Literature and Culture

Literature and Culture
Anton Pokrivčák et al.
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LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Anton Pokrivčák et al.
Nitra
2010
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Authors:
Anton Pokrivčák
Simona Hevešiová
Alena Smiešková
Mária Kiššová
Emília Janecová
Reviewers:
Doc. PaedDr. Silvia Pokrivčáková, PhD.
Doc. PhDr. Jaroslav Kušnír, PhD.
This publication is funded from the project KEGA 3/6467/08 Vyučovanie
interkultúrneho povedomia cez literatúru a kultúrne štúdiá (Teaching Intercultural
Awareness through Literature and Cultural Studies).
© Anton Pokrivčák et al.
ISBN 978-80-8094-790-3
EAN 9788080947903
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
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Multiculturalism, Transcendentalism, and the Fate of
American Literature
Anton Pokrivčák
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American Urban Landscape – the Progress that does not
Move
Alena Smiešková
34
Literature and Culture: the British Perspective
Simona Hevešiová
42
The Immigrant Experience and its Representation in
Literature
Emília Janecová
61
Culture and Children´s Literature
Mária Kiššová
86
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Introduction
There is no doubt that one of the most important issues challenging the
world in recent times is the issue of culture – in all its varied manifestations.
There is almost no aspect of our reality in which we are not confronted with
the effect of the cultural - the human, social, and even natural sciences being
no exception to this. While on the one hand we can see that cultural
differences may become a source of innumerable conflicts (including the
most violent ones), on the other hand, they can also evoke the need for the
overcoming of these differences through globalisation, or to present an
appreciation of individual cultures through the policy of multiculturalism. In
literary studies the cultural seems to take on the form of the latter, i.e. the
struggle for multicultural representation on all levels of the literary process –
a text´s production, structure, and reception.
The essays in this book focus on the analysis of the connection between
literature and culture in American and English literature. They begin with my
own discussion of the effect of cultural studies on literary studies in American
literature, and of the role and legacy of transcendentalism for the future
development of American literature and culture. The next essay is Alena
Smiešková´s treatment of some of DeLillo´s and Auster´s novels in the
context of her reflections concerning modernist and postmodern approaches
to space. Simona Hevešiová and Emília Janecová explore cultural and ethnic
literature in Great Britain and provide insightful analyses of several new
works by ethnic writers. Mária Kiššová´s essay links the cultural studies
approach to a discussion of literature for children and young adults. Besides
the attention placed upon the general observations in the field, part of her
work also examines methodological issues, especially the use of multicultural
literature in the classroom.
This book is our joint attempt to reflect upon current tendencies in literary
studies in a complex way, exploring both new potentialities for the
interpretation of literary works as well as pointing out certain drawbacks and
dangers.
Anton Pokrivčák
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8
Multiculturalism, Transcendentalism, and the Fate
of American Literature
Anton Pokrivčák
The predominance of cultural considerations occurring in much of the
current criticism in American literature is no surprise at all, since the
literature which originated on the territory of the United States of America
significantly differs from traditional European literatures. The difference lies
especially in the fact that while European literatures have grown out of
linguistically and ethnically homogeneous sources, the literatures of the
United States have always been a product of several cultures speaking
various languages. The extent of its heterogeneous make-up allows one to
ask the most natural question: “How can America, or its literature, and from
the Puritans to the postmodern, in any accurate sense ever have been
thought other than multicultural?” (Lee, p. 1). Who could doubt it, Lee goes
on to ask, and provides the following answer: “not a few. For whether as a
history, or for more immediate purposes a line of authorship, America, long,
and almost by automatic custom, has been projected as a mainstream
nothing if not overwhelmingly Eurocentric, Atlantic, east to west, and whitemale in its unfolding” (p. 1). However, in the second part of the twentieth
century, this long history of “mainstream” interpretation, accompanied by
the growing awareness of America´s multicultural nature, resulted in the rise
of ethnic literature and literary studies consciously struggling against the
Eurocentric conception of American literature.1
Both tendencies testify to the fact that culture, in the current use of the
term as ethnicity, is one of the most important aspects of literature against
which literary values are discussed, and that it is a very complex and sensitive
phenomenon which has to be approached carefully, since it has a potential
either to enhance receptiveness to democracy and its values, including
literary values, or to damage the sense of sharing one destiny, of belonging
together. Gregory S. Jay is definitely very well aware of this when he asks:
“Aren´t there dangers as well as values in multiculturalism?” (1991, p. 48). He
1
Some scholars claim that, nowadays, we could speak of the end of “American” literature,
which should be substituted for “writing in the USA” (Jay, 1991).
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confirms the complexity of the concept by pointing to Diane Ravitch´s
distinction between a proper and a dangerous multiculturalism, when she
argues that “a proper multiculturalism teaches respect for the diversity of
America´s ‘common culture’ (and so is pluralistic), while a dangerous
multiculturalism advocates conflicting ethnocentrisms and implies that ‘no
common culture is possible or desirable’ (and so is particularistic)” (Jay, 1991,
p. 48). However, Jay suggests that the term “common culture” in the case of
America would not be appropriate, for it relies upon a historical version of
that culture which is Eurocentric and white. On the other hand, ethnic
rivalries bring conflicts and separation. Jay´s suggestion to solve this situation
is to change the thinking around multiculturalism, shifting the attention from
the fostering of identity to the building of respect for the Other.
The insistence on approaching literary works from the cultural (ethnic)
point of view has always been (and will always be) confronted with the
necessity to read into them, in addition to their literary (aesthetic) values,
also various extra-literary, very often ideological, or sociological, values. This
would not be unusual, since, as Bercovitch maintains, “literary criticism has a
double task. It is responsible for its evidence to textual realities that are
uniquely here, in a world of their own, and broadly out there, in history and
society” (Bercovitch, p. 70). According to Bercovitch, this is the political
aspect of the literary, which is not simple and cannot be reduced only to
ethnic or racial questions, but includes many other sociological, economic, or
material issues. Guerin in a way confirms this in his famous A Handbook of
Critical Approaches to Literature when he claims that cultural studies, among
other things, “analyzes not only the cultural work that is produced but also
the means of production”2 (Guerin, p. 241). Thus, writing about a particular
text, a literary critic, especially in the USA, has been faced with the necessity
to decide how to address the political of the text; to take it as the text´s
2
This covers a whole range of sociological and political issues which are beyond the scope of
this article, and thus cannot be dealt with in detail. Let me just say that Guerin briefly
illustrates this dimension of cultural studies, for example, on Hawthorne´s work, by pointing
to the conditions he had to work under when producing his best work, the short story
“Young Goodman Brown”, or the novel The Scarlet Letter. With both of these works,
Hawthorne had to struggle with his own family history (imagining his predecessors´
contempt towards his being a writer, not having some other, nobler job), with the market, as
well as with what we could call a “gender issue” (the market was supplied by domestic,
sentimental themes by writers like Catherine Sedgwick or Harriet Beecher Stowe, which
affected the perspective the readers had on his powerful portrayals of female characters).
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constitutive value, its “life force”, its raison d’être, or to ignore it, render it
invisible, and concentrate on the text´s purely “literary or universal values”.
Recent years have seen a strong inclination towards the second, political,
type of literary studies in all its three basic component parts: literary theory,
criticism, and history.
In spite of the complexity of ways cultural studies applies to a literary text
(material conditions of production, sociological issues, gender issues, etc.),
perhaps the most important “American contribution” is multiculturalism, for
a simple reason, i.e. that the USA has originated from, and is made up of,
many different nationalities. This fact governs every aspect of the current
literary process in the USA and, according to the majority of contemporary
critics, should be reflected in the systematic steering away from its traditional
treatments. To illustrate this, I would like to return again to Jay´s idea of
substituting the concept of “American” Literature with “Writing in the United
States”: “Clearly a multicultural reconception of “Writing in the United
States” will lead us to change drastically or eventually abandon the
conventional historical narratives, period designations, and major themes
and authors previously dominating ‘American literature’. ‘Colonial’ American
writing, as I have already suggested, looks quite different from the standpoint
of postcolonial politics and theory today, and that period will be utterly
recast when Hispanic and Native-American and non-Puritan texts are allowed
their just representation. What would be the effect of designating
Columbus´s Journal, the Narrative of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, or the
creation myths of Native peoples as the origins of US literature, rather than
Bradford´s Of Plymouth Plantation? To take another example, the already
shopworn idea of the ‘American renaissance,’ probably the most famous and
persistent of our period myths, ought to be replaced by one that does not
reinforce the idea that all culture – even all Western culture – has its
authorised origins in Greco-Roman civilization” (Jay, 1991, p. 57).
I made use of this (rather long) quotation to illustrate that the efforts to
see American literature through new eyes are all-encompassing, affecting all
aspects and categories of literary studies in the USA. They are happening in
an atmosphere of heightened cultural awareness, which frequently leads to
“culture wars” and conflicts, but nevertheless shapes what is meant by the
concept of “American”, “Americanness”, or even of such historically “stable”
meaning as “the American dream”. As the above quotation shows, this
tendency affects not only contemporary literature, but goes to the
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grassroots. What was once considered as the defining experience of
American culture, the English colonisation and the Puritan venture, is now
presented as only one of the events contributing to the creation of the
American imagination. Instead, a growing emphasis is put on other cultural
influences. And quite rightly, since events which coincided with the Puritan
colonization had hardly ever been noted by literary historians, or, what is
even worse, had been violently suppressed. One such event is noted by
Timothy B. Powell in his Ruthless Democracy, when describing how a
Shawnee chief, Moluntha, was murdered by one of Colonel Logan´s soldiers
during his attempt to peacefully negotiate their land rights (Powell, p. 3).
Powell interprets this as an event which, from the very beginning, prevented
the possibility of peaceful coexistence between various cultures: “It is here, in
this violent clash of the imagined communities of “America,” that the central
conflict of Ruthless Democracy comes sharply into focus. The moment just
before Moluntha falls constitutes an instance of profound hope - when two
men from vastly different cultures approach one another, each bearing the
US flag. For this flickering instant the promise of ‘America’ as a symbol
capable of embracing richly disparate peoples within the inclusive democratic
rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence seems hauntingly possible”
(Powell, p. 3).
The murder of Moluntha is, according to Powell, the symbolic beginning of
cultural and racial clashes, resulting from an unfulfilled promise by America
to observe its basic principles as expressed in the Declaration of
Independence (“All men are created equal”). Of course, this is just one
incident, but, in my opinion, one could find many more of them in America´s
history. The incident brings the author to ask the basic question lying behind
contemporary culture wars: “Why has it been so difficult for the country to
acknowledge and accept its historic multicultural character?” (Powell, p. 4).
Naturally, the answer would go far beyond the scope of this article. And
there is no need for that. The question itself would be enough to justify the
present attempts at historical correction. Everyone should understand why
there are so many approaches to discuss literature from so many angles –
simply because the USA is a heterogeneous country (it has always been such),
and its democratic institutions do not prevent anyone from providing
whatever interpretation of what one has read. This is a natural democratic
process. The problem is, however, whether the concept of democracy is the
best suitable tool for analysing literature.
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To better understand the situation in the USA, one can point to similar
instances elsewhere. It is widely acknowledged that one of the most striking
attempts to mix the non-literary (the ideological, political) with the literary in
Central and Eastern Europe was so-called socialist realism. The method grew
out of a certain political and cultural situation – the origin of the proletariat
and the building of new socialist states. Its basic aim was to foster literature
and literary criticism which would help the cause of socialism, i.e. building
socialist and communist societies and suppressing capitalist thinking
(literature, philosophy, etc.). One could not interpret literary works only on
the basis of literary, aesthetic values, but had to use Marxist-Leninist
philosophy as a tool, giving the clearest picture of the conditions portrayed in
the work, i.e. whether a particular character was positive, acting to further
the cause of the Communist party, or negative, in which case the character
was found “reactionary”, supporting “rotten capitalist ideas”. If, in the end,
the whole work was found reactionary, it was either severely criticised or
even forbidden, depending on whether the critic lived in the period of the
“hard-liners”, or in the so-called “easing off” period. The principle of utmost
importance was that literature was not just aesthetic blabbering, but a force
which should help improve society, working in collaboration with other social
sciences and institutions. Literary works were expected to address the issues
of the Communist Party, describe workers and their problems, their
exploitation, and their struggle.
Why did I mention this here? Is socialist realism not a thing of the past?
