essay by cheryl yow
Waiting for Godot
Paradise
Question:
The selection of texts in Judging Literature section of the
course displays a bias in the judging process of the Nobel
and the Booker towards the preoccupations and styles of
western literature.
Do you agree with the statement or not?
The Nobel Prize is awarded to the writer ‘who shall have
produced in the field of literature the most understanding
work in an ideal direction’ and the Booker Prize is awarded
to the ‘best work of fiction by a British or Commonwealth
writer’. (Johnson 199) This simple criteria is deceptively
misleading as how we define ‘ideal’ and ‘best’ is highly
complex and ambiguous . The judging of literary works has
been mightily criticised as been biased. Historically, these
judges of western origin, select literary works based on
British cultural landscapes, for example, Anton’s The
Cherry Orchard is judged more positively whereas
Labyrinths with Path of Thunder by Nigerian poet Christopher
Okigo is less positively judged. Taste in literary works has
constantly evolved from the initial perception of ‘polite
attribute… notion of rules…with Manners
(qtd in Johnson 200) to the Romanticism’s sense of
exceeding the conventional model of ‘good taste’ and
finally to the twentieth century of ‘taste’ that is
increasingly bound to the consumers’ expression of their
tastes. The accredited panel of literary judges made up of
educated elite superiors are shown to have favoured one
literary work over the others influenced by their eurocentric
bias. By declaring one literary work superior to others, they
may render the ubiquity of literary judgements in all contexts
to be neglected: literary, aesthetical, cultural, economical
and political.
This essay compares Waiting for Godot, a play
by Samuel Beckett which wins a Nobel prize and Paradise,
a novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah which is shortlisted for the
1994 Booker prize without winning it. In anaysising both
novels, there are glaring evidences that point to the
eurocentric nature of judging these literary texts. Both writers
adhere to the disinterested universal criteria: Beckett’s
existentialism and Gurnah’s simultaneously constructed
accounts of multiple cultural narratives that contribute to
historical realities rather than one single historic truth. Both
Beckett and Gurnah fulfilled the criteria of an exemplary
genius in their originality: Beckett in breaking traditional
theatrical conventions and Gurnah in his exquisite storytelling
by weaving parallel myths, legends and realities into many
true versions of an historic account. However only Beckett
claims the Nobel prize, Gurnah’s Paradise is not favoured by
the panel of eurocentric judges.
Immanuel Kant of Romantic tradition, an influential critic,
asserts that the genius must first be original and invent one’s
own rules without following pre-given rules and secondly his
work has to be exemplary: serve as a model but not as a
precept for other works. Significantly, Kant also suggests
that such work should be disinterested and universal with no
reference to extra-literary criteria, hence aesthetics here is
examined in isolation to other branches of philosophy.
Another critic, Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist,
challenged Kant’s proposal of disinterest or universal models
of aesthetic values. Bourdieu affirms that ‘taste’ is socially
determined accordingly to individual’s education and
social/class origins. In France the ruling classes with their
economic capital controls the cultural taste at the expense
of the working classes.
According to Bourdieu, literary prizes are just
symbolic traditions conducted by venerated judges who
accredit the aesthetic tastes of the ruling classes while
excluding works appreciated by the working classes.
Adding to Bourdieu’s criticism, Chidi Amuta, a twentieth
century African literary theorist argues that western literary
judgements are relative. He argues that even with its
universalised criteria, it seems to disparage African literature.
The West judges African aesthetic tradition as an
undifferentiated homogeneous African identity and
experience and fails to regard the complexity of African
societies. Amuta argues that African literature should
be evaluated by African values. Amuta, like Bourdieu
also renounces the Kant’s possibility of a universal, objective,
exclusively literary standard of judgement, and proposes an
alternate aesthetic that insists on the heterogeneity of literary
evaluation. It is doubtful if Kant’s criteria is comprehensive
in judging the literature of the late twentieth century based
on the singular exemplary work of a literary genius (which is
decidedly based on western cultural landscape). Both
Bourdieu and Amuta reject Kant’s narrow and rigid criteria;
for Bourdieu, ‘taste’ is constantly being determined by the
ruling class, and Amuta insists an all embracing criteria
that includes cultural, economical and political contexts.
