of FoiMore. Mvtholosgr and Legend write: 'The educatiuual charmer and purpose of riddles is plainly revealed in their very name. Whether we take the Engiish riddle, the German Ratfi)sel, or the Greek ainigma, they ail corne fiom the corresponding verbs, Engïish rede (Old English raehn), German ratfi)en, and Greek, aineo, al1 rneaning to give advice. The latin aenigma. French enigme, and Euglish enigma are aii obviously derived fiom the Greek original and dlretain its rneaning." See vol. 2 eds. Maria Leach and Jerome Fried (New York; Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1950) 939. linguistic polymorphism. ''Riddles," writes Laura Tanna, "are very popular in iamaica and often accompany an Anansi session."'23 The nddles and trick questions posed in the narrative are directed at undermirhg and challenging dominant and authoritative meanings but the trickster's verbal anarchy, while disruptive of authority, is not a destructive force. Viv Edwards and Thomas Sienkewicz argue that the "antisocial forces which play an important role in riddling" can be "chamelled into a form of expression which is both creative and psychologically helpfùl" and also that riddles fùlfil their social funchon by "exploring those arnbiguous and disturbing aspects of life which are potentially destructive of community values."Lz4In ''Do

Angels Wear Brassieres?" nddling is used to explore issues of female identity and the destructive effects that certain religious and social views cm have on the construction of that identity, and the trickster emerges as the character with the moa potential for creativity.

The story centres on an dl-femaie family. Auntie Mary is a rniddle-aged widow with very strict views about female behaviour as dictated by her religion. Her younger sister Cherry is a bewildered, timid woman recovering fiom the shame of an affair with a married man several years her senior. Cheny's daughter Beccka is the product of this illicit union. Beccka is a delightfully precocious pre-teen. She is quick,

'= Laura Tanna, Jamaican Foiktales and Oral Histories (Kingston: Institute of lamaica Publications, 1984) 48.

124 Viv Edwards and Thornas J. Sienkewicz, Oral Cultures Past and Present: Rappin' and Homer (London: Basil Biackwell, 1990) 175. 132 intelligent and creative, but Auntie Mary is unable to recognise and appreciate the girl's talents because the elder woman is lacks the imagination to understand anything outside of her small experience. The portrait of Auntie Mary is quite comical and even sympathetic at points but nevertheless, the woman's mentai and ernotional deficiencies are made very obvious. There is very little space in Auntie Mary's house for fiin, nor can she provide the kind of guidance needed to nurture a bright and energetic child. Beccka loves her father who encourages her imagination and creativity by sending her gifts of books, but Auntie Mary denounces him as the sinner who ruined her sister's reputation. Beccka tries to find ways to express her creativity and imagination in the very sterile world of her aunt's house but she cornes up repeatedly against Auntie Mary who chastises Beccka with blows intended to tame her 'Torce-ripeness" and plots to send the girl away to the farthest boarding school as soon as she passes her exams.

Auntie Mary fiowns on fiin and pleasure, particularly if women avail themselves of such opportunities. In Auntie Mary's view, the three rnost wicked things a woman can do is to take a dnnk, go to a night-club, and dance ail night. She disapproves of Beccka's child-like curiosity because both her religious worldview and the social code by which siie lives discourage independent thinking and imagination in children. 'Zittle children have no nght to have so many things in their brain" ("Surnrner Liahtninq" 69), Auntie Mary tells her fiend Fat Katie. Beccka is a female child who shows signs of wanting to go beyond what her aunt understands and can accept, and hence the girl is subjected to even greater restrictions. Auntie Mary 133 rewards Beccka with blows for asking how worms reproduce because, as a girl, such

a question only proved that she was growing up too quickly for her own good. Auntie

Mary blames Beccka's "impertinence" (her word for the child's quickness) on the

girl's fondness for reading, "is al1 those books her father pack her up with. Book is atl

him ever good for. Rather than buy food put in the pickney mouth or help Cherry find

shelter his only contribution is book. Nuh his character stamp on her" ("Summer

Linhtning" 69). She defends her reaction to Beccka's question by quoting Proverbial

wisdom on child-rearing, 'Who cant hear must feel for the rod and reproof bring wisdom but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (3urnrner

Liahtning" 69). Her response is characteristic of her nile-bound, heavy-handed religious views and is sanctioned (Fat Katie approves of her treatment of Beccka) by cornrnunity values which ultimately pose a senous psychological threat to children like Beccka.

Beccka's delight in creating Biblical conundrums (much to the chagrin of her aunt and the embarrassrnent of her mother) identifies her as a child trickster whose riddles provide an outlet for her creativity, protect her psychologically from the staid, stifling atmosphere in which she is being reared, and proves an effective challenge to

Auntie Mary's (mis) rule. Beccka spends nights reading the Bible in secret fiom cover to cover but the reader is informed, fiom a perspective that sounds very much like Auntie Mary's voice, that Beccka's diligence was "not corn any conviction the little wretch but because everybody round her always quoting that book and Beccka want to try and fhd flaw and question she can best them with" ("Summer Lirrhtning"

67).

Beccka deflates her aunt's authority by going to the source of that authority -

the Bible. The nddles do not represent a rejection of religion. They are an attempt to

reimagine the Stern, humourless God of her aunt as a more benevolent presence. God

appears to Beccka "in the shape of a big fat anansi in a corner of the roof' ("Summer

Lirrhtning" 67). God as Anancy reverses the cultural hierarchy established in Auntie

Mary's house in which Western religion is courted at the expense of local cultural

traditions. The association hplies a critique of the tendency on the part of many

Jamaicans (at the period the story covers as well as in contemporary times) who wish to be considered morally upright and socially progressive to embrace Western

epistemologies and deny the heuristic value of much of their own folklore.i25

12s Anansi stories and the trickster impulse have borne the brunt of much of the criticism of a society anxious to renounce its Mcan past. Anansi is dismisseci by many as an anti-hero and his trïckiness as just another example of the kind of depraved moral sense that Jarnaicans who value themselves should &un. But there are some famaicans who achowledge Anancy as a trope used creatively for social, educaîional and entertainment pwposes. An excerpt fiom a conversation between Laura Tanna and D.F.Shailand, one of her Jamaican informants, points to the receptive attitude of some Jamaicans to Anancy scories: D.F. ShaIIund: Up to nwwhen people want to tell that you're smarter they say you're Anansi, Tanna: But then how do you feel about teaching children about al1 these tricks and getting away with them? Do you think this is a good idea? Shaiiund: No, no, I dm't think it is a bad idea. Definitely, it's not a bad idea. You see there are some of these stories has a lot of morals in them, while some jus only go by de way, as a joke. But there are some dem tell you, bas a lot of moral in them and are very interesting to anybody, even to children. Laura Tanna, Jamaican Folktale and Oral Histories, p. 8 1, Commenting on this tendency, Olive Senior notes that poverty and the lack of education mong Jamaicans in rurd comrnunities (such as the community of "Do

Angels Wear Brassieres?") often result in a brand of Christian orthodoxy and

Puritanism unreceptive to folk culture7 particularly those folk forms which fa11 within a tradition of the comic. For young girls growing up within such communities, the choice is either to conforrn to expectaîions and grow up as prudish, unimaginative young women unable to move outside of the narrow sphere dictated b y their elders, or risk the disapproval of their comrnunities by daring to be themselves. It is significant then that Senior chooses to make her child protagonist in a story about the education and socialisation of a young girl an Anancy-like figure. It shows that whereas Auntie

Mary's strict Christian code fails to provide a healthy, nudng environment for an energetic, intelligent girl, folk culture dlows Beccka to exercise her intellect, explore her creativity and enjoy the gwd fun that is essential to a happy childhood.

Unlike Auntie Mary, the English Archdeacon enjoys Beccka's word games and childish pranks:

By now Beccka and the Archdeacon exchanging Bible knowledge. Beccka asking him question and he trying his best to answer but they never really tell him any of these things in theological college. First he go ask Beccka if she is a good little girl. Beccka Say yes she read her Bible every day. Do you now say the Archdeacon, splendid. Beccka srnile and look &y. 'Tell me my little giri, is there anything in the Bible you would

like to ask me about?"

'Yes sir. Who in the Bible wrote big?> "Who in the Bible wrote big. My dear child!" This wasn't the kind of question Archdeacon expecting but hi.always telling himself how he have rappoa with children so he decide to confess his ignorance. 'Tell me, who?" cTaul!" Beccka shout. 'Paul?" "Galatians six eleven, 'See with how large letters 1 write onto you with mine own hands."' '730 Ho Ho Ho," Archdeacon laugh. 'Well done. Try me with another one."

Beccka, in a spint of generosity, decides to give the Archedeacon an easy trick question. They continue:

"What did Adam and Eve do when they were dnven out of the garden?" cWmy"the Archdeacon sputtered but couid not think of a suitable answer. 'Raise Cain ha ha ha ha ha," "They raised Cain Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho." The Archdeacon promise himself to rernember that one to tell the deacon. Al1 the same he not feeling stictly cornfortable. It really dont seem dignified for an Archdeacon to be having this type of conversation with an eleven year old girl. But Beccka already in high gear with the next question and Archdeacon tense himself. 'Who is the shortest man in the Bible?" Archdeacon groan. 'Teter. Because him sleep on his watch. Ha Ha Ha." 730 Ho Ho Ho Ho." Archdeacon laughing so hard now he starting to cough. He cou& and cough till the coughing bring him to his senses. He there looking down the passage where Auntie Mary gone and wish she would hurry corne back. ("Summer Liahtninq" 74-75)

The Archdeacon is receptive, showing that a Western Christian code and folk practices do not have to be antagonistic one to the other. But the Archdeaconys underlying discornfort reveals that he still feels that a distance has to be maintained between the two in the matter of instructing children: He sputter a few time into his handkerchiet wipe his eye, sit up straight and assume his moa religious expression. Even Beccka impress, "Now Rebecca. Hm- You are a very clever very entertainhg little girl. Very. But what I had in mind were questions that are a bit more serious. Your aunt tells me that you are being prepared for confirmation. Surely you must have some questions about doctrine hm, religion, that puzzle you. No serious questions?" ("Summer Liahtning" 75)

Beccka7sresponse to this question: "Sir, what 1 want to know is this for 1 cant

find it in the Bible. Please sir, do angels Wear brassieres?" literally brings the house

down around everybody's eus. Auntie Mary is scandalised. Timid Cherry cries out of

sympathy for her sister and the Archdeacon wekomes the chaos which saves him fiom having to answer Beccka's question. But it is this question more than al1 of

Beccka's other nddles put together which tests how well the codes held up by the adults in the story meet the challenge of raising girls. Mr. O'Connor is the only one who gives Beccka her answer - only lady angels need to Wear brassieres. In the fight of Mr. O'Connor's calm, wmmon sense response, the reaction of Auntie Mary and even the Archdeacon appears ridiculous. The domestication of angels infuses the image of celestial beings with an earthy folksiness and brings the Christian religion that much closer to the everyday realities of mortal women. This riddle draws attention to dl the other points in the story in which ideals of femaleness bom out of a rule-bound, religion-informed social code are undercut by the realities of everyday

Me. Beccka7s trick question is the story's central metaphor for a transformation of consciousness in the way in which young femaleness is understood and numireci.

Beccka's decision to go to the al1 girls' boarding school of her Aunt's choice with her 138 trickster wit intact implies that a transformation in consciousness is also needed, and

will be attempted, beyond the confines of Auntie Mary's house.

Oral Com~ositionsand The Written Text

In readings of Olive Senior's short fiction, much attention has been paid to her

skilful phonetic transcriptions of the native voice or vernacular speech patterns.126 I,

"The Fiction of Olive Senior: Traditional Society and the Wider World," Richard

Patteson discusses Senior's choice of the vernacular voice as the linguistic medium

for fiction within a post-colonial paradigm of centre and periphery. The language of

the short stories, Patteson argues, explodes this paradigm by replacing the

c'normative," "natural" and "authoritative7' language of the colonial spaces, whose

Iinguistic media and genres dominate literary production, both in the centres and the

penpheries, with the "authentic" voices and forms of the colonised. Pointing to the

use of the vernacular voice not only in dialogue but as narrative voice in several of

the short stories, Patteson claims that ccSenior's prodigious mastery of the varieties of

English speech in Jamaica" works on two levels.'"

126 See for example, Velma Potlard's "Mothertongue Voices m the Writing of Oiive Senior and Loma Goodison," Mderiands: Biack Women's Writing fiom ffica. the Caribbean and South Ma, ed. Susheila Nasta (Women's Press, 1991) 238-256.

127 Richard Patteson, 'The Fiction of Olive Senior: Traditional Society and the Wider Worl4" AREL 24. 1 (huary 1993): 15. 139 In the first instance, it reflects the '?inguistic versatility in daily life that is a

hallmark of Caribbean creole culture."128 The use of the vernacular, then, is an

extension of the author's subject matter. '7 want people to know," Senior said in an

interview, 3hat 'literature' can be created out of the fabric of our everyday lives, that

our stories are as worth teliing as those of Shakespeare - or the creators of allas."'^^

In the second instance, and Patteson suggests that this is the deeper level, "the medley of discourses that constitute [the short stories] represents the counter-colonisation of a language once associated with hegemonic authority.vil30 That is, in letring her characters speak in their varied Jamaican voices, Senior relocates the power of the narrative - and the source of meaning- fiom within the cultural space that produces the language.

The spoken quality which marks the narrative voice in "Ascot" is aiso evident in stones in which aithe main character is the teller of the tale. 'Tart of my engagement as a writer," says Senior:

has been in trying to capture the voices of both the tellers or talebearers and of those who get spoken about; of writing the story as if it were being told. 13'

128 Richard Patteson, p. 15.

129 C. Roweii, "An Interview with Olive Senior," CaiiaIoo 1 1.3 (Summer 1988): 487.

130 Richard Patteson, p. 1 8.

131 Olive Senior, "Lessans From the Fruit Stand: Or, Wntmg for the Listener," p. 41. 140 Narrative perspective re-conceptualised in the immediacy of the speaking persona

ailows for ironically constnicted tales in which the talebearer (the speaking persona)

is unaware of deeper levels of meaning to the story she tells. In these instances, it is in

the gap between the author as storyteller and the character as talebearer that the

aory's most important revelations are to be found. Ironically constnicted stories

include cTlailad"("Summer Liahtnind' and Other Stones), 'You Think 1 Mad, Miss,"

('?)iscemer of Hearts" and Other Stones), and "The Two Grandmothers" and 'Tily,

Lily" ("Arriva1 of the Snake Woman" and Other Stones)

"Ballad," as its title suggests, is a story based on an mcieût oral form in use within many cultures. Traditional ballads are songs transmitted orally which tell stories about an event, a person or a cornrnunity. The author of a traditional ballad is usually unknown. As the narrative species of folk songs which are transmitted orally, ballads may have an original composer, they are performed by different individuals.

As a consequence, while the essential facts of the story may remain unchanged £?om telling to telling, each singer who lems and repeats an oral ballad is likely to introduce changes in both the text and the tune so that eventually, a ballad exists in many variant forms. The way in which these variations transform the meaning and message of the familiar story line is the point of interest among scholars of oral l iterature.

In 'The Ballad and Communal Poetry," Francis Gummere discusses communal theones of the ballad in an attempt to resolve the question of authorship in the form. "A centrai question to theonsts of the ballad form," says Gummere, '5s 141 'Does a single artist always make poetryy of whatever sort, or may one allow a

concert of individuals in the act of composition? 1s the fok Song brought to the folk,

or is it made by the folk? 1s the chorus, the communal Song essentially one with the

composed poem as we know it - an individual, deliberate, and artistic ~ork?"'~~~

Gumrnere then explains the disagreement arnong critics when the above questions are posed. On the one hand, ''the communal ongins of Song finds almost no recognition from modem scholars... Some critics argue that bardic compositions are individual.

There is no such thing as the folk behind what one calls folk tales, folklore, popular ballads. Artistry is individual." It is a position which, Gummere argues, "only ends up suppressing those communal elements which went into the making of bal~ads."'~~

Gummere acknowledges the importance of the individual artist/performer but insists that one of the major differences in the understanding of fokioric and modern literary compositions is the importance placed in the former on the idea of the individual artist as heu to and participant in a narrative tradition older than herself:

We see the poet but behind this vividly Iighted 1 or Thou or He of modern pow lurks in shadow the We of that early throng. In the ballads one cornes closer to this presence: one feels it, but one cannot clearly see

13' Francis B. Gummere, "'ile Baliad and Communal Poetry," 'The Criocs and the Ballad, eds. MacEdward Leach and Tristram P. Coffin (Carbondale: Southern Illinois, 196 1) 20-21.

'33 Francis B. Gummere, p -21.

'" Francis B. Gummere, p. 23 In "Ballad," Senior creates a short story in which both the modem literary understanding of composition as the work of a single author and bardic notions of the enabling power of communal namatives on individual artistry are reconciled. It is the vernacular speaking voice as first person narrator on the one hand, and as reflector of communal vaLues and stories on the other which unites these two strands. It is the vernacular speaking voice of Lenora, the narrator, which shapes and orders the narrative. In teIling her story about her best fnend Miss Rilla, Lenora draws on the memories of dder members of her community who had witnessed events significant to her story at which she was not present. In several instances, these memories which are recounted as gossip are recaptured in the voices of witnesses. At other times

Lenora reports in her own words the stories she hears fkom others. Both the cornments admemories offer a version of events whose interpretation is often in tension with Lenora's. Through this narrative strategy, Senior has succeeded in compressing muhiple versions of the story of Miss Rilla in one performance.

These versions of Miss Rilla's life - ostensibly the subject of the ballad - offer insights uito motives, values and attitudes long ingrained in the community of which Miss Rilla is only a small part:

This is where 1 thuik the modem writer diverges fkom the traditional storyteHer or the roadside gossip: oral culture does not appear to deal too much with the intemal, to delve too deeply into feelings, motivations, and the like. In Our societies, people who think too much, or study too hard, or read tw much, are thought to be couxting madness; mental illness is what results fiom tw much inner contemplation. In Our daily lives, we as human beings are concemed with whaî can be easily accessed; we shy away from getting to the core, ....we shy away from discussing the deeper reasons why people act as they do; we shy away fkom exploring the deeper side of the tale,. .. And this is where 1 think the short story is taking up fiom the tale; it can and must go beyond the surface of everyday events to comment as well on the reasons for actions contained in the ~tor~."~

The speaking voice which reiates the ballad is so conceived as to move the readernistener beyond the surface to what is left unsaid. The "moment of revelation or epiphany" so crucial to Senior's practice in the short aory is achieved by the reader, but not by Lenora. This is a consequence of the choice of an innocent chiid narrator. This narrative perspective guarantees the story's ironically constructed rneanings which make the satire that much more powhl.

