The Process of Whitening

When I went for a seminar on multiculturalism and met a well-known (but alas name slips me now) professor in UCB she said that middle class minority or colonised cultures tend toward a process of "whitening" in which they, like Fanon says need to get kid of the "soul [in which] an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality" (Fanon, 18). While I found it intriging, taking on the behavior, attitudes and language of the coloniser to assimiliate the ranks of the colonised, my critical instinct was that this is similar to other systems of power/social relations.

Think of, for example, feminism and Marxism, in which being female and being poor (non-capitalist) puts one in the surbodinate position in relation to those in power. To be respected, the female must prove their capability to be equal that of the man while the proletariat must gather their forces to usurp the capitalists. Almost inevitably, they end up taking on elements of the "enemy" forces in a parodic way - the female becomes hyper-masculine while the proletariat end up perpetuating capitalist notions (Orwell's "Animal Farm", current Chinese Communist Party in China). What Fanon does is to give a postcolonial/racial slant to the notions of power and the disenfranchised, but it is something I think, which is more universal than simply want it means to be colonised; it extends into questions of what it means to be in a position of powerlessness.

p.s. sorry my hall internet was spoilt yesterday. urgh.

Hegelian Master-Slave Dialectic

Adding on to what Sarah has said about language and colonial discourse, I completely agree with the idea that Stephen's familiarity with English proves the success of the ISA (ideological state apparatus) of education in assimilating the Irish into the coloniser's dominant culture and language. However, this is not solely a one-way street and cross-culturization, for lack of a better word, takes place.

Stephen compares the different way the British dean of studies and he relate to the English language:

The language in which we are speaking is his before it is mine. How different are the words home, Christ, ale, master, on his lips and on mine! I cannot speak or write these words without unrest of spirit. His language, so familiar and so foreign, will always be for me an acquired speech. I have not made or accepted its words. My voice holds them at bay. My soul frets in the shadow of his language. (Portrait 189)

Here, he claims the dean to have a superior relationship to the English language which is "his". Later, Stephen realizes he has acquiesced to the difference between the coloniser and the colonised on the basis that he was both British and a dean: this does not mean he is right.

That tundish has been on my mind for a long time. I looked it up and find it English and good old blunt English too. Damn the dean of studies and his funnel! What did he come here for to teach us his own language or to learn it from us? Damn him one way or the other! (Portrait 251)

Joyce problematizes the scene here and suggests that the coloniser himself is impacted by cultural assimilation, the dean easily labels a word he is not familiar with the Irish "other". To suggest that the dean has come "to learn [his own language] from us" is humourous but is also a perverse version of the master (English)- slave (Irish) dialectic. Often one thinks of the way the coloniser has affected the colonised, but fails to think of this exchange as mutual.

Through this process of cultural assimilation, neither the English nor Irish culture is, according to Said, "single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated and unmonolithic". (Quote from an online article). Both are subject to the other culture, relying on the other to sustain a power relation modeled on the Hegelian model.

Is Woolf really so different from all the other Dead White Men?

I, like some others it seems, was looking forward to Woolf being an entirely non-racist writer. However, I was initially disappointed by page 54 when he describes the people of Jaffna and Haambantota kachcheris as

nearer than we are to primitive man and there are many nasty things about primitive man...They live so close to the jungle that they retain some thing of the litheness and beauty of jungle animals...They do not conceal their individuality any more than their beggars conceal their appalling sores and ulcers and monstrous malformations.

Lest someone say I quote out of context, here Woolf compares the native favourably against the white man who "live..behind our lace curtains in the image...of the rubber stamp and the machine" (Woolf, 54). He celebrates the natives "animal" qualities as opposed to the functional, non-instinctual lives of the Europeans who also have the "desires and passions of the primitive man" (Woolf, 53), but are too inhibited by the superego (Woolf, 54).

Arguably, comparing natives to beautiful jungle animals may not be that insulting in a technical sense. However, I fail to see how it is in any way flattering that their "individuality" is compared to a beggar totally honest about displaying his "appalling sores and ulcers and monstrous malformations", images all associated with disease. Woolf also falls into the thought which associates the land with certain qualities which then "infect" the peoples - people who live near the jungle behave like jungle animals. What I'm saying is this: even as Woolf claims to celebrate the native, his language seems to undercut the content - i don't know if this a subconscious racism or a product of the cultural framework and language norms in which the imperialist functions.

