National Literatures in the Globalised World

Transcription

1 Department of English and American Studies Faculty of Arts Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra National Literatures in the Globalised World

2 Department of English and American Studies Faculty of Arts Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra REVIEWERS: Doc. PaedDr. Silvia Pokrivčáková, PhD. Doc. PhDr. Jaroslav Kušnír, PhD. EDITORS: Doc. PhDr. Anton Pokrivčák, PhD. Mgr. Simona Hevešiová Mgr. Lucia Horňáková PROOFREADING: Mary Šabíková TYPESETTING: Mgr. Simona Hevešiová Financed by the Embassy of the U.S.A. in Slovakia ISBN: EAN: N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 2

3 CONTENTS Introduction Anton Pokrivčák 7 The Shrinking World and Present-Day Influences on Cultural Identity Marína Trnková 9 Pidgin English Aesthetics in Tataw Obenson s Satirical Commentaries: Ako-Aya S. Ekema Agbaw 19 Literary Production of Slovak Minorities in the USA Lucia Horňáková 31 Discovering the Congruence: Postcolonial Literature and the Slovak Post- Communist Condition Simona Hevešiová 44 New Literature in English Multiplicity in the Postcolonial Discourse of Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro and Romesh Gunesekera Jana Javorčíková 53 Race, Sexuality and Religion in Larry Duplechan s Blackbird (1986) Roman Trušník 64 The Clash of Cultures in Small Island Milena Vodičková 69 3 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 3

4 Fictions of Communion: Contemporary Scottish Prose in the Global Context Ema Jelínková 75 Western Literary Canon Revisited in Thomas King s Green Grass, Running Water Pavla Buchtová 81 The Importance of Fighting Evil in the Novel Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver Mária Kiššová 88 A New Historicism Approach to Literary Studies in the Globalization Age Ján Bajánek 96 Global Myth Particular literature Lucia Rákayová 106 Metatheatre: A New Genre? Daniel P Sampey 111 Spinoza and Spinozism in Singer s Shorter Fiction Anton Péntek 122 Globalizing Americanness: Language and American Identity in Nigerian Home Videos Obododimma Oha 130 Presentation of the USA in Pynchon s Vineland Jana Waldnerová N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 4

5 Globalisation and Islam: Islamic Comic Strips in Arabic Magazines Zuzana Tabačková 154 National literatures, the integrity of the mother tongues and resistance against the omnipresent anglo-isation machinery Wolf Baumgartner 160 Notes on Theoretical Analysis of Terms Natália Rusnáková 175 Seeking a New Pedagogy: Teaching Intercultural Awareness through Literature Karla Šimčíková 180 Practising and Producing Literature when Preparing for the Final Foreign Language Examination Jana Bírová 191 Regionalism and Czech literary science to 1945 Libor Martinek 197 Neglobalizovateľnosť literatúry Pavol Koprda 211 Národné literatúry medzi strašiakom globalizácie a historickou nezodpovednosťou Michal Babiak 221 Literatúra inakosti v období globalizácie (M. Kundera a jeho novšia tvorba) 5 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 5

6 Tibor Žilka 227 Funkčnosť postmoderných literárnych postupov (variácie personálnej témy v románe Rudolfa Slobodu Jeseň) Peter Szabo 235 Lužickí Srbi menšina na vlastnom území, šance a limity Ľudovít Petraško 247 Conference participants N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 6

7 Introduction Anton Pokrivčák Globalisation seems to be one of the most important issues currently discussed in critical theories. Certainly it is one of the phenomena which have changed almost all areas of our life and culture, including literature and literary theory. Its various aspects, national, supranational, ontological, epistemological, etc., may, on the one hand, result in a better understanding of everyone and all people, nations, literatures and cultures; on the other hand, however, they may also create room for possible discontent and the supposed diminution of unique qualities. As far as literary theory is concerned, one can nowadays witness two contradictory, though in a sense related, tendencies. At the heart of one of them is the accentuation of semiotic features of literary texts. It is represented especially by structuralist and poststructuralist approaches. The second includes the so-called ideological approaches which, drawing partly on structuralism and poststructuralism, understand the text as a tool in the discussion of problems of various groups (feminism, new historicism, postcolonialism, etc.). Historically, both tendencies may be justified, bringing about many positive features (for example, while structuralist and poststructuralist epistemological scepticism has been a significant tool of struggle against totalitarian conceptions, the positive nature of the so-called new approaches may be seen in the emphasis placed on phenomena which have traditionally been considered as peripheral), but it also seems that they have reached their culmination and are no longer inspirational. One of the main shortcomings of both conceptions is the absence of the reflection of contradiction between the specificity of the individual, region, nation, and the condition of man facing global impacts. Despite the fact that traditional literary comparative studies have offered their incentives to different literary theoretical approaches (sociological, historical and cultural, ethical, philosophical, aesthetic, stylistic, etc.), it was primarily a result of formal and structural tendencies to which questions of a pan-human nature of the literary work were subdued. On the contrary, ideological approaches have never been able to reflect poetological and semantic principles, because they were limited by their particularism. The analysis of literature as a response to the relationship between globalisation and regionalisation has thus never been seriously undertaken by any of the above tendencies. 7 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 7

8 What then seems to be badly lacking in current literary theory is an approach which would draw on the gains of literary and artistic comparative studies, not only in the textua8l, but also contextual (human, anthropological, spiritual, cultural and social) contexts and relations and put them to the service of a search for a way out of the ontological and axiological relativity of spiritual postmodernism. This would involve analysis of literary processes within individual national literatures and highlighting the universal value of the simultaneous existence of parallel meanings of the same cultural artefact. It is hoped that the papers collected in this volume will open such theoretical and critical perspectives and help identify poetological, philosophical, aesthetic and other forms and values of national supranational relationships in the arts- mainly literature- resulting from the above mentioned globalisation processes. 8 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 8

9 The Shrinking World and Present-Day Influences on Cultural Identity Marína Trnková Abstract: Taking into consideration the globalization processes, this paper deals with the present-day influences on cultural identity. We attempt to introduce the dynamic character of cultural identity and point out the fact that cultural identity is not a closed system. Presenting the results of a poll which was conducted among first-year students of English, we briefly discuss the attitudes the students hold towards globalization and its effects on cultural identity. In the resume to my paper I pointed out that I wish to consider the current views on cultural identity mainly from the perspectives of the young generation whose lives have been affected by the globalization processes from their very beginning. Using the material I gathered by conducting a poll among my students, I will try to discuss those issues concerning globalization and its impact on cultural identity which lie somewhere between the well-known extremes. I prefer not to focus my attention on a certain classification of globalization, whether it is perceived negatively, especially in terms of neocolonization, Western Imperialism or the worn-out McDonaldization of the world and its feared consequences such as the creation of a single universal meta-identity or supraculture; or whether it is viewed in terms of the opposite tendencies which evolve into racial and cultural intolerance or ethnocentrism. The purpose of my paper is to present dialectics between the processes which globalize individual cultures and the processes which are aimed at the accentuation of cultural uniqueness. No matter how contradictory these tendencies are, I want us to extend our attention to the point where cultural identity is no longer viewed as something unchanging and given, but is considered in terms of cultural evolution. Perhaps I could have reduced this description of the topic of my paper to a single quotation of Mahatma Gandhi, which embodies not only my main ideas but their ambience, as well. I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. 9 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 9

10 A house as a symbol of one s cultural identity and the present-day influences on its autonomy can be naturally viewed from various perspectives; nevertheless, they have one common denominator and it is globalization. We find ourselves in a dynamic era, where globalization tends to be defined and redefined all the time. I agree with Rothenberg (2003) who claims that people in different countries, in varying circumstances, can look at the same set of facts and come to radically different conclusions about the process of globalization and how it affects their lives. The interpretation of globalization is not only a matter of a plurality of perspectivesnew attributes are continually being added to the core of this fashionable term and, as a result, very often it lacks clarity. If we only talk about interconnectedness and interdependence in economical, political, ecological, social and cultural spheres, it does not make the recognition more clear. We can separate these spheres and have a look at them in greater detail and thus specify globalization in the indicated areas, but still, the active interconnection of processes and consequences across all of them would urge us to come back to more general statements. Not even a presentation of concrete reflections of globalization processes in everyday life could ever capture their diversity. It may seem that I willingly put myself into a vicious circle, but I will accept the challenge of identifying the most influential forces that make our world shrink and have impacts on our cultural identities. Economy, to begin with, is nowadays often associated with capitalism and consumerism, industrialization and urbanization, the mighty transnational companies seeking new markets and the constantly spreading international trade. In the sociocultural sphere the flow of cultural goods, the information revolution, contacts between people, their traditions and values induce tension to respect differences and diversity or defend tradition? The political sphere is full of integration, international cooperation and joint addressing of global threats of any character, such as for example, the international environmental agreements. But globalization is not only about interconnections, it brings exclusion as well; whether it is economical, political or cultural. I do not mean to judge it; in relation to the focus of my current interest it would be rather misleading. I just wish to emphasize that no matter how much we approve or disapprove of what is going on in the world, we fully experience its effects and so does our cultural identity. The idea of the world losing its borders is intensified by the open labor market. The flow of migration is basically unidirectional and the confrontation of cultures has been shifted into a new dimension: metaphorically speaking, more cultures experience living under one 10 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 10

11 roof. This coexistence of cultures has been studied from various sides and numerous attitudes. We can consider the well-known stages of Bennett s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity starting with denial of cultural differences, going through defense, minimization, acceptance, adaptation until reaching the final stage, integration. But the increasing number of immigrants, for example across the European Union, gives rise to modifications of such a model. And this in turn gives rise to further concerns, not only regarding immigrants, but guest workers and tourists, as well. In today s world we come across not only cultural bumps or clashes, but cultural conflicts, too. This is a multidimensional problem and to a considerable extent it is caused by cultural identities or the misuse of the affective bounds of one s culture for political purposes. The citizens of home countries fear that immigrants threaten their national values; that they reject assimilation and are a source of social conflicts. On the other hand, immigrants, due to their otherness, often find themselves in marginalized communities, outside the mainstream society. In fact, the multicultural societies of many nations do not have to deal only with these theoretical assumptions; unfortunately, they have been already involved in real cultural conflicts. I do not wish to distract our attention from the central focus of my paper and deal with the aspects of immigration and integration and the problems currently being faced as a result of them; I only would like to point out the fact that the opportunities to live, even temporarily, inside a foreign culture are much greater today and the way they affect our cultural identity is in my opinion of greater importance than any other of the impacts of globalization. The question of future globalization processes is therefore even more complicated to answer; one of the factors being the skepticism people hold towards a just organization of the world. The image of global prosperity, equality of opportunities and treatment, international peace, security and justice and many other popularized issues are nowadays viewed with suspicion or even distrust. It is because the age of globalization has had its victims and those who got blinded by the vision of general global well-being have had to face disillusionment. In any case, we cannot escape the fact that the exchange of goods, ideas and information is more intense than it has ever been before and it does make the world shrink. It would oversimplify the subject if I claim that it is only the direct contact of cultures which is realized outside one s home country that influences cultural identity. What play an essential role here are not the outer conditions but the way they are processed inside a single personality. On the other hand, taking into consideration the globalization processes, the outer conditions create much more stimulating surroundings than ever before. I intentionally chose the term stimulation. 11 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 11

12 Valentine (1997) asserts that globalization stimulates a search for new identities. Basically, I approve of the first part of his statement that globalization stimulates It also generates changes, but in my opinion, it does not necessarily mean a search for something new, but is a question of development, evolution. Naturally, the attitudes towards the current effects of globalization on cultural identity vary and contradictions arise even in their definition. Some authors emphasize their vagueness to such an extent that they would preferably put these terms aside. Nevertheless, let us have a closer look at the present-day influences on cultural identity, let us recall Gandhi s house again, and let us focus on the ways we cope with the sociocultural changes which are taking place in our post-modern world. Cultural identity can no longer be viewed as something what we simply have. Our cultural experience is gained in a process and thus our cultural identity is formed in a process. Production and circulation of cultural meaning, as well as its regulation outside the national and cultural boundaries, lead to debates on the autonomy and stability of cultural identities and the need for their protection and preservation. It is still questionable whether the frequent occurrence of the notion of cultural identity and its roles in the society has appeared as a result of globalization processes or as a response to them. It might seem rather contradictory that in spite of globalizing tendencies and a foreseen utopian cultural uniformity, the predicted loss of cultural difference turned into accented cultural plurality. Geschiere and Meyer (1998) also state that the culturally homogenizing tendencies of globalization imply continued or even reinforced cultural heterogeneity. Some authors, such as Tomlinson (2003), assume that globalization has been perhaps the most significant force in creating and proliferating cultural identity and thus according to him cultural identity is a product of globalization. But I would note, in accordance with Bhugra (2005), that components of cultural identity include religion, rites of passage, language, dietary habits and leisure activities. At this point it is not essential whether we approve of this as a legitimate definition of cultural identity. What is of importance here is the fact that religion, rites of passage, language, dietary habits and leisure activities existed long before the era of globalization and thus cultural identity as such must have been here before as well. The reasons why we have begun to feel so strongly about our cultural identities are several. It is not only about our affective bonds towards one s cultural heritage and treasures, the necessity to keep the traditional. From a progressive point of view we have to admit that the possession of a unique and outstanding cultural identity is nowadays often identified with individual autonomy, personal freedom and the expression of self. Rouse notes that Mexican immigrants learn only in America that they have to have a `specific` identity. In 12 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 12

13 their home areas, patterns of self-identification are diffuse, permeable and multiple, but in America they are pressurized in all sorts of ways to cultivate their own identity. But beyond that, political and religious leaders following their imperative and commercial aims stylize cultural identity into a position where its affective bond is intentionally overdimensionalised and misused for their selfish purposes, as happened in the former Yugoslavia, for example. Culture as such has become a first-rate article, a business commodity and from the capitalist point of view it is inevitable to own your own identity. The interest in the cultures and religions of certain ethnic groups and minorities many times represents just a symbol of modernity. But what is going to happen when they are not in anymore? Are they going to be viewed as something inferior or primitive again? On the other hand, when we are considering cultural modernity, I cannot avoid mentioning the strength of the lifestyle of western civilizations, so intensively distributed by various means and so greedily adopted and blindly submitted to by many. We we know that globalization requires a selection of information, goods, services, etc. and we claim to have the right to do so, but frankly speaking, this selection is not only a matter of choice, but a matter of the possibility of choice as well. Of course, cultural identity is not connected only with the questions of personal selfexpression, political or religious activity, commercial purposes, modernity and the like. Cultural identity naturally emerges, or is lifted up, when it is confronted with other cultural patterns and practices. It does not necessarily need to be attacked or threatened by them. I recall numerous discussions on Slovak and Flemish cultural identities I was involved in with one of my coordinating professors at the University in Ghent, where I studied for one semester. We tried to recognize the roots of our national and cultural pride and those circumstances which make it shine. We came to the conclusion that cultural identity is linked with one s willingness to present oneself as a representative part of a certain culture. You feel that foreigners automatically identify you with your country and that you are supposed to act as its confident representative. You may even feel a need to make them overcome certain prejudices and misinformation people hold towards your culture. The fact that Slovakia, for example, has been an independent and autonomous country for a relatively short period of time and many foreigners still identify us as a part of Czechoslovakia, stimulates us to present our culture and the intensity of our cultural identity is raised. And the intensity of feeling for our culture that we many times do not fully appreciate or just take for granted when we are home, is raised. I do not wish to coin a new term- intensity of cultural identity, but would rather draw our attention to the fact that the expression of our cultural 13 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 13

14 identity is realized in terms of dynamics and evolution, depending on the stimulation of our surroundings. There is one other aspect related to this subject, and that is the acquisition of foreign cultural features and their implementation into one s own cultural identity. Cultural identity is not a closed system. A multicultural society motivates our value judgments and with our awareness of it, features of different cultures do penetrate into our cultural sets or even replace parts of them. The ratio between the inherent and the received is what makes us reassess the likelihood of losing the desire to be identified any longer with one s own culture. I do not deny that cases like this exist, just as we cannot deny the existence of visions of purified and untouched identities, but it would be rather unreasonable to be ruled by any of these ideas. To include as many perspectives concerning cultural identity and the influences on it as possible, I cannot omit the relationship between political or geographical boundaries and the appearance or disappearance of the corresponding cultural identity. As a result of the integration processes inside the European Union and the ambition of some to create a credible supranational and intergovernmental union, the question of European identity has become an issue. I hold the opinion that despite the collection of nations, cultures and ethnic groups in Europe, European citizens have been identified and have identified themselves as Europeans, especially outside our continent. Nowadays, the motivation to adhere to European identity is even greater and so is the opportunity to achieve it. But what happens with an identity when a federation or union dissolves? Apparently, it depends on whether the impulses for separation came from a clash of cultures or the reasons were of a different, exclusively governmental, character. Taking into consideration once again our recent history and the separation of Czechoslovakia, we can argue whether the Czechoslovak identity has absolutely ceased to exist or whether it still forms a part of the newly re-formed Slovak and Czech identities. Similar queries apply for example to the history of Germany, its separation and subsequent unification. In the previous part of my paper, I attempted to introduce the growing concern to reveal and explain the dynamic character of cultural identity and its current transformations. Although the factors that influence cultural identity are extensive, I discussed them just briefly, in order to move on to the results of a poll I conducted among first year students as an integral part of our English Conversation lesson. The classroom research was not meant to be a collection of data and attitudes and its subsequent classification; I intended to examine student s reactions concerning the implementation of the main points of the globalization phenomenon. The central aim of my search for opinions and reactions was to find out whether 14 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 14

15 the popularized notion of globalization is fully comprehended by the generation which has been born into it. Regarding the constant repetition of certain items in the media such as globalization, world peace, international cooperation, joint facing of problems such as nuclear self-destruction and ecological catastrophes, I was willing to accept that my students would not express creative and original responses. And regarding the fact that the age of globalization is the only era they have actually lived in, and thus consider it as being something natural, I was ready to face the lack of comparative strategy. Naturally, in case there was an active antiglobalist present in the class, I had my arguments ready. We started with a set of five questions without any previous warm-up in order to get raw, unpolished responses. 1. Try to define globalization. 2. How is globalization affecting your personal life? 3. How is globalization affecting the teaching and learning of foreign languages? 4. What are globalization s impacts on cultural identity? 5. How would you characterize globalization from the aspects of economy, culture and politics? I will provide sample answers to the individual questions in a manner so that they represent the attitudes of the group. Responses to the first and the last question will be blended together since they refer to the same task, which is the description of globalization and its characterization from political, economical and cultural points of view. The question concerning the learning and teaching of languages in the era of globalization will be omitted due to the scope of the current presentation. I could arrange the responses into three natural categories those who described globalization in a neutral way and those who expressed themselves as being in favor or against globalization. But there was one more group to be considered- those who were not able to come up with at least a very general definition or description. Let us start with the first sample- responses which represent the majority view- and that was the neutral characterization of globalization processes. The students expressed themselves as follows: Globalization is a process of connecting all parts of the world through politics and economy. It s about modernization, international trade and multicultural society; there are fewer cultural differences between nations. Globalization means opening one s door to the world, making it smaller and more mixed together. 15 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 15

16 In my opinion it s joining the world together through such things as modern technologies and electronics; and that people eat American fast food all over the world. For some people globalization means acceptance of different thinking, ways of life, religions, traditions, languages. Those who expressed themselves in favor of globalization made up a minority and can be represented by the following statement. I see globalization as something natural, something affecting our lives mainly in a positive way. It s about cooperation between developed and developing countries, it s about connecting people from various parts of the world and cultures, it s about possibilities to travel, study and work abroad. Responses which denote globalization negatively were written in the following manner. In my opinion, globalization means that huge companies are spreading all over the world, it`s a process of forgetting our traditions, living life concentrated more on the material side. Globalization is everywhere; 24/7; it s only about money and power. I accept that it s part of our evolution, but where are we evolving to? And can we somehow stop it? As I have mentioned above, contradictory and mixed attitudes form the expected and common results of polls like this. What I find rather surprising is the number of students who could not come up with at least a simple general description of globalization or expressed uncertainty while forming it. Let us have a look at such sample responses. It s hard for me to define globalization; I don t know much about it. It is a common topic for TV news, but I don t know what it means. I think it has got something to do with the warming of the Earth. I ve never thought about the meaning of the word globalization and I m not sure if I understand it in a right way. I think it`s about the influence of one country on another in many aspects of life; it makes nations come closer, and sometimes vice versa. I m really sorry. I ve met with this term before, but I don t know what it means. And there were also some empty spaces left in place of an answer. The relationship between globalization and one s personal life was mostly described as follows: 16 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 16

17 I have more possibilities to travel, learn foreign languages, use internet, a mobile; I can meet more people and my opinions are shaped in a different, more fruitful way. And I can also eat a variety of food - Chinese, Japanese, or in KFC. Generally, those who expressed themselves as being more negative about globalization responded in the following way: Because of the information revolution and a flow of information which is beyond control, we get frustrated, depressed and we are often misled. We are said to have incredible opportunities, but what is the ratio between those offered and those that are actually usable? The last point to deal with is the relationship between globalization and cultural identity; let me again present the representative answers. The majority of students expressed anxiety that globalization is affecting cultural identity in a negative way. Globalization causes blurring of identities, people forget about their cultural background. Culture is that aspect of life that is being completely ruined by globalization. Tradition is vanishing. People don t feel the need to live somehow connected with their roots and traditions. I m afraid we tend to replace our own customs and traditions with, for example, Halloween or the idea of Santa Claus. I think that globalization kills cultural identity; nowadays we are not interested in what our grandparents used to do or say. Students who saw globalization as bringing something positive concerning cultural identity, responded mainly in the following way. I have no fear that we could lose our identity. We were born as Slovaks, we have a rich cultural heritage and we know that it s of the same value as any other culture. I m sometimes tired of people repeating all the time how the American culture and way of life are invading the rest of the world. I m sure that more and more people realize that American culture is too young and many times too shallow to become dominant over European cultures, for instance. All in all, the findings of the classroom research may be summed up as follows. Taking into consideration the proportion of positive, neutral and negative attitude distribution towards globalization and its effects on the cultural identity and personal life of the respondents, I can state these results: The majority of students hold a neutral attitude; the number of those who expressed themselves negatively slightly outweighs the positive 17 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 17

18 attitudes. After the results of the poll were introduced into discussion, the students were instructed to find a reasonable description of the era we are currently living in, and we discussed those issues which might seem to be harder to cope with. To conclude my paper, let me express my belief that the quick pace of the era we are living in will not keep us from reasonable value judgments and that we will be able to find their continuities. Bibliography: Geschiere, P. Meyer, B., Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, Incorporated. In: Development and Change Vol. 29, p Grabovszki, E., The Impact of Globalization and the New Media on the Notion of World Literature. < James, P., Australian Social Attitudes. In: Australian Humanities Review, Issue 38. < Kollar, M., Scepticism and Hope. Sixteen Contemporary Slovak Essays. Bratislava: Kalligram. Mistrík, E., Kultúrna globalizácia Európy a súčasná civilizačno-kultúrna situácia na Slovensku. In: Demokracie a Evropa v dobĕ globalizace. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. Rothenberg, E., The Three Tensions of Globalization. In: The American Forum for Global Education, No. 176, p. 4 Skutnabb Kangas, T., Menšina, jazyk, rasizmus. Bratislava: Kalligram Valentine, J.: Globalization: Friend or Foe? In: Educating in Global Times, Conference Proceedings. University of Alberta, p. 178 Žanič, J.C. Kalogjera, D. Jemeršič, J., Cross-Cultural Challenges. Conference Proceedings. Zagreb: British Council Croatia. 18 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 18

19 Pidgin English Aesthetics in Tataw Obenson s Satirical Commentaries: Ako-Aya S. Ekema Agbaw Abstract: With a triple colonial/postcolonial heritage German, British and French Anglophone Cameroon, which is culturally sandwiched between Nigeria and Francophone Cameroon, is still struggling to establish its identity and find its voice. The challenges facing the Anglophone Cameroonian writer range from the lack of an audience (a sizable reading public) to the choice of an appropriate medium to tell his or her story. As the embodiment of multiple hybridities, the Anglophone Cameroonian writer must decide which voice would most effectively resonate with his or her readers in Cameroon as well as in the marketplace of global culture. As Homi Bhaba has suggested, the social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective, is a complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation. (1994, p.2). My paper will demonstrate that Tataw Obenson s satirical commentaries, AKO-AYA, published in the Cameroon Outlook, between 1970 and 1975 reflect this complex process of negotiating a cultural identity at a time when Anglophone Cameroon was making the transition from a former British territory with close ties to Nigeria to becoming an integral part of the new bilingual nation Cameroon in which Anglophones remain the smaller and weaker partner. I will demonstrate that Tataw Obenson s creative and extensive use of Pidgin English does not simply contribute to the humor of his social commentaries, but also provides a stylistic model for future Anglophone Cameroonian Writers. In the first issue of the Tatler, published on April 12 th 1709, in London, Richard Steele opens his introduction with this Latin epigram, which can easily be applied to Tataw Obenson s Ako-Aya column, published in Cameroon Outlook from Quicquid agunt homine Nostri est farrago libelli (1) This has been translated to mean: Whatever men do, or say, or think, or dream, our motley paper seizes for its theme. Like the Tatler and the Spectator which succeeded it, the Ako- Aya column of Cameroon Outlook was introduced at a time of major political and social changes in the life of West Cameroon (the former British territory known as Southern Cameroons). After more than forty years during which the British ruled Southern Cameroons- 19 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 19

20 a part of Eastern Nigeria- the people of Southern Cameroons voted in a plebiscite in 1961 to reunite with East Cameroon which had obtained its independence from France the previous year. Following the plebiscite the Federal Republic of Cameroon was established with two states - East Cameroon which covered 4/5 of the territory and West Cameroon. The outcome of the 1961 plebiscite was as much a rejection of British colonial rule as it was a rejection of the social and economic domination of Nigerians. Many viewed the decision to join French Cameroon as the lesser of two evils, since Southern Cameroonians were not given the choice they wanted, which was to establish an independent state. Five years later, West Cameroonians who, as part of Nigeria, had been used to British style multiparty democracy, received their first shock. Former president Ahmadou Ahidjo banned all political parties, abolished the multi-party system and formed a one party state, with every citizen compelled to be a member of the official party C.N.U. (Cameroon National Union). In 1972, a referendum was held in both East and West Cameroon to abolish the federal system and form a unitary state. Within a period of just over ten years, West Cameroonians, who in 1960 celebrated independence from British colonial rule as part of Nigeria and then enjoyed the privilege of a separate state within a federal republic, assumed a new identity of Les Anglophone in the United Republic of Cameroon. These political changes were accompanied by dramatic social transformations, some of which would become the target of Tataw Obenson s satirical commentaries in his column Ako-Aya. The people had to get used to a new currency. For a while the British Sterling and the C.F.A. franc were used side by side. In schools, the metric system of measurement replaced the British system. French became compulsory in all secondary schools and anyone who had the slightest competence in French had better opportunities in the private and public sectors. Travelling from one place to the other became more restricted. Not only were citizens required to show a Laisser Passer, a kind of internal passport, they were often required to show a voting card, a party card and evidence that they had paid their taxes. One of the most troubling outcomes of reunification with French speaking Cameroon was the ruthlessness and brutality of the gendarmes, law enforcement officers who could neither speak nor understand English or Pidgin. They harassed people indiscriminately and were notorious for their infamous Callee Callee. (2) While a few towns benefited from this closer political union with French-speaking Cameroon, most towns experienced a social and economic decline. It is within this context that Tataw Obenson started writing his social commentary in Cameroon Outlook under the pseudonym Ako-Aya. For the most part Ako-Aya is an observer and spectator recounting and commenting on the actions of men and women around the 20 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 20

21 country with light-hearted humor. In doing so he does not simply expose the excesses of the people and their struggle to adjust to a rapidly changing social environment, but he also describes their manners and tastes. To use words which Will Howe used to describe the impact of the Tatler and Spectator in early eighteenth century England the Ako-Aya column may be considered as typifying perhaps more accurately than any other work, the characteristics of the Anglophone Cameroonian people (xix). One can go as far as suggesting that when seen together the Ako-Aya series reflects the multiple hybridities of Anglophone Cameroonians and their quest for a cultural identity which would enable them to define their place in a post colonial multicultural and multilingual society. Tataw Obenson s creative use of Pidgin English in his Ako-Aya column is one of the most distinctive features of this quest for an Anglophone Cultural identity. As a hybrid language which developed along the coastal areas of West Africa through the contact between European colonialists and native people, Pidgin English is a suitable medium to express the identity of a people from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The people generally referred to as Anglophone Cameroonians come from several different ethnic groups in the Northwest and Southwest province of present day Republic of Cameroon, and speak several different languages. A significant percentage of the Anglophone population are descendants of families from the Central, Southern, Litoral and Western provinces in the French speaking region who settled in the English speaking part of the country during the period of British colonial rule. The ancestors of some of these people whose ethnic groups are located in Francophone provinces migrated to the English speaking area as far back as the period of German Colonialism, before World War I, when the entire territory was ruled as one country (3). Besides a multi-party democracy with an independent judiciary, which Anglophone Cameroonians inherited from British colonial rule, the most significant element which unites this diverse group of people currently known as Les Anglophones is a British system of education and the use of the English language for all educational and official activities. Thus when Tataw Obenson makes reference to Shakespeare s Measure For Measure and Twelfth Night, he is demonstrating the effectiveness of British colonial education (4). However, in 1970, when Tataw Obenson started publishing his Ako-Aya column, only a small percentage of Anglophone Cameroonians were educated enough to read Standard English or to understand Shakespeare. The vast majority was either illiterate or had basic primary school education. Unlike the French, the British did not establish a system of free public education which would have provided a greater part of the population access to 21 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 21

22 elementary and secondary schools. This responsibility was left for Native Authorities, local governments, and Christian missionaries who charged a considerable amount of money to offer secondary education to a select group of students. For a long time, if one spoke Standard English he or she was said to be speaking Sasse in reference to the first secondary school established by the Roman Catholic mission in the village of Sasse (5). Meanwhile, Pidgin English which had spread from the colonial plantations and urban centers where large numbers of immigrant workers from different ethnic groups assembled, to the most remote villages, became not just a means of communication, but the most distinguishable mark of Anglophone Cameroon cultural identity (6). It is therefore not accidental that in his desire to expand his readership, Tataw Obenson would create a persona Ako-Aya, who makes extensive use of Pidgin English as he comments on the life and experiences of Anglophone Cameroonians, during the transitional years from His ultimate goal was to sell his papers by reaching people who functioned within an essentially oral culture in which Pidgin was the primary medium of communication. Most of the stories and sketches of the Ako-Aya column were, of course, written in Standard English with a Cameroonian or West African flavor. Each column generally contained a fragmented rendition of Tataw Obenson s fictional character Ako Aya s experiences, observations and reports as he traveled through the main towns and villages of the Anglophone region as well as Douala and Yaoundé in the Francophone part of the country. His most popular topics included the quest for the good life-eating, drinking, and partying, marriage and gender relationships, the obsession with titles and physical appearance, the Francophone connection and bribery and corruption. He also wrote about wealth, poverty, ignorance, the British colonial heritage, the use of English, and the Nigerian connection. As he explored these different aspects of Anglophone Cameroon life, he used light hearted humor and social satire to expose the abuses of civil servants, the hypocrisy of married couples, and the excesses of self-indulgent people from all classes of society. While most of his text was written in Standard English, his titles were often presented in Pidgin English. Statements such as Man fit die o (7) ( a man can die), Na man di loss (8) (It s a man that loses), Palava dey Today (There will be trouble today), Ah Don Born Baby (9) (I have given birth to a female child), Dem chuck me with knife (10) ( I was stabbed with a knife), Matutu Get power (11) (Palm wine is very strong/athletic), I don come back (I have returned), I no be Ngambi-man (12) (I am not a fortune teller or witch doctor) can all be translated into Standard English as I have demonstrated, but the English translations cannot convey the full significance of the Pidgin expressions. Even before reading the text, the reader 22 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 22

23 will fully recognize the title as a social commentary on some action or behavior whose consequences were generally understood by everyone in the society. Though the text that follows is written in Standard English, the reader is able to understand the experiences or actions being described through the cultural lens of Pidgin English reflected in the title. For example, in the title I no be Ngambi man, Obenson is commenting on the general fear and suspicion that people had of his persona Ako-Aya who seems to know everything that was happening to everyone all over the country. Only fortune-tellers and witch doctors would have that kind of ability. The title Dem chuck me with knife would immediately evoke the activities of a violent sub culture- prostitution, armed robbery and murder- that had emerged in the new urban centers, particularly the towns of Kumba and Bamenda, which seem to be Ako-Aya s favorite places to visit. Although the title Palava dey Today will suggest that there will be a conflict, a dispute or a fight the Anglophone Cameroonian readers would immediately understand that the story will deal with problems in a gender/romantic relationship. Either a woman caught her husband/lover with another woman, or massa has not given her sufficient (chop money) money for food. This device of using Pidgin English titles to introduce stories or reports written in Standard English, does not only capture the hybridity of Anglophone Cameroonians, it reflects Obenson s awareness that he is describing the actions, experiences and consciousness of people functioning within the context of an essentially Pidgin culture. Sometimes he uses isolated Pidgin words and idiomatic expressions within the text to accomplish the same goal. In one of his entries Morning time for Pamda, Ako-Aya explains his preparations for a trip to Bamenda, integrating key Pidgin diction in a sentence written in Standard English: After buying sufficient njanga and Mbunga I jumped into Uncle Reports about eight in the evening for the great journey. One may wonder why he did not simply use the Standard English words crawfish, and bone fish instead of njanga and Mbunga. His purpose is not simply to tell his readers what items he bought to take to Bamenda, but to evoke the broad cultural experience associated with the journey from Victoria to Bamenda in a station wagon Peugeot 404. Passengers making this trip from the coastal town of Victoria to the grassfield region of Bamenda generally buy palm oil, crawfish, smoked fish and several other items that are cheaper in the southwest province than in the northwest. The use of the words Njanga and Mbunga reflects not only the modest lives of the people who depend on these basic food items for their sustenance, but the nature of the journey to Bamenda. The car was usually packed with luggage and bags of food stuff on the rack above and in the trunk. Since the trunk space of station wagons generally open into the 23 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 23

24 sitting area, the nine passengers (two in front with the driver, four in the middle and three in the back seat) in this tightly packed car would have to cope with the strong fragrances of Njanga and Mbunga for the eight hours that it took to travel from Victoria to Bamenda. Several other isolated examples of Pidgin English diction and idioms are used in the Ako-Aya texts in a like manner to capture the cultural experience and identity of Anglophone Cameroonian people. In the following sentence he describes the combative nature of some Anglophone Cameroonian women by the use of one word, these female violences don t end in Victoria: what about the beautiful Miss Nch at this airport town who thought that the only way out of her pala-pala with her man-friend was to pull at what I dare not call until he cried in pain Man fit die-o. The word pala-pala is generally translated as wrestling. Using it in this context, the word evokes physical fights between men and women, often linked to sexual infidelity or insufficient chop money (food money). In this particular context, the word pala-pala does not simply describe the fight between a particular female and her man-friend, it is a metaphor that captures the state of mild conflict or cold war that persists in the relationship between men and women. In some instances, as in this particular case, when the woman resorts to pulling the penis of her man-friend, the conflict can result in serious consequences. Two Pidgin words that Obenson uses often to describe the nature of gender relationships among Anglophone Cameroonians are Massa and Mbanya. A woman would pick a fight with another woman because I see you cut my massa eye. The idiomatic expression cutting an eye or winking at someone is in fact a sexual advance or the expression of a mutual understanding not shared by other people present. It would be dangerous to cut an eye to another woman s Massa. Within the Anglophone Cameroon context, a massa could be a boyfriend, a husband, a lover in the case of a married woman, or a regular client in the case of a prostitute. The word massa reflects the open claim that several women can have for a man whether or not he is married. This particular way of viewing men is also reflected in the use of the word Mbanya or wife-mate. In the statement, I wont even open my eyes to see this girl in one of these big money houses who has forced herself to become a Mbanya to another woman-----, Obenson is criticizing a female bank worker for seducing another woman s husband or massa but the common use of the word Mbaya which women use to address the other wives or concubines of their husbands/massa (with its friendly connotation) reflects an understanding and a willingness on the part of the women to share the men in their lives with other women, though they are often unhappy with the arrangement. Tataw Obenson seemed to be suggesting through his persona 24 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 24