No, I do not think so, since many of the principles of studying literature
through “cultural studies” are, in my opinion, “socialist realism in disguise”. In
what other way can one explain the principles of cultural studies mentioned
by Guerin in his A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, stating that
the cultural studies approach to literature transcends the confines of a
particular discipline, is politically engaged, denies the separation of high and
low culture, and analyzes not only the cultural work that is produced, but
also the means of production (Guerin, pp. 240-241)? Allowing for some
differences, the similarities cannot be overlooked. The most important
include, naturally, the requirement that cultural studies should be “politically
engaged” and that it also analyses the “means of production”. The question
of why I mention this similarity might be put again. The answer would be that
the political engagement of literary critics in post-WW II socialist countries
was responsible for some of the grossest misinterpretations and abuses of
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culture and society in human history. The problem was not that some writers
addressed the difficult lives of the poor at the end of the nineteenth and the
beginning of the twentieth century, but that a particularity was made to be a
norm – i.e., that the writers who did not address the issues of the “working
people” (the proletariat) were excluded, ostracised, labelled as the enemies
of the system, and, finally, prohibited to publish. I admit that the situation in
a democratic society can never get so far as to suppress, or even jail the
dissidents. But the principle remains the same – the creation of an
expectation that literature should be politically active, should be in the
service of the previously wronged, exploited, is a disservice both to literature
and the politically oppressed as well. That the tendency to use literature as a
political tool is, nowadays, almost omnipresent cannot be denied. It is
enough if one just looks at the names of conferences and congresses
organised during the recent several years – there are hardly any which
concentrate on literature, and not on political or ideological agenda.
What would be the way out of this, in my opinion, unhappy situation?
Should we deny the link of literature to extra-literary contexts, rid it of its
influence upon the lived reality? Should we get back to the old “art for art´s
sake” principle? Is it true that literature is just fiction, without any meaning
for one´s individual life, for the life of a community, or for the life of an ethnic
group? Not at all. Believing this would mean denying literature some of its
most important functions. We would deny that works of art were, after all,
written by real people, and that they are to be read by real people using
them in various life situations.
One of the answers to tackle this situation can be found in Sacvan
Bercovitch´s article “The Function of the Literary in a Time of Cultural
Studies”, in which he acknowledges the strength and validity of cultural
studies by saying that it is here and will probably stay with us. One cannot
ignore it, for its cause was legitimate, having been a product of a legitimate
and unsatisfied need, as I tried to demonstrate above in the situation of
American literature and culture. What is important, however, is that “as it
[cultural studies] grows and flourishes it will preserve the literary in what still
remains the literary and cultural studies” (p. 69). Demonstrating the rules and
principles operating within social sciences and literary studies using a game
of chess as an analogy, Bercovitch concludes that “we are always already
more than our culture tells us we are, just as a language is more than a
discipline and just as a literary text is more than the sum of the explanations,
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solutions, probabilities, and abstractions that it accumulates as it travels
across time and space” (p. 82).
Even more poignant, however, in this context, is an article by Edward Said,
one of the founders of postcolonial studies and an outstanding cultural critic.
The poignancy springs especially from the fact that one would never expect
an avowed “ideological critic” to write what he did in his “The Politics of
Knowledge”. There, Said describes a situation when he was attacked at a
conference by a professor, “a black woman of some eminence who had
recently come to the university, but whose work was unfamiliar to me”,
accusing him that in his contribution he “talked only about white European
males” (1991, p. 18). Taken by surprise, Said explained that he did not know
why he should not be speaking about white European males if the subject of
his presentation was European imperialism. Taking this as a model situation,
he further elaborated on what is happening in current criticism. On one side,
he claims, the American academia is now aware “that the society and culture
have been the heterogeneous product of heterogeneous people in enormous
variety of cultures, traditions, and situations” (p. 25). On the other side,
however, it is not enough only to “reaffirm the paramount importance of
formerly suppressed and silenced forms of knowledge and leave it at that” (p.
26), but it is necessary to engage them in a global cultural setting of world
literature, for which he uses the term worldliness.
His overall argument could be summarised in the following two
quotations: “One of the great pleasures for those who read and study
literature is the discovery of longstanding norms in which all cultures known
to me concur: such things as style and performance, the existence of good as
well as lesser writers, and the exercise of preference. What has been most
unacceptable during the many harangues on both sides of the so-called
Western canon debate is that so many of the combatants have ears of tin,
and are unable to distinguish between good writing and politically correct
attitudes, as if a fifth-rate pamphlet and a great novel have more or less the
same significance” (p. 30). Getting back to the situation with which he started
his argumentation, Said provides the following conclusion: “Although I risk
over-simplification, it is probably correct to say that it does not finally matter
who wrote what, but rather how a work is written and how it is read. The
idea that because Plato and Aristotle are male and the products of a slave
society they should be disqualified from receiving contemporary attention is
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as limited an idea as suggesting that only their work, because it was
addressed to and about elites, should be read today” (p. 31).
Both the abovementioned authors3 can be taken as signs that we may be
witnessing the seeds of change, equivalent maybe to the changes of the
1930s when the New Criticism brought a revolutionary idea of text-centred
criticism, or to the 1960s’ adoption of the first post-structural ideas in
American literary criticism. What would/could the new criticism be like? As it
is never possible to totally dismiss the New Critical principles of having to
deal with the text, it is also not possible to separate literary study from its
social and cultural circumstances, or deny that in every literary text there is
an inherent playfulness and indeterminacy of deconstructive criticism. It all
depends on a point of view a critic chooses to adopt in approaching a work of
art, on his/her sense of balance in explicating the text´s individual qualities,
for, to get back to Said´s claim, works of literature “are in fact differently
constituted and have different values, they aim to do different things, exist in
different genres, and so on” (p. 30). Their localisation in a particular culture is
just one of their constitutive features - and a critic´s resolution to look at a
work through “cultural” lenses does not have to be regarded as “the moral
equivalent of a war or a political crisis” (p. 30).
In the next part of the paper I will try to discuss American
transcendentalism as the movement which contributed to the establishment
of America´s “cultural independence”, and trace its cultural legacy in the
poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. In doing that, I would like to
point to a justification in claims making transcendentalists responsible for the
“Eurocentric” ideas in American culture, emphasising their embeddedness in
European philosophical and literary thinking, and, on the other hand, to show
that their supposed “localisation” in European culture is in no conflict with
current multicultural trends.
It goes without saying that, in the context of “traditional” American
criticism, transcendentalists have been attributed with a very significant,
even constitutive role. The credit for this goes especially to the work of F. O.
Matthiessen, American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of
Emerson and Whitman, in which, by emphasising the work of Emerson,
Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville and Whitman, he put foundations to the
3
One should not forget, naturally, Jonathan Culler and his The Literary in Theory.
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American canon which came to be generally accepted as a unique expression
of the American imagination up to the second half of the twentieth century,
replacing the then widespread New England´s cosmopolitan and intellectual
“genteel tradition” of Longfellow, Holmes and Lowell.
What was American transcendentalism? In general, it is considered to
have been an informal movement of several intellectuals in New England,
especially in the area of Boston, then the cultural centre of the USA.
Transcendentalists were not only involved in literary studies, but were also
active in such fields as philosophy, religion, social theory, etc. Their literary
contribution is usually associated with the names of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
the movement´s primary theoretician, and Henry David Thoreau, the man
who tried to “live” Emerson´s theories. Emerson came up with the first
coherent ideas of what it means (and takes) to be American, giving a new
meaning to American culture.4 His transcendentalism was a response, via
Unitarianism, to a strong Calvinist culture of the first immigrants for whom
the New World was a place of spiritual “purification” and betterment of
Europe´s corrupted institutions and faith, a new manifestation of the biblical
“city upon a hill” (Winthrop, 2006). Emerson replaced the spiritual austerity
and allegorical vision of the world of Puritans with the romantic conception
of nature and symbolic imagination. In this respect, Harold Bloom (1997) sees
“severely displaced Puritanism” as a predecessor not only for American
transcendentalism, but for the English Romantic poets as well. However,
while the British poets managed to liberate themselves from it, the
Americans try to complete its work. There are many other theoretical works
dealing with the “puritanism – unitarianism – transcendentalism” line in
Emerson´s thinking, but this will not be pursued here, since my aim is to
present American transcendentalism through its development of the
nineteenth century´s European romantic thinking, mainly of some German
ideas and their influence on the thinking of the English romantic poet S. T.
Coleridge, using the concept of nature as espoused in Emerson´s essay
Nature.
The concept of nature has always played a significant role in American
culture. According to Leo Marx, “The idea of nature is – or, rather, was – one
4
See Emerson´s address to the Phi Beta Kappa society, known as “The American Scholar” and
delivered at Harvard in 1837, in which he claimed that “We have listened to long to the
courtly muses of Europe” (Emerson, 2006a, p. 1620).
17
of the fundamental American ideas. In its time it served – as the ideas of
freedom, democracy, or progress did in theirs – to define the meaning of
America. For some three centuries, in fact, from the founding of Jamestown
in 1607 to the closing of the Western frontier in 1890, the encounter of white
settlers with what they perceived as wilderness – unaltered nature – was the
defining American experience” (2008, p. 8). Emerson´s understanding of
nature, however, differed from the ideas of the first immigrants, the Puritans,
for whom nature was a seat of something dark, unknown, dangerous, a seat
of wild tribes with whom they had to fight – the metaphor of evil, death.
Much closer to his ideas is the sentimental portrayal of nature in the work of
James Fenimore Cooper who stood at the beginning of a potent American
myth – the unending struggle of nature with civilisation in which nature had
to gradually give way to the settlers´ rising demands. Some generally known
Cooper´s novels, e.g. the Leatherstocking Tales, presented nature as a
positive place of living, of “noble savages”, in contrast to the destructionbringing white settlers. Nature could be understood as a metaphorical
expression of “paradise”, doomed to perish because of civilisation.
Contrary to the above, in many respects simplified, approaches to nature,
Emerson brings a complex, though eclectic, theory of the organic character of
nature and imagination, based on several sources. The extent of his
eclecticism and orientation towards the world´s literature and philosophy can
be illustrated by his diary, in which, according to Cunliffe, he sets for himself
the following task: “Thou shalt read Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Aristophanes, Plato, Proclus, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Porphyry, Aristotle, Virgil,
Plutarch, Apuleius, Chaucer, Dante, Rabelais, Montaigne, Cervantes,
Shakespeare, Jonson, Ford, Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Bacon,
Marvell, More, Milton, Molliere, Swedenborg, Goethe” (Cunliffe, 1970, pp.
89-90). And Cunliffe further claims that he really read them, as well as
Coleridge, Wordsworth, Carlyle and oriental philosophers (ibid.).
Since it is not possible to distinguish such extensive inspirations, I will
concentrate on approaching his theory through the theory of romanticism, as
it was manifested especially in the thinking of the English romantic poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and expressed especially in his essay “On Poesy or
Art” (1952a). However, when discussing Coleridge´s influence, one must also
mention Immanuel Kant, since it was his Critique of Pure Reason from which
transcendentalists took the name of their movement as well as the basic
tendency of their thought. This German-English influence was also
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highlighted by René Wellek when he notes that “Coleridge´s theory is closely
dependent on the Germans” (1964, p. 180).
If we speak about transcendentalism as a non-formal movement within
romanticism, we have to be aware of the fact that in those times the concept
of romanticism, as we know it nowadays, was not constituted. The writers
and critics did not see themselves as belonging to a defined movement. Its
gradual taking shape is discussed by René Wellek in his book Concepts of
Criticism in which he points out that the term “romantic poetry” was first
used to refer, for example, to the romances of Ariosto or Tasso (p. 131). As
Wellek further maintains, the term romantic was also used for Shakespeare,
and the “classical – romantic” contradiction was crystallised only later in
August Wilhelm Schlegel´s Berlin lectures from 1801 to 1804. Wellek follows
a gradual domestication of the concept in other European literatures as well
(French, English, northern as well as Slavic literatures). I will be concerned,
however, only with the German version and its outgrowth to English
romantic theory, since this is the line which was followed by American
transcendentalism as well. It stems mainly from Schlegel´s aforementioned
distinction between the classical and the romantic. Classical is associated
with the poetry of the ancients, while romantic with modern poetry, with the
progressive and Christian (p. 135). Schlegel elaborates on this distinction
further in his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature: “The ancient art and
poetry rigorously separate things which are dissimilar; the romantic delights
in indissoluble mixtures; all contrarieties: nature and art, poetry and prose,
seriousness and mirth, recollection and anticipation, spirituality and
sensuality, terrestrial and celestial, life and death, are by it blended together
in the most intimate combination” (2004).
Coleridge was strongly influenced by Schlegel´s thinking. His most
complex expression of the essence of romanticism can be found in the
lecture “On Poesy or Art” in which Coleridge tries, using elusively an almost
mystical language, to point out a mutual conditioning of nature, man, and the
supernatural principle. Art is, in his opinion, an imitation of nature, but it is
not irrelevant what is imitated and how. “The artist must imitate that which
is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and
discourses to us by symbols—the Natur-geist, or spirit of nature” (p. 397). “If
the artist copies the mere nature, the natura naturata, what idle rivalry” (p.
