The Heretic

essay by cheryl yow

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780688050337
/Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa/index.aspx




The Mead-Freeman controversy

Margaret Mead's book
 - 'Coming of Age in Samoa':
is a Psychological Study of  Primitive Youth
for Western Civilization.

Derek Freeman unmasked
the fake research done by Margaret Mead.

Heretic is a 1996 play
by Australian playwright David Williamson
that explores Derek Freeman's reaction to
Margaret Mead's "The Coming of Age in Samoa".




Question
‘While postcolonial literature aims to ‘subvert the canon’
by ‘celebrating the neglected or marginalized Other’
The heretic compromises and undermines the identity of the
subaltern Other instead.’

With reference to at least one theoretical essay from your
Offprints Collection, discuss this statement with reference
to David Williamson’s The Heretic.




In Williamson’s Heretic, the audience’s first impression
of the Samoans is through Margaret Mead’s perspective.
‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ Mead’s influential book of the
twentieth century portrays Samoa as a paradise on earth
(a society where sexual jealousy, envy, competitiveness and
aggression were non-existent) as well as a haven for free
love. The play depicts the fantasy effect typically
associated with the intoxicating South Pacific:
white sands, sparkling sapphire sea and Polynesian
drum rhythms. So when Aviata, the handsome, strongly built,
half-naked Samoan youth, eventually appeared and asked
Margaret ‘Would you like to be made love to properly?’
(Heretic, p.34), the Western fantasy is instantly evoked.
The audience are too mesmerized by then to ever question
this stereotyping of the Samoans. South Pacific has being
repeatedly represented as a stereotype paradise through
mythologizing and romances. It serves to inspire
the utopian hope of the ultimate ‘ideal’ society that
can remedy the inadequacies of the Western society
 – being deeply repressed and sexually inhibited.
Mead by portraying Samoa as a culture of an erotic
sphere is presenting endless potential for pleasure
and perversion.




Heretic engages with the controversial issue of representing
the indigene, the Other. The issue of representation is
central in post-colonial debate: How the Other is represented
is questionable: through whose perspective? the indigene or
others? Australians are explicitly racist -anti-aboriginals;
the relationship between white settlers and aborigines is a
sensitive issue. Hence, Williamson uses distancing issue- the
academic nurture versus nature debate between two social
scientists that seems unrelated to Australian society and an
analogous situation (Mead’s relationship with Samoans) to
explore the profoundly perturbing question of specific post
-colonial predicament of representation and issues that is
fundamental to his society.



Mead, an American anthropologist, went to Samoa with a very
specific schema - if she could prove that adolescence is not
a time of mayhem with the young Samoans; it would validate
that human nature is moulded by their culture (a social
construct) rather than an inheritance derived from genes.
Her ambitious agenda is to invent an ideology to recreate
the West by introducing ‘ a new blueprint of human
possibilities’ to America from the South Seas (Heretic,p.58).
However, Mead, a sovereign Western observer, is greatly
flawed: with incomplete evidence and superficial analyses
(her knowledge of the Samoan language was insufficient, she
based her evidence only on several Samoan women and she spent
less than a year in Samoa). Anthropology, the field of
scientific endeavour is supposed to study Others objectively,
however, it has been known to be heavily constructed in
favour of the Western hegemonic philosophy. The histories,
traditions, societies and texts of ‘others’ are seen as
responses to Western initiatives- and therefore passive,
dependent...(Said, 1989, OC. No.1). Surely it is the task of
anthropology to replace this Samoan myth with more specific
and accurate account, but Mead, instead of representing the
Samoans, has projected her own fantasies upon the Samoans by
stereo-typing the enviably primitive’s sexual prowess.



Derek Freeman, the lone Australian anthropologist, offers a
counter view – to show the fallacy of Mead’s representation
while replacing it with his own. With his knowledge of the
Samoan ‘inner workings’, his fluency of their language and
his 3 years of experience in Samoa, he too did not represent
the Samoans in its entirety. Binary differences occur in any
representation; the indigene was glorified for its pantheism,
spirituality and stability, however it includes the counter-
response of being primitive and barbaric. Freeman seems to
focus on the opposing aspects of Mead’s version of the Samoan
society just to prove her wrong. Thus, if Mead said Samoans
were sexually liberated; Freeman’s version would indicate
they are sexually conservative. Though Freeman’s study of
Samoans is evidently more reliable than Mead’s; it
implicitly pave the way for his personal agenda: focusing
only on aspects that would prove Mead’s ideology a fake.
However, in the midst of the Mead versus Freeman’s
(Nurture versus Nature) debate, the Samoans were never
ever given their own voice to speak.



Derek sets Margaret as the ‘Other’: irrational and emotional
white female while depicting himself as the objective and
rational white male. However, he repeatedly reveals his
impassioned nature and distorts his own academic views:
the extent of breaking a precious Iban artifact in front of
British Commissioner, which he insists is a fake; by harping
on Margaret’s bisexual relation with Ruth which has nothing
to do with her standing as an anthropologist and his sexual
tension being exposed by his Freudian slip when he declares
to Mead ‘ I was scared you might take me to bed’
(Heretic, p.57). The representation of women in Heretic is
visibly stereotyped.When the characterization is evidently
stereotyped, the play becomes questionable and it raises
questions about representation. Mead is portrayed as highly
subjective, irrational and emotional; the Samoan women as
sexual objects; Monica, his wife as the typical submissive
wife and an artist that lacks opportunities and Elsie, his
mother serves as an archetype of the Freudian ‘s Oedipus
complex. Both Monica’s physical likeliness to Derek’s
mother and Mead’s resemblance of a teacher or ‘mother’
image is the stereotype of ‘mother-fixated’ in Freudian’s
Oedipus complex where individuals choose sexual partners
who are discernible surrogates for their mother. Derek’s
position as the defender of the oppressed is undermined by
his impulse to assert his male superiority in his marriage
and his obsession to destroy Margaret in an overwhelming need
to break free of maternal bond.