25 Ako-Aya that the use of Pidgin English might have fostered or validated a particular kind of Anglophone Cameroon culture in which neither men nor women, married or unmarried can be committed to a single partner. Obenson s use of Pidgin English in his social commentaries also exposes the dynamics of a culture in which people of extreme wealth and extreme poverty buy from the same market and compete for the same women. To appreciate the significance of a Pidgin statement by one of Ako-Aya s many acquaintances, we have to examine it within the context of the narrative in which it appears: But today I will not talk about sealed offices especially as the paper is still published from a Pirate office, but of the Bible. You see, I had not believed in the Bible till of recent when a parable intrigued me-- the parable ends he that hath to him more shall be given and he that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away. How true this passage is especially with me, as I have always painfully been struck by this continued exploitation by those who have. What else can I say when over the weekend a C.D.C Accountant strolled into one of our fashionable hotels with a labourer s wife and introduced her to me as his second but official wife. Asked when they got married, he said only that morning. She is quite a beauty. Well I thought the labourer may complain but this is according to the Bible (Shall be taken Away, July 13, 1970). In explaining why she abandoned her labourer husband to become a second wife to the C.D.C. Accountant, the beautiful woman says my first massa make me I chop so-so jambajamba. The word jamba jamba represents the common vegetables that grow wildly in a tropical area and provide nourishment for the poor. The woman s first and second massas are at two extreme of the socio-economic hierarchy of the Cameroon Development Cooperation, an agro-industrial company established under British colonial rule. As a C.D.C. labourer, her first husband would have been so poor that the woman would have to forage for common vegetables in order to make a meal while the Accountant who takes her as his second wife has all the social and economic privileges of a senior service worker- the highest level of the Anglophone Cameroonian social hierarchy. The woman s statement, particularly, her use of the word jamba-jamba does not simply evoke a culture of poverty, it reflects a system of gross social injustice, and reminds us of how many poor men in this society lost their wives to wealthy senior service men because they could not afford to buy them meat. 25 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 25

26 On one of his many visits to Bamenda, the capital and urban center of the Northwest province, Obenson reports another incident that shows how senior civil servants used their power and privilege against the poor. The following reveals a lot more about the Anglophone Cameroon culture than the statements themselves: I sat there for about thirty minutes when a man and a woman jostled along If you no give me money I no de go for your place I heard the woman say. But the man said You no se we for council 3 moon today dem noba pay we. My friend, the watch night called the woman take this massa whe he commot Gbea go with he for your house. She left the council man and was toting my bag to her house. Since for many years Buea had been the capital of Anglophone Cameroon, anyone associated with the town was considered a big man entitled to whatever he wanted. It was not uncommon for imposters to present themselves as senior civil servants from Buea in order to receive special treatment in other towns and villages. In this instance, Ako Aya is the beneficiary of this common deception and abuse of power, while the council worker must go home alone without a woman. Since local councils were notorious for delaying the pay of their workers for several months, the exchange between the prostitute, council worker and the watchman reveals the social and economic gap between privileged government workers from the capital and low paid council workers in other towns. Tataw Obenson also demonstrates through his use of Pidgin English the extent to which the experience and cultural identity of Anglophone Cameroonians has been shaped by the union with the Francophones which started in As we saw in the previous example, the context in which he introduces Pidgin in the text reveals a lot about the cultural experience of the people. Commenting on the high unemployment in the country, he wrote in his June 16, 1972 column: Last Tuesday I prayed that the new graduates of these numerous colleges should get jobs and God heard my prayer. I am talking about this big vacancy that has been filled by a Cameroonian. The news came to me very unexpectedly because I had a secret yearning for that job. One retarding step which bothered me was this other language. I can only display on the colloquial level, expressions like dis donc, depanez me cent dey, Passez moi some dodo dey and I thought this was enough to earn me an African appointment (Ah Don Born Baby, June 16, 1972). The integration of Pidgin English and colloquial French in this context reveals the strong desire on the part of Anglophone Cameroonians to demonstrate knowledge of French. 26 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 26

27 Those who had the ability to speak French often obtained the best jobs in this new bilingual country. The statement earning an African appointment is made in reference to Nzo Ekangaki one of the first Anglophone ministers in the country, whose degree in French earned him the prestigious position as Secretary General of the Organization for African Unity, (OAU). Besides the greater economic opportunities that French accorded Anglophones, it was also stylish and fashionable to incorporate French words and phrases in one s daily speech. At the time of re-unification, certain parts of Francophone Cameroon were far more culturally sophisticated than Anglophone Cameroon. For Anglophones, including French words and phrases in their speech became a sign of cultural sophistication. In the phrases Dis donc, depanez me cent day translated as Hello lend me a 100 frs and Passez moi some dodo the speakers are actually begging for money and food, but by introducing some French words and phrases in their speech they attempt to elevate their social standing and diminish the humiliation of their act. In his essay English and the Audience of an African Popular Culture, Moradewun Adejunmobi draws examples from Nigerian video films to demonstrate the connection between language use and the constitution of audiences for particular cultural text (p.75). Adejunmobi argues that the excessive use of English in the Nigerian films correlates well with the general hyperbole of the films, and signals affluence as surely as do the many cars, the extravagantly furnished houses, the rich meals, and the abundant jewelry (p.96). He believes that it is this preoccupation with wealth that justifies the reliance on English in the films (p.96). While this analysis can be applied to Tataw Obenson s integration of Pidgin words, phrases, idiomatic expressions, dialogues and passages in essentially Standard English texts, unlike Nigerian films the dominant consciousness and world view of the Ako-Aya column is Pidgin English. This is partly because Obenson s persona, Ako-Aya, whose name is derived from the most isolated and underdeveloped part of the country presents himself as an underdog whose sympathies are more with the poor, than with the wealthy. As Adejumnobi observes, Pidgin retains its associations with illiteracy, poverty and sensual license (p.96). This is evident in most of Obenson s Ako- Aya texts. But not only does he use Pidgin as a language of subversion and the validation of a hybrid culture, his use of Standard English is often shaped or colored by a Pidgin English mind frame or worldview. When recently the authorities at the University of Buea banned the use of Pidgin on the University campus, they were rejecting not so much Pidgin, which most of them speak, but the culture and identity that Tataw Obenson validated through his use of this subversive language. 27 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 27

28 Wolf s assertion that The Anglophones pose a challenge to theories of social identity is quite accurate because for the most part social identity is not closely associated with their mother tongue. But he is quite mistaken when he asserts that In the case of Anglophones, however, English has become the symbol of a new social identity that transcends former ethnic and hence mother-tongue affiliations (p.46). Since all Anglophones, whether educated or uneducated speak Pidgin, whereas only a small percentage of educated Anglophones speak Standard English on a regular basis, Pidgin, rather than English has replaced the mother-tongue as the defining element of Anglophone Cameroon social identity. Ike S. Ndolo s proposal that Pidgin should be used in Nigeria as the official medium for socio-political integration and national unity (p.881) has already been unofficially adopted in Anglophone Cameroon. With the political and administrative restructuring of the entire republic that started with the creation of two separate provinces- Northwest and Southwest- from the former state of West Cameroon, and the increasing number of children from Francophone families who do not only speak English fluently but have gone through the English/Anglophone system of education, one of the few remaining elements that links people from the Southwest with people from the Northwest is the use of Pidgin English and the worldview it evokes. Several other Anglophone newspapers have tried to imitate Obenson s model, while both Radio Buea and Radio Bamenda broadcast news and other programs in Pidgin. Tataw Obenson s influence and legacy go beyond print and broadcast journalism. With its triple colonial/postcolonial heritage - German, British and French - Anglophone Cameroon, which is culturally sandwiched between Nigeria and Francophone Cameroon, is still struggling to establish its identity and find its voice. Through his Ako Aya column, Tataw Obenson provides solutions to some of the challenges facing the Anglophone Cameroonian writer, which range from the lack of an audience (a sizeable reading public) to the lack of an appropriate medium to tell his or her story. As the embodiment of multiple hybridities, the Anglophone Cameroonian writer must decide which voice would most effectively resonate with his or her readers in Cameroon as well as in the market place of global culture. As Homi Bhaba (1994) has suggested, the social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective, is a complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation (p.2). Tataw Obenson s satirical commentaries on the Anglophone Cameroon experience in particular and Cameroon life in general clearly reflect this complex process of negotiating a 28 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 28

29 cultural identity at a time when Anglophone Cameroon was making the transition from a former British territory with close ties to Nigeria to becoming an integral part of a new bilingual nation - in which Anglophones remained the smaller and weaker partner. In this rapidly changing social and political environment, Tataw Obenson has demonstrated that the Pidgin language can be a potent force in the struggle by Anglophone Cameroonians to affirm their cultural identity. It is becoming increasingly evident that the integration of Pidgin and Standard English as well as French and some Cameroonian home languages in literary texts by Anglophones Cameroonian writers will become the distinguishing characteristic of a literary tradition that has suffered from obscurity under the shadow of Nigerian literature on the one hand, and Francophone Cameroonian literature on the other. Notes: 1 Quoted from Selections From Addison and Steele, ed. Will D. Howe, New York: Charles Scribner s Sons, 1921, p. ix. 2 The Callee-Callee was a surprise attack on innocent civilians in their neighborhoods, marketplace and other public areas. The goal seems to have been to keep the population in a constant state of fear and thereby prevent them from developing any plot against the government. This method of repression was developed in Francophone Cameroon to crush the insurrection by Union Populaire Camerounaise (UPC) for total independence from France during the late 1950s and early 1960s. 3 It is important to note here that with the current bilingual policy in Cameroon, which has been in place since 1961, the ability to speak English does not necessarily make one an Anglophone just as the abililty to speak French will not make someone who has grown up in the North-West or South-West province and gone through the Anglophone system of education a Francophone. These distinctions, as Woolf points out, are rooted in the experience of families that were exposed to the British colonial policy of indirect rule with a close connection to Nigeria and those that were exposed to the French policy of assimilation. 4 Obenson uses Shakespeare s title Measure For Measure for his June 12, 1970 Ako Aya column in which he reports a fight between two women over a man. He parodies Shakespeare s Malvolio s reflections on the different ways of achieving greatness with the opening sentence of his June 20, 1970 story Back to the Village. The sentence reads 29 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 29

30 They say some are born great whilst others achieve greatness and yet others have greatness enthrusted upon them. 5 Tataw Obenson was a top student of the pioneering class of St. Joseph College Sasse, established in the Anglophone region, then Southern Cameroon, in Although Pidgin is currently spoken all over Cameroon, as many linguists have acknowledged, Pidgin is lingua franca only in the Anglophone region- the North-West and South-West provinces, including parts of the bordering Littoral and Western provinces (Wolf). 7 Cameroon Outlook, August 27, Cameroon Outlook, March 2, Cameroon Outlook, June 16, Cameroon Outlook, March 20, Cameroon Outlook, June 25, Cameroon Outlook, February 19, 1974 Bibliography: Adejunomobi, M. English and the Audience of an African Popular Culture: The Case of Nigerian Video Film, Cultural Critique 50, Winter 2002, pp Bhaba, H., The Location of Culture, London: Routledge. Howe, W. (ed.), Selections from Addison and Steele. New York: Charles Scribner s Sons. Ndolo, I. S. The Case for Promoting the Nigerian Pidgin Language. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 27 4 (1989), pp Obenson, P. T. (ed.) Cameroon Outlook, N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 30

31 Literary Production of Slovak Minorities in the USA Lucia Horňáková Abstract: Because of its long isolation from Western intellectual tradition the Slovak academic milieu lags behind Western universities where ethnic writing has become an integral part of the curriculum of various literary disciplines.the literary production of Slovak communities in the USA also contributes to the creation of the mosaic of American literature of minorities. Despite the fact that the voice of Slovak-American authors almost disappears among the innumerable literary representations of American ethnic groups, the work of Slovak-American writers undoubtedly deserves the critical attention of bilingual scholars. In the contemporary world, in which globalisation successfully hides behind the mask of the quest for ways of connecting people and simultaneously breaking barriers among nations, cultures, classes and genders, we can notice increasing interest in postcolonial literature, which builds its premises on the above mentioned characteristics. Postcolonial literature, particularly its branch of ethnic literature, has become immensely popular in the academic and literary circles of western universities, especially in the past two decades. The tentative penetration of the concept of British and American postcolonial literature into the Slovak academic field brings about the increasing necessity to read and respond to the literature produced by the Slovak minorities all over the world. Despite the fact that Slovak immigrants who left for the New World and their descendants have been productive in the literary field from the beginning and, as sources claim, some works of the authors of Slovak origin have encountered popular success on the stages of American theatres, sadly, no or little attention has been paid so far to the reading and critical study of the literature of the Slovak- American ethnic group. We presume that the reasons do not lie in a lack of interest from the side of their Slovak relatives. The first and the most important reason why the Slovak readership lost contact with the literary representations of the Slovak diaspora in the USA was the more than 40-year-long isolation of Slovakia from the Western World during the period of communism which directly led to the impossibility to find any book from the "capitalist" West in Slovakia. The consequences of the totalitarian period can also be felt today in the fact that a majority of the Slovak population still does not speak any Western European language. Since most of the later literary production of the Slovak minority groups has been written in 31 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 31

32 English and only a few works have been translated into Slovak, the language barrier restricts the Slovak readers from getting involved. Moreover, there is hardly any bookstore (not to mention library) in Slovakia which sells books written by the Slovak Americans, so even the young generation of scholars and readers, who do not experience language obstacles, are not given the chance to acquaint themselves with the literature of the Slovak minority living in the USA. America became a multiethnic country with the onset of colonisation in the 16 th century, when the first Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and English colonies were established in the New World. Another flow of ethnic groups resulted as a consequence of the seizure of the African colonies by Britain, when the British colonisers started the trade with black people who were dragged in chains via the infamous Middle Passage to work on as slaves on Amwerican plantations. Moreover, the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th century meant a turning point in the immigration of those people and ethnic groups who were driven by the vision of the American dream. The first wave of Slovak immigrants belongs to this category as well. A difficult social position and the economic instability of Slovak farmers in Austrian-Hungarian Empire stood behind their decision to improve their living conditions in America. The majority of Slovak immigrants settled in industrial centres, especially in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey and New York where they found employment in mining or heavy industry. Slovak workers, commonly referred to as Hunkies (1), were perceived by the inhabitants of the host country as downtrodden...the less-skilled, less-educated, non-english speaking, Eastern European peasants (Laurence, 1983, p.57). Soon after their settlement in the New World, they created the first Slovak communities, and regular meetings of their members helped the Slovak newcomers overcome the initial hostility and the feelings of estrangement not only in relation to the culture of the New World, but also to their home country. Timrava's short story That Alluring Land is a reliable testimony of the satirical image of America which was held by those who stayed at home: That land glittered magically before their eyes. It was covered by luxuriant ears of grain strewn with the dollars that rained down abudantly upon the working man and jingled together like music (p.117) (2). After the establishment of the first Czechoslovak Republic, the immigration rate dropped slightly, due to the relative economic and social stability which the new born state brought about. It is important to mention that it was close cooperation of the Czech and Slovak national leaders with the Czech and Slovak immigrants in the USA which significantly contributed to the break up of the almost 400-year-long marriage of Austrian Habsburg monarchy with the Hungarian kingdom. Not only that, the People's Party led by Andrej 32 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 32

33 Hlinka relied on the help of the American Slovaks in its fight for autonomy in the period between the two world wars. This effort consequently resulted in the desired autonomy in September 1938 and finally, in the separation of the Czech and Slovak countries in March The existence of the first Slovak State, supported by Nazi Germany, in the years initiated the second major wave of immigration. After the communist coup d'état which took place in February 1948, masses of Slovak intellectuals sought exile in the States. Social and economic reasons for immigration were, especially in the latter case, exchanged for political ones. Few of the immigrants who left their home country in any of the three waves of immigration for a vision of better future in America returned home. They either brought their families from Slovakia or got married in the US. Gradual improvement of their social conditions and, we dare to say, also the famous Slovak adaptability to new environments went hand in hand with their assimilation. Despite the fact that there are a handful of Slovak institutions and/or Slovak centers in America which function to unite the Slovak communities, the second and third generations of Slovak-Americans have started to lose contact not only with the country of origin of their ancestors, but predominantly with the Slovak language as one of the most important conveyors of national identity. Despite this, more and more Americans of Slovak origin wish to discover their roots and, as a consequence, there is a growing interest in genealogical research. Similarly to all ethnic groups who crossed the political borders of a new/host country, the Slovak newcomers also brought with them from home traditions, customs, language and religion. The first Slovak communities grouped around the local church and organized theatrical performances and other social events which enabled them to keep these expressions of their home culture alive. Literature became the dominant medium to record the memories of their homeland and relatives who they left behind. Moreover, literary representations guaranteed that the contact with the Slovak culture and language would not be completely lost. Together with other forms of social activities, it helped them not only to cope with a new and often difficult social situation in their second home, but also to alleviate the negative feeling of displacement. Since most of the immigrants were agricultural workers, who were completely unskilled in industrial fields, the literary production of the first and second waves of newcomers deals especially with the hardships directly connected with the transition from agrarian work to work in industry and, simultaneously, with the relationship between a worker and his work. P.O. Laurence, an American writer of Slovak descent, in her highly influential work The Garden in the Mill: The Slovak Immigrant's View of Work stresses the 33 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 33

34 recurrence of natural images in the works of Slovak ethnic writers. Nature plays a twofold role. On one hand, it signifies a nostalgic memory of the past- the Slovak past, in which the farmers were strongly interconnected with the nature of Slovak villages, and the pre-industrial past of the American countryside as it is depicted in Fr. Pier's memoirs of his childhood The Woodlands Above- Mines Below. The natural ideal and harmony which exist in nature are disturbed by the sudden appearance of the machine in the garden (p. 59). As Laurence further claims, that machine can be understood literally and metaphorically. On a literal level, a machine represents a concrete object [which] both consumes and centers their [worker's] daily lives during eighty-to ninety-hour work weeks (p.60). The metaphorical dimension parallels the machine with a harmony in nature; the recurrence of natural images figuratively symbolizes the harmony existing between a man and his work with his machine. However, the organic unity of laborers and their work with machines is soon interrupted by the growing importance of machines in industry, and the continual replacement of human workers by machines finally emerged into dehumanization of labor. Laurence concludes that despite the fact that this oneness of the immigrant workers with work and machines was violated, Slovak-American literature about the immigrant does not present men whose minds are split, men who are allienated from their work (p.66). It rather focuses on the above mentioned oneness which helped the ethnic workers overcome the abuses of American industry. According to The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature (2005) literary production of the first wave of American Slovaks at the turn of the twentieth century is represented by at least one important writer: Gustáv Maršall-Petrovský. Gustáv Maršall-Petrovský was, during his study of medicine in the capital of Austria, accused of inciting Slovaks studying in Vienna against the Hungarians. To avoid imprisonment, he emigrated to the USA where he first became an editor of the newspaper Slovák v Amerike (Slovak in America) and later an editor of the Chicago Journal. The themes of his short stories concentrate on Slovak emigration to the States. Moreover, Maršall- Petrovský's historical novel about a Slovak national hero- Jánošík- became the most famous of his works among the Slovaks in America. It is remarkable that his activity also falls into the field of linguistics. He compiled one of the English-Slovak dictionaries and a handbook for Slovaks living in the USA. Religion has always played a significant role in the life of the Slovak nation. Therefore, Christianity became one of the attributes Slovak farmers packed into their luggage when they left for the New World and one of the roots tying them to their homeland. 34 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 34

35 The close relationship of Slovaks to faith in God is demonstrated by the fact that several of the most influential authors, especially in the second wave of American immigration, were Catholic priests. The leading places among them belong to: Miloš K. Mlynarovič, Mikuláš Šprinc, Karol Strmeň, Rudolf Dilong and Andrej Žarnov. Since Mikuláš Šprinc, Karol Strmeň, Rudolf Dilong and Andrej Žarnov are taught at Slovak secondary schools and universities as representatives of Catholic modernism and the aim of this article is to familiarize Slovak scholars and readers with less known, though culturally and poetically important Slovak-American authors, we are not going to discuss the above mentioned authors further. A Franciscan priest, reporter, poet and prose writer Miloš K. Mlynarovič emigrated to the United States of America in 1914 to serve as a priest in the Slovak community in Whiting, Indiana, where he built a church, a school and a convent for teachers. Later, during his mission in Valparaiso, Indiana, Mlynarovič initiated the construction of a convent for Slovak Franciscans. The beginning of his poetic production can be traced to his student years. His poems express nostalgia for home, for the past life in Slovakia and memories of his homeland. Moreover, they also contain autobiographical features and serve as a personal confession of love towards Slovakia and the Slovak nation. Poetic collections Boha hľadám (I am searching for God), Z ľudu, pre ľud (From People, For People), and Dejiny srdca (The History of Heart) reflect the spiritual dimension of his literary production, as well. Prosaic works, of which the best-known is Novely z americko-slovenského života (Novellas from American-Slovak Life), emerge from the lives of Slovak immigrants in America. In the novel Vtáčence vo víchrici (Birds in a Maelstrom) Mlynarovič crosses ethnic borders and sets the novel in the American South and relates the difficult Slovak-American fate and desires to those of the black people. Čo tak bolí (The Cause of Pain) is a report of Mlynarovič's journey around Europe and Slovakia. We, or our fathers, or forefathers, all of us once had to posses the stern resoluteness of a firm decision to unroot ourselves from the soil of some backward little town or village-a birth place that, with all its shortcomings, would never be forgotten. The quotation is taken from the review of the book by the first Slovak American female writer- Maria K. Sinak. Sinak came to the US as a 14-year-old girl for a holiday and decided to stay. In her 1943 novel Jej americká svokra (translated into English in 1946 as Katka), Sinak retells a story carrying autobiographical features about a young peasant girl in a little village in Czechoslovakia whose marriage to an American boy opens up her life-long ambition to become a famous writer. Sinak's 600-page-long roman á clef explores what it means to be an 35 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 35

36 immigrant and proposes a spectrum of psychological traits of the newcomers. The emotional ups and downs are mingled with perplexities of a new and better life in a land of freedom and plenty and the struggle to achieve various goals, but, as she argues, this everyday fight is alleviated by the ambition of an individual. Sinak was known not only as a writer; she also always appeared in the roles of a genuine Slovak housewife in the theatre performances of Slovak communities in Detroit. Slovak-American literature is a collection of his/her stories which group into polyphony of voices and testify about the experience of Slovak adventurers who entered into the vision of the American dream. However, this voice is still very weak and hardly heard in public and among literary critics in either the American or Slovak cultural scene. Of course, in this situation one can also find an exception to the rule: Thomas Bell's masterpiece Out of This Furnance has achieved a wide popular and critical success. Immediately after it was published in 1941, the novel achieved a position of excellence in American ethnic literature. Though it has been translated as Dva svety and staged under the same name by Slovak television both the novel and its author are almost unknown in Slovakia. As a son of immigrant parents who came to Braddock, Pennsylvania in 1890, Thomas Bell (Tomáš Adalbert Belejčák) belongs to the second generation of Slovak-Americans. During his rather short life- he died of cancer at the age of 58- his activities ranged from leftwing politics and social reform to writing novels and dramatic works. Bell experienced hard work quite early in his life; as a 15-year-old teenager he worked shifts in the local steel mills, which eventually became the basis for Out of This Furnance. Moved by the tragic accidents of his two brothers in the steel mills, 19-year-old Thomas decided to leave the work and for a period of time held a position as a bookseller in Braddock. Subsequently, Bell entered the marine service and moved to New York in 1931 to devote his life to writing. Bell's novels serve as psychological explorations of Slovak immigrant workers who have to confront an unequal struggle in American industrial society. Besides the documentary dimension portraying the life and assimilation of the Slovaks in the States, his writings fulfill the function of a critique of the exploitive capitalism, social injustice and unfair labor practices (Rudnicky, 2005, p.256) that were the result of American industralization. Bell's debut works The Bread of Basil and The Second Prince did not manage to catch as much attention as the following work- All Brides Are Beautifu-l set during the years of the Great Depression. In 1946 the book was adapted as the film From This Day Forward directed by John Berry and starring Joan Fontaine in the main role. Out of This Furnace is a family saga which brings together three generations of Slovak immigrants. A three-narrative-line novel 36 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 36

37 follows Djuro Kracha's journey from Austria-Hungary to the steel mills in Braddock, Pennsylvania via New York in the mid-1880s. His financial speculations as well as an extramarital affair stand behind his eventual downfall. Mary, Kracha's daughter, represents the second generation and next narrative line. The marriage of Mary and Mike Dobrejcak, a steel worker, has to face many difficulties connected with the inhuman working conditions and treatment of workers in the steel mills. Mike's political ambitions are finally fulfilled in their son Dobie, who stands for the third generation of Slovak Americans. He manages to overcome the stereotypes about uneducated, unskilled and lazy Hunkies. Not only is Dobie proud of his origin at the end of the novel, but his effort to establish economic justice is rewarded with his involvement in the successful unionization of the steel industry. Bell's further novel There Comes a Time depicts complex socio-political problems during Roosevelt's New Deal and his memoir In the Midst of Life is written in the form of a journal of a person dying of cancer. Bell was also a successful playwright, with a drama staged on Broadway - Till I Come Back To You which presents one day of life in Brooklyn during World War II. The facts that his novels have been translated into several languages and Out of This Furnace is included on the list of books for university courses in American History prove the importance of Bell's contribution to American ethnic literature. If the immigrants wanted to survive in the new world, it was inevitable for them to accept a new culture and language. However, adoption of a new culture did not necessarily mean a complete break with the home culture. As we have already indicated, the Slovak immigrant communities used all means to keep the expressions of their cultural heritage alive. Ongoing assimilation, on the other hand, became the reason why the generations of their children and grandchildren, born in the US, have slowly started to lose contact with Slovakia and its culture. Even though contemporary American writers of Slovak origin feel an insistence to return to their roots and past, which they express in the themes of their literary works, their effort to approach their Slovak identity will be just partially rewarded. For our argument we can adapt S. Rushdie's term and talk about Slovakias of mind (3), which means that, due to the space and growing time distance, the more the American Slovak immigrants and their descendants attempt to approach the past in their search for identity, the more the memory becomes fragmented. Moreover, Slovak American authors of the second and third generation no longer view Slovakia through the shell of memory (Hribal, 1991, p.4). They create images about Slovakia (Slovakias of mind) from the scraps of memories narrated by their parents and grandparents at various occasions of family gatherings. Even 37 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 37

38 though they might come into direct contact with Slovak culture, they will always perceive it as something exotic, of which the short story The Linden Snow by Slovak American writer Joanne Hvizdak Meehl is a clear demonstration. Applying the film technique of a documentary, Meehl presents the most common features of the Slovak nature, which are unfortunately due to the Americanization of the Slovak society disappearing, as something remarkable. She finds it surprising that after a long day in the city men and women work in the fields, cut the grass with a scythe or that the bicycle is still widely used as a means of transport not only by babooshka'd women (1991, p. 271) in black skirts and black scarves tied unlike Western scarves (Ibid.). Being a witness of an accident, Hvizdak Meehl compares the American swift response (they would call 911) with Slovak clumsiness (they would rather unsuccessfully try to pull the driver out of the car). Furthermore, the lack of material goods is substituted by spiritual wealth and she wonders that people still find time for God and stop in church for a short prayer during their busy day. Realising that the Slovak poverty is the result of the 40-year-long communist regime, Hvizdak Meehl's approach to her Slovak countrymen is affectionate. However, it is necessary to point out that even the target audience of contemporary Slovak-American authors has shifted from Slovak communities to American and/or Englishspeaking readers. Consequently, the moral, spiritual and psychological aspect of their writings is becoming more universal. A Roman Catholic philosopher and novelist, Michael Novak is also known in the diplomatic field. His involvement in Slovak and other ethnic activities and studies has earned him many influential positions in the U.S. government and international diplomacy. Novak currently works as the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Novak's major works are of a nonfictive nature: his topics range from religious explorations of American culture to theoretical essays on capitalism and socialism, the cultural ecology of liberty among others. He has published two novels. A wrestling with God, the Church and oneself stands as the background for Tiber Was Silver. An intellectually and artistically gifted Irish-American studies for the priesthood at Gregorian University in Rome. The readers follow Richard's personal psychological and spiritual development, influenced by the spirit of the pre-vatican II Catholic society and culture. Richard's vocation is confronted with his feelings for a young Irish-American woman,: however, his ultimate decision to become a priest still speaks to a world groaning for salvation (4) 38 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 38

39 Inspired by his own emotional and spiritual pilgrimage, Novak writes Naked I Leave in which Jon Svoboda, a Slovak-American student, searches for his true identity and the place he belongs to. After his decision to leave a Catholic seminary, Jon faces different crises in his life. His desire for a genuine feminine love leads him into four sexual relationships which, however, do not fulfill him. Jon's physical nudity of his sexual liasons is replaced by the metaphorical nakedness in which he reveals his essential self before God and the reader at the end of the novel. A successful author of novels and fiction for children, religious affairs reporter for the Atlantic and New Yorker, scriptwriter and professor, Paul Wilkes is a descendant of Slovak grandparents who left for Cleveland in the beginning of the twentieth century. His productive literary career is strongly influenced by his Roman Catholic faith and Slovak roots. In Temptations Wilkes enters the confines of a Trappist monastery in Vermont. Joseph, a descendant of Eastern European Catholic immigrants, is both the narrator and the protagonist of the 1993 novel. Joseph who considers himself to be one of that dying breed, 'the practicing Catholic' (5) is rather a well-known writer of the lived experience kind of books (6). In his middle life, he still explores the role of God in his life and searches for his true identity. After a week in which he has slept with four different women, he decides to repent first at a Zen center followed by a Mennonite farm, then a charismatic evangelical house of prayer and finally at Our Lady of New Citeaux- a Cistercian monastery. After arriving at the monastery, Joseph confides to his spiritual director Father Columban, whom he has been in contact with even before, his wish to stay with the monks for a period of time and write a book about their life. However, the only way he can get closer to the monks is to adopt the position of a postulant. Leading a monastic life, Joseph experiences a genuine fight between the attraction of the contemplative life and wordly desires, one of which is to have a career as a writer. Eventually, after overcoming all temptations by reading spiritual writings, praying and and practicing obedience, he leaves the wordly pleasures behind and becomes a Trappist novice. In Due Season is a four-book unpublished family history of Dušan Vlásek and his descendants Kubo, Metod and Teddy. Physical and psychical movement plays an important role in the lives of the father, son, grandson and great-grandson. The journey from the Slovak village Zbudza to northwest Pennsylvania to Cleveland to New York and back again to Pennsylvania expresses the metaphorical journey of the characters in their search for identity. By publishing a book, Teddy achieves what his ancestors missed- the fulfillment of the American dream. Paradoxically, at his father's funeral, he realises that the feeling of achieved 39 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 39

40 success is not what satisfies him. He discovers a vocation to defend the Slovak and other ethnic groups in Pennsylvania against the injustices by their very own (Sabo G, 5, p.2288). The call to use his writing talent in this way goes hand in hand with the discovery of his identity: an American with a strong ethnic heritage now really his own, giving back to his own in due season (Ibid.). The novel Fitzgo, the Wild Dog of Central Park contributes to creating a mosaic of Wilkes' personality since the main animal protagonist represents Wilkes himself. It evolves around a true story of a dog adopted by the Wilkes. The dog, which apparently does not belong to anyone, survives the cruelties of all seasons in Central Park in New York. Finally, however, it becomes an inseparable member of the Wilkes family. Willkes' latest book My Book of Bedtime Prayers is aimed at young readers. The phenomenon of the Slovak American experience becomes the leitmotif of two short stories and an unfinished novel by Mary Ann Malichnak Rishel. Besides writing novels and short stories, Rishel currently works as a professor in Math and a textbook author. A very frequent Slovak proverb Hope dies last is a distinctive feature of both short stories Staus and Uncle Perk's Leg. A rather reserved Staus, the main protagonist of the first short story, has to tackle the hardships of life alone after the death of his beloved wife. Sorrowful Staus, however, is the one who welds the family bonds, which are threatened by the hurts the siblings caused one another. Staus's niece, a daughter of his sister Irene, narrates the second short story Uncle Perk's Leg. This one chronologically precedes Staus while Staus's wife Martha is still alive. After the early death of her father, Staus's niece considers Uncle Perk to be her substitute father. Due to arteriosclerosis, Uncle Perk's leg needs to be amputated. The irony arises when the family becomes more concerned about the funeral of the leg rather than the amputation itself. The family holds fervent discussions about where the leg should be buried so that one day the rest of Perk's body may be reunited with it. Not long after, Perk dies and only the story about the amputated leg keeps him alive in the memories of his relatives. Rishel fictively returns to Slovakia in her novel The Devin Gate. The novel follows the life of Zuzanna Koval, who after the failure of the Slovak National Uprising in which she fought, emigrates to the States. At the age of eighty, being invited to a wedding, Zuzanna returns and an encounter with an old Roma friend- Marushka- enables her to complete the quest for the discovery of her true self. Reacting to political issues has become a cornerstone of Carolyn Forché's poetry. Born to a Slovak father and Irish mother, one of the turning points in her decision to set out on a 40 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 40

41 writing career was the discovery of photos from a Nazi concentration camp in Look Magazine. The influence of this experience is reflected in the themes of her poems. Forché does not avoid issues such as tyranny, injustice, and the atrocities of the twentieth century. By winning the Yale Younger Poets Prize for her volume Gathering Heights, Forché entered the ranks of acclaimed poets. In this collection of poems, Forché recalls the time of her childhood and adolescence and explores her emerging sexuality. Moreover, she reunites with her ancestors in the poems as well as talks about the bonds between families. The collection The Country Between Us reacts to a number of shocking atrocities in Central America which Forché witnessed. As she claims, the poems received controversial reactions from the side of her American contemporaries for mixing incompatible aspects- the personal with the political. Her latest volume The Angel of History, published in 1994, is divided into five parts. In the first three parts, the narrator takes on the role of a poet and of an angel floating through the ruins of Europe. The second part is a poetic meditation on the possibilities of history by evoking the speech of those who would have otherwise been forgotten. The search for identity and the concept of home become a major problem for all those who once crossed the political borders of a host country. The themes of identity and home draw a connecting line between the literary representations of American authors of Slovak origin. We could continue to discuss the literary production of American Slovak authors by analyzing other promising stars in the sky of Slovak-American writing such as: Ronald J. Rindo, Joseph Bruchac, Alvena Seckar, Jozef Pauo or Michal Simko. However, it has not been the aim of this article to provide a complete overview of Slovak-American literature, but to point out that the works of the Slovak immigrants and their descendants, so far abandoned by Slovak scholars, deserves our critical attention. As Charles Sabatos argues, American Slovak literature has almost disappeared from the map of ethnic American literatures [despite the fact] it is worthy of detailed study as a piece in the mosaic of modern American identity (2005, p. 2051). Notes: 1 According to the Encarta Dictionary Hunky is a taboo term for a labourer or other worker of eastern European origin. 2 As cited in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature, 2005, p N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 41

42 3 Rushdie talks about Indias of mind in his theoretical book Imaginary Homelands. USA. Granta Books, cf. Praise for The Tiber Was Silver. < 5 cf. ELIE, P., 1993: Temptations. - book reviews. < 6 Ibid. Bibliography: Brunner, E.: Carolyn Forché's Life and Career. < Available on the Internet. Elie, P., 1993: Temptations. - book reviews. < Available on the Internet. Encarta Dictionary Redmond: Microsoft Corporation. Available on CD. Gustáv Maršall-Petrovský In: NEDWEB/Literatúra v konexte. < Available on the Internet. Hribal, C.J. (ed), 1991: The Boundaries of Twilight. Minneapolis: New Rivers Press. Laurence, P. O., 1983: The Garden in the Mill: The Slovak Immigrant's View of Work In: MELUS, Vol. 10, No. 2, Expressions of Ethnic Identity, pp Michael Novak In: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2007 < Available on the Internet. Meehl, J.H.: The Linden Snow In: Hribal, C.J. (ed), 1991: The Boundaries of Twilight. Minneapolis: New Rivers Press, pp Nový, T., 1987: Slovenský biografický slovník. Martin: Matica slovenská, pp. 190, 204. Paul Wilkes In: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, < Available on the Internet. Praise for The Tiber Was Silver. < Available on the Internet. 42 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 42

43 Rudnický, R.W.: Bell, Thomas ( ) In: NELSON, E. S. (ed.), 2005: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, pp Sabatos, Ch.: Slovak American Literature In: NELSON, E. S. (ed.), 2005: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, pp Sabo, G.J.: Laurence, Patricia Ondek (1941- ) In: NELSON, E. S. (ed.), 2005: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, pp Sabo, G.J.: Novak, Michael (1933- ) In: NELSON, E. S. (ed.), 2005: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, pp Sabo, G.J.: Rishel, Mary Ann Malinchak (1940- ) In: NELSON, E. S. (ed.), 2005: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, pp Sabo, G.J.: Wilkes, Paul (1938- ) In: NELSON, E. S. (ed.), 2005: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, pp Sinak, M.K., 1946: Katka. Detroit: S.J. Bloch Publishing Co. 43 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 43