396)! It is necessary to “master the essence natura naturans, which
presupposes a bond between nature in the higher sense and the soul of
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man” (ibid.). The beauty of nature is “the unity of the manifold, the
coalescence of the diverse; in the concrete, it is the union of the shapely
(formosum) with the vital” (p. 395). Nature is the source of primordial art,
that is, the writing in its various cultural manifestations – as the original
movement,5 as wampum; then picture-language; then hieroglyphics, and
finally alphabetic letters” (p. 393). It is (for a religious observer) “the art of
God” (p. 394), “a work of art” (ibid.), if we are able to see “the thought which
is present at once in the whole and in every part” (ibid.).
Emerson´s fundamental essay, Nature, of 1836, draws on exactly the same
understanding of romanticism,6 though in a typically Emersonian form, i.e. in
a unique mixture of conceptual and metaphorical language (Coleridge´s
language was much more rational) set into a new context – the culture of the
New World which, if it were to be original, could not rely on anything, but
nature. Nature as a culture-formation phenomenon emerges at its very
beginning. It is opposed to history (of Europe) and historical knowledge: “Our
age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes
biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God
and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also
enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry
and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to
us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose
floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they
supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the
dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its
faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in
the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our
own works and laws and worship” (Emerson, 2006b, p. 1582). The paragraph
lays down basic distinctions: immediacy means the New World, America;
while Europe and the Old World are associated with mediation and
retrospection. Immediate knowledge is positive, fresh and able to penetrate
to the essence; mediated knowledge is the very opposite.
America is a new existence, a new being based on nature, which is the
basic impulse for a new culture, made up of, and by, people not burdened by
5
6
See Derrida´s concept of the movement of the magic wand in his Of Grammatology (1976).
For an insightful discussion of the identification of imagination with nature see also de Man
(1984).
20
the past, people who should draw their strength from nature, for whom
nature should not be an object, but their being, as it forms the being of a
child: “The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye
and the heart of the child” (p. 1583). The effort for an analogy between the
innocence and spontaneity of a child and a new man, who would preserve
the spirit of youth, is undeniably clear. Moreover, the relationship between
nature and man is in some parts even openly occult: “The greatest delight
which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation
between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They
nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to
me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like
that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed
I was thinking justly or doing right” (p. 1584). What he describes here is not,
however, a mere anthropomorphism of nature, since the ability to provide
pleasure is not the quality of nature, but of man, or the harmony of both:
“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit” (ibid.).
It is undeniable that what Emerson suggests in several other parts of the
essay, and what is the basic feature of American transcendentalism, is a
mutual interdependence of the human, the natural, and the spiritual. The
most striking expression of this interdependence can be found in the chapter
“Spirit” where Emerson reflects on the question of the origin and sense of
the matter: “But when, following the invisible steps of thought, we come to
inquire, Whence is matter? and Whereto? many truths arise to us out of the
recesses of consciousness. We learn that the highest is present to the soul of
man, that the dread universal essence, which is not wisdom, or love, or
beauty, or power, but all in one, and each entirely, is that for which all things
exist, and that by which they are; that spirit creates; that behind nature,
throughout nature, spirit is present; one and not compound, it does not act
upon us from without, that is, in space and time, but spiritually, or through
ourselves: therefore, that spirit, that is, the Supreme Being, does not build up
nature around us, but puts it forth through us, as the life of the tree puts
forth new branches and leaves through the pores of the old” (p. 1604).
This poetic expression of transcendental philosophy makes it evident that
Emerson, like Coleridge, considers nature the essence without which the
spirit could not have anything to rely on, and man would not have anything
to perceive. Without man, nature does not exist, for there would be no one
to perceive it. Without spirit, man would not know how to perceive. As
21
Coleridge has it, “Something there must be to realise the form, something in
and by which the forma informans reveals itself” (Coleridge, 1952b, p. 373).
For Emerson, nature is something through which we can get to beauty and
God.
Perhaps the clearest expression of Emerson´s views of beauty is the
chapter “Beauty” in which he says that beauty serves man to satisfy his
nobler needs (in the preceding chapter, entitled “Commodity”, he treated
nature as a source of satisfaction of man´s practical needs), and distinguishes
its three main features: “[t]he simple perception of natural forms” (2006b, p.
1586), “[t]he presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element” (p.
1587), and beauty as “an object of the intellect” (p. 1588). One can see here a
gradation from simpler forms of beauty, such as delight, through its relation
to morals, up to its being an expression of an idea. Nature is not just a passive
object of the artist, but strengthens his/her creativity. Like in Coleridge,
creativity is not only copying nature, but is its re-creation. It is a romantic
principle of pantheism, i.e. seeing art as an expression of nature and, through
it, of the divine principle. In this respect, it has to be mentioned that
transcendentalists also found inspiration in another English romantic poet,
William Wordsworth, especially in his “Ode on Intimations of Immortality”
and “Tintern Abbey”.
Even though the overall manner of Emerson´s relation to nature is highly
positive, the essay also contains negative tones which foreshadow later
existential feelings of American artists towards nature: “Nature always wears
the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own
fire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt
by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it
shuts down over less worth in the population” (p. 1584). If we were to find
other affinities towards European thinking, we could compare it with
Heidegger or de Man who characterised the American as “man in the center
of space, man whom nothing protects from the sky and the earth [and
therefore he] is no doubt closer to the essential than the European, who
searches for a shelter among beautiful houses polished by history and among
fields marked by ancestral labor” (de Man, 1989, p. 31).
Although the essay “Nature” was a manifesto of “transcendentalism”, it
stood only at the beginning of Emerson´s creative life during which he
contributed to the establishment of American cultural identity with other
significant themes as well. Just a year after the publication of “Nature”, in his
22
lecture before the Phi Beta Kappa Society entitled “The American Scholar” he
encouraged students to be proud for their “Americanness”: “We have
listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. [...] We will walk on our
own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds”
(Emerson, 2006a, p. 1620). In the essay “The Poet” Emerson reflected on the
role of poets in society, seeing them in line with contemporary romantic
views and attributing them almost divine qualities. Poets are not common
persons, since they are able to penetrate to the essence of things, they are
“liberating gods” (Emerson, 2006c, p. 1648). The essay´s main idea is very
similar to P. B. Shelley´s “A Defence of Poetry” who also considers poets
“unacknowledged legislators of the world” (Shelley, 1952, p. 435). Emerson
saw such a poet in Walt Whitman who programmatically wanted to be (and
was) an “American poet”.
The natural result of Emerson´s theories is the poetry of Walt Whitman.
According to John Townsend Trowbridge, Whitman read Emerson´s essays
and was excited by them: “I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson
brought me to a boil” (Trowbridge). The poet sent him an issue of the first
edition of Leaves of Grass to which Emerson responded with an encouraging
letter: “Dear Sir--I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of Leaves
of Grass. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that
America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power
makes us happy. [...] I greet you at the beginning of a great career...”
(Emerson, 2002). Whitman´s poetry embodied what Emerson strived to
achieve in his essays – the spirit of America. It was the poetry of democracy,
of the common man, an individual and his/her relation to nature and the city,
the poetry trying to capture America in its extent and contradictoriness, in
the complicated relation of an independent, “self-reliant” person to society.
Whitman, encouraged by Emerson´s transcendentalism, stands at the
beginning of a very important tendency in American culture, which could be
called democratic, or ideological, literature, in the sense of the subordination
of the aesthetic to the idea. In Whitman´s case, it was the idea of America as
the “most democratic” country in the world, of America as a new and unique
value of the New World as opposed to the traditional values of Europe.
Novelty and democracy is, in Whitman, also expressed thematically and
formally. He does not reject any themes, including the taboo ones, and uses
free verse – not only as an expression of the democratic principles of
America, but as the natural effect of romantic-transcendental principles of
23
creation, resulting from Coleridge´s and Schlegel´s ideas of the influence of
nature upon art.
While the influence of transcendentalism upon Whitman is visible and
direct, in the case of Emily Dickinson it is more complicated. Undoubtedly,
she knew Emerson´s work, but her response was totally different from
Whitman´s. Unlike Whitman, Dickinson was not the type of the poetvisionary portrayed by Emerson in his essay. While Whitman was almost an
absolute embodiment of a natural, robust, and, unburdened-by-convention
person, an individual interested in the fate of the country in which he lived
and sang about, Dickinson was his direct opposite – an introverted person
who did not write about America as a new value, but rather about herself
and her relationship to basic human values (life, death, love, etc.). She did
not poetically “celebrate” these values, but made them problematic. Michelle
Kohler, in her article “Dickinson’s Embodied Eyeball: Transcendentalism and
the Scope of Vision”, points to the difference between the use of visual
metaphors by Emerson (and, naturally, Whitman as well) and Dickinson.
While Emerson, following the romantic method, used language to achieve a
vision of a fusion with nature, to present national meanings, Dickinson was
not able to easily get rid of her “corporeality”, to fuse with nature and
penetrate to a transcendental realm. Nature was, for her, always an object to
struggle with. But as Allen Tate has noted, this “inability” to easily identify
with nature is the source of her greatness. He considers Emerson the “Lucifer
from Concord”, because it was he who “discredited more than any other man
the puritan drama of the soul” (1955, p. 214), the drama which, for Emily
Dickinson, was still a source of existential anxieties. As Tate has it, Puritanism
could not be for her what it could for the first immigrants, but its system of
absolute truths and abstractions was still quite strong to prevent her
“immersion in nature” (p. 223).
While for the first immigrants nature was an enemy, the seat of the devil,
for Dickinson it was a source of forces subverting the strength of eternal
truths or at least offering another way of their expression. For example, in
the poem “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church” the things of nature are
personifications of her religious ideas; however, as it has been suggested
above, they are not Emersonian metaphorical visions abolishing the
difference between the perceiving and the perceived (the “transparent
eyeball”).
24
Dickinson perceives nature rather allegorically, but her allegory is
different from Hawthorne´s, for whom it was an attempt to attribute to
figures adequate meanings. She strives to come to terms with the materiality
of being, to “find out” what is beyond. In other poems she personifies nature
as death, sees (in a “Kantian” way) with her idea and tries, through the poem,
to physically live it. Tate characterised her as a poet who “perceives
abstraction and thinks sensation” (p. 213). This almost synaesthetic
perception of being and nature can be found in the poem “Because I could
not stop for death” or “I felt a funeral, in my brain.” But her perhaps most
ontological poem is the poem entitled “Of death I try to think like this” in
which, according to Deppman, thought attempts to control the presencing of
death through a series of images following “a pattern of earth, still water,
running water, and then, after a leap of thought through time and memory,
the sea and an image of a child leaping over a brook to clutch a flower”
(2000, p. 5).
In spite of a widely accepted idea that Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest
nineteenth century poets, was an utter individualist, a recluse who spent her
entire life in her “father´s house”, at times refusing to communicate to
almost anyone, there are several works which adopt a wider, cultural
perspective on her poetry.7 As White suggests, “The fact that she was a
recluse, does not make her any less a product of her culture, as being
reclusive does not mean being totally sealed off from the world” (2008, p.
107); on the contrary, Emily Dickinson was a person who was deeply affected
by it. That world, however, is not easy to describe, as it is not easy to describe
any poet´s lived reality. One can only try to estimate it from her work,
because it seems that she was one of those poets for whom the work and life
are one, not willing to make any of them public.
What is traditionally considered to be unique in Dickinson´s poetry is its
form. She was born in an America which was still largely agricultural and
provincial, not very significant in the world either politically or culturally.
From the material point of view, until the outbreak of the Civil War, her
world could not have been shattered by any significant event. She spent her
life in a large country house, having all necessary means for a comfortable
7
See, for example, Karl Keller´s The Only Kangaroo Among the Beauty: Emily Dickinson and
America (1979), Barton Levi St. Armand´s Emily Dickinson and Her Culture: The Soul´s Society
(1984), Fred D. White´s Approaching Emily Dickinson: Critical Currents and Crosscurrents
Since 1960 (2008), or numerous feminist studies.
25
life. That was, however, only the outward side of her existence, since in her
inward reality, things stood differently. Maybe the most characteristic words
explaining what this reality was like could be found in the following poem:
On my volcano grows the Grass
A meditative spot -An acre for a Bird to choose
Would be the General thought -How red the Fire rocks below -How insecure the sod
Did I disclose
Would populate with awe my solitude.