The choice of a child narrator, as Velma Pollard observes, heightens rather than dirninishes the insights gained into the fictionai world:

The child's eye view is not childlike. It is a clear vision through which the irrationalities of adults, the inequities of Society and from time to time the redeeming features of the environment, are expressed. The exploitation of the child's vision allows Senior space for the imaginative forays her readers find most engaging, and for the dramatic presentation of human foibles seen fiom the point of view of the little person looking and feeling fiom ~nder."~

Somewhere between 11 and 12 years old, Lenora is not hlly able to grasp al1 the implications of what she hears and repeats, and at times she even misreads signals herself. Through ail the gossiping and telling of stories that goes on in the village, the reader hears more than the story of Miss Rilla's life. In her account of her relationship

''' Senior, ''Lessons From the Fruit Stand: Or, Wnmig for the Listener," p. 43. lx Velrna Pollard, "An introduction to the Fiction of Olive Senior," Callaioo 11. 3 (1988): 542. with Miss Rilla, her stepmother MeMa and others, Lenora does not offer explicit

commentary. She simply tells her audience what she knows and how those people

have affected her life. It is fiom this information that the reader/listener is able to

discern causes, motives and connections beyond what Lenora herself sees. By filling

in what is left unsaid, the readerhtener helps Lenora finish her story. The

collaboration between teller and listener, writer and reader so crucial to Senior's

understanding of "story" works at its best in 'Ballad."

Sequencing of information is one of the main structural devices which work to

reveal hidden meanings. (Sequencing is the hand of the storywriter at work disguised

in the confusion of a little girl rambling on with her storytelling.) It also serve. to

heighten interest in the story itself and is therefore a significant feature of the

simulated oral storytelling. The story calls attention to this. Says Lenora:

Now it look like I gone and spoil this ballad story for this is not the way I want to tell it at dl. The part about Miss Rilla dying is the end part and it redv should start at the begiming. ("Summer Liahtninq" 109)

Lenora explains the a-chronology of her tale bearing as the effect of her grief stricken

mind:

Only to tell you the truth 1 don? know the beginning or end of anything right now for 1 still grieve over my lovely Enend Miss Rilla that gone and die on me. ("Summer Linhtning" 109)

In typical Lenora fashion, she points to a detail of her story without understanding its

significance. In ballads, the narrative characteristically begins with the climactic event. It functions as an entry point into a series of earlier events which, as the story unfolds, in turn explain the signincance of the opening event. Part 1 of "Ballad" introduces the event which precipitates the entire narrative - the death of Miss Rilla.

It is clear fkom information provided in this section that Miss Rilla's death has awakenedkevived strong feelings against the deceased. The village tacher tore up an essay Lenora wrote because the subject was Miss Rilla. MeMays censorship of the dead woman is evident in her criticism of her stepdaughter: 'Tenora, cut out that nasty piece of laughing for you begiming to sound just like Rilla Dunville"

sum mer Lie;htning7' 101). A thud scene which details an encounter between MeMa, Dulcie and Estrella on the one hand, and Miss Rilla on the other, indicates that the hostility towards the latter has a long history. Part 1 includes al1 the information and quickly draws us to the question that wîll maintain interest in the story: What did

Miss Rilla do to elicit such widespread hatred?

Part TI fiirther heightens the suspense. It consists of a first hand, gossipy account of Miss Rilla's death by 'Big Mout" Doris relayed by Lenora. The account is filled with thinly veiled invectives against Miss Rilla and her husband:

1s not everybody die on truck that going to town Miss Grett, is not Christian death that at al1 at all. While 1 never Say nutten bad about the dead and nothing personal bout Miss Rilla none of the two of them can really expect to have a good death after al1 they have on their conscience and 1would not surprise if she not resting easy herseif. ("Summer Liahtning" 108)

Part III does not immediately gratify the curiosity to know why members of the community are hostile to Miss Rilla. Instead, it gives a close-up of Lenora's relationship with her stepmother. From Lenoraysaccount, MeMa fails as a surrogate mother. In Part TV, Lenora compares MeMa's reaction to Miss Rilla's when she asked about where babies corne fiom. MeMa hits Lenora and rebukes her 'Torce- npeness" while Miss Rilla offers a true, but shortened, explanation in respect of

Lenora's age. At the end of Part N Lenora repeats some gossip she heard from the woman in her community. They atîributed Miss Kïlla's childlessness to God's curse on a wicked harlot. These two sections of the tale work to garner narrative sympathy for a woman blacklisted by her community. Barren and ostracised by the female community, Miss Rilla is, nevertheless, the most positive mother figure among al1 the women and is likened to Mary, Mother .of Jesus. Not only are there redeeming qualities in Miss Rilla, these sections imply that the women who act and speak in judgement against Miss RNa are not themselves blameless of serious crimes - such as prejudice, slander and lack of charity.

Part V brings the reader back to the main thread of the narrative. There was a murder in the community many years before and Mïss Rilla was somehow involved.

The reader has to wait until Part VII to find out exactly how Miss Rilla was involved, suspense being sustained, in true story-like fashion, until the final moments. In the interim, Parts VI and W provide important information. Part VI details a terrible, violent and scandalous fight between MeMa and Lenora's father. Not only is this scene meant to serve as a contrast to the loving playfulness Miss Rilla and Poppa D shared, it also serves to show that the people of Springville practise a "one-eye law."

They judge Miss Rilla harshly for dornestic circumstances not far removed fkom their own experience. The wrath of the community descended on Miss Rilla when one of 147 her boyfkiends violently hacked another boyfiiend to pieces out of jedous rage. But

Lenora tells us that domestic violence was not uncornmon among the more respectable, church going members of her comunity. The murder itself was a tragic incident, but there is also ample evidence to suggest that the dislike of Miss Rilla does not stem solely fiom ascribing blame to her for the tragedy. It also stems firom jealousy of Miss Rilla's material prosperity and a pervasive self-nghteousness which is the result of a religious community more attuned to God's judgenient than God's love.

Part VII is crucial to the story and is strategically placed between the scenes which present a redeeming picture of Miss Rilla and the last scene in which we learn of her infidelity which precipitated the îragedyhurder. Lenora relays information about the relationship between Miss Rilla and Blue Boy. Lenora's innocence and loyalty to Miss Rilla prevent her fiom seeing what was happening under her nose but the tmth is not lost on the reader or Miss Rilla's neighbours. Miss Rilla was again involved in a ménage a trois. Perhaps if she had not died an untimely death she might have been the cause of another crime of passion. There is however, the suggestion that Miss Rilla's behaviour is not simply the result of callous wantonness. Her flirtatiousness is balanced by a deep need to feel loved and cared for. Neither the innocent nor the villain, Miss Rilla serves as the touchstone whereby the entire community of Springvïlle is open to close scnitiny. Their passions and their prejudices, their shortoomings and their values are made obvious in their response to

Miss Rilla, in life and in death. Lenora may have started out with the intention of 148 commemorating and celebrating Miss Rilla's life in her ballad. She inadvertently

ended up drawing a detailed pichire of her comrnunity. By understanding the forces at

work shaping the lives and reactions of the people of Springville, the reader is invited to undertake a similar self-analysis. This is t ypical Senior. Self-awareness, not

condernnation, is the goal of much of her social critique.

In her storytelling, Senior places herself squarely in the role normally assumed by tellers of traditional lore. Glossing the formulaic ending to foik stories in Jamaica

- "Jack Mandora, me no choose none" - she explains her own relationship to the usual interpretation of this phrase which is, as she States, that the teller "assumes no responsibility for what is being described, that he or she is merely the teller of the tale.""' Senior chooses to be more actively involved and accepts her responsibility as an artist writing to and about her cornmunity. Her interpretation of the fomulaic ending seeks out its contractuai implications. It implies, she insists, that the writer is the guardian of words and meaning within the culture. Moreover, "if you choose to listen, then you are equaily to blame for whatever consequences result. It thus cements a bond between teller and listener - and 1 will suggest that in writing a story, there is aiso the need for the creation of such a bond between writer and reader."13'

In referencing this formulaic ending, Senior draws attention to the shared responsibility of those who see and speak about what they see (the writer) and those

-- 137 Olive Senior, "ksons fkom the Fniit Stand: Or, Writing for the Listener," p. 4 1.

131 Olive Senior, "L,essons from the Fniit Stand: Or, Writing for the Listener," p. 41. 149 who listen (the reader). The social satire that ernerges in her story telling is for the benefit of both parties. Her caoice of the short story as a genre arises fkom 'lhe desire

to subject to intense scrutiny a single event, idea, concept, to catch and hold up for

consideration a moment caught in time, inviting recognition fiorn the reader of

something that is already inside us, something that is essentially h~rnan.""~

Her satire is penetrating but not bitter. She is desirous of exposing the hypocrisies, contradictions and follies in the lives of ordinary Jamaicans, but she does so gently, and often does sa with humour. She recognises that she is as much a product of the society she is crïticising as are many of her readers whose consciousness she attempts to prod through her stones. She balances her insights against her deeply felt understanding that the social values and practices of her

Jamaican characters have been long in the making, and were brought about by a complex web of circumstances in the nation's history. Senior shows a humility that is not often evident in the satirist, and her explanation of her motives is a necessary background against which her stones should be read:

1 myself believe we are al1 part of the social forces that exist long before we are born, during Our lifetimes and afier we are gone; forces that shape our destinies. We therefore live at al1 times within a configuration of possibilities. So in my created world, there are no saints, no villains, no absolute good, no absolute evil. While 1 personally abhor violence, exploitation of any sort, in rny work 1 am willing to explore the forces that shape the life of the exploiter as much as the exploited, the violent as much as the victim ... Ultimately, we are

139 Olive Senior, "Lessons From The Fruit Stand: Or, Writing for the Listener," p. 43. 150 ail nothing more - or Iess - than children of the universe. Thus I tqr hard not to be judgmental. '"

Performinn the Text

In 'You Think I Ma4 Miss?" ('Discerner of Hearts" and Other Stories), 'The

Two Grandmothers" and 'Zily, Lily" ("Arriva1 of the Snake Woman" and Other

Scories), the use of dramatic monologue readily facilitates Senior's oral poetics.

Features characteristic of this genre are in direct accord with Senior's storytelling emphases - the centrality of a speaking persona whose voice text allows for writing the story as if it were being told; the simulation of the orai performance in that the dramatic monologue also implies a listener in the speaker's addresses; and the genre also allows for ironic constructions whereby meanings hidden fiom the speaker are made obvious to the audience.

Adena Rosmarin's definit ion of dramatic monologues as "poems which invite their readers to distinguish the poem's rneaning fiom that of their characterised speaker"141describes the creative vision and the overall effect in these stories. While the tales told by the speaking personae are highly engaging in their own right, and often reveal hidden secrets about the characters who people them, the genre fùlfils its potential only when the speaker's gratuitous self expression is understood as (often

- -- -- 140 C. Roweil, "An Interview With Olive Senior," p. 483.

141 Adena Rosmarin, The Power of Genre (Macmilian, l985), p. 56. 151 ironicaily) symptomatic of a condition larger than the speaker and those who are spoken about, but in which they al1 participate.

"The Two Grandmothers" invites the reader to consider the effects in human terms of a shifi in values fiom a religiously oriented to a materialistic, Arnericanised culture. In particular, the story explores how womanhood and femaleness are commodified and valued within this cultural flux, and the psychological cost for women of different generations who live through this change. These themes are dramatised in the breathless speech of a young girl who details, for her mother's benefit, the spent with her two grandmothers and her cousins. Her patemal grandmother (Grandma Del) lives in a world which is slow in embracing the Western

Iifestyle on which her mated grandmother (Towser) thrïves. Shuttled between the two during school vacations, the young girl at first finds Grandma Del's world of home-made jarn and dresses, Sunday moming church seMces and evenings of aory- telling, without electrkity or the distraction of a television, a refieshing change fiorn her home-life. Through the unstinting detail that only a young mind unaware of the implications of her report can give, the reader (looking over the shoulder of the girl's mother) learns that femaleness in Grandma Del's world is valued according to the tenets of home-grown, rural Jamaican version of Christianity. C hastity, respect for one's elders, proper application to one's ccschooling"and a renunciation of "sinfil" acts such as whistling and wearing make-up are hallmarks of a "respectable" woman in Grandma Del's community. The reader is therefore surpnsed to find out that

Grandma Del who uses this yardstick to measure the (un)acceptability of girls in her 152 community herself broke one of the cardinal rules in her youth and that the speaker's father was born out of wedlock.

These female virtues do not hold in Towser's world where desirable womanhood is quantified in "good" hair and skin, owning the latest gadgets, going on shopping sprees in Miami, and having rich boyfnends. The speaker's tone in the first three sections indicates that she is enarnoured of both her grandmothers but is caught between their different worlds. Uncertain what is required of her to ''grow as beautifid inside as [she is] outside'' ("Arrivai of the Snake Woman'' 64)' the girl's questions to her mother indicate that she is caught between the different value systems of her two grandrnothers. Her mind, although Young, is already contemplating the possibilities available to her. In sections Four and Five, the speaker's language registers the transformation that she is experiencing. She no longer speaks with innocence and fascination. Her tone drips with impatience, censure and insecurity. On one hand, she has embraced the materialistic, self-centred creed of her materna1 grandmother and on the other she has adopted the judgmental, self-righteous attitude of her patemal grandmother. Her genuine confiision over her grandrnothers' different reactions to her skin colour and hair texture grows into a deep-seated insecurity precipitated by time spent in Clearwater with her almost white cousins. Cousin Maureen's rejection of her blackness brings deep hurt, anger and self-hatred, which in tum generates a deep sharne of Grandma Del. The speaker's hardness in Section Seven is a survival strategy adopted to help her cope with the pain she feels (as real as her persistent stomach-ache) when al1 her certainties about 153 her self are shattered. The reader is tempted to judge the speaker for mistaking external trappings for real and lasting beauty, but her story is more profoundly a tragic example of the didease which is the inevkable result of a clash between two problernatic value systems.

Mad speakers are favountes of the monologists as their lack of self-possession makes plausible open, random and self-revealing expressions. 'You Think 1 Mad,

Miss?" the story of a woman who goes mad because of unrequited love, is a tragic tale which underlies the speaker's crazed fantasies. The most "dramatic" of Senior's dramatic monologues, this story is pushed forward by several encounters the speaker has as she assumes her daily position of begging fiom motorists at a busy tr&k light.

Depending on the response she receives to her requests for "small change" the speaker is either verbally abusive, conspiratonal, or musing. The circumstances of each encounter are retailed by the speaker in graphic detail as a gesture, a comment or a physical likeness on the part of a rnotorist is enough to remind her of her pain. The mad woman has created a riveting drama of betrayal, obeah and jealousy which she apparently told herself so ofken that she now believes it to be the truth. It is this story that she tells, piecemeal, to motorists whether or not they want to hear.

The mad woman, the "respectable" daughter of a teacher who was on her way to becoming a teacher herself, fell in love with Jimmy Watson who was himself a teacher. The contradictions in the wornan's story indicate that her affections were not reciprocated and this resulted in her mental imbalance. She blames her loss on Icilda, a woman she describes as uneducated and promiscuous who lured Jimmy away. In 154 the mad woman's involved story of shame and blame, she claims to have had - and lost - a child with her erstwhile lover. Whether or not events happened exactly as

described by the mad woman, what is important to the dramatic monologue is that her telling of her story reveals more than she intended, or is even aware of The revelations of her story lay bare her society's value systems - particularly those values that affect the construction of fernale identity, and her neurosis is seen as a consequence of her inability to accept her sexuality within a culture which dernonises female sexuality and identifies female sexual desires as the domain of the 'Yallen woman." For Senior,

[Clhoosing to speak through the point of view of the supposedly insane can also be seen as part of a methodology for re-imagining the world we have inherited. Because, like the world inhabited by the rnad, this is a world of fragments, a world of shreds and tatters which will require the most carefiil reconstniction over the longest stretch of time in order to make it wh01e.l~~

The metaphonc/metonymic language of madness allows the writer to delve into the psychosocial dimension of her characters' lives. In order to recover the fiil1 story, readers are required to reconstruct a narrative from the broken, elliptical speech of the mad central character. In doing so, the reader enters a world in which the individuaI3s madness and psychological fiagrnentation is simply an extension oflmirrors a more pervasive social didease. '"

14' 14' Senior, ''Lessons From the FmÏt Stand: Or, Writing For the Listener," p. 44.

143 Evelyn O'CaiIaghan makes a convincing case for reading "the 'mad' woman as a social metaphor for a darnaged West indian psyche." Through a close reading of selected works of fiction, O'Callaghan draws a correlation between the psychotic states of mind anatomised in Narrative reconstniction involves piecing together the mad woman's history fkom the half-truths, half-fantasies that she speaks. In her confused tale is glimpsed very clearly a set of social values which order women's lives. Her madness seems to result fiom anxiety about her sexuality - fiom the contrat between her desires and what she knew was expected of her as a c'decent'y and ccrespectable"woman. There might even have been a reai Icilda in the speaker's past, the woman who was successful in snagguig Jimmy Watson, but Icilda could also be the speaker's alter- ego, her projection ont0 a c'personality" of that part of herself which she despises. Her conflict with her rivai for Jimmy's affection is a dramatic enactment of an interna1 conflict which escalates to the point of schizophrenia. The ego and the alter ego represent the two polarïties of female sexuality as portrayed in Jamaican culture. On the one hand is the rival, the whore who entices men with her shameless short dresses. On the other is the speaker whose decency is evident in her repeatedly drawing attention to the "two slips she wears under her dress." (In this the reader ais0 sees clearly the image of the mad womanhag lady who wears everything she owns.)