44 Discovering the Congruence: Postcolonial Literature and the Slovak Post- Communist Condition Simona Hevešiová Abstract: Despite its central position within western literary studies, its enormous popularity among international readership and the critical acclaim it has gained in recent years, postcolonial literature still remains an enigmatic field in Slovak literary circles. The author not only mentions some of the reasons for this unfortunate state, but also attempts to provide a pioneering analysis of the fundamental links between the historical, political, social and literary experience of former colonies and the Slovak nation. By linking the experience of colonized peoples and the Slovak nation s struggles for independence and self-determination (which were, of course, reflected in a fertile literary production), the article attempts to point out the relevance of the concept of postcolonialism in the Slovak (academic) milieu. The contemporary era of globalization, marked by the perpetual (and often contentious) confrontation of the universal and the particular, invigorates the momentum of a profound intercultural communication. The contacts between national literatures with their unique artistic expressions have become more and more spontaneous, thus creating the opportunity for the establishment of a productive cooperation and an enriching dialogue. The imaginary space of national literature has, of course, never been completely virginal since stimuli from the outer literary and cultural environment have always pervaded geographical boundaries. The recent period, however, provides a suitable occasion for uncovering so far undiscovered literary, cultural and also social connections. Paradoxically, postcolonial literature which has been impressing and fascinating both literary critics and the international readership since the 1970s, has not (for incomprehensible reasons) been discovered either by Slovak academics or by literary critics so far. Despite the few (almost nonexistent) attempts of Slovak scholars to incorporate at least one sample of this type of literature into their course syllabi (1) or to start a professional discussion, it still remains the enigmatic and mysterious terra nova in our literary milieu. The average Slovak reader who is not familiar with the source language of postcolonial writing is left at the mercy of the publishing houses which, to a large extent, tend to ignore this literary phenomenon. Of course, the assertion that no postcolonial book has ever been translated into the Slovak language would be misleading though, in fact, not so far from the truth. We do have 44 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 44

45 translations of Salman Rushdie s Fury, Nadime Gordimer s July s People, Arundhati Rhoy s The God of Small Things, Thiong o s Grain of Wheat or Soyinka s The Interpreters but we still lack translations of such crucial postcolonial texts as for example Chinua Achebe s Things Fall Apart, Jamaica Kincaid s Lucy, Zadie Smith s White Teeth or On Beauty, Rushdie s The Satanic Verses, not to mention Jhumpa Lahiri s debut Interpreter of Maladies or her novel The Namesake. The reasons for this state of our literary awareness and appreciation of these artistic works may be seen as an unfortunate combination of several different factors. First of all, the exotic setting of postcolonial books or the seemingly irrelevant (for Slovaks) problems of the multicultural and multiracial western metropolis may create a strong impression that this kind of literature presents experiences which do not correspond with Slovak daily reality. Therefore, the average reader would not be able to identify him or herself with these books and their characters, nor would be interested in reading them. Secondly, one may not underestimate the power of money-making bestsellers which may lack artistic quality but which, on the other hand, attract vast numbers of readers. The profit-oriented policy dominating the majority of Slovak publishing houses (2) thus results in a careful selection of books to be translated and published which often abandons relevant aesthetic criteria. Last but not least, one has to take into account the enormous influence of the Czech literary market which competitively supplies Slovak bookstores with its own translations which are still easily comprehensible for the vast majority of Slovak citizens (3). To translate the same book into both languages would be regarded as redundant; in this case, one may only wonder why it is always the Czech translation that is published first. On the whole, all of these factors (and there are undoubtedly many others) contribute to the relative disinterest of Slovak publishing houses in offering Slovak translations of quality postcolonial writing to native readers. The aim of this article, however, is neither to discuss nor to solve these problems. We are rather interested in exploring the links and analogies between the (post)colonial and Slovak (post)communist conditions which, in our opinion, share certain common features (4). These historical, political, social, but also literary parallels represent the basis for the establishment of a productive and valuable intercultural communication. We do not attempt to recreate the myth of universality here since we are aware of the fact that the realities and both the historical and political implications of the discussed cultures differ enormously. Nevertheless, the analysis and the following comparison of the experiences of both the oncecolonized countries and the struggle of the Slovak nation for its own political independence together with the 40-year-long period of Communist oppression which also affected literary 45 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 45

46 development and artistic representation may result in some quite surprising results. We would like to use these theses as supporting arguments for our conviction that postcolonial literature has something to tell the Slovak reader as well. Our opinion is also supported by the assertions of a distinguished American Professor of English and an expert on postcolonial fiction Steven Ekema Agbaw who helped to establish the postcolonial tradition in the Slovak academic field at the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia. In May 2006 the Department of English and American Studies at CPU organized the very first international colloquium focused on postcolonial writing entitled Aspects of Postcolonial Literature. This pioneering project was intended to introduce the concept of postcolonial literature in Slovakia and to inspire Slovak scholars to explore the matter more deeply. In the introduction to the colloquium proceedings Agbaw explained the reasons for the implementation of postcolonial literary studies in Slovakia: The interest in postcolonialism in Central Europe is not simply academic. For a people who themselves are adjusting to life in a post-soviet era the responses of Third world writers and other ethnic minorities to the experience of Western colonialism would seem quite relevant. Also, since the fall of the Berlin wall, scholars in Central Europe have become increasingly aware of and interested in the changing demographics of Western European countries, now populated by large numbers of displaced people from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East. With most of the Central European countries becoming part of the European Union it is quite natural that literary scholars in this region should be interested in the new voices that are shaping English and American literary studies. (2006, p. 7) The historical and political background of both the colonial territories and Slovakia may serve as the starting point for our analysis. Since there are many studies concerning different aspects of colonialism and they are deeply grounded in (Western) humanities research, we will mention only those aspects that seem relevant to our examination of the congruencies with the Slovak experience. It is not our aim to provide a thorough study of the historical and political aspects of the above-mentioned periods, but they do seem to share certain similarities which are quite pertinent to our analysis of the parallels between these seemingly different experiences. We are aware of the fact that there are numerous distinctions and different motivations between the backgrounds of the colonial period and the period of national self-determination, and the Communist regime in Slovakia. However, we do believe 46 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 46

47 that there is a certain correspondence which may reveal a basis for connections and communication. It is clear that to speak about colonial literature without mentioning the historical context would be at least incongruous if not incompetent, since they are closely intertwined and interdependent. Colonialism represents not only a political and economic structure; it is necessary to take into account its ideological background as well since it is responsible for the schematic and biased literary representations of the colonized peoples in colonial literature. The inclination to imperialism and the desire of European powers to influence the system of power relations within the continent reached across its boundaries and brought about two massive waves of colonization (the first one starting already in the 15 th century and lasting until the end of the 18 th century, the second one starting in the 1870s). The enormous accumulation of overseas territories is, however, only one side of the process. In the words of Edward Said, both imperialism and colonialism are supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive cultural formations that include ideas that certain people and certain territories require and beseech domination. (1993) As an example he mentions India, which according to some people existed in order to be ruled by England, i.e. without the English, India would disappear (Ibid.). In other words, the expansion of colonial powers and the hierarchical shape of the new system which was established (which was, of course, dominated by the colonizers) helped to create and support the idea of the inferiority of the colonized territories and their citizens and the second-rate status of their cultural and spiritual heritage. This idea has, de facto, served as one of the main means for creating the powerful illusion that the whole system was legitimate and that the countries were experiencing only a civilizing mission. The forced contact, together with the unnatural connection of absolutely different civilizations, led to the neverending and often cataclysmic confrontations of the Self with the Other which was supposed to be civilized and humanized by the economically, politically and morally superior colonizer. The colonized population thus had to constantly struggle for its equality and political autonomy. Similarly, since the Slovak Republic has existed as an independent sovereign state only since 1993, it is evident that the Slovak nation s struggles for its autonomy and selfdetermination have dominated the major part of our modern history. One may go as far back in the past as to the Great Moravian Empire of the 8 th 10 th centuries which united the Czech and Slovak tribes. Perhaps the most significant event of this era was the arrival of two Byzantine missionaries, Cyril and Methodius, (at the request of the emperor Rastislav) who 47 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 47

48 introduced and spread Christianity across the empire. After the disintegration of the Great Moravian Empire the ancestors of today s Slovaks became inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary, thus being separated politically from the western areas inhabited by the ancestors of the Czechs for virtually a millennium. (Library of Congress Country Studies, ) The struggle for Slovakia s autonomy and for the recognition of the Slovak nation gained a more or less organized form in the revolutionary period of 1848 under the leadership of Ľudovít Štúr. Despite the failures of these attempts, the Slovak national movement continued to show perseverance in working towards achieving its goals. In 1867 the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was established with Slovaks being ruled by Hungarians and thus being subjected to a massive wave of Hungarian nationalism since the Magyars set out to forcibly assimilate all the non-magyar nationalities in Hungary (Stolarik, 2006, p. 188). This policy resulted in the fact that [a]t the turn of the century, the idea of a "Czechoslovak" entity began to be advocated by some Czech and Slovak leaders (Library of Congress Country Studies, ). Cutting a long story short, in 1918 after the First World War, the collapse of the Dual Monarchy gave rise to the centralized Czechoslovak republic. But the political autonomy of Slovakia was not achieved until January 1, The striving for autonomy, however, is not the only connection that ties the experiences of Slovak people with the indigenous populations of the colonized territories. The Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948 established a 40-year-long period of domination of a different sort. The Communist policy required conformity and adherence to the central commands and regulations in all spheres of life be it politics, art, culture, education or science. As a result of the illegal occupation of Czechoslovakia which was invaded by the Warsaw Pact forces on August 20, 1968 (the last troops left the country in 1991!), the territory and the people of Slovakia essentially became linked with a new mother country the Soviet Union. The dependence on the Soviet Union tempts one to consider it as a not so far removed analogy to the empire-colony relation. The mutual tie in this case was formed by the communist ideology. As a result, this political turmoil prompted the emigration of many Slovaks to foreign countries (5). In fact, the history of Slovak people is so pervaded with numerous episodes displaying various forms of domination- either political or ideological- that it is almost impossible to deny the connection with the colonized people. Of course, we are aware of the fact that the conditions, motivation and means of control differed in many aspects, but the essence, the very core of these processes, such as oppression, attempt to assimilate the affected population, limitations of personal freedom and independent thought, preference of central models, 48 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 48

49 remained the same. To move forward with our analysis, it is necessary to look at the artistic, i.e. literary parallels, between colonial literature and literary works produced under the Communist regime. First of all, the enormous fertility of Slovak writers producing novels concerning various problems evolving from the struggle for national identity demonstrates the importance of literature as a means of arousing national awareness. This tendency dominated Slovak literature in the 19 th and at the beginning of the 20 th century when writers attempted to portray various concepts of national arousal. After the Communist takeover the situation in the artistic field changed immensely since the government imposed its rules, defined by the infamous style of socialist realism, to which all artists had to adhere. With art being centralized and restricted, creativity was supplanted by uniformity and imitation of Soviet examples. The ideological background of these literary works should not be overlooked, with the motivation being predominantly propagandistic. It is precisely the schematization and stereotypic representation of the social classes and so called class enemies that sucked the vitality out of literature. The simplified and stereotyped images of Slovak workers (proletariat) as a brave and united community pervaded the majority of literary works produced in this era, especially those by writers such as Peter Jilemnický, Ján Poničan, Fraňo Kráľ or Daniel Okáli. With the protagonist representing an ideal citizen fighting with the enemy (usually a capitalist, kulak or Western agent), these literary works succeeded in creating typified characters and standardized situations that aimed at strengthening the influence and justifying the rule of the communist regime. Since individuality was masked in the anonymous mass, this type of literature was focused predominantly on external, i.e. social and political events. In his essay The Economy of Manichean Allegory Abdul R. Janmohamed states that the relation between imperial ideology and fiction is not unidirectional: the ideology does not simply determine fiction (1985, p ). In his view, it is rather the process of symbiosis through which fiction forms the ideology by articulating and justifying the position and aims of the colonialist (Ibid.). When speaking about Communist literature, however, the relation between ideology and fiction was defined precisely by the centralized politics of the Communist party. With literature becoming the servant of politics and ideology (Marčok, 2004, p. 15), the Party attempted to eliminate any sign of creative individuality. The structure and the content of literary works were subordinated to ideological criteria, thus creating a totalitarian system of literature. 49 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 49

50 To return to our initial postulate, we will summarize the links between colonial and socalled communist literature produced in Slovakia that may be viewed as the grounds for mutual communication. Undoubtedly, one is aware of the differences that separate these phenomena; the most obvious one being the quality of the literary productions. Whereas many works of colonial literature meet and achieve artistic criteria as (many of them being recognized as great works of art), literature produced in Slovakia during the Communist period is considered as more or less superficial, vapid and lifeless. Furthermore, Slovak literature was strictly guided by the centralized norms of the government which intentionally emphasized the propagandistic function while colonial literature, in words of Abdul R. Janmohamed, supported the imperial ideology rather indirectly. Nevertheless, what these two literary periods share is their tendency to (whether consciously or subconsciously) make literature overflow with ideological stances. Be it a Communist or colonial doctrine, literary works in both cases exercised the assumed superiority of the privileged group of people (either colonialist powers or members of the Communist Party) who thus imposed their own images of the Other (the indigenous population or the so called class enemies) on them. Moreover, Janmohamed states that [a]ll the evil characteristics and habits with which the colonialist endows the native are thereby not presented as the products of social and cultural difference, but as characteristics inherent in the race in the blood - of the native (1985, pp ). Similarly, one may apply the same pattern of thought to the Communists who perceived and represented the potential diversionists and saboteurs of the regime as morally deficient precisely because of their rejection of Communist ideology and cast them to the very periphery of society. However, a glimpse at the differing responses of the oppressed people to these historical periods may open another interesting discourse. The process of decolonisation in the second half of the 20 th century induced a massive wave of literary response accompanied by an impressive counter-discourse which has brought about a dramatic shift of rhetoric. Inevitably, the formerly colonized people were talking back, addressing their former oppressors, forcing the colonialists to reconceptualize their identities. By questioning the literary practices of colonial writers who had, in fact, justified colonialism as such, and by exposing the limitations of their representations of colonized people in these works, postcolonial writers succeeded in their attempt to point not only at the dehumanization of the colonized, but at the whole complex of negative consequences of the colonial era. (Hevešiová, 2006, p. 40) 50 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 50

51 While the postcolonial community did not fail to react to colonial discourse and thus provide an alternative record of the past for future generations, Slovak literature paradoxically still struggles with the lack of counter-discourse narratives. The topic of Communism offers immense possibilities for its processing but it does not seem to attract Slovak writers very much. The motif of Communism appears rather in shorter fictional forms, autobiographical or documentary genres. If it is detected sporadically in a novel, it seems to play second fiddle only. Some critics suggest that the unpopularity of this topic lies primarily in its potential to open unpleasant chapters of one s own life. If a writer chooses to portray the moral decay of that era, it may set off an avalanche of caustic interrogations of the moral probity of the author himself/herself. Furthermore, the eighteen years that have passed since the Velvet Revolution do not seem to suffice for Slovaks to come to terms with this episode of their history. One has to realize, however, that literature offers an intact space for a critical reflection on our history and our own position within it. The fertility of postcolonial literature can be, therefore, regarded as an inspiring stimulus for all generations of Slovak writers, having the potential to raise their awareness of their own social obligations. Notes: 1 To our knowledge, there are only two courses dedicated solely to this literary field a course on American minority writing at the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra and a course on Australian literature offered at the Prešov University. 2 Since the prices of books in Slovakia are relatively high (especially because of the 19% VAT) and they are thus not considered to be a profitable commodity in Slovakia, this strategy cannot be held against the publishers. 3 The Czech publishing houses have produced their own translations of Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie, Chinua Achebe, Jamaica Kincaid, etc. 4 We do not, by any means, claim to provide a complete and final analysis of this topic because of its newness in Slovak academic fields- the article rather attempts to outline some major points and theses to be developed and scrutinized in further research. 5 The literary production of American Slovaks is discussed in the preceding article by Lucia Horňáková. 6 Translation by S.H. Bibliography: 51 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 51

52 A Country Study: Czechoslovakia (Former) In: Library of Congress Country Studies. printed Hevešiová, S., A Glimpse Beyond Postcolonialism (Zadie Smith s White Teeth) In: Aspects of Postcolonial Literature. Nitra: Filozofická fakulta, UKF, pp Horňáková, L. & Agbaw, S.E., Introduction: Aspects of Postcolonialism. In: Aspects of Postcolonial Literature. Nitra: Filozofická fakulta, UKF, pp Janmohamed, A.R., The Economy of Manichean Allegory. In: Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. & Tiffin, H. (eds.), The post-colonial studies reader. London and New York: Routledge, pp Marčok, V. a kol., Dejiny slovenskej literatúry III. (Cesty slovenskej literatúry druhou polovicou XX. storočia). Bratislava: Literárne informačné centrum. Said, E., Culture and Imperialism. < printed Stolarik, M.M., The Slovak League of America and the Canadian Slovak League in the Struggle for the Self-Determination of the Nation, In: Kaščáková, J. & Mikuláš, D. (eds.), Emigration to the English Speaking World. Ružomberok: FF KU, pp N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 52

53 New Literature in English Multiplicity in the Postcolonial Discourse of Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro and Romesh Gunesekera Jana Javorčíková Abstract: The analytical-interpretative study New Literature in English Multiplicity in Postcolonial Discourse discusses the cultural value of postcolonial writings for a western reader. The study analyses the specific Oriental style (magic realism and meanderings of memory) as well as authentic elements that offer readers a view of more exotic cultures. The study focuses on two short stories, The Prophet s Hair by Salman Rushdie and A Family Supper by Kazuo Ishiguro, and the novel Reef by Romesh Gunesekera which can help to cross the cultural gap between various nations. In the nineteenth century, colonialism was celebrated by many for having an entirely positive impact on the colonised, uncivilised or savage nations, bringing them many benefits, such as education, culture, religion and hygiene. However, after the 1950s when the process of decolonisation started, more negative voices emerged and colonization was depicted as detrimental to the original cultures and the aboriginal ways of life. Nevertheless, the relationship between the dominant and the subordinant culture was most often so unique that almost any attempt to grasp its nature ended up in overgeneralisation and stereotypes. The highly-regarded postcolonial literary critic, Edward Said, remarked that the Orient, representing the Other, is a mere European cultural construct, controlled by colonial terminology. Therefore, many present-day authors avoid grand récits, pompous confessions about the period of colonisation and postcolonisation and limit themselves to more subjective, intimate views, which allow their readers to draw their own conclusions. This freedom thus affords readers possible greater open-mindedness, and therefore more scope for objective judgements. Sri Lankan writer Romesh Gunsekera, Indian novelist and activist Salman Rushdie and Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro represent three of many postcolonial writers who introduce Western readers to more personalised views of their country s history, culture, mentality and the impact of alien (British or Western) culture on the respective Asian one. These three authors, in their respective works A Family Supper, The Prophet s Hair and Reef, nevertheless avoid demonisation of the alien culture and allow the Western reader to think 53 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 53

54 about the direct and indirect effects of colonisation and decolonisation in these three Asian countries. Historical Background to Decolonisation in India, Sri Lanka and Japan The year 1947 was a year of great changes for Britain, no less than for the whole world. It was the year when India gained its long-desired independence, an occurrence which ineluctably started the wave of gradual dissolution of colonialism in the world. Rhodesia and Burma followed, and for the first time enjoyed freedom from colonial oppression. However, the initial euphoria was soon replaced by disillusionment caused by political incompetence or general cultural, economic and social dependence on the repudiated mother country, Britain. As life in former colonies grew more and more unstable and chaotic, massive emigration to Britain started, resulting in altered racial and ethnic patterns in Britain and new cultural needs of the new immigrants (Vobr, pp ). In Sri Lanka, another British colony, the process of decolonisation also started in However, the following years did not bring much change, as the then Prime Minister (Don Stephen Seanayake) and the ruling elite represented the English educated, Westernized elite groups, alienated from the original Sinhala and Tamil-educated or illiterate classes of society. Thus, the neglect of the traditional culture (as embodied in religion, language and art) continued (Makar, 1997). Japan, on the other hand, at first sight represents a colonising rather than a colonised power. For centuries, Japan has been an independent country. What is more, in 1910 it annexed Korea and gained control over Taiwan and in the 1930s it invaded China. However Japan, lacking adequate military resources, was after 1945 controlled by stronger, mostly American, powers. As the renowned sociologist William Kelly writes, Japan was never colonized, yet its relations with the west and the USA, in particular, can be analysed in colonial and neocolonial terms up to a point. (Kelly, 1999). He further notes that Japanese- American relationships remain smooth as long as Japan acknowledges American preeminence, appears to be adjustinhg its society to conform to capitalism and democracy, and cooperates in the interim in the undertakings of the American-led Western powers (Kelly, 1999). Therefore Japan, like India and Sri Lanka, is undergoing in a sense a postcolonial hangover and needs to define itself again as an independent and autonomous power. 54 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 54

55 Renowned Postcolonial Authors and Writings Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie and Romesh Gunesekera are just three of many authors who write on the topics of post-colonialism and decolonisation. In India, the most renowned postcolonial authors include Shauna Singh Bauldwin (English Lessons and Other Stories), Upamanyu Chatterjee (English August, The Last Burden), M. R. Kohli (Struggle, Hope and Betrayal), and Anita Nair (Satyr of the Subway). In Sri Lanka, a writer in the same field is Jean Arasanayanagam (A Colonial Inheritance and other Poems) and in Japan, the multicultural author best known in the Central European region is perhaps Haruki Murakami, the winner of the Franz Kafka Prize for his novel Kafka on the Shore. Kazuo Ishiguro and Salman Rushdie are pre-eminent among the authors who have opened the doors to the Eastern world for the benefit of Western readers. Ahmed Salman Rushdie is probably best known for his controversial novel Satanic Verses and for the Fatwa imposed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that followed its publication in Rushdie was born in Bombay in 1947, on the very night when India gained its independence. This birth of India as an independent state also motivated his career as a prolific writer, famous for breaking the monumental grand narratives to petits récits. Among his most famous novels are Midnight Children (1981), which earned him an international reputation in addition to the prestigious Booker Prize in Further novels and short stories include Shame (1993), East, West (1994), The Moor s Last Sigh (1995) and the most recent novels Fury (2001) and Shalimar, the Clown (2005). Kazuo Ishiguro, born in 1954 in Nagasaki earned international recognition for his early novel, A Pale View of Hills (1982) and for the following novel, An Artist of the Floating World (1986). Remains of the Day (1989), perhaps his most famous work, was awarded the most prestigious literary prize in Britain, the Booker McConnell Prize. In this novel, Ishiguro was able, in the view of many critics, to depict the essence of Britishness better than anybody else. Thus he opened a discussion on who is qualified to define a nation and its characteristic features, and his ability to grasp the substance of the national mentality proves that a view from the outside is sometimes more telling than one from inside. Even though both Rushdie and Ishiguro earned their reputations from their famous novels, their short stories also offer a great opportunity to learn more about their cultures. The two short stories, The Prophet s Hair and A Family Supper, which are the subjects of this study, also present the possibility to reflect on a different cultural milieu and to learn more about Indian and Japanese cultures. 55 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 55

56 On the other hand, Romesh Gunesekera represents an author who is still less wellknown in the Central European region. Gunesekera was born inb Sri Lanka in 1954 but moved to London in His first collection of short stories, Monkfish Moon, earned him a modest reputation. His second novel (Reef, 1994) was awarded the Booker Prize and also gained Gunesekera recognition in London literary circles. Recently two novels, The Sandglass (1998) and Heaven s Edge (2002) have confirmed the author s authority in the field of post-colonial and multicultural literature. Cultural Contribution of Reef, A Family Supper and The Prophet s Hair Reef, A Family Supper and The Prophet s Hair challenge the changing nature of the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized. Reef and A Family Supper are set in the second half of the twentieth century and deal with current phenomena such as emigration, displacement, consumerism, Americanisation, feminism and globalisation. The Prophet s Hair, on the other hand, takes place in a purposely unspecified period in the twentieth century and focuses more on portraying the clash of Eastern and Western values, together with religious and cultural misunderstandings. All the stories, however, greatly contribute to our cultural understanding and function as a cultural bridge for Western readers wishing to read more about different nationalities and ethnicities. A Family Supper is set in Tokyo during an unspecified present-day period, most likely during or shortly after the 1960s. As the title reveals, the story depicts a relatively peaceful family supper; a father and his son and daughter meet over a fish dinner after a period of long separation. The son (the narrator of the story) was studying in the USA, and Kikuko, the daughter, in Osaka, where she also hopes to return shortly. Nothing much happens in the story, the family prepares supper and talks about daily matters. However, undercurrent dynamics are ever-present- the reader learns that their mother died from eating fugu, and the chances are that she had actually committed suicide. Another dramatic moment occurs when the reader learns that the father s business partner committed ritual suicide hara kiri after he had killed his wife and two daughters. More dynamics enter the plot when the reader starts to ponder over the type of fish the family is preparing. It is testimony to Ishiguro s mastery of his art that he does not conclude the story with a traditional resolution but lets his readers wonder about the ending of the story. Salman Rushdie s short story, The Prophet s Hair, is set in Srinagar, in rural India during an unspecified time, 19 (Rushdie, 1987, p. 389). Time, by the way, is not at all 56 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 56

57 important in this short story, which depicts the family of a wealthy moneylender, Hashim, who has unjustly repossessed a relic- the prophet s hair. The relic was originally owned by a local monastery and was believed to have several healing and spiritual properties. However, instead of returning it to the monasstery, Hashim decided to keep it for himself. Ironically, the relic turns him into a bigot, which dramatically influences the entire course of life in his family. First, Hashim made his more progressive daughter, Huma, wear a veil in public. Secondly, the whole family, including his son Atta, was forced to gather for common prayers at least two hours a day (Ibid., p. 394). Finally, he burned all his books except for the Koran. When life became unbearable, his wife and children decided to hire a thief (Sheikh Sin) to steal the relic and return it to the monastery. Unfortunately, their good intentions had disastrous consequences: in a chaotic encounter, Atta died of a nervous breakdown, Huma was unintentionally killed by her own father, and the mother was driven mad by the general carnage and had to be committed to an asylum (Ibid., p. 389). Thus, the relic brought bad luck to both the good and the greedy alike, including the minor character of the thief, Sheikh Sin and his entire family, who earned most of their money from begging, were miraculously healed and, losing the only source of their money, were ironically turned into ruined men (Ibid., p. 399). Gunesekera s novel Reef is a Bildungsroman, depicting the growth to maturity of a young servant, Triton. While serving Mister Salgado, a rich marine biologist, Triton not only becomes a professional chef but also witnesses the downfall and destruction of Sri Lanka. Eventually, he moves to London. The disappearing reef serves as a metaphor for the disappearing ethnic Sri Lankan culture. As Gunesekera writes, there will be nothing but sea and we will all disappear in to it (2004, p. 182). Although Rushdie, Ishiguro and Gunesekera in selected novels and short stories seemingly deal with completely different subject matter, they share similar methods and achieve similar goals. As for the methods, each of these authors introduces to a Western reader not only the paraphernalia of their respective countries but also the specific oriental style of narration which opens the door to an exotic mentality. As for the mindscape, each of these authors makes a statement about the effects of direct or indirect cultural invasion of their mother country. Regarding cultural tradition, an observant reader notices many interesting cultural details showing different lifestyles, daily objects and also intimate details of life in India, Sri Lanka and Japan, such as family hierarchy, mutual respect of family members and demonstrative expression of feelings. All the selected stories were originally written in 57 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 57

58 English, and thus aimed at English-speaking readers. However, all the authors use the original Japanese and Indian words for the names of traditional objects. In this way, readers indirectly learn that kichri (breakfast soup) is a popular breakfast item, Mullahs are teachers of religion and a purdah (veil) is to be worn in public out of respect for the Koran. Ishiguro, in his turn, informs the reader about the different layout of Japanese houses, including tea rooms, their traditional Japanese furnishing (tatami is floor) and about popular Japanese dishes (fugu) and the proper method of preparing them. More observant readers also notice many intimate family details - respect paid to the elders before meals by bowing, or children s restraint from open disagreement with their father. In Guneshekera s narrative, readers learn how ganja and jamanaran mandarin are used to moisten a dessert (2004, p. 248). Readers also learn a polite form of addressing authorities, mahathaya (Ibid., p. 256), the regional name for a small shop kadé (Ibid., p. 259) or how to behave on alms day (Ibid., p. 260). Neither Gunesekera, Ishiguro nor Rushdie, however, provide any footnotes to ease the reader s efforts, but let them wonder or guess the meaning of these words. Thus, apart from adding to the authenticity of these short stories, new foreign words enrich the reader s vocabulary and perception of a different semantic reality. The style of Gunesekera, Rushdie and Ishiguro also exposes the Western reader to the exotic nature of their culture. All the stories, in their own fashion, indirectly introduce a traditional Oriental narrative style, inherent in Rushdie s and Ishiguro s writings. Ishiguro has earned a reputation for his style, called meanders of memory, which means that his stories do not move straightforwardly towards the ending but meander, change the pace of narration, or flash backward and forward in order to break the traditional narrative structures. For example, when there is an uneasy pause in the conversation between the father and the son, the son escapes to his inner world and freely ponders about his father: My father was a formidable-looking man with a large stony jaw and furious black eyebrows. I think now in retrospect that he much resembled Chou En-Lai, although he would not have cherished such a comparison, being particularly proud of the pure samurai blood that ran in the family. His general presence was not one which encouraged relaxed conversation; neither were things helped much by his odd way of stating each remark as if it were the concluding one. In fact, as I sat opposite him that afternoon, a boyhood memory came back to me of the time he had struck me several times around the head for chattering like an old woman. Inevitably, our conversation since my arrival at the airport had been punctuated by long pauses. (Ishiguro, 2001, p. 435). Not only does such detailed contemplation reveal an observant and thinking author, it also allows the reader to absorb more data relevant to the plot. 58 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 58

59 Ishiguro writes, on his fascination with memory: Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory, [...] I like the atmospheres that result if episodes are narrated through the haze of memory. I like the fact that by mimicking the way memory works, a writer can actually write in a fluid way one solid scene doesn't have to fall on another solid scene, you can just have a fragment that then dovetails into another one that took place 30 years apart from it. It doesn't have to be fully realized, it can be a glancing, shadowy reference to something that you'll come back to later, and then it moves on. Moving from episode to episode through association and tangential meandering- I like it as a style; it serves my purposes very well. [...] More fundamentally, I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened (Ibid.). Memory, indeed, is one of the major motifs in the short story A Family Supper. The father prefers returning to his more successful past, and also to the years when Japan was free from the imposition of Western culture. The son and the daughter, however, also escape to the past. The narrator recollects time spent in California, and Kikuko loses herself in her memory of her livelier and more cheerful student life in Osaka. The present is thus both unimportant and insignificant to all the members of the family. Such a perception of time is certainly quite alien to those cultures oriented more on the present or the future, as American culture notoriously is. Rushdie s narrative, in a very similar fashion, avoids the traditional straightforward narrative structure. However, Rushdie accomplishes this by introducing a very large number of characters, not at all typical of a short story, and also by introducing a large number of parallel or additional subplots. This type of narrative reminds one of Sheherezade s stories, interwoven into one another. Thus, Rushdie rejects the Cartesian compulsion to think rationally and offers a more contemplative, magical style. Rushdie s style certainly intensifies the plot, which includes paranormal events such as the miraculous healing of the crippled thief s children and his blind wife, the repeated return of the relic to the moneylender s house and the transformation of Hashim overnight into an ultraorthdox Muslim. In the same fashion as Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Angela Carter, Rushdie challenges his Western readers by exposing them to the influences of exotic narratives. Gunesekera s style, compared to the style of Rushdie and Ishiguro, lacks obvious differences from a straightforward Western narrative. No reader, however, can fail to notice the unusually slow speed of the narrative when the Christmas dinner starts. The narrator pays 59 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 59

60 special attention to every single detail, including smells, sounds and colours; the reader can almost follow each mouthful on its way from the kitchen to the eater. The conversation of the characters seems secondary to the primary depiction of the feast. Such a style intensifies the relaxed atmosphere of a wealthy British household. Apart from authentic details and the method of narrative, Reef, The Prophet s Hair and A Family Supper depict contrasts between generations and cultures. In each story, the author uses a metaphor to demonstrate the clash of cultures and the impact of the invasion of an alien culture. In Reef, the most visible contrast between the British and the nature Sri Lankans occurs during the Christmas dinner. A local servant is asked to prepare a turkey, a meat with which he has no cultural connection. During the preparation of the traditional Christian (or, rather, Western) meal, the reader observes many cultural differences. First, Triton observes the turkey almost as an artistic object- he notices not only its size, colour but also details, such as the bill attached to its claw, among many others. His depiction is poetic, almost ornamental, while the depiction of Mister Sagaldo, who represents Western civilisation limits itself to technical and culinary details. Gunesekera here shows two ways of perceiving reality, one exotic and the other characteristically Western. The turkey, however, also serves as a kind of link between cultures. Gunesekera shows how indirectly and unexpectedly cultural borrowing occurs when Mr. Dias asks for some chilli sauce, But you have some katta sambol or something? Green chilli? Bring some. Poddak huh? Just for the taste only (Gunesekera, 2004, p. 271). This elaborate order, as well as Dias s awareness of various types of Indian spice, shows his taste for Indian culture. Gunesekera also makes reference to many stereotypes the British believed about India. One of the characters, Melanie, admits that she used to believe that everybody has to be a vegetarian in India and that was why she became one, too. Only after travelling to India did she understand that the Indians are as diverse in this respect as other nationalities. The story of the turkey dinner concludes in a cultural paradox. While the English reduce their observations to the meal only, the native servant is the only one who contemplates the spiritual value of Christmas. Triton compares it to the original Sri Lankan alms-day and finds the common thread: bringing happiness to everybody. Triton thinks, In my father s village there used to be alms days. I felt this was the same sort of thing. Only here it was to do with Jesus, although no one mentioned him again after the first toast. Mister Salgado at the head of the table looked as though he might be thinking along the same lines. It was not charity but it was an act of giving. In my case, the giving was in transforming the 60 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 60

61 intention into something edible. I gave by cooking and it gave me pleasure again (Ibid., p. 274). By serving a tasty meal Triton thus completed his mission. This ironic conclusion to the turkey dinner episode allows the reader to think about the respective cultural contributions of the dominant and submissive cultures, the latter actually enriching the former. A similar metaphor for cultural alienation - a meal- is was used in Ishiguro s short story A Family Supper. Two different representatives- one of the old, traditional Japanese culture and one of the modern, progressive, Western one meet over the family supper. In A Family Supper, it is the father who represents the old-fashioned Japanese tradition. The father is a strong believer in a cohesive family unit in which children and parents live together or close to each other. He is glad to see his children coming back home and he hopes that it is more than a short visit (Ishiguro, 2001, p. 435). On another occassion he makes a bitter remark about how it is for some parents. Not only must they lose their children, they must lose them to things they don t understand (Ibid., p. 439). He is even more distracted by his son s indecisiveness as to whether to stay in Japan or in an even more alien culture, in California. The father is also a traditionalist in his attitude towards pride and dignity. According to the narrator, he was particularly proud of the pure samurai blood that ran in the family (Ibid., p. 435). That is perhaps why he admires his friend and business partner Watanabe, who, when his business went bankrupt, committed harakiri. Watanabe first killed his wife and two daughters, but that does not prevent the father from calling him a fine man, a man of principle (Ibid.). Such a drastic solution to a personal crisis is certainly alien to the more optimistic, Western spirit and what might be termed the you can always start again attitude. The son and the daughter, on the other hand, represent more modern and westernised trends in Japanese culture. Kikuko, like many young girls around the world, smokes and likes hitchhiking, both inimical to a traditional conservative Japanese upbringing. Moreover, both children speak their minds and do not hesitate to express themselves. However, unlike many American teenagers, they do not start open conflicts with their father. In this way Ishiguro opens up the subtle world of the Japanese lifestyle and family hierarchy. Although he was brought up in England, his parents always hoped to return to Japan and thus retained their Japanese customs and culture. As a result, Ishiguro is well aware of the tiny details of Japanese domestic life: I understood very deeply how a Japanese family works and about parent/child relationships, marriages, and so on, says Ishiguro in an interview (Krider, 1998). However, he refuses to pose as an expert on Japanese culture, to manipulate his readers or to moralise or demonise Western, especially American, culture. As the literary critic Krider 61 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 61