(Dickinson, p. 685)
We see that the peaceful and meditative atmosphere of the first stanza
(with the exception of the word “volcano”), signifying her everyday home life
is here contrasted with the heat and insecurity (“sod”) threatening to erupt
from her inner feelings. This conflict within her own personality is nothing
else but her imaginative response to the world, and culture, she lived in. Its
results are both on the level of form as well as content. Formally, her poems
are first expressions of the fragmentariness of human consciousness in
American literature, of the conflicting nature of a modern mind. The poem is
not a smooth rhythmical expression of a sentimental theme, as the popular
opinion of her contemporaries would expect from a woman, but shows
fragments of thought, as shown by unfinished sentences and dashes.8 The
metre, a typically Dickinsonian hymn metre ending up in the last line´s iambic
8
In the first editions of Dickinson´s work, dashes were absent because editors adjusted her
verses, in order to conform to contemporary taste and literary standards. They were
restored only in the so-called Johnson edition of 1955 (The Poems of Emily Dickinson,
including Variant Readings Critically Compared with All Known Manuscripts). Although this
edition was first considered to have introduced to the public a totally new Dickinson,
unconventional and modern, there have also appeared some critical responses, claiming that
Dickinson manuscripts show her understanding of poetry as a process and that Johnson, by
translating “Dickinson´s handwritten production into ... uniform type, [made it] ‘sound’
considerably less dramatic” than it in fact is (Smith, p. 17).
26
pentameter, also contributes to the poem´s effect of a threatening volcanic
eruption.9
In spite of numerous works attempting to localise Dickinson within
cultural contexts (modernistic, postmodern, feminist, popular culture,
romantic, etc.), in my opinion, one of the best analyses was offered by Allen
Tate in the abovementioned short article, entitled simply “Emily Dickinson”.
Tate is not concerned with the superficial features of Dickinson´s work or life,
like many other studies, but tries to get to the heart of the matter. He
characterises Dickinson´s poetry as the poetry of ideas, demanding readers to
think, although the poet herself is not considered to be a consciously
philosophising poet, being rather one who “sees the ideas, and thinks the
perceptions” (1964, p. 220), not telling the readers “what to think”, but
asking us “to look at the situation” (p. 220). Tate maintains that the source of
the tension within her poetry is the fact that she wrote from a “deep
culture”, not from cultural paraphernalia (p. 222). It is the depth of a long
lasting grip of American Puritanism and its gradual giving way to new trends
of industrialism. Emily Dickinson senses that the old order with its clear
principles regarding, for example, religious and ethical values, breaks down,
and through her poems exposes its incongruities. As he further stresses, she
does that subconsciously, without knowing it. This is why we could
characterise her not as a poet-thinker, but as a poet whose work invites
thinking. Sensing incongruities, a dilapidation of the culture’s spiritual
homogeneity, and attempting to express the sensations in language, not
intentionally to put them to public scrutiny, but to tackle first of all her own
anxieties, this is what her poetry is about; and also why her poetry is so
fragmentary. It cannot be otherwise, for what she attempts to express, to
arrive at, is cultural as well as spiritual otherness.
The concept of otherness can be used to describe a good artist´s relation
to his/her culture. He/she senses that something ought to be different, other,
but does not know what. His/her work is always a way of searching for the
other, a never-to-be-completed effort to capture it. Dickinson did not know
what it was in her world that she fundamentally disagreed with, but that it
was her Puritan world which was breaking down and causing her anxieties.
9
See the feminist approach to Dickinson’s metre in Annie Finch´s The Ghost of Meter: Culture
and Prosody in American Free Verse (2000), especially the chapter “Dickinson and Patriarchal
Meter: A Theory of the Metrical Code”.
27
Superficially, undoubtedly, she was aware of many things she did not like.
The critic´s role, however, is to disclose the artist´s deep relation to his/her
culture, in all its complexity, and show it. We cannot be satisfied with
paraphernalia only.
Dickinson and Whitman are as if embodiments of the two contradicting
tendencies within American literature of the nineteenth century. It is a
conflict between the surviving culture of Puritans, based on Calvinist sources
and searching for God in the book, the Bible, in the idea, and the culture
emanating from the (American) soil, from nature. Allowing for slight
overestimation and simplification, it could also be called a conflict between
the old, historical, European, and the new, natural, American. Emerson was
as if a catalyst of this struggle for a new culture of the New World, a culture
which would not just be a copy of the Old World.
However, the consequences of Emerson´s transcendentalism are not only
in inspiring a new (American) culture of romantic immediacy to nature. For
some critics, especially the New Critics, Emerson was also a person who, by
defeating the Puritan idea of God, and by setting the thinking and being to
the materiality of nature, paradoxically inspired American materialism. Tate
maintains that by killing the theocracy he “accelerated a tendency that he
disliked. It was a great intellectual mistake. By it Emerson unwittingly became
the prophet of a piratical industrialism, a consequence of his own
transcendental individualism that he could not foresee” (p. 214). Others saw
in “American renaissance”, whose main personality was Emerson, one of the
most familiar American myths which should, however, be replaced by a new
one, not based on the idea “that all culture – even all Western culture – has
its authorised origins in Greco-Roman civilisation” (Jay, 1991, p. 57).
Taking into account prevailing tendencies in current American literary
studies, i.e. approaching literature especially through cultural studies, it may
be claimed that even if transcendentalism is mostly associated with the
identification of the romantic fusion of subject and object, with the idea of an
ontological approach to art, with an approach to nature as pantheistic
principle - which are, in fact, “Eurocentric” conceptions of art - both Emerson
and Thoreau significantly contributed to the development of America´s
“new” culture which would draw inspiration from other sources as well. Most
protagonists of current cultural studies tend to forget the fact that Emerson,
obsessed by “history and culture” (Worley, 2001, p. vii), could not be called
literary nationalist, since in addition to his extensive knowledge of European
28
literature and culture, there have been quite a few valuable studies
identifying “oriental” sources in his work as well as the influences his thinking
had on “oriental philosophers”. Thus, in the article “East of Emerson” Susan
Dunston has analysed Emerson´s relationship to Eastern thinking, especially
to Persian poetry, which he used in his concept of an ideal poet. She pointed
out that Emerson was trying to open America to Eastern culture, to the
novelty which that poetry represented. The novelty of perception was one of
the key concepts in his essay “Nature” as well (Dunston, 2010).
Not less known is Emerson´s relation to Indian thinking. Adisasmito-Smith
admits that “The bulk of Emerson´s Essays are not predicated primarily upon
ideas he had encountered in Indian texts. But such ideas were present in
significant ways” and “inflected his ideas” (2010, p. 145). However, my aim is
not to identify oriental sources in Emerson´s works, but rather to point to the
fact that his legacy is complex and cannot be associated only with Western
influences. His inspiration by other cultures, as well as respecting other
cultures, is clearly noted by Suzan Jameel Fakahani at the end of her essay
“Islamic Influences on Emerson´s Thought: The Fascination of a Nineteenth
Century American Writer”: “Emerson´s deep and early interest in Arab
thought and culture stems primarily from his enthusiasm to create a united
world culture; which places him in the vanguard of America´s
internationalists. He did not advocate Islamic thought and religion as a
substitute for Western concepts, but as a complement to them” (Fakahani,
1998, p. 301).
It seems, however, that Emerson´s “internationalism” has much weaker
support in contemporary America than Europe. One of the reasons for this
may be the stability of past cultural foundations, as Wilczynski noted in his
essay dealing with the nineteenth century´s culture wars: “Be it Germany,
France, Poland, Hungary, or Latvia, all the local cultural formations seem
much more stable in the eyes of respective national communities [...] than
American antebellum culture appears in the eyes of today´s students born
and/or raised somewhere between New York and San Francisco. Not only the
standard “central” figures of the first half of the nineteenth century turn out
much less disputable (Goethe, Hugo, Adam Mickiewicz, Sandor Petofi,
Christian Waldemar), but the overall order of less prominent authors, as well
as publications, genres, and values proves comparatively immune to major
overhauls or even partial revisions” (2006, p. 505). On the contrary, as he
continues, the American literary scene is characterised by controversy,
29
ignoring long-established writers and throwing up “names and texts which
have been long-forgotten or downplayed by academia and other institutions
responsible for cultural circulation” (ibid.).
As a suitable conclusion to my discussion of Emerson´s transcendentalism,
and, through it, a commentary on current multiculturalism and “culture
wars”, as well as on the enforcements of multicultural heterogeneity of
American literature, frequently at the expense of its universal values, I would
like to use the following quotation from Emerson´s work which, even though
referring to religion, I find instructive also for literary studies: “In matters of
religion, men eagerly fasten their eyes on the differences between their
creed and yours, whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements
and identities in all the religions of men” (1909, pp. 226-227). Thus, similarly,
the charm of the study of literature is in finding what connects people, not
what separates them. Variety and heterogeneity are of no use if they breed
confusion and fear, not the sense of unity and shared destiny.
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33
American Urban Landscape – the Progress
that does not Move
Alena Smiešková
In the 2005 novel The Brooklyn Follies (2005) Paul Auster sets up the
following situation: The narrator of the novel, Nathan Glass came to Brooklyn
to find “a quiet place to die” (2005, p. 1). He exchanged a nice suburban
house, after his marriage collapsed, for the obscure streets of Brooklyn, allied
by brownstones. There, in a bookstore, he meets his nephew Tom, the only
son of his late sister: “The boy so smart, so articulate, so well-read …”
(Auster, 2005, p. 13). Once a promising scholar, Tom had graduated from
university by defending his senior thesis on “Imaginative Edens: The life of
the Mind in Pre-Civil War America.” “It´s about non-existent worlds, my
nephew said. A study of the inner refuge, a map of the place a man goes to
when life in the real world is no longer possible” (ibid., p. 14).
Edgar Allan Poe, one of the writers discussed in the thesis, in his halfessays, half-stories, gives a description of the ideal room, the ideal house,
and the ideal landscape, possible places of retreat. In the one that depicts the
ideal landscape, the narrator tells a story of his friend Ellison, who, inheriting
a vast fortune, decided to invest it in “novel forms of beauty, […] in the
creation of novel moods of purely physical loveliness” (Poe, 1847). As the
narrator argues in Poe’s story, The Domain of Arnheim (1847), “Ellison
became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived more profoundly
enamoured of music and poetry. … But Ellison maintained that the richest,
the truest and most natural, if not altogether the most expensive province,
had been unaccountably neglected. No definition had spoken of the
landscape-gardener as of the poet; yet it seemed to my friend that the
creation of the landscape-garden offered to the proper Muse the most
magnificent of opportunities” (ibid.).
Poe’s sketch suggests the possibility of each human mind to create a
landscape garden, an imaginary Eden, and thus aspire to a spiritual way. So,
what are the opportunities offered to real poets more than a century later?
Borrowing Poe’s exaltation with space, I claim that two of the most
prominent contemporary American writers, on whom I focus, Paul Auster
34
and Don DeLillo, are poets of space. They are architects of contemporary
urban landscape in the poetic space of the postmodernist American novel.
What is their vision of the contemporary world?
In the abovementioned Aster’s novel, the character of Tom further
explains why Poe and Thoreau, two great thinkers of the nineteenth century,
“reinvented America”. “Both men believed in America, and both believed
that America had gone to hell” (Auster, 2005, p. 16). Thus, they invented
their imaginative Edens. Do Auster and DeLillo reinvent their Americas as
well?
The most persistent heritage of the Enlightenment, the belief in man, not
only as politically, socially, and morally perfectible, but in a man with an
inevitable tendency to improve, had a strong influence on the nineteenthcentury United States. As Merle Curti asserts in his The Growth of American
Thought (1943), the concept of progress is the most significant contribution
of the eighteen century to the nineteenth (2004, p. 165). In everyday
American life it was translated mostly as the advancement in technology.
Gradually, the everyday life of Americans was coming closer to the promise
of modernity. New ways of communication, new ways of travelling, health
care, social life.
The new urban space of the end of the nineteenth century, lit by electric
bulbs at night, filled with facilities of entertainment: theatres, shows,
vaudevilles, which richer people came to visit by car, became rapidly
transformed over the past century. More and more people live in cities. Cities
have become live organisms throbbing to the rhythms of utilitarian life.
American progress may be a mythical concept, but its most pragmatic
aspects we can find reflected in the organisation of everyday life. As Pynchon
would have it: a circuit of roads, a maze of parking lots, enabling the access
to contemporary icons of cultural and social life – supermarkets. The urban
iconography contains suburban houses, downtown diners, territories of
subway networks, commercial lights flickering. In them, the forward
movement of technological progress has been manifested. But how far did
the human soul go? How elevated did it become? Does it still seek the retreat
into the imaginative Edens of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries?
My first example will be the notorious ending of DeLillo’s novel White
Noise (1984). Following an airborne toxic event, which paralysed and
threatened the peaceful status quo of a small university town, DeLillo depicts
one of the most captivating scenes in contemporary American literature. “We
35
go to the overpass all the time. Babette, Wilder, and I. We take a thermos of
iced tea, park the car, watch the setting sun” (DeLillo, 1998, p. 324). Due to
the effects of the ecological catastrophe, it is impossible to say whether the
spectacular sunsets that all the town’s residents come and see regularly are
the results of breached ecological balance or natural phenomena. Using
simple, declarative sentences that just describe the scene, it appears in front
of our eyes as a panoramic stage scene where element by element the
assemblage grows until the final frozen image, the tableau. In its cumulative
effect, it reminds us of religious congregations during the rituals where the
crowd experiences the sense of communion that helps it to overcome awe of
the metaphysical sublime. The readers become also the spectators, joining
the crowd and watching the simulacrum sunset.