Although embracing her sexuality labels the woman suspect and deviant, identifling with the whore has its advantages. It brings sexual liberation and the hope of finding

fictional individuals and an ingrained mentality which mforms the world view of those individuals' communities. O'Cdaghan's article not only outlines a methodology for reconfiguring the social through the psychological, but also suggests that this correlation is paradigrnatic in West Indian female-authored tem. See O'Caliaghan's "Interior Schisms Dramatised: nie Treatment of the 'Mad' Woman in the Works of Some Female Canbbean Novelists," Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature, eds. Cade Boyce-Davies and Elaine Savory Fido (Trenton, NJ: Afnca World Press, 1994) 89-1 10. and claiming love. To identie with 'Temale punrity" is to renounce one's sexuality

(losing love in the process) and accept the pursuit of education and the status it bnngs as a substitute.

On the second level, the reader is invited Co hear another story of the plight of society's insane. The wornan's recital is a direct challenge to the versions toId by her mother, Jimmy Watson, her lost love, Dr BarthoLfornew, the psychiatist at Bellview, and forces the policemen who hustle her off - the street corner and the amused rnotorists to look beyond her broken Life and see her humanness. The woman accosting motorists may be insane, but so is a society in which the mentally il1 are made to rom the streets depending on the kindneas of passers-by for food, and to fa11 between the cracks of an inadequate mental hedth system. The woman is paranoid that the psychiatist fiom the island's mental hedth institution is searching for her.

She is certain however, that neither he, one r million policemen nor the whole

Salvation Amy will find her because she is deiin the cardboard box on the side of the road that she calls her home. Her paranoid. delusions indict the entire social system and speak eloquently of neglect and irresponsibility. "Nobody want to take responsibility," she says. She wants her day in cmurt, wants sorneone to answer her questions but no one will iisten because they (thrase in charge of social systems) are afkaid - afiaid of who she is and what her presence says about their lack. The irony of this dramatic monologue is that it is a mad woman who, inadvertently, reveals the madness of her society. The story's title is a question which underlines the conf?ontational and questioning stance the protagonist adopts throughout. The boldness with which the mad wornan accosts motorists turns conf?ontation into a strategy for reclairning the self. The form of the dramatic monologue allows for the creation of a character who can speak her Life in her own words. In Senior's hands, the veniacular proves itself capable of narrating complex emotional responses and states of being. Ln speaking her story, the mad woman attempts to recapture a persona1 sense of wholeness. Whatever the contradictions in her story, she has taken control of her own identity. No longer acquiescent, the woman refises to accept the identity imposed upon her by others.

Her goal is to convince her listeners that she is not mad - that she is more than the crazed lunatic living out of a cardboard box on the side of the Street. In her story, she names her other identities - daughter, teacher, and lover. These are roles with which her transitory audience can idente. In fact, the woman seeks out and verbalises these connections. She points out the resemblance between a motorist and her former lover,

Jimmy Watson. She cautions a young woman against surrendering tw quickly to the amorous advances of men in an attempt to establish a comection with another woman. She repeatediy draws attention to her years of training as a teacher and her middle-class background (ironically, the speaker's dialect undercuts her middle-class pretensions) in order to show the motorists that she is a part of their world.

The mad woman's attempt to create other identities for herself and make connections with the "normal" and "sane" world ailow for an even deeper level of social criticism. In her desperate attempts to prove that she belongs to the ccnormai" 158 world, the woman lays bare social pretensions and dysninction. For example, when

she attempts to pass on to a female driver the advice she received about 'proper"

relations with men, the mad woman facilitates a satincal look at gender relations in

Jamaica. Similarly, when she stereotypes Icilda - the working class, uneducated

female - as a whore, the mad woman publicly announces the class prejudices of her

society.

The characteristics of the dramatic monologue - the ironicall y revealing,

highly dramatic speech of a central character - are also the characteristics of the oral

genre known as the monologue of invective. The monologue of invective includes

another feature peculiar to that genre - the central character's verbally abusive

behaviour. In the monologue of invective, the central character Iaunches an attack on

an individual (or individuals) who represents a threat. The monologue of invective is

a public 'Yracing" or c'cussing" intended to vindicate the speaker and shame his/her opponents. Jean D'Costa traces the origins of this oral genre back to eighteenth century Jamaica- 'Tracing7' or "cuss-cuss" is the terrn given to public cursing in

Jamaica. D'Costa points to the fom's Afncan and European origins. The Scottish tradition of 'Ylyting" - a contest of invective between two persons - tùsed with

Asante ntuals of verbal abuse (known in Twi as kasakasa) to create a uniquely

Jamaican form.'" The monologue of invective is a speech act which serves several

144 See Jean D'Costa's, "&ai Literature, Formal Literature: The Formation of Genre in Eighteenth Century Jamaica," Ei&teenth Ce- Studies, 27. 4 (Summer 1994): 663-676. Two early accounts of the genre in Jamaica are given by Edward Ward, an English journalist with a questionable reputation who visited Jamaica in 1698, and John Atkins, a surgeon who purposes. It is, as Roger D. Abrahams argues, "'a dernonstration of the social self through the use of one's voice. 9,145 Rendered invisible by the public, the medical establishment and her family, the mad woman's self-dramatisation is the means by which she asserts her presence and her place within the social sphere. The mad woman also "shames" her society by speaking out, thus demonstrating another fûnction of the form - "'the ability to challenge wrongful action effe~tivel~."'~~The mad woman performs a verbal exercise in cccaiIingout the name" of her opponents and succeeds in ridiculing and satirising them. In typicaI Senior fashion, social critique in this story is insightfd, but the telling is carefûlly modulated to avoid the sharpness associated with satirical literature. By filtering social critique through the consciousness of a mad woman, Senior creates a safie enough psychoLogical distance

visited the island in 1722. Both provide a record of the great ski11 in cursnig displayed by Jamaican creoles, both black and white. See Edward Ward's A Trip to Jamaica, with a True Character ofthe People and the Island (London, 1698) and John Atkin's A Vovaae to Guinea, Brasil. and the West Indies (London: Ceasar Ward and Richard Chandler, 1736). Louise Bennett has exîended this oral genre into her poetry, of which the most notable examples are the poems "Cuss, Cuss" and "South Parade Peddler." See Bennett's colledon of poems, Jamaica Labnsh (Kingston, Jamaica: Sangster's Book Stores, 1965 & 1964) 27; 188. The monologue of invective aiso finds its modern form in the calypsonian tradition. For further explanation of the monologue of invective and the calypsonian's art, see Lloyd W. Brown's chapter on '"nie Orval Tradition: Sparrow and Louise Bennett," West indian Poetm (London: Heinemann, 1984) 100-1 17.

145 Roger D. Abraham, The Man-of-Words in the West Indies: Performance and the Emernence of Creule Cuiture (Bahore and London: nie Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983) 129.

'6Viv Edwards and Thomas J. Sienkewicz, Oral Cultures Past and Present: Ra~~in'and Homer (Mord: Basil Blackwell, 199 1) 114. Ectwards and Sienkewicz identify dercultural forms of invective throughout the world and give a detailed analysis of cultural specific functions. See especially Chapter 6, "Abusing," fkom pages 112-132. between her character and the object of satire (her home readership) so that the latter finds the criticisms offered more palatable.

Between Sneech and Writinn: Teliin~the Half That Has Not Been Told

'Zily, Lily" begins with a drarnatic monologue, but in this instance it is only one of several narrative strategies (including letters and interior monologues) used in a story in which multivocality is crucial to meaning. "Lily, Lily" is one of a small number of stories in which Senior directly tackles post-colonial issues - particularly themes of identity and representation. The story is comprised of several dfierent versions of the same event, each of wtiich either fills in vital information lefi out by other versions or contradicts the assumptions and interpretations offered by other perspectives. "Lily, Lily" is a story about stories. It reveals the power inherent in creating and telling stones, both for the individual and at the communal level. Where identities and the representation of identities are hotly contested, the ability to make and disseminate stones - the extent to which one's story can dominate others - is a measure of authority and power. To have controI over Ianguage and the means of communication, whether spoken or written, is to wield the kind of discursive power which can have tremendous impact on al1 areas of life controlled by that discourse.

For writers fiom former colonies of the British empire, story making and story-telling are, on the one hand, deeply implicated in the institutionalisation of colonialism and, on the other hand, an effective form of resistance against colonialism. 161 For pst-colonial nations such as Jamaica where the only (acknowledged)

tradition of wnting was, untiI recent years, owned and controlled by the perpetrators

of colonialism, the written word fùnctioned as one of the most effective ways by

which the colonialist entepise propped up its own seE-worth and simultaneously

denied that of the colonised. Finding ways to teU one's own stones, then, becomes a

symbolic act of repossessing the self arnong individuals and communities that have

been siienced by the word and the page. Writing and re-writing among such

communities is a means of exploring the power and potential of one's own voice and

Ianguage to create images and meanings which are self-liberating. Critical response

fiequently labets such writings and rewritings subversive and characterises inter-

textual and intra-textual revisions as counter-discursive and abrogative. The

revisionist impulse often results in a unrnistakable challenge to the assumptions and

prejudices of master narratives, but for Senior, the writing of other versions - of "the

half that has not been told" - is more than an act of writing back to the Centre. For

her, textual revision has deeper, more far-reaching implications for silenced

cornmunities. Textual revision allows the writer to re-visit old stories in search of

those details which have been lost or suppressed and uncover information about

personai, social and historical circumstances which cast a new light on persons and

events written about. If a writer can return to moments in history and allow readers to

see and understand events fiom the perspective of those affected, those who were

never given the chance to exptain, then the writer does more than mount a challenge to singular meanings. The writer makes the silences audible, the invisible visible, and 162 creates another context for interpreting those same events. In so doing, those who

were ody spoken of get the chance to speak- Their meanings can no longer be

ignored and their versions lay daim to the authority that other versions enjoy. Senior

is very ciear about her use of revisionist strategies:

1 personally see writing stories as not so much an exercise in imagination as a re-imagining of realities that have existed in the past, that exist in the present and will exist in the fiiture, because as a modem (as opposed to a colonized writer), 1 am concerned with meaning; I too wodd like to crack open the events which give nse to stories in order to answer the question, matdoes it mean?" or 'What did it mean?" That is the most critical question for any intellectual or creative artist in the post-colonial world. Because what has been handed dom to us in written form as the work of colonial administrators, cultural anthropologists, historians, missionaries, or travel writers, are descriptions of cultures by observers in the supenor position - even the missionaries - with virtually no sense of what it meant to the participants of the events being described; in other words, what has been recorded is what has been meaningfiil to the observer, not the observed. We are the iniieritors of countless libraries fiil1 of words without that kind of meaningful context. It is the scholar or the creative artist who has to go back and re-invent or re-imagine the lives that animated those reports, especiaily the lives of those people who even in our modem societies continue to be - like sidewalk refuse - outside the officia1 reports and beneath officia1 notice. 14'

''Ely, Lily" centres on life-altering events in a family of coloured women in a rural

Jamaican community in the first two decades of the twentieth century. These events are reported fiom four different perspectives - that of Emmeline Greenfield, an old

English women who is a representative of the old colonial guard; Lucy DaSilva, a coloured woman of standing in her community; young Lily DaSilva, her daughter; and Lily Neal, sister to Lucy DaSilva, and the real mother of young Lily. 'Zily, Lilyyy

147 Senior, 'Ussons From the Fruit Stand: Or, Writing for the Listener," p. 42. 163 is a &tten story that is offered to the reader in phtYbut Senior makes a poht of

presenting each woman's version of events as if it were being spoken. Speaking and

finding a way to give voice to their Stones is crucial to the swvival of women whose

persona1 histones are characterised by violence, terror and lies. 'Zily, Lily" gives an

account of the lives of a family of coloured women who lived in Jamaica at a time

when the social structures and worldview inherited fiom colonialism were being

chdlenged by economic and other imperatives. Significantly, 'Tily, Lily" begins with the voice of Emmeline Greenfield, the elderly daughter of a British missionary.

Conscious that she is one of a few "rd" white people lefi in a rural Jarnaican community, Emmeline fancies herself an authority on the local people.

When the story opens, Emmeline is in the middle of a long monologue spoken to a visiting British friend and her main subject is Lily DaSilva, daughter of the local first family. The use of the dramatic monologue for this section serves to undermine the credibility of Emrneline's storytelling by allowing her to inadvertently expose the prejudices which influence her conclusions. Holding to the superiurity cf al1 things white, British and colonial, Emmeline cannot see that there might be other explanations. She dismisses other versions as the ignorance of uneducated peasants.

The condescending tone in which she quotes local expressions belittles Iocal systems of meaning. A self-styled int eilectual who liberally spnnkles her conversation with foreign expressions, she also calls on the autho- of Western texts and ideas in her analysis of her neighbours. Emmeline's storytelling is followed, respectively, by a brief interna1 monologue which htsat the fears of young Lily; an account of the early misfortunes of the elder Lily told fkom an omniscient perspective; the voice of Mrs. DaSilva defending and explaining her actions; and a long, impassioned letter fiom the elder

Lily to the DaSilvas concerning young Lily's welfare. Finally the third person perspective re-emerges briefly to give concluding remarks.

Changes in racial demographics and politics account for the rivalry between

Emmeline and Mrs DaSilva, but each is a representative of the local power structure.

Like Emmeline, Lucy DaSilva also gives a version which silences the voices of those iwolved in the events. For years her version of young Lily's parentage and birth was the officia1 account. In a self-direcîed confession, she paints herself as a victim who bore her trials with saintly fortitude. She professes shock and surprise at the change in her daughter's behaviour and blames Emmeline's influence for her daughter's desire to go away to boarding school.

On several details, Mrs. DaSilva's account calls into question conclusions drawn by Emmeline and vice versa. Similarly, the stones by these two women are challenged by those told by the two Lilys. What appears to be genuine bafflement, for example, when Mrs. DaSilva speaks of young Lily's strange behaviour is denounced in the elder Lily's letter as Mrs. DaSilvaYsunwillingness to admit her husband's incestuous behaviour. Young Lily's version corroborates the story of incest, and her decision to run away fiom home lends credence to the elder Lily's conclusion that boarding school is an escape for the girl, thereby contradicting Emmeline's claim that 165 the DaSiivas were forcing their daughter to get into an dl-white school in order to improve the farnily 's status.

As Richard Patteson argues, 'the general effect of this plurality of viewpoint is a decentering of authority. If the cornmunity does not speak with collective univocal harmony, neither is it dominated any longer by the discourse of a single powefil member or gro~p."148Patteson, however, continues with, 'If Ernrneline

Greenfield's and Lucy DaSilva's accounts are 'official' versions of the events that take place---Lily's ietter is the impassioned persona1 version and the me one" (My emphasis).'" He suggests that the revisionist intent is realised in replacing one tmth claim with another.

Textual evidence as well as Iiterary histo~ysupport another reading. The effect of multiple perspectives in the fiction of Caribbean women as Denise Narain and

Evelyn O'Cailaghan point out is to refuse closure, boundaries and single tr~ths.'*~An example of what Pamela Mordecai calls "prismatic consciousness," the use of multiple perspectives "is the disposition to perceive and construe experience in terms

'@Richard Patteson, Caribbean Passages: A Critical Perspective on New Fiction From The West Indies. (Lynne Pienner hblishers, 1998) 42. lJ9Richard Patteson, Caribbean Passaaes, p. 43.

1% Denise deCaires Naram and Evelyn O'Callaghm, "Anglophone Caribbean Women Wnters," Into the Nineties: Post-colonid Women's Writinq, ed. Anna Rutherford (Hebden Bridge: Dangaroo Press, 1994) 625-63 1. of (sometimes unresolved) pluralities."151 Hence, OYCallaghanrads Emmeiineys version (as are al1 the others) as a necessary strand in a "'richly braided narrative." The more voices that are adrnitted, the more likeIy that a fiiller, more complete version will be produced. This is the point of the last few lines of the story:

O if only that Emmeline Greenfield with her superior knowledge acquired fiom books, with ha formidable social inheritance, with her elegant turn of phrases (in foreign languages too), if ody she were here to give the world a trdy inspired version of this magical moment. What a story she would tell! ("Amval of the Snake Woman" 145)

As the one who initiates the story and tells tales outside the community, Emmeline is not faulted for speaking but for deiiberately excluding other ways of knowing - other voices - from her version.

Senior's choice of narrative perspectives which simulate the spoken word in its immediacy and directness foregrounds the power of oral sources in (re)creating social and individual histones. This choice aIso repeats and revises a famiiiar trope in

West Indian literature - the rewriting of the book. Simultaneously signfiing colonial authority and discursive power, "%he book" tùnctions in West Indian literature as a site for contesting identities. In many instances, whenever the book or other forms of

Western texts are present, they function as the absence of the coIonised subject.

Strategies for re-inscribing the invisible West Indian subject ofien involve

"' Evelyn 0'Callaghan7sexplanation of Pamela Mordefai's term ais0 àraws attention to the structure of multivocal te- which disrupt làiear narrative patterns. See O'Callaghanis Woman Version: 'Theoretical A~proachesta Wesî indian Fiction bv Women (Macmillan, 1993) 109. Critics of the literature have accounted for this "post-modern" tendency in the syncretic vision which informs West indian history and experience. challenging the authority of the written word with the tradition of the spoken word. A short story which captures the textures and tones of the spoken word in pnnt, 'tily,

Lily" is a revision of its own textuality.