Appearances versus Reality

The case study of the Icard/Lucien relationship (Stoler, 522-524) reveals the West's insistence on "empirical" modes of understanding in relation to racism, how one can deduce "invisible protean essences" from their "visual representations" (Stoler, 522)

"a boy who had virtuallly none of the exterior qualities (skin tone, language, or cultural literacy) and therefore could have none of the interior attributes of being French". (524, Stoler)

This quote , that the physical is merely a logical result of the emotional/intellectual/spiritual life of the individual is similar to the empirical approach that Wallace takes in "The Malay Archipelago". Obviously, this is very flawed.

Race then becomes complicated for the mixed-blood subject because it is less easy to judge them base on similarities in appearance or the use of European names. In fact, "physiological attributes only signal the non-visual and the more salient distinctions of exclusion on which racism rests" (521, Stoler). Racism is not merely about physical difference, in fact it is the physical difference that highlights or is a result of more fundamental differences on which racism rests.

In relation to Burmese Days then, it would seem Orwell critiques this. Despite Flory's familiarity with European high culture he is still ugly because of his birthmark, still Othered by the European community. On the other hand, Elizabeth's ignorance of Western culture and her dubious morality does not translate into poor looks. I don't know if there is a discrepancy I am merely looking for due to the Stoler reading, but it does point to fundamental flaws in the way one approaches the whole "appearances are a natural result of the emotional/cultural/intellectual reality of the individual" idea that the West seemed to have adopted at that point in time.

the east and the west in dialogue

I was particularly interested in Flory's conversation with the Dr Veraswami in Chapter 3. Orwell sets it up as an easy relationship in which both the characters respect the other as equals. It is similar to the relationship between Aziz and Fielding. The Doctor pines for "cultured conversation". The veranda then becomes a stage on which this exchange can happen.

The veranda was wide and dark, with low eaves from which baskets of fern hung, making it seem like a cave behind a waterfall of sunlight.

The veranda is positioned as a place where Flory escapes from the heat and realities of the other Whites. The shape is also similar to a proscenium stage. There are references to Ibsen, Bernard Shaw and even a parody of a soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet in his "how noble a type iss the English gentleman!" speech. There is gesture (nipping the thumb and forefinger together), action happening "offstage" (Muttu's begging) and declamatory statements "Behold there the degeneracy of the East".

However, there is a certain perfunctoriness in the dialogue - as if both actors already familiar with the script.

The joke that the "British Empire was an aged female patient of the doctor's" had gone on for two years, the doctor "grew agitated, as he always did" when Flory criticised the Club members, they have a "favourite argument" which takes place "as often as the two men met". Even the form of the argument is repetitive since he always interrupts the argument at the same point which "as a rule it followed the same course, almost word for word"

Dialogue is not "alive" but repetitive and to no fruitful end. Equality is a myth as Flory claims in the next chapter that the doctor does not understand what he says. The roles that Flory and the doctor take up seem to be mere stereotypes which continually perform the roles of the colonised and the colonialist who has "gone native".

The elephant is an elephant is an elephant

Unlike Ramona, I didn't really see the elephant as a modernist symbol. Firstly, the elephant is a very "Asian" metaphor, they are only available in India, Africa or Thailand. The narrator admits that this incident

"gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act."

This suggests that the incident relates to a method and difficulties of ruling. Perhaps he understands why despotic governments are cruel - they are compelled to uphold "justice", the other natives who want to literally feed on the corpse of the "elephant", the incident draws too much attention to be left unattended, etc etc. Secondly, the opinion was divided not on the nature of the elephant but on the decision to shoot it. Lastly, the rampage was temporal, it is later "harmless", and the reason for this is provided by the narrator.

I saw it the elephant as clearly representing natives who revolt; there are not inherently "wild", they are "tame" but perhaps they, for a period, went "must". What do you all think?

In any case, it doesn't seem to fit the mould of the modernist symbol as easily as the Marabar Caves and Lighthouse. It seems like a parable in which we can draw parallels to the difficulties of governing empire from the coloniser's point of view.

Lord Jim: A Romantic Hero in a Modernist Text

We often think of Lord Jim as a modernist novel and it's fragmented narrative, modernist metaphor and disillusionment. However, one critic has called Lord Jim a "modernist romance", in that the two modes of the modern and the romantic clash.

One considers how "disillusionment" and "idealisation" are handled in the play. Its publication in 1900 also marks a turning point between the 19th century and the 20th, and men have to negotiate both modes of understanding. Perhaps, the reason the narrative is fragmented is because Marlow's rational ways of understanding can never grasp the romantic mentality of Jim. Stein says that Jim is a "romantic" and hence cannot survive in the modern Western materialist world of the Empire. It is only in the world of Patusan that Jim can be his romantic self, where he can be viewed as wise, a savior, engage in fights and make a difference.