The narrator in the book comments on the scene: “We find little to say to
each other” (ibid.). The speechless quality of the scene brings to the mind
silent spaces in the paintings of Edward Hopper, one of the most recognised
representatives of American art. We find in his oeuvre the image of a sunset
with the same momentum as if beyond the limit of time: “The sky takes on
content, feeling, an exalted narrative life” (ibid.). Hopper’s other works,
namely those which depict an isolated figure or figures in space, express the
same speechless narrative quality. They are presented as isolated from one
another, from themselves, part of the environment in the same way as other
inanimate elements. But they also contain the elements of urban landscape
that are so generic that even after almost a century they speak to the viewers
with disturbing intensity. “The only possible explanation is that these
paintings are not taken literally, but as an aesthetic experience, so that a
thematic interpretation will fail to provide a convincing explanation of their
appeal. This appeal is related to spaces or, more precisely, to the empty
spaces of Hopper's pictures, because it is this empty surface, in its often
colorful barrenness, that is ideally suited to function as a host for
aestheticized emotions or moods” (Benesch and Schmidt, 2005, p. 36).
The aestheticised emotions and moods are also related to the
iconography of modernity, the urban landscape, roads, highways, traffic
lights as the following examples from different media suggest. The last
chapter of DeLillo’s novel opens with the image of a small boy riding his
tricycle across the highway. The contrast between the ceaseless effort of a
child to move further on and the sweeping velocity of cars rushing by
captures the reader. The surreal quality of a dream the scene acquires
36
(“women could only look, empty-mouthed”) correlates with another
example, the photographic installations of Gregory Crewdson.
Crewdson, in some of his series (Dream House, 2002; Twilight, 1998-2002;
Beneath the Roses, 2008), stages and directs situations which, as a frozen
single image, contain a whole narrative quality. “Through theatrical lighting
and the inclusion of fantastic and fairytale-like elements, the artist operates
within the framework of staged photography, which, under the influence of
Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall, became established as one of the most
important forms of artistic photography” (Berg, 2006, p. 24). His installations
employ a production crew, including lighting supervisors, pyrotechnic
experts, interior designers, and bug wranglers. Crewdson, similarly to Don
DeLillo, works with the iconography of suburban landscape, but the realistic
setting is transformed through stylised installations into a hyperreal space,
whose atmosphere is at the same time normal and paranormal, filled both
with wonder and anxiety. In the photograph Merchant’s Row, from his latest
series Beneath the Roses (2008) a pregnant woman standing at the traffic
lights in a morning fog is not threatened by cars like Wilder in De Lillo’s novel,
yet she, her pregnant body dressed in an almost transparent nightgown,
looks ultimately fragile in contrast to her surroundings. The lightness of
being, in which Wilder and the pregnant woman are situated because of his
innocence and her pregnancy, protects both of them against the threats of
modernity.
The two writers under scrutiny, DeLillo and Auster, publish some of their
individual novels as if in response. DeLillo in White Noise (1984) works with
the concept of a small generic town equipped with the latest sociopathological situations: people obsessed with shopping in supermarkets, a
professor teaching at university a subject that popularises evil diminishing
thus its potential threat, polluted environment, family in an average status
quo scared by the fear of death to name just the most significant. Auster
situates his novel City of Glass (1985) in a specific city - New York, paying
tribute to its genius loci and hardboiled detective school.
In Auster’s novel the city becomes the condition, a degree of the
protagonist’s decision making. A successful writer of detective fiction, Quinn,
writing under the pseudonym Wilson, turns into a detective, assuming the
new identity of someone called Auster. As he moves out of his apartment to
go deeper into the city, in a hunt to resolve the mystery, he becomes
absorbed by the place and the story. He records in his red notebook the
37
limits of his existence: “What will happen when there are no more pages in
the red notebook?” (Auster, 2004, p. 132).
Similarly to Hopper’s paintings, the environment absorbs the man, they
become indistinguishable as animate and inanimate objects. At the end of
the story when Quinn disappears, or, as the narrator points out, when “the
information has run out” he (the narrator) and his friend, Auster, search for
Quinn in an apartment that used to belong to a person (Stillman) whose
identity Quinn originally investigated as a private eye: “We went upstairs and
found the door to what had once been the Stillman’s apartment. It was
unlocked” (ibid., p.133).
Before we enter the room in Paul Auster’s description, I will discuss the
last great painting by Edward Hopper: The Sun in An Empty Room (1963). The
original plan for the painting was to include a figure, but then the lightwashed immoveable spaces and the trees swashing in the wind behind the
window sufficed. “Whether we like it or not” Hopper wrote “we are all bound
to the earth with our experience of life and the reactions of the mind, heart,
and eye, and our sensations, by no means, consist entirely of form, color, and
design” (Levin, 1995, p. 401). The space depicted in the painting is certainly
not Stillman’s apartment, but the painting in its restrained simplicity, pure
lines, elaborate play of shadows in dark corners and large sunlit spaces
displays the abandoned territory that glows with the aesthetic qualities,
emanating silence, fixity and a sense of emptied identity.
In Auster’s book this is the description of the space: “We stepped in
cautiously and discovered a series of bare, empty rooms. In a small room at
the back, impeccably clean as all the other rooms were, the red notebook
was lying on the floor” (Auster, 2004, p. 133). Not only the room or
apartment, the whole city radiates inertia, snow erasing all boundaries. “The
city was entirely white now, and the snow kept falling, as though it would
never end” (ibid.). The unifying effect of whiteness constructs the blank
world, the story ends, consummating its own potential – similarly to the lightwashed spaces in Hopper’s paintings. “As for Auster, I am convinced that he
behaved badly throughout. If our friendship has ended, he has only himself to
blame. As for me, my thoughts remain with Quinn. He will be with me always.
And wherever he may have disappeared to, I wish him luck” (ibid.).
The presentation of the new world, with a new ontology, not as the end of
the story but as an end of a story, is central to DeLillo’s novel of 2007 Falling
Man. Here, the urban setting is New York as well, but New York radically
38
changed after the collapse of the twin towers. It starts with the moment of
the aftermath and in a way thus counteracts Aster’s novel Brooklyn Follies
(2005). Aster’s novel ends with the attack on the World Trade Centre giving a
wholly different twist to misshape adventures, and the troubles of the
protagonist and his friends. If the stories the narrator retells throughout were
just follies at the end, after the twin tower collapse their actors become folly
artists, merely “special effects” in a larger project that someone else directs.
This is also the point of departure for DeLillo’s powerful novel. Beginning
with the well known images from television, DeLillo’s narrative gives them to
us once again in a literary form: “It was not a street anymore but a world, a
time and space of falling ash and near night. He was walking north through
rubble and mud and there were people running past holding towels to their
jackets or jackets over their heads. They had handkerchiefs pressed to their
mouths. They had shoes in their hands, a woman with a shoe in each hand,
running past him. They ran and fell, some of them confused and ungainly,
with debris coming down around them, […] The roar was still in the air, the
buckling rumble of the fall. This was the world now” (2007, p. 3).
The novel’s central theme is similar to the one in the cult novel of the post
WWI period The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemingway. Both deal with
the trauma and the new world that is constituted as a result of it. The central
theme thus remains: if this is the world, then how to live in it. Or, on a more
personal level, if this is my experience, then how to live with it. Don DeLillo
develops this central line in a wonderfully elaborate, multi-voiced novel
presented in the recurrent image suggested already by its title and the
introductory paragraph. How many times does the word ‘fall’ recur and what
image does it help to establish?
DeLillo’s text works against images that have been implanted in our minds
via television. It is probably hard to find anyone of a certain age who, having
watched the television broadcasts, would not have had the images of the
horror of that day emblazoned in their minds. Images speak louder than
words and can be easily evoked under various circumstances. DeLillo creates
the narrative that starts with the description of the very same images he
assumes the minds of his readers had already absorbed, however, he forces
the reader to reinvent them again, relive them in the configuration of words
he meticulously selects.
The recurrent word ‘fall’ underlines the effect of the phrase falling man. In
the novel, a performance artist known as a falling man appears dangling from
39
a balcony, rooftop, inside of a concert hall. “He’d appeared several times in
the last week, unannounced, in various parts of the city, suspended from one
or another structure, always upside down, wearing a suit, a tie and dress
shoes” (DeLillo, 2007, p. 28).
Let us consider in this context a photograph by Gregory Crewdson from
the Dream House series, called Ophelia. When we look at the picture from a
distance, when our eye still does not focus on details, and does not recognise
them, what we see is a large floating figure in the centre of the picture which
seems as if levitating. The details of the background which our eyes are still
not able to process rationally in the first moments support this reading. The
liquid surface of the “carpet” in the room appears to be rather solid, as if
moving in depth, going down, extending the space of the room, and what in
fact are the reflections of room details, windows, slit holes in the door, lamps
upside down, create an illusion of yet another background, slightly darker
than the upper part of the picture. Due to this illusory effect, in a stage that
precedes the rational interpretation of the signs within the picture opens to
the gaze of the viewer a floating body, weightless, as if resting in an unusual
position, barren of all the burdens of everyday life.
The falling man in Don DeLillo’s novel “brought it back of course, those
stark moments in the burning towers when people fell or were forced to
jump” (ibid.). The reader receives the perspective of the falling man through
a single character Lianne, a wife of a man saved from the Towers. “There was
the awful openness of it, something we’d not seen, the single falling figure
that trails a collective dread, body come down among us all” (ibid.). The body
overcoming the limits of gravitation in the novel is only an illusion, similar to
our surface reading of Crewdson’s photography. It is integrated into the
urban space in order to disturb, to bring memories back. Its recurrence in the
novel turns it into a stylised element incorporated into its surroundings, in
spite of the absurd reality it recalls. In the real world, during the real events
of 9/11, there were people jumping from the towers to escape the dread of
fire and explosions only to let their bodies float in the air to the ultimate end.
There is also a photograph, a media image, which forever fixed the levitating
body of one of the victims. The novel perpetuates the image and together
with it the sense of derealisation of reality. As one of the characters has it in
the novel:
“When you see something happening, it’s supposed to be real.”
“You’re looking right at it. But it’s not really happening” (ibid., p. 63).
40
What is the imaginary Eden for today’s troubled mind in an over
technologised world? How to integrate in our lives the moments of
existential rupture we are unable to prevent? The examples across time,
media and style posit that the metaphysical certainties are no longer viable.
There are no imaginative Edens; there remain only the surface realities. In
the abovementioned works of art, the human and urban landscapes recur as
realistic settings to generate the bond between the body and environment.
What comes out of it is the uneasy, disturbing relationship where body is
absorbed, immersed into the landscape. The tension brings forth the
realisation that the boundary between live and artificial organisms has been
thoroughly breached as well as the borderline between the real and
simulated. The “American” urban landscape is the progress that does not
move. It remains fixed, immobile, embracing even live organisms, whose
function undermines the traditional hierarchy of live over artificial, animate
over inanimate. The mind, the index of the human, remains perceiving. But
what remains are only sets of unrelated presents, a kind of schizophrenia,
which Jameson talks about, situated in the “technological sublime” (Jameson,
1991, p. 37).
References
Auster, P. 1987. City of Glass. The New York Trilogy. New York: Penguin
Books.
Auster, P. 2005. The Brooklyn Follies. London: Faber and Faber.
Benesch, K., Schmidt, K. (eds.). 2005. Space in America: Theory, History,
Culture. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Questia, Web, 30 July 2010.
Berg, S. 2006. Abysmal Dreams. European Photography, 27, no79/80, pp. 2431. Copyright 1982-2006. The H.W. Wilson Company.
Curti, M. 2004. The Growth of American Thought. New Brunswick:
Transaction Publishers.
DeLillo, D. 1998. White Noise. New York: Penguin Books.
DeLillo, D. 2007. Falling Man. New York: Scribner.
Jameson, F. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.
Durham: Duke University Press.
Levi, G. 1995. Edward Hopper. An Intimate Biography. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
Poe, E. A. 1847. The Domain of Arnheim. Columbian Lady’s and Gentleman’s
Magazine.
41
Literature and Culture: the British Perspective
Simona Hevešiová
The immigrant is the Everyman of the twentieth century.
Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia
Culture in transition
For centuries, people have felt the need to express their opinion on things
and events happening around them and to them. The urge to demonstrate
and locate their own position in the spatial and temporal dimension naturally
led to the process of documenting these events in various forms and by
various media. Imaginative literature, penetrating under the surface of mere
fact and documentary, proves to be one of the most vital tools to reflect the
happenings around us. In the words of Philip Tew, “[n]ovels both rationalize
and engage dialectically with our historical presence, playing their part,
however provisionally at times, in our understanding of and reflection upon
our lives” (2007, p. 7). Moreover, as Tew argues, “[t]o cite history and critical
longevity as offering the only correct or worthwhile arbitration of literary
worth […] is at best questionable and certainly naïve” (ibid., p. 15). Novels
thus rightfully have a say in documenting and mirroring realities of societies
all around the world.