Williamson employs dramatic devices: the play is depicted in
Derek’s dream in a non-linear approach; by using this
unconventional feature: non-traditional adherence to linear
time, he aims to subvert the canon and undermine the imperial
historical narrative with its hegemonic position. The context
of the dream is significant as it is intrinsic to aboriginal
modes of thoughts. Additionally, the dream depicts the surreal
dimension- the illusion of myth and a sense of hazy distorted
representations. The sixties’ image evoked in Act one that is
associated with positive nuances of peace, hope, innocence
and youthfulness is sharply contrasted with the sixties’ image of
Act two which suggests indiscipline and interference. This
binary – positive/negative representation of the sixties-
proposes the often opposing elements of whatever that is
presented.




Williamson presents the Samoans as discerning participants
of the hegemonic Western’s strategy: ‘just because you come
from America…doesn’t mean you can come and steal our men’
(Heretic, p.33); ‘She was the copulating dog, not us!’
… She took away our humanity. She made us seem like animals
to the world…(Heretic, p.68-9). They wittily offer a
stereotype to oppose Mead’s view of Samoan’s sexuality:
‘All she talks about is sex, sex, sex… my mother says
all Americans are the same… its because they eat too
much meat’ (Heretic, p.91). The significance of Freeman
providing evidence that Mead is being duped by the two
Samoan girls who indulged in ‘recreational lying’, a
favourite Polynesian pastime; is the ultimate hoax to
subvert the hegemonic imperial centre. The Samoans in
their simplicity were able to undermine a white woman
of global power; in doing so, it reveals Mead’s naivety
in believing what she wanted to see- a myth.



Even when Mead’s Samoa was exposed as a myth, Rick Cooper
stated that ‘… but so what! It was a useful myth'
(Heretic, p.94). This suggests that in the Australian racial
hegemony, the aborigines were as Terry Goldie affirms
‘a semiotic pawn on a chess board under the control of the
white signmaker’ (OC, No.14). Samoans seems to be represented
but they are in fact being constructed as the Other from the
single perspective of the Western’s imagination. The troubled,
sexually disciplined West versus the simple-minded, sexually
promiscuous Samoans (although presented positively). Even
when representation is positive nonetheless it inexorably
defined them as the Other.



The relationship between Samoa and Western hegemonic
discourse is based on power and dominion. Only the voice
of the sovereign anthropologist (Mead) is considered, the
voice of the indigenous Samoans were silenced. This concurs
with Spivak’s assertion ‘The subaltern cannot speak’ neither
can they be heard or read. Nobody could or would speak for
them, their own voices remained unheard: silent. Though
Williamson is from the metropolitan Australian elite, he
is keenly aware of the racial and power structures that
oppressed the ‘fourth world’ (the subaltern) in the
Australian society. In ‘Heretic’, Williamson seeks to
subvert the canon, undermine the hegemonic power and
celebrate the identity of the subaltern.

(1399 words)



Bibliography

Williamson, David. (1996) ‘Heretic’, Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Australia.

Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, SIM University, 2001.

Goldie, Terry. ‘ The Representation of the Indigene’ Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, SIM University, 2001.

Griffiths, Gareth. ‘The Myth of Authenticity: Representation, Discourse and Social Practice’ Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, SIM University, 2001.

Said, W. Edward. ‘Representing the Colonized: Anthropology’s Interlocutors’ Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, SIM University, 2001.

Spivak, Gayatri Charavorty. (1985) ‘ Can the Subaltern Speak?’ Speculations on Widow-Sacrifice’, Wedge, Winter/Spring, pp. 120-30.

The Subaltern

essay by cheryl yow

Post Colonial Writings from India

Imtiaz Dharker (Born 1954)

is a Scottish Muslim poet, artist.

The main themes of her poetry include

geographical and cultural displacement,

communal conflict and gender politics.

Purdah And Other Poems deal with

the various aspects of a Muslim woman's life

 where she experiences
injustice, oppression and violence

engineered through the culture of purdah

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

(born February 24, 1942)

 is an Indian literary critic and theorist.

She is best known for the article,

a post colonial text "Can the Subaltern Speak?".

Can the Subaltern Speak?

The term subaltern

is used in postcolonial theory

generally refer to

marginalized groups and the lower classes

- a person rendered without agency

 by his or her social status.

The forceful assimilation of the coloniser’s

(British) language, culture and ideology

onto the colonised (Indians).

as implied in the poem

' The Word'

http://www.google.com.sg/images?hl=en&q=British+Coloniser+influence+picture&sa=N&start=90&ndsp=18

 

Question:
Using your knowledge of postcolonial discourse in your
approach,do a close critical reading of Imtiaz Dharker’s
‘The Word’.
Your answer should take into account all of the following issues:
a) Identify the main post-colonial concern or issue that is
raised in the poem
b) Examine how this concern/issue is brought out through
poetic techniques like language, imagery, tone and form.
c) Apply Spivak’s essay, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ to your
analysis of the poem.


The Word
It is pure power,
not in the throat or on the page
but sliding, coiling and uncoiling
in the minds of men
and women, lifting itself to creep
out of their eyes. It slithers
everywhere, over the shoulder,
right or left
prepared to heal or wound,
give birth to whole nest
of hungry thoughts.
This way is madness,
this may change the world, this
tame a thousand beasts, or make monsters
of a million sheep.


And I the keeper, with my
small signs and codes. How long
will it obey my trivial commands? I,
wary of this thing
hissing in its box. A quivering of hands.
It is waiting to be fed,
let loose, one day,
when its moment comes,
upon a world unready
to be stung from sleep.
by Imtiaz Dharker





In ‘The Word’, Dharker expresses her compassion for the
powerless colonised people, in particular, the subaltern.
Subaltern is a term that refers to people from class or caste
that is outside of the hegemonic power structure. The key
concern raised here is the forceful assimilation of the
coloniser’s language, culture and ideology onto the
colonised and the colonised’s inability articulate their
central problem or concern from their very own perspective.
The subaltern’s narrative or discourse seems to be from the
single perspective of the coloniser and this muting of the
subaltern leads to a deep sense of ‘being trapped’-
helplessness, powerless.