If Jim is the romantic hero, what does he over reach for? Perhaps his stubborn reaching for the romantic ideal in a world that no longer values such romantic qualities such as anti-rationality, extreme emotions of fear, idealism, heroism and imagination.

So perhaps what I'm trying to say is we should remember that works in itself do not fall into neat categories of "modern" simply because of the context in which we study them, but to also consider the way different literary movements had to write "against" the aesthetic influence of the period before.

politics and aesthetics: how agenda shapes our reading

In response to Lynnette's comment that

"To reduce the novella to the single issue of (non)-representation of African people is an unfair appropriation of literature for overtly political means."

I was having an argument/discussion with Ian about the Western canon. He believes that text should be judged only based on their aesthetic value and not be tainted by the politics of literature (am I wrong Ian??). It is almost impossible to not read feminism in a text by a woman or post-colonial agenda in a text by a writer from the "third-world". Indeed, sometimes the politics of literature overshadow the literature as an literary art form in itself.

Text now function more as sites of ideological contestation and the production and consumption of more contemporary text are such that both the reader and writer are encouraged and conditioned to engage with such politics.

The first time I read Said's argument on how the household in Mansfield Park in relationship to imperialism is problematic, I was shocked how he could take a very minor point and generate a full essay. However, reading Achebe in the same light, perhaps the point is not so much to condemn Conrad as a racist as to

1. reflect how readers have been conditioned to uncritically view the Western Canon as beyond moral/ethical reproach
2. reexamine the way readers align themselves to the now-flawed dominant culture
3. radically reshape the way we read
4. create and reclaim intellectual space for the non-dominant culture

While I agree with Lynnette's point that one should not judge a book based on it's political position, the second best thing one can do is to reveal it's flawed political position and open the text up for re-evaluation in light of the politics of representation.

Does "violence" really cleanse?

i found Fanon's essay rather annoying because of it's generalisations so I'm going to try to attempt to examine one of his many general statements. On page 51 of the reading, "On Violence", it is suggested that at the individual level

violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. It emboldens them, and restores their self-confidence.

If one looks at this from a general point of view, it definitely seems true. The colonised finally pose a threat to the dominant force, and in that threat, they experience a sense of power. However, at a very very fundamental level, I find that not to be the case in Forster's A Passage to India. . No doubt, the British characters in the novel seem to all beat a hasty retreat to Britain - Moore, Quested and eventually Fielding; a sort of symbolic surrender to the Indians. Yet, it seems it is Aziz who suffers the most in the aftermath. He is paranoid, suspicious, angry and desires to escape into a reclusion. In conclusion, I like the Aziz at the end of the novel less than the Aziz at the beginning. Violence has not cleansed Aziz. It gives him a new stubborn hatred of the British which seems myopic and bitter. It almost costs him Fielding's friendship. He does not seem a better man for it, only holding on to the notion that one can "Never be friends with the English!".

I found the last few paragraphs of the novel very powerful as Fielding and Aziz finally and plainly lash out at each other as symbols of the Enemy, yet their embrace at the end binds them, suggesting the core of humanity. The listing of physical structures "the rocks, the temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest House" come between them, suggesting the impossibility of shaking off the historical burden that has not cleansed but instead tainted the friendship between an Englishman and an Indian. Violence, in my simplistic opinion, has not cleansed but tainted, politicised and embittered a sweet intelligent man.

My question is this: To what extent was this a necessary reality check and what, do you think,is Forster's intention?

The Eurocentric point of view in Passage to India

My post will be in relation to Prof Koh's quoting of Ashis Nandy quote that "All representations of India are ultimately autobiographical". I think this is necessary and to attempt to do otherwise can only be false, imperialistic and narrow-minded. I read Forster's Adela as a cautionary tale against people who impose general readings of India on their audience. One can consider the way Forster portrays India as The Other. Adela's intellectual vanity in insisting on trying to "see the real India" is punished by the primal chaos of the Marabar Caves. The search of an "authentic India" results in a trip to the caves, after which she is physically and emotionally affected. The caves are, I think, a distinctly modernist symbol: mystical, irrational and beyond definition.

This outcome suggests that any attempt to classify, define and label this Other is problematic and impossible. The Western mind, even with all its good intentions and healthy curiousity, still seeks out an exoticised India which is romantic and idealised. The West cannot penetrate the cultural, emotional and social landscape of India. In the novel, various people comment on on the strange the Indian thought and behavior of the Indians. Even the physical landscape in itself is bewildering. The modernist technique of multiple points of view in the narrative then offer a possible solution - one may never grasps at a complete India, but can at least view it from different perspectives that gesture toward a (fragmented?) whole.