From the 1950s onwards, Great Britain has witnessed crucial social and
political transformations, altering the everyday reality to such an extent that
many scholars mark this period (culminating in the 1970s) as a “watershed
and a period of fundamental change […], that in retrospect can be seen to
rival and not be simply an extension of the changes brought about by the end
of the Second World War”10 (ibid., p. 16). In the view of many scholars, it is
precisely the period of the 1950s that ensured that Britain would become a
multicultural society (Hansel, 2000, p. 19). Leaving domestic political issues
aside, decolonisation, subsequent migration waves and several series of
diaspora represent the most significant factors altering the face of British
10
Similarly, Nick Bentley defines the period of the mid- to late 70s as a period of social and
cultural change that divides some of the fundamental characteristics of contemporary
Britain from the end of the Second World War onwards (2008, p. 2).
42
society in a profound way. “The legacy of colonialism has been one of the
most far reaching influences both on the former colonies and also on Britain
itself, both in terms of its position in the new world order after 1945, and also
in the changing nature of its home population”11 (Bentley, 2008, p. 17).
Considering that post-war migration to Great Britain was, at that time,
opposed by the majority of the British public, which demanded strict
migration control, Britain came a long way to accept its multicultural face12.
Randall Hansel, a political scientist and historian, mentions several studies of
Commonwealth migration which state that by introducing migration
restrictions in the 1950s, the British government built them around “a
racialized reconstruction of ‘Britishness’ in which to be white was to belong
and to be black was to be excluded”13 (2000, p. 11). Yet, as Hansel claims,
most of these studies are one-sided, since British policy to migration from
1948 to 1962 was one of the most liberal in the world “granting citizenship to
hundreds of millions colonial subjects across the globe” (ibid., p. 16). It is
true, however, that the 1960s saw one of the strictest migration policies in
the history of Britain.
Cutting a long story short, throughout the second half of the twentieth
century, Britain has been undoubtedly transformed into a multicultural
society, with immigrant communities being established all around the
country. According to Niall Ferguson, more than a million people from all
over Britain’s former Empire have come as immigrants to Britain (2004, p. 54)
and that is why postcolonialism becomes one of the crucial discourses in any
analysis of the current social context in Britain. Necessarily, the processes of
mass migration, globalisation, and transnationalisation have produced “a
multiplicity of cultural interconnections which cannot be reconciled with the
11
In 1993, in his ground-breaking book Culture and Imperialism Edward W. Said noted that it is
“one of the unhappiest characteristics of the age to have produced more refugees, migrants,
displaced persons, and exiles than ever before in history” (1994, p. 332). Said grounds this
fact in the afterthoughts of postcolonial and imperial conflicts which resulted in “unhoused,
decentered, and exilic energies” whose “incarnation today is the migrant” (Ibid.). The
mixture of cultures and identities on a global scale has been consolidated by imperialism
(Ibid., p. 336) and the declining British Empire could not avoid its consequences.
12
However, to assume that the pre-war era was characterized by a homogeneous culture
determined by a fixed British identity would be misleading and naïve.
13
The prolific British author, Caryl Phillips, also argues that “[a]cross the centuries British
identity has been a primarily racially constructed concept” (2001, p. 272), mentioning the
example of Caribbean migration to Britain.
43
traditional notion of cultures seen in national or ethnic terms” (Brancato,
2009, p. 51). Moreover, as Brancato claims, even ideologies such as
multiculturalism and interculturalism fail to grasp the complexity of the
cultural dynamics shaping modern subjectivities which are inevitably marked
by “migrancy, diasporic and transnational networks, and various forms of
cosmopolitanism” (ibid.). Since they tend to focus predominantly on
differences, they only succeed in producing and maintaining polarities.
Therefore, new concepts have been sought to generate a better
understanding of the intricate nature of dynamic cultural development, and
transculturality, a concept elaborated by Wolfgang Welsh, seems to be one
that some groups of scholars prefer to others. The concept of
transculturality, “as an analytical model for the decoding of contemporary
cultural reality”, thus starts from “the intersection rather than from
differences and polarities [and] offers the possibility of a deeper
understanding of complex cultural processes” (ibid., p. 53). As Sabrina
Brancato explains, the transcultural paradigm goes “a step further in grasping
the complexity of cultural interaction, emphasizing the permeability and
dynamism of identity as a continuous negotiation” (ibid., p. 54).
Responses to these changing social and cultural conditions in Great
Britain, and, subsequently, a direct experience of migrants within the
framework of diaspora, and the diverse realities of their lives, are all
recorded and processed not only in social, political or historical studies, but in
fiction as well. Obviously, as Britain’s demographic map changed notably so
did the representative sample of its literary scene which has become more
multicultural and ethnically diverse both in authors and subject matter (Tew,
2007, p. 15). Naturally, British literature reacted to all these changes since it
“has been a cultural space in which the experiences of immigrants and
broader political issues associated with these experiences have been
articulated” (Bentley, 2008, p. 18). As Philip Tew in his book The
Contemporary British Novel suggests, a new wave of British writing emerged
from the mid-1970s foregrounding such themes, among others, as British
identity, hybridity and the explicit notion of a culture in transition (2007, p.
1).
In 1981, William Q. Boelhower attempted to define the particularities of
the immigrant novel as a genre. He came up with the following
macrostructure where the Old World and New World represent the “poles of
tension” (Boelhower, 1981, p. 5). According to Boelhower, immigrants enter
44
the New World with certain sets of expectations which idealise the New
World, while the Old one is viewed solely in negative terms. Yet, as they
move along the contact axis, the vision of the New World (NW) is gradually
modified and disposed of its ideal attributes. In this process, the immigrant is
separated from the Old World (OW) which is thus idealised as well “either
through an attempt to preserve his OW culture, even though he may be
assimilated into the NW, or through a stiff criticism of an alienating set of
experiences” in the new place (ibid.).
(Boelhower, 1981, p. 5)
Several decades later, these topics still pervade literary discussions and prove
to be a bountiful source of material for fiction writers, such as Zadie Smith,
Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Diran Adebayo, Sunetra Gupta or Romesh
Gunesekera to name just a few. Contemporary British literature abounds in
stories set among immigrant communities, depicting their internal
mechanisms and tensions, and in multicultural metropolitan centres
examining their potential for mutual coexistence. Naturally, there has been a
significant development in the thematic processing of immigrant experience
over the last decades. As the social and political conditions of immigrants
kept changing and their position in the new mother country kept evolving, so
did the problems they were facing. Initially, many novels focused on the
anguish and initial difficulties of first-generation migrants as they were trying
to settle down in a completely new environment and were struggling with a
new culture. Gradually, stories of second-generation migrants started to
45
occupy the central space in the fictionalised worlds as the children of
immigrants attempted to cross the borders from the periphery to the centre.
However, multicultural settings of Western towns and cities are no longer
viewed as something exotic and new; their multi-ethnic local colour has
transformed the way people look at former immigrants and their
descendants.
Of course, such depictions of social and literary transitions and changes are
more than simplified and imperfect. Yet, there are certain tendencies in
recent literary developments supporting this rough outline and the next
sections of this chapter will attempt to demonstrate this point. Nonetheless,
the theme of identity and cultural negotiations in a multicultural context
represent some of the most discussed issues in contemporary literature.
The Stigma of Arrival: Life Within the Community
The decision to travel to a foreign country with the intention of settling
there permanently has been made by millions of people worldwide for all
possible reasons. Most of them have experienced the anguish of arriving in a
foreign place, not knowing anyone, not speaking the language of the country
and struggling with different cultural practices. The significance of a
community of people sharing a similar experience, or similar cultural
background, seems to be priceless in this context. As Suzan Ilcan claims,
“[f]or people living within the tensions and consequences of globalization,
deterritorialization, and mass migratory movements, ‘belonging’ to a place, a
home, or a people becomes not so much an insulated or individual affair as
an experience of being within and in-between sets of social relations” (2002,
p. 2). The role of the community and its working mechanisms has been
captured in numerous works of fiction.
Monica Ali’s debut novel Brick Lane, situated in London’s Bangladeshi
neighbourhood, portrays the struggles of a shy, but perceptive, eighteenyear-old girl Nazneen who moved to Great Britain with her self-centred and
ambitious husband Chanu. The novel processes all the events through
Nazneen’s perspective; thus, the narrative strategy employed simply invites
readers to step into the mind of an estranged and lonely young woman who
is totally dependent on her new husband (chosen by her father, naturally)
and finds herself living in a completely different culture. The linguistic barrier
only aggravates Nazneen’s isolation and powerlessness, foregrounding her
cultural otherness. Nazneen’s feeling of isolation culminates after Chanu
46
leaves for work and she is left home alone among “the muffled sounds of
private lives sealed away above, below and around her” (Ali, 2003, p. 18).
“What she missed most was people. Not any people in particular […] but just
people. If she put her ear to the wall she could hear sounds. The television
was on. Coughing. Sometimes the lavatory flushing. Someone upstairs
scraping a chair. A shouting match below. Everyone in their boxes, counting
their possessions” (ibid.).
Moreover, the brick walls surrounding her physically seem impenetrable
to Nazneen. Looking at the walls as a medium which materialises her
isolation from the outer world and her inability to escape (be it from her
husband or England in general), a symbolical understanding of the setting
may be discovered. “You can spread your soul over a paddy field, you can
whisper to a mango tree, you can feel the earth beneath your toes and know
that this is the place, the place where it begins and ends. But what can you
tell to a pile of bricks? The bricks will not be moved.” (ibid., p. 70). Nazneen
has to cope with “a high level of uncertainty and unfamiliarity within the new
culture and also finds herself facing the task of acquiring the necessary
competence to function satisfactorily, even if that is only at the minimum
level” (Hussain, 2005, p. 94).
Being unable to communicate with other Londoners, Nazneen’s life is
understandably confined to the limited space of her own community and
other Bangladeshi sojourners inhabiting the shabby East End apartment
blocks. Tower Hamlets is meant to reconstruct the feeling of home amidst
the anonymous English capital, with saris hanging from the windows, shops
“stacked with kebabs, tandoori chickens, bhazis, puris, trays of rice and
vegetables, milky sweets, sugar-shined ladoos, the faintly sparkling jelabees”
(ibid., p. 398), men in “white panjabi-pyjama and skullcaps” (ibid., p. 13) and
women wearing hijab and burkha. Yet not everything Nazneen sees is
welcoming and flattering. There are also dogs defecating on the grass, “the
smell from the overflowing communal bins” (ibid.), drugs, ghettos, and
greedy moneylenders.
Brick Lane, in fact, represents “a holding area, a temporary zone for
immigrants who have not yet fully settled in England [and] whose lives are
defined by the past” (Hussain, 2005, p. 102). As Chanu explains: “They all
stick together because they come from the same district. They know each
other from the villages, and they come to Tower Hamlets and they think they
are back in the village” (Ali, 2003, p. 21). In fact, “[t]hey don’t ever really
47
leave home. Their bodies are here but their hearts are back there. And
anyway, look how they live: just recreating the villages here” (ibid., p. 24).
Slowly, Nazneen makes friends with other women neighbours, such as Razia
Iqbal and integrates into the community which reminds her at least a bit of
her home back in Bangladesh of which she contemplates with nostalgia and
melancholy.
Chanu, unlike Nazneen, is presented as one who knows how to live in the
Western world. He speaks the language of the country he settled in, he has a
stable job and he has also made few friendships and acquaintances. In his
own words, he considers himself westernised by now. However, having come
to London with high hopes and dreams, Chanu’s assumptions about the life
of a foreigner in the West were soon supplanted by the harsh reality he had
to face. “When I came I was a young man. I had ambitions. Big dreams. When
I got off the aeroplane I had my degree certificate in my suitcase and a few
pounds in my pocket. I thought there would be a red carpet laid out for me. I
was going to join the Civil Service and become Private Secretary to the Prime
Minister. […] That was my plan. And then I found things were a bit different.
These people here didn’t know the difference between me, who stepped off
an aeroplane with a degree certificate, and the peasants who jumped off the
boat possessing only the lice on their heads” (ibid., p. 26).
The character of Chanu is, in fact, a tragicomic one since he embodies all
the ambitions and frustrations of an immigrant. The huge piles of Chanu’s
useless certificates and diplomas which should secure his promotion only
demonstrate his self-deluding desire to succeed in the Western world in
which he wishes to be acknowledged as an equal partner. His eloquent
theories regarding social, political, cultural or artistic issues are supposed to
manifest his intellectualism; but it is his observant and passive wife Nazneen
that seems to be a better judge of human character and who seems to
understand the futility of her husband’s attempts. In the end, it is Nazneen
who has gained a better understanding of the Western way of life than
Chanu.