‘The word’ represents the coloniser’s language with its
embedded culture. The first sentence ‘It is pure power’ is
highly potent in setting the tone - the hegemony of the
coloniser. The power of ‘ the word’ is ‘not in the throat
or on the page’ but ‘ in the minds of men and women’-
this suggests that this is not merely a matter of learning
a new language but that its ideology has already assimilated
into their minds. The compelling verbs used in the internal
rhyme -‘sliding, coiling and uncoiling’ - convey the
movements of a snake. It is a metaphor suggesting how the
colonial language is simmering in the minds of the
colonised and deviously maneuvering and influencing them .
‘lifting itself to creep out of their eyes’indicates that
‘The word’ is stealthily controlling what the colonised
should see and not what they wanted to see. ‘It slithers’
(another imagery of a snake), ‘everywhere, over the shoulder,
right or left’ tells us that there is no escape from this
omnipresent dominant force.




Dharker could be suggesting that this power is either going
‘to heal’(using western ideology ‘to enlighten’ the colonised)
‘or wound’ (by forcing their language and culture on the
colonised and disrupting their tradition without considering
their perspective). This oppressive force starts
nurturing ‘hungry thoughts’ (thoughts that are not
verbalized) that inspire ‘madness’. It reveals the
coloniser’s goal of taming the uncivilized ‘Other’ and that
it might serve to tame only some -‘a thousand beasts’-
but it will provoke the wrath of even more people -
‘a million’- who are initially peaceful ‘sheep’.
Metaphors here depict the ‘beasts’ as what the coloniser
considered as people with primitive culture that need to
be tamed or enlightened and ‘sheep’ represents people from
the powerless class.




The first paragraph depicts the omnipresent and omnipotent
power of the coloniser who craftily indoctrinate its culture
and language into the colonised’s mind. The second paragraph
contrasts significantly with the first paragraph; here it
depicts the powerless situation of the sublatern. ‘small signs
and codes’ and ‘trivial commands’ illustrate the humble pleas
of the subaltern. ‘How long will it obey my trivial commands?’
echoes the subaltern’s frustration of being undermined and
ignored. Using the same imagery of the snake – ‘ this thing
hissing in its box’ –however, this time linking it to the
subaltern instead– a sense of being helplessly frustrated
of being trapped- the inability to articulate their wrath
and desire. ‘quivering of hands’ and ‘waiting to be fed’
portrays the powerless existence of the subaltern.



The poet further asserts that this ‘silence’ has power and
that ‘when its moment comes’ to be ‘let loose’; this
simmering silence will erupt and the world will be ‘unready’
for the wrath of this silence. The alliteration used in
the last sentence ‘stung from sleep’ powerfully asserts the
implication involved when the ‘sheep’ eventually emerge
from its silence.



Spivak’s ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ exposes the hypocrisy of
western intellectual elite’s ideology and the limitation of
western discourse. It is presumptuous in assuming all cultures
communicate the analogous language of ‘identity’ : assuming to
know the narrative of the subaltern based on the western’s
perspective. This essentialisation of others is the
reinforcement of the empire’s menace. Spivak seems to imply
that all the awe-inspiring western logic is, at its root,
imperialistic. Dharker’s ‘The Word’seems to implicitly
highlight the coloniser’s imperialistic civilising mission
– in forcing their ‘word’ (ideology) onto the colonised
and their assumption that they need to be tamed and healed.



British abolition of widow sacrifice in 1829, is in the
pretext of ‘ saving brown women from brown men’. Widow self
-immolation is not redefined as a superstition, but a crime.
However, Sati could be understood in the context of
martyrdom. In religious term, the wife upon killing herself
on their husband’s pyre is able to release her female body
in the entire cycle of birth. This could be another
perspective of freedom – an extraordinary signifier of
their desire; an intoxicating senseof self-sacrifice. The
coloniser appears to ‘save’ thebrown women by abolishing
Sati (for its political agenda) and the brown men
reject this intruding interference of their tradition.
However in the midst of this tug- of-war, the women involved,
were never ever given a voice of what they really wanted.
This continuing assumption and construction of the subaltern
women’s consciousness render the unquestioned muting of
subaltern women. The free will of the female has been
effaced.



Dharker concurs with Spivak’s assertion ‘The subaltern as
female cannot be heard or read’ and ‘The subaltern cannot speak’
as this silence is still ‘hissing in the box'. Subaltern women
are subjected to triple colonization-colonial, patriarchal and
class or caste. Woman is defined as object of her husband; she
is also the object of the coloniser and if she is from the
subaltern class, this would further renders her powerless.




The questions here is – is there any intellectual aim to
study the subaltern? Even if there is, from whose perspective
does it represent - the colonial or the colonised (Other)?
The Subaltern conditioned by their race, class and gender
cannot speak, they have no agency to speak on their behalf
and from their perspective. The glimmer of hope for the
subaltern is the work of Subaltern Studies group- not to
give the subaltern a voice but rather the space to allow
IT to Speak.

(997 words)




Bibliography:
Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, SIM University, 2001.

Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, Indian Poetry in English, Imtiaz Dharker, The Word SIM University, 2001.

Walder, Dennis, Sankaran,C., General Introduction, Post-Colonial Writings from India and Australia, Study Guide, SIM University, 2001.

Spivak, Gayatri Charavorty. (1985) ‘ Can the Subaltern Speak?’ Speculations on Widow-Sacrifice’, Wedge, Winter/Spring, pp. 120-30.

Indian Poets

essay by cheryl yow

Post Colonial Writings from India

Sujata Bhatt (born 6 May 1956) is an Indian poet,

a native speaker of Gujarati.

