“A TRAGEDY OF SUCCESS!”: HAITI AND THE PROMISE OF REVOLUTION A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Natalie Marie Léger January 2012 © 2012 Natalie Marie Léger “A TRAGEDY OF SUCCESS!”: HAITI AND THE PROMISE OF REVOLUTION Natalie Marie Léger, Ph. D Cornell University 2012 Dissertation Abstract “A Tragedy of Success!” is a close engagement with the ongoing artistic turn to Haiti and its revolution within the Caribbean literary imaginary. It argues that twentieth and twenty-first writers of the region are drawn to the nation and its Upheaval precisely because the striking incongruity of Haiti’s revolutionary past and postcolonial present vividly discloses how the modern Caribbean experience is profoundly shaped by the ceaseless play of radical change (conquest, colonialism and anti-colonial revolution) and debilitating communal crisis. This project joins the rich conversation on Haiti, modernity and the Revolution begun by C.LR. James, and continued by Nick Nesbitt and Sibylle Fischer, to address this discussion’s slight attention to the abundant literary production inspired by the Revolution. This dissertation therefore focuses on the ideological work of the Revolution’s repeated narration in the Caribbean, specifically, the manner in which it arouses anti-colonial aspirations. It argues that the Caribbean experience of modernity has introduced a tragic mode into literary representations of the Upheaval, causing regional writers to depict the immediate as confounded by the past. Characterized by a subtle wavering between tragic pathos and comic elation, iii this mode is as much an engagement with time and its affective oscillation as it is a politics of possibility. It speaks strongly to the writers’ longing for total decolonial liberation region wide. This project participates in the rethinking of tragedy, as initiated by contemporary scholars like Rita Felski, Timothy Reiss and David Scott, in order to gauge how Caribbean writers use Haiti to negotiate the difficulties and successes of the region in their efforts to portray their desire for an improved Caribbean future. iv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Natalie Marie Léger was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1981. She attended Hightstown High School and upon graduating in 2000, entered Rutgers University-New Brunswick. At Rutgers, she double-majored in English and Criminal Justice and graduated with honors. Following her college graduation in 2004, she began her doctoral studies at Cornell. In the Fall of 2011, she will begin her two-year tenure as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Humanities at Tufts University. v To my mother, father and sister, your patience and faith has been indispensable. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has been a long time in the making, and had it not been for the duly needed prodding from my advisors, friends and family, it would have taken much longer. I am grateful to my chair, Natalie Melas, for dealing with my fears, insecurities and my obvious acts of avoidance, both of my work and of her, with such patience and kindness. More than that, however, I am immensely appreciative of the attention she has given my work, the comments that pushed my insights and furthered my own understanding of the issues central to my thesis. With such comments, I came to believe that perhaps I was (and am) on to something with my work, perhaps maybe that the positions I had to offer were, in fact, incisive. At a time in which I sincerely doubted the career path I had set to embark on, her comments helped me wade through the misgivings and apprehensions often confounding my scholarly production. Furthermore, had it not been for her class, “Comparative Modernities,” I would not have come to this doctoral project and thus to my intellectual development as a literary scholar. I extend again my eternal gratitude. I am equally grateful to Elizabeth DeLoughrey, a friend and advisor. Liz set a standard of scholarly excellence I strive to meet. In the nicest and kindest of ways, she and Natalie picked apart my writing and scholarship and forced me to become a better scholar. It is through Liz that I came to be aware of what it means to be a scholar, understanding the workmanship it would take to become the literary critic I had set out to be. Jonathan Monroe is yet another warm and understanding advisor. I enjoyed poetry before attending Cornell, but I grew to love poetry with his seminar on “Postcolonial vii Poetry/Poetics of Relation.” I came to see both its theoretical richness and to (however reluctantly) appreciate the manner in which form shapes not only poetic meaning but literature, more broadly. With Jonathan’s guidance I came to critically consider the significance of form and to further my scholarship with readings that were not only thematically rich but also structurally. A new addition to my scholarly stewardship, Carole Boyce Davies proved indispensable, as