Senior's engagement with the power of the written word also extends to genres of English fiction. In this instance, "female fictions" - the romances of the Mrs

Hungerfords and Mrs. Alexanders - offered the elder Lily a story of what her life should be like, with disastrous consequences. Enamoured of stories in which pale young maidens are rescued by knights in shining amour, Lily falls prey to the designs of the unscrupulous Englishman, Mr. Pym- Lily7s intemal musings are recorded in language which parodies romantic fiction:

But Lily didn't believe for one minute that he was really from P&T though she admired the strategy he had used to corne and meet her. And from the moment his hand touched hers Lily tmly honestly could remember nothing of the rest of the day, the night, the next moming when he rode off in a rnist after promising to love, honour, cherish her for the rest of their lives. To retum, shortly, to break the news to Aunt Mercy, to take her away ... ~'Arrivalof the Snake Woman" 125)

It is clear that there is a huge gap between Lily's romance-schooled fantasies and her experience with Mr. Pym, as the passage continues by telling the reader that Lily was

...completely forgetting what happened there behind the big rock at the river that night, completely forgetting about sneaking out of Aunt Mercy's house.. .. to wait for Mr. Pym..., putting it out of her muid completely in her misery at not hearing from him although a few months later it dl came back temfyingly rdwhen Aunt Mercy, womed about her, how thin and nervous she had become, how dark the cùcles under her eyes, had taken her to Dr. Dampier in Mandeville and he codirmed that Lily was pregnant. ("Amval of the Snake Womanyy 127) As a consequence, Lily lost her Song - that part of her self which had expressed both

her beauty and her hope. She came to see that the world she inhabited could not be

explained by the romances she was reading, that those stones were in part responsible

for her Ioss of voice, reputation and spirit. In renouncing "the foolish romances, the

foolish longings that had so inflarned [her] youth" ("Arrivai of the Snake Woman"

129), Lily recovered her music.

Music functions as a tra.mformative/regenerative kind of speech which allows

an otherwise repressed or censored history to be expressed in tems other than

dispossession and defeat. Following suit, Lily's daughter finds her voice after years of

repression by the violence of incest. The story ends with a powerful image of mother

and daughter playing the piano and singing together.

Senior's short stones give evidence of her close association with, and

comrnitment, to an oral poetics. Stories for her have always meant the ord

performance, and so when she writes she naturally adapts oral techniques, styles and

forms to the written text. Or more precisely, she adapts the written text to the oral

performance. Her description of her early artistic influences privileges the oral

context: ''Ithink that the oral tradition has profoundly influenced me as a writer

because I grew up in a Society where the spoken word was important. We created our

own entertainment, every night as a child living in the village 1 rernember an adult told us stories. There was always something dramatic in the quality of real life, people would narrate events in a very ciramatic way. As a child I didn't talk much, but 1

listened a lot and 1 think the results of that listening have corne out in my ~ork.''~~~

The reciprocity between fom and content and the artful synthesis of oral and

scribal in Senior's stories achieves in prose the kind of commitment to an indigenous

aesthetic that had earlier blossomed in the region years before in poetry and drama.

Senior both participates in, and builds on, a growing ïterary tradition larger than

herself. Her ironically constmcted vernacular stories and comic vision recall the

poetry and short stories of Louise Bennett who began writing two decades before

Senior. Andrew Salkey's use of the trickster trope to create satirical fiction also finds

an echo in Senior's stories. The confidence with which she uses both creole speech

and Standard English, as the language of fiction to describe Jamaican experience, is a tfibute to the pioneering critical and creative writing of her literary fore-parents. The continuities with oral expressions in literature of earlier works are evident in Senior's stones, so too are the continuities with new directions in the expression of a

Caribbean orality in writing. Her belief that the "sound of the voice is extremely important" and her decision to make her characters "speak directly to the reader"lS3 look forward to the word experiments and sound explosions in Kamau Brathwaite's stories-

'" Anna Rutherford, "An Interview With Olive Senior," KuriaoBi 8.2 (1986): 19.

IJ3ha Rutherfod "An Interview Wdh Olive Senior," Kunapa 8. 2 (1986): 19. 170 Chapter Four - "Linguistic Calïbanisms": Kamau Brathwaite's

DrearnStories

I musi 6e @en words fo refashion futures Iike a healer 's ?nt& 'LNegus''

Afer taday, hmshallI speak with you? Martin Carter

The Critical Background

The final chapter fittingly belongs to Edward Kamau Brathwaite. Academic historian, literary critic, essayist, poet and short story writer, his work has spanned nearly four decades and has impacted on the work of most of the writers discussed in this shidy.

From his early essays in BIM in the 1950s and 1960s, to History of the Voice

(1984), through to Metaphors of Underdevelo~ment: A Proem for Hernan Cortez

(1985), Brathwaite has consistently advocated a creative and critical sensibility rooted in the historical and cultural specificities of West Indian experience. In his cnticai essays as well as his poetry and prose, Brathwaite has moved steadily towards foxmulating a "Caribbean aesthetic.,7154 Central to his explication of a Caribbean

'Y See "The Love Axe (1): Developing a Caribbean Aesthetic 1962-1974." BIM 61 (June 1977): 5345; 62 W. 1977): 10û-106; 63 (June 1978): 181-192. Also in Houston Baker, 171 aesthetic is the development and practice of an oral poetics rooted in the 'little7'/folk tradition of Mo-Caribbeans as an alternative to the dominant ccGreat"/European tradition. As Brathwaite explained in Contradictory Omens:

There was (and is) the Mo-Caribbean (black) population; peasants, labourers, illiterates: the majority, who, under-privileged, without access to the establishment, under constant attack (education, Christianity, the Euro-orientations and now the Euro-oriented mass media), h&e still managed to survive, holding within themselves the potential of a real alternative Tradition since they have successfilly replaced the Amerindians as the folk or ''little" tradition of the society .lS5

GIynne Griffith's evaluation of Brathwaite's work sounds a similar note:

The critical and creative writing of Kamau Brathwaite forges a connection and foregrounds the idea of a continuum between Afnca and West Indian 'Tolk" culture. Brathwaite' s work emp hasizes the strength and resilience of West Indian 'Yak" culture in its relentless struggle against those ideologies which seek to banish ex-African cultural vestiges in the West Indies to the margins of Western cosmology .. . Brathwaite places the "folk" or common sensibility at the centre of his theoretical explorations ... [to] provide the West Indian art& with a valuable resource to challenge and overcome his "'poetic precursors" .,. The re-assertion of African cultural infiuences in the West Indies destabilizes Eurocentnc representations of West Indian ontology and provides the possibility of artistically mediating European hegemony in the region. lS6

ed., Reading Black: Essavs in the Cnticisrn of Afiican. Caribbean and Black Arnerican Literature (Ithaca, N.Y.: Corne11 University Press, 1976) 20-36.

'" Edward Brathwaite, Contradictory Omens: Cultural Diversitv and lotegration in the Caribbean (Kingston: Savacou, 1974) 3 0.

'" Glynne Griffith, "Kaxnau Bratiiwaite as Cultural Critic," The Art of Kamau Brathwaite. ed. Stewart Brown (Seren: Poeby Wales Press Ltd, 1995) 78. 172 Conceived not as an "incul~ated,static group giving little, but a people who, fiom

the centre of an oppressive system have been able to survive, adapt, re-create; have

devised means of protecting what has been so gained,"'57 Brathwaite has identified

the ccfolk"as of Afiican descent. Edward Baugh reminds the readerkritic that this

apparent Afro-centric bias "rnust be appreciated in the context of a history of overt

and covert action to suppress or 'whiten' the African presence, ,, 158 and sumrning up

severd of Brathwaite's comments on the subject, -SimonGikandi offers:

Like many other pets in the Caribbean, EKB began his writing career under the anxiety of cultural identity and a crisis of writing ... He was brought up in a colonial tradition which emphasized the hegemony and desirability of European culture at the expense of the htillian tradition, which slavery and colonial domination had tned to repress or deny. The West Indian was not perceived as the source of meaningfil cultural expression; on the contrary, it was a scene of fear and rejection, a place devoid of those forces that tngger poetic beginnings. Is9

For his part, Brathwaite has defended his Mo-centred aesthetics against claims of exclusivism. Although he has insisted that any expression ofWest Indian culture

137 Edward Brathwaite, Contradictory Omens, p. 64. '" Edward Baugh, "Edward Brathwaite as Critic: Some Preliminary Observations," Caribbean Ouarterlv 28. 1-2 (March-June, 1982): 66-75. Baugh adds the following caveat: "Brathwaite's most valuable and illuminating pursuit of the Afncan presence in West Indian literature had tended, in effect, and whether he wishes it or not, and despite his assertions to the contmy, to suggest that one has identified West hdianness when one has identified the Afncan factor in the West Indian soul (p. 69)."

Ir, Simon Gikandi, "EKB and the poetics of the voice: The allegory of hisîory in 'Rights of Passage. "' Cailaloo 14.3 (1991): 73 1 173 must have Ecan derived elements as the "major constituent element," he has ais0

been careful to say that West Indian culture, or the complex of West Indian cultures,

is "different from, though not exclusive of European culture,"160 and has stressed the

importance of viewing West Indian literature in its "proper context of an expression

both European and ficmat the same tirne":

mf in this essay 1 stress the acanaspects of this literature, it is not, 1 submit, because 1 am not aware of the other, but because in most of the cntical work so far available on the subject 'Afi-ica' has been neglected. 16'

Recovering the "folk," then, has far reaching political implications. Brathwaite's

entire body of critical and creative writing can, as Gordon Rohlehr suggests, "be seen

as involving the slow reclamation of spiritual ground through the re-education of a

Black rnind towards the acceptance of its past, its face, and its g-r~und."~~~

Embracing the folk is to inevitably engage with the oral. Orality in

Brathwaite's critical and creative writing is expressed in several ways It involves the

recovery of submerged traditions, that is, returning to the story forms, music, voice

texts, religious and social customs of the folk for creative inspiration. This is the point

made in 'The Love Axe, Jazz and the West Indian Novel" and other essays

Edward Brathwaite, "Caribbean Critics," New World Quarterly 5. 1-2 (1969): 269.

16' Edward Brathwaite, "Jazz and the West Indian Novel." BIM, No. 44 (1 967), p. 279.

162 Gordon Rohlehr, Pathfinder: Black Awakening in the Amvants of Edward Kamau Brathwaite (Port of Spain, 1981) 2. indigenous aesthetic- For Brathwaite, the West Indian artist is crucial to this recovery

process. For one, the artist forges a strong sense of community and communal

identity when he uses the resources of his community. For another, the artist creates

for himself and other West Indian writers a local literary tradition fiee fkom colonial

mimicry. Brathwaite underscores these points in 'Roots":

mhichever way we put the question we find ourselves up against the same inescapable fact of the individual talent and redise that the talent can do Iittle more than "express" the society f?om which it emerges with help f?om the traditions to which it is bourne. If the society is 'khole," if, that is, it is working on its own cultural and spintual dynarnic, it will be only reasonable to expect talent which reflects this. Ifby tradition we mean a living, acceptable, recognisable force, a body of acfrievernent to which both the artist and his public can refer, then we can expect the artist to use this and be used by it. No novelist, no writer - no artist - can maintain a meaningful flow of work without reference to his society and its tradition.'63

The publication of History of the Voice in 1984 marked a significant moment in

Brathwaite's theory and practice of orality. In that text he discussed two major

aspects of language deeply comected to a sense of the folk: the use (and hence the authentication) of local l anguages in literature; and the representation of 'Yo lk voices" in the rhythms, tones, and textures of the written word. J. Edward Chamberin reMnds readers that part of the motivation for the fist emphasis is the "'continuing disdain for local language - language spoken in the streets or in casual Company or whatever - by custodians of propriety [which] reinforces a popular sense that

lmEdward Kamau Brathwaite, 'Xoots,"BIM 37 (1 963): 17.

175 common speech is less civilized, less cultivated - which is to Say, more natural - than

the wrinen ~ariety."'~~Brathwaite has repeatedly challenged this prejudice. As

Stewart Brown points out, he has "consistently championed the use of non-standard

vocabularies, refùsing the implicit pejoratives of "dialect" and even "creole" as terms

to describe the languages that Caribbean people speak, instead coining and asserting

the appropriateness of the term "nation language" to reflect the new status of that

spoken tong~e."'~~

Although Brathwaite deliberately uses diaiect in his critical and creative

writing, "nation language" as Brathwaite uses it in The Histoy of the Voice is not

equivalent to "creole" or ccdiaIect33 1 66 although there has been a lot of conIiision on

this point. Brathwaite explains that it refers to a use of language which is able to

register "the submerged, surreaiist experience and sensibility which is now

164 J. bard Chamberlin, 'The Language of Karnau Brathwaite," The Art of Kamau Brathwaite, ed. Stewart Brown (Waies: Seren Publishers, 1995) 35.

165 Stewart Brm, " 'Writin in Light' : Orairty-thru-typograptiy, Kamau Brathwade's Sycorax Video Style," nie Pressures of the Text: Oralitv. Texts and the Tellinp; of Tales, ed. Stewart Brown (Birmingham: Centre of West Mcan Studies, University of Birmingham, 1995) 127.

'" "Creole" and "dialect" - used interchangeably - refer to local varietieç of English spoken by the rnajority of Jamaicans and West Indians. Bath are descriptive tenns for the lexical and grammatical peculiarities which make West Indian EngIish noticeably different fiom Standard English. These ciifferences resuited from the creolisation process which took place under coIonialism and slavery. Aithough the use of Afkican languages during slavery was banned for security reasons and indenturd labourers were discouraged to speak anything derthan English, those otber languages and continental dialects persisted and "intersected" with Standard English to praduce a local linguistic continuum. increasingly coming to the surface and influencing the perception of contemporary

Caribbean people.ri167

In literary terms this means using voice texts that are in circulation (or nibmerged) arnong the people - in the language of the people - as the basis for creating aesthetically appealing prose and verse forms. This includes, as Laurence

Breiner notes, rnaking use of "not only obvious forms of verbal art, but music and ntual - that is, rhythms of al1 kinds fiom the smallest to the largest scale: fiom prosody to overall structure."'"

"Sound sense," that is, the layers of meaning created by simulating the sounds and textures of the speaking voice in print, is also central to "nation language". "One characteristic of nation language," says Brathwaite, "is its orality. The poetry, the culture itself, exists not in a dictionary but in the tradition of the spoken word. It is based as much on sound as it is on song. That is to say, the noise that it makes is part of the meaning, and if you ignore the noise (or what you would think of as noise, shall

1 say) then you lose part of the meaning. 2,169 Onomatopoeic and other explosive aura1 effects of word combination, mn on lines which slow dowdspeed up the tempo of a

167 Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Historv of the Voice: The develo~rnentof nation laneuage in andophone Caribh~wztry (Lmdon: New Beacon Books, 1984) 2.

1 68 Laurence Breiner, "Hmto Behave on Paper: nie Savacou Debate," Journal of West Indian Literature 6. 1 (1989): 3.

'69 Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Histo~of the Voice, p. 1 7. passage, and metricd arrangements which extend the significance of words are examples of strategies used to create "sound sense".

More recently, Brathwaite has been composing in what he caUs the Sycorax

Video Style. Tt is both an extension of the language experiments characteristic of

"nation lanpuage" and a new direction in his theory and practice of orality. Created using the technology of the Apple Mac, the Sycorax Video Style is characterised by the use of different fonts and Ietter sizes to underscore the visual as well as the aura1 aspect of language:

1 think that oral traditions do have a very strong visual aspect. In the Mcan tradition, they use sculpture. Really, what I'm tryin to do is create word-sculptures on the page, ... word-song for the ear.15

The overall effect of holding sound and image together in the word on the page is a wider sensory expenence more closely approximating to the oral performance for the reader .

In the Sycorax Video Style, conventions of spelling, punctuation and page layout are ofken ignored. Typos, puns and whims of spelling appear spontaneously.

Words are played with and broken down into fdse mots to tease out their nuances.

Elaine Savory argues that Brathwaite is challenging the 'Western idea of the book through his video style of changing font style and sizes, his use of cornputer windows in the text, and his interpretation of the fom of the journal or diary, journalistic

170 Quoted in Graeme Rigby's, 'Tubiishing Brathwaite: Adventures in the Video Style," World Literature Today 68.4 (Autumn 1994): 708.

178 reportage, inte~ewand poem."171 There is evidence, in DreamStories for example, that Brathwaite is questioning the pervasive influence of Western literary traditions in shaping West Indian consciousness at the expense of an indigenous tradition.

However, such sharply contentious, abrogative motives as ascribed b y Savory, or claims that "the centraiity of the voice and sound in &can forms of self- expression7' mark Brathwaite's 'km away fiom scriptured forms to oral ones7,172 have to be balanced against Brathwaite's endeavour to reconcile/acknowledge both literary and oral traditions in the Caribbean. Says Brathwaite, "To confine Our definitions of Literature to written texts in a culture that remains ital in most of its people proceedings, is as limiting as its opposite: trying to define Caribbean literature as essentially orature - like eating avocado without its likkle salt.,9173

DrearnStories provides numerous exarnples of Brathwaite's interweaving of oral and scribal traditions. The use of the computer to create the Sycorax Video Style, for example, shows that Brathwaite considers this new technology of the word an ally rather than an enemy to his oral poetics. The naming of this new language for

"Sycorax" is one of the indicators of the conceptual shift which it underguds.

Caribbean appropriations of Shakespeare's The Tem~esthave centred on the

171 Elaïne Savory, "Rehiming to Sycoraflrospero's Response: Karnau Brathwaite's Word Journey," The Art of Kamau Brathwaite, ed. Stewart Brown (Seren: Poetry Wales Press, 1995) 221.

172 Simon Gikandi, ccE.K.Brathwaite and the Poetics of the Voice: The Ailegory of History in Rights of Passage," Callaloo 14. 3 (1991): 727. In Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Historv of the Voice. p. 49. 179 relationship between Prospero and Caliban which has functioned as the paradigm for relations between the colonial/colonised, especially in terms of Ianguage use.