She has written many poems,

most prominent of which is the English poem

"Search for My Tongue".

Jayanta Mahapatra

is one of the best known Indian English poets.

Mahapatra was born in 1928 in Cuttack,

the city where he spent most of his lifetime .

All his working life,

he taught physics at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack.

Mahapatra has authored 16 books of poems.

He took to writing poetry when he was into his 40s.

He also writes in Oriya.

His wordy lyricism combined

with authentic Indian themes

put him in a league of his own.

http://www.google.com.sg/imglanding?q=Arun%20Kolatkar%20picture&imgurl=http://www.indianetzone.com/photos_gallery/4/Arun-Kolatkar_645.jpg


Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar

(November 1, 1932 - September 25, 2004)

was a poet from Maharashtra, India.

He wrote in both Marathi and English.

His first book of English poetry,

Jejuri is a collection of 31 poems

pertaining to a visit to a religious place.

His early Marathi poetry was radically experimental

and displayed European trends

like surreallism, expressionalism

and Beat generation poetry.

 



Question:
‘One of the key concerns facing the post-Independence
Indian poet is the problem of displacement.’
Discuss this statement.



Displacement, a key term in post-colonial theory, refers
to both physical displacement and a sense of being
culturally "out of place". Post-Independence poets’
relationship with the metropolis in the post-colonial
condition can be expressed in the cultural paradigm
advocated by Frantz Fanon. Fanon’s three phrases describe
this relationship with the dominant colonial culture:
assimilation, exploring the past and ‘fighting back’
-the desire of psychological freedom from an ex-colonial
mindset. The poems of post-Independence Indian poets like
Sujata Bhatt, Jayanta Mahapatra and Arun Kolatkar
certainly endorse the above sentence: ‘One of the key
concerns facing the post-Independence poet is the problem
of displacement’. Expressed in diverse tones: Bhatt’s
defiant assertion in speaking in her mother tongue,
Mahapatra’s excruciating sense of estrangement or Kolatkar’s
detached and ironic tenor; they all reveal their
distinct sense of displacement and the ambiguity of their
ability to fully assimilate culturally into their society.



Fanon introduces the psychoanalytic concepts of alienation of
the colonised in three phrases. The first phrase is the idea
of assimilation: the native intellectual assimilates the
coloniser’s language and culture. In the second phrase, the
native becomes distressed and is anxious to rediscover his
authentic root. It is in this phrase that the native
intellectual attempts to reinterpret old Indian mythology
‘in the light of borrowed aestheticism’. In the third phrase,
the writer attempts ‘to shake the people’ with a fighting back
attitude. Hybridity, another post-colonial term, refers to the
creation of new transcultural modes within what Homi Bhabha
called ‘third space of enunciation’ (1994:37). Bhabha asserts
that the ‘purity’ of cultural identity that emerges in this
ambivalent space is untenable, however recognizing hybridity
within this space can be empowering. Creative hybridity
breeds when post-Independence Indian poets appropriate the
English language.This involved using the imperial culture:
forms of writing, modes of thoughts and analysis such as
logic and rationalism to articulate their own social and
cultural identities. Bhatt’s defiant tone set her in Franz’s
third phrase and Kolatkar’s hybrid creativity is evident in
his dabbling with western surrealism while Mahapatra seems
trapped in the second phrase: his lingering agony in his
search for self-identity.



Sujata Bhatt’s ‘Search for My Tongue’ is a poem about
her preoccupation with language and her cultural identity.
She expresses her fear of losing her identity as a Gujarati
-speaking Indian. It reveals the dilemma of her diasporic
condition: being Indian and yet raised in a foreign land.
She was caught between two cultures: thinking and feeling
in two languages. When western beliefs take over and
obscure the sacred traditional ones established at birth,
cultural conflict occurs. This anxiety is depicted in the
clash of cultures- the Guyanese interior is hidden by the
British exterior:
‘what would you do
if you have two tongues in your mouth,
and lost the first one, the mother tongue,
and could not really know the other,
the foreign tongue.’
The poem is situated in a dream with two sharply contrasting
surrealistic imageries. Nature and harmony represents her
mother tongue as opposed to the imagery of the artificial,
unnatural, foreign language; portrayed as a dry, empty and
still environment - ‘riverbed is dry… sky is empty: no
clouds, no birds./ If there were leaves… they would not
stir…’. The mother tongue is instead associated with
life - ‘rains fell… the river might return… something
green… trees …a forest’. The poet further asserts that
she must find her tongue and that it ‘can’t be here in
this dry riverbed/ My tongue can only be where there is
water’. Water is life and it is linked to creativity
in speech. The contrasting imagery used evokes the senses:
dry versus wet, stillness versus movement and barrenness
versus life and these depict the conflicting mindscape
caused by the two cultures.Bhatt argues that speaking a
foreign language will make the mothertongue ‘rot and die
in your mouth’.A striking metaphor follows in which the
regenerating tongue is compared to a plant stump which grows
back and eventually buds and ‘pushes the other tongue
aside’. In this glorious moment of triumph, Bhatt reclaims
the authenticity of her mother tongue: ‘the bud opens in
my mouth,... it blossoms out’, this flower as a metaphor
depicts the mother tongue as being fresh, fragrant and much
alive.



In another instance, Bhatt refers to a culturally specific
image that cannot be translated precisely into foreign thoughts.
She describes a little Indian girl with a pitcher on her head,
selling water at the railway station. As she was filling her
brass cup with water, she reaches up towards the poet who was
leaning out of the train’s window and the poet says ‘but I
can’t think of her in English’. Bhatt too expresses the feeling
of being distant from someone you are close to when you speak
a foreign language:
‘And my mother in the kitchen,
my mother singing:
(mon mor megher shungay,
ooday cholay dikdigontair panay)
I can’t hear my mother in English.’