62 notes, Ishiguro believes that the danger of Anglo-American culture taking over the world is exaggerated. (Ibid.). He also refuses to be labelled as an exclusively Japanese author and hopes to write on more universal topics. By universal, as Kriger puts it, he means themes that most people can relate to as opposed to themes that are of interest only to a few (Ibid.). The same clash of generations, if not cultures, is depicted in The Prophet s Hair by means of a metaphor, that of the relic which divides the Hashim family into a conservative, traditional wing, and a more liberal one.. Huma and his sister live relatively free and progressive lives; they do not pray several times a day and the sister does not wear a purdah. Even their mother is more liberal than their bigoted father. It is an open question whether their open-mindedness is produced more by their ages or by their view of life; in any case they strongly oppose their manipulative father. Reading Rushdie s and Ishiguro s short stories allows the Western reader to enjoy the paraphernalia, subject matters and style of different, more exotic, Japanese, Sri Lankan and Indian cultures. Such narratives thus function as a cultural link, and stimulate empathy and understanding among nations. In an increasingly multicultural Britain, let alone Europe, they might become an indispensable tool for mutual cultural appreciation and the coming together of people and nations. Bibliography: Gunesekera, R. Reef. In: Matoušek, P. (Ed.), Britská čítanka. Praha, Labyrint Revue, pp Ishiguro K. A Family Supper. In: Bradbury, M. (Ed.), The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories. London, Penguin, pp Kelly, W. Postcolonial Perspective on Intercultural Relations. A Japan-U.S. Example. In: The Edge. The E-Journal of Intercultural Relations. Winter 1999, < relations.com/v2i1winter1999/w99kelly.htm> Krider, D. O. Rooted in a Small Space: An Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro. Kenyon Review 20.2 (Spring 1998): 146 (9 pp). Rpt. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, Item No (29 Nov. 2000). Ishiguro, K. In the Land of Memory -- Kazuo Ishiguro Remembers When. In: Dunn, A. (Int.): Special to CNN Interactive. < > N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 62

63 Makar, R. The Politics of Sri Lanka and Reef. In: < Rushdie, S. The Prophet s Hair. In: Bradbury. M. (ed.), The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories. London: Penguin, pp Vobr, L., 1994 Great Britain. Praha: Votobia. 63 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 63

64 Race, Sexuality and Religion in Larry Duplechan s Blackbird (1986) Roman Trušník Abstract: The protagonist of Larry Duplechan s Blackbird (1986), Johnnie Ray Rousseau, auditions unsuccessfully for the lead role in his drama class production of Hooray for Love because it includes the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Johnnie Ray s access to a globalized culture, represented here by Shakespeare, is hindered by three factors: his race, his sexual orientation, and the hypocrisy of his religious community. The paper explores the interplay of the three factors in the novel which has been called rather inaccurately the first black coming-out story. Larry Duplechan s Blackbird (1986) is a novel probably unknown to wider audiences, so let me start with two quotes from the blurb of the first paperback edition. First, a review is quoted describing Blackbird as the first black coming-out story. Second, the plot summary begins in this way: No way is a black boy, never mind a gay black boy, going to get to play Romeo in this high school play, thinks Johnnie Ray Rousseau as he fidgets in drama class. Still, the news that he doesn t hits him like a body blow. Blackbird is a coming out story above all, i.e. a story of a young gay person coming to terms with his sexual orientation. It belongs to a series of coming out novels with a highschool-age protagonist which were quite popular in the 1980s. Other well-known examples include John Fox s The Boys on the Rock (1984), published in the Stonewall Inn series by St. Martin s Press, or Christopher Bram s Surprising Myself (1987). The first quote mentioned above comes from a review published by The Advocate, an American gay magazine. The inadequacy of this description is obvious as there are much better candidates for the position, such as the early works of James Baldwin, namely Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953). Moreover, this link with Baldwin is not a random one, as Duplechan himself lists Baldwin as one of his major literary influences. 1 The second quote is much more interesting in the context of a globalized culture as only a few cultural products in Western culture can be more globalized than Shakespeare. Does a person subject to double marginalization- both as a black boy and as a gay boy- have access to the global culture? The events in Blackbird take place in 1974 in an unnamed town about ninety miles from downtown Los Angeles. The protagonist is Johnnie Ray Rousseau, a high-school senior 64 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 64

65 who discovered his sexual orientation at the age of twelve and came to terms with it at thirteen or fourteen. In accordance with the rules of the genre, a great deal of space is devoted to describing the dreams and fantasies of a sex-starved teenager: Johnnie Ray s obsession is blondes and he is in love with his schoolmates, Skipper Harris and Todd Waterson. He is out only to Cherie Baker (who is in love with him) and Skipper Harris (who is straight and has promised to keep this information secret). He spends most of his time in the company of his best friends, Efrem Zimbalist Johnson and Cherie Baker. Calling the novel a black story attributes high importance to issues of race and Duplechan himself calls the novel [s]ort of a gay Oreo hommage to [The] Catcher in the Rye. 2 This rather unfavorable metaphor seems to describe the role of race in the novel perfectly: Oreo is a trademark of chocolate biscuits with a white cream filling and it has been used since the 1960s as a slang term for a black person- black on the outside, white on the inside- who identifies with white people, is upwardly mobile in the white world, or tries to blend into an environment of white people without raising issues of race. (Herbs, 1992, p. 172) The Rousseaus and the Bakers are the only two black families in town who do not live in a black neighborhood and who go to the basically white Baptist church (B 37). Both Johnnie Ray and Cherie are rather distant from other black students at school. Even though Johnnie Ray declares that there is a certain amount of racism (B 10) in the town, his race seems to have no significant role in the novel up to the moment when he auditions for the role of Romeo in the drama class production of Hooray for Love, subtitled A History of Love through the Ages. He is interested in the play only because it incorporates the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Johnnie Ray does not expect to get the part as there is no black girl in the drama department and his kissing a white girl on stage would be unacceptable for the community- most parents would pull their daughters out of drama class if a young man of the colored persuasion was to touch them onstage (B 11). Thus, what is taboo in the community is actually not the access of a black person to the global culture represented here by Shakespeare, but the idea of miscegenation- Johnnie Ray might have got the role if there had been a suitable black actress to play Juliet. Only here race plays a structural role in the story: Instead of the consolation prize- the position of student director- Johnnie Ray auditions for a role in a Junior College theatre project about which he has learned from announcements posted by the teacher who refused to give him the role of Romeo and whom Johnnie Ray verbally assaulted. 65 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 65

66 The play called The Lockup deals with a boy imprisoned for the first time and abused by other prisoners. At the audition, Johnnie Ray meets Marshall Two-Hawks MacNeill who soon becomes Johnnie Ray s first-time and only one-time male lover. (Marshall prefers his film directing career to a relationship with a boy six years younger than himself and the project ends as soon as the teachers at the Junior College learn about its theme.) Ironically, it is the miscegenation taboo in the community that helps Johnnie Ray to find his first reciprocated relationship, even if only for a few days, and reveals to him that he is not the only gay in town. The motifs of race and sexuality meet again in the Efrem character. It turns out that Efrem is gay as well, something Johnnie Ray hoped for but was never able to discuss. Efrem is caught in the act by his parents- in bed with a black boy. Efrem s father reacts rather violently and beats Efrem up so badly that he has to be taken to hospital. Again, the role of race is rather ambiguous. Trying to determine if the father s reaction was so violent because of his son s homosexuality or his son s infatuation with a black person would be quite artificial. However, when Johnnie Ray comes to visit Efrem and the nurse does not want to admit him to the room at a time reserved only for the family, Efrem s mother tells the appalled nurse it is okay because the boys- of different races- are brothers. More importantly, the further treatment of the race issue in the novel seems to reduce the color of one s skin to a mere fetish when it is revealed that not only is the black boy Johnnie Ray obsessed with blondes, but also the white boy Efrem is deeply attracted to black men. While the treatment of sexuality and race in the novel shows some ambivalence, the main source of the city being so tight-assed (B 65) is attributed to religion, or rather, to the hypocrisy of the religious community. There are two strong religious groups, the Mormons and the Baptists, and Johnnie Ray is critical of both. He is not an atheist, but he does refuse the idea of God as- to paraphrase his words- a nice old man in a caftan who fulfills the wishes of everyone after they pray to him. His use of religion is even quite blasphemous: he uses the Twenty-third Psalm as a verbal equivalent of a cold shower and he goes to church for reasons not quite religious, either: I usually don t mind enduring a little hypocrisy for the chance to give a guy a hug and tell him I love him [in Jesus, of course]. (B 96) Johnnie Ray s criticism as well as ridicule of the community goes even further: Daniel, a Baptist preacher and a Jew converted to Christianity, decides to save Johnnie Ray after the brutal attack on Efrem. (Johnnie Ray has forgotten that he came out to Daniel a long time ago). Daniel goes to Johnnie Ray s parents and tells them that their son is gay. He also announces the diagnosis and proposes treatment: Johnnie Ray is possessed by unclean spirits 66 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 66

67 but Daniel knows a person who is able to deliver Johnnie Ray from the unclean spirits. This interpretation is more acceptable for the parents than Johnnie Ray s explanation that he is gay, he is comfortable with it and there is nothing that can be done about it. As deliverance from unclean spirits is not a very effective way of changing one s sexual orientation, Johnnie Ray ends the session by screaming out to signal that he has been delivered. His parents- earlier described as four-square Baptists - do not believe in the success of the treatment either and continue to keep a close watch over their son. The religious ritual is thus presented as a well carried-out farce. In spite of all the comedy, Johnnie Ray once again becomes connected with Shakespearean tragedy. The hypocrisy of the religious community is also reflected in the title of the novel: Blackbird is the title of Leslie Crandall s favorite song. Leslie is the only daughter of the local Baptist preacher and the long-time girlfriend of Todd Waterson. However, when Leslie gets pregnant, the family sends her out of town in order to give birth elsewhere. The child is never born and Leslie dies in the attempt to abort it with a knitting needle. The only consolation for Todd is performing the song on his guitar with Johnnie Ray singing. This does not last long, either, as Todd soon commits suicide. It needs to be said that Johnnie Ray was perhaps the only person who offered comfort to Todd after his accident with Leslie. Thus, Johnnie Ray gets a part in the real-life version of Romeo and Juliet after all - not the part of Romeo but that of Friar Lawrence. He hears his friend s confessions and tries to assist him in his difficult life situation but here is the twist: a black, gay agnostic shows affection and provides compassion while the traditional religious authorities fail completely. The double marginalization of Johnnie Ray paradoxically gives him the status of moral superiority over the community- which is something we can appreciate as observers but probably not something a teenager in this situation longs for. It is perhaps only natural that both Johnnie Ray and Efrem leave home as soon as they can. Johnnie Ray goes to study at UCLA where he finds his happiness at Gay Students Union meetings. Efrem goes to San Francisco, the gay Mecca. The two solutions seem similarmoving from a small town to a large city- yet they are fundamentally different. Johnnie Ray chooses a university environment, i.e. a place known for its open-mindedness, and mix of various influences and cultures. Efrem moves to San Francisco not because it is a large openminded metropolitan area, but because it is a gay-friendly community, regardless of the fact that the Castro district, the gay neighborhood of San Francisco, is just another ghetto, only with limits different from those of Johnnie Ray s and Efrem s community. 67 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 67

68 In conclusion, let us return to the label the first black coming-out story. The novel belongs to those coming out narratives that do not deal with coming to terms with the protagonists sexual orientation on the psychological level- both Johnnie Ray and Efrem seem to have no qualms about their gay identity whatsoever- but rather on the social level. The blackness of the story advertised in the blurb refers to a certain amount of racism in the community but again, race is not the most important issue in the novel. Yet, along with Johnnie Ray s sexual orientation, it does contribute to the protagonist s double marginalization which, rather paradoxically, makes him morally superior to the rest of the community in its effects. Bibliography: Bram, Ch., Surprising Myself. New York: D. I. Fine. Duplechan, L., Blackbird. New York: St. Martin s Press. Duplechan, L., Jr., Larry Duplechan: Author, Singer, Songwriter. < Fox, J., The Boys on the Rock. New York: St. Martin s Press. Herbs, P. H., The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias. Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press. Shakespeare, W., Romeo and Juliet. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Woods, G., A History of Gay Literature: The Male Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press. 68 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 68

69 The Clash of Cultures in Small Island Milena Vodičková Abstract: Since the early 1990s, Czech society has changed from a homogeneous one into a multicultural one. If we look for an example of what immigration brings to both the people who come to a new country and the people who they come to, then the novel Small Island by Andrea Levy can provide us with an illuminating insight into this problem. Based on the historical event when, in 1948, about 500 West Indians came to Britain to start a happy new life, the story tells us how the black immigrants were accepted by their Mother Country. Small Island, though not a history book, is a faithful account of how people thought and behaved. It tells a story of two white and two black characters who have to interact with each other, and their comments provide the reader with their personal interpretation of the situation in postwar Britain. The author of Small Island, Andrea Levy, is British, but her roots are in Jamaica. She is called a child of the Windrush as her parents came to Britain from Jamaica on the ship the Empire Windrush in Although the flashbacks in the story also take the reader back to the period before and during the war, the novel focuses especially on 1948, the year of the arrival of nearly 500 Caribbean immigrants which is considered a significant period in Britain s social history. As Mike Phillips says, Artists and writers of migrant origin, especially Afro-Caribbean, have responded to this historical platform with a new confidence and interest in exploring both their roots and the circumstances of the time. The result is a growing conversation about the effects of Caribbean migration on British identity. (1) The Jamaicans came to their Motherland and hoped that they could find a better life there. Dabydeen, D. and Wilson-Tagoe, N. explain, The Empire was coming home, claiming their rights of abode as British citizens holding British passports (1988, p. 79). Unfortunately, they were not accepted with friendly gestures, but encountered a great deal of hostility. Many white immigrants were accepted in the country, but new political parties, such as the National Front, started a campaign for the repatriation of the blacks. The mainstream parties- Labour and Conservative- passed Acts of Parliament designed to restrict and then terminate the flow of the black Commonwealth immigration. A National Act was passed which redefined the concept of nationality so as to further limit the black presence in Britain (Ibid.). 69 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 69

70 The Jamaican immigrants who came on the Empire Windrush identified themselves with their Motherland and felt that they were British, Their education followed the British system, they spoke English, read English classics, and they knew the names of English cities. They came to Britain with many dreams, which, unfortunately, were only an illusion. This is typical of the female protagonist, Hortense Joseph, who believes that she can accomplish the dream that her friend spoke about, in England I will have a big house with a bell at the front door and I will ring the bell (Levy, 2004, p. 9). Unfortunately, when she arrives in London, she rings the bell (as nobody met her on her arrival), enters the room that her husband Gilbert has rented, and her dream is shattered. She reacts with a typical scathing remark: Just this? I had to sit on the bed. My legs gave way. There was no bounce underneath me as I fell. Just this? This is where you are living? Just this? Yes, this is it. He swung these arms around again, like it was a room in a palace. Just this? Just this? You bring me all this way for just this? The man sucked his teeth and flashed angry eyes in my face. What do you expect, woman? Yes, just this! What do you expect? Everybody live like this. There has been a war. Houses bombed. I know plenty of people live worse than this. What do you want? You should stay with your mamma if you want it nice. There been a war here. Everyone live like this. He looked down at me, his badly buttoned chest heaving. The carpet was threadbare with a patch in the middle and there was a piece of bread lying on it. He sucked his teeth again and walked out of the room. I heard him banging down the stairs. He left me alone. He left me alone to stare on just this (Ibid., p. 17). Hortense is a snob who believes that her golden skin and her important father can provide her with many privileges. At least it is true in Jamaica, where she feels superior to all other people who have a darker skin. That is why she has great expectations of England, which she gets to because she married Gilbert. She does not love him, but she uses him only to fulfil her dream. But nothing is as she expected, and it is very hard for Hortense to cope with the disgusting living conditions Gilbert can provide her with. She is proud that she speaks immaculate English and can recite Shakespeare and Wordsworth. She expects that her education can ensure her a good position as a teacher. But even this is another illusion, and she is humiliated when she applies for a job in a London school. Her qualification is not valid 70 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 70

71 in England, mainly because she is black, and even her lofty English seems very strange to Londoners. As she is conscious of her appearance representing her higher class, she always tries to be elegantly dressed and never forgets to wear white gloves; unfortunately, she appears out of place in post-war London. She herself is full of prejudices. Paradoxically, she looks down on the working class Queenie, her landlady, who tries to be kind and offers her help. In an early encounter between these two women, Queenie, though she is good-natured, indicates with a rather tactless remark that Hortense has the same status as all other black immigrants. This is how Hortense comments on their meeting: Well, we could go if you like - to the pictures. And again she took my breath from me. Is this woman wanting to be friendly or is she wanting a friend? I was confused. What class of white woman was she? Well, if you want to go to the shops or anything I could show you how to use your ration book Then she looked upon me, puzzled. Can you understand what I m saying? Of course, I said quietly. Good. Well, give me a knock and I ll let you know when I m ready to go out. She then took her hand and placed it on my arm. She leaned in too close to me to whisper, It s all right. I don t mind being seen in the street with you. You will find I m not like most. It doesn t worry me to be seen out with darkies. Now, why should this woman worry to be seen in the street with me? After all, I was a teacher and she was only a woman whose living was obtained from the letting of rooms. If anyone should be shy it should be I. And what is a darkie?... (Ibid., p. 191) If Hortense is snobbish and prissy, Queenie is the opposite. She is warm and spontaneous, but uneducated and naïve. She appears in the Prologue of the novel as a young girl who displays her cultural ignorance. When she visits the British Empire Exhibition, she believes that Africans are primitive creatures who can use only drums and so she is surprised that they can speak English and that their hands are slightly sweaty like anybody else s. (Ibid., p. 5) But this happened before the war, and so her father could proudly say, See here, Queenie. Look round. You ve got the whole world at your feet, lass (Ibid., p. 6). There is a rebel streak in Queenie, which she displays when, as a daughter of a butcher, she becomes a vegetarian. To run away from her boring life in the country, she decides to marry a dull London bank clerk, Bernard Bligh. When he does not come back immediately from the war, she is not heartbroken and starts to rent rooms in her decaying house in Earls Court. Her 71 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 71

72 lodgers are black, and so when later Bernard returns, he finds wogs in his house. Queenie is open-minded, which she shows during the war. Her love relationship with the sexy West Indian Michael (by chance a boy with whom Hortense grew up and whom she loved) influences her life and the life of all the other characters involved. When, surprisingly, Queenie brings his child into the world, she decides to act very rationally and pragmatically. Being aware of the racism of British society, she knows that she cannot keep a coloured baby. Gilbert Joseph, Hortense s husband, is a man of big dreams, which unfortunately do not come true, and he must learn how to cope with harsh reality. He makes an emotional gesture and goes to war to fight for his Mother, England, who needs him. His explanation of why he did it shows how the Commonwealth countries believed that England is their Mother. Mother is a beautiful woman refined, mannerly and cultured. Mother thinks of you as her children; like the Lord above takes care of you from afar. Then one day you hear your Mother calling - she is troubled, she need your help. Your mummy, your daddy say go. Leave home, leave familiar, leave love. Shiver, tire, hunger for no sacrifice is too much to see you at Mother s needy side (Ibid., p. 116). Reality lets Gilbert down. Even in the training camp in the USA, he realizes that he is considered second-class, but paradoxically, he can enjoy some privileges because, being a subject of His Majesty King George VI, he is superior to the American black soldiers. He is told by the white American officer, You will mix with white service personnel. Have you any idea how lucky you are? You will not be treated as negroes! (Ibid., p. 108) Gilbert s cousin Elwood undermines his illusion about England as his Mother, Man, this is a white man s war. Why wanna lose your life for a white man? For Jamaica, yes. To have your own country, yes. That is worth a fight. To see black skin in the governor s house doing more than just serving at the table and sweeping the floor But do you think winning this war going to change anything for me and you? (Ibid.) When Gilbert starts living in Britain after the war he must put up with the racial and economic realities. His failures are not only dispiriting, they are frequently mixed with humorous situations. The comments of his wife Hortense, who despises him for bringing her into such poor conditions, make him appear rather feckless. But Gilbert manages to rise above 72 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 72

73 the discrimination and hate. Towards the end even Hortense must come to terms with reality, and we can see that Gilbert gains respect in her eyes. The fourth character is Bernard, Queenie s husband. He is sexually timid, and though he seems to be an honest man, he cannot overcome his racist views. The war took him to India and, unfortunately, he gets involved in a mutiny, which complicates his return home. In this case, Levy tried to embroider the plot with rather incongruous elements. When, after a delay, Bernard returns home unexpectedly, he is shocked as his house that he was so fond of is filled with lodgers from the West Indies. He reacts with words, These people have to leave. I won t have wogs in my house. (2) He believes, The war was fought so people might live amongst their own kind. Quite simple. Everyman had a place. England for the English and the West Indies for these coloured people. The British knew fair play. Leave India to the Indians. That s what we did. (No matter what a hash they make of it.) (Ibid., p. 391) The story is presented in multiple narrative voices when the characters tell the present story set in 1948, but in flashbacks they also return to the past to illuminate their previous experience. The plot then unfolds from the middle, when the characters interact in the house in Earls Court and the reader is frequently drawn into their stories, which display the shocking aspect of the racism of that time. As Phillips, M. states, her reliance gives Levy a distance which allows her to be both dispassionate and compassionate. The history also offers an opportunity to construct the characters in patient and illuminating detail. (Ibid., p. 388) The characters have their idiosyncratic ways of speaking. Levy does not try to imitate the Caribbean dialect, but she creates a style which reproduces the rhythm and content of her characters speech. Even more impressively, she does the same for her English characters. Queenie sounds like a Londoner brought up in the early part of the last century. Bernard sounds like a man who has served in the Far East. (2) The novel s title Small Island can refer to Bernard s statement after his arrival home in He felt that England had shrunk, was much smaller than before he had left, and the gaze of Gilbert let him know that he, Bernard, was a foreigner in his house. Small Island might also label Jamaica. One of Gilbert s illusions is that he believes the very opposite. We Jamaicans, knowing our island is one of the largest in the Caribbean, think ourselves sophisticated men of the world. Better than the small islanders whose universe only runs a few miles in either direction before it falls into the sea. (3) However, when he comes back from the war he realises the same as Bernard did- that the place felt like a small island. 73 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 73

74 In an interview, the author admits that the title can be applied to both Jamaica and Britain, but she adds that it also refers to the four narrators of the book, who are telling their tales, from their own perspectives and who are small islands in themselves. (4) Small Island is a book that is enjoyed by readers and also appreciated by literary critics. It is the winner of three important literary prizes in the UK- the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Whitbread Book of the Year, and the Commonwealth Writer s Prize. Notes: ,00.html ,00.html 4 Bibliography: Dabydeen, D. and Wilson-Tagoe, N A Reader s guide to West Indian and Black British Literature. London: Ruthford Press. Levy, A Small Island. London: Headline Book Publishing. < ,00.html> < 74 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 74

75 Fictions of Communion: Contemporary Scottish Prose in the Global Context Ema Jelínková Abstract: This paper seeks to examine the relevance of national identity as a category of identification in contemporary Scottish literature. Scottish authors have always attempted to reconcile distinct traditions and approaches, thus prompting their readers to identify the local within the global and vice versa. There are many authors who promote a dialogic approach to the representation of identity. This paper, however, aims to focus primarily on Muriel Spark, Janice Galloway and A. L. Kennedy. Glasgow is a magnificent city, said Kenneth McAlpin. Why do we hardly ever notice that? Because nobody imagines living here, said Thaw. McAlpin lit a cigarette and said, If you want to explain that I ll certainly listen. Then think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live here imaginatively. Imaginatively Glasgow exists as a music hall song and a few bad novels. That s all we ve given to the world outside. It s all we ve given to ourselves. (Gray, 1981, p. 243) So much for the best known quote from Alasdair Gray`s groundbreaking novel, Lanark. Two rampantly unsuccessful Glaswegian art students ponder the beauty of their home town, Glasgow, an insignificant and much neglected cultural province. Quite symbolically, McAlpin`s effusions were not inspired by the view of the city itself, but the view of the Glaswegian Necropolis, the Victorian cemetery. This outlook is quite symptomatic of the situation of Scottish literature and culture in the late 1970s and 1980s. Scottish literature used to boast more than a handful of trend setters in the past: Mackenzie, Hogg, Stevenson, Burns and Scott, all of them had an enormous impact on the literary life south of the Scottish borders and even beyond Britain. However, much changed over the course of a century. Back in the gloomy depths of the 1980s, in the wake of the referendum about the re-establishment of the Scottish parliament and devolution of political power, Scotland had to admit defeat: the nation seemed too weak to will itself into 75 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 75

76 autonomous existence. These were hardly optimistic times; Scottish literature perceived itself as a bad joke, as a mere appendix of a culture that was dead and that of a nation that failed, mentally as well as politically. Dependent, insignificant and too passive to effect any change, it remained a colony within Britain. A.L. Kennedy expressed this notion in her novel Looking for the Possible Dance. We forget our record of atrocities wherever we have been made masters and become comfortable servants again (1993, p. 146). Delusional attitudes to the national identity in the historical perspective were only partly responsible for the prevalent malaise. The Scottish inferiority complex had been established much earlier and had been permeated through sets of binary oppositions, where Scottish systematically became the repressed other of what English was not: dark as opposed to enlightened, backward as opposed to advanced, barbaric vs. civilized, parochial vs. cosmopolitan and primitive vs. sophisticated. In response, the stateless, language-less nation was cherishing and cultivating the vision of its past greatness and glory, hero worshiping Ossian, Burns, Scott and idolizing William Wallace the Braveheart - the typical Scottish hardened hero for every generation. Someone who was defiant till the end, crushed yet morally victorious, failing but doing so with flair. However, a change was in the offing. Scottish authors of the past two decades seem to have resisted the romanticized version of their past, because they comprehended it as only something that compounds the systematic erasure of self in the Scottish culture. They have responded with bitter skepticism and cynical laughter instead. Gavin Wallace coined the term novel of damaged identity to describe the emerging literary trend of hollow voices in empty houses (1993, p. 145), novels that were both tempered as well as inflamed by the tradition of Calvinistic determinism and a notion of the futility of all human effort. This attitude gave rise to books that describe the apotheosis of destruction or self-destruction, which resulted in the appearance of McAlpin s aforementioned cheap novels and culminated in the appearance of Irvine Welsh s famous (or infamous) Trainspotting. In it Welsh depicted the decimation of traditional forms of community and collective life as the network of heroin users is based on the antithesis of communal values and sharing. Trainspotting, both the book and the eponymous hobby in the title, became symbolic of the literary trend. Both activities (trainspotting and writing about trainspotting) are perceived as completely pointless; impossible and futile at the same time. Trainspotting and heroin consumption both fill in time, but otherwise nullify a person`s existence. They are both a symptom of some lack, of a deep spiritual and social crisis, of shutting out life instead of reaching out to join the community. 76 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 76

77 Whenever attempting to trace the direction the novel was taking, scholars tend to highlight the major achievement of women writers, because their voice was long absent from the Scottish house of fiction. While being marginalized because of their national identity, they were further ostracized by a male value system of Scotland that cautioned women to know their place. Providing women with a voice of their own- an original, innovative and an empowered one- implies retrieval of selfhood as well. Fiction by those pioneers can be seen as cathartic reappraisals of life (Whyte, 1995, p. 27) and their agonies symbolize those of Scotland`s history in relation to the outside world. The issue of finding a voice, overcoming self-imposed silence, blazing trails in new areas coincides with the universal trend. Consequently, contemporary Scottish fiction enables us to read the global in the local as Scottish citizens of the world have managed to appeal to a larger community, proving the above mentioned McAlpin wrong: there is more to Scottish literature than a few cheap novels addressing a dwindling readership in the parochial, neglected cultural province, an obscure spot on the map. On the contrary, Scotland has always had inspirational and ambitious artists to its credit, one of them being Muriel Spark, the most European writer Scotland has produced. Ms.Spark was praised for her dexterous and innovative way of combining and contrasting a wide range of influences. She took particular pleasure in narratives that employ the art of deliberate cunning and possess a potential for subversion. One of the devices she utilized to bring about the desired effect was aptly called Caledonian antisyzygy. This term was coined by Hugh MacDiarmid who defined it as the conjunction of opposites, a reflection of contrasts that may be applied to Scottish life and culture in general, because only Scots have such a large capacity for containing in themselves and their art elements that contradict each other. (Remember the dichotomy of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.) The Driver s Seat, one of the shortest and one of the most successful books Muriel Spark ever wrote, champions this paradoxical notion of art. The novel deals with the day leading up to the murder of a young woman named Lise. The story is based on inversion of the reader s expectations: Lise, the apparent victim, actually spends her last day searching for someone to kill her in an attempt to take the driver s seat of her destiny. The sparer, the more enigmatic the writing becomes, the more information can be transmitted to the reader at the level of deep structure. Lise, the protagonist, is proficient in the art of shouting a message while remaining silent, writing a fiction of communion while remaining alone and lonely. The novel deals not only with a Scottish, but a universal woman s predicament; with an unacknowledged, muted potential of a valuable human being going to waste because of her gender. Lise is absolutely powerless to effect any 77 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 77

78 change while still alive, so she chooses to die in a mysterious, spectacular way and thus send a telling message to the world. Needless to say, Lise achieves what she was striving for; she makes her mark on the world, reaching out to the community by the most solitary, paradoxical act of them all, dying as a scapegoat. Another virtuoso of muted screams, whose silences speak volumes is Janice Galloway, whose already contingent identity is further complicated by gender. Her literary debut, The Trick is to Keep Breathing expresses wry observations on the hypermasculine society that tends to overlook, deride and silence the other voice in conversation. All that is left for them is amnesia, quiet despair or fruitless attempts at redressing the balance. The above mentioned novel depicts the emotional trauma of Joy Stone, whose partner accidentally drowned. The dead man was married but separated, but at his funeral Joy finds herself cast into the role of mistress- someone to be expunged from the consciousness of the legitimate mourners by the words of the clergyman, Extend our sympathies, our hearts and our love, especially our love to his wife and family (Galloway, 1989, p. 79). Joy, the mistress experiences an epiphany, The Rev. Dogsbody had chosen this service to perform a miracle. He s run time backwards, cleansed, absolved and got rid of the ground-in stain. And the stain was me. I didn t exist. The miracle had wiped me out (Ibid.). Joy s emotional trauma has broader ramifications: Galloway exploits the capacity of novelistic form to articulate the individual life in relationship with a larger social system. Needless to say, the overall message is that of accusation: readers watch the protagonist, the invisible woman tumble down the spiral of insanity, because the only community and communion she can trust and respond to is the choir of voices in her own head. A.L.Kennedy, another eminent woman of letters, has dedicated much effort to writing fiction of communion; however, she seems determined to move beyond issues of gender or nationality, hoping to communicate a truth beyond nationalism and bigotry. This attitude is highlighted in Looking for the Possible Dance where Margaret Hamilton s quest for selfdefinition is set within the broader cultural problem of Scotland s subjugation to England. The eponymous dance serves as a central metaphor: a partner may enjoy the firm embrace of the other one who takes the lead and even find the firmness comforting and reassuring. Yet, there are times and places for certain things, there are times to sweep across the ballroom in a firm embrace, but there are also times to split up and start walking on one s own. Independence and autonomy may still be hard to achieve in reality, but- with still pending membership in the world of the free- Scottish women writers set up houses of fiction for themselves, not on earth but in the realm of language. It is the gift of storytelling, their 78 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 78

79 mastery of language that provides solace. Having realized that words are the only means of constructing a world of their own, Spark, Galloway and Kennedy set about creating a version of reality that makes sense and the newly empowered vision of a narrator (and creator) of their own history takes them back to the beginnings, enabling them to restore much that was lost or forgotten. Scottishness and femininity are indeed labels but all labels are ambiguous by nature, they can become source of both empowerment and restriction. The paradoxical nature of Caledonian antisyzygy helps writers to achieve empowerment through restriction. As Cairns Craig pointed out, there exists a problem of dislocation that makes a settled tradition impossible to establish (1999, p. 26). Contemporary Scottish writers have proven him wrong: no re-examination of tradition seems necessary. The last decade has ushered in a new tradition and put an end to fascination with Scottish stereotypes; universal, international concerns hold sway among the young generation of novelists and poets. Scottish literary imagination is exploring newly-enabling, exciting and more affirmative directions. Scottish literature has achieved a significant breakthrough, it escaped from solipsism and selfimposed entrapment in inarticulacy. The most recent writers, such as Louise Welsh, Zoe Strachan, Sandy McCall Smith, Ron Butlin, Ali Smith or Kate Atkinson seem unconcerned with refashioning national identity. If they happen to attempt it, they do it in a tongue-incheek, ironic, light-hearted, even flippant way (a novel entitled A Concussed History of Scotland by Frank Kupper may serve as a proof of this trend). International contemporary writing fishes in many ponds of cultural traditions, yoking numerous sources in the fashioning of a literary style that is exploratory but still conscious of its roots. After all, traditions are heterogeneous, they comprise dialectical engagement between opposing value systems, not unitary voices. The global is mirrored in the local and the Caledonian antisyzygy may serve as a very useful device in description of the nature of such literary communion. Bibliography: Christianson, A. and Lumsden, A., Contemporary Scottish Women Writers. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Craig, C., Fratricidal Twins: Scottish Literature, Scottish History and the Construction of Scottish Culture. In: Cowan, E., and Gifford, D. (eds.), The Polar Twins. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers. Galloway, J., The Trick Is to Keep Breathing. Edinburgh: Polygon. Gray, A., Lanark. Edinburgh: Canongate. 79 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 79

80 Wallace, G. and Stevenson, R Scottish Novel Since the Seventies: New Visions, Old Dreams. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kennedy, A. L., Looking for the Possible Dance. London: Secker and Warburg. White, C., Gendering the Nation: Studies in Modern Scottish Literature, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 80 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 80

81 Western Literary Canon Revisited in Thomas King s Green Grass, Running Water Pavla Buchtová Abstract: A Native American is, in Louis Owens s words, a product of literature, history and art. Readers form their ideas of what Native Americans should be like from features and deeds of Native American characters inhabiting canonical texts. No matter how sympathetic to the indigenous population the writers of those texts were, such a presentation was always done from the white man s point of view and served the white man s needs. Thomas King, a contemporary Native Canadian novelist, re-visits such canonical texts and offers surprising interpretations. It has become somewhat of a rule that scholars writing about any issue connected with Native Americans begin their discourses with an explanation of how they use the term Native American (or American Indian, or Aboriginal) and with defining their standpoint on the discussed issue. There is always the danger of generalizing too much when applying the term Native American to all North American and Canadian tribes. In his novel Green Grass, Running Water, Thomas King, a contemporary Native American/Canadian author, utilizes another term, the word Indian. Therefore, I will begin with a brief discussion of what, in King s usage as well as in general usage, the word Indian means. The structure of Green Grass, Running Water is rather complicated. There are two main narrative lines: a mythical line in which Native American mythology and storytelling meets Christian cosmology and Anglo-American literary tradition; and a realistic story line which keeps track of the life in the Canadian town of Blossom and its nearby Blackfoot reservation. Some of the characters appear in both story lines: four old Indians, who escaped from the hospital for mentally ill and wish to fix the world in the realistic part of the novel, and who are associated with the mythical women from Native American creation stories in the second story line. Also Coyote, a trickster figure, moves easily between the two stories. King s exploration of what it means to be Indian is carried on mainly in the realistic story line. One notion of indianness is frozen in history. Various characters in the novel seem to go back to history to find out what indianness means. As one might expect, all of these 81 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 81

82 charecters are white. In one episode, for example, Sifton, a white dam builder, argues with Eli Stands Alone, a Blackfoot: Besides, you guys aren t real Indians anyway. I mean, you drive cars, watch television, go to hockey games. Look at you. You are a university professor. That s my profession. Being Indian isn t a profession. And you speak as good English as me. Better, said Eli. And I speak Blackfoot too. My sisters speak Blackfoot. So do my niece and nephew. That s what I mean. Latisha runs a restaurant and Lionel sells televisions. Not exactly traditionalists, are they? It s not exactly the nineteenth century, either (King, 1994, p. 155). This notion of indianness imbedded in history has its roots in the romantic concept of Native Americans as noble savages. Because the concept of noble savage refers to a man living outside civilization, authentic indianness must also lie outside civilization, not in running restaurants, selling TV sets, or lecturing at universities. Another sphere in which the concept of indianness has been hatched and through which it is maintained is literature and movies. In the realistic story line King discusses mainly Westerns, both books and films, with their fixed rules about Indian characters and Indian fate. The notions and images of Indians coming from books and movies are internalized by Native Americans themselves and they produce sometimes absurd situations: For example, Portland Looking Bear, a Blackfoot, made a career in the movie industry; however, because his nose did not look indian enough, he was to wear a rubber nose. Due to this handicap, however, he could not play the Indian leads, such roles were given to his friend, an Italian, who looked more Indian. King s novel shows the absurdity of sticking to this stereotyped concept and also indicates that the notion of the indiannes was conceived in the minds of the whites who projected into it their own ideas of what Indian should be. Throughout history the whites, whether sympathetic or hostile toward Native Americans, ignored the variety of Native American ways of living, customs and beliefs that differed from tribe to tribe, and developed a set of features and values that according to them were typically Indian. These stereotypes have survived up until the present time. Louis Owens, a contemporary Native American scholar and writer, observes that many people throughout the world have a strangely concrete sense of what a real Indian should be (1994, p. 3). 82 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 82