Caliban's curse (Tou taught me Ianguage, and my profit on7t/Is, 1 know how to c~rse.""~)has ofien been repeated in readings (both critical and creative) which view the Caribbean intellectual (Caliban) as necessarily linguistically opposed to Prospero

(the West). "'

Brathwaite' s new language moves away (deliberately and explicit ly) fiom the readingdrepresentatiom which pit Caliban against Prospero. Ln so doing, Brathwaite moves beyond an opposition which has, in the very attempt to empower a silenced culture, reinforced its marginality through constant reference tokeaction against a

Master presence. By reintroducing Sycorax - Caliban's mother who is symbolic of

174 William Shakespeare, The Tem~estAct 1. Sc. 11, lines. 364-365.

'" In ''X/Selfm BrathwaRe notes mat ''Caliban has become an antisoloniaVThird World symbol of cuitural and linguistic revok." Brathwaite's use of the ProsperofCaliban paradigm can be traced back to the first full fledged Caribbean appropriation of The Tempest, George Lanuning7sTbe Pleasures of Exile (1960). Lamming's (re)readuig of Shakespeare places the struggIe between Caliban (identified as Caribbean wo/man) and Prospero (the prototype for European colonisers) within the context of the region's history of colonialism and slavery. Mough Lamming addresses the question of the unlanded Caliban who States 'This island's mine," he places emphasis on the state of educatimaVImguistic and cuhral (dis)inheritance in which Caliban exists as enunciated in 'You taught me language." mis insistence on linguistic decolonisation characterises Carib bean appropriations of Shakespeare. The Prospero/Caliban paradigm &O hctions in West Indidcaribbean Iiterature as a general metaphor for coloniser/coloaised, imperial/margin relations. Lamming himseif has re-written The Tempest in his noveis Water With Berries (1971) and Natives of Mv Person (1971). Other apprapriations include Derek Walcotî's Pantomime (1980) which discusses the issues raised by the Prospero/Caliban paradigm through a re-writing of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. submerged elements in Caribbean cultures - into trhe equation, Brathwaite offers

Caliban an alternative to the curse.

Caliban can now turn to Sycorax who holds the key to cultural authenticity to discover "his own coral, his own root~."'~~Caliban nolonger needs to define himself in opposition to Prospero - Caliban's language can move beyond the curse hurled at

Prospero. Instead, Caliban can seek, and find, hits renewed identity in mother

Sycorax, "the carrier, the keeper, the protector of the native culture" who, although she was banished, managed to retain "in a submerged manner the very essence of the native culture" and hold onto "the secrets of a possible alternative cul~efor the

Silvio Torres Saillant sums up the theoreticad and politicai implications of

Brathwaite's re-introduction of Sycorax:

[Brathwaite' s] literary emancipation has entaded more t han just the building of a counterdiscourse to strike back at the West, for that would mean to stop at the curse, like the unedightened Caliban ... An effective revolt needs to transcend oppositiomal thinking, the sort of mental scheme whereby one becomes a self ody by negative reference to an adversary, for such thinking makes one ontologically dependent on the other, thus inducing a distorted sense of: identit~.'~~

176 Naîhaniel Mackey, "An Inte~ewWith Kamau Brathwaite," he Art of Kamau BrathwaÏt, ed. Stewart Brown (Seren: Poetry Wales Press, 1995) 17. in Edward Kamau Brathwiaite, The Colonial Encouniter: Languine (Mysore, India: University of Mysore Press, 1984) 44. ln Siivio Torres Saillant, "'The Trials of Authenticity in Kamau ~rathwaite," World Literature T&y 68.4 (Autumn 1994): 689. Brathwaite puts it this way: 'WCaliban instead of learning how to curse in pidgin had

listened to his mother's voice; if he could speak [ofl her in their Ianguage/ He might

have had a better chance when the chance for revolt came his way.9,179 The linguistic

Calibanisms (echoes of '%annibalismsn are intended) which mark texts denin the

Sycorax Video Style are then to be appreciated not as a revolt against Prospero, but as

Caliban ''trying to hack his way back to the language of the forgotten, submerged

mother, Sycorax" in order to sound his own meanings.180

One of the uses to which the Sycorax Video Style has been put is the re-

imagining of history in ways which prove liberating to the West Indian psyche and cultures. E3ïstory is the nightrnare fiom which the Caribbean is still trying to awaken.

The Naipaulian ''historyless" West Indian does not have currency wit h Brathwaite.

He argues that the historical amnesia which characterised the West Indian imagination, particularly in the early years, resulted fiom an inability to step outside

Western paradigrns and definitions of history. Spiritual dispossession, psychological dislocation and a sense of cultural discontinuity are the logical outgrowths of such inertia.

Part of Brathwaite's concern in developing his alterhative language has been to re-establish a West Indian historical consciousness. Not only has English, as an ideological and cultural vehicle, proved complicit in creating narratives of history

'" Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Colonial Encouter: Lanmianq p. 35.

110 Nathaniel Mackey, "An Interview With Kamau Brathwaite," p. 16. which have proved oppressive to New World cultures, but it has also proved

inadequate in expressing the complexity of West Indian experience al1 dong.

Remarking on the implications of his language expenments to creating a sense of

history in the West Indian consciousness, Brathwaite offers:

In addition to the pet's natural desire to transplode words, 1 find increasingly as the struggie to express our partïcular experience in an admittedly generous language, that one has to create words to fit Our particular and peculiar experience. It is the crisis of conscious Caliban faced with Prospero's thesaurus. '*'

The CaIibanistic transplosions of the Sycorax Video Style work, in DrearnStories and

in other writings, to mode temporal boundaries. Past, present and funre become

intertwined and indistinguishable, and each is mirrored in the others. Different

penods in tirne and the experiences of those moments constantly overlap so that the present is defined by comparison with the past, and in tum helps to illuminate the

Brathwaite's representation of time as a dense layering and intercomection of experiences in place of the usual chronological approach is central to revisioning history. Says Brathwaite:

[BI using time in this very fieel associative marner, al1 kinds of eye- corner ghosts of histoncal memory and meaning, become possible; which 1 do not think would be possible at al1 if one were writing 'ïinear" poetry or prose.182

111 Kamau Brathwaite, "Caribbean Culture: Two Paradigrns," Missile and Causule, ec Jurgen Martini (Bremen: Caribbean Festival of the Arts, 1980) 11.

112 Kamau Brathwaite, "Metaphors of Underdevelopment: A Proem for Heman Cortez," New Ennland Review 7.4 (1985): 456. 183 These "eye-corner ghosts of historicai memory and meaning" allow Brathwaite to

create narratives of historical psychology, the real "stuff' of West Indian history- The

Sycorax Video Style, by playing on sounds and words, contributes at least as much to the liberating recreations of the past and to the shaping of the fiiture as the startling juxtaposition of traditionally disconnected penods. The echoes and resonances awakened in the intercomection of time and space, aided by word experiments which hold various time periods in creative tension, tell stories which enable personal and social analysis. This self and social awareness Brathwaite deems the beginning of true emancipation.

DreamStories ilIuminates Brathwaite's theory of orality and its various emphases. His concem with historical psychology is evident in ail the seven stories included, particularly in 'Drearn Haiti," "Salvages" and "The 4th Traveller." 'Dream

Chad" foregrounds the author7s early and precarious relationship with cornputer technology and its impact on his creative imagination. 'nie Black Angel" and '

4th Travellef' demonstrate the growth in Brathwaite7s theory and practice of orality over a forty-year perïod. In ''The Black Angel," the retum to autochthonous spiritual forces evidences the reclaiming of submerged (oral) traditions and mark Brathwaite's quest for authenticity and Iiberation. In %rease7' and "Salvages," Brathwaite emerges as the 'Yak poet" who speaks to, and for, the people in a language and images closely digned to popular culture. Literary genres such as the fantastic, allegory and dream narratives are given new and startling applications through their reorientation to local orai traditions, and the vernacular speaking voice is the choice for the language of

narration in these stories. In DreamStories, Brathwaite's creative writing has caught

up with his oral theory.

Remakin~the Text: Oral RevisionslReversions?

In recent years, Brathwaite has become known for revising and reisçuing

previously published work. This practice has sparked different reactions. Critics such

as Micheal Dash dismiss these revisions as c'reversions," as literary recycling which

evidences a diminishing creativity. IS3 Other critics such as Anthony Kelman are more

receptive to the changes, arguing that they are proof of a "retrospective style7' that

"shows a continuity of vision [and] artistic concem.,7184 For his part, Brathwaite

explains that the retum to earlier material is essential to continuing the work he began in the 1950s. His revisions, he States, create for the body of work he is producing a

1g3 The comment was made in a review of The Visibib Trisand Jah Music in the Jounial of West Indian Literature 1. 2 (June 1987): 87-90. Da& clahned that Brathwaite was recycling old poems in a manner which, even though it provided him with a "seemingly inexhaustible Stream of publications," was in realÏty a desperate attempt to %old on to the word in order not to surrender to silence." @. 87) Gordon Rohlehr in The Sha~eOf That Hurt and Mer Essavs (Longman, 1992) 217, responds to Dash's criticism by noting that the charge reveals a lack of understanding of Brathwaite's aesthetic and political dent: 'While the charge of recycling old poems is tme, equally true is the fact that the new context modifies the meaning and ahers the impact of the poem." Rohlehr's conclusion is also, as discussed below, relevant to the short stories. '" Anthony Kelman, "A Rich Plural Heritage as a Tool for Survival: Edward Kamau Brathwaite's X/Self," Calla100 11. 3 (1988): 645. cC~enseof seamlessness" which causes al1 his work to 'Yit into a constant pattern which keeps on growing. 3,185

Both "The Black Angei" and 'The 4th Traveller" appear in DreamStoRes in their revised version. The nature and extent of the revisions provide compelling evidence that Brathwaite is consciously refashioning and refining his work to reflect the oraVfoik based aesthetic that he has and is continuhg to expound in bis non- fiction writing. "The Black Angel" was originally published in the Caribbean literary magazine BIM in 19~5.'~~''The 4th Traveller" was first published in Callaloo in

1989.'" As expected, revision is more extensive in "The Black Angel" than in 'The

4th Traveller" as the first version of the latter wincided with Brathwaite's post-1986 theories of orality. A comparative reading of the original versions against the revised versions allows for a more detailed explmation of orality in practice.

"' Kamau Brathwaite, 'Words by Kamau Brathwaite," No&-South Conference on Kamau Brathwaite and the Caribbean Word, Bronx, New York: Hostos Community College, CW, 24 Oct. 1992. Brathwaite has explained himself in sirnilar ternis on other occasions: "1 rewrite things al1 the time. My impression is that the poetry I've been writing since Rinhts of Passage is some kind of corrtinuum and the continuum can be reshuffled. 1 can select certain themes out of the threads and that is what Middle Passaues did. It's like the oral tradition: it can be changed, but R has the same basic source. It's iike a river and you cm dip into it and take different glasses of waîer." Also quoted in Graeme Rigby's "Publishing Brathwaite: Adventures in the Video Style," World Literature Todav 68.4 (Autumn 1994): 709.

" See BIM 1.2 (1955): 79-87.

"'See Caliaioo 12. 1 (1989): 184-191. The plot in both versions of "The Black Angel" is basically the same,

although the DreamStories version has small but significant revisions and a few

passages have been extended. The story is set in an eerie fourth dimension

reminiscent of a fùtunstic Orwellian dystopia run by the Factory Cornmittee. Strange

events occur during an unspecified penod which lave the nariator and other

characters vulnerable to attack £kom a stranger, ~a~~a/~a~~o,188 who my steriously

appears among them and disappears just as mysteriously.

In the opening moments, the nmator discovers one of his fellow factory workers, Beta, apparentiy strangled by the stranger's leather jacket. ûther near fatal incidents occur and the narrator suspects that the stranger is responsible. The narrator himseif narrowly escapes the vice-grip of unexplainable forces which threatened to cmsh his soul. With the aid of a spiritual diviner he escapes, and the shadow of threat and death is finally lifted fiom the entire comrnunity.

"The Btack Angei" becomes more accessible when it is identified with the genre of the fantastic. That this "literary" aspect is retained in the oralised revised

Itt In the BIM version, the stranger is called "Kappa" but in the DreamStories version, he is ded"Kappo". This revision, as discussed below, is indicative of the shift towards a more A-firocentric spirituality. In the original version "Kappa" - the Greek letter fbr a star in the consteilation - evoked a spiriniai centre for the story by recailing a cosmic dimension outside of and beyond the everyday. In the revised version "Kappo" - a name invested with Afncan mysticisrn in Mo-hican lore - identifies the story's cosmology as uuiquely Afro-based. "Kappa" is used when the BIh4 version is discussed and "Kappo" is used when the DreamStories is referenced. version indicates the compatibility of oral and scribal forms in Brathwaite's oeuvre.

What is especidly pertinent tu this analysis is the extent to which the story's re-

orientation towards the oral both sustains and heightens the effect associated with the literature of the fantastic. Tvetzan Todorov outlines the genre's three defining

characteristics:

First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of the characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural and supernaturd expianation of the events described. Second, this hesitation rnay also be experienced by a character; thus the reader's role is to speak entnisted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becornes one of the themes of the work - in the case of naive reading, the actual reader identifies with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as "poetic" interpretations. These three requirements do not have an equal value. The first and the third actually constitute the genre; the second rnay not be fûlfilled. Nonetheless, most examples satisfy al1 three conditions.189

Al1 three conditions are met in both versions of "The Black Angel."

Even though details in the story correspond to actions that take place in the familiar, everyday world - the characters go to work daily, stage boxing matches for recreational purposes, etc. - there is always a clear sense that things are not exactly as they appear. The narrator draws attention to the shadowy, uncertain atmosphere of his world:

lg9 Tzvetan Tdorov, Tbe Fantastic: A Structural horoach to a Literary Genre, traos. Richard Howard (Ithaca: Corneil University Press, 1973) 33. ... in the queer, fantastic environment of our lives, naming and identfiing a jacket was one of the less extraordinary happenings. (SB79) and

[i]n the w/raped, fantastic environment of Our Iives, naming & identieing a jacket was one of the less xtraordinary of events. @reamS tories 8)

Throughout the story, it remains uncertain what interpretation to give to events. The narrator and the reader constantly hesitate between ccreasonable" and "otherwordly" explanations. For example, îhe nature of Kappa's/Kappo7s involvement in the two murders camot be incontrovertibly explained by one or the other of these two possible modes of interpretation. Evidence at the crime scenes suggests that

KappaKappo had contact with the two men just around their tirnes of death. His

Ieather jacket was found on both bodies.

A "'reasonable" explanahon would give one of two readings. On the one hand,

Kappo's/Kappa7s jacket could be held as evidence of his guilt. On the other hand, it might not. According to other information given in the story, the presence of the jacket could also be read as just another sign of Kappa7s/Kappo's kindness. He had, for example, loaned his bicycle to one of the victirns after the latter had damaged a leg and was unable to wallc. On observing the jacket at the second crime scene, the narrator notes that "it had been carefully placed" around the dead man's shoulders and "tucked in under his arms, like a blanket," the way a loving person would shroud the dead. '3 smiled," said the narrator. '"The generous Kappa, 1thought, didn't let the fellow down" (BIM 87). However, in the next breath, the narrator continues: 189 Then suddenly 1 saw it: saw it again: clearly. The two empty sleeves of Kappa's leather jacket were gripped around Delta's body; the high, two-pointed coUar, like outrageous wings were fixed to Delta's neck. Perhaps al1 this was hallucination! The light fiom the fire threw shadows in the room, but it seemed to me, as it had seemed to me before that Kappa's jacket was something living, a fabric inhabited by a dark presence, a living form: was something other than itself. @LM 87) This is a drarnatic shift. Could these men have died fiom strangulation by a disembodied jacket? The very thought is fantastical. But perhaps this possibility is not so strange after al4 especially in the Light of other information worked into the fabric of the story. This is the challenge. The question is not simply whether or not

KappaKappo is innocent or guilty of murder. It is how the reader (and characters such as the nmator) chooses to interpret events. Should they settle for natural or supematural explanations, or should they be content with the uncertainties and inconclusiveness of the evidence presented?

The story's title helps to strengthen the arnbiguities. Kappa7s/Kappo's jacket was named "the Black Angel" for practical, ordinary reasons: it was made of faded black leather and its owner wore it with its "high collar sticking up like little ears or wings around his ears" (BIM 79). A small revision to the DreamStories version more clearly implies that the name has much darker significance: cc[Kappo] kept the high collar sticking up like little ears or wings around his head. we used to have some quite heated discussion(s) on whether the collar more ciosely resembled wings or ears, until sorneone hit on the idea of the Wack Angel", and from then on ewabody saw the coliars as wings. Or perhps il may have been the oolher wuy marnd' (DreamStories

8. My emphasis).

To suggest that the jacket had wings which were mistaken for collars is to link it and its owner to the world of the paranormal. Kappa might even be a Black Angel himself who has brought dark and sinister forces among the people. The contradiction inherent in juxtaposing "Black" and "Angel" marks a spiritual corruption in which good can easily be transformed into evil. This might account for the difficulty the narrator has in piming an identity on the stranger, and makes it more likely that events which involve Kappo have a supernaturai explanation.

Yet again, supernaturd explanations are destabilised b y other factors. 1s the narrator reliable? The narrator hirnself constantly questions his own judgement and is often uncertain about what he sees. At Delta's death scene, for example, the narrator is not sure that he was not hallucinating. The DreamStories rendition is even more emphatic than the original:

Then suddenly 1 saw it - saw it agai(n) - clearly - the two empty sleeves of Kappo' jacket were really gripped around Delta's body. the high ,two-pronged collar, like two outrageous wings or ears were fixed to Delta's neck. And yet - and yet - who knows - this cd still have been hallucination. Cd 1 ever be really certain of my setting? the light fkom the fûe threw shadows in the rwm. (DreamStories 40)

In addition to suggesting that what the narrator sees and experiences might be explained by bad lighting and hallucinations, the story also implies that the narrator's point of Mew is suspect because there is a likelihood that he and his fellow factory workers suffer f?om a variety of mental illnesses caused by inbreeding and bad genes: For instance, none of us had ever seen the outer world- At least we certainly didn't know how near a proper tom was. We were the offspring of lovers, convicts, the poor; and had been brought by the Factory Conmittee in Our infancy. Many of us were mad, some were idiots, and a few suffered as the result of the vicious interna1 breeding of our progenitors. (BlM 79-80)

Again, the DreamStories version is even more emphatic:

for instance, none of us had ever seen the outer world. We didn't even know how near a 'proper' town was. We were the downspring of lovers, convicts, the poor; and had been brought by the Factory Cornmittee fiom we were born or, in sorne cases, fiom infancy Many of us were mad, some were idiots, and a few suffered fiom enhystamhs, hysterias, deficiencies & allergies that behaved like Iiars, tubers and blood diseases: the result of the vicious in-

ternal bleeding of our impenitential ancestors And the women in the camp, immune themselves, transported these viruses/diseases to the ducks & hearts, the kidneys & the livids, the axons & the lymph tracts of the others of us (DreamStories 8)

The "strange events" witnessed by the narrator might easily, in the tight of the above,

be dismissed as the hallucinations of a deranged mind operating in bad light. The

dream framework which is more prominent in the revised version also makes its

possible to explain away the supematural as the metaphoric constmctions of the

dreamer who attempts to find symbolic representations for unspeakable events in his

conscious world.