Additionally, the exotic, authentic rhythm of Gujarati
towards the end of the poem cannot be intimately translated
into foreign tongue:
dha dhin dhin dha
dha dhin dhin dha
dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhin
dhinaka dhinaka dhin dhin ...
In this bilingual poem, Bhatt displays her creativity in her
hybrid use of Gurajati and English. This creates a textual
competition between the print types, showing the contrasting
and conflicting nature of the two languages. She depicts the
two languages at war and by ending the poem with Gujarati
script and pronunciation ‘dha dhin dhin dha’; Bhatt asserts
her Gujarati identity. Language is essential in creating
the significance, meaningfulness and completeness of one’s
cultural identity. Bhatt is suggesting that language is the
weapon used to reclaim one’s culture.To lose one’s mother
tongue is to lose the ability to speak for oneself and one’s
culture and to lose the innermost layer of one’s identity.




In another of Bhatt’s poem ‘A Different history’, she depicts
the imposing presence of the colonizer’s culture in India. The
first sentence:
‘Great Pan is not dead;
he simply emigrated
to India'
Great Pan symbolizes the Western God: Pan is a Greek god of
pasture and shepherds. This opening suggests that the
coloniser’s culture is not ‘dead’ but very much alive even
after the colonial rule in the new Independent India. Bhatt
introduces the concept of God in India- God is in everything
thus portraying a concept of pantheism :
‘Here, the gods roam freely,
disguised as snakes or monkeys;
every tree is sacred’
Pantheism is the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality
of which the material universe and human beings are only
manifestations; it involves a denial of God’s personality and
expresses a tendency to identify God and nature.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pantheism). This idea
of pantheism contrasts sharply with the Christian’s concept of
worshipping one God and a God with a distinct personality.
The word ‘disguised’ is suggesting that gods are seen everywhere in
the good and evil; perhaps implying that all people perceive the
truth of things differently.



Her Indian culture imposes a particular kind of thinking and
Bhatt’s preaching tone here demands this specific respect from
the colonisers. Mimicry, a term used by Bhabha, refers to the
way the colonised mimic the coloniser in order to mock the
coloniser. Using ‘sin’ a western concept, Bhatt attempts to
mock the colonizer:
‘It is a sin
to be rude to a book.
… to shove a book aside
with your foot,
…slam books down
hard on a table,
….to toss one carelessly
across a room.'
Bhatt is asserting that India is a place of different history
that one needs to respect its different culture and tradition.
Here we have a sense of someone intruding into a private
territory and distressing the natives by disrespecting
their culture.



In the second stanza, Bhatt again shows her preoccupation
with language. Language to her is not merely a mode of
communication rather language is linked to one’s distinct
experiences, expressions and a sense of authentic identity.
Here ‘murder’ suggests the destruction of the native’s culture.
The imagery of the coloniser as the merciless farmer torturing
the crops (his cultivated produce – the colonised) with a
scythe depicts the natives in a helpless and powerless
situation.
‘Which language
has not been the oppressor’s tongue?
Which language
truly meant to murder someone?
‘… after the torture,
after the soul has been cropped
with a long scythe swooping out
of the conqueror’s face-'
The last two sentences deliver the ironic ending:
‘the unborn grandchildren
grow to love that strange language’.
Here ‘strange’ is associated with the unnatural and
artificial foreign language. Bhatt shows the reality of
Indian tainted culture due to the perpetual forced
assimilation of the colonizer’s language and there is no
escape from it.




Jayanta Mahapatra is one of the best known post
Independence male Indian poets. His Indian English poetry
derives from distinctive mythology, landscapes and rhythms
of Oriya oral poetry in which he grew up with. His
intimations of Indian culture reveal the desire for his
roots. His poems are imbued with sensitivity and the
sharpness of the metaphysical world. Mahapatra seems trapped
in the Fanon’s second phrase: He is ‘disturbed’ by his
estrangement from Hinduism due to his Christian upbringing.
He stated bitterly: ‘There’s resilience in the Indian people.
Maybe its faith. But I don’t’ have that faith. I’d like to
belong to them, yet I don’t. I want to believe, yet I can’t.
(SG, p.39). His poems reveal a deep sense of incompleteness,
fragmentation and depletion about human identity. His
disconnection with the Indian modes of thoughts, feeling
and speech is reflected in a detached, ironic tone.




A Rain of Rites:
The rain I have known and traded all this life
is thrown like kelp on the beach.
Like some shape of conscience I cannot look at,
a malignant purpose in a nun’s eye.
…
Numbly I climb to the mountain-tops of ours
where my own soul quivers on the edge of answers.
Which still, stale air sits on an angel’s wings?
What holds my rain so it’s hard to overcome?
The rain is stirring the poet’s memories, the painful reminder
of his discarded past: his Indian tradition. Rain, the redeemer,
with its therapeutic function here is associated with religious
sanctity and the process of purification. Rain represents
Hinduism, which is being discarded ‘like kelp on the beach’.
The poet feels guilty of his inability to embrace Hinduism
which is opposed to his Christian’s principles.
‘A malignant purpose in a nun’s eye’ is a reminder that
not having fully adhere to Christian principles is sinful.
‘Numbly’ and ‘my own souls quivers’ here paint the poet’s
sense of nothingness, hollowness- a man with no identity.
The inability to embrace your very own tradition when your
mind has being cultivated by opposing foreign beliefs and
values; how would one choose which path to advance with?
The poet ‘quivers on the edge’ of these answers. The
alliteration ‘still, stale’ used here to describe the air
on the angel’s wings denotes the rigidness and lifeless
landscape of Christianity. The poem suggests that the
repressive, rigid view of one religion makes it difficult
to accept the views of another religion. We could sense his
internal conflict between his strict, rigid Christian
upbringing and the outside world of massive religion rites,
rituals and myths; and the density of images, symbols and
their meanings that encircled him. He seemed withdrawn and
silent as he cannot participate in these structures and
layers of meaning.