83 In the Czech Republic, for example, there is an Indian movement, the followers call themselves White Indians and stress returning to nature and living in harmony with nature. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, but it raises a question: Why is the idea of going back to nature connected first and foremost with the Indian way of life? If the Czech White Indians looked a few centuries back in the history of the Czech lands at the way the majority of people lived, they would also see people living in harmony with nature. The Czech Indians offer an answer. When asked by a TV reporter about the sources of their fascination, nearly all of them stated that it began in their childhood while reading adventure stories. Such an acknowledgement corresponds with Louis Owens s claim that the Indian in today s world consciousness is a product of literature, history, and art, and a product that, as an invention, often bears little resemblance to actual, living Native American people (Ibid., p. 4). Up until the 1970s, nearly all the novels featuring Native American characters were written by non-native American authors. When the Czech White Indians were speaking of adventure stories, they very probably meant Karl May s novels- the adventures about Winnetou, the Red Gentleman, written by a German writer who had never been to the USA. One can find innumerous other examples among US literary classics, too: John Smith and his account of Pocahontas, James Fenimore Cooper s Leatherstocking series, Injun Joe in Mark Twain s Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Longfellow s Hiawatha and many others. This course of events changed in 1968 with the publication of House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday, the Kiowa author. The publication of his novel triggered the need of Native Americans to tell their stories from their point of view, and marked the beginning of the so- called Native American Renaissance which was characterized by immense literary production. Native Americans designed their own fates, different from those designed by the whites. They drew from both their everyday experience and from their tribal traditions and myths. This body of new literature, however, just complemented the general literary production and the authority of the canonical written texts, including those depicting Indians from the white man s point of view, remained unshaken. Thomas King chose a different approach. He does not just tell his story, he also retells the white men s stories, the stories that invented Indians. In Green Grass, Running Water, King re-visits several Euro-American literary classics, namely radio and TV series about The Lone Ranger, Herman Melville s Moby Dick, Daniel Defoe s Robinson Crusoe, and James Fenimore Cooper s The Last of the Mohicans, and rewrites them from the Native American point of view. 83 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 83

84 The mythical line of the novel is in fact an unceasing confrontation between Native American and Euro-American traditions. Native tradition is represented by creation stories, coming from different tribal sources, featuring First Woman, Changing Woman, Thought Woman and Old Woman. Euro-American tradition is represented by several biblical stories and western canonical narratives. The story of creation and encounter is told four times altogether, each time with different variations and different encounters, by one of the old Indians; first with the Lone Ranger, then Ishmael, Robinson Crusoe and finally Hawkeye. The four old Indians, the main characters of the novel, who, in the realistic story line, escaped from the mental institution and wish to fix the world, also fix, among other things, one western movie, so that in it Indians win the final battle over white cowboys and a cavalry of white soldiers. Thomas King s intention in Green Grass, Running Water corresponds in fact with the intention of the four Indians: they wish to fix the world and they do so by changing the movies. Thomas King also wants to fix the world and he does so by changing the canonical Euro-American literary works. The first story Thomas King fixed was The Lone Ranger, once an immensely popular radio and later TV series about the Lone Ranger and his Indian helpmate Tonto. In the very first Lone Ranger radio series a group of Texas rangers pursue Butch Cavendish, a criminal, but are tricked into an ambush and nearly all are killed. Tonto, an Indian, finds dead rangers and also finds out that one of them survived the massacre. The survivor, eager to fight injustice, starts wearing a mask and assumes the identity of the Lone Ranger. The portrayal of Tonto was frequently criticized by Native Americans, for he is described as not very bright, unable to speak in grammatically correct English, blindly following his friend, the Lone Ranger. In Green Grass, Running Water, King offers a different version of the story. The story is narrated by the Lone Ranger, one of four old Indians, who tells a story of creation featuring First Woman: First Woman falls out of the sky into water and together with grandmother Turtle they make some land out of mud. Then she makes a garden and lives there with Ahdamn (who suddenly appears out of nowhere) for some time until GOD appears there. Since GOD behaves in too bossy a manner, First Woman and Ahdamn decide to leave the garden. They go west until they reach a canyon and at the bottom of the canyon they discover dead rangers. At that moment several live rangers appear and inquire who killed the rangers. They suspect the murderers were Indians and examine First Woman and Ahdamn with suspicion. First Woman takes black cloth, makes two holes into it and puts the cloth around 84 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 84

85 her head. The rangers recognize the Lone Ranger in her, and want to kill at least Ahdamn. First Woman saves him by saying that he is her Indian friend Tonto. Thus in King s version, the smart and brave Lone Ranger is in fact an Indian woman from a Native American creation story, wearing a mask as a kind of protection against the whites. Here King made use of the fact that Lone Ranger in the original version was never seen without a mask and was also a master of disguise: he used various disguises in order to get somewhere unobtrusively. The next story that King fixed was Melville s Moby Dick. Predictably, he focused on the characters of Ishmael and Queequeg. Though Melville s Queequeg does not possess such pejorative qualities as Tonto and his character even offers an alternative cultural view on dominant Western values, his fate is clear from the very beginning of the novel and is not a very desirable fate. As one might expect, King refuses this kind of fate and offers his version of the story, narrated by another old Indian, Ishmael. This time Changing Woman falls out of the sky and lands on a canoe with lots of animals and one little man in it. The man, called Noah, constantly harasses Changing Woman and she keeps resisting. So Noah gets angry and leaves the woman on an island. One day a ship sails by and its captain, Ahab, invites Changing Woman aboard. One member of the crew, Ishmael, wants her to become Queequeg because the ship needs one, and the woman seemingly agrees. When the woman finds out that the crew kill whales, she is irritated, jumps into water and rides on the back of the whale, Moby Jane, to Florida. Unfortunately, there are soldiers on the seacoast. They grab the woman and inquire who she is. To protect herself, and perhaps to save her life, she uses the phrase she overheard on board the ship: Call me Ishmael, says Changing Woman (King, 1994, p. 249). The course of events in the two remaining stories is similar to King s retelling of Moby Dick. In King s version of Robinson Crusoe, Thought Woman first meets a biblical figure, A. A. Gabriel, and then a literary figure, Robinson Crusoe. Robinson cheers up because he believes the woman is Friday and as a civilized white man, it has been difficult not having someone of color around whom [he] could educate and protect (King, 1994, p. 325). This time Thought Woman does not adopt only Robinson s name, but also his way of thinking. King s Robinson is a writer of lists, not novels. He categorizes things around him into two columns: good ones and bad ones: Under the bad points, I have been shipwrecked on this island for years.... Under the good points, says Robinson Crusoe, I haven t argued with anyone in all that time N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 85

86 Under the bad points, says Robinson Crusoe, all my clothes have worn out until I have nothing to wear.... Under the good points, says Robinson Crusoe, the climate is so mild and pleasant, I do not need clothes (Ibid., p. 325). Later on, when Thought Woman gets bored with Robinson and floats away, she meditates: Under the bad points, says Thought Woman, I am floating away with nothing to do. Under the good points, I do not have to make any decisions. Under the bad points, says Thought Woman, I have no one to talk to. Under the good points, it is very quiet and peaceful (Ibid., p. 360). Thought Woman s ability to adopt practices of other people evokes the appropriative and syncretic quality of Native American culture. Contrary to remaining frozen in the 18th or 19th centuries, Native Americans were accepting stimuli from the outside and incorporated them into their tribal traditions and customs, thus keeping the culture alive. The last fixed story is Cooper s The Last of the Mohicans. King s character Hawkeye tells the story of Old Woman who falls from the sky into the water and meets first Young Man Walking on Water, then floats further till she reaches a lake, walks ashore and meets another man, Nasty Bumppo, looking for his friend Chingachgook. Because Old Woman insists she is not Chingachgook, and Nasty Bumppo is in the mood to kill someone, he loads his rifle, aims it at Old Woman, and shoots. However, it is Nasty Bumppo who gets killed. At that moment an Indian, Chingachgook, appears, and then soldiers. The soldiers inquire who killed Nasty Bumppo but this seems a mystery as no one has a rifle except Nasty Bumppo. The soldiers want to know at least their names, using a book to check the names. Chingachgook passes, the name of Old Woman is not mentioned in the book, so she finally assumes another name: Hawkeye. The encounters of the two different worlds, Native American on one side and Christian and Euro-American on the other side, end with an inability to find a shared agreement. The biblical characters want others to stick to their rules and are not willing to accept Native American points of view. The literary characters scope of comprehension is limited by the printed versions of their stories, they must constantly check the books to comprehend the situation around them and therefore they are not able to accept other stories and points of view either. 86 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 86

87 These encounters, however, seem profitable for the mythical women from Native American creation stories, who observe and adopt some manners from the characters they meet which enables them to comprehend and survive in the world dominated by the whites. If we understand culture as a living organism, accepting new impulses from other cultures, evolving and vital, then it is certainly not the Native American culture that is frozen in history and doomed to vanish. Bibliography: King, T., Green Grass, Running Water. NY: Bantam Books. Owens, L., Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 87 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 87

88 The Importance of Fighting Evil in the Novel Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver Mária Kiššová Abstract: In the novel Wolf Brother the story is centred on the universal conflict of good versus evil and the universal theme of fighting evil. The first part of the paper analyses the child reader s experience of the story and its importance for the child s development and creating a values system. The second part of the paper brings the analysis of evil characters and their motivation. Freud s and Bandura s theories of the origin of evil in human nature illustrate what forces lead people to do evil. Both theories are applied to the motivation of evil characters in the novel. The conflict between good and evil and the importance of fighting evil belong among the global (affecting all) themes of literature. They can be found in all cultures and literatures beginning with myths, ancient epics, medieval sagas to modern novels of adventure and the contemporary boom of fantasy and mythic novels. The concept of evil- expressing what is bad and thus forbidden and dangerous- is important for setting up moral values in each society or culture. The topic of fighting evil is truly complex and offers the possibility to be studied from different perspectives. This paper deals with the importance of fighting evil in the novel Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver. It discusses the issue from different perspectives. After a brief introduction to the novel and its genre, the first perspective focuses on the importance of fighting evil for a child s psyche and its development. The question of how and why this novel can help build the identity of a child will be analysed. The second involves the analyses of evil characters in the novel applying two psychological theories of Freud and Bandura since they are essential for the interpretation of the characters motivation. Though these are psychological theories, they offer a very challenging and interesting background for the analysis of the book. I am aware of the fact that there are several other theories on the presence of evil in the human character (Fromm, Lorenz etc.). However, I consider the above mentioned most essential because they highly contribute to the understanding of the concept of evil in the analysed book. The novel Wolf Brother is the first part of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series by Michelle Paver. The stories are centred on Torak, a 12-year-old boy living a few thousand 88 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 88

89 years ago in the pre-historic age of clans, dark enchantment, superstitions and wild nature. Torak, with his wolf companion, is predestined to fight evil and save the people of his world. In terms of its genre, the stories have features similar to other works classified as being of the heroic fantasy genre. Veglahn defines heroic fantasy as stories in which a young human protagonist struggles against evil forces, either in an imagined world or in a situation where the supernatural intrudes upon the real world (1987, p. 108). In Wolf Brother Torak struggles against evil which is represented by the demon-possessed bear in a world where magic is alive and drives humans, animals and the plant kingdom. The life of pre-historic people is deeply rooted in religious thinking (personified nature, people and animals possessed by demons) and a mythical perception and explanation of the world. The explanation and specific understanding of evil phenomena is typical for people of the world of that time. The novel Wolf Brother also bears the characteristics of a mythic novel. However, it is essential to point out that the terms heroic fantasy and mythic novel overlap so often and to such an extent that it is difficult to choose just one term to characterize it completely and properly. For instance, in both genres there is the journey representing life s progress that the main character has to make, then a tutelary figure or some unexpected aid which helps the protagonist to defeat the powers of darkness, etc. Torak s victorious adventure stories are based on his encounters with different forms of evil which he manages to overpower. What makes the books remarkable is the quality of high authenticity in terms of details from the fields of natural history, anthropology, religion and the life of pre-historic hunters and gatherers in general. It makes the series quite unique among other books of the heroic fantasy genre which are set in altogether made up worlds of fantasy. Paver s books are based on deep research, expeditions, study and living experience which make the novels truly authentic. The author documents her deep research in the final book notes and also on her webpage (1). As it was already mentioned, literary tradition and history has been depicting the fight between good and evil from its dawn. For setting the moral values of life, it is inevitable to distinguish between the two concepts of good and evil. As Fuller points out, Good and evil are concepts that represent the essential rules of behaviour without which no society can survive (1999). In terms of man s life progress; childhood is the time which is crucial for establishing cultural and moral codes in the human psyche. In already clichéd words, a child establishes his identity through this moral values acquisition process, through the experience of the outside world, observing other people s behaviour and its consequences, but the child also gains knowledge of what is good and what is bad through interpretive literary experience. 89 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 89

90 In other words, the child needs some models to root and to confirm its experience. Fuller conducted a research study which proved that identification with the good guys, and the desire to be more like them produced strikingly positive personality changes (1999). As Spalova in her study suggests, it is also very important that through the good-evil conflict a child learns to deal with anxiety and fear and comes to terms with them (2005, p. 67). The child learns how to manage encounters with problem situations and how to solve them. Fuller also supports this by stressing the importance of stories about fighting evil: The preoccupation of children with stories about good and evil represents a healthy preoccupation. It is the child s way of gaining control of himself and his world. With such control, knowing that he is not helpless since he has controlled at least some of the baddies within himself, the world is less scary (1999). Analysing the concept of evil in Wolf Brother, we can ask the question of how this book specifically can help the child build his identity. The reader s experience (here we imply about a 12-year-old child as the reader) is based on unavoidable identification with Torak. Getting to know Torak s concept of values, the reader acquires them, too. Torak himself is a child who learns what is good and what is bad. His father explains to Torak how to survive in wild nature, what rituals to perform after killing the prey, but he also gives him instructions and some advice on social life when he warns Torak of other clans. His father is an authority who introduces Torak to the Law. The Law is sacred and breaking it transgresses the natural stability and harmony of life. Breaking the Law causes evil. This can be very clearly seen in various situations when the appearance of evil results from breaking the Law that all should keep. For instance, there is the right to kill only to get food or the Law that the Forest belongs to all. Demon s evil nature lies in his killing all alive in the Forest for pleasure. The young beech tree was still moaning, but it hadn t long to live. The bear had reared on its hind legs to vent its fury: snapping off the entire top of the tree, ripping away the bark in long bleeding tatters, and slashing deep gouges high on the trunk. (Paver, 2004, p. 100) Demon also breaks the sacred law that the prey must be treated with respect. That was the age-old pact between the hunters and the World Spirit. Hunters must treat prey with respect, and in return the Spirit would send more prey (Ibid., p. 42). The reader learns that to break the law brings evil and evil will be punished. The tension of the story also lies in the expectation that evil will be punished and will suffer. At the end the demon-possessed bear and Hord die after being killed by the World Spirit. The reader feels catharsis when evil is condemned to nothingness. Hord had paid with his life. The bear was an empty husk, for the Spirit had banished the demon to the Otherworld. Perhaps the bears own souls would now be at peace, after their long 90 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 90

91 imprisonment with the demon. Torak had fulfilled his oath to Fa. He had given the Nanuak to the World Spirit- and the Spirit had destroyed the bear (Ibid., p. 231). The child reader perceives and learns that good wins, though the victory needed sacrifice in the form of the loss of a friend. From this point of view, the novel has also an educative character praising values such as understanding, friendship, loyalty, love which are valid as a cultural heritage. The child learns how Torak behaves and since Torak is the hero, it is natural that the child wants to imitate him. Torak s fighting evil thus forms the child s values system and helps build his principles of understanding what is right and what is wrong. As it has been already suggested, the process of experiencing the good-evil conflict is necessary for a child s psyche and it influences his establishment of identity. Since evil forces are presented in various forms and they result from different motivational drives in the novel, it is also important to illustrate various concepts and motivation for evil which the reader finds. I present just a few examples which I also try to comment on and illustrate why they are interpreted as evil. In Wolf Brother there are basically two kinds of evil characters who differ in their nature of evil but also in the motivation that leads them to do evil. The first type is evil of supernatural origin. (I put the character of Demon here because though he is created by man, Demon is of supernatural origin). Its powers are rooted in magic and it is perceived as having an evil essence. The second type is represented by negative characters (people) whose evil behavior is motivated by the desires typical for people acting from hatred for a vision of power. Evil of supernatural origin: Demon It represents the embodiment of evil and it is also the most destructive power in the story. Demon s evil nature lies in that demons hate all living things, and sometimes escape from the Otherworld, rising out of the ground to cause sickness and havoc (Paver, 2004, p. 32). It originates when someone loses a clan soul. The Walker explains that if you die and lose your name-soul, then you re a ghost, and you forget who you are.but if you lose your clan-soul, then what s left is a demon (Ibid., p. 131). No clan-soul, and you re a demon. The raw power of the Nanuak, but with no clan feeling to tame it; just the rage that something s been taken from you. That s why they hate the living (Ibid.). It is important to emphasize that in Wolf Brother we do not encounter the evil plotter; we meet only his evil tool spreading evil. 91 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 91

92 The Hidden People; The Watchers These are Nanuak protectors. They want to kill Torak because he wants to take part of Nanuak from them. The reader interprets them as evil, but he is aware that it is evil somehow distanced from the human world if people do not endanger them. Words describing them evoke a very unpleasant feeling, though not as negative as that of demon. Hair like green waterweed trailed across his throat. Cruel faces leered at him with merciless white eyes. Come to us! called the Hidden People of the river. Let your souls float free of that dull, heavy flesh! (Ibid., p. 109, underlined by the author of the paper) Very bad. The killing earth that gulps and swallows. The Watchers everywhere. They see you, but you don t see them. Not till it s too late (Ibid., p. 134, underlined by the author of the paper). Evil in human characters: Hord He represents a traditionally stereotypical bad character. His character, motivation and behaviour make him evil. When the reader encounters him for the first time, he represents the change of Forest rules which causes future hatred and conflicts. He accuses Torak of being a thief when he hunts in the part of Forest claimed to be another clan s territory, and so Torak should be killed for that. He is a real egoist, abandoning a sister when she disappoints him by fleeing the clan with Torak. You re no longer my sister. WE thought you were dead when we found your quiver in the stream. Fin-Kedinn didn t speak for three days, but I didn t grieve. I was glad. You betrayed your clan, and you shamed me. I wish you were dead (Ibid., p.198). He cannot stand it if someone is better than him. He envies Torak being the Listener. Your part in this is finished, he told Torak. I will take the Nanuak to the Mountain. I will offer the blood of the Listener to save my people (Ibid., p.199). The Soul-Eaters The Soul-Eaters represent people who possess very strong powers, but could not bring their skills under control. First, they all help their clans as healers. However, they only Deceived themselves into believing that they wished only to do good; to cure sickness, guard against demons (Ibid., p.212). After they realize their powers they soon drifted into evil, warped by their hunger for power (Ibid., p.212). The desire to have overwhelming power is stronger than their will to help people. Again the law they broke brought evil. The Soul- Eaters had conjured a demon from the Otherworld; they had loosed a monster on the Forest. They had broken the pact. Why should the Spirit help the clans, when some among them had been so wicked? (Ibid., p. 223) The Wanderer 92 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 92

93 In Wolf Brother he is an enigmatic evil character, one of the Soul-Eaters. His identity is hidden and the reader knows only that he conjures a demon to kill his worst enemy- Torak s father. The appearance of evil is again expressed with the act of breaking the law, the pact; so when the crippled murderer made the bear, he broke the pact, because he made a creature that kills without purpose. He angered the World Spirit (Ibid., p. 102). The Walker The Walker is a stereotypical bad character who wants to kill Renn and Torak because he thinks they bring harm to the forest. In the same way as with the Hidden People or the Watchers his description evoke disgust and loathing, everything about him seemed to be rotting: from his empty, festering eye socket to his toothless black gums, and his shattered nose, from which hung a loop of greenish-yellow slime (Ibid., p.128, underlined by the author of the paper). To analyse the motivation for evil in the characters mentioned it is essential to introduce theories which explain the origin of evil in human nature. I will present two theories- Freud s and Bandura s. Freud s psychoanalytical theory speaks about two basic instincts rooted in human nature. The first one is the instinct of life- EROS, the other is the instinct of death- TANATOS. The instinct of life helps to get food; it reproduces and loves. TANATOS is the opposing force. Zelina analyses Freud s theory (2006, p. 34) and explains that TANATOS is the energy which may be directed against: 1. the person himself (self-destruction) 2. the environment in which the person lives (against nature, material things) 3. other people (physical harm, hatred, betrayal) Freud claims that evil in human nature is innate; however, he is not completely pessimistic. In his view education is crucial for mastering one s drives and instincts. One of the typical features of the genres of mythic novel and heroic fantasy is that since they are flat, characters can be very easily classified as representing good or evil. That is why the two above mentioned instincts can be clearly distinguished. We can even say that goodness and evil are distinguished to such an extent that it is possible to state which characters stand mainly for EROS and which for TANATOS in the novel. To simplify it further we can draw parallels between the terms EROS = good characters and TANATOS = bad characters. Thus the energy of EROS is represented by Torak, Torak s father, Renn, Saeunn and Nature in general. Obviously the strongest EROS is expressed in Torak s mission to kill Demon and save all life in the Forest as it is the plot of the story. Demon, supernatural 93 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 93

94 Watchers and Hidden People and of course Hord, the Soul-Eaters, the Wanderer and the Walker represent TANATOS. Their energy aims at destroying the world around them; the environment (Nature) and also people. Their motivation is the power/will to rule. This is shown basically through their will to kill, to eliminate the enemy for ever. Through the application of Freud s theory, I wanted to imply a psychological explanation of evil in human nature. Since Freud uses two instincts to explain the notion of evil (a dualistic approach), it is interesting to find the very typical dualistic character of mythic stories in the novel (good versus bad) where it is explicit what/who stands for good and what/who for bad. Bandura s theory of frustrated aggression suggests that a man who is frustrated because of unfulfilled needs or whose way to an aim is blocked, or who is troubled with a stressful situation, experiences unpleasant emotions (Zelina, 2006, p. 37, translated by the author of the paper). It means that the person reacts to get rid of the frustration. There are many ways how a frustrated person could behave. One of them is with aggressive behaviour (also depicted in the Wolf Brother story). The frustration causes aggression mainly in people who receive a sort of reward for their behaviour. This theory can be clearly applied to two characters representing evil; namely Hord and the Wanderer. Hord feels frustrated because he loved being the centre of attention (Paver, 2004, p. 60). Once this place belongs to somebody else (Torak), he feels insecure and wants to be the best again. His motivation to do evil is rooted in his desire to lead, be in charge and rule. There are a few similarities between Hord and the Wanderer. The Wanderer s motivation is also rooted in the desire to rule. Since he possesses supernatural powers, his acts also result in broader consequences. He is able to kill anybody to get what he wants- the death of Torak. Both Hord and the Wanderer represent people who suffer from an inferiority complex. They both are challenged to face someone stronger, both fail. Their desire to be praised, celebrated, even glorified is not fulfilled. They suffer and want revenge. Application of this theory also explains the supernatural evil in the story which actually comes from the Wanderer- the frustrated being, unable to find harmony and peace in his heart. In conclusion we summarize the most important findings of the three parts of the paper. In the novel Wolf Brother the story is centred on the universalal conflict of good versus evil and the universal theme of fighting evil. The first part of the paper analyses the child reader s experience of the story and its importance for the child s development and creation of a system of values. Through Torak s experiences the child learns universal values and distinguishes the notions of good and evil. The evil characters of the novel can be divided into two categories: human characters and supernatural characters. Supernatural evil characters 94 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 94

95 are: the Demon, the Hidden People and the Watchers. Human characters representing evil are Hord, the Soul-Eaters, the Wanderer and the Walker. Two theories of the origin of evil in human nature illustrate what forces lead people to do evil. In the novel the dualistic distinction between the instincts of EROS and TANATOS is represented by good and bad characters. Bandura s theory of frustrated aggression very clearly explains the characters motivation to do evil which is based on their need to get rid of their complex through evil acts. Notes: 1 see Bibliography: Fuller, R.: Understanding Good and Evil in Children s Literature. New Horizons for Learning Available at [22nd January 2007] Hunt, P., Children s Literature. The Development of Criticism. London and New York: Routledge. Kohák, E., Človek, dobro a zlo. Praha: Ježek, Paver, M., Wolf Brother. London: Orion Children s Books. Paverová, M., Brat vlk. Nitra: Enigma. Saxby, M.: Myth and Legend. In: Peter Hunt (ed.), International Companion Encyclopaedia of Children s Literature London and New York: Routledge. pp Spálová, L.: Význam rozprávky pri zvládaní úzkosti a strachu u dieťaťa predškolského veku. In: Žilková, M., Stav kultúry pre deti a mládež. Nitra: FF UKF, pp Veglahn, N.: Male and Female Monsters in Heroic Fantasy. In: Butler, F. (ed.), Children s Literature Volume 15; Annual of the Modern Language Association Division on Children s Literature and the Children s Literature Association.. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp Zelina, M.: Psychoanalýza zla. In: Revue Bibiana, XIII. ročník, 1/ pp N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 95

96 A New Historicism Approach to Literary Studies in the Globalization Age Ján Bajánek Abstract: The paper deals with the characterization of the new historicism approach to literary studies in the age of globalization. It presents a brief survey of the known approaches of new historicism both from a positive and negative perspective. The main purpose of the new historicism approach to literary studies in the age of globalization lies in its focus on the concept of a cross-global/cultural communication and understanding. In the context of the new historicism approach the matters of political, social, cultural, and other relevant discourses are interrelated within an imaginative literary discourse analysis. This approach points to a common societal power relations environment of various discourses within a new historicism and cultural studies analysis of an imaginative literary work of art. An Introduction New Historicism has been built on several key premises with perhaps an implicit mission to address key issues of cross-cultural understanding among various countries by means of a new historical interpretation of imaginative literature in the age of globalization, both synchronically and diachronically. A Brief Characterization of the New Historicism Approach The new historicism approach primarily assumes that images and narratives do important cultural work. They function as a kind of workshop where cultural problems, hopes, and obsessions are addressed or avoided. The new historicism approach also argues that the best framework for interpreting literature is to place it in its historical context. Its goal is to determine what contemporaneous issues, anxieties, and struggles the work of literature reflects, distorts or tries to correct. The new historicism approach further tries to relate interpretive problems of personal actions, such as of the main character Robert Jordan from Hemingway s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940); asking why the protagonist forsakes his mission and marries Maria instead of going out to get annihilated in action, in what he must know in anticipation to be a vain effort and lost fight. 96 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 96

97 The new historicism approach tries to relate cultural-historical problems in literature with history and vice versa, such as various contemporary debates about the role of church in relation to a personal and non-institutional belief and faith in God in terms of a real meaning of the Holy Grail, purgatory, resurrection, reincarnation, and salvation, and the anxieties about what constitues legitimacy in the church, the monarchy, and succession to the throne, as implied through major themes of Dan Brown s novel The Da Vinci Code (2003). New Historicism tends to stress that writers and poets are not secular saints. Even though they may be more cautious about their societies than the average citizen, they nevertheless participate in it and sometimes petrify its political and ideological priorities- for example, the time-serving authors of the 1950 s McCarthy witch-hunt era in the United States, the time-serving authors of the former totalitarian Soviet satellite states, and the timeserving authors of the former British Empire. As a result, New Historicism frequently points out places in artists works and lives where their attitudes do not express our own, or may even appear controversial. However, New Historicism tends to reduce literature to a footnote of history, and neglects the uniquely literary quality of the work in question. New Historicism also lacks a theory of history (Jameson, 1981). It has the tendency to paraphrase the bumpsticker it just happens without explaining why it happens in the way it does and who is affected (Ibid.). At its worst, New Historicism emphasizes a connection of literature with politics which resembles a good guy-bad guy criticism (Veeser, 1994), where critics praise artists for their progressive views and chastize them for reactionary ones, instead of accepting that cultures have problems, those problems are complicated, and we learn from how artists have tried to grapple with those problems without giving them a report card. Stephen Greenblatt (1980, 1988) has been the guiding force in New Historicism. As is well known, his writing has been in the field of Renaissance studies. Following in his footsteps, the period of the 1980s generated a great deal of New Historicism. It has since become important in the criticism of medieval, and nineteenth century British and American literature and it is working its way into criticism of modernist literature and eighteneeth century literature as well. However, postmodernism, by its very nature, tends to have identifiable, but often obscure connections to contemporary history, challenging new historicist critics to be extemely sophisticated about how history is represented in a postmodernist work. 97 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 97

98 According to a definition of Hendersen and Brown (1997), New Historicism is a mode of analysis that sees history as a form of writing, discourse, or language. New Historicism abandons any notion of history as an imitation of events in the world or a reflection of external reality. Instead, it regards history as a type of narrative with gaps or ruptures between epistemes- modes of thought and ways of knowing that characterize a given historical moment. New Historicism is also an approach to texts that pays particular attention to their historical situation, not merely as a decorative backdrop to the real work, but as an integral part of it, or even as a kind of text itself (Veeser, 1994). One of the recurring themes of new historical theory is that we cannot divide the world into texts in the foreground and history in the background, because they are always mixed up with one another. It is not easy to distinguish New Historicism from older historicism. New historicist critics often take the older historically grounded critics to task for their assumption that there is such a thing as a unified and overarching world view for any age, but while some of the less able historicists are guilty of that sort of heavy-handedness, some of the better ones get a bad rap. The name most often associated with New Historicism, as mentioned above, is Stephen Greenblatt, the critic of Renaissance literature, though he has rejected the term. New historicism often borrows from Marxist criticism and cultural studies. An Advanced Example of a New Historicism Approach As an example of an influential new historicism approach, the Gospel of Mark as interpreted by Stephen Moore (1992, in Robbins, 1996) is especially important because it introduces a socio-rhetorical criticism. Moore uses the word chiasmus when referring to the word cross. A cross is also a chiasmus, he says, when he introduces The Gospel According to Mark 8:35 (Moore, 1992:95, in Robbins, 1996): Whoever would save their life will lose it, is changed to Whoever loses their life...will save it. This is an important moment for socio-rhetorical criticism because chiasmus is another way to overcome binary oppositions, a means of regulation used by the new historicism. Reciprocity between Jewish and Greco-Roman culture in the Gospel of Mark stands at the foundation of analysis and interpretation in Jesus the Teacher (Moore, 1992, in Robbins, 98 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 98

99 1996). In Stephen Greenblatt s terms, there is reciprocal energy exchanged by two phenomena, and the exchange is not simple but highly complex (Thomas, in Veeser, 1994). To describe relations between texts and society, therefore, new historicists use a chiasmus like: the social dimension of an aesthetic strategy and the aesthetic dimension of a social strategy. For socio-rhetorical criticism, this introduces four chiasmic statements which are at work in each aspect of texture in a text. The four statements are as follows: a. Inner texture: the textual culture of religion and the religious culture of text, b. Intertexture: the intertextuality of bibilical discourse and the discourse of biblical intertextuality, c. Social and cultural texture: the sociological and anthropological culture of religion and the religious culture of sociology and anthropology, d. Ideological texture: the ideological texture of intellectual discourse and the intellectual texture of ideological disourse (Thomas, in Veeser, 1994). These complicated socio-rhetorical statements of the socio-rhetorical new historicism approach could be very efficiently applied, for example, in a Christian civilization crisis analysis of the highly provocative, topical and controversial messages of the recent novel by Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code (2003). Each chiasmus turns the intial formulation back onto itself in a manner that raises decisive issues about any mode of interpretation of a text. Every interpretation of a text requires the interpreter to use a mode of discourse. Every mode of interpretive discourse is ideological, but it is not only ideological. All interpretive discourse both reinscribes some aspects of the discourse in the text and enacts an influential mode of discourse in its own time and place. To put it another way, every interpreter acts out both an interpretive role the text has scripted, even dramatized, in advance, and an interpretive role influential discourse in his or her own time and place has authorized and dramatized (Anderson, in Malpas, 2001). In still other words, the ideological nature of all interpretation manifests itself in the interplay between the choice of dimensions of the text the interpreter reinscribes. Let us briefly explore this in relation to each chiastic statement above. Investigations of inner texture act out some configuration of repetition, progression, opening-middle-closing, narration, argumentation and/or aesthetic in the text itself. Yet every interpretation adopts an interpretive role that uses one or more currently available modes of 99 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 99

100 intellectual discourse such as literary, linguistic, narratological, rhetorical, philosophical, theological or aesthetic discourse. On the one hand, the challenge as stated in the chiasmus above is that Christianity is one of those religions that have created a textual culture that claims to present authentic discourse, perhaps the only authentic discourse, about God. On the other hand, it is the nature of a text itself to create a religious culture about itself- texts both authorize their own view of the world and create the need for their own discourse. Analysis and interpretation of the inner texture of New Testament texts, then, occur in a space of interplay between Christianity as a religion that authorizes itself through the thought and action it advocates in its texts and biblical texts as a form of discourse in which narrational voices evoke religious authority for themselves and create a need for their religious discourse. The ideological dimensions of inner textual analysis and interpretation play out some configuration of the authority and needs created by the text, and the authority and needs in the discourse the interpreter chooses from his or her contemporary culture. Investigations of intertexture play out, in one way or another, an interaction between the history, texts, cultures and social situations and institutions biblical texts evoke and the history, texts, cultures and social situations and institutions interpretations of biblical texts regularly evoke. In other words, individual biblical texts evoke canons, canons within canons and near canons for their intertextuality. In the context of this multiple display of intertextures, interpreters evoke canons, canons within canons and near canons for their own interpretive discourse. The ideological nature of a particular intertextual interpretation, then, lies in the interplay between the intertextures of the biblical text it is reinscribing and the intertexture in the intellectual discourse the interpreter has chosen to analyze and interpret this intertexture. Investigations of social and cultural texture configure one or more social and cultural roles the religious text has scripted and one or more roles sociology and anthropology have authorized as important and/or definitive. The ideological nature of analyses and intepretation of social and cultural texture lies in the interplay between the selection of special, common and final social and cultural topics and categories in the discourse and the selection of models, typologies, theories and modes of analysis and explanation from the social sciences. Investigations of the ideological texture of biblical texts configure an interplay between some mode of authority and creation of needs enacted by the discourse in the text and some mode of authority and creation of needs in modern or postmodern intellectual discourse. On the one hand, the discourse in texts evokes literary, historical, social, cultural, 100 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 100

101 rhetorical, ideological, aesthetic and theological modes of inquiry, discussion and interpetation. On the other hand, modern and postmodern intellectual discourse advances disciplinary, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary, eclectic, empirical, theoretical, constructive and deconstructive modes of analysis and interpretation. For example, the ideological texture of anthropological discourse is normally distinctive from the ideological texture of historical discourse. But a particular anthropological interpreter may choose an ideological position very close to a particular historical interpreter. The ideological texture of their respective interpretations exhibits itself both in the particular manner in which the interpreter enacts the discourse of the field of anthropology or history and the particular manner in which the interpreter enacts an aspect of the anthropological or historical texture or intertexture of the text. Thus, in any ideological investigation, there is a reciprocal interaction betweeen the ideological texture of the particular mode of interpretation and the intellectual texture- be it anthropological, historical, literary, sociological, aesthetic or theological- of the ideological interpretation. Any investigation of inner texture must wrestle with the approval of the text by modern critics just as much as it must wrestle with the texts approval of religion. Any investigation of intertexture must wrestle with biblical intertextualities establishing their own canon as much as it must wrestle with the Bible s establishment of the canon by its own intertextualities. Any investigation of social and cultural texture must wrestle with acceptance by sociology and anthropology of a religious culture for themselves as much as religion s acceptance of sociological and anthropological culture for itself. Any investigation of ideological texture must wrestle with a final claim of any form of intellectual discourse for its own ideology just as much as ideological interpetation makes a final claim for its intellectual mode of discourse. Nothing we say then, can escape the way we say it, and the context in which we say it, and the way other people hear it, in the context in which they hear it. According to Robbins (1996), this is the context in which we encounter truth as we understand it. Power Relations in New Historicism Michel Foucault (1977) claims that discourse is power. It comes from Nietzsche s idea of will to power: Man ultimately finds in things nothing but what he himself has imported into them (Nietzsche, 1956, 1961). Foucault (1972) is not interested in discourse as a universal text but in the historical dimension of discursive change, What is possible to say will change 101 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 101