she was both mentor and advisor. She provided incredible opportunities to present my work both in the United States and the Caribbean. Furthermore, she valued my scholarly insight, asking (at one point) that I lead her class in a discussion of Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse. What’s more, she introduced me to one of my favorite writers— Edwidge Danticat, a highlight of my graduate career. Yet another highlight was the opportunity she arranged for me to speak on a panel with the recently departed, Édouard Glissant. That I was given that chance and that she also gave me the opportunity to speak on an additional panel about Haiti following the 2010 earthquake is a testament to her faith in my abilities. Such faith and such willingness to provide outlets for my growth as a speaker and instructor furthered my increasing conviction that academia was, in fact, for me. Along with this, her easy and amiable manner made her incredibly easy to talk and relate to. As if that were not enough, she reignited the sense of excitement and fun I had lost somewhere in my graduate career and made academia a place I can no longer do without. For that I thank her very much. In addition to my committee, I must ask express the fondest of gratitudes to Biodun Jeyifo, Paul Sawyer, Eric Cheyfitz, Gerald Aching, Dag Woubshet, and Ken McClane, who at varying points in my graduate career offered guidance, assistance and enjoyment along the way. viii The project offered here gained considerable precision and insight from conversations with friends and fellow graduate students, especially Tsitsi Jaji, Anthony Reed, Marcus Braham, and Kavita Singh. I must single out two, in particular, who I could always count on to help work through my ideas and read chapters that made little sense to me, but that they nonetheless and tirelessly waded through. I thank Danielle Heard and Armando García for both their friendship and colorful exhortations to just “write it already” and get on with my life. I would also like to thank Edner Xavier, Jacquenide Deravil and Ingrid Pierre for the immense help they provided in translating what I could not in Kréyòl to English, and also Max Bourjolly for his interest and attention to my work. My closest friends, Lynn Léger, Wehti Wotorson- Blackledge and Amy Liao, deserve recognition for their support and encouragement. Lastly, I extend the deepest and warmest thanks to my mother, father, grandmother, late grandfather, and Mme., family who lovingly and steadfastly endured the drama that was this dissertation’s making. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Reading the Haitian Revolution…..……………………..…………1 1. Re-Thinking Toussaint: Modernity, Tragedy & the Postcolonial Present….47 2. Faithless Sight: Haiti in The Kingdom of this World……………………………78 3. Laughing Back: Haiti, History and Tragedy…………………………………121 4. Défilez! And the Battle Continues……………………………………………...177 Conclusion……………………………………...……………………………..……242 Appendix…………………………………………………………………………...248 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………..255 INTRODUCTION READING THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION We are finished, Majesty, We were a tragedy of success —DEREK WALCOTT, HENRI CHRISTOPHE Near the end of Derek Walcott’s play, Henri Christophe, when Alexandre Pétion’s troops are on the verge of conquering Christophe’s Northern kingdom, the latter’s chief advisor utters: “We are finished, Majesty/We were a tragedy of success!”1 Few words speak to the essence of my dissertation more than these. In context, they attest to Baron Vastey’s (Christophe’s chief aide’s) recognition that the royal court’s accomplishments augured the seeds of the monarchy’s destruction. Within my project, however, the notion that tragedy lurks within success speaks, more broadly, to the aporia that is Haiti and the Haitian Revolution within critical discussions of modernity. Walcott’s play details the reign of Christophe, a Haitian Revolutionary general turned king, whose blind ambition drives him to the very atrocities he had successfully fought against— governance rooted in the harsh inequities of forced and interminable labor. The play reveals that Christophe, and the post- revolutionary leaders that would follow him, return to colonial practices in light of their need for a history of achievement. For Walcott, this desire for a history that can overshadow a past of servitude with a present of greatness attests to their continued cultural colonization. For in desiring “History” and 1 See “Henri Christophe,” The Haitian Trilogy, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), 103, emphasis mine. 2 in seeking to avenge a past in which they were made to exist without history, Walcott finds that the post-revolutionary leaders of Haiti unconsciously yield to the racist dictates they stood against —that is, to colonial conceptions of existence where Africans were deemed to be history-less and thus lesser than Europeans.