‘Hands’:
Between them
a silence occupies the whole place.
Slowly my body has walked
into deep water,
…
My old rag elephant is
smothered with small screams.
From the dark surface,
waving like grass-
When the last boat crosses the lake.
A haunting sense of rootlessness and emptiness evoked in the
‘silence’ between the hands. The poet expresses his sense of
purposelessness and aimless existence ‘walked into deep
water’. Existing without a sense of your authentic self
– religion, tradition, history is an agony for the poet.
The ‘elephant’ here is associated with Ganesh, the elephant
-headed god in Hindu mythology. Being ‘smothered with small
screams’ shows his tradition being suppressed within;
screaming to surface. The oppressive mood is evoked through
the sense of drowning below this ‘dark surface’ and ‘waving’
to be saved when the ‘last boat’ passes one by without being
saved.




In ‘A kind of Happiness’, Mahapatra expresses a deep sense
of not belonging - estrangement from his society:
The boat I’ve laid my mind on
is adrift, moving slowly up an ageless creek
through water still and colourless as time
among drifts of uncomprehending silent reeds.
...
I fear it may never reach the promise of the sea.
...
Always it’s this boat that nails me to the water,
Darkening its silent waster and flow,
The reeds merciless like those dead,
...
What would tell me at last where I belong?
The boat represents the poet’s journey in his search for a
sense of belonging: deep connection with his culture and
society. In a surreal setting as if in a dream time seems to
drag very slowly, the poet seems trapped in a timeless sphere
and ‘adrift’ denotes a sense of aimless existence. Water is
‘still’ and ‘silent’ reeds paints a motionless, stagnant,
lifeless scene. The poet fears that he will never be able to
find a deep attachment to his culture, like the boat in the
creek that will never reach the sea. He feels entrapped -
‘nail’ to the ‘silent’ and ‘darkening’ water along with
the ‘merciless’ reeds. Mahapatra expresses man’s loneliness,
his search for identity with vivid images. These enchanting
expressions are meditative, often tinged with helplessness,
hollowness and ambiguity.In another poem ‘of that Love’
Mahapatra expresses his alienation, he feels like a stranger
- ‘in another’s guise’ - in his own country. With western
values under his Indian skin, he no longer recognises himself
as Indian yet at the same time he is not truly a white man.
This ambiguity lingers on and as the years passed, the poet
feels lonelier.



Arun Kolatkar, who writes in both Marathi and English,
displays hybrid creativity by reinterpreting the Indian
tradition through the influences of European trends like
surrealism and expressionism. Jejuri, one of his finest
poems, is a long narrative about a trip to the pilgrimage
shrine of Khandoba. Though set in a religious setting, the
focus is not about gods and faith, instead he ponders on
their nothingness and ambiguities. Every visual detail is
recorded with whimsical accuracy. His tone is mostly neutral,
vague and nonchalant that seems to expunge gods and erases any
mythopoetic imagination. Jejuri is an account of a man who
arrived at the pilgrimage town on a bus with people who has
more devotional intent than his, his is more of an
incomprehensible curiosity. He seems to re-enter a world that
is at once mundane and mystical.



‘Heart of Ruin’ is an unflattering description of a
dilapidated temple once dedicated to the god Maruti, but now
served as the home of a mongrel bitch and her puppies. The
final couplet in this section is:
‘No more a place of worship this place
is nothing less than the house of god.'
In another similar poem ‘Manohar’ Kolatkar also shows that
there is no distinction between a temple and a cowshed.
Temples in India are very much different from the opulent
western churches. Kolakar’s sensitivity and sympathy here is
obscured by his questioning spirit and mock irreverence. His
attitude towards this temple of ruin and neglect is without
any tinge of haunting nostalgia.




In another poem, Chaitanya1:
‘come off it
said chaitanya to a stone
in a stone language
wipe the red paint off your face
i don’t think the colour suits you
i mean what’s wrong
with being just a plain stone'
Chaitanya may stand for universal consciousness: life exists
even in the inanimate and one could communicate even with
stones. Kolatkar seems to rebel against institutionalised
religion and celebrates the spirit of primitive Hinduism
—where every animate being and inanimate object is regarded
with reverence and becomes an object of worship. This idea
perhaps is the foundation of religion but
institutionalization seeps in and erodes it.




In another section,‘ A Low Temple’, it reveals the foolish
obstinacy of the priest in his unshakeable faith. The visitor
enters into the darkness of a temple where faith battles with
scepticism when the priest insists the eighteen-armed goddess
has only eight arms:
‘Who was that, you ask,
The eight arm goddess, the priest replies.
A sceptic match coughs
You can count
But she has eighteen, you protest.
All the same she is still an eight arm goddess to the priest’
Kolatkar represents religion and ridicules it with irony.
Although he wrote with a half mocking tone, his satire rarely
bites, instead he injects it with a sense of humour.
Implicitly, under the guise of the non-religious tone, the
poet seems to be on a spiritual quest to find the divine trace
in a degenerated town.




Post-Independence Indian poets like Bhatt, Mahapatra and
Kolatkar, each deals with the key issue of displacement
differently. Through their tone,imageries and metaphors
their poems reflect their relationship with their culture
and society. Bicultural existence is a traumatic experience
for Bhatt; an excruciating alienation for Mahapatra and for
Kolatkar, under the guise of detached existence is a silent
quest for his past. For Mahapatra, religion represents the
internal conflict of wanting to fit into Hinduism and yet he
can’t; in the case of Kolatkar, religion is a way of observing
his past through western rationalism. Bhatt triumphantly
reclaimed her identity through the power of her mother tongue
while Mahapatra is content with the solace of indulging in his
brooding isolation. On the creative side, Bhatt and Kolatkar,
both bilingual poets and commonwealth poetry winners, have
ingeniously fused the articulation of their mother tongues
with Western influences to create new poetic forms. The
predicament of displacement, an essential concern of post-
Independence Indian poets and their representation of India
and Indianness, whether through humour, detachment or irony
are always deftly and delicately expressed within the sphere
of hybrid sensitivity.