102 from one era to another (ibidem). Or: What is considered normal or rational succcessfully silence what they exclude. Individuals working within particular discursive practices cannot think or speak without obeying the unspoken archive of rules and constraints (ibidem). Or: We can never know our own era s archive because it is the unconscious from which we speak (ibidem). Foucault is interested in the shifts between time periods, when the signifier slides away from the signified. We can never possess a knowledge of history because we are bound in our own time period (Foucault, 1972). New Historicism claims that the past is never available to us in pure form, history is always represented or narrated, it is textualized. In its view, there is no single history- just discontinuous and contradictory histories. The idea of a uniform and harmonious culture is a myth imposed on history and propagated by the ruling class in their own interests. In this context of the new historicism characteristics, the study of the past is not detached and objective. We construct from already written texts...we construe in line with our particular historical concerns (Foucault, 1977). Here, all history is 'foreground'- non-literary texts...should not be treated as belonging to a different order of textuality (ibidem). Foucauldians believe that discursive formations massively determine and constrain the forms of knowledge, the types of normality and the nature of subjectivity which prevail in particular periods. The discursive practices have no universal validity but are historically dominant ways of controlling and preserving social relations of exploitation. Some new historicists are pessimistic, thinking that subversion occurs in order to keep social order. Such questionings of the prevalent social order are always 'contained' within the terms of the discourses which hold that social order in place (Williams, 1977). Others believe there is room for a shift where new ideas can occur, based on Raymond Williams beliefs of residual, dominant and emergent aspects of culture (Williams, 1983). They assert that every history of resistence is not just a symptom of and justification or subjection but it is the true mark of an ineradicable difference which always prevents power from closing the door on change...the meanings of literary texts are never entirely fixed by some universal criterion, but are always in play, and subject to specific, often politically radical, appropriations, including those of the cultural materialists themselves (ibidem., p. 37). Some other new historicists believe in a good subject, who accepts prevailing power discourse, totally identifies himself with it; a bad subject, who refuses identity by counteridentification; and a subject who adopts a third modality and transforms the subject position through disidentification (Williams, 1983). 102 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 102

103 In contrast with the new criticism, structuralist critics set out to master the text and to open its secrets. Post-structuralists believe that this desire is pointless because there are unconscious, or linguistic, or historical forces which cannot be mastered. The signifier floats away from the signified, the joy and bliss of reading dissolve meaning, the semiotic disrupts the symbolic, difference inserts a gap between signifier and signified, and power disorganizes established knowledge. New Historicism is somewhere in the middle. New historicists are not like poststructuralists who think we cannot answer the questions because that means we are in the middle of creating a new center. They assume they are remaking the past through intertextual historical theory. Judith Newton (1988, pp ) believes that there is no transhistorical or universal human essence and that human subjectivity is constructed by cultural codes which postiton and limit all of us in various and divided ways. Instead of the autonomous self or individual, these critics speak of subject positions that are socially and linguistically constructed, created by various discourses of a given culture. As already implied, they are influenced by the work of the above mentioned French theorist Michel Foucault (1977) who focused upon the intricately structured power relations in a given culture at a given time to demonstrate how a society controls its members through constructing and defining what appear to be universal and natural truths. They are sceptical towards any universalising or totalising claims, focusing rather on the specifications of a particular historical and cultural context. According to new historicists, there is no objectivity in that we experience the world in language, and that all our representations of the world, our readings of texts and of the past, are informed by our own historical position, by the values and politics that are rooted in them. They emphasize the necessity for self-awareness on the part of the critic and the teacher who must be constantly aware of the difficulties of viewing the past except through the lenses and cultural constructs of the present. A representation of things makes things happen by shaping human consciousness. As forces in history, various forms of representation should be read and interpreted in relation to each other and in relation to non-discursive texts like events (Williams, 1983). Teaching Literature in the New Historicism Age of Globalization A lesson to be learnt from the above short survey of the key characteristics of New Historicism for further research and practice of teaching postmodernism in a new historical 103 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 103

104 way with all its implied intertextual complexities is that a Slovak college professor and scholar of literature needs to look not only at the historical causes of literary works, but also at their consequences. He or she must use complete descriptions of the literary works in the process and thus link literary works with many other cultural phenomena of a period, including the discourse of popular culture and of areas such as politics, economics, law, sociology, cultural trends, the information age, knowledge society and virtual reality, among others. University researchers and teachers of postmodern literature in Slovakia, and perhaps generally, should also take into consideration that New Historicism as characterized in the survey above shares its assumptions with what is often called Cultural Studies, with its implied need for an efficient and effective cross-cultural communication and understanding. The teaching researchers also should be aware of the fact that both the new historicists and the cultural critics are even more likely to emphasize the present implications of their study and to position themselves in oposition to current power structures, working to empower traditionally disadvantaged groups. For university postmodernism research and teaching needs, it should also be pointed out that the new historicists and cultural critics downplay the distinction between high and low culture and often focus particularly on the products of popular culture in their manifold real and virtual forms. Marshall (1992) One of the purposes of the practice is to gain a deep understanding of the social reality of the target country through a complex reading of a popular culture in connection with the high culture phenomena in the age of globalization. The ultimate goal should be an effective and efficient cross-cultural communication and understanding between the target-country literature and society on the one hand, and the mother-country literature and society on the other. Bibliography: Dollimore, J., and A. Sinfield, (eds.), Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Foucault, M., The Archology of Knowledge. London: Routledge. Foucault, M., What is an Author? Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault. Ed. and intro Donald F. Bouchard. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 104 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 104

105 Greenblatt, S., Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shapespeare. Chicago and London: Univesity of Chicago Press. Greenblatt, S., Shakespearian Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Greenblatt, S., Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Habermas, J., The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Henderson, G. E. and Brown, Ch., Glossary of Literary Theory. Toronto: University of Toronto. Lentricchia, F., After the New Criticism. London: The Athlone Press. Lyotard, J. F., The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. thirteenth printing. Marshall, B., Teaching Postmodern Fiction and Theory. New York, Routledge. Montrose, L., Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of Culture. The New Historicism. Ed. H. Aram Veeser. London: Routledge, pp Montrose, L., Eliza, Queene of Shepheardes, and the Pastoral of Power. The New Historicism Reader. Ed. H. Aram Vesser. London: Routledge, pp Newton, J., History as Usual? Feminism and the New Historicism. Cutltural Critique 9 (Spring 1988), pp Nietzsche, F., Thus Spake Zarathustra. Harmondswoth: Penguin. Nietzsche, F., The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals. New York: Doubleday. Robbins, Vernon K. (1996) The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology, London: Routledge, pp Sinfield, A., Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinfield, A Cultural Politics Queer Reading. London: Routledge. Veeser, H. A. (ed.), The New Historicism. London: Routledge. Veeser, H. A. (ed.), The New Historicism Reader. London: Routledge. Williams, R., Marxisim and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, R., Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana, N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 105

106 Global Myth Particular literature Lucia Rákayová Abstract: A global tendency is determined by pragmatic and commercial conceptualism of contemporary society and its lifestyle. The place and function of artworks in general and literary artefacts in particular are almost fully subjected to the taste of a recipient- a consumer. So-called high literature as such, as well as serious literary criticism, start to accept popular literary genres and forms. In the Emersonian sense of the word, literature becomes less academic and tries to communicate with the masses. The margins of high and low artefacts are continually erased in the process of consumerism. Despite this fact, literature still offers a complicated image of the world; an image that is ontologically metamorphic, multileveled and ontically unstable. Myth, in its general form, is a fundamental platform for literary constructivism. Each national literature is a variation of a fundamental myth: the myth of being- existence. Literary research of recent years has examined the origin of myth and its structural and poetic elements (Levi-Strauss, Barhtes, Frye, etc.), paying no attention to its fundamental function as the basis of literature. The position of myth and its role in literary discourse has become rather vivid these days. Both a general and a particular search for identity via figurative language is, more or less, recurring in all contemporary literary artefacts. Authors highlight the importance of having an identity, the moment of existential belonging to a particular ethnic or social group and the moment of recognition (enlightment- or heideggerian existere) in which a character realizes his entity. Entity becomes an integrated part of a character just as it is of each human being. Moreover, characters are set in an archetypal situation based on a generally recognised myth and designed to underline the necessity for a search for authenticity and personal identity. Contemporary literary discourse operates on the basis of myth (either new- barthesian - or ancient- Roman, Greek, Far-Eastern and Biblical) and relies on a cyclical timeline. A good example would be high-fantasy literature (e.g. J.R.R. Tolkien s trilogy Lord of the Rings and his Silmarillion stories) but also some blockbusters, such as the Star Wars sixtalogy by George Lucas and, above all, minority literature written in English originating mainly in the USA and Great Britain (Jewish, Indian, Chinese, Mexican writers). The general premise of the above-mentioned ontological engagement of myth in discourse is as follows: myth sustains and establishes the perspectivism of discourse; in its 106 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 106

107 very essence, it forms the discursive concept of the world. Discourse is understood as a particular articulation of reality explicable in various ways. Figurative language is a permutation of myth. Myth, in its essence, belongs to philosophy in which it is understood as one of the key concepts for the very first articulation of reality. Issuing from the endeavour of human need for cognitive articulation of the world, the myth appears to be the crucial item for both: philosophy and literature. Since the very beginning of its rise, philosophy had been trying to articulate and interpret the phenomenal world on a semantic level; the endeavour of literature has been to construct another possible world based on the former articulation of reality. The intrinsic and extrinsic relations between philosophy and literature are fundamental. The two discourses are interrelated on the basis of mythos- or so called mythoithe narrative, discursive process proceeding from chaos to logos. This semantically divergent collocation points to the significant role of myths as the operative of both disciplines: literary discourse as the interpretation, and philosophy as its interpretative strategy. Since the very beginnings of literature, myth and its specific mythopoetics has been of enormous importance for literary discourse. Myth appears as the crucial item in the oldest secular and religious eposes trying to explain the phenomenal world. Myth serves as one of the essential projections of world concept. Based on various myths, literary texts create new variant(s) of reality- new, innovated, and often displaced myth(s). The paradigm of myth in literature can be examined on the following levels: 1. the general philosophical and literary level 2. the engaged literary level any kind of engaged literature or literature based on a critique of an ideology or the ideology itself, 3. the specific interpretative and intertextual level The first approach shows philosophy as the ontocreative principle. Philosophical background, the most influential schools, thinkers, philosophers and their ideas come forth and determine the concept of an artwork. Focus is on the mutual relations and interactions of philosophy and literature on the basis of myth. Man (represented by a literary character) is presented as: a) an Aristotelian entity, able to articulate the objective world in a cognitive manner, b) a Platonian entity, able to contemplate the unknown, the metaphysical or the transcendental in a hypothetical, creative manner. A concept of the world is the result of intelligible human endeavour. Literary texts are viewed as texts that were created to reflect, show, represent, comment and transform or re-form this concept. It is a demonstration of philosophical thoughts and their impact on the structure and composition of literary discourse. 107 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 107

108 Northrop Frye, one of the most influential Canadian literary critics, devoted all his research to the archetypal study of myth and its varieties in literature. His research was based on biblical culture and ancient Greek mythology as the two most influential canons reflected by literature. Frye examined mythological structures and the special use of mythological symbols in their (dislocated) literary environment. The second approach perceives literature as the interactive product of the utopian vision of Marxism-Leninism (or Stalinism, Mao C Tungism, etc.) combined with the ideological myth of social realism in former East-European countries. The literature in countries under the influence of the Soviet Union originated in mythological conditions. Supporting the omnipresent myth of social equality, it constructed a deformed concept of reality. The world was divided into reds and bads - communists and imperialists-usurpers. This deformed concept of the world gave rise to the dual poetics and imagery of totalitarian (engaged) literature: based on historical materialism, the poetics of communism originated; on the same basis, the anti-poetics of communism was sustained. The former was the official, totalitarian strategy of propaganda; the latter stood for the sub-cultural platform formed as a protest against a deformed articulation of reality based on the myth of communism. In Western-European literary canon, totalitarian myth gave rise to various dystopic books, among them: Huxley s Brave New World, Orwell s Animal Farm and 1984 and Vonnegut s Cat s Cradle. The third approach is concerned with purely literary issues; or so it is claimed. As a matter of fact, any literary interpretation must be preceded by implicit or explicit knowledge of the semantic and semiotic structure of a particular language and its cultural and social codes used in proareatic and symbolic encoding of the discourse. To master an interpretation of a particular literary artefact, it is necessary to trace the traditions and mythology of the nation in which a particular artwork originated. Hence myth becomes the essential nature of literature. Multileveled literary interpretation usually operates with a broad scale of extratextual knowledge on the cultural symbolism of a discussed artwork. The nature of Western culture is mainly determined by classical mythopoetics (Greek and Roman myths, the Bible) and philosophy (including aesthetics and sociology). A good example would be contemporary popular fiction: among many other ancient symbols, the rose is used more frequently than any other. Originally a symbol of Christian paradise, it was transformed over the course of the years and became a symbol of war (War of the Roses), occultism (Rosicrucians, Freemasons) and heresy- as in one of the most profane books of these days: Dan Brown s Da Vinci Code. According to the author s conspiracy theory, the rose is an embodiment of the well-known 108 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 108

109 Biblical prostitute- Mary of Magdala- who became Jesus faithful disciple, preacher of his ideas and his spouse. In Brown s interpretation, the rose is also a symbol of physical womanhood, sexuality, maternity and of new life. Brown s book works with biblical symbolism, understandable only to those who are familiar with the greatest canon of Western culture the Bible. Regarding the new mythology, Western literature is occupied by the search for authenticity through everyday stereotypes. Stereotypes lead to extraordinary actions: acts of suicide, murder, sexual violence or adrenaline life-endangerment (Ian McEwan s The Comfort of Strangers). Historically based myths (as collective beliefs)- or rather mistakes- are a source of irony and satire in contemporary books. Terry Prachett s Discworld Novels series is focused on political and social misdeeds and historical misapprehensions. Prachett ironically depicts the Dark Age and its dogmas: witch-hunts, the Ptolemaic concept of the world (the world was believed to be flat- hence his Discworld), political murders and marriages, heroism, etc. Intertextual myths are myth based on pre-texts- it is a kind of re-writing of already written texts. A newly formed text bears the ideas of an old text to which something new has been added: the text is set in a new environment and so it also creates new relations. These might function either as an addition to the original or as its counterparts. Meaning is permuted under the pressure of new semantic and structural collocations. Literary interpretation enables a reader to find the meaning of such a displaced text (a construct of reality) via intelligible notions of previous experiences with a similar text (original). The most fundamental principles that can be anticipated in, generally speaking, all post-texts are the following: 1. the myth of being- the creative process of the narrative is perceived as a contemplation of being through fictive characters 2. the myth of time- the cyclical placement of fictive characters into a chain of permanently repeated actions 3. the myth of logic- all the actions of characters are logically explicable with regard to the time of narration or the time of the reader 4. the myth of narration- the belief that all people (characters) are independent subjects in history and so is the author of a text- they are but objects in the course of history Narration is built upon the above mentioned principles. It uses the so-called universal myth of being and existence as the essential platform of its validity. In this sense of the word, myth is a fundamental principle of literature- as it enables the existence of literary constructs 109 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 109

110 of a particular fictive world. Fictive worlds are inhabited by types (characters) acting in metafictive realities and are determined by metafictive history. For these worlds, myth is an ontological principle that ascribes validity and proximity to the existence of such metafictive discourse and its interpretation via figurative, metaphoric language. Bibliography: Eliade, M., Mýty, sny a mystéria. Praha: Oikoymenh. Frye, N., Anatomy of Criticism. London: Penguin Books. Frye, N., Velký kód (Bible a literatura). Brno: Host. Halada, J., Prúvodce evropským myšlením, Praha: Brána. Hawthorn, J., A Concise Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory. Oxford: OUP. Kulcsarová, Z. a kol. Autorov, Světové mytologie. Praha: Orbis. Lechte, J., 1994 Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers. Routlege. Levinas, E., 1996: Existence a ten, který existuje. Praha, Oikoymenh. Lèvi-Strauss, C., Mýtus a význam. Bratislava. McEwan, I., The Comfort of Strangers. London. Vintage. McNeill, T.: Roland Barthes: Mythologies (1957). The University of Sunderland: < 110 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 110

111 Metatheatre: A New Genre? Daniel P Sampey Abstract: Theatre audiences will accept wild circumstances as well as banal conventions in order to believe- to be along with the reality on stage. At least since Shakespeare, playwrights have countered this willful suspension of disbelief by commenting within their own dramas on the mimetic nature of theatre. These dramatists remind viewers of "life's uncanny likeness to art or illusion." 1 In Metatheatre (1963), Lionel Abel describes this reflexivity: The playwright acknowledge(s) in the very structure of his play that it was his imagination which controlled the event from beginning to end. 2 Abel cites examples from Waiting for Godot, Three Penny Opera and Six Characters in Search of an Author. He states that Hamlet and Tartuffe, for example, are too big for the plays that bear their names. Hamlet is labelled a tragedy and Tartuffe a comedy, but the two title characters seem to want to escape entrapment in their plays plots, and to create their own. They require a new form, what Abel calls a new genre the metadrama. Metaplays contain self-consciously "theatrical" characters that change personas within micro-dramas, relate stories about role playing and remark directly about the nature and consequences of such activities. First of all, meta- from Greek meaning among, with, after or from. This last use, from, can help us define metatheatre- theatre from theatre. In French it can be 'le théâtre dans le théâtre'- theatre inside theatre or theatre inside itself (1). A few more examples of metadiciplines could place our topic in a historical and theoretical context. Martin Puchner describes 20th-century uses of the prefix meta. From 1979 comes Jean-François Lyotard's metanarrative- the trend toward all-encompassing stories such as the progress of science in the search for truth or the progressive emancipation of humans from oppression. Similar comprehensive narratives are explored in the theory of metahistory- history about the way history is created- first described by Hayden White in 1973 (2). Metacinema describes films about filmmaking itself, (3) for example some of Fellini's self-reflexive works. The term can also refer to non-realistic cinema which experiments with the basic elements of film, among them patterns of light, colour and motion. The concept of metalanguage was put forth in the 1930s by Alfred Tarski and Rudolf Carnap and applied to Lionel Abel, Metatheatre (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963) p N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 111

112 linguistics in the late 1950s by Roman Jakobson (4). If we have an object language- words we use to refer to objects in the world around us- then we should also have a metalanguage to speak about object language. Metalanguage refers only to language itself, not to (Kantian) things in themselves.(5) In a similar way, metadramas (like to some degree all dramas) refer not to the outside world, but to theatre in-itself - every play that has come before. This is what the structuralist theatre critic and scholar Richard Hornby calls the drama /culture complex. (6) Lionel Abel's book Metatheatre (1963) is one of the first to describe self-reflexivity on the stage. The playwright acknowledge(s) in the very structure of his play that it was his imagination which controlled the event from beginning to end. (7) Abel cites examples from Waiting for Godot, Three Penny Opera and Six Characters in Search of an Author. He contends that characters as different as Hamlet and Tartuffe, for example, are both too big for the plays that bear their names. Hamlet is labelled a tragedy, Tartuffe a comedy, but the two title characters seem to want to escape entrapment in their plays plots and to create their own. They are their own playwrights, trying to create their own destinies, aware of layers of performing. These characters reflect for the audience such an extreme consciousness of playing that the nature of theatre itself is questioned and examined. In this case a different form can be designated, what Abel calls a new genre- the metadrama. Abel contrasts his new genre with an ancient form of western drama, saying that tragedy is the historical and cultural prerequisite for metatheatre. He uses part of Aristotle's definition, that tragedy should provoke fear and pity, inducing catharsis in the viewer (8). But what exactly is this catharsis? Abel compares two interpretations of catharsis found in Elizabeth S. Belfiore's book Tragic Pleasures. In the homeopathic view of catharsis, the empathy and fright the spectator supposedly already has inside is roused- like affects like. The opposite view is allopathic, in which the pity evoked is to overcome the spectator's usual lack of concern for others, and the fear brought about is meant to overwhelm the everyday pride of the viewer. Abel agrees with Belfiore that the second view of the function of catharsis is the correct one: "The emotions stimulated by tragedy replace the opposite feelings, rather than purify feelings already present in us. (9) Abel accepts the Hegelian view of tragedy. Hegel agreed with Aristotle about the cathartic effects of true tragedy. Pure tragedy should not feature a conflict of good versus evil (as does melodrama), but a morally-ambiguous conflict between the good and the good. Two competing value systems must be at odds with other (10). Hegel regards Sophocles' Antigone as the epitome of classical tragedy. The conflict here is between the family and the 112 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 112

113 polis. Antigone wants to bury her brother, who has been killed in battle against Athens. King Creon will not allow a traitor to be buried. Both have valid moral arguments, stemming from what Abel calls implacable values (11). Drama evolved in ancient Greece from religious ceremonies- the word tragedy comes from tragōidia, goat song, referring to sacrifices to the god Dionysus (12). We can categorise this drama as ritual. If we speculate about any didactical function, lessons drawn would have to be something like avoid hubris, which has been defined as exaggerated self pride or self-confidence, often resulting in fatal retribution. (13) Still it can be conjectured that the Greeks would have to have had a shared set of cultural and religious values to come together four times a year for these festivals (14). Let us indulge in a bit of metanarrative here. During subsequent centuries, another remarkably homogenous view of the world united and dominated western civilization- Christianity- forms of which thrived basically unquestioned until at least the end of the Middle Ages. A defining characteristic of the Renaissance was the questioning of the hegemony of the Church, which of course may be recognized for spreading literacy as well as blamed for wars and persecution. Nevertheless, it can be argued that as the influence of Christianity finally declined one set of collective moral and cultural norms was lost to the West. New ideas, as expressed for example in the Essais of Michel de Montaigne, began to offer new, alternative ways of viewing the world, later to be associated with terms such as cultural relativism and humanism. George Steiner argues that because of this loss of shared values tragedy is dead. (15) Abel does not go quite that far: If Shakespeare, with his scepticism, could write even one tragedy (16), there is no reason at all to assert that the form is impossible for any modern dramatist, whatever his cast of mind. A dramatist may appear to whom the Furies are real- and not just symbolically realand still uncompromising in their demands for blood vengeance, as they were before Aeschylus pacified them in the third part of his Oresteia. Hegel thought that after Hamlet, all modern tragedies would be tragedies of the intellectual. I think he should have said tragedy would be replaced by metatheatre (17). T.S. Eliot claims that Shakespeare's Hamlet is defective as tragedy, that the work is psychologically convoluted and that its structure is confusing. He calls it an artistic failure. (18) Why does the Ghost urge Hamlet to kill Claudius? The fate of Denmark is not at stake; Claudius is not an incompetent ruler, no overall moral corruption is evident in Elsinore. There is no plague, no townspeople pleading for Hamlet to save them, as the Thebans are for 113 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 113

114 Oedipus. Does Hamlet's father seek revenge? Is this a suitable motivation for tragedy, an implacable value? Why does Hamlet hesitate for so long? A related question: Why does Shakespeare have his audience wait so long, while his hero endlessly philosophises? Was Shakespeare trying (and failing) to create tragedy? (19) Lionel Abel asks these questions and answers them simply: Hamlet is not merely about treachery, murder and the hesitation to act decisively. To view Hamlet as a tragic hero is to misunderstand him. His story is really a meditation on theatre itself, with its protagonist attempting to overcome the plot that has been thrust upon him and to create a different one, his own. Shakespeare wants us to not pity Hamlet, but to compare ourselves with him. Throughout our lives, what plots are we thrust into? What roles are we called upon to play? Hamlet is not a tragedy, but the first complete metadrama. Metaplays contain self-consciously theatrical characters that change personas within micro-dramas, relate stories about role playing (including sometimes referring to the play they are performing in now, for us) and also remark directly about the nature and consequences of such activities for player and audience. Playwrights before Shakespeare had used some of these elements in isolation; Shakespeare himself had used them in other works. But Hamlet is the first character in a drama who acknowledges that his very existence is theatrical (20). He comments time and time again on his plot and the dramatic implications of each of the alternatives of action open to him. A brief examination of Hamlet will allow us to specify elements of metatheatre (21). Indeed in the very first lines of the play the two guards do not recognize each other in the dark fog and issue anxious challenges to each other. This sort of role confusion continues, as Hamlet's old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern become spies, his trusted relatives turn out to be murderers and Hamlet himself acts the part of a madman by merely telling the absolute truth to those around him. If we were always absolutely honest with each person we met, would not people think we were crazy? (22) The prince's very first lines on stage comment on the character- moral and theatricalof his uncle, the new king, "A little more than kin, and less than kind!" The queen asks her son what the matter is with him. Hamlet does not wish to be defined, and comments on his own appearance and performance: 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Now windy aspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 114 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 114

115 Nor the dejected havior of the visage, Together with all moods, forms, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play, But I have that within which passeth show- These but the trappings and the suits of woe. (I, ii) These are but the opening scenes, yet throughout the play Hamlet rebels against the plot of revenge tragedy that those around him (and his author) have placed him into. Hamlet tries to create his own scenarios, for instance giving "his mother a playwright's instructions about her future behaviour: she is to avoid her husband's bed." (23) He changes the plan of Claudius and his schoolmates to murder him, and in the last act we learn that his friends have been killed instead. Hamlet also ruins Polonius' plot to marry the prince to his daughter. Of course we cannot forget Hamlet's precise direction of the Players; he goes so far as to write "some dozen or sixteen lines for them. He has the actors perform actions from the play "The Murder of Gonzago for his mother and uncle. Hamlet attempts to orchestrate a telling reaction from the new king. In addition to playwright, producer and director, Hamlet also plays philosopher, commenting specifically about the meaning of life and theatre. He contrasts how an actor has just played a theatrical scene with intense emotion while he himself, with a strong motivation and direct instructions from his father, is unable to perform: Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul as to his own conceit That from her working all this visage waned, Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing (II, ii) Shakespeare was not averse to referring to his own work. Polonius forecasts his own demise (at the hand of Hamlet) in the play he is currently in by mentioning another: HAMLET My lord, you played once i' th' university, you say? 115 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 115

116 POLONIUS HAMLET POLONIUS (III, iii) That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor. What did you enact? I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i' th' capitol; Brutus killed me. It is thought that Shakespeare's version of Julius Caesar was written and performed chronologically immediately before Hamlet (24). If this is true, Julius Caesar could have been the last play many audience members had attended previous to seeing Hamlet. Indeed the same actor who played Polonius might have played Caesar in the preceding play. Was this Shakespeare's inside joke to his fans? Scholars and artists disagree about when the turning point of the play is, the moment that Hamlet decides to act. Some claim it is the bedroom scene, after killing Polonius, when he pledges his love to his mother. (III, iv) Others say it happens at sea, after surviving the adventure with the pirates and changing the letter, foiling the conspiracy to murder him. (IV, vi) Does Hamlet finally decide later, in the graveyard? (V, i) At this moment Hamlet recognizes the truth of that dramatic script in which no one can refuse to act: death will make us all theatrical, no matter what we have done in life. The skull is pure theatre. It is a perfect mask. I think it is at this moment that Hamlet accepts death's dramaturgy, not his father's, as his own (25). Claudius conspires with Laertes to kill Hamlet in a duel. ('play with you' IV, vii) The prince expresses his suspicions to Horatio, but seems to accept his uncle's plot. Yet finally Hamlet cannot resist changing the story, resulting in the deaths of Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes, as well as his own. Hamlet's dying words continue to reflect his theatricality: You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time- as this fell sergeant, Death, Is strict in his arres - O, I could tell you - But let it be. (V, ii) To be or not to be? Let it be. Lionel Abel links Hamlet, with Calderón's La vida es sueño (1635) as being two of the world's first metaplays. He combines the second play's title with Jaques' words from As You 116 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 116

117 Like It to form sort of a credo for metatheatre: "The world's a stage and life is a dream. (26) In Calderón's play a prince has been chained in a prison since he was born because his father the king was told by a soothsayer that his son would murder his mother and father. The boy's mother had died during childbirth, giving the king additional reason to believe the prophecy. On his 21st birthday, the prince is drugged, woken up in his father's palace, and told that he had never been in jail, that it was just a dream. The youth begins to go wild, expressing his long-repressed rage, throwing an aristocrat out of a window. The prince is subdued, drugged again and returned to prison once more. He is told that he had never been a prince, that it had all been a dream. It is not always clear as to which plays can be classified as complete metadramas and which plays simply contain elements of metatheatre, for example a play-within-a-play or direct comments about performing. Portions of countless dramas- before and after Hamletsubtly remind viewers of "life's uncanny likeness to art or illusion." (27) The plays of Euripides contain several of these features. In Bacchants (Bacchae), Dionysus- god of fertility and ecstasy (and theatre)- enters disguised as a holy shaman from the East, the first of his many costumes. Dionysus plays trick after trick on the self-righteous King Pentheus, finally driving him to masquerade as a woman. In Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV, Falstaff emerges as a fascinating character. He is arguably more compelling than any other person in the play, including the title character or Prince Hal, the future king. In the Boar's Head Tavern, Falstaff and the prince take turns acting out the role of Henry IV, creating their own versions of the story (28). In A Midsummer Night's Dream, both royal families- the worldly one and the fairy one- as well as the mechanicals all attempt to manipulate the plot, with curious consequences for the four young lovers as well as for the actor Bottom and Titania, Queen of the Fairies. Yet the major objective of some dramatists is unquestionably to call direct attention to the nature of playing. In the metadramas of Luigi Pirandello, the line between theatre and reality is blurred, inducing viewers to examine the role-playing in their own lives. His Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) interrupt a rehearsal of Othello. They ask to be dramatized, since the writer who has created them has chosen not to put them in a play. In Act II the manager (some translations say assistant director) tries to re-enact parts of their story, first with the characters themselves, then with the actors at hand, but the characters reject the performance. The Step-Daughter cannot stop laughing and the Father says that the portrayal "has such a strange effect." The Heraclitean/Parmenidian contrast that life is always changing, yet characters in a play remain the same, is also important in Tom Stoppard's 117 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 117

118 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1965). Stoppard, writing forty years after Pirandello, is able to obscure fantasy and authenticity even further. He has two minor characters from a major drama re-stage the actions they execute over and over every time Hamlet is played. The characters have an awareness of playing, a vague consciousness that something is not quite right with the reality they are participating in. They are not even sure of which of them is Rosencrantz and which Guildenstern, even when they are dying. Their tennis match/semantics contest should recall for us the conventions of our own language games. Their weakness in the face of their destinies should remind us of our own. Bertolt Brecht never lets the audience forget they are in a theatre, using what has been termed an alienation effect (Verfremdungseffekt): Characters say something, then they sing, then they comment on their actions, and each of these switches happens without transition or meditation. Brecht never wants us to get enraptured in the play, and for this reason he builds into his theatre as many interruptions as possible, be it on the level of plot, dialogue, or acting (29). Much of what has been labelled Theatre of the Absurd can also be viewed in terms of metatheatre. Abel rejects the absurdist label as much too vague to have meaning, and that many of these plays are simply about theatre itself (30). In The Balcony (Le Balcon, 1956) and The Maids (Les Bonnes, 1947) Jean Genet explores questions of identity, reminding audiences of their own complicity and hypocrisy in accepting existing power relationships. We can consider the multiple layers of meaning in the dialogue of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1952) as referring to playing, in all its aspects. Vladimir telling Estragon, I m glad to see you back, could be referring to the actor s return after the previous night s performance. With the very act of stepping into a theatre, we are of course participating in a ritual which has been described using countless paradigms. It is quite proper for theatre to make us feel, not just think. Theatre audiences will accept wild circumstances as well as banal conventions in order to believe- to be along with what is happening on the stage. Susanne K. Langer has described a vital feeling, with a virtual past and a virtual future (31). In common parlance this is called a suspension of disbelief. But to whatever degree we lose ourselves during a captivating performance, at some point we remember that what we are watching has been created for us. Metadramas overtly remind us of the reality of mimesis - it happens right before our eyes. Through theatrically-conscious characters participating in micro-dramas within larger frameworks and commenting on aspects of presentation, we can compare our own plots and personas. 118 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 118

119 Notes: 1 Manfred Schmeling, Métathéâtre et intertexte: aspects du théâtre dans le théâtre. (Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1982.) 2 Martin Puchner, Introduction from Lionel Abel, Tragedy and Metatheatre (New York: Holmes and Meier, 2003) 2 (Hereafter referred to as 'Abel 2') In this work Abel clarifies the ideas from his previous book, Metatheatre, written 40 years earlier. The later book contains essays from the earlier work as well as new articles, for example on metatheatrical comedy. 3 Puchner (from Abel 2), Jakobson was a principal founder of the Prague school of structural linguistics. Logical Positivist Carnap and mathematician Tarski employed metalanguages to avoid using metaphysics in describing meaning in object languages. 5 Encyclopaedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD-ROM, entry: object language 6 Richard Hornby, Drama, Metadrama and Perception (London: Bucknell, 1986), 22 7 Lionel Abel, Metatheatre (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963) 61 (Hereafter referred to as ' Abel 1') 8 Aristotle, Poetics, S.H. Bucher, trans. (referenced , 20:40 CET) 9 Abel 2, Jack Kaminsky, Hegel on Art. An Interpretation of Hegel's Aesthetics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1962) Abel 2, Other etymological possibilities exist, but most seem to refer to goats. It is thought that goat skins were worn by performers in the rituals. A goat may have also been awarded to the dramatists whose plays won festival competitions (referenced , 9:30 CET) 14 Encyclopaedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD-ROM, entry: tragedy 15 George Steiner, Death of Tragedy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). For some scholars the question remains open whether a tragedy based on other values is possible. This tragedy could be based on humanist or even on anti-religious standards. Some moral or moralistic dimension would seem inevitable, with two competing sets of principles at odds with other, as implied in Hegel s arguments. It can be argued that playwrights such as Eugene O Neill attempted such tragedy. 119 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 119

120 16 Abel calls Macbeth Shakespeare's only true tragedy, comparing the witches in the play to the Furies in the Oresteia. "Now in Macbeth the metaphysical does not coincide with the moral, but is at odds with it; yet both are to be valued. Since the justification for kingship was finally metaphysical- the Elizabethans believed in the divine right of kings as opposed to any merely moral right to kingshi - how could an immoral deed of murder to attain kingship, when metaphysical forces, in this case the witches, seemed to support that deed, be thought of as evil? And, in fact, we never feel Macbeth is evil. We think of him as suffering because he has violated moral values he cannot deny, in support of values neither he nor Shakespeare's age thought criticisable in moral terms." Abel 2, Abel 1, T.S. Eliot, Hamlet and His Problems. The Sacred Wood, (referenced , 9:30 CET) Eliot denigrates the originality of Shakespeare's Hamlet, linking it to Belleforest's French translation (1570) of Saxo Grammaticus' 12-century Gesta Danorum as well as to DerBestrafte Brudermord (Fratricide Punished) which was being 'acted in Germany during Shakespeare's lifetime.' Eliot also compares Shakespeare's play to Eliot's own speculations on what Thomas Kyd's Ur-Hamlet might have been like: 'There are verbal patterns so close to the Spanish Tragedy as to leave no doubt that in places Shakespeare was merely revising the text of Kyd.' Eliot gives no concrete examples of similarities in Shakespeare's text to the Spanish Tragedy or (as if he could) the lost Ur- Hamlet. 19 Abel 1, The first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605, just a few years after Hamlet is said to have been written. The Ingenious Hidalgo of La Mancha is a literary character whom Abel calls a "hero of metatheatre." "Don Quixote is even more theatrical... than Hamlet because Don Quixote actively chooses to theatraticalize the world and himself rather than being forced to do so by the manipulation of others, whether they be ghosts or humans." Puchner (from Abel 2), p.22 Miguel de Cervantes died the same year as did Shakespeare, Richard Hornby has outlined a taxonomy of metatheatre, breaking down its elements into five (sometimes overlapping) categories: 1) The play within the play, 2) the ceremony within the play, 3) role playing within the role, 4) literary or real-life reference within the play, 5) self-reference (for example Hamlet referring to Hamlet.) 120 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 120

121 22 One is reminded of Alceste in Molière s Le Misanthrope (1666). Alceste has a pathological need to criticise hypocrisy, yet cannot help but love the conceited and shallow Celimene. Molière fills his work with examples of role reversal, ceremonies and the consequences of playing. 23 Abel 1, Julius Caesar: Hamlet: Dates refer to the "general consensus" of scholars "based on external and internal evidence, on general stylistic and thematic considerations." (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2005 Deluxe Edition CD- ROM, entry: Shakespeare, William) 25 Abel 1, Abel 1, (referenced , 19:30 CET) 28 Falstaff finally will not be denied, as Prince Hal (now king) wishes to do at the end of 2 Henry IV. He is so dominant and memorable in his chronicle plays that he seems to want to change them into comedies. Queen Elizabeth is said to have demanded to see Falstaff in love. In writing The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare may have been complying with the wishes of the queen. 29 Puchner (from Abel 2), Abel 1, Hornby, 106. "In each case, we imaginatively shift ourselves from the real world in which we are currently living, into a hypothetical state of existence, which we can drop at any time (it is not a state of insanity), but which nonetheless is strangely compelling." Bibliography: Bates, A.(ed.), The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, Vol.1. London: Historical Publishing Company. Belfiore, E. S., Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion. Princeton: Princeton University Press Nelson, R. J., Play within a play. New Haven: Yale University Press. Langer, S., Problems of Art. New York: Scribner s. Schleuter, J., Metafictional Characters in Modern Drama. New York: Columbia University Press. 121 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 121