For the story to be a good example of the fantastic, its supematural

explanations have to be equaily as strong as its natural explanations. In Aspects of the

Novel, E.M. Forster puts one of the factors in Todorov's definition of the fantasticlgO

190 E.M.Forster, kects of the Novel (Pelican Books, 1962). Fantasy, Forster says, asks the reader to pay something extra: "The dernovelists say 'here is something that might occur in 192 in a different light. Forster argues that it is the very presence of the supernaturd that

is the single most important element of the genre. The heightening of the presence of

the supernatural and its overail effect on the story is achieved in the revised version

through Braîhwaite's decision to reorient the story to an Afro-Jamaican religious

tradition. This decision also helps to identie the story with the West Indies. There is

nothing explicitly or implicitly West Indian about the original version.

Myalism, an Mo-Jamaican religion dating back to the eighteenth century,

provides the story with an epistemologicaI fkamework which allows for a more

stmctured and culturally specific reading of its supernatural meanings. Monica

Schuler describes the essential features of Myafism, a religion which is:

derived fiom an older, precolonial Afncan tradition that posits a world in which, "under ideal circumstances, good prevails absolutely and exclusive1y ." Such a perfect world is rarely achieved, ho wever, because malevolent forces permeate the universe and produce evil through the malicious thoughts and feelings of selfish, antisocial people. Such people, placing personai goals above those of the community, employ ritual to satis@ their self-centred desires, that iç, they practice magic or sorcery. To prevent the misfortune they occasion, and to maximize good fortune for the entire community are major fùnctions of religious ritual which, unlike magic, is always community centred.I9'

Myalism is both this-world and other-world oriented. Myalists inhabit a fantastic universe in which ordinary life repeatedly collides with the realms of the

your lives,' the fàntasist 'here is something that could not occur. I must ask you first to accept my book as a whole, and secmdly to accept certain things in my bmk'(l14)" lei Monica Schuler, "Myahsm and the African Relii~iousTradition in Jamaica," Afnca and the Caribbean: The Lenacies of a Lmk, eds. Margzret E. Crahan and Franklin W. Knight (BaitÏmore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979) 65. supematural- Everyday occurrences such as bodily illness as well as social didease are ofken not taken at face value. They are viewed as the manifestation of attempts made by evil spirits to overcome the good in the world. These evil spirits are, it is believed, conjured up by anti-social people bent on destroying their neighbours and the society for personal gain. "Spirit doctors" are Myalists who are trained to identifi the spirit causing the problern, exorcise it, and restore harmony to the everyday world.

Myalist rituals, then, are therapeutic. But their interpretative function is equally important. The aim of divination is to see beyond the obvious, natural causes to what is considered the real, spirit-controiied motive.

The supernaturd in the story is clearly identified within the Myalist framework in several ways. For example, in the original version Ta Mega is described as an old gypsy woman. But in the revised version, she is transformed into a Myalist pnestess. The revision is small but significant:

...not only did Ta Mega depend on people such as my mother for her daily bread and butter (1 dont think she had a place of her own; just moved from client to client: a visiting philosopher and prophet); but my rnother was bound to her wisdom and her esoteric secrets (BIM 80) is changed to

Not only did Ta Mega depend on people such as Marna for her daily bread & butter (don't think she had a place of her own; just moved f?om client to client: a visiting philosopher & fiiend) but my M was v bound to her wisdom & her massage & myalistic powers. (DreamStories 22. My emphasis)

Similarly, the description of the seance in the original version is expanded and reworked to mirror the ecstatic rites of Myalist spirit possession (DreamStories 28- 194 30). Eshy the Yoruba god, is invoked in this section and what appears to be a

typographical error - 'cnecromancy" is rendered as c'negromancy" @reamStories 25)

- is clearly intended to emphasise the comection between the story's spiritual rites

and an Afio-religious tradition.

Within the Myalist epistemology, Kappo is a sorcerer bent on destroying the

community of factory workers. The reader can accept that Kappo's jacket literally

strangled the two men because the garment was operating under the influence of an

evil spirit. In the end, the narrator also seems to accept this as the reality - 'Xappo's jacket was something living, a fabric inhabited by a dark insidious presence; a living

form of something ûther - Older - than itself; part, 1 was sure now or as sure as 1 wd

ever be, of the same live & unseen eyevil power that 1 had become aware of under Ta

Mega's auspices" (DreamStories 41).

Orlando Patterson's description of the language of Myalism helps to explain key passages in the story'" Forces of evil gain their power by taking over the "spirit" of a person or a commUILity - in Myalist terms they practice "spirit thievery". Kappo engages in several boxing matches with the men who work in the factory and his body matches prove detrimental to his opponents in ways they cannot easily

192 See Oriando Panerson's The Socioloav of Slaverv: An Analvsis of the Oriains, Development and Structure of Negro Slave Societv in Jamaica (London: Associated University Presses, 1969) 185-190. See also Philip D. CurtHi, Two Jamaicas: The Role of ldeas in a Tropical Coionv 1830-1865 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955) 168- 172; George Eaton Simpson, '6Re~gionsof the Caribbean" and Raymond T. Smith, 'Religion in the Formation of West Indian Society: Guyana and lamaica," nie Afncan Diamora: Iuterpreiive Essays, eds. Martin L. Kilson and Robert 1. Rotberg (Cambridge University Press, 1976) 280-291; 312-341. understand or articulate. At one point the narrator and Kappo engage in a mock bout which quickly tunis into something more sinister:

Strange thing 1felt no pain. Or rather what 1 felt when he stnick didn't have the sensation of bodily pain. But - and 1 couldn't understan(d) it - 1 could hear myself groaning. But the groans didn't corne fiom my physical self. It seems that each time Kappo hit me, he didn't actually hit my chin or my face, but he hit something like nam or a star or far like a jewel inside me - my innocence, it seems - rny spirit or my sou1 - and it < was this xistence - inside - within me, which involuntarily groaned & cned out every time 1 can't Say how long it went on like this. 1remember stniggling back against him with al1 dywill It was my WU,not my physical strength, 1 discovered, 1 had to cdupon, to use. 1 remember suddenly struggling against him w/this inner force & was then that 1 saw my blows hit not Kappo but like the Black Angel. (DreamStories 15-1 6)

The boxing match is an apt metaphor for the story's main theme - the struggle between Mdand Evil.

To steal someone's spirit is to render them vulnerable and powerless. Kappo's blows were aimed at the narrator's nam, a neologism which in Brathwaite's oeuvre refers to the life force - that which confers autonomy, identity and well being - on the individual and/or community. It refers to the source of Mo-West Indian life, that sense of the past and its comection to the present which confers wholeness on a society and its people. Says Brathwaite.

"Nam" means so many things for me. It is 'man" in disguise.. . . "Nam" also suggests "root" or beginning because of am,'' ''nyam," to eat, and the whole culture contained in it ... It is then able to expand itself back fiom "nam" to "name," which is another fom of "nam," the name that you once had that has lost its "e," that fiagile part of itself .. 193

Ta Mega's rituals deliver the narrator, his family and the entire community as well.

Mo-folk religions, as Gordon Rohlehr notes in The Shave of That ~~rt,'~~are one of the main areas in which the oral tradition has been preserved, thus readily providing paradigms for dminteresteci in exploring issues at the hart of the society.

The language of spirit dis/possession and spirit thievery is extended beyond the religiosity of ecstatic rites to create a powerful metaphor for social and political dispossession. While Todorov's caution against reading for simple allegorical meanings in literature of the fantastic still obtains, the reader is expected and does hear echoes of the hiaory of the struggle of MoWest Indians against the evils of colonialism and neo-colonialism in the fight between Kappo and the community. In fact, as Madeline Kerr points out, the language of Myalism was often ernployed by slaves in Jamaica to speak out against the dehumanising effects of slavery and even today, religious language and paradigms are ofien employed in Jamaican politics. lg5

The radical shifi towards the folk in "The Black Angel" is also evident at the language level. The deliberate use of Jamaican English to replace standard English

- -- -- lg3 E.K. Brathwaite, "'tiistory, the Caribbean Wnter and X/Self," Cnsis and Creatintv in the New Literatures in Enalish, eds. Geoffkey V. Davis and Hena Maes-Jelinex (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 1990) 33-34.

'* Gordon Rohlehr, "The Problem of the Problem of Form," The Shaue of That Huit and ûther Essas @mgman Trinidad Ltd.: Port of Spain, 1992) 5,

Madeline Kerr, Personab and Confiid m Jamaica (Liverpool, 1963). phrasing invests the language spoken by the Sok with literary legitimacy. Dialogue is revised at several points, thus identwng the characters as West hdian (specifically

Jamaican) folk. Ta Mega's sharp command -to the narrator in the original version is rendered as:

"Let me see your hand!" she wheezed in her professional, old man's voice as soon as we were alone.

'mot that hand, dolt, your hearf hand !"' 83) In the later version it is changed to the vernaccular:

'%eh me see you hann!" she began, wheezing in her professional old woman's old man's voice as soon as we were aione. "Not dat hann, dolt, yu heart hann." CDreamStories 24)

"Open your shirt!" she cornmanded grruffly @IM 84) is changed to

"Open yu shirt!" she said gmffly. (LDreamStories 25)

As with al1 the narratives in DreamStories, 'The Black Angel" is written in the Video

Style. Brathwaite's concern with the representation of an oral language in pnnt is evident in ways in which the text is arranbged to suggest the enunciation of the language. The revised version of 'The Black Angef abounds with examples of what

Graeme Rigby calls a "sympathetic typographyYY .196 A variety of font types and sizes are used in several different ways to ccsound"the sense of a passage. The reader, for example, sees, hears and feels the narrator's anguish in the choice of large, bold words which scream his imer terror on pages 28, 34 and 35. As the narrator watches while Kappo subdues Delta's body and spirit, the sight reawakens a psychic pain deep within him and his insides explode with the phrase

MWE DO NOT WANT TO DIE reverberating like a painfiil echo in large bold letters on the page (DreamStories 34).

Similarly, the narrator's growing sense of the threat of Kappo7spresence is sounded in the large, black, ominous letters which spell

DANGER (DreamStories 20)

The strong visual aspect that for Brathwaite characterises oral traditions is evident in his 'kord sculptures," that is, cornputer generated imagistic language whic h "speak" to the text's extended meanings. On introducing Ta Mega, for example, the 'T" is sculpted to look like a key, thereby suggesting that her Myalistic powers are central to unlocking the rnystery of the ills which had befallen the community. A sketch of an open eye just below the danger sign on page 20 gives shape to the narrator's growing

1% Graeme Rigby, 'Tublishing Brathwaite: Adventures in the Video Style," p. 709. 199 awareness and emerging consciousness. These 'kord sculptures" punctuate the stories throughout the collection.

Here as in the other stories, conventional punctuation, paragraphing, spetling and margin alignments are ignored. These deviations fiom standard Iayout and typography draw attention back to the aurdoral dimensions of words through the

"surface" of the text. Brathwaite's motivation for these ccexperiments" is historical and cultural rather than purely linguistic. Culminating in the visually distinctive and auraily compeiiing Sycorax Video Style, his peculiar use of language and organisation of text has, as Stewart Brown points out, "always been linked to his sense of English Laquage's complicity - perhaps especially the language as text's complicity - in the making of that history which so dominates his imagination and his poetry.'7197Brown fùrther suggests that certain linguistic strategies - puns, breaking words down into false rwts, misspellings - represent a chaIlenge to "the language of cultural domination itself, and to its most privileged fonn, as book-bound, grammar- bound script. 9,198 The meanings which the dominant (British) culture constructecl through language and textual authority are challenged by strategies which constantly question their authority . B y "'breaking" Engtish, Brathwaite gestures towards the

"broken tongue" of West Indian folk and creates a language for literary expression out of tbat brokemess.

'" Stewart Brown, The Pressures of the Text, p. 125.

198 Stewart Brown, The Pressures ofthe Te* p. 127. 200 Brathwaite's language strategies have also been consciously directed at hding ways to speak authentically of the uniqueness of West Indian experience.

Hence, the expression of psychological and hiaorical meanings has always been central to his oral poetics. In 1983, Brathwaite spoke of the limitations of Standard

English in expressing the complexity of West Indian Iife:

In addition to the poet's naturai desire to transplode words, 1 find increasingly, as the struggle to express our particular experience in an adrnittedly generous language, that one has to create words to fit our particular and peculiar experience. It is the crisis of conscious Caliban faced with Prospero's thesaunis. lg9

The Calibanistic re ans pl os ion" of words in The Black Anne1 (and other stories in the collection as discussed below) tease out nch implications and possibilities of meaning. For example, "hallucinations" is rendered as c%elVucinations"

(DreamStories 23), a slip of the tongue/curser which registers the dark underside of this particular drearn episode and reveals the narrator's anxiety. Similarly,

"'horoscopes" becomes cchorrorscopesy'(DreamStories 27), simultaneously holding its original meaning of the art of divination practised by Ta Mega and again calling attention to the psychological aspects of the narrative. By changing '%" to "g," in rendering "necromancy'' as "negrornancy," the blackness of the black arts evoked in the story is foregrounded.

In Brathwaite's video language, the technology of the word represents a return to an oral form of communicating. By-passing papa and ink, the (lack of) mies in

'* Kamau Brathwaite, ccCaribbeanCultures: Two Paradigms," p. 15. 201 computer composition undermines conventional publishing and technology and

allows those formerly on the margins of language access to knowledge and the

possibility of participating in creating knowledge. Brathwaite's explanation of one of

his poems, 'WSelf s Xth Letters fiom the Thirteen Provinces," indicates that he is

acutely conscious of the oral possibilities in cornputer composition:

What 1 was saying [in that poem] was that technology makes nation- language easier... the global village concept, the message is the medium and al1 that ... The poem was saying that the computer has made it rnuch easier for the illiterate, the Caliban, actually to get himself visible ... Because the computer does it al1 for you. You don't have to be able to type, you can make mistakes and correct them or lave the- you can see what you hear. When I said 'kritin' in light", that is the main thing about it - the miracie of that electronic screen means that the spoken word can become visible in a way that it cannot become visible in the typewriter ... The computer has moved us away fiom scripture into some other dimension which is 'kritin in 1ight7'-It is really nearer to the oral tradition than the typewriter is. The typewriter is an extension of the pen. The computer is getting as close as you can to the spoken w~rd.~~

At several points in 'The Black Angel," the mature artist of the 1990s looks back on his earlier work and takes a jab at his very British inspired turns of phrase which, after four decades, now ring in his ears as alien to the language spoken by West

Indians. Compare, for example,

Just then Alfie appeared at the top of the hill, rïding Kappa's bicycle. Perhaps he was wondering what had become of Me, 1 thought, because Alfie had told him that he wanted to reach home soon der dark. Anyway Alfie was coming, and my silent surmises mus have been correct because kappa relaxed his watchful anticipation. (BIM 82)

200 Stewart Brm, 'Interview with Karnau Brathwaite," Kvk-over-al40 (1989): 87.

202 with

At that moment Alfie appeared at the top of the hill, riding Kappo's bicycle perhaps Kappo was wondenng what had become of Alfie, I thought because Alfie had told him, when he borrowed the bike that he wanted to reach home soon after dark and we hadn't seen him anywhere before on the road and Alfie's home was just here, rouncl the bend, beyond the railings, on the corner anyway Alfie was coming now, and my "silent ruminations" must have been correct because Kappo relaced his '%atcffil anticipation" that's the way we used to tak in those days in that place formal like that fiom reaping cheap- edition 19th century 'lrictorian" proseworks not that the price of the edition, I learned afkerwords had anything to do with sentences or style but some of us thought so at the time -.. (DreamStories 18-1 9)

Compare also

Mega was pure gypsy, the only person not connected with the factory, though she spent most of her time in the camp. She was an ancient hag; so old and withered that she looked more like an old man than a wornan. @lM 83) wit h

Mega was pure gypsy, the only person not connected w/the factory, though she spent most of her time in the camp. She was, 1 suppose, what our cheap editions cailed "an ancient hag." @reamStories 22)

The anxiety of British literary influence is obvious. The reference to cheap Victorian editions recalls the generation of West Indian writers schooled on Penguin paperback classics and whose language use was often more accurately described as "colonial mimicry". Brathwaite tips the balance in favour of a local literary tradition by referencing West Indian writers such as George Larnrning (DreamStories 27) whose writing marked a deparhire fiom colonial traditions.

'The Black Angel" sets the tone for the rest of the collection. Throughout, there is the recurring theme of the necessity to recapture and revitalise an indigenous 203 West Indian literary tradition and historical perspective, and the emphasis on

language which expresses the experience of West Indians t hrough utilising West

Indian voices. For his part, Brathwaite sees his creative self within, and necessarily

connected to the wider society:

Whichever way we put the question we find ourseives up against the same inescapable fact of the individual talent and the realisation that the talent can do little more than "express7' the society fiom which it emerges with help fkom the tradition to which it is borne. If the society is '%~hoIe,~~if, that is, it is working on its own cultural spiritual dynamic, it will be only reasonable to expect talent which reflects this. Ifby tradition we mean a living, acceptable, recognisable force, a body of achievement to which both the artist and his public can refer, then we can expect the artist to use this and be used by it. No novelist, no wrïter - no artist - can maintain a meaningfùl flow of work without reference to his society and tradition.201

The 4th Traveller

In a letter to Gordon RohIehr, Brathwaite described DreamStones as:

a kind of RIFT VALLEY in my senscape after the psychic disaster slippages of Mexican (86) Shar (88) TTR (90).'02

Brathwaite meant that the collection grew out of three traumatic events in his life; the death of his wife "Zea Mexican" in 1986; the near destruction of his home, library and persona1 archives collected over thirty years when Humcane Gilbert swept

20' Edward Kamau Brathwaite, "Rm,"p. 18.