(3016 words)


Bibliography
Offprints Collection: Post-Colonial writings from India and Australia, SIM University, 2001.
Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna. (2008): The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets, Oxford University Press.
Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, Gareth., & Tiffin, H., (2007):Post-Colonial Studies, The key Comcepts, Routledge.

Shakespeare's Othello

essay by cheryl yow

OTHELLO

http://www.google.com.sg/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SUNC_enSG358SG358&q=Shakepeare+Othello+picture

Othello, the Moor of Venice

is a tragedy by William Shakespeare (around 1603).

‘Moor’ is a term referring to dark-skinned people

during the English Renaissance.

Othello is manipulated by ‘honest’ Lago

who control Othello

by playing on Othello’s weakness

and trapping him in an intricate net of lies.

Although Othello,
a Moorish general in the Venetian army,

has achieved great heights in the white society;

his inferior complex - being a Black in a white society

reveals his deep sense of insecurity.

Eventually Othello is reduced from a great hero

to a man of insane rage

in which he accused Desdemona,

his white wife, of adultery

and finally kills her by smothering her in bed.

Later when he found out

that Desdemona is innocent

he commits suicide with a dagger.

There have been many differing views

on the character of Othello over the years.

They span from describing Othello as a hero

to describing him as an egotistical fool.

Question
Why is the genre of Othello difficult to define conclusively?




The realm of Othello is not the tragedy of great
kingdoms lost, nor of courtly politics. Instead of
the throne, it rivets our attention to the marriage bed.
Othello does not fit neatly into the conventions of tragedy
and modern productions stray from the tragic elements and
focus instead on social prejudices. Furthermore, actors’
personal portrayal of Othello could significantly influence
audience’s focus away from the tragedy to other aspects like
psychological and racist issues or even comedy. Plays and
novels have retold Othello in various forms. Ideas of tragedy
in Shakespeare’s time differ from those of France’s; the
French considered the comic sub-plots and wit duels in
Othello absurd. Contemporary notions of tragedy like
domestic tragedy (A Doll’s House, Top Girls) also differs
significantly from Shakespeare’s tragedy. Initially, Othello
seems to wedge in the crevice between the two oldest genres:
tragedy and comedy; and it eventually evolved into the
modern drama of different genres.



According to the Aristotelian tragedy: tragedy depicts the
downfall of a great man in the a surprising reversal of fortune,
through some great flaws in his character; resulting in the
suffering and insight of the protagonist and arousing pity and
fear of the audience. However, Othello did not gain significant
insight from his fatal mistake (he even claimed in his last
speech that he is ‘not easily jealous but, being wrought’
(V.2.341) and the complexity of the situation (his inferiority,
his insecurities of being an outsider other than Iago’s
manipulation). Audience too may feel indignant at his refusal to
give Desdemona a chance to defend herself; and even in his last
speech, Othello is clearly more concerned inwith presenting his
public image gallantly: pleading to be remembered for his heroic
contribution. If the audience could not feel sympathy for the
protagonist himself, this could reduce the impact of Othello’s
tragedy. Without the significant insight (tragic self-discovery),
and without the absolute pity for his fatal act, the elements of
tragedy seems incomplete. Even within Shakespearean tragedies,
Othello seems to differ from the usual structure in which death
and destruction are inevitable (Hamlet, King Lear), in Othello,
the preventable death and destruction would render its tragedy
questionable.



Some fundamentals of comedy seem significantly evident in
Othello. Elizabethan Tragedies, as a rule, occur on the
battlefield or in great public halls whereas comedy setting
is usually in the bedroom. The tragedy of Othello is unusually
set in the private bedroom, making it like a domestic quarrel.
Shakespearean comic heroes are frequently from disadvantaged
backgrounds, who display some personal charm or worth of
character. They had to prove their real worth to gain
audience’s endorsement. A comedy, in essence, is the rise in
the fortune of a sympathetic protagonist. Othello, the
protagonist, being a Moor is from a disadvantaged background.
He displays his real worth as a noble warrior and he has
proved his ‘worth’ through his successes in wars and even
gained favourable comments from other characters, including
Iago himself. The sub-genre of comedy- the Satirical Comedy,
is a satire of human vice and idiocy. The protagonist here is
likely to be foolish, cynical or morally corrupt. Othello is
foolish in believing Iago without taking time to investigate
the truth and he is cynical in his treatment of Desdemona and
Othello is certainly morally corrupted by Iago, he is being
reduced to Iago’s base values quote a line from the text
to show he is morally corrupted by Iago.



Hence, Othello appears to be a tragedy build on a comic
structure. The Tragicomedy, emerged from Italy in the 16th
century combines elements of tragedy and comedy. Tragicomedy
created a new fashion of dramatic ‘romances’ that turned into
threatening situations through surprising reversal of fortune.
The romance of Othello and Desdemona has certainly turned into
a threatening situation where eventually there was a reversal
of fortune for Othello. The Latin word tragicocomoedia also
denote a play in which masters and slaves reverse the roles
traditionally assigned to them. We can see how the roles of
Othello and Iago being reversed where Othello under the spell
of Iago’s manipulation gradually reduced himself to almost a
slave of Iago, playing puppet to Iago’s lethal plot. Here,
the more precise genre for Othello would be the tragicomedy
rather then tragedy.



Additionally, different production presents different
interpretation that could affect how one defines the genre
of Othello. In France, the play ended with Brabantio and the
Doge arriving in time to stop the fatal act. This happy ending
weaken the tragic plot. Wilson Milam’s 2007 production of
Othello at The Globe presents an evident blend of comedy and
melodrama. Tim Mclnnerny, playing Iago throws plenty of
sideways glances and grins to the audience and even the fatal
fight between Cassio and Roderigo is assaulted for laughs like
blind men fighting with swords.(http://shakespeareantheatre/.
suite101.com /article. cfm/othello_at_the_globe). Here the
play strays even further from tragedy.