The criteria of disinterest or ahistorical universalim is evident
in the play of Waiting for Godot. Beckett who live through the
war in Fance must have been deeply affected by the massive
disruption and uncertainty of the post-war situation. This could
influence his writing of the play and likely contribute his
philosophic disposition: his empathy with humanity especially
the downtrodden, in the universal sense of human uncertainty,
faith and purpose of life. The play does not invoke any
specific social or political context instead it is suggestive of
several contexts. This acontextual and ‘openness’ quality
allows it to deliver broader philosophical and theoretical
generalization about the human condition in the
contemporary world or perhaps reflecting on the religious
nature of faith and belief or even reflecting on the slippages
of language and communication. Beckett in receiving the
Nobel Prize award does adhere to its ‘ideal direction’ with
its universalist aspirations. The plays’s acontextual universal
interest in all contexts has affirmed the Nobel Prize ideal in
its pursuit of an ‘ideal direction’ without limitation to any
specific context. This has resulted in a momentary
resolution of the controversies that plague the Nobel prizes
in preceding years. However, there is still the familiar theme
of western religious perspective that has been significantly
alluded to in the play: the tree could be the tree of knowledge
in paradise of the bible and Godot may stand for God and
the exchange about two thieves who are crucified with Jesus.
Paradise sets in East Africa also depict a highly universal
theme without focusing of any specific social or political
context instead it is suggestive simultaneously of several
contexts. Its deliberate acontextual intermesh of myth and
history from a variety of different cultural, literary and
linguistic influences- East African, Arab, Islamic and
European displays the process of history formation and a
complex intimately linked frameworks of meaning. The
novel demonstrates that the standard and authentic
version of the narratives of Western colonialism is incomplete.
They explain only one version of history: European
magnanimous deliverance of Africans from Arabs slavers.
Using parallel narratives, history is seen instead to be
simultaneously constructed with other valid versions and they
reveal the complexity of history before the European
intervention. History is also closely associated with power,
some versions of history are naturalised in authorized
historical accounts with specific political agenda to present
only one version of ‘truth’. Through the complex weaving
of textual layers, Gurnah shows the differences between
indigenous African traditions and external western
influences, cultural nationalism or black essentialism that
simultaneously contribute to the larger part of history.
Gurnah writes with a balanced perception and not any
cultural version of historic construction in Paradise
has being exalted.
Beckett can indeed be considered an exemplary genius in
his pioneering use of theatrical conventions. Beckett use the
notion of the ‘Theatre of Absurd’- the use of techniques that
question and undermine theatrical conventions in expressing
the existentialist realm of the absurdity of human beliefs and
purposes. Beckett is original in presenting two sets of
equally indistinguishable and unremarkable happenings in two
very similar acts without any sense of development progression
at all: two tramps waiting for Godot, talking to each other, meet
an odd pair called Lucky and Pozzo and are informed by that
Godot will not come. This repetitive quality disrupts the habitual
expectation of the audience that there will be any development
progression of plot and characterization. Time is ambiguous in
the play, the bare tree in the first act grows a few leaves in the
second act and this prompt the audiences to habitually infer
that enough time has passed for the tree to grow, however it
is told in the beginning of the second act that it is the Next
day. Discarding the conventional theatrical techniques,
Waiting for Godot is a play that performs the dramatic form
in expressing the preoccupations of the existentialist’s plight
rather than talks about them. The dialogues are not adorned
in the artificial style like that of a drama in a verse that
audiences are used to. The actions too do not mirror the
conventional theatrical happening or plot development. The
theatrical methods here are self-reflexive that focus intently on
existentialist themes. Waiting for Godot is indeed a theatre
about theatre. The play overall structure undermines the
theatrical conventions. It seems to strategically obscure the
boundary between being theatre and doing theatre. Waiting for
Godot is deliberately self-reflexive in the sense that it compels
the audiences to question and reflect on theatrical conventions:
structure, setting, protagonist, dialogue and action.
