Expressing Them Selves: Orality in Contemporary English Caribbean Short Fiction as a key Signifier in the Assertion of Cultural Identity

Pedraill Seguin, Zenaida

Description

Colecciones : TD. HumanidadesDFI. Tesis del Departamento de Filología Inglesa
Fecha de publicación : 2006
[ES] El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la cualidad oral del relato corto contemporáneo del Caribe anglófono como un importante indicador de identidad cultural, a través de seis relatos cortos de autores caribeños (Olive Senior, Velma Pollard, Makeda Silvera, Earl Lovelace, Michael Anthony e Ismith Khan). Dicho análisis se centra principalmente en el aspecto formal de estos relatos, donde resalta una estética oral denominada oraliteratura —patentada por una fuerte tradición oral— como elemento estilístico significativo a través del cual los autores expresan y reafirman una identidad cultural. Y esta intención se traduce en un discurso narrativo en ocasiones militante y subversivo de resistencia cultural que cuestiona y socava la supremacía del discurso cultural y estético heredado de Occidente (Anglocentrismo), y se convierte en estrategia para contrarrestar la falta de autonomía cultural de estos pueblos caribeños, derivada de un pasado colonial de dominación cultural europea y del imperialismo cultural norteamericano en la era postcolonial.[EN] This work analyses the oral quality of contemporary English Caribbean short fiction as a stylistic signifier for the expression of cultural identity, through the study of six short stories by Anglo-Caribbean authors (Olive Senior, Velma Pollard, Makeda Silvera, Michael Anthony, Ismith Khan, and Earl Lovelace). This analysis focuses on the formal context of these works, revealing an oraliterary aesthetic sponsored by a powerful oral tradition still present in these societies and that becomes a narrative strategy for the articulation of cultural identity. This reaffirmation of “the oral” in “the literary” brings forth, then, a narrative discourse of cultural resistance, at times militant and subversive, which looks critically upon an Anglocentric cultural discourse and undermines its predominance, in an attempt to regain a cultural autonomy for these societies that have suffered European colonial domination in the past and American cultural imperialism in the postcolonial era.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Salamanca
• Nombre de lectures: 434
• Licence : En savoir +
  Paternité, pas d'utilisation commerciale, partage des conditions initiales à l'identique
• Langue: Español
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA
FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA

Departamento de Filología Inglesa

______________________________________________________________________











EXPRESSING THEM SELVES: ORALITY IN
CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH CARIBBEAN SHORT FICTION
AS A KEY SIGNIFIER IN THE ASSERTION OF CULTURAL
IDENTITY








Zenaida Seguin Pedraill



2006

2

UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA
FACULTAD DE FILOLOGÍA

Departamento de Filología Inglesa

______________________________________________________________________











EXPRESSING THEM SELVES: ORALITY IN CONTEMPORARY
ENGLISH CARIBBEAN SHORT FICTION
AS A KEY SIGNIFIER IN THE ASSERTION OF CULTURAL
IDENTITY












Vº Bº Tesis Doctoral que presenta
LA DIRECTORA ZENAIDA SEGUÍN PEDRAILL,
dirigida por la Dra. OLGA BARRIOS HERRERO

Salamanca, noviembre 2006

3




AKNOWLEDGMENTS


This dissertation could not have seen the light without having received the
emotional and moral support from my mother, family and friends during these
years of study so far from home. I also truly appreciate the assistance and
contribution to the development of this work of the staff of the Department of
English of the Faculty of Philology of the University of Salamanca, with special
thank you to librarians Andrés and Manoli. I would like to express my boundless
gratitude to the authors who contributed, personally and academically, to the
realization of this work, to Olive and Velma for their encouragement and their kind
and sincere collaboration. My most special thank you is due to my tutor Dra. Olga
Barrios Herrero for her guide, her generous assistance and encouragement, her
open, patient and understanding character, and her personal, emotional, and
scholarly support. Thank you all.

4


CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 7


CHAPTER ONE. THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO
CARIBBEANNESS AND LITERATURE 21


I. CREOLISATION AND CULTURAL IDENTITY 24
Creolisation 24

Cultural Identity 33


II. THE CARIBBEAN ENGLISH CREOLE 41

An Approach to the Creole Language and its Uses in Short Fiction 41

A Brief Analysis of the Most Noticeable Features of Creole 54
III. ENGLISH CARIBBEAN SHORT FICTION 58

An Approach to the History of Short Fiction in the English Caribbean 58
Some Considerations on English Caribbean Short Fiction 67
and its Most Distinctive Features


CHAPTER TWO. THE ORALITY OF ENGLISH CARIBBEAN FICTION 84

I. THE USE OF THE CREOLE LANGUAGE AS A NECESSARY
NARRATIVE STRATEGY FOR THE ARTICULATION AND
ASSERTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 92