As Nazneen proceeds on her path of (self-)discovery, the novel offers a
valuable insight into how this perceptive young woman views the events and
places around her. The employed narrative technique, focusing on Nazneen’s
viewpoint predominantly, enables the writer to record her impressions of
London and its inhabitants as she sees them soon after her arrival. Suddenly,
the invisible foreigner holds a mirror to the busy society of Londoners and
48
the topography of their city. The reader becomes a fellow tourist
accompanying Nazneen on her adventurous outing through London’s streets
which are “stacked with rubbish, entire kingdoms of rubbish piled high as
fortresses with only the border skirmishes of plastic bottles and greasestained cardboard to separate them” (ibid., p. 43). She cranes her head back
as she looks at “white stone palaces” and discovers buildings “without end”,
crushing the clouds (ibid., p. 44). Then, realising that people do not notice her
at all, Nazneen starts to scrutinise “the long, thin faces, the pointy chins”
(ibid., p. 45) and passing women who “pressed their lips together and
narrowed their eyes as though they were angry at something they had heard,
or at the wind for messing their hair” (ibid.). “Men in dark suits trotted briskly
up and down the steps […] They barked to each other and nodded sombrely”
(ibid., p. 44). “Every person who brushed past her on the pavement, every
back she saw, was on a private, urgent mission to execute a precise and
demanding plan: to get a promotion today, to be exactly on time for an
appointment, to buy a newspaper with the right coins so that the exchange
was swift and seamless, to walk without wasting a second and to reach the
roadside just as the lights turned red” (idid., pp. 44-45).
Nazneen’s observations not only provide some insight into how foreigners
might view Western metropolises and their citizens, but also point to her
own stance towards this urban space. It is clear that Nazneen does not feel
part of the city, nor can she identify with the people passing by her. In the
words of Paul Newland, “she can only view the city through the imaginative
prism of her distant birthplace” and that is why “Nazneen’s movement
through this ‘Other’ territory, then, remains the movement of an immigrant
drifting through an alien, unknown space” (2008, p. 245). The feeling of
unbelonging pervades all these lines and is diminished, paradoxically, only
when Nazneen returns to the brick walls of her apartment.
Yet, Nazneen’s story is a story of gradual self-awakening. The novel
“tracks the process by which she moves, fitfully and self-laceratingly, from
shame to tentative self-possession, from a willing submission to a belief in
her own agency, from a silence both voluntary and culturally conditioned to a
yell of liberation” (Sandhu, 2003). By joining the local sewing business, she
not only steps a little closer to her independence but affirms her decision to
become an active, equally productive family member. Thus, Nazneen
becomes acquainted with Karim, a young, idealistic Muslim whose visions
prove to be too fragile to be realised, and who later becomes her lover. It is
49
through him that Nazneen penetrates into the politically active core of the
Muslim community and observes the petty micro-wars between different
political camps.
As Yasmin Hussain claims in her Writing Diaspora: South Asian Women,
Culture and Ethnicity, the Bangladeshi community in England is presented by
Ali in “negative, atavistic terms” as “dysfunctionally insular and traditional,
riven by internal dissent and unable to organise itself even in the face of
racist mobilisations” (2005, p. 93). Karim, the leader of the Bengal Tigers,
establishes a tradition in organising regular meetings of the local Muslim
community and thus attempts to play a small role at least in improving the
conditions of the people living in the neighbourhood. The political
programme of his group seems perfunctory at the beginning. However, the
aftermath of 9/11, escalating into a heated atmosphere on the local estate,
suddenly provides an agenda. Yet, the leaflet war between the Bengal Tigers
and its counterpart, the Lion Hearts, only succeeds in igniting ethnocentric
and xenophobic passions and totally fails to complete its original mission14.
Karim, as many inhabitants of Tower Hamlets of his age group, has never
been to Bangladesh and therefore was “born a foreigner” who stammered
when speaking in Bengali (Ali, 2003, p. 375). Looking at him, Nazneen could
“see only his possibilities” and that “the disappointments of his life, which
would shape him, had yet to happen” (ibid.). Not having a place in the world,
he was desperately defending the only one he knew. As the post 9/11
situation starts to heat up, Karim’s gold necklace, jeans, shirts and trainers
disappear and are supplanted by a panjabi-pyjama and a skullcap in an
ostentatious public demonstration of cultural identification. The street
disturbances and riots among competing activist gangs suddenly transform
Brick Lane into a battle zone. “In the middle of the road, a coiled snake of
tyres flamed with acrid fury and shed skins, thick, black, choking, to the wind.
Shop alarms rang, clang, clang, clang, more frightened than warning. Back up
the road, an ambulance crawled stubbornly along, its twirling blue eyes
sending out a terrible, keening lament” (ibid., p. 396).
14
Interestingly, the attempts to adapt the novel into a film version in 2006 were accompanied
by intense protests by the local Bangladeshi minority which struggled against what they
perceived as a negativistic portrayal of their community in the book. The Greater Sylhet
Development and Welfare Council wrote an 18-page letter to the author claiming that she
misrepresents the Bangladeshi community, branding her novel as a despicable insult.
50
It is also this changing climate of cultural hostility, along with his inability
to succeed in the Western world, which hastens Chanu’s decision to leave
London and return to Dhaka. Yet Nazneen’s longing for home has faltered
with time. As she gradually realises, the picture of home that she had
cherished all those years living abroad, must have been significantly impacted
by her absence. “The village was leaving her. Sometimes a picture would
come. Vivid; so strong she could smell it. More often, she tried to see and
could not” (ibid., p. 179). She feels this country has changed her, shaped her
and she is not the girl “from the village any more” (ibid., p. 320). The decision
to stay in England with her daughters, articulated with a resolute declaration
“I will decide what to do. I will say what happens to me. I will be the one.”
(ibid., p. 337), represents the culmination of Nazneen’s self-empowerment.
Paradoxically, the much despised London from the beginning of her journey
has become her new home in the end.
Reaching Outside: A Journey from the Periphery to the Centre
However, life within an immigrant community does not necessarily
guarantee eternal contentment and stability. Many inhabitants view it only
as a transition space and sooner or later move in some other direction. Such
a tendency is especially obvious in the case of second-generation migrants
who struggle with a conflicting position within the society, feeling a full part
of neither section. The conflict between first and second-generation migrants
is portrayed in Monica Ali’s novel as well. Nazneen has to deal with her
teenage daughter Shahana who is in constant struggle with her father Chanu.
Refusing to leave England, which she regards as her true home, Shahana is
one of the reasons why Nazneen decides not to return back to Bangladesh
with her husband at the end of the novel. Similarly, Hanif Kureishi’s novel The
Buddha of Suburbia, published in 1990, presents a story of a young man who
attempts to break through the protective membrane of a familiar place in
order to get plunged into the unknown, yet desired metropolis.
The protagonist of the novel is the seventeen-year-old Karim Amir, son of
an Indian-born immigrant, Haroon, and his English wife, Margaret (whom he
later exchanges for another Englishwoman), living in suburban London.
Karim’s story is a story of a journey and a story of border-crossing, both
across the city’s invisible frontier, separating the periphery from the centre,
51
and across the cultural spectrum of Britain’s changing demography15. The
novel’s formal division into two sections – entitled ‘In the Suburbs’ and ‘In
the city’ – represents a distinct demarcation line Karim intends to cross in
order to blend with the centre.
Karim’s opening statement, an obvious attempt at self-characterisation
which points to his identity confusion, clearly anticipates the upcoming
problems he will necessarily face later on. Moreover, it also demonstrates
the perplexing reaction of English society towards the descendants of
immigrants which is obviously not ready to view them as its valid members16.
In the words of Nahem Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi’s novel “uncovers many of the
ironies that underlie our recognition of Britain as a multicultural society and
of Britons as racially diverse and culturally heterogeneous citizens” (2002, p.
27). The very concept of Englishness is reconsidered and redefined by
Kureishi in this tale of identity, belonging and cultural affiliation. “My name is
Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost. I am often
considered to be a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed as it were, having
emerged from two old histories. But I don’t care – Englishman I am (though
not proud of it), from the South London suburbs and going somewhere.
Perhaps it is the odd mixture of continents and blood, of here and there, of
belonging and not, that makes me restless and easily bored” (Kureishi, 1990,
p. 3, emphasis added).
Karim’s peregrination from suburbia to the city centre mirrors an
imaginary trajectory from his community to white English society. Karim’s
identity within the community seems to be fixed, stable, at least in the view
of his relatives and friends; yet Karim is aware of a certain split within himself
which is also demonstrated by that seemingly accidental “almost” in his
introduction. This simple word, alluding to an incompleteness of some sort,
will accompany him all along his way preventing him from achieving his
original goal, i.e. to merge with the Englishmen in the hub.
Hanif Kureishi is well acquainted with the problems stemming from having
a culturally mixed background since he is, like his creation Karim Amir, a
product of an interracial marriage (he has a Pakistani father and an English
15
The novel is set precisely in the era of the 1970s, a period of crucial political and cultural
changes in Great Britain, which are described in the introductory section of this chapter.
16
“Yeah, sometimes we were French, Jammie and I, and other times we went black American.
The thing was, we were supposed to be English, but to the English we were always wogs and
nigs and Pakis and the rest of it” (Kureishi, 1990, p. 53).
52
mother). So as Karim’s identity is challenged by his surrounding and
questioned by himself, Kureishi, who experienced a similar phase of selfdenial and identity crisis, knows very well what he is going through: “From
the start I tried to deny my Pakistani self. I was ashamed. It was a curse and I
wanted to be rid of it. I wanted to be like everyone else. I read with
understanding a story in a newspaper about a black boy who, when he
noticed that burnt skin turned white, jumped into a bath of boiling water […]
I found it almost impossible to answer questions about where I came from.
The word ‘Pakistani’ had been made into an insult. It was a word I didn’t
want used about myself. I couldn’t tolerate being myself” (Kureishi, 1986, p.
15, 18).
Throughout the story, Karim yearns for self-realisation and change and he
finally finds them in the world of London theatre. His original enthusiasm,
when cast into an experimental adaptation of Kipling’s Jungle Book, is soon
supplanted by self-doubt and even bigger confusion. As he finds out later, the
director cast him “for authenticity and not for experience” (ibid., p. 147), yet
being authentic seems to mean very different things to Karim and the
director. Karim is suddenly forced to negotiate his identity not only between
the former binaries (Indian versus English heritage), now, he must consider
the triple element, i.e. his false stage identity, as well. Ironically, while Karim
attempts to become part of the centre, he is compelled to act as an exotic
caricature of himself, foregrounding and intentionally distorting his ethnic
identity, which seems to be a too visible and differentiable identifier among
white Englishmen who do not accept him as one of them. The bizarre
masquerade he is presenting on stage, however, is what the white English
audience seems to want.
To a certain extent, Karim’s grotesque performance echoes the tragic fate
of the American entertainer Bert Williams {of Caribbean origin), fictionalised
in Caryl Phillip’s novel Dancing in the Dark. In order to gain success and
entertain the American audience, Williams decided to put on blackface
makeup and impersonate the Negro as America wanted to see him. The
show, based on unflattering cultural stereotypes, became a huge success on
Broadway. Yet Williams, a sensitive and intelligent man, also understood that
the conflicts between his stage character and his true identity are
irreconcilable and this realisation has sealed his own tragic fate at the end.
Likewise, Karim’s exotic looks are presented as an interesting and soughtafter commodity which the West longs for in order to break loose from the
53
quotidian greyness and routine. However, with his impersonations of ethnic
characters, Karim, like Bert Williams, also contributes to the dissemination of
false and distorted conceptions of ethnic minorities17. One of his co-workers
confronts him with a passionate outcry which he does not seem to
understand: “Your picture is what white people already think of us. That
we’re funny, with strange habits and weird customs. To the white man we’re
already people without humanity, and then you go and have Anwar madly
waving sticks at the white boys. I can’t believe that anything like this could
happen. You show us as unorganized aggressors. Why do you hate yourself
and all black people so much, Karim?” (ibid., p. 180).
The problem is that Karim does not see himself pictured in the exotic
character he is impersonating on stage. While living in suburbia, his
instinctive distancing from the immigrant community meant that he did not
perceive himself as a valid member, or as a displaced subject. Nevertheless,
he does not seem to identify with white Englishmen either. There are several
passages in the novel where he takes an outsider’s perspective when looking
at his fellow Londoners. Only later does Karim realise that he feels certain
togetherness with his people: “But I did feel, looking at these strange
creatures now – the Indians – that in some way these were my people, and
that I’d spent my life denying or avoiding that fact. I felt ashamed and
incomplete at the same time, as if half of me were missing, and as if I’d been
colluding with my enemies, those whites who wanted Indians to be like
them” (ibid., p. 212).