Gurnah, too, is significantly an exemplary genius in his original
art of exquisite storytelling. Gurnah’s art of storytelling is lyrical
and mythical, similar to a scriptural tale. He weaves memory
and narratives into depicting personal and national histories that
give voice to the silences of the past. Paradise appears to be a
Bilddingsroman, the development of an innocent young boy
entrapped in the harsh trading world of corruptions which deny
him complete liberty. However, the centre of the novel examines
the psychological and material effects of a long history of
disempowerment. He uses the parallel stories of the koran
(Yusof) and the bible (Joseph), the origins of the idea of
paradise and the Gardens of Eden (walled garden).Yusof in
his role as listener, witness and mediator is the archive of
these various parallel narratives. Yusof, the on-looker listens
to the exchanges of people who has similar cultural heritage
and shared world views as well as the version of those whose
disagree resulting in conflict. Stories that are beyond the
speaker’s own reality are told in the different guises of fables,
fairytales or oral narratives of individual lives. Furthermore
some stories blur the boundaries between history and reality
as seen in when Khali tells Yusof about the hellish ‘wolfmen’.
(Gurnah 29) Both listeners and speakers are aware of how
their different worlds collide and that no matter how unrealistic
the world of fables is, it still reveal significant truths. Instead
of using the ‘insider’ perspective that is representative of a
‘postcolonial’ voice, Gurnah engages the readers from the
outset, exposing the complex, fragmented realities of the
multilingual world, subtly interrogating the previous
representations of ‘Africa’.
Beckett presents a significant existentialist perspective that
run through the two acts. Existentialists maintain that the only
absolute certainty is that we exist without any purpose or
grand mission, we just simply exist. There is nothing external
beyond this existence. Within this existentialist realization, a
sense of unlimited freedom and infinite choices emerge,
however this freedom also comes with the anxiety and dread
of the uncertainty of not having any clear direction in life. This
anxiety and uncertainty of unlimited freedom give rise to
suffering and in order to alleviate this suffering, one
chooses to bind oneself to a habitual and ritualistic existence:
‘Life is habit. Or rather life is succession of habits, since the
individual is a succession of individuals;. (Johnson 246)
The main essence of the play is about the purposeless waiting
for Godot. Godot does not appear and the endless waiting
that is not being fulfilled, both serves as a metaphor for the
existential human condition. The repetitive two-acts structure
reflect the monotonous sameness day-to-day ritualistic
existence, hence the protagonists resort to the habitual
dependency of each other for comfort and any separating
becomes frightening. Both Vladimir and Estragon and Pozzo
and Lucky cling onto their mutual roles and dependence not
because they have to but rather they choose to (Lucky is not
being forced into slavery). The play depicts the gloomy
existence of the purposelessness and the anxiety of having
unlimited existential freedom. Vladimir describes human
existence as ‘the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned
us (Beckett 69) and Pozzo depicts it as ‘They give birth
astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night
once more. (Beckett 78) There is an overwhelming sense
of uncertainty among the protagonists. Vladimir and
Estragon are uncertain whether the day is the day, or the
place is the place or if the shoes are Estragon’s shoes or
that the tree is the one they believe it to be. They are not
certain whether Godot will turn up or whether there is a
god or not or whether there is any purpose in their
existence or not. Gurnah weaves the parallel stories of myth
and reality in contesting the notion of a simply one version
of Western historical truth. For Gurnah history is constructed
simultaneously with multiple versions of cultural realities.The
story of the cruel Jinn who imprisons his beloved princess
(as Amina is imprisoned in Aziz;s garden) and when powerful
Jinn discovers that she is not faithful he turns her lover, the
woodcutter into an ape and banished him from the land. In
reality when Aziz finds out about Yusof involvement with his
wife Amina, he does not turn Yusof into an ape neither does
he banish Yusof from his land. This deliberate shifting between
myth and actual predicament of Yusof’s life can enlighten us
to the realization that stories can blur the boundary of the
reality of history.
Paradise also serves as an excellent narrative strategy in
deconstructing the notion of ‘otherness’ on which colonial
histories are built upon. The idea of the binary definition of
‘civilised’ and ‘savage’ is shown repeatedly in different
characters: Hamid defines himself as an upright Muslim in
contrast to his friend, the ignorant and ‘hairy-arsed’ Sikh.