II.THE TRADITION OF STORYTELLING: ITS FORMS AND MOTIFS
BEQUEATHED TO ANGLO-CARIBBEAN NARRATIVE 101

III. THE PRESENCE OF PROVERBS AS A LINGUISTIC AND
SOCIOCULTURAL SIGNIFIER OF ORALITY 118

IV. THE RHYTHMIC AND FORMAL FEATURES OF THE POPULAR SONG
DETERMINING THE ANGLO-CARIBBEAN MUSICAL NARRATIVE MODE 122

5
V. THE ORAL MESSAGE OF SOCIAL PROTEST OF DUB POETRY
CONDITIONING FICTIONAL NARRATIVE IN FORM AND CONTENT 141

CHAPTER THREE. STORYTELLING AS A THEMATIC AND NARRATIVE
VEHICLE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE COMMUNITY’S
HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL LEGACY
AND THE ASSERTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY 155

I.STORYTELLING AS A CULTURAL FORM OF SOCIAL
HISTORIOGRAPHY IN VELMA POLLARD’S “A NIGHT’S TALE” 155

II.THE STORYTELLER: A POLITICAL AGITATOR FOR THE
PRESERVATION OF TRADITIONAL CULTURE IN ISMITH KHAN’S
“SHADOWS MOVE IN THE BRITANNIA BAR” 172

III. A BIG BOY/ANANCY TALE: THE TRICKSTER MOTIF PROPELLING
A NARRATIVE OF RESISTANCE IN OLIVE SENIOR’S “ASCOT” 195



CHAPTER FOUR. SONG, ORAL POETRY AND CREOLISATION
AS STYLISTIC SIGNIFIERS OF CULTURAL IDENTITY
IN THE EXPRESSION OF AN IDIOSYNCRATIC
LITERARY AESTHETIC 223

I. WRITING A CALYPSO: THE CELEBRATION OF GRASS-ROOT CULTURE
IN MICHAEL ANTHONY’S “THEY BETTER DON’T STOP THE CARNIVAL” 223

II.THE LYRICAL POLITICISING OF NARRATIVE: DUB POETRY AND
SOCIAL PROTEST IN MAKEDA SILVERA’S “CARIBBEAN CHAMELEON” 250

III. CREOLE CULTURAL RESISTANCE IN EARL LOVELACE’S “A BRIEF
CONVERSION”: ASSERTING PERSONHOOD AND CULTURAL IDENTITY
THROUGH CREOLISATION 281



CONCLUSION 323

APPENDIX I. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE AUTHORS 330


APPENDIX II. A BRIEF EXCHANGE OF IDEAS WITH SOME
OF THE AUTHORS 333


WORKS CITED 340

6


INTRODUCTION

Identity has become a major issue of debate in contemporary literary theory and cultural studies
1within postcolonialism . It has been approached by sociological and anthropological sciences
within the context of multicultural communities, as well as from the standpoint of writers,
critics, and artists living in multicultural and transculturated social contexts. The importance of
the question of identity in cultural and social studies can be viewed as a consequence of the
2
internationalisation of cultures, a process that has been taking place after the major events that
3have marked the history of humanity —from the rediscovery of the New World, the colonial
experience, through the two World Wars, the independence of countries under colonial rule,
and to recent political and geographical reorganization of states. All these events have been
accompanied by processes of migration, disintegration, transformation, and the formation of
diasporic cultural communities worldwide. These processes have provided the ground for the
development of complex and continual processes of formation and articulation of identity in

1 The term postcolonialism or post-colonialism has incited and still incites much theoretical and interdisciplinary
debate. Several critics use it to “signify the political, linguistic and cultural experience of societies that were
former European colonies” (Ashcroft et al. 186), whereas others disagree with the post quality of the term, alleging
that post-colonial societies have not undergone serious transformation to get rid of the very colonial status.
Besides, the use of the hyphen is meant, sometimes, to indicate the historical period after colonial countries were
granted independence. Although I agree with this polemical character of postcolonialism, I use the term to refer to
these new literatures coming from ex European colonies, since it is already a widely acceptable term in cultural
and linguistic studies. However, I deem necessary to add that, in my dissertation, I consciously rely on my
personal experience as a Caribbean subject, in an attempt to avoid the homogenizing aspect of Eurocentric notions
in the field of postcolonial studies.
2
This internationalisation of cultures responds to the multiculturalism of today’s world. But the term is related to
postcolonial critic Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of hybridity, in which he pillories the idea of the existence of pure
cultures and traditions, and advocates for the hybridised or multicultural nature of contemporary societies, for an
“international culture, based . . . on the inscription and articulation of culture’s hybridity” (38). This notion of
hybridity in postcolonial theory alludes to the mixture of cultures and is, thus, similar to those of transculturation
and creolisation; whereas the notion of multiculturalism generally alludes to the presence of several cultures not
necessarily intermingled in a social context. This issues will be examined in Chapter One.
3
Here I mean that the Spanish conquistador Christopher Columbus actually rediscovered the New World, because
America was at the time of the discovery —the fifteenth century— inhabited by indigenous peoples. They had
come to the region centuries before from the Asian continent, and thus became the real conquistadores of the land.

7
contemporary societies. The complexity of these processes of identity formation and
articulation is explained by the nature of the sociogeographical and sociocultural context in
which they are developed. In postcolonial societies, for example, the articulation of identity
frequently becomes a troublesome