Productions and performances are gradually diverting from the
tragic aspect, to highlighting other glaring significance of
the play: racial, cultural, sexual and gender stereotyping.
Othello could be presented as a play that serves useful social
function. It could be seen as a potent parable for showing
irrational jealousy leading to fatal actions or a subversive
play for featuring stereotypical ideas and social prejudices
regarding race and mixed-race marriage. Othello is subjected
to infinite reinventions. In Alaska, an Aleut man rises within
the Imperial Russian navy and marries Desdemona, his new
Russian bride. 'Island native’ a Russian soldier spits and
warns the woman’s father ‘ You’ll have your daughter stolen,
wrapped in an Indian blanket and sealed in an ice house.’
(http://www.adn.com/life/ story/303342.html).
This version focuses more on the bitter tale of racism. In
African American director Liz White’s all- black cast, the
prejudice here is not between blacks and whites. The ethnic
contrast is constructed differently with those lighter in
skin colour playing the Venetians. Religious difference,
shade of skin or ethnic origin here produce a subtler
‘outsider’ status. This diminishes the severe black and white
conflicts of the play thus even further lessen the intensity
of the tragedy especially when audience are predominantly
white.



Productions are increasingly adapting modern version of
Othello and positioning audience’s focus to contemporary
ideas on racism and away from the tragic focus. The actor’s
portrayal of Othello will also influence audience’s
interpretation of the play. There is no single way to play
Othello, it spans from playing Othello as a romantic or an
egotistical fool to a lascivious creature of insanity.Edmund
Kean portrays a heart-wrenching intensity of grief and
jealousy that led romantic Othello into his fatal act. This
will stirred the audience’s sympathy making it tragic.
Conversely, Laurence Olivier's impersonation performance of
Othello: his very dark make-up, his lowered voice and his
rolling walk, he enters dressed in white, sensuously toying
with a rose, presents the Moor as smugly superior, greatly
proud and evidently ‘lascivious'.(http://dsc.dixie.edu/
shakespeare/othelloess.htm. Audience might be in awe of
this Moor but maybe less sympathetic at his tragic end.
Billy Eugene Jones acts like a young and raw Othello who
goes from a loving husband to a raging inferno. He sputters
and storms and jerks around like a helpless puppet.
Audience will find this performance greatly disturbing focusing
on his psychological insanity rather than the tragedy.
(http://www.talkinbroadway.com /regional/sanfran/s653.html).
Salvani, an Italian actor performed Othello with intense fiery,
passionate rage and quick suspicion. His senses seem to riot
over Desdemona as he consumes her with his gaze;
a complete absence of affection. Audience will hate Salvini’s
Moor and feel impatient for his death as if a mad dog was let
 loose in the streets. The actors themselves do have their own
interpretation of Othello and the audience will react differently
to the different Moors,and if without sympathy for Othello,
audience will interpret the play’s genre differently.



The social environment where the audience lives in and the
skin colour of the actor and the audience will bring further
focus to the racist significance and away from the tragic
focus. A performance in a high school where the audience are
of very mixed-race and –religion will not have the same
meaning as the same production performed in a pub with
exclusively white audience. A white Othello ‘blacked-up’
will have less impact with the black audience or in a Muslim
country. Each society has different social and racial issues
and the play may lose some of its frictions. Alternatively,
to replace the black outsider with a white man in a black
society will encourage a broader view of the fundamentals of
racism. In reversing the situation it will trigger instant
patronizing reaction and feelings of fear, suspicion for the
white audience.



Othello has evolved from a tragedy to a racist question
of black and white relations. The world is not free of skin
colour prejudice. Othello is defined by his culture as well
as his colour. Modern DNA analysis has found African genes
brought into Britain with the Romans, happily bouncing around
in the gene pool of British Isles ever since. Perhaps future
versions might focus on the character itself rather than
endorsing or satirising racist convention. Producing and
playing Othello has become a way of engaging with disputes
about race and prejudices in society from the genres
of tragicomedy, social realism, psychological realism to
political satire instead of sheer tragedy.

(1524 words)


Bibliography:
Owens W.R., Goodman Lizbeth. Shakespeare. Aphra Behn and the
Canon, The Open University, 1996.

Jem Bloomfield, Othello at the Globe in Shakespearean
performances. Retrieved 22 September. http://shakespeareantheatre.suite101.com/article.cfm/othello
_at_the_globe

Introduction to Greek tragedy. Retrieved 22 September 2008
http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/netshots/tragedy.htm

Tragedy or Comedy? Dramatic Genres. Retrieved 22 September
2008. http://www.northern.edu/wild/th100/chapt7.htm

A Tragedy Built on a Comic Structure Barbara Heliodora C.
de Mendonça. Retrieved 22 September 2008 http://cco.cambridge.org/extract?id=ccol0521072859
_CCOL0521072859A003

An 'Othello' for Alaska Making tragic hero an Aleut fits
neatly with Shakespeare's lines by Sarah Henning.
Retrieved 22 September 2008.
http://www.adn.com/life/ story/303342.html

http://dsc. dixie.edu/shakespeare/othelloess.htm
Retrieved 22 September 2008

http://www.talkinbroadway.com /regional/sanfran/ s653.html
Retrieved 22 September 2008


Marks: 82

Tutor Comment:
Dear Cheryl
This is a very well-researched and intelligent piece
with several valid arguments for different interpretation
of the genre of Othello. You have also discussed well the
part of the question on how different performances and
productions might affect the tragic element of Othello,
with many interesting examples cited.
I am giving a few extra marks in recognition of the
originality of your discussion, something over and above
what have been said in the lecture and covered in the
coursebook.
Excellent work.
Souk Yee