202 Leüer fkom Kamau Brathwaite to Gordon RohIehr dated November 13, 1993. Quoted in Rdehr's introduction to DreamStories, p. iii. 204 through Jamaica in 1988; and the experience of being threatened, :robbed, gagged and bound in his Marley Manor flat in 2990. 'Dream Chad" is a dreaam prophesy which foreshadows the destruction of Hurricane Gilbert. But the story aiso provides an opportunity for the author to explore the social psychology wfhich turns national disasters into an occasion for vandalism and looting. In ccSal~-ages,"the didease which threatened the author and society in Trench Town Rock daces again. "The

4th Traveller" retums in part to and the ôauthor's struggle to corne to terms with the loss of his wife. Here, as in the other stmries, Brathwaite is engaged in writing more than autobiography. Commenting on Braahwaite's post-1986 writing, Silvio Torres Saillant notes:

ïnsofar as Brathwaite in these texts [The Zea Mexican Diary, Shar, and Trench Town Rock] gives vent to parmoias, phobias, and desires instigated by the immediacy of his major losses and persona1 trauma since the death of his wife in 1986, DreamStories shows his new emphasis on private pain as fxeweed to fuel the literary

In "The 4th Traveller" in particular, there is evidence that Bratfkwaite is using, as

Gordon Rohlehr puts it, "private experience as public drarna," and that his fiction shows a markd tendency to '%se the domestic with the social amd the political. 1,204

The personal 'T' is also the dreaming Eye which is able to direct the gaze on to problems outside itself but which are, in some ways, connected to Che 'T'

'O3 Silvio Torres Saillant, "The Tri& of Authdcity in Kamau Brathwaitlte," p. 70 1.

204 Gordon Rohlehr, ''htroduction," DreamStories, p. xii. 205 Since at least 1970 (at the ACLALS conference in Jamaica), Brathwaite has defended the idea that the orally oriented artist is not an individual creative consciousness separate fkom the society. It rnight then seem a contradiction that in his post-1986 fiction, Brathwaite had become more intensely persona1 - his persona1 experience ofien providing the stuff of fiction. Yet, as his work becomes more concerned with personal experience it acquires more public significance. Gordon

Rohlehr has even suggested that the personaiities of Kamau and Doris Brathwaite

"are not merely individuals but, transcending individuality, have become social essences, whose work relates to the awakening of an entire civilisation."20s One of the differences between an intensely and solely personal work such as The Zea Mexicaz

Diary and a complex and rich story such as "The 4th Traveller" is that in the latter,

Brathwaite simultaneously explores self and community. This is made possible through his choice of the allegorical mode of fiction.

In "The 4th Traveller," the dreaming narrator and tfuee others set out on a journey der the death of cMexican". Loaded down with a cart of canes, they head for the village of Zion but somewhere along the way they stumble upon a "village of the dead." The eyeless, earless, faceless inhabitants of this village are intent only on their game of cards and ignore the travellers7request for help:

This group was sitting>dark caps pulled over dark fences w/a sense of night of nothing happening although they seerned intent, very very intent, over the game they were playing - draughts domino cwhist - in the strange silence they were making & they were making it clear, very

- --

20' Gordon Rohlehr, c'Introduction," DreamStories, p. vi. 206 very clear, even w/out saying anything, that we were not welcome here-that this was not Zion. (DrearnStories 80)

The villagers' indifference tunis into overt threat. Mer the narrator responds to their silence with a public insult of his own, the travellers are pursued and ambushed under the cover of night by these death-in-life villagers. In an effort to escape, the travellers hide in a nearby canefield, but their pursuers set the canefield on fire.

After this follows a detailed description of the travellers' terror and pain as they try to Save themselves fiom the diabolical villagers who were waiting like 'a dark dark sheet of water," with dogs of "hot heedless razor mouths" (DreamStories

85). The narrator and one of his companions manage to escape the blaze and tumble onto the safety of the "herb green respite grass" that 'lield no terror," a "'brief patch of birth where Ney] found [themselves] green again & gentle" (DreamStories 86).

These two travellers hide themselves in the ruins of an old building hidden away under the blazing canefield. The "humming rim and mernory of revolt" was not far off, but esconed within this underground refûge, the travellers are able to rest and refiesh themselves. On re-emerging, these two travellers reunite with another of their companions. It appears that the fourth traveller had penshed alone in the blazing canefield. Although the travellers never get to Zion, the story ends on a hopefbl note.

In another village, they fa11 in with the festivities of a Street carnival. The darkness and threat of the first village is replaced by bright, cheerfiil lights and the new villagers are openly welcoming. In 'The 4th Traveller," private and public meanings are enabled by the allegorical mode of fiction. Al1 the characteristics of classical allegory are evident here - the journey motif, the quest, the dream Me.However, these characteristics by themselves are not sufficient to identify the story as allegory. "Genuine allegory," says Northrop Frye, "is a structural elernent in Iiterature: it has to be there, and cannot be added by critical interpretation done-,3206 A story which is genuinely allegorical is different fkom one which is made to support an allegorical reading imposed upon it.

Frye suggests one possible means by which a work can be identified as me allegory:

We have actual allegory when a poet explicitly indicates the relationship of his images to examples and precepts, and so tries to indicate how a commentary on him should proceed. A writer is being allegorical whenever it is clear that he is saying "by this 1 also (allos) mean that." Lf this seems to be done continuously, we may Say, cautiously, that what he is writing "is" an allegory."7

Writers of allegory begin with an idea, concept or theme and then search for images which convey these ideas or concepts. To be effective vehicles of meaning, such images cannot be totally private but should have some recognisable significance produced either within the text itself or through some previously established means.

The most important feature of allegories, then, is their language - particularly their symbolic language. An allegoncal text, as Maureen Quilligan points out in The

Languasze of Nleaory, establishes its relationship to its "pretext" (that is the source which stands outside the narrative and which guides its interpretative possibilities)

--- 2m Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criricism p. 54.

207 Northrop Frye, The Anatomv of Criticism, p. 90. 208 not through plot correspondence, but through its sign.@ing systems. In studying or reading an example of the genre, the primary interest is to identify the ways in which the author "explicitly indicates the relationship of his images to his examples and precepts.y508

To respond appropnately to The 4th Traveller as an allegory is to resist the urge to slavishly idente personalities, places and events alluded to in the narrative.

In fact, stories which provide only this satisfaction are what Frye desixibes as "naive allegories". Their significance is limited to the situation being descnbed, they "date," and "resist a primary analysis of imagery." 'The 4th TravelleZYis not "naive allegory". Its ideas and the images which convey them resonate with the author's personal history and aspects of a communal history closely resembling the author's.

Some of these images are deliberately culture specific but the author is careh1 to ensure that they are also archetypal, hence their universal appeal.

The "pretexts" for "The 4th Traveller" are clearly identified in the story. In

Part 4, the author comects the precedinig narrative with a specific period in his life - his grief after the death of his wife fkom cancer in September of 1986, the breakdown in his relationships with fiends in his acadeMc community in the imrnediate post trauma period, and his subsequent struggle to move beyond his pain. (The full tea of the author's version of these events is given in The Zea Mexican Diary published in the sarne year as DreamStories.) Through allusions, word slippages, puns, the use of

208 Maureen Quilligan, The Lanauane of Alleeoxy (London: Oxford University Press, 1979) 72. unfamiliar/untranslated words, etc. the story establishes its other pretext described by

Rohlehr as "an histoncal rem to the ninagate experience of the African slave, pursued through canefield and forest into the mountain fastness of his marronage.~9209

Both these pretexts allow the author to explore ideas of central significance to "The

4th Traveller" - the anatomy of pain, brokenness and loneliness; the ugliness of deception, betrayal; and hatred; and the sustaining eEect of hope in the face of adversity .

The description of the travelers pushing a cart of canes fkom one place to another but unable to get to their desired destination recalls the myth of Sisyphus and the sense of lonely desperation evoked by this personage. Pain is powerfùlly anatomised as a dulling/deadening burden which the sufferer is forced to bear with no relief in sight. Later on in the story when this burden of canes is transformed into the blazing canefield f?om which the travellers' fiantically attempt to escape, pain is characterised as a consuming fire which burns, twists and destroys al1 that is green and alive. In Part 4, Brathwaite descnbes his penod of grieving in similar terms.

Significantly, Sisyphus' boulder is replaced by the homegrown and Caribbean spec8c cart of canes. This smalI but telling revision to an archetypal image connects the story to another kind of enduring pain - the history of slavery, the sugar cane plantations that supported it, and the inhuman bmtalities meted out against the slaves.

2w Gordon Rohlehr, "Introduction," DreamStories, p. xiii.

210 It is difficult - and not necessary - to separate these two levels of meaning in the

story. The reader is led to ask as Rohlehr has done:

Are the canes history - the old cycle of sugar plantation corne to fiuition, harvested and garnered, of which the travellers must unburden themselves if they are to begin &esh a new cycle of tirne? Or are the canes the perfected life of Doris Brathwaite - a burden not simply of grief, but of a terminated relationship, to be safely deposited in Zion before release into a new cycle of relationships, new creativity, the new use?^"

One of the most endunng images fiom this story is the representation of mis fortune as

a game of "draughts domino

This revised version of the medieval image of Fate as a blind woman suggests that

straitened circumstances are not always the result of the arbitrariness of life.

Sometimes, as in the stories which undergird the allegory of 'The 4th Traveller,"

misfortune resu1ts from the malice of individual/groups who aim at cuntrolling the

lives of others. The picture of the hidden and exclusive game played out by the hostile

men in the first village against the travellers in a dark alley highlights the

underhandedness and ugliness of conspiracy and double-dealing. This idea is

reinforced in the players' squat, crab-like appearance.

The connection between these unwelcoming villagers and individuals from

whom the author became estranged der his wife's death is made evident in the

similanty in the language used to descnbe the hostile villagers in the allegory of Part

1 and visiting '%endsn in the autobiographical section of part 4. In Part 1 the

210 Gordon Rohlehr, "htroduction," villagers are 'like crabs playing dismal cards. squat. enclose(d) within their

crustacean boundaries of petties pincer claw(s) of silencey' (DrearnStories 8 1). In Part

4, the mourners who corne to visit the grïeving author are described in identical language:

1 cd see the visitors. Ied by a tall bespectacled deconstnictionist critic. his smirk. the smock of his body coming to see me. his head held high. their eyes shock bright lookin out on little sticks or lanterns like crabs or carabs> on poles advancing behind their self-contained & scurrying leader. Pincers like boxers or boers. like the villagers plying their romee or whist. (DreamStories 91)

Revisions to 'The 4th Traveller" fiom the Callaloo to DrearnStories version show that

Brathwaite wants to emphasise the point that the historical ccmisfortunes" and the straitened circumstances of slavery and slaves were brought about by the deliberate act of malicious men and European conspiracy against the humanity of Africans. In several places, he uses, revises or adds words which recall the Maroons, the group of outlaw slaves who refked to be caught in the garne controlled by their masters. For example, in the Callaloo version, a description of the villagers' game pIaying is described in:

... for the game they were playing was warri, 1 saw it now, the board with the round dug-out graves and the horse knicker seeds shining their bones in the smooth silence .. . (Callaloo 185)

Warri is the name for an Akan game. The repetition of "warri" sounds another word,

'kanior," as evidenced in the passage below:

... for the game they were playing was muroon or myndinka wadowarri. 1 see it now, the board w/the round dug-out graves & the horse-knicker seeds shining their bones in the smooth silence .. . 212 (DreamStories 8 1. My emphasis)

The reference to "maroon" turns wardowarri into an audio simulation of a war call.

The board game that the villagers are playing symbolises the conûict that is fast

developing between them and the travellers. Tension rnounts as the narrator issues a

challenge to the villagers by throwing down a stick in the middle of their game. The

juxtaposing of "maroon" and 'karri/owad' creates allows Brathwaite to

simultaneously explore two dZEerent levels of meaning. Maroons were warriors of

history, former slaves who effectively resisted the colonisers. But the Maroons also

made contracts with the colonisers to return runaway slaves to captivity. Figures of

both resistance and betrayal, reference to the Maroons tums the battle which brews

over the board game into, on the one hand, a symbol of Afro-Caribbean resistance,

and on the other hand, a potent image for the kind of betrayal the author felt he

expenenced at the hands of former fnends in his acadernic cornmunity.

In the first instance, Brathwaite's writing shows that he has always been

impatient with negative, fatalistic readings of West IndianKaribbean history which represent Mo-Caribbeans as the victims of their past. By choosing to recall the story

of the maroons, Brathwaite is suggesting that histoncal trauma can be transfonned if those who had been made to "draw a bad card" (to use a popular Jamaican saying) in the game of life take control of the game themselves.

On the other hmd, the author uses this passage to send a warning to his estranged fnends whom he felt had conspired against him with their %ad food of reviews" and made sure that he was not "published or kted again" (DreamStories 91). The author wams them that the tables have been turned and he, not they, is now

the master of the game:

1 now sit as foreman. digging yr graves in the game of your luck or yr warri deaiing my cards in th(e) ikol ence< (DreamStories 92)

The language of the text (in both versions) amplifies its meanings in a demonstration

of what Nathaniel Mackey calls "a thematization of the ~ord,'~~'that is, a tendency

towards linguistic play and experimentation which supplements and heightens the

rneaning of the text through "sound sense".

The sharpness of the rejection experienced by the travellers is amplified by

breaking up sentences with periods after every word or every second word. Again,

this is more evident in the DreamStories version:

shrug.dis.mis sai.rejection.like crabs playing dismal cards.squat. (DreamStories 8 1)

Similarly, the labouring breathlessness, and the strain and fatigue of the travellers pushing their burden before them is captured aurally through the use of dashes, line breaks, strategically placed periods and the ironic repetition of 'Yes" throughout the passage:

- that this was not Zion - that this was not the village our burden sought; that Zion, yes (was that really the name?) was up a steep hi11 - ... up there, out there somewhere, in an even more directionless darkness - up a steep. tired hill, it seemed, on the utter side of the village ... and we would need help, especially at this hour, gett-ing late, after the long sunlit journey into this night - blinding darkness. yes. To get up there - directions & sorne - how money - yes - in pushing the cart up tht last final disapp ointed hi11 outside this last village, since

"' Nathauiel Mackey, 'Wringing the Ward," World Literature Today 68. 4 (Autuma 1994): 733. the road was bad yes & wet & slippery & had Iike a slow reverse curve - (DreamStories 8&8 1)

The failure of the travellers to scale that particular hi11 and their fa11 back to the bottom is graphically depicted in the hiatus in the text, the unconventional use of punctuation marks, and the hard consonants of the following:

& Our poor rejected labouring cart sl-

ipping down back the stark slippery slope of feet vain in the dark. the muscles in our bellies hurting al1 along the shaft of the creaks. our knees bent & uncreeping farward. washed wa sted breath. xasperation of the dark. (DreamStories 82)

The rendering of "threats" as "?hree/atts": "'Thanks7>for what!- for silence ?for hostility for fhreats?-it wa(s) a sound inside my head like thredafts - dice shattering like grave1 rain along the comgated iron roof' (DreamStories 83), works on the same principle. It simulates the noise made by dice falling hard on a wooden gameboard and is close enough - soundwise and visually - to "'threats" to create a powerful impact.

Dream Haiti

Brathwaite, like several of his contemporaries, is deeply concerned with the question of history. Since Naipaul's anguished pronouncement in 1962, cchktoryis built on achievement and creation and nuthing was created in the West ~ndies,"~'~the

quarrel with history has been centra1 to the creative and critical enterprise from the

region. For West Indians, 'Wstory has largely been a fiction written, dominated and

controlled by forces external to itself.,7213 The task of writinghghting history is, in

Edouard Glissant's words, "'net the business of the historian al~ne."~'~To take control

of history, the West Indian writer needs to develop a poetics of liberation, a rnohus

scribendi, for imaginatively recasting history which corresponds to the uniqueness of

the West Indian situation and responds to the problems of traditional (colonial)

hist oriography .

'Dream Haiti" provides one example of Brathwaite's response to the question

of history. Brathwaite shapes his narrative to recover a sense of a coherent self,

creating what he cas in Meta~horsof Underdevelopment c%istorical psychology".

Resisting the linear flow of time which undergirds Western concepts of history as a

narrative of progress, Brathwaite opts for a timeless plot which graphically

illuminates West Indian expenence. 'Dream Haiti" does not follow the conventions

of realist historiography. The story moves in and out of time searching not for a

chronology, but for an overall pattern within the experiences of different moments.

*12 V.S.Naipaul, The Middle Passages (1962; Hannondsworth, 1969) 29.

213 Sylvia Wynter, 'Novel and History, Plot and Plantation," Savacou 5 (1 97 1): 95-1 02.

214 Edouard Glissant, Cariblxan Discourse, trans. J. Michael Dash (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1989) 133. The story's methods of historical enquiry are based in oral strategies of recall practised by the folk such as the foregrounding of memory and the testimony of first hand witnesses. The framework of the dream itself can, as Paul Shanad argues, also be viewed as "a kind of memory that fills in the gaps of waking history.A15 No longer relying on official records, documentary authority, or social reaiism, 'Dream Haiti" creates and justifies its own story of history.

'Dream Haiti" begins with a picture of a contemporary journey, its mass exodus and displacement. Leaky boats filleci with Haitian refùgees being rounded up by the US Coast Guard and rejected by their Caribbean neighbours fil1 the fiame of the narrator's dream. Completed in February 1992 at the height of the Haitian refügee controversy, the story makes the inevitable and necessary connection between the landlessness of the Haitians with a history of journeys to the Caribbean which uprooted and dispossessed the Haitian's Afncan and Amerindian ancestors. The ship is an ambivalent syrnbol in this story. It is sornetimes symbolic of landlessness - caught between the horizon and the distant shore the ship is the symbol of being cast adrift, without roots, without hope. At other times the ship is the vehicle of passage to somewhere and something tangible in the fiiture, to a hope yet unrealised.