122 Spinoza and Spinozism in Singer s Shorter Fiction Anton Péntek Abstract: In our contribution we are trying to take a closer look at the relationship of I.B. Singer to the Dutch philosopher Baruch Benedictus Spinoza as expressed in Singer s short stories. We depict and analyze this relationship through a partial interpretation of Singer s story The Spinoza of Market Street. The element of Spinoza in Isaac Bashevis Singer s work has only partly to do with Spinoza s system of ideas. What is also involved is Spinoza s personality and the paradoxical fact of his drawing upon the Jewish tradition at the same time that he is isolated from it. Figuratively, Spinoza is a way of focusing in Singer s work on the tension between rationalism and the spirit-world of demons, or between enlightenment and orthodoxy, or between Spinoza s intellectualism and Chasidic emotion. In an even larger sense, Spinoza is a metaphor for the problem that has beset Yiddish literature from the time of its first great classical writer, Mendele Mocher Sforim to Singer himself, namely, the problem of the writer who dwells simultaneously in the opposing cultures of Jewish enlightenment or the Haskalah and Jewish tradition. These issues are present in much of Singer s shorter fiction, but nowhere more so than in the remarkable story The Spinoza of Market Street. The Yiddish title of this story, Der Spinozist, is less suggestive than is the English of the story s meaning, because the hero of the story, Dr. Fischelson, is more than a Spinozist philosopher, he is also a type of Spinoza. Surrounded though he is by the teeming life of the Jewish community of Warsaw, Dr. Fischelson is nevertheless a figure of isolation. The exuberant, sometimes even violent, life of the people flows around him, but he is detached. He is a Jew but he is regarded by his neighbors with suspicion, because, although he is a man of evident and wide learning, the whole bent of his intellectual life appears to be guided by principles that lie outside the Jewish tradition. He does not pray; the object of his ceaseless study is not the Torah or Talmud; he entertains opinions so heterodox as to give currency to rumours that he is either a heretic or an apostate; he owns a telescope and peers through it at the stars- a curious interest, so it is thought, for a Jew- and although he is the son of a rabbi, he chooses to pursue a secular career in philosophy. 122 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 122

123 What Singer has done, without actually telling us that he has done so, is to create a portrait of Spinoza. It is an inexact portrait, to be sure, because two of the most attractive features of Spinoza's personality, his serenity and his tolerance, are missing. But in its broadest outlines the picture of Dr. Fischelson as Spinoza is accurate. Both the seventeenthcentury philosopher and his twentieth-century disciple were born into Orthodox Jewish families; both repudiated the tradition by calling into question various aspects of the Orthodox creed. Spinoza was excommunicated; Dr. Fischelson is removed from his post as chief librarian of the Warsaw synagogue. Both depended for their daily bread on pensions from sympathetic friends, although Spinoza bore the loss of a pension with greater equanimity. Both had scientific interests. Both were plagued by ill health. In these respects Dr. Fischelson resembles Spinoza unconsciously. But he also imitates his master. He tries to make reason the ruling principle of his life. There is no rational life, Spinoza wrote, without intelligence and things are good only insofar as they assist man to enjoy that life of the mind which is determined by intelligence. Those things alone, on the other hand, we call evil which hinder man from perfecting his reason and enjoying rational life. Dr, Fischelson strives to perfect his reason. For thirty years he has been laboring over a massive commentary on Spinoza s Ethics. The precepts of the master are engraved in his mind, and his pleasures are wholly connected with the life of the mind. When he looks at the heavens through his telescope he feels the force of Spinoza s doctrine about the infinitude of God and the oneness of God and Nature. It comforts Dr. Fischelson to think that although he is only a weak, puny man, a changing mode of the absolutely infinite Substance, he is nevertheless a part of the cosmos, made of the same matter as the celestial bodies; to the extent that he is a part of the Godhead, he knows he can not be destroyed. In such moments, Dr.Fischelson experiences the Amor Dei Intellectualis which is, according to the Philosopher of Amsterdam, the highest perfection of the mind. Similarly, although Dr. Fischelson is afflicted by a severe stomach disorder which might be an ulcer but could just possibly be cancer, he has no fear of death. He understands the meaning in the fourth part of Ethics that a free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death, but of life. As Spinoza points out, fear is one of the baser emotions; it does not partake of reason and it fails to apprehend the necessity of all things. In the skillfully drawn portrait of Dr. Fischelson, Singer makes good literary use of Spinozist ideas. He has evidently read the philosopher with care and with an accurate 123 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 123

124 understanding. Spinoza is not an easy philosopher to read; his geometrical method of demonstration and proof, essential though it is to his purpose, gives his style a crabbed appearance. Moreover as Dr. Fischelson himself comes to agree, nuances of fresh meaning and ambiguities occassionaly disturb the logical surface of Spinoza s thought. But Singer has perceived very clearly the essential shape of Spinoza s mind. He understands that Spinoza s system embraces the whole universe and man s place in it and that it is a powerful vision of moral order, an order into which man can rise when he comprehends the universe under the aspect of eternity. Singer knows that Spinoza s conception of freedom means the freeing of the mind from the bondage of the particular and temporal. Singer articulates the basic premises of Spinoza s thought- the unity with God and nature and the determinism of all things- and he understands the moral consequences that flow from these premises. What is most important is that Singer recognizes the fundamentally rationalist character of Spinoza s system. Spinoza s ideas have been disfigured both by their enemies as well as by some of their most ardent admirers. Singer, however, reads these ideas clearly and correctly. He rejects the notion sometimes advanced that Spinoza was a mystic. It is true that a tincture of mysticism clings to Spinoza's teaching about the immersion of the mind in the oneness of the universe, but as Stuart Hampshire has written, Spinoza is not a mystic, but a rationalist who makes greater claims for the powers of pure reason that any other great philosopher has ever made. This observation about Spinoza is entirely acceptable to Singer, and its importance will be made clear when we examine the second, climactic portion of Dr. Fischelson s story. The problem for Dr. Fischelson is that the life of the mind is no defense against the demands of the flesh. He cannot insulate his mind against the sounds, smells, trivialities, vulgarities, cruelties and travails of the world around him, or against the pain of his own body, or against the tribulations of poverty and of dependence on an uncertain benevolence for his daily bread. He aspires to be Spinoza but he is Spinoza-manqué. He can only fitfully find repose in the life of the mind; more often he feels himself afflicted by the world of particular things, and that world is full of difficulties and discomforts. The heat of the Warsaw summer is oppressive, Spinoza notwithstanding. And even the world of politics and of nations, in whose problems he takes no interest, appears to be entering a process of decay: an archduke assassinated, armies on the march, food and drink scarce, friends absent, money not forthcoming. The world is irrational, unspinozan. In it lurk evil presences, such as were presumed to have been banished by Spinoza; tomcats scamper on the roofs like demons, raising unearthly sounds and taunting Dr. Fischelson. It is a half lit bedlamp. 124 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 124

125 Insofar as Dr. Fischelson thinks of this world, that is to say, insofar as he takes a Spinozist view of it, he is able to detach himself from it. The difficulty is that his thoughts are not always under his control. The world presents itself to his senses with an immediacy, a hardness, which he cannot dispel, and some part of his reaction to it is unconscious, or only dimly perceived in a dream. He has a nightmare, a confused recollection of his childhood, in which a Catholic procession passes through the street of his shtetl Tishvitz. Long-robed figures walk by; in their hands they bear double-edged axes. The air is filled with the smell of incense and of corpses. Suddenly the sky turns red and the whole world begins to burn. The dream, suffused as it is in the emotion of fear and having no apparent rational structure, is a perfect antithesis to Spinoza. Dr. Fischelson tried to meditate about his extraordinary dream, to find in rational connection with what was happening to him and to comprehend it sub specie eternitatis, but none of it made sense. This earth, he thought, belongs to the mad. What is happening to Dr. Fischelson is that his health is giving way under the pressure of the conflict between his beloved Spinozism and the irrational world in which he lives. The turbulent life that had hitherto flowed around him now flows through him; it churns his emotions and makes him feel he is dying. When the tension inside of him becomes intolerable- when, that is to say, he is unable to live in either of the two opposing worlds- he lapses into unconsciousness; in this condition he is discovered by his neighbor Black Dobbe, a spinster, a singularly unattractive woman who has masculine features and dresses like a man, who has been twice jilted, who is illiterate, and whose character is a curious mixture of patience and cunning. In sketching her portrait, which he does in bold, rapid strokes and with the utmost skill, Singer omits the irony which he has spent on Dr. Fischelson. He admires her, and he makes her the catalyst of Dr. Fischelson s salvation. She nurses the aging philosopher, feeds him, restores him; in the process she is able to overcome her awe of him and her superstitious fears of his black doctrines. For his part Dr. Fischelson is comforted by Dobbe s presence; but curiously, when he returns to his study of the Ethics, its logical structure and meaning elude him. What could Spinoza have meant when he said that having an idea of the separate modes of the human body does not give adequate knowledge of the human body itself? Dr. Fischelson feels an obscure stirring in his blood; to tell the truth, he is becoming more interested in the modes of the human body than in the body regarded sub specie eternitatis. And then a miracle takes place such as could not occur in a Spinozan universe. Dr. Fischelson and Black Dobbe are married. The bridegroom is the object of many good-natured 125 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 125

126 jibes; he is even too feeble to break the glass at the wedding ceremony, and it has to be done by a younger guest. Nevertheless Dr. Fischelson takes his bride home with him, speaks to her not of Spinoza but of love, quotes Lessing and Goethe to her, embraces her, possesses her, and is restored to that passionate life from which he has been cut off- indeed cut himself offfor so many years past. The life of Spinoza and the life of Dr. Fischelson can no longer be said to intersect. We are told by Spinoza s earliest biographer that although our philosopher was not one of those austere people who look upon marriage as a hindrance to the activities of the mind, he nevertheless did not enter into its bonds, either because he feared the ill temper of the woman, or because the love of philosophy took him up completely. Earlier in the story, before Dobbe comes in to minister to Dr. Fischelson and while he is still in his anguish, he receives what might be considered a mild warning against marriage. It comes in the form of a vulgar music-hall song played on a gramophone record in some neighbouring house: If a man takes a young wife He has bought himself grief; She isn t worth a penny And his joy is too brief. But Dr. Fischelson is not able to make better sense of this song than he is of the Hebrew prayer which mingles incongruously with it in the summer air. And we are given no assurances as the story ends that Dr. Fischelson s marriage to Dobbe will succeed. We simply cannot tell. An element of contingency, thoroughly unspinozan, clings to the experience and gives it zest. Singer s point is not that the marriage will succeed or that it will fail, but that it has taken place; having taken place, it puts Dr. Fischelson on the side of experiencepassionate, open-ended, full- blooded experience. Singer does not argue that the world opposed to Spinoza is an abode of happiness. Quite the contrary, it is a world in which pleasure and pain, joy and grief, good and evil are mixed together almost inseparably; they are, in Milton s phrase, as two twins cleaving together. Such a world cannot accommodate Spinozist rationalism. It is a mysterious, not a rational world. In the majority of Singer s short stories we are made to feel the presence of demons and supernatural beings. Some of them are no more than mischievous spirits but many of them are evil spirits. They are figures or types of evil or of death; so realistically are they treated in the stories that they give ground for thinking that Singer is persuaded of their real existence. Their appearances are sudden, uncaused and unexplained. In some of the stories their entrance is dramatic; at other times it is casual and hardly noticed. Their names 126 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 126

127 are drawn from a variety of sources of which the most prominent is the mystical cabalist tradition well known to chasidic lore. Spinoza knew the same tradition and rebelled against it, and it is interesting to note that the text of Spinoza s excommunication invokes the names of the numeruous benign angels and supernatural presences drawn from the cabalist tradition. What Spinoza thought of this tradition, of the existence of demons, specters, and evil presences, he made clear in a number of places: his Short Treatise has a chapter on devils, the burden of which is that such a wretched thing could not exist, even for a moment. And in his correspondence with Hugo Boxel he equated ghosts and demons with centaurs and griffins, with the products, that is to say, of a febrile human imagination. Similarly, he argued that miracles are symptoms of human ignorance. And he associated the whole apparatus of supernature with periods of social stress and disorder, declaring that men tend to be rational when they are prosperous, and superstitious when they fall into misfortune. In short, Spinoza utterly disbelieved in a world inhabited by demons, in the kind of world brought vividly to life by Singer. Singer s world is realized most fully in the shtetl, the village community of East European Jewry. At the peak of its development, this environment was comparatively immune to currents of European thought. Such ideas as came to it from the outside were brought by outsiders, as, for example, by the gentile Dr. Yaretzky in the story The Shadow of a Crib. This is an imperfectly shaped but mysterious and very moving story. Dr Yaretzky is a striking character, a troubled figure who belongs to the world of European thought but who is not happy in it and who is drawn, strangely, to the mystically ascetic rabbi of the town. Unable to enter the rabbi s world, he withdraws from the town, only to reappear in it many years later as an apparition. Why would the soul of Dr. Yaretzky hover in the window of a rabbi s study? Why should a Christian heretic seek the house of a rabbi? The answers to these questions are given implicitly; it is (to put the matter in a way that does only partial justice to the meaning of this story) that the life of the spirit, of the mind of the rabbi immersed in the Zohar and in touch with the spirit-world, is superior to the life of the mind trained only in the aridities of secular enlightened philosophy. The same problem is broached in the story called Caricature. Here the scene is Warsaw on the eve of World War II. Whereas Dr. Fischelson a generation before was only once removed from the shtetl, Dr. Boris Margolis, also a philosopher, is two times removed and the distance seems immense. Dr. Margolis is a child of the Jewish Enlightenment. He has in hand a large manuscript which is nothing less than the exposition of his own metaphysical system, but he is dissatisfied with it and cannot bring himself to publish it. What seemed to 127 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 127

128 him penetrating when he first wrote it, now seems, after the lapse of years, to be jejune. He does not believe that it can withstand the criticism of the newer currents of philosophy. Moreover, Dr. Margolis is no longer enamored of the great metaphysical systems of the past. The skepticism of Hume put those systems finally to rest, and Kant s attempt at their resuscitation was a failure. Nineteenth century metaphysics compounded the failure, succeeding only in providing footnotes to Kant. Dr. Margolis s disenchantment is complete. His intellectual life is now marked by hesitations and frustrations and his whole experience is a tissue of irritations. Even the scholarly life of enlightened Jews around him seems irrelevant. What is the point, for example, of producing a Hebrew encyclopedia as the shadow of Hitler draws closer? Dr. Margolis is Dr. Fischelson writ large, and his wife Mathilda is Black Dobbe. She resembles Black Dobbe even in the masculinity of her features, a characteristic which Dr. Margolis interprets in the light of a remark by Schopenhauer to the effect that if a woman overcomes her natural immaturity of mind, she takes on the features of a man. Mathilda is afflicted with financial anxieties and she is baffled by her husband s loss of intellectual vitality. She urges him to publish his manuscript. She is a more sophisticated, better educated version of Black Dobbe, but something of the shtetl still clings to her. At the end of the story Dr. Margolis discovers her asleep at his desk, his open manuscript spread before her. Her masculine features have deepened. He realizes that in almost every detail, not excluding the wisp of beard, her face resembles his own. This transformation, this mingling of appearances and of personalities, is a mystery, one that transcends rational and biological explanation, as Dr. Margolis now dimly begins to recognize, but only dimly, because he reverts very quickly to rational explanations. Thus the story ends as it began, on a note of despair. What are we to make of Singer s repudiation of intellectualism? The issue between himself and Spinoza does not turn simply, as I have suggested earlier, on the differences of their outlook. It is a question of personality, of feelings and of feeling-tone. And it is a question on Singer s part, of asserting the value of the emotional life. We are the people of idea, Lionel Trilling has written, and we rightly fear that the intellect will dry up the blood in our veins and wholly check the emotional and creative part of the mind. Singer s horror of this prospect is matched by the power of his contrary vision, by the spontaneity and creativity of the life he extols. His short stories are written in a style of concentrated energy perfectly suited to the world of his imagination. That world is not a Spinozan world, but having said this we must observe that Singer does not hold Spinoza in contempt. It is in fact hard to see how any writer, committed to the 128 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 128

129 creation of an imaginative world, could be contemptuous of Spinoza, whose work, after all, was on the order of a great imaginative achievement. Indeed there is a sense in which Singer, opposed though he is to Spinoza s fundamental outlook, captures at least one of Spinoza s positions. Spinozism is a philosophy of timelessness, and the shtetl, that marvelous abode of Singer s imagination, existed, at the moment of its fullest development, outside of history. Singer and Spinoza clasped hands in their different achievement of that timeless order. Bibliography: Landis, J. C., Aspects of I.B.Singer. New York: Queens College Press. Farrell, G., Critical essays on Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: G.K.Hall. Friedman, L. S., Understanding I.B.Singer. University of South Carolina Press. Malin, I., Isaac Bashevis Singer. F.Unger Pub. 129 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 129

130 Globalizing Americanness: Language and American Identity in Nigerian Home Videos Obododimma Oha Abstract: As a process through which American values, ways of life, and preferences are reproduced and/or acquired by non-americans, either within or outside America, Americanization is an important linguistic and stylistic issue. Linguistically signifying oneself as American is one of those values, as well as one of the means, through which the process of Americanization takes place. Language is particularly a site where Americanization may be represented, interrogated, or promoted in discourses In Nigerian video films, one finds interesting representations and interrogations of linguistic Americanization. Whereas the Nigerian video film itself is not free from American influence- in fact, it too, could be seen as both an instrument and product of Americanization- it nevertheless serves as an avenue for staging the consequent estrangement that goes with speaking American English to those for whom English is still synonymous with the identity of oyibo (a popular Nigerian term for the White person ). American films, admired and watched by many people in developing countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, and other African countries, suggest American models of cultural and linguistic behaviours for individual and group identity transformation. But in an interesting way, American films dialogue with and re-voice films in other contexts of culture. In this case, the American voices that one hears in those other films become signifiers of both the hybridity of the films and elements through which we could meaningfully examine how America is experienced, verbalized, and encountered in a non-american visual world. This essay therefore discusses the linguistic and textual politics of the cultivation of American identity in some Nigerian video films. Although representations of the Americanized self could be found in other cultural productions in Nigeria, the video film has become a much more significant context of cross-cultural engagement, and means of influencing people s attitudes in Africa today. Interestingly, American culture has had a strong impact on the development of the video film, which has become one important cultural tool for advertising American supremacy in the world. As people move through their lives, as thinking, feeling subjects bodily engage 130 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 130

131 in an unbroken succession of time-space specific activities, the meaning-filled dynamics of culture are played out at the intersection of that which is locally sedimented, that which is locally ongoing, and or that which locally penetrates from a distance, at the junction either where different elements of local interest and discourse collide in new ways, or where the locally distinctive and the global, the locally originating and the nonlocally originating, the microprocessual and macroprocessual, meet head on. (Allan Pred 109) I The head on meeting of the local and the global, which Allan Pred poetically reflects on in his essay, Capitalisms, Crises, and Cultures II: Notes on Local Transformation and Everyday Cultural Struggles, creates an opportunity for a dramatization of admiration, resistance, and subjectivity, as represented in cultural productions about the engagement of American preferences with the otherness of foreign cultures. The American movie, Coming to America, starring Eddie Murphy, humorously depicts an experience of American values by an African prince, Akeem, who, back in Africa, is not as allowed to as much as tie his own shoes. Usually given a royal bath by beautiful, naked maidens, Akeem is extremely pampered, and as part of this tradition of having things done for him, a girl is picked for him and trained to do whatever he says. Even when Akeem orders her to jump up and bark like a dog (as a way of testing her ability to take the initiative), she complies and cannot stop because she has not been ordered to stop. Akeem s going to America therefore is an attempt at breaking free from this ancient African tradition that paradoxically confuses freedom with slavery. Although grossly exaggerated, the movie gives us an important Hollywood version of Americanization: to be Americanized is to be free. It would also be worthwhile to consider African versions of Americanization, especially since Americanization today is also viewed as being almost synonymous with globalization (Jay, p. 34). Americanization is mainly a transformation of cultural identity, which may result from an admiration of American civilization and identity, or from the circumstantial imperative to conform to American lifestyle so as to benefit more meaningfully from what America offers. The first case mainly applies to individuals outside the US, who may want to reinvent their 131 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 131

132 identities with the assumption that an American is the new, desirable, citizen of the world. The second, on the other hand, seems to apply mainly to individuals who have already found themselves under US influence and have no choice but to accept the American norms of behaviour. Indeed, as a transformational process, Americanization occurs at various levels and in various spheres of contemporary life, including politics, religion, economy, education, and language. From a linguistic perspective, the process of Americanization would involve a shift to the linguistic code and style of language recognized and preferred in America as American. The idea is that to speak and write like an American is to represent one s Americanness, and to ask in discourse to be located where Americanness is imagined as superior. Within the US, speaking like an American prevents a person from being isolated, a sense of shibboleth that is found everywhere in the world. At this level, therefore, Americanness is imagined as language, as speech. Linguistic and other semiotic modes of Americanization are also facilitated by the American influence in new information and communication technology, the new media (especially the internet, the video film, and television), cultural exchanges of America with the rest of the world, immigration, etc. The computer and the internet particularly impose American linguistic and stylistic preferences on their users, so that computeracy (having knowledge of the use of the computer, or what is wrongly called computer literacy ) and cyberacy (having knowledge of the use of the Internet in communicating, or being a Netizen) are tied up with American identity and values. America advertises and teaches its cultural behaviours through the products it sells to the rest of the world. In other words, we do not just buy the goods of technology for their utilitarian values; we buy the American image (Oha, Marketing Goods and Services), American behaviour, and particularly American expression. American films, admired and watched by many people in developing countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, and other African countries, suggest American models of cultural and linguistic behaviours for individual and group identity construction. But in an interesting way, American films dialogue with and re-voice films in other contexts of culture. In this case, the American voices that one hears in these other films become signifiers of both the hybridity of the films and elements through which we could gainfully examine how America is experienced, verbalized, and encountered in a non-american visual world. As a process through which American values, ways of life, and preferences are reproduced and/or acquired by non-americans, either within or outside America, Americanization is an important linguistic and stylistic issue. Linguistically signifying oneself as American is one of those values, as well as one of the means through which the process of 132 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 132

133 Americanization takes place. Language particularly is a site where Americanization may be represented, interrogated, or promoted in discourses. It has been observed that in Nigerian public life, those who are able to use the American accent are often admired and applauded, although in official matters British English has been privileged (Igboanusi, 2003, pp. 600, 603). In Nigerian video films, one finds interesting representations and interrogations of linguistic Americanization. Whereas the Nigerian video film itself is not free from American influence- in fact, it too could be seen as both an instrument and a product of Americanization- it nevertheless serves as an avenue for staging the consequent estrangement that goes with speaking American English to those for whom English is still synonymous with the identity of oyibo (a popular Nigerian term for the White person ). It has been observed that a return to Africa with an aquired Americanness does not always attract admiration; Normally Africans who speak foreign accents when they return to their African environment are seen as showing off, or trying to be different. Sometimes they may be shunned (Oha, Heroes of Knowledge). This essay therefore discusses the linguistic and textual politics of the cultivation of American identity in some Nigerian video films. Although representations of the Americanized self could be found in other cultural productions in Nigeria, the video film has become a much more significant context of cross-cultural engagement, and means of influencing people s attitudes in Africa today. Interestingly, American culture has had a strong impact on the development of the video film, which has become one important cultural tool for advertising American supremacy in the world. It will be interesting to see how the video film, as the Master s cultural tool, is appropriated in responding to the consequences of the experience with the Master s voice. The films selected for the study are Osuofiasn, Ononikpo (parts I and II), Reckless Heart (parts I and II), Grace to Grass, and Back from America (Parts I and II), all of which present encounters of local Nigerians with those who have lived in America and have been consequently Americanized both linguistically and in other patterns of life, or who falsely claim to have come from America and so consciously try to act out Americanness in speech and action. In either case, it is most likely that the difference of their identity would be an important issue in the interactions with other individuals in the films. The first two of the films listed in the preceding paragraph are comic, and star Nkem Owoh, who is notable for his humorous use of language in the many Nigerian films in which he has been featured. In Osuofiasn and Ononikpo I and II, he is presented as a notorious local who, in spite of his lack of enlightenment and illiteracy, challenges those who are enlightened 133 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 133

134 and exposed to global and Western cultures. The comic nature of the films is equally important since it correlates with the idea of laughing at the Americanized cultural other. Indeed, in Nigeria, people who return to the country with too much of their foreign cultural influence may be ridiculed. Laughter then is a language of resistance to this foreignness and otherness. Reckless Heart, on the other hand, features Saint Obi (Johnny), who, after being helped financially by his girlfriend, Rosy, to travel to America, eats the American Big Apple, and becomes unfaithful to her. But worse still, he returns to Nigeria as a reckless Americanized tough and picaresque hero who disrupts matrimonial peace with his sweet talk about freedom and his been-to-america speech style. This same disruptive impact of Americanization is represented in Grace to Grass, within a religious context. Americanization in this case is oversimplified as a danger to the (born-again Christian) project of salvation and righteousness, especially because its liberalism runs against the grain of rigid doctrinal behaviour. The dangerous liberalism of Pastor Wilson is signified not only in his use of American slang (a variety of language not often placed closer to argot (Wales 423) and therefore not in accordance with the traditional Christian notion of righteous speech), but also in other modes of behaviour such as dressing and dancing. Back from America stars Nigerian comedians, Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme, who have been featured as picaresque heroes in many Nigerian films including Small Shit, Nwa Teacher, Awilo Sharp Sharp, American Husband, and Charge and Bail. Unlike the other films selected for this study, Back from America portrays the invention and fraudulent use of an American identity and American accent of English in a context where such identity is still highly admired by some people, or seen as a means of getting on in life. These films therefore expose areas of social and private life where Americanization is linguistically and semiotically experienced in Nigeria. II In a January 2004 interview, the Nigerian film star and comedian Nkem Owoh, asserted, I don't want to act like an American. I want to bring that Hollywood and indigenize it. So I want to leave a legacy so that the things we have here can be projected for other people to accept. (Owoh, online). It appears that, as a professional actor, he is conscious of the Americanization of the Nigerian video film, but would opt for a dialogue between the foreign (global) and the local, something that has already been demonstrated in the concept of Nollywood, the Nigerian version of Hollywood (1). Nollywood is clearly a scion of 134 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 134

135 Hollywood as seen in the morphological structure of the name: Nolly (substituting Holly ) + Wood Nollywood. Although this morphological shift is hardly creative, it represents an inclination towards applying the American experience and tradition in the film industry. This also means learning the language of the film as a cultural and artistic medium from the American masters. By language, in this case, is not meant American language or speech style but American understandings and practice of what speaking or communicating through the mode of film requires, or what film rhetoric entails to create an audience, a market, and above all, become a field of human action (2). The language of Hollywood films obviously tends to favour the American dream and does advertise America as a superior power, the American as the saviour, while demonizing or denigrating the outsider. The outsider is often positioned to learn from America or be delivered by America. From James Bond to Harrison Ford, it is all a story of how America is the crime-fighter and hero, something that has been actually demonstrated in American military campaigns in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Iraq. Hollywood celebrates America, creating stereotypes of the country that happen to constitute a temptation for America to literalize the roles, and may intensify the prejudice haboured against America by her enemies. Nkem Owoh s eloquence and critical approach to the acts of people are his advantage in several films in which he has starred, such as Ikuku, Ukwa, Omugwo, etc. But his eloquence, used as a means of intimidating others sometimes, does not always help him. It rather creates more trouble for him, which is what we find in Osuofiasn where he publicly tells a military governor that he is corrupt and unreliable as a ruler. Anybody who is familiar with the measure of power exercised by military rulers in Nigeria would know how risky it is to publicly challenge a military governor of a state. As shown in the film, the governor, who can no longer endure Osuofia s accusations, angrily walks out of the ceremony, and orders the latter to be taken away. The major issue in the film- the consequences of torturing an elderly titled man who has spoken out against evil- then emerges when, back home, Osuofia is pinned down by his brothers and mercilessly caned for trying to bring trouble upon them through his criticism of the governor. Angered by this torture, Osuofia goes into exile, placing a curse on his kinsmen and cordoning off the premises in the traditional way with palm fronds. It is during this exile (at the home of his maternal uncle) that he is once more pitched against one of his uncles who has returned from America with only his American accent, slang, and what is often referred to in America as bad walk to show for it. Of course, walking and talking are two interdependent semiotic systems used in constructing difference for, and trying to impress 135 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 135

136 a local African population that is confused as to whether to retain the local or the foreign. It is this same Americanized individual- now Bingo the wrestler- that the local chieftain, Osuofia (as Ononikpoaku in the film, Ononikpo (Parts I and II) confronts, a confrontation that symbolizes the tension between the local, precisely the preservation of indigenous albeit retrogressive systems of control, and the American way of life. In Ononikpo, Ononikpoaku is an illiterate elder seeking to keep away his in-laws from the enormous wealth inherited by his wife following her father s death. Bingo, one of his brothers-in-law, who had been living in America, returns on learning about the death of his brother. Ononikpoaku, in order to forestall aggression from this wrestler, pretends to be a boxer, and takes a photograph, which he displays in the sitting room to communicate the presence of a counterforce. His being a counterforce is something that is not only signified visually through the photograph, but also verbally in the hot exchanges he has with the Americanized wrestler, Bingo (played by Big Fred), who immediately from the time he sees the photograph starts expressing his disgust and dislike for the iconized. If the American identity is a global force, Ononikpoaku as a local illiterate is no symbolic match: the conflict between the local and the global- the bully wrestlemaniac and the fake Nigerian boxer-victim- does not favour the local. The American bully is an intimidating presence, just as America, as a global force that is often metaphorized as a bully, intimidates weak nations with her military and economic might. The handicaps and limitations of the local are too great, while those of the global (as signified by the imposing size of the wrestler) are unbeatable. Americanization as a global force is projected in Ononikpo as a means of intimidation and silencing. Perhaps this has been derived from the stereotype of America itself as a global bully that silences other nations, whether they are right or wrong. There is also the tendency of the American and the Americanized to think that they are better than others who have not been in America, or those who are not American. In this vein, one notices a maximization of social distance in the verbal exchanges between the Americanized and the non-americanized in the films. The cultural tenor that distinguishes those who are Here from those who are There or who have been There means that Here is Nowhere (without There ). Being There then means being Everywhere, for everywhere is There (in everyone) in America. The language of being There expresses authority and superiority. Sounding American is, however, merely a performance, a creation of fiction, just as the video film itself is a simulation of reality. J.R. Firth (cited in Butler, 1985, p. 5) has drawn attention to this significance of the tongue of the nation when he states that it is part of the meaning of an American to sound like one. Indeed, sounding American could be viewed as a 136 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 136

137 phonological negotiation of national identity, especially when America as a nation is a world power that seems to dominate the rest of the world. Identifying with the powerful is a common survival strategy which operates both at the individual and group levels. Perhaps an extension of this survival strategy is the discovery and use of the sounds of American English and American slang in inventing an American self with the aim of defrauding people in a society where being American or being from America has come to mean having more prospects and greater genuineness. As is the case with Alhaji who is defrauded by Falon, Risky and Danger in Back from America, some of those who fall victim to those who linguistically and semiotically invent their Americanness are themselves looking for easy means of getting rich(er). Alhaji in his own case hopes that by investing in a phony musical performance by American stars, he will make good money and also become famous as an international sponsor of the arts. Victims of fraud, such as Advance Fee Fraud (known as 419), are themselves not entirely innocent of being criminally minded. What 419 fraudsters propose in their mailings are clearly criminal transactions, which they want the addressees to keep confidential, the purpose being to isolate the victim from good counsel (Tive, 2001, p.50). The person who falls victim also complies with this confidentiality with criminal intent, hoping that in the end a given percentage of the money will be his or hers. In Reckless Heart and Grace to Grass, Americanization is presented as a corrupting influence on the supposedly uncorrupt local. This thesis is mainly supported in Grace to Grass, a Christian film made by Helen Ukpabio, who has produced several other films dealing with the problems of maintaining pure born-again Christian principles in Nigeria in recent times. In both films, the major characters are faithful to their vows and are evidently trustworthy while still in Nigeria. But once they go to America and are exposed to the American lifestyle, they change completely and return to upset things back home in Nigeria. Johnny in Reckless Heart, played by Saint Obi, is represented as a caring and faithful fiancée to Roselyn while he is still in Nigeria. But once he crosses over to the United States and encounters the American liberal lifestyle (or, as he confesses, he eats the Big Apple ), he becomes unfaithful to Rosy. He not only stops writing to Roselyn (Rosy), he even marries an African American lady by whom he has two children. On learning that Johnny has gotten married in the US, Rosy decides to marry a rich and caring, but much older Chief Lawson who has been her father s bosom friend and benefactor. Johnny returns just after Rosy s marriage and tries to renew their relationship. Rosy, still carrying the sweet memories of her past relationship with Johnny, becomes confused (in the same way that the local meeting the 137 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 137

138 global becomes confused or sometimes ambivalent), and no matter how hard she tries to discourage him, she finds that her love for him is great. Chief Lawson gets to know about this relationship and Rosy s secret love for Johnny, as she begins to talk amorously to Johnny in her sleep, and even day-dreams about him. As a rich man, Lawson is able to use the services of surveillance experts to obtain evidence with which he confronts Rosy. Abandoning his initial inclination towards beating his wife, he accepts the divorce suit which Rosy s lawyers send him. Johnny s attempt at marrying Rosy fails as Chief Lawson, with his influence, is able to alert Johnny s American wife and to bring her over just before the marriage registrar could proclaim Johnny and Rosy husband and wife. Johnny s liberal American logic is that No man, no woman, is hanging out with the one they do not love (Emphasis mine). He is able to appeal to Rosy s emotions to the extent that she becomes unfaithful to Lawson, and actually prefers him to the latter. Unfortunately, Lawson s use of domestic violence creates an opportunity for Johnny to posture as Rosy s protector. As in the typical Hollywood tradition, the woman must choose as her hero and true lover, the man that comes to her rescue in her difficult circumstances, even when it is this same man that has created those difficult circumstances. The use of American slang such as hanging out is particularly meant to impress the addressee with the charm of being the nonlocal, new-fashioned individual who would make a difference. Newness and difference (and difference of newness) of culture are often what America is imagined to give to the world. America is imagined as the New Idea, communicated to the world, both in language and other means. American slang, especially when exported to other cultural contexts, is used as means of expressing the freedom of the new individual. We should obviously be disturbed at the reconstruction of Rosy s marital relationship with Chief Lawson as hanging out : certainly, at the discursive level, the marital bond is being semiotically loosened, weakened, if not made casual, as opposed to the conservative view of marriage- what-god-joined-together-let-noman-pull-asunder. Hanging out, as used by Johnny, is a linguistic deconstruction of the marital relationship, for the addresser recognizes the zones of psycho-semiotic weakness in the addressee in relationship to the marriage and so tries to discursively disturb it and contaminate her thoughts. This again represents a criminal manipulation of discourse. The influence of Hollywood on Igbo and English language films in Nigeria has been noted in some previous studies, for instance the one by Haynes and Okome who observe that this influence may be linked to the attempt by dynamic and modern operators to create a proper entertainment industry, aspiring to the technical capacity to copy the look of at least the minor Hollywood genres (34). On the one hand, therefore, the film aesthetically benefits 138 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 138

139 from American/Hollywood styles, but in its story, it paradoxically speaks about the negative influence American lifestyle could have on individual morality, especially in terms of trustworthiness. In Grace to Grass, there is also a movement from an approved to an unapproved pattern of behaviour, as the title already suggests. Pastor Wilson (played by Sola Fosudo) is shown as a genuinely committed minister of his church in Nigeria. Even the death of his wife and his two children in a road accident, as well as blackmail and conspiracies by some young members of his church, are unable to make him lose faith in God, or opt for worldliness. But after remarrying and traveling to the US for further evangelical studies, he comes in contact with the American lifestyle and changes dramatically. He returns to Nigeria with all airs of Americanness, changing the doctrines of the church in order to accommodate some worldliness and vanity. As in the case of Johnny, it is even in his mode of dressing and speech that this unapproved newness is displayed. In fact, members of his church immediately recognize and regard his use of American slang as a symptom of his spiritual corruption. He even takes a second wife from his congregation, this time making sure that she is the trendy, mini-skirt wearing, and disco-loving type. In sum, he brings scandal into his church, reinforces his power by declaring himself a bishop, and exploits his congregation through making reimbursement claims for foreign trips he never takes. It is interesting to observe that those who speak American English, or who use American sounds and slang in their speech, are associated with criminal or immoral acts in Grace to Grass. It is of course the case that in Nigeria, street toughs and crooks model their speech and lifestyle after those of some protagonists they see in American films, wrestling matches, and television shows, and try to literalize the acts they see in these cultural media. Also, many Nigerian Christian evangelists use the American accent of English, especially speech styles of American evangelists, in suggesting their non-localization and importance, and persuading their congregations about their genuineness, the implication being that the local is not to be trusted or believed. Christianity, in this case, is implicitly constructed and disseminated as being foreign, something that reveals the tension between the local and the global in the religious sphere (3). Speaking and acting American, even if America in this context is invented, is an important means of boosting personal ego. Reinventing oneself as American in speech is suggested as being part of the falsehood associated with unrighteousness in Grace to Grass for such reinvention is unnatural. Of course, not all who have been to the US, as shown in all the films, try to display the American influence in their speech. Speaking the American way is therefore an important 139 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 139