The Germans are being ‘exoticised’ and considered just
slightly above animals. This ‘othering’ is not exclusive to
the civilized white man versus the savage native, it also
applies to other characters who define themselves as
civilised and others as savages. The cumulative effect of
these stories recycled by different voices in different
contexts is shown to be harmful in affecting people’s beliefs
and how people perceive and recount history. Mohammed
Abdalla heard the rumour that Europeans can both ‘eat
metal’ and force others to consume ‘shit’ (Gurnah 171) make
him submit passively to their authority despite the fact he has
never seen any white man before. Such stories with its negative
impact are spread by both those in power as well as those they
oppress. Gurnah’s aim in writing Paradise is to challenge the
European’s benign single historic version of delivering the
Africans from the corruptions of the Arab trade. Such stories
are often incomplete representations as Hussien states: ‘When
they come to write about us, what will they say? That we made
slaves’. (Gurnah 87)
Western critics and reviewers have shown to be habitually
flawed in judging postcolonial literatures through the rigid and
disparaging lens of their narrow, eurocentric sentiments. On a
BBC2’s The Late Show (11 October 1994), professional
critics are invited to give comments on the shortlisted novel,
Paradise. Paradise is merely described as ‘book filled with
folk legends, myths and religious fables, and explores the
themes of colonialism and enslavement’. ( Johnson 334) The
presenters and critics has already categorised the novel as
typically perceived as a form of nationalist resistance
responding to European colonalism and it has also been
mistakenly located in the 1940 rather than before 1914.
Gurnah is certainly less concern about ‘writing back’. Western
critics seem to constantly look for eurocentric signs, Greer
criticizes Gurnah’s use of mesmerizing rhetoric that does not
conform to the standard representations of ‘difference’ and
Paulin is rigidly stuck in homogenizing ‘African’ fictions, by
comparing it with Achebe’s Things Fall Apart that directly
addressed the break-up of Igbo tribes under colonialism
(a very differently resolute colonial past) instead of
addressing the historical complexity of the different
geographical and cultural context of Gurnah’s Paradise from
Achebe’s novel. Byatt, a more discerning critic, explains that
though Paradise’s main theme of the enslaving of a young
black boy by another black, Arab trader, its hybridity
showcases the different cultural traditions and contradictory
legacies of the empire.
Western evaluation based on a homogenous focus on the
difference of ‘otherness’ between the European and the native
is highly ineffective without considering the particularities and
complexity of heterogeneous cultural traditions and historical
contexts. Gurnah’s Paradise cannot be read as the predictable
African continent of darkness and mystery, magic and
superstition in the tradition of Conrad’s lost continent in the
Heart of Darkness. This privileged western interpretation is
too rigidly biased. Paradise does not narrate the colonial
encounter between European and Africa. It focuses instead
on the different narratives of the past of the shifting multiracial
population of the indigenous Swahili, Omani Arabs, migrant
Asians, black tribes and Christians; competing with each other
within their trading history exposing the dehumanising of
domestic slavery of the cruel Arab slavers.It would be too
restrictive to judge literature using the same Western aesthetic
criteria to examine African writers. A different set of aesthetic
criteria is needed to judge the rich mix of both literary and
cultural contexts of Africa.
Paradise explores East Africa’s interweaving of different and
competing histories, cultural traditions and language systems
that predates European intervention by two centuries. The
novel does not ‘exoticise’ its subject matter or present a
sentimental chaste view of precolonial past, instead it reveals
to us its corruptions. There is also no reducing the characters
into binary of the difference of ‘otherness’ between back and
white, or victim and oppressor. There are competing accounts
include a variety of definitions of the stereotypes ‘otherness’’
– native or savage, civilized or uncivilized, black or white.
Both the Arabs and the Germans are representatives of two
different but inherently exploitative imperial systems. Several
parallel narratives of history coexist, each creating its own
‘truths’, its own versions of ‘otherness’, its own victims and
oppressors. Characters are affected by economic power
rather than the cultural differences and alltheir values are
commodified whatever their origin maybe. The fictional
world of Paradise is such that everything, whether goods
or human beings, is commodified.
Modernism is not distinctly a European phenomenon,
Modernism in Europe and elsewhere stems from the complex
archaeology of cross-cultural interchanges, borrowings and
knowledge. As a postmodernist test, Paradise does question
the authority of the grand narrative of history and in postcolonial
texts, it challenges the homogenizing binary between the
European ‘self’ and colonial ‘other’. The best literary works
are inspiring when they challenge rigid authoritative forms and
take us beyond the limits of our expressions and cross the
complex boundary between theoretical
definition and critical judgement.
(3087 words)
Bibliography:
Beckett, Samuel. “Waiting For Godot.” The Open University, London. 2004. Print
Gurnah, Abdulrazak. “Paradise.” Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London.2004.Print.
Johnson, David. “The Popular & the Canonical.” The Open University, Routledge. 2005. Print.