In connecting the Haitian's plight to joumeys in the past, the story tries to constnict a narrative of causation to explain the disturbing expenence of contemporary Haitians. The Haitians' plight awakens "eye-corner ghosts of memory

21s Paul Sharraà, "'The Art of Memory and the Liberation of History: Wilson Harris's Witnessing of Time," CalIaloo 18. 1 (Winter 1995): 105. 217 and meaning" in the mind of the dreaming narrator as their overloaded, flimsy boats, suspended between horizon and shore, bring back memones of Columbus' voyage to the West Indies in 1492. The overcrowed dilapidated boats off the Miami Coast awaken a powerhl, physicalIy and emotionally charged mernory of the slave ships of the Middle Passage:

& i rernember feeling very cold even though we were

in a boat designed as the tv cornmentator kept saying to carry only 14 or 15. (DreamStories 103)

The fiee associations and the collapsing of temporal boundaries made plausible by the shifting, shadowy world of the dream allows the narrator not ody to make huge leaps in tirne, but also to participate in al1 those moments as a first hand witness. His narrative is punctuated with '7 remember, 1 remember" and he is simultaneously on the deck as Columbus lowers anchor, in the cramped holds of the slave ship and sharing the saity agony of the contemporary refugees.

& yet in my dream it was juss iike on board anyship anytime & tide PreamStories 96)

The causal connection between past, present and fûture is underlined in the constant repetition of cclife-line" which is literally the rope used in saving lives attached to the life-buoys on ships and which in palmistry also refers to the act of divining a person's past (in this case a people's past) by reading their lines. "Tuming the leaves of the waves .. . for a long long history time," the narrator reads in the lines left by the ships passing through the waters of the Caribbean the essence of the region's history. The drearning narrator/poet is also a "life-boy" - another of Brathwaite's loaded neologisms/ rnisspellings - whose task it is to redefine this story, to salvage the people's fiiture by dihgfor relics fiom the past.

Water, which is ofhm an ambiguous symbol in Brathwaite fùnctions here as both a watery grave - a dent wimess of generations of West Indians who drowned past and fitwe hopes in its depths - and the amniotic fluid of rebirth. It is the writer's task to transform the images of death into images of life, the despair of nothingness into the renewing hope of the visionary. Hence, the narrator who is adrift in the

"dream of the ship . .. that navel of [his] past" self-identifies as a poet. His dream is saturated with snippets of literary accounts of sea joumeys both West Indian and non-

West Indian - Derek Walcott's Omeros, Robert Antoni's La Divina Pastora,

Coleridge's ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Melville's Mobv Dick.

The story makes it clear that the narrative of dispossession, landlessness and alienation can only be transforrned from within the affected community. It would be repeating the mistakes of the past to turn to outside sources for deliverance. Hence the life-buoys thrown out by the US Coast Guard weigh dom rather than buoy up the

Haitians. As the TV commentator gave his minute by minute coverage of the collapsing boats, the narrator saw the approaching Coast Guard not as a helping hand, but as a dangerous presence. From a distance they looked like the smiling head of a sea-island kite - the dominant bird image from Walcott's poetry and also an echo of the albatross, the symbol of hope for the stranded ship in Coleridge's poem. But 219 underneath, the Coast Guard cutters are deathiy sharp, sending heads rolling like a

guillotine and leaving a track of blood in their wake. The Haitians are left 'Tobbying

by with their heads up & down in the corve=e of water and their arms dlvainly

trying to reach Miami & Judge Thomas & the US Supreme Court & their mouths

wise open cirinking dream and seawater" @remStones 11 1).

In an ironic twist of history, the Haitian boat people of the 1990s are the

present generation of the Caribbean nation that fought and won the first successfùi

battle against imperialism and slavery. Theû contemporary plight is both a reminder

of that past of imperialism/dispossession mirrored in the neo-colonial relationship to

the United States, and of the courage, vision and self-sufficiency which made Haiti an

example of the power which Caribbean folk have to transform and create their own

destiny .

'Dream Haiti" is a challenge to Caribbean people - ordinary folk, politicians,

and writers of their stoks - to change the tide of their own history. 'ïheir

complacency and participation in their own social and economic oppression is sharply

criticised:

1 write Shante Chackmul & ask WHAT NAME BAHAMAS GIVE TO WAITIANS WHO COME TO YR OUSE TO BEG WRUK (DreamStories 95)

The Haitians' plight is ignored by their own Caribbean neighbours. 'Dream Haiti," writes Gordon Rohlehr, "suggests that the rest of the Caribbean, while on the sarne trip and ship as Haiti, will likely remain helpless or uidifferent spectators on the 220 privileged deck of the US Gutter until they ail recognise their fate as drowning refügees."216 The impotence of contemporary Caribbean politicians is evident as they hide their consciences and drown their sense of responsibility in clichés such as

'komrnand heights of the economy & level playing fields & Iight at the end of the tunnel etc etc etc" (DreamStories 106).

The writers are especially culpable. At the end of the story they are seen standing on board "the soft hard deck of the Coast Guard '?mpeccable"/watching them poem" (DreamStories 11 1). Unable or unwilling to assist their drowning brothers and sisters they remain mute and ineffective. The beginning of the turning of the tide will occur oniy when the writers realise that they are the people's 'brothers" bound to them '%y al1 kinds of ties & the content of their character" (DreamStories

110). The echoes of Martin Luther King's rousing 1968 oration are deliberate.

Powerfùl changes can be effected when the people take power into their own hands.

Brathwaite, a writer with a hely tuned vision and sense of responsibility, is helping to lead the way.

Another story in this collection, "Salvages" returns to the allegorical mode so effectively rendered in 'The 4th Traveller." "Salvages" can be read as the sequel to

'Dream Haiti." Here too, the dreaming narrator/poet finds himself on a boat in the middle of the ocean. As the drearn progresses he discovers that the promise of the idyllic days of youth when he and his friend Garath fished and swam around the

216 Gordon Rohlehr, 'introduction," DreamStories, p. xv. 221 islands, quickly tums into a bloody nightmare. The poet is so amuied to the growing disintegration and destruction which the drearn chronicles îhat in his waking moments his body succumbs to the didease that permeate his dream. Sometimes merging with, sornetimes separate fiom his sick fiiend Garath in the dream, the two were diagnosed as "suffering fiom some kind of allegory [for allergy] induced fiom prolonged explosure to the elements" @reamStories 145).

hirsued by the guur&-co.stas, ccserious-iookingwhite guys Iike fiom the CM

... doctors or pharmacists" ... in their '%hite sleek or sloop," the boat with the narrator and Garath is both a target of the surveillance activities of the pursuing boat and a test sitddumping ground for its dmg experiments. Intercepted by the ''white hospital loveboat & terrific scientific battleship," the narrator and Garath are tested and probed- Afhid that the ccsea-doctors"would 'tvant or expect him to go ashore to the chic or the White House or some other even wilder lavoratory for 'more rigorous thests7 more stripping. that is. of his sacreds - the roses of butter & fat curled up in his lobotomy," Garath suddeniy cut out, taking the narrator with him. As Garath gets more and more il1 fiom the "tabloids" he was secretly taking (it is unclear whether he got them fkom the white boat or was taking them before), he launched a head-on attack on his closest neighbours, pulling their penises out from the "public heirs" as he rushed by in his speeding boat.

"Salvages" invites the reader to see in its centrd images of disease, death and destruction, a commentary on the sickened state of contemporary Caribbean life. It depicts the Caribbean as the playground of the Amencas, the place in which post- 222 Federationlpost-independence disillusionment aided by the self-interest of external forces has led to waves of crime and self and regional desmiction. Cynthia James, reading aptly, describes one of the points of narrative signifrcance:

"Salvages" (the title plays on the words "savages" and ccsalvages"), [is] a fkightening work that has a wide posssibility of readings for a Caribbean now in the grip of the dmg trade. The castration and emasculation of the present generation and the fùture generations of young males is the consequence of that trade; for not only is Garth/Garath7spenis hauled out by the throttIe of the boat on which he seeks his crazed escape, but he unleashes a virulent crime wave on his unsuspecting Society and gender and the seed of his race.2"

As in 'Dream Haiti," the poet/dreaming narrator retails this piece of history with the imrnediacy and urgency of a living witness. His memories are disturbingly graphic and are kept alive in word pictures which draw on popuiar images fiom television, news briefs etc for their effectiveness and vitality. It is an oralised history, told in al1 its (unapologetic) subjectivity but with an insider's knowledge not too readily dismissed. Here, too, Brathwaite is not satisfied with the vision of hopelessness.

"Salvages" ends with Gareth's recognition of his responsibility, both to himself and his victims:

And it was then that round the bend of the sandbank came Randy Burkenheit & the US science monitors w/soft music fiom their bow-wave already reaching us in clear liquid quavers before they amïved as Garth slipped overboard & went down deep to the very roots of the sea- WALL as 1 knew he wd & that he must have been struggling to find down down down under

217 Cynthia James, "The Unknown Text," World Literahire To&y 68. 4 (Autumn 1994): 760. 223 there some insect or x- that we knew wasnlt there but still hoped there might be more & more desperately trying to find the breath to keep down to stay dom as he tried to embrace what chains & tendrils & entanglements he cd find down there near the sea-weed & setting seins on the right-hand side of the sun of his brain with its ribbons & shadows lost sparks specks embers metastases eyes eyelids irises of light fireflies of sunset floating up fiom the dark & his dreaming of' beaches w/ the sound of sand drifting into the forest of featherless fish scaleless birds coral white scavenger flesh on the boughs & the boulders* of i:ron and seaweed en- fetterrnents of clear air become water beyond his mutation. dissolving into this tinkle & oven & tide of the silence. dead arawaks drowned sailors drowned steersmen my brothers drowned fishermen drowned Dahomean slaves w/ no glint or dream in their fishnets that cd not stop the time (DreamStories 170-1 7 1)

GarethYsundenvater descent is not the finality of death but a very powerful image of the regeneration that is possible when the link between past and present is restored.

'The author seems," says Cynthia James, 30 be positing a healing born out of the knowledge of those who have died before and so have dready redeemed Gareth.

Gareth's discovery of this under the sea, upon the ocean alter laid with the bones of ancestors, is an important part of his healing; for a subconscious ablution takes place in the presence of salvation, a salvation that is won for Gareth by those who have already sacnficed their being so that he can exist and be worthy in his underwater of bones where the debt has already been paid.'y21gGareth's Wghtening carnage is the result of a disconnection with the past - a past which itself is characterised by death

and destruction. Gareth's descent into the memones Iocked underwater is the point at which fie understands his ownlhis moment's destructive impulses. Awareness is the first step towards self and communal liberation. History, at least for Brathwaite, retins the ability to redeem itself

Brathwaite's quest for authenticity, for ways of writing which truly correspond to Caribbean experience, epistemology, and voices has borne fruit.

DreamStories speaks the stories of Jamaicans and other Caribbean peoples with a richness of words infused with the sounds and sense of the region. He has resurrected and legitimised the folk - in al1 the complexity of that term - and has made orality the benchmark of his Caribbean aesthetic. He has consistently pursued de-colonisation in tandem with the recovery and preservation of his cultural community. For Brathwaite, this has been a spiritual as well as an intellectual quest, a persona1 as well as a pubIic journey. The pain, especially in the stories that have a ring of autobiographical truth, is sometimes undeniably excruciating. The journey out of the past filled with pain and grief has not yet been fùlly effected, either for the poet for the community he writes about. But the ultimate vision is one of wholeness. DreamStories places both the poet and his community on the threshold ofrecovery and healing.

-- - Cynthia James, The Urhown Text, p. 760. 225 Epilogue - "Going Back To Corne Forward

f To] jmey Mo the pasi and hinterland is al the same rime a movement of possession znto present and jhre ... we become ourselues, truly our own creators, discovering word for object, image for the word Edward Kamau Brathwaite

"Caribbean literature," Stewart Brown and John Wickham wrote in 1999, '%as

grown in both volume and stature through this century eom something that hardly

existed - at least as far as the literary mainstream was concerned - into a body of word-culture (embracing both oral and written dimensions) that is generally

acknowledged to be one of the richest, most accessible, and yet technicdly

adventurous libraries of contemporary world literature. ,,219 The analysis in preceding chapters demonstrated the rich and cornplex interplay between speech and writing, word and sound, oral and print, performance and text over one hundred years of short story writing in Jarnaica. Initially the only choice for writers working within economic constraints and against the deprivations of history, short fiction has emerged as the dominant genre in late twentieth-century writing fiom the region and, in correspondence with the short story's newly acknowledged statu, is a renewed appreciation for the oral context which has sustained the form.

219 Stewart Brown and John Wickham, eds., The Mord Book of Caribbean Short Stones (Clarendon: Oxford University Press, 1999) mi. 226 The development and expression of orality in Jamaican short stories, as with short fiction in other parts of the region, was and still is negatively afEected by an anti-folk, anti-oral bias nurtured under colonialism. In engaging with the aesthetic dimension of orality, the analysis also had to engage with the politics of orality. A major political consideration is recovering forms and expressions fiom the Afro-oral context and reaf5rming their cultural and literary value. The return to autochthonous forces, as Brathwaite vigorously argued, represents an atternpt to rechirn submerged aspects of a communal self and excavate hidden portions of a rich, plural heritage. It relocates the power of naming within the community and legitirnises the forms of expression and ways of knowing that constitute the Afncan heritage in the New

World. The use of forms, expressions and a language that is infused with the Afiican presence as rnodels for fiction is, therefore, not just a purely literary exercise. It marks a conscious attempt to deny the claims of colonialist historïography and confer the kind of legitimacy long enjoyed only by European culture and writing on Afncan denved oral forms and sociai practices. Thus, the examination of an oral aesthetic in the development of short fiction writing in Jamaica is itseif part of the act of political and historical recovery and a validation of the oral.

The creation of an "indigenous" literature is seen to depend on recovery and reafirmation. In a culture bom fiom the inter-mingling of several transported cultures, a literature that is "of the soii" must give equal consideration and value to al1 its influences. The emphasis on the Mo-oral in Jamaican short stories not only speaks to the embattled history of Afio-New World communities but is an attempt, 227 ultimately, to exnbrace creole status. Brathwaite continues to insist that West Indian literature will becorne truly creole ody when the breaking down of oppositions and hierarchies is carried out "in such a way that the 'little' tradition of the (ex) slaves will be able to achieve the kind of articulation, centrality, prestige and influence. .. that will provide a basis for creative For Olive Senior, creolisation remains an ideal towards which writers like herself who recognise that the cultural contributions of the black majority have been long denied and debased are working."'

As shown, oraiity is a theory and practice of writing that covers an array of concerns including assessing and demonstrating the narrative potential of the dialect

(the "broken tongue" of the Afro-folk); reconfiguring aesthetic paradigms so that story forms, tropes, speech genres, speech rhythm, religious and other rites from the oral tradition function as models for fictional creation; and experirnenting with techniques, orthographic and typographie inscriptions which transform the written text into an aura1 experience. The present analysis was undenaken in part to provide the reader with an overview of the major issues which have enlivened debates and stimulated the most daring and original experiments in writing the oral, and in part to

220 Edward Kamau Brathwaite, The Develmment of Creole Society in Jamaica 1770-1820 (Clarendon: Oxford University Press, 197 1) 3 11.

221 Mariies Glaser, *A shared cumire," an InteMew with Olive Senior. Caribbean Writers: Between Oraiitv and Wnhng, eds. Mariies Glaser and Marion Pausch (Rodopi, 1994) 8 1. identiSf periods in which major shifis or developments in the theory and practice of orality became evident.

Close readings of short fiction by Andrew Salkey, Olive Senior and Kamau

Brathwaite provided a number of examples of the practice of orality both in the sense of an engagement with oral traditional forms and in terms of writing which is shaped to approximate speech. The movement fkom the stories of Andrew Salkey, to those of

Olive Senior, then to the avant-garde collection by Kamau Brathwaite strongly suggests that the ftture of the Jamaican short story will see more expenments with

"voice texts" and an engagement with the word as sound rather than the word as symbol. Kamau Brathwaite's "sound explosions" and his use of typography to create aural imagery is admittedly one of the more startiing methods of speaking through the page, but it appears to be a logical development on Senior's ccstoriesin the moment of performance" as she calls the- and her admission that she is 'more concerned that

[her] characters should speak directly to the reader ...[ and ] tell their own st~ry'~~~

Arguably, the curent emphasis on finding narrative strategies and stylistic devices which allow the reader to '?iea?' the word on the page moves beyond earIier concerns about the currectness of using dialect in fiction and with demonstrating the language's legitimacy as a vehicle for fiction. In contemporary practice, the tones, textures and rhythrns of the language are being explored, and meaning in stories ofken hinges on the aural dimension of the Ianguage.

222 Olive Senior in an interview with Anna Rutherford, &maoi~i8:2 (1986): 19. 229 However, this does not mean that the impact of traditional oral story forms on

modem prose writing wiI1 no longer, or will be any less, evident. Andrew Salkey's

collections of Anancy stories produced over a period of three decades provide

evidence of the enduring appeal of mythical stories and figures. Together with Olive

Senior's trickster stones, his collections indicate that traditional oral stones and tropes

survive in the modem short story by being revised and updated to reflect

contemporary concerns. As reveaied in the stories of these two writers, Anancy can

assume different fonns in modem prose and the reader has to be alert to the wily

spider's fictional transformations and metamorphoses. Nevertheless, the republication

of traditional Anancy stories by writers such as Berry and the continuing popularly of

raconteurs such as Louise Bennett are indicative of an interest in preserving traditional stories and revising and updating them as needed.

The discussion of the oral tradition in this study focused mainly on "stock" or long established story forrns, tropes and speech performances. But the oral tradition, and the wider oral context which sustains it, is neither fked nor static. Not only are old stones and tropes being updated and revised, but new forms of oral expression, new models of speech performance and new urban myths are constantly being generated. One logical extension of the present study would be to identifi these more recent oral creations and trace their influence on the poetics of established and emerging short story writers.

The constructive nature of the ongoing dialogue between oral and scribal, speech and writing, strongly suggests that an oral poetics does not betray a fixation 230 with writing back to the Empire or with the vestiges of Empire. Instead, Jarnaican and other West Indian short story writers are using the genre to hold up variously fashioned mirrors to their society. In the oral tradition and the oral context, they have discovered and are discovering ways to entertain and engage the community in dialogue, reflection and self-analysis. There is now ample cause to celebrate one hundred years of short story writing in Jamaica. The genre has been at the centre of efforts to create a distinctive Literary tradition, and short story wriiers have helped to chart new directions by fashioning an indigenous literary aesthetic out of the meeting between the oral and the scribal. Bibliography

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