140 stylistic strategy used in suggesting the relationship of the speech to the personality of the individual. As a cultural code, the American speech style not only suggests the foreign, the strange, and sometimes a source of humour, it also presents much more significantly the presence of a global force in competition with the local, or the global that is criticized and challenged by an equally ridiculous local semiotic. As displayed in Ononikpo in particular, the foreign speech style already suggests a subversion of codes of politeness in the local Igbo culture. When the film begins, we see Ononikpoaku and his friend Romanus reacting critically to the disrespectful manner of approach and address terms used by the unnamed son of a retired headmaster (simply referred to as nwa Ozokwere (son of Ozokwere)), who is just returning to his village in Nigeria after a 20 year stay in the US, and is asking for directions to his father s house. This asking of directions stands in symbolic relation to the loss of cultural memory and discourse competence. Ononikpoaku chides him as follows for addressing them as guys : I dara ya. I kwesiri ima na ife a di n isi m (pointing to his red cap) bu echichi ka m chiri. Ife a aburo facing cap. Ya bu I puta si m Hi! Hi guys! Hi men! o bulu mkpari. I kpoo Ichie, ma o bu Chief, na o rutukwuuru anyi. (You are wrong. You are supposed to know that this thing on my head shows that I am a titled person. This is not a face cap. So, if you approach me and say Hi! Hi guys! Hi men!, it amounts to insult. If you say Ichie, or Chief, for we merit it too.) Traditionally, title holding is an important cultural construction of social and political power. Titled men and women wield a lot of influence and command respect in Nigeria. In fact, in the Igbo society, those who have taken the ozo title- the type that Ononikpo has in the film, are highly revered, especially because the ozo titled man is regarded as one who upholds the truth at all times, who cannot gossip, who cannot engage in scandalous acts, who must not fight, or even get drunk. Abusing an ozo-titled person, or attempting to fight him, attracts serious penalties in the traditional Igbo society. The ozo-titled person is normally greeted with his title name, which signifies his elevated position, and not like untitled persons. We can therefore understand the cultural basis for Ononikpo s query of the returnee s causal greeting in which his social position is not respected. Ononikpo and Romanus would want to be stylistically marked as the High (with the addition of Ichie ) and the returnee young man as the Low. Even in the current era in Nigeria, title holding has been rediscovered as a means of constructing and using power in society. Nigerian politicians and even civil servants literally 140 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 140

141 buy chieftaincy titles as a way of increasing their status in a society where one s significance is a means of intimidating others and wielding influence. The American greeting style Hi! (which means How are you? ), is a leveler which does not mark the authority or superiority of the addressee. The American society may not have a disregard for authority as such, and does linguistically and stylistically encode authority and superiority, but to a large extent, the pursuit of the idea that All men are created equal, which is expressed in the American Declaration of Independence, seems to have influenced American social life and verbal interaction. Even in Coming to America, we find that the Americans in the film have no special regard for the King of Zamunda, which is a thing of amazement and shock for the king and his entourage. The king is addressed and threatened like any other American when he attempts to prevent Akeem from marrying an American wife. Mr McDowell threatens to kick his arse. It is only the king s money that has meaning for them, which suggests the relocation of the symbolic process from culture to the power of capital, or rather symbolizing capital as the only meaningful instrument of (cultural) power. The power of capital in some of the Nigerian films is constructed from contact with America, precisely with the American dollar, which again is a symbolic language. Indeed, the meaning of Ononikpoaku (One in the midst of wealth) is contextually tied to the wealth accumulated through a stay in America by Fidelis, Ononikpoaku s brother, who unfortunately dies in the September 11 attacks. Nigerian films and soaps tend to celebrate wealth, and often represent the power that goes with such wealth. What is so intriguing is the frequent featuring of the American dollar as the ultimate representation of profound wealth. Ten thousand dollars is sent to Ononikpoaku for him to prepare for his brother s funeral. Unfortunately, he is ignorant of the fact that it is a huge sum, and is swindled by some rich Nigerian conmen, including Ezeafojuru, whose daughter he eventually marries. (This conman motif is often found in Nigerian films that visualize city life (Oha, The Visual Rhetoric of the Ambivalent City). Moreover, part of Fidelis wealth claimed by Tricia, his American widow, amounts to one million American dollars. It appears unimportant to express these amounts in the Nigerian currency in the films, since such currency appears to be steadily falling in value. It has been observed that the dollar as the strongest currency in the world appears to signify the ideal economic well-being. And in West African countries, where inflation has made nonsense of local currencies, possessing real American dollars is often interpreted as an indication of real prosperity (Oha, Marketing Goods and Services with/as Images of America, p. 78). This is why Ezeafojuru boastfully tells his son-in-law (in a code-mixed strategy that reveals the 141 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 141

142 dialogue of the local and the global) that he (Ezeafojuru) expects him to prepare to host his wealthy international peers at his daughter s wedding, for these people would mess him up with their dollars ( ndi ga-eji dollar mee gi ife ). In this case, the gift of dollars (referred to as spraying of money in Nigeria) is ironically more of an attempt to humiliate the supposedly poorer beneficiary than to assist him financially. It is an attempt at exhibiting one s superiority, not charity. The relatives of Fidelis in the village can only think of their late brother s money hyperbolically as ego agwu agwu (money that is inexhaustible). The fact then is that the subjectivity of the local to the powerful forces of the global is enacted at the site of money (and in the sighting of money, where we witness the conflicts and revelation of the handicaps of localism). What is remarkable in these films is that American English is used in identifying those who have been influenced by American life. But it is not just that language is a mark of identity- that is to be expected in every dramatic and film performance- it is rather the importance attached to the ways that non-local preferences are expressed, or the way that foreign American semiotic is used in representing local African conditions and behaviours, and the way that the differences in the use of language affect interpersonal relationships, and of course intensify misunderstanding. Tricia in Ononikpoaku, in reacting to Ononikpo s verbal aggression, tells him through John (the interpreter), to take it easy and to stop acting as if he is sick upstairs. John, instead of interpreting this offensive idiomatic expression, bursts into laughter, which partly annoys and partly surprises the illiterate Ononikpo and his kinsmen. In the interpretation that he gives later, John deliberately suppresses the aspect of Tricia s statement that is offensive, saying that she is asking Ononikpo to take it easy (adding tactfully though, that there is a way American slang interestingly expresses meaning in discourse). Interpretation, as a means of meeting with and getting the meaning of the other in a cross-cultural communication, features as a act of mediating cultural differences, indeed cultural meanings. However, we find the local in the above case losing out. One factor, which John has taken into consideration while interpreting the statement, is the social and cultural implication of abusing an elderly person and what is more, a titled person. As an interpreter, he too would have been considered impolite or giving support to the abuse if he had conveyed it in his interpretation. Creating silences and gaps in the interpretation of inter-cultural statements is therefore an important strategy that the film suggests. 142 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 142

143 The Americanized Nigerian characters in the films tend to freely use words such as shit, fuck, arse, etc. that are common among Americans, words that mark them out as subverting local African norms of refined speech. Whereas they also try to use these words to suggest their freedom from local culture, they also signify themselves as being in possession of what they think portrays their Americanness, something that is more evident in their use of an American accent of English. Nevertheless, one could still see through the unnaturalness of this American accent used as an inclusive shibboleth. It is very fitting of the biblical image of Esau s hands, but Jacob s voice. Pastor (later Bishop) Wilson s fascination with the American accent, which correlates with his sudden change of vision and personality, reminds one of the appropriations of foreign accents of English, especially the American, by some Nigeria Pentecostal Evangelists which was mentioned earlier in this paper. Perhaps related to the idea of pastoring from a global or international authority, speaking and acting from Americanness is a dramatic means of impression management used by some Nigerian pastors in their preaching, especially on television. Although these ministers may have been influenced in their speech styles through their foreign trips, their inclination to speak using an American accent to their Nigerian audiences is nothing short of sheer display. Pastor Wilson comes back from American with this desire to move his Nigerian congregation rhetorically and dramatically, and, of course, he quickly wins the admiration of young members of his church who have always had to repress the desire for worldly aesthetics. It is perhaps in Back from America (Parts I and II), produced by A-2-Z, Onitsha, that one sees a display of the amusing and ridiculous sides of linguistic and semiotic aspects of Americanization. The film, which derives its title from the music of the American rap singer, Fifty Cent, who also uses African-American slang, reveals an interesting exploitation of the local illusion and awe about being from America (or being Americanized) for criminal purposes. Risky and Danger (played by Osita Iheme and Chinedu Ikedieze), two stunted rascals that have been featured in many Nigerian comedies, suddenly discover the power of being Americanized after watching a rap music performance on television, and immediately set about transforming their appearances and language to become like African American hippies. They defraud the village youth who, desirous of acquiring American slang from them, paid them one hundred and fifty Naira each. With the money they have acquired from their fraudulence in the village, they migrate to Lagos, a city that promises sufficient cover for their criminal use of fake American identity. Americanization in the Nigerian context is held suspect in the film, as those who display it do so for criminal purposes. Here, one finds an 143 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 143

144 interesting link between language and crime: language as social semiotic (Halliday) facilitates the invention of the criminalized American image, which the Nigerian society adores at its own risk. Coming to America and Back from America present two dimensions of the African thirst for Americanization. In both, language and cultural reinvention of the self are very important. In the former, Akeem retains his African accent of English, to suit his African identity, but in the latter, Risky and Danger, who actually constitute a risk and danger to their Nigerian society, relentlessly cultivate slangy American speech. They even discover that, in a society where the American identity is highly treasured as a means of creating a prosperous future, they could, by pretending to be instructors in the art of American speech, con hundreds of local youth of their money. Quite clearly, they turn linguistic identity into a tool for criminal exploitation. The language of invented Americanness in these films is not restricted to actual utterances: it also extends to visual semiotics and written signs. One example is the inscription I NY on the t-shirt Johnny has on while going to visit Rosy in hospital. With a baseball cap (won backwards) to match, this costuming is deliberately used at this point (in fact, when Johnny walks in, it is obvious that he intends Rosy to see the inscription), perhaps to create a comparison between a caring, repentant Americanized lover and a brutal though rich local Nigerian husband. As a means of visualizing culture and interaction across cultures, the video film could be said to speak in diverse languages. It is not just that characters in the films speak languages that signify their roles and social identities (for instance, gangsters would be expected to use slang or some argot), or use dialects that capture the circumstances of the cultural production (for instance, Nigerian characters speaking Nigerian English or Nigerian Pidgin), but also the films communicate through modes of dress, signature tunes and background music, and so on. Craig J. Saper has argued that the cinema functions as an artificial mythmaking machine that produces creole cultures instead of producing a singular ideology (p. 67). Multicultural environments most likely generate films that speak about diversity, or about crossing cultural borders. However, films may ideologically seek to create multicultural environments, as suggested by Saper (p. 94): American culture, the ultimate mix, still seems frustrated with the possibility that the invasion of the aliens entered with the emergence of photographic and film representation even before the invention of the cinema. The pop-art travel machine, intensified with the cinema, promises a becoming-other called multiculturalism. 144 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 144

145 This argument takes us back to the debate about the non-naturalness or non-neutrality of media messages. From a Marxist perspective, media messages are always ideological, even if such ideology is suppressed in the text. Citing Roland Barthes, Woollacott (p. 99) has explained that Film and photography operate upon us in a manner which suppresses and conceals their ideological function because they appear to record rather than to transform or signify. Suppressing and concealing the ideological function in the film are powerful strategies because we as viewers are misled into believing that our convictions are secure, or that the film is innocuous. Moreover, in film and photography, there is often no obvious voice talking to us, unlike in documentaries where the narrator leads us and attempts to influence our attitude. Postcolonial and global migration, exile, criminal exchanges, etc, are well served in the film discourses analyzed, where images and languages mediate postures, practices, and preferences. III African cultural encounter with America and globalization is an on-going process that is filled with paradoxes. Within African discourses that interrogate globalization and Americanization, we still find elements that de-authorize the local logic, and which insist that only the usable past is relevant. Being Americanized is represented in various modes and also perceived in diverse ways in Nigerian video films. As shown in this paper, Americanization, as partly a linguistic and stylistic issue, remains a useful element to the Nigerian video culture that must not only narrate cross-cultural encounters, but must also globalize its aesthetic appeal. Linguistic Americanization is a source of humour for the Nigerian audience- for the language of the Other is a source of amusement for the Self, and indeed one of the means of constructing Otherness is to identify the language of the Other as strange and amusing. But beyond the humorous representation of Americanization as a style is a subtle association of such style with fraudulence. Language and re/constructions of identity are important issues in the rhetoric of the socalled New Humanism. We are told that identity is not natural; rather, it is invented or constructed. It can also be reinvented when it does not support the goal that a person or group is pursuing. Some identities are achieved cheaply; some at great cost. Some are earned; some are won. Visa lottery, for instance, is one means of reinventing national identity, but it also shifts the idea of invention a little further to chance. 145 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 145

146 It is interesting that the discursive invention of American identity is criminalized in these films studied. Daniel Bell, in his now classic essay entitled Crime as an American Way of Life (1953, p. 116), had argued that From the start America was at one and the same time a frontier community where everything goes, and the fair country of the Blue Laws. At the turn of the century the cleavage developed between the Big City and the small-town conscience. Crime as a growing business was fed by the revenues from prostitution, liquor and gambling that a wide-open urban society encouraged and which a middle-class Protestant ethos tried to suppress with a ferocity unmatched in any other civilized country. It appears that with respect to the relationship between America (as the Big City) and Nigeria (as the Small Town), the seemingly dominant cultural outlook of America is easily adopted by the Americanized Nigerian who wants to get on in life. The conscience or morality of the Small Town is perceived as incapable of creating quick material successes. The verbalization of orientation to this new culture of the Big City is considered necessary, especially as a means of making others part with their money or possessions. Risky and Danger, while in their small local community, capitalize on the perception of rap (as one of the languages for getting on in the Big City) and present themselves as teachers of this new language. Language becomes a site, not only for a struggle over money and material wellbeing, but also where criminality is staged. Language is thus the risk factor as well as the zone for deception and victimhood. Notes 1 For more information on Nollywood, see < 2 Film is understood as a language in the sense that it communicates or speaks through various systems which include visual images, sound, motion, space, and human speech. It is language only to the extent that it creates a linkage of signifying relationships (Mitry 26). 3 African Christianity witnesses the tension between local religious values and the Western, but there is a strong tendency toward syncretism (Oha, Yoruba Christian Video Narrative and Indigenous Imaginations: Dialogue and Duelogue). Bibliography: Bell, D., Crime as an American Way of Life. Antioch Review XIII, pp N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 146

147 Butler, Ch. S., 1985, Systemic Linguistics: Theory and Applications. London: Batsford Academic & Educational. Haynes, J. and Onookome Okome, Evolving Popular Media: Nigerian Video Films. Nigerian Video Films. Ed. Jonathan Haynes. Ibadan: Kraftbooks. pp Igboanusi, H., Knowledge, Use, and Attitudes Towards Americanisms in Nigerian English. World Englishes 22.4, pp Mitry, Semiotics and the Analysis of Film. Trans. Christopher King. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana UP. Oha, O., The Visual Rhetoric of the Ambivalent City in Nigerian Video Films. Cinema and the City: Film and urban Societies in Global Context. Eds. Shiel, Mark and Tony Fitzmaurice. Oxford: Blackwell. pp Oha, O., Marketing Goods and Services with/as Images of America. ANGLES 2: Special Issue on Trading Cultures, pp Oha, O., Yoruba Christian Video Narrative and Indigenous Imaginations: Dialogue and Duelogue, Cahiers d Etudes africaines, 165, XLII, pp Oha, O., Heroes of Knowledge versus Dragons of Ignorance: Language, Identity Construction, and Intertextuality in Nnamdi Azikiwe s My Odyssey. Mots Pluriels, 23 (2003). < Owoh, N. I Will Bring Hollywood to Nigeria. Nigeriaworld.com, Interview, (Friday) 24 January < Pred, A.. Capitalisms, Crises, and Cultures II: Notes on Local Transformation and Everyday Cultural Struggles. Reworking Modernity: Capitalisms and Symbolic Discontent. Eds. Pred, A. and M. J. Watts, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. pp Saper, C. J., Artificial Mythologies: A Guide to Cultural Invention. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P. Tive, Ch., Scam: Exploits of the Nigerian Con Man. NPP, Chicha Favours. Wales, K., A Dictionary of Stylistics. London: Longman. Woollacott, J.,1982. Messages and Meanings. Culture, Society and the Media. Eds. Michael Gurevitch, Tony Bennett, James Curran, and Janet Woollacott. London: Methuen, pp N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 147

148 Presentation of the USA in Pynchon s Vineland Jana Waldnerová Abstract: Although some novels are set in seemingly real places, the world depicted in them might look very different than the actual one. Such discrepancy reveals the author s intentions and signals a certain hidden meaning. Thomas Pynchon s novel Vineland can be an example of the aforementioned. Moreover, the text of the novel is saturated with various references to television and its programs, names of TV presenters, etc. The aim of this article is to find reasons for those signs and to decode their meaning. History is a set of great stories, because people tend to remember great stories of great people. Literature consists of stories, some of them are great but not all share the same level of importance. Literature is the history of many worlds, some of them are real, some fictional, and so also are their protagonists. Literature functions as a valuable record of the history of the world, particular nations, their leaders as well as individuals. It reveals human thinking, wishes, desires and visions as these appeared in particular historical periods. In this article I would like to examine the presentation of the USA, American life and culture, as these are depicted in a novel by the contemporary American writer Thomas Pynchon. The novel s title is Vineland (1990), which is the name of a real American town in New Jersey and its meaning can be regarded as symbolic, evoking an idea of a promised land, where the first pilgrims landed and found a beautiful country with mild weather and good soil- a kind of earthly paradise in their eyes. How much, if at all, does the fictional Vineland resemble such a place? Pynchon s novel Vineland shows an unusual world which contains elements that belong to ordinary life in a small town, elements that can be related with eastern philosophy, martial arts and elements that can be related with television and its genres. The novel is set in the USA in the eighties, in the period of Reagan s presidency and in the sixties, in the time of the hippie movement. The main storyline of the novel follows the journey of Prairie, which she takes to find her mother. Prairie is a teenage girl living with only her father Zoyd Wheeler, an average doper rather than a musician. In her quest for her unknown mother, Prairie has to act very cautiously to avoid meeting Brock Vond, a US attorney, the main villain of the novel, who is responsible for the break up of her family. Prairie s journey starts in Vineland; from there she goes to a wedding party in Waivone estate, and then continues to the Sisterhood of Kunoichi Attentives in California, where she spends several days. Then she 148 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 148

149 visits the Pisk sisters, friends of Prairie s mother from the sixties, and afterwards she spends some time among Thanatoids, in their village. Thanatoids are fictional creatures whose existence occupies the edge between life and death. Finally, Prairie finishes her quest at a family meeting where she at last meets Frenesi, the unknown mother. The plot of the novel is interrupted by many flashbacks introducing new secondary characters and often redundant details from their past. These characters have one element in common. It is the fact that they were in contact with Frenesi at some period of their life. Such form of structure slows down the narration and creates anticlimax. The plot is interrupted so many times that it is impossible to find any tension or strong unifying story among all those flashbacks. It seems that the structure of the novel copies the structure of a film loop TV series. Umberto Eco writes that TV series work on the basis of a certain settled situation and several main and secondary characters. The secondary characters are to create the impression that each new part is different from the previous, although the narrative scheme is always repeated, and every new story is a variation of the already seen. Particular characters follow a precise scheme, which determines their behavior, deeds and reactions to certain situations. As a result, any development of character is impossible. Moreover, because steroetypes are featured in each broadcast, the viewers are supposed to predict the reactions of the characters, which can make their pleasure of watching stronger, or the difference between the expected and the shown can create situational humor. Eco calls TV series which are based on retrospective a film loop kind. In such TV series, the lives of the characters are not depicted in a linear form, but particular stories go back to their past, and that is why the characters usually do not grow old. They seem to be without any future. Instead they have a very long past (Eco, 2004, p. 97). The structure of Vineland resembles this kind of TV series. Frequent interruption of the main story by the flashbacks, which introduce secondary characters and stories of their life, support this premise. Although the Tube is omnipresent in Vineland, in its structure as well as in its fictional world, there emerges another very strong motif- the journey, which can create an assumption that the novel is about a certain quest. In literature, a journey is regarded as a traditional symbol of a character s initiation. According to D. Hodorova initiation means a journey, a certain shift leading to cognition. In the novel, an adept of initiation usually goes on a journey. His peregrination is not direct. It rather strays in circles, moving backwards and forwards, and the journey is connected with many obstacles the character has to overcome as well as to outdo himself. Novel initiation has three basic levels. The first covers the character s wandering in the world 149 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 149

150 and his being tested. On the second level, the adept descends and this act can be regarded as his symbolic death. The last level is the level of catharsis, or the adept s purifying, his penetrating into worlds where he undertakes the ritual of initiation- the symbolic rebirth of the character. The adept seeking initiation meets the initiator between the second and third levels. The character of initiator represents a bond between two words, between the world of senses and the one of higher values. The initiator is a source of advice and instructions the adept needs to get through initiation. The aim of the adept s journey is to reach a place that is out of the secular area. There he meets the highest initiator, usually a divine being, often in a company of a virgin. (Hodorova, 1989). The result of their meeting is the adept s inner cognition and development of the spiritual side of this character. In the case of initiation in a novel, a deep inner change of the character should lead him away from the world. In the case that this important condition has not been fulfilled, we cannot speak about an initiation novel, but only about a secular novel with certain features of initiation. Such a novel shows only some elements of ancient initiation and its dual rite: the rite of maturity and the rite which is connected with the advancement of man to esoteric cognition and with the ability to overcome his human ordeal. Graphically, the relationships of characters in an initiation novel have the form of a triangle, where the divine being is surrounded with the adept, initiator and virgin. Similar relationships can be also traced in the aforementioned novel, among Prairie, Takeshi, DL and Frenesi. With the help of Takeshi and DL, Prairie tries to get to know her mother. Frenesi can be placed in the centre of the triangle, but she is only an ordinary woman, without any divine element in her character, so meeting Frenesi cannot bring any catharsis or radical change, leading from material to spiritual, into Prairie s life. Because of this, the novel can be regarded as secular with certain features of initiation. Although the theme of quest marks the whole text of the novel, Vineland is mainly about the power that the Tube has over people and about its use against common citizens. The text contains a lot of signs suggesting the importance of this medium in the novel. There are frequent references to the Tube and its programs, broadcasters, actors, music, and also the unusual structure of the novel. Many of the effects that TV and its broadcasting can have on human life are clearly shown in the text of the novel. However, one of them becomes visible only for a very attentive reader. It is television and a camera as tools of power and control. The evidence appears in the first chapter. Here, Prairie s father, dressed in female clothes, is going to make his annual jump through a bar window to do something publicly crazy and thus to fulfill his part of an agreement with the US attorney Brock Vond. Another part of the 150 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 150

151 agreement is that his jump has to be televised. This act helps Zoyd get rid of the police surveillance and receive financial support from the state as a partially insane person. All this might seem senseless, but only until the moment when one takes into consideration the persuasive powers of television. Despite the fact that particular programs (including the news) are created by people with various personal intentions, the tendency of viewers to believe everything that has been broadcasted is really high. Their gullibility creates conditions for easy manipulation of the public. Such manipulation enables easy control over such groups of people whose positive reactions to certain kind of presentation of problems are predictable. This perspective gives some meaning to the seemingly senseless jump through the bar window. TV broadcasting of the event adds even more sense to it, because its consequence is a complete annual discreditation of the jumper- Zoyd. It means the destruction of his reliability as a citizen. It is clear that the majority of the local community must regard him as insane after the jump. Brock Vond makes Zoyd repeat his jump every year, which is his way to reach full control over the man; to ensure his obedience and dependence. Although the fictional world of Vineland occupies a period starting in the 1960s and ending in the 1980s in the country which is called the USA, this fictional world differs in many details from the USA of the actual world. The modern history of the state that is presented in the novel is different than that of the the real one. The Hippie movement, which was so popular among young people in the sixties, turned into a local revolution in the fictional world, with the People s Republic of Rock and Roll as its achievement. The revolution was regarded as a quite serious threat to the rightwing government, so Brock Vond, the federal attorney who represents a repressive element in the novel, starts to use various informants to defeat the revolutionaries. The informants are recruited from among ordinary citizens, and their willingness to cooperate has two motivations: the first is money, and the second is the fact that they are being blackmailed by Brock Vond. Prairie s mother is one of the informants. Vond s power is unlimited in this fictional world and he abuses it all the time, thus interfering in the lives of others. Vond secretly monitors their lives and deeds and then puts various restrictions on them. The lives of the protagonists are exposed to various kinds of harassment and their disobedience is punished. L. Dolezel assumes that performing power, which cannot be identified with speech acts of expressing truth or falsehood, creates fictional worlds. It is the author s authoritative narration that creates a fictional world via a narrator, whose statements form the facts of the fictional world. Then particular characters by their individual utterances either confirm or 151 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 151

152 cancel their value in terms of the fictional world. Brock Vond s superior position in the world of Vineland is expressed by the narrator and confirmed by all the characters because this protagonist, who rarely appears in particular scenes, seems to pull all the strings from the background, and thus influence the lives of the others. In this fictional world, Brock Vond represents the highest level of official ruling power and he misuses his position to reach his own goals. Moreover, he is described as a deranged individual, which is evident, for instance, in the description of his investigative methods. In the 20 th century he judges people and possible criminals in a very old-fashioned way using phrenology. According to this theory, the tendency of an individual to commit crime is written in his face. This assumption influences Vond s thinking so much that he divides the world into two parts. People who represent the law belong to the first part. The second is for ordinary citizens. These must be constantly monitored, controlled and restricted in their activities, because they are suspected of possible criminal offences. Full control over the members of the second group is achieved by PREP- Political Re-Education Program- that in fact is an internment camp where selected people are tested for their future cooperation with the government- as informants. Vond s world is the world of cameras secretly recording faces at political demonstrations. It is also the place where representatives of the government blackmail ordinary citizens, where people are forced to inform on their neighbors and the best citizens are the passive ones. The Tube is very important there. Televison becomes a new legal drug, present in every place of fictional Vineland and supported by the government. The characters of the novel seem to be addicted to its fluorescent light. They watch the Tube, exhibit intimacy with it, and even see the world in terms of the Tube. Some are extreme Tube watchers, including especially Hector, an escapee from Tubaldetox (where inmates sing a house hymn before supper called The Tube (p. 336), as well as the Thanatoids, for whom watching TV it is their favorite activity. Characters in Vineland watch a lot of TV movies, often biographies about TV personalities, such as The Frank Gorshin Story, or The Bryant Gumbel Story. Frenesi masturbates to the Tube, to the show CHIPS, and its images of police authority (p. 83). The characters also pick up the habits of TV characters. Prairie buzzes like a game show when Zoyd gives an unsatisfactory answer to her question. Hector s everyday personality attempts to mimic the actor Ricardo Montalban. The Tube is a daily distraction from life which makes citizens of Vineland forget about their wishes. Television makes people passive and obedient. Yeah, but they can t take what happened, what we found out. Easy. They just let us forget. Give us too much to process, fill up every minute, keep us distracted, it s what the Tube is for, (Pynchon, 2000, p. 314). 152 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 152

153 Some characters, who are at least partially aware of the possible effects of the Tube on their lives, even blame it for the end of the revolution in As Prairie s boyfriend Isaiah 2:4 says, people gave up the revolution the minute the Tube got hold of them (p. 373). Pynchon s novel shows how power can easily become misused for individual aims if it is in the hands of an improper person in a high government position. Such a person can change democracy into a certain kind of dictatorship where ordinary people- those who do not fit the prescribed scheme- are bullied, and it is possible to bully even whole groups of citizens. The fictional world of Vineland is a very pessimistic vision, presenting the USA as a country with a political system close to fascism, where people are controlled and the success of the ruling ideology is achieved by television and its broadcasted brainwashing. The Tube changed the revolutionaries of the sixties into obedient citizens, replaced their marihuana and LSD and built another kind of addiction. TV addicts of Vineland become only passive consumers, accepting televised statements as their own opinions. The important function of the Tube in the novel is supported by adjusting its structure to the structure of film loop TV series. Bibliography: Doležel, L., Heterocosmica. Fikce a možné světy. Praha: Karolínum. Eco, U., Jak interpretovat seriály. In: Meze interpretace. Praha: Karolínum. Hodorová, D., Román zasvěcení. Jinočany: H&H. Hodorová, D., Kapitoly z historie a typologie žánru. In: Hledání románu. Praha: Československý spisovatel. Pynchon, T., Vineland. London: Vintage. 153 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 153

154 Globalisation and Islam: Islamic Comic Strips in Arabic Magazines Zuzana Tabačková Abstract: The following article is an introduction to a more extensive study of the relationship between Islamic, particularly Arabic, countries and various literary products of the western world in the era of globalization. Since the world has become a global village, the Arab world has been facing a flood of various products typical of western culture which have been appearing more and more often in its market. Comic strips are just one example; we could also mention translations of popular western bestsellers like Harry Potter or The Da Vinci Code into Arabic. In the following pages I would like to present the initial part of my study of Islamic comic strips which have become very popular in Egypt during the last few decades. Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Douglas (1994) say, Islamic comic strips: the mere phrase seems a contradiction or a provocation in a religious tradition known for its hostility to the image, and with a history of avoiding iconographic propaganda. Can this form associated with Western secular mass culture be turned to Islamic purposes? Can Islamic themes be put in visual terms? Islamic sacred texts? (p. 83) In recent years, the global mass media have pointed towards several examples of Islamic attitudes toward visual images. We all remember the wave of disapproval which arose after the publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. The conflict which originated due to the above-mentioned case supported Samuel Huttington s idea of the clash of civilizations. Surprising though it may seem, the relationship between the Western and Islamic world should not be viewed only in black and white. On the contrary, in today s globalised world, we find the examples of intercultural communication and Islamic comic strips are a perfect example. The main problem with the term Islamic comic strips is connected with the fact that Islam is well-known for its hostility toward visual images. We cannot identify exactly when afigurality- avoiding visual presentation of humans- became a part of Islamic art. José Pijoan (1999) mentions a story about the prophet Mohammed. One day, as he was riding across the desert, he took notice of various stone idols of false gods in Mecca. Immediately, he got angry, destroying them completely without even stepping down from his camel. Nevertheless, in the 14 th and 15 th century we still find various depictions of Islamic prophets. However, what gradually proved to prevail in Islamic art was a so-called arabesque- a decorative 154 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 154

155 pattern of flowers and lines. We cannot exactly identify the sources of Islamic prejudice toward visualization of human beings. According to the simple belief of Beduin tribes, picturing (or taking a photo) of a man means stealing his soul. Since the world has become a global village, the Islamic world has been getting closer to the West. Despite Islamic attitudes toward picturing humans, comic strips- products of western culture- have entered the Islamic world. Comic strips are not the invention of the modern world. Picture stories existed in the times of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks who pictured famous mythological stories as well as historical events in the tombs of the dead. These were not, of course, comic strips in their real sense. The first newspaper comic strips appeared in the United States in the early years of the 20 th century. From the very beginning, they attracted great interest from the side of the public. The Little Bears was the first American comic strip with recurring characters, while The Yellow Kid became the first color comic as well as the main reason to coin the term yellow journalism. ( Soon the phenomenon of comic strips spread all over the country and gradually, it reached the borders of the Islamic world. Since 1970, children in Islamic countries have had access to comic strip magazines or comic strip books: Al-Firdaws (Paradise), the supplement of Minbar al-islam or Zam-Zam- a children s monthly named after the holy well in Mecca. All these magazines were or are published by official authorities like The Ministry of Pious Foundations (Wizárat al-awqáf) in various Arabic countries, thus being a representation of official Islam (Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Douglas, 1994). However, as we are going to find out, the Islamic world did not accept Western comic strips without any changes- it transformed them into its own culture which is a truthful example of the possibility of intercultural communication between the East and the West. In my research, I have studied the popular Arabic magazines c Alá ad-dín and Mádžid. I have found out that the above-mentioned magazines contained three types of comic strips: 1. comic strips depicting stories from the holy Koran and hadíth (news/reports describing the life and statements of the Prophet Mohammed) 2. moral tales which serve as examples for children to follow 3. tales depicting famous people or events in history Comic strips picturing the Koran could be divided into two types: those describing the famous story from the point of view of the present, and those taking place entirely in the past. While the former begin in the present, then step back to the past- particularly the mythological 155 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 155

156 past- after which they come back to the present, the latter are set only in mythological history. The characters of the first type are children from contemporary times who are told (usually by their parents or senior members of the family) a story from the Koran. The story itself takes place in the times of the Islamic prophets who serve as moral authorities for the children to follow. After the mythological event is told, the story comes back to the present and the moral of the story is pronounced. As an example which perfectly illustrates the abovementioned scheme, we could take the story about a woman Zakíja, written by Ahmad c Umar and drawn by Hadžází which was published on September 4, 1985 in the magazine Madžíd. In the first picture, Zakíja is kneeling on a sadždžáda (a small rug used for praying). She is wearing a long white dress and there is a veil on her head. A little girl comes up to her, asking the woman if she has finished her prayers. The woman asks her to wait a little bit. In the next picture, in the bubble above the woman, we find the closing words of the prayer: Praise God, praise God, God is great.. Having pronounced these words, the woman asks the girl if she wants to know how these closing words of Islamic prayers originated. The girl nods and afterwards, the story steps back to the past. The following three pictures take place in the times of Mohammed, picturing first Muslims who are talking to the prophet Mohammed, telling him that they feel that in Islam the rich have the advantage over the poor. Of course, in these pictures, we cannot observe the prophet himself, what we see are the crowds of Muslims talking to him. Afterwards, the story comes back to the present and Muhammad s words are cited by the woman, The Messenger of God said: God will give rewards to those in zakát [a sum of money that Muslims give to the poor] if they finish their prayers with a praise. ( c Umar Hadžází, 1985) 156 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 156

157 To summarize, the comic strip story teaches its child readers two things- how the prayer originated and how they should pray. Another thing to point out is the way of picturing the past. The Muslims are viewed as a crowd of people on a green background- green as the color of Islam. They are all looking at the Prophet who cannot be seen, even his words are related and explained by the woman telling the story. This is just one way of how to picture prophets in Islamic comic strips. The comic strips that take place only in the past offer us other possibilities to study the ways of picturing Islamic prophets. The prophets are pictured in the form of a shining ball, burning bush or in the form of a figure whose features cannot be seen at all because they are hidden under a veil or a piece of cloth. The comic strips stressing a moral for the children to follow usually picture a Muslim child- a girl or a boy- in different situations- at home, at school at a mosque, etc. The child in these stories is some kind of an ideal who is helpful, reliable and honest. A typical example is the stories written and drawn by Ahmad c Abd al- c Azíz, depicting a Muslim boy in various situations. What is interesting is the fact that at the top of these comic strips, the boy is drawn on a Muslim star, thus reminding us of the superhero comics from Western magazines. (Douglas. Malti-Douglas. 1994) 157 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 157

158 The last group of comic strips describes famous people or events in Islamic history as well as famous moral authorities from other religions, all having a strong didactic purpose. As an example, we could take the picture biography of Gandhi, published again in Mádžid. The comic presents the readers with the whole life of Gandhi who serves as a great example of tolerance between religions (Salím, 1985). The magazine c Alá ad-dín (2004) depicts the story about a famous Egyptian leader, c Urábí Pášá. All in all, the characters in these stories are perfect examples of a wide range of virtues such as honesty, faith in God, as well as tolerance and diligence. The above mentioned examples illustrate the fact that the Muslim public was willing to accept comic strips even though, in their modern sense, they are the products of western culture. However, comic strips were not taken into the Islamic community without any changes- they were transformed into Islamic culture, emphasizing religious virtues and traditions. The question of westernisation, americanisation or the clash of civilizations is therefore somewhat unclear. Should the primary axis of future conflicts be along religious and cultural lines (Huttington, 1996), how is it that the Muslim community was more or less willing to accept various products of western culture, comic strips being just one example? Should there be bloody borders (Ibid.) between Islamic and non-islamic civilizations, how is it that they cooperate in the area of culture and translation- with many western books having their Arabic translations? Bibliography: Douglas, A, and Malti-Douglas, F., Arabic Comic Strips, Bloomington and Indianopolis: Indiana University Press. Eickelman, D.F., and Anderson, J.W., New Media in the Muslim World, Bloomington and 158 N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e s i n t h e G l o b a l i s e d W o r l d Strana 158