The tension between theatricality and authenticity pervades the whole
novel and proves to be one of its crucial leitmotivs. In the theatre, Karim is
required to become “authentically” Indian, which he is obviously not,
according to the director’s opinion. Therefore, Karim dresses in a funny
costume, wears makeup and speaks in a weird accent, harvesting a warm
response from the audience. Similarly, Karim’s father Haroon floats between
his real self and an invented alter ego. Becoming the Buddha of suburbia
(after whom the novel is named), Haroon decides to abandon the identity of
17
“I was playing an immigrant fresh from a small Indian town. I insisted on assembling the
costume myself: I knew I could do something apt. I wore high white platform boots, wide
cherry flares that stuck to my arse like sweetpaper and flapped around my ankles, and a
spotted shirt with a wide ‘Concorde’ collar flattened over my jacket lapels. […] They laughed
at my jokes, which concerned the sexual ambition and humiliation of an Indian in England”
(Kureishi, 1990, p. 220).
54
the former Indian Other which he supplants by a neutral Oriental mask. Thus,
he is neither Western nor Indian and Karim describes him as “a renegade
Muslim masquerading as a Buddhist” (ibid., p. 16). Both father and son
disguise their true selves and decide to live in a world where it is better to
hide genuineness as if being real and true to oneself would not be enough (or
good enough).
This dichotomous splitting of the protagonists’ identities (or rather their
hybrid nature) is also exemplified by the liminal character of the suburban
landscape they inhabit. In the words of Marzena Kubisz, “it belongs neither to
the city nor to the country” (2007, p. 133) just like Karim and his father
oscillate between Englishness and otherness. London, on the other hand, is
presented as “a constellation of overlapping spaces which does not legitimize
traditional boundaries between cultures but it softens them and makes
multidirectional cultural movement possible” (ibid., p 134). While the
suburban space seems to be closed and wary of transformation, London’s
openness and ever-changing nature allows its inhabitants to explore diverse
areas of life and reinvent their selves every day. Crossing the border between
these two different spaces thus inevitably leads to constant reconceptualisation of the characters’ identities.
Karim’s constant movement - from suburbia to London, from London to
New York, from household to household and from one identity to another - is
finally rewarded by recognition of cultural contiguity. Throughout the story,
Karim performs different identities and can be described as an elusive
character that escapes characterization and “becomes almost other to
himself in a chameleon-like process of role-playing in a series of shifting
relations with people he sometimes seems to love and sometimes not”
(Brancato, 2009, p. 56). Paradoxically, it is in the community that he sought
to avoid and escape from, that he finds a way back to his roots, starts to
regard other Indians as his fellows and seems to accept both parts of his
cultural heritage as an inseparable part of his personality.
Multicultural Symbiosis: Zadie Smith’s Visionary World
Contemporary British authors tend to initiate a mutual dialogue between
different cultures, portraying various forms and possibilities of their
cohabitations. A lot of them seem to acknowledge and accept hybridity and
multiculturalism as practices of everyday life, not as something extraordinary
55
or unusual. According to Laura Moss, that might be because “the current
state of globalisation, diasporic migration, and contemporary
cosmopolitanism has brought about a ‘normalisation’ of hybridity in
contemporary postcolonial communities” (2003, p. 12). In this context, one
must inevitably come across the young and talented writer Zadie Smith and
her phenomenal debut novel White Teeth. Smith’s book not only captures all
the struggles of first-generation immigrants in modern multi-Britain, it also
provides a glimpse into the future by embracing the destinies of their
children as well. White Teeth may be viewed as a form of family and (at the
same time) cultural saga, depicting “three cultures and three families over
three generations” (back cover, 2000). Smith brings together Bangladeshi
immigrants fixated on their homeland, culture and religion with British liberal
intellectuals, devout Jehovah’s Witnesses inextricably linked with Islamic
fundamentalists and Animal Rights activists and creates a multiracial,
multicultural and multireligious orchestra.
Smith, brought up and still living in multicultural London, seems to belong
to a new wave of literary voices that do not see ethnicity or hybridity as a
problem, but rather as a part of one’s everyday reality. In one interview,
when asked how she tried to approach multiracial London, the writer
answers: “I was just trying to approach London. I don’t think of it as a theme,
or even a significant thing about the city. This is what modern life is like. If I
were to write a book about London in which there were only white people, I
think that would be kind of bizarre” (Smith). Similarly, her character Alsana
explains in White Teeth that it is time to acknowledge hybridity as a common
denominator of Englishness: “[…] you go back and back and back and it’s still
easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure
faith, on the globe. Do you think anybody is English? Really English? It’s a
fairy-tale!” (Smith, 2000, p. 236).
The world that Smith’s characters inhabit is a world of diversity and
plurality. It is a world of multicultural symbiosis (though it is not always
unproblematic) that is captured in one of the most quoted passage from the
novel: “This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow and white. This
has been the century of the great immigrant experiment. It is only this late in
the day that you can walk into a playground and find Isaac Leung by the fish
pond, Danny Rahman in the football cage, Quang O’Rourke bouncing a
basketball, and Irie Jones humming a tune. Children with first and last names
56
on a direct collision course. Names that secrete within them mass exodus,
cramped boats and planes, cold arrivals, medical checks” (ibid., p. 326).
The book is centred on a lifelong bond between Samad Iqbal, a firstgeneration Bangladeshi immigrant, and Archie Jones, a simple and unworldly
Englishman who has, after a failed suicide attempt, married a black JamaicanEnglish woman. This unusual and precious friendship, together with Archie’s
interracial marriage, provide a unique opportunity to demonstrate that
diversity and difference can live together side-by-side. Smith, of course, does
not delineate an ideal image of society, since both Archie and Samad have to
face and come to terms with a deep seated racism (and their life-long
friendship is not devoid of some ups and downs either). The novel simply
captures quotidian multicultural reality without putting an idealistic veil over
it.
Moreover, Smith follows the paths of the protagonists’ children, as well,
thus providing a different perspective on life in a multicultural British
metropolis. As Marcus Chalfen, the middle-class scientist, and Magid’s
(Samad’s son) patron, implies, “first generation are all loony tunes, but the
second generation have got heads just about straight on their shoulders”
(Smith, 2000, p. 349). Samad’s identity stems predominantly from his pride
in, and devotion to, his roots (personified by his ‘famous’ great-grandfather
Mangal Pande whom he believes to be a hero of the Indian Mutiny) and he is
not willing to accept his children’s integration, that is to say, assimilation in
the host culture. He and his wife Alsana represent the vulnerability and the
in-betweenness of their generation who hold everything that is English or
Western in contempt.
In contrast, Samad’s twins, Magid and Millat, and Archie’s daughter Irie in
particular, desire to merge with the non-hyphenated and shake off the
historical burden from their shoulders. Each of them, however, tries to come
into terms with his or her roots differently. Laying hopes on a tough decision
he had to make, Samad sends Magid, the brainy one of the twins, back to
Bangladesh in order to get a rigorous and proper Bengalese education in his
motherland. What a surprise it must have been to Samad when, eight years
later, Magid returns home and instead of being a devout and proud Bengali
Muslim, he is more English than the English (as one of the chapter titles
goes). The trouble-maker Millat, on the other hand, who remained in London,
drifts into a group of Islamic fundamentalists and proves to be another
disappointment for his disillusioned father. Despite the fact that none of his
57
sons had fulfilled Samad’s expectations, they both grow up and seem to live a
life according to their beliefs; both of them being integrated into the British
culture.
In her passionate outbursts, Irie often communicates her vision of the
future “when roots won’t matter any more because they can’t because they
mustn’t because they’re too long and they’re too tortuous and they’re just
buried too damn deep” (ibid., p. 527). Moreover, Irie’s desire to interdigitate
with the Western population results not only in the disastrous straightening
of her unbending hair, but also causes the alienation from her own family
when she seeks refuge from the Chalfens. “She wanted it; she wanted to
merge with the Chalfens, to be of one flesh; separated from the chaotic,
random flesh of her own family and transgenically fused with another. A
unique animal. A new breed” (ibid., p. 342).
Actually, Smith plays an intricate game with her readers who, in fact, have
the chance to observe the genesis of a unique animal, the FutureMouse that
is a product of genetic mutation. Paradoxically, this concept, crossing the
borders both of genetics and ethics, is a part of a courageous but publicly
condemned cancer project of Marcus Chalfen. The mouse, similarly to Irie,
Samad, his sons and basically every immigrant character in the novel,
represents a hybrid. The fact that it is artificially engineered may serve as a
clear parallel to the aforementioned individuals whose identity happens to be
“culturally engineered” (Head, 2003, p. 117).
In order to persuade the public that this experiment is harmless and after
all beneficial for everyone, Marcus decides to put the mouse in a cage and
ostentatiously display its otherness in public so that everyone can watch its
evolution. However, during the final apocalyptic scene, mingling “lust-filled
Animal Rights lobbyists, stoned Muslim militants, octogenarian Jehovah’s
Witnesses, self-aggrandising war vets, media-savy scientists, and
dysfunctional family members” (Moss, 2003, p. 15), the mouse sets itself free
and runs away to a (hopefully) promising future where no one will ever doubt
its significance and worth. The book thus closes with a hint of hope - the
hybrid creature escaping the omnipresent gaze of an unwanted audience and
disappearing into anonymity.
Last but not least, White Teeth typifies a unique seriocomic tone which
pervades the whole narrative and which also demonstrates Smith’s liberation
from her nostalgic, melancholic and serious literary predecessors. The author
has argued that “there has been an incredible rash of solemn fiction in the
58
late eighties and nineties” (Smith) and that she wanted to write something
that would make her readers laugh. Indeed, it seems to be extremely difficult
to shake the right portion of humour, satire and esteem in order to produce a
literary cocktail that would celebrate diversity but also point at the bitter,
sometimes even bizarre, situations that spring from the weighty parts of our
history.
In conclusion, White Teeth may be added to the large number of
contemporary British books which seek to address the perplexing reality of
multicultural societies. The text abounds with examples of confusion, a sense
of exile and alienation which manifest Smith’s lingering awareness of the
perturbation of immigrant communities. Yet, at the same time, the novel also
displays the germination of a new era, the first contours of what might
become the near future by indicating that the “old categories of race are an
inaccurate way of describing the ethnic diversity of contemporary England”
(Bentley, 2008, p. 53). Certainly, literature contributes significantly to
constituting and raising cultural awareness and starting changes in public
thinking.
References
Ali, M. 2003. Brick Lane. London: Doubleday.
Bentley, N. 2008. Contemporary British Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Boelhower, W. Q. 1981. The Immigrant Novel as a Genre. In: MELUS, Vol. 8,
No. 1, Tension and Form (Spring, 1981), pp. 3-13.
Brancato, S. 2009. “Transcultural Outlooks in The Buddha of Suburbia and
Some Kind of Black”. In Barthet, S. B. (ed.). 2009. A Sea for Encounters: Essays
Towards A Postcolonial Commonwealth. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, pp.
51-66.
Ferguson, N. 2004. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World.
London/New York: Penguin Books.
Hansel, R. 2000. Citizenship and Immigration in Post-War Britain. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Head, D., 2003. “Zadie Smith’s White Teeth: Multiculturalism for the
Millenium”. In Lane, R. J. (ed.). 2003. Contemporary British Fiction.
Cambridge: Polity, pp. 106-119.
59
Hussain, Y. 2005. Writing Diaspora: South Asian Women, Culture and
Ethnicity. Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate.
Ilcan, S. 2002. Longing in Belonging: The Cultural Politics of Settlement.
Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Kubisz, M. 2007. “London’s ´Little Worlds´: Narratives of Place in
Contemporary Black British Writing”. In Kušnír, J. (ed.). 2007. Literatures in
English in the Context of Post-Colonialism, Postmodernism and the Present.
Prešov: Prešovská univerzita, pp. 124-136.
Kureishi, H. 1986. “The Rainbow Sign”. In The Word and The Bomb. 2005.
London: Faber and Faber, pp. 13-36.
Kureishi, H. 1990. The Buddha of Suburbia. London: Faber and Faber.
Moss, L., 2003. “The Politics of Everyday Hybridity. Zadie Smith’s White
Teeth”. In Wasafiri, vol. 39, issue 6, pp. 11-17.
Newland, P. 2008. The Cultural Construction of London’s East End.
Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.
Phillips, C. 2001. A New World Order. London: Secker & Warburg.
Said, E.W. 1994. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage.
Sandhu, S. 2003. Come hungry, leave edgy. In London Review of Books
[online], vol. 25, no. 19, pp. 10-13 [cited 31 July 2010]. Available from
Internet:
<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n19/sukhdev-sandhu/come-hungryleave-edgy>
Smith, Z. 2000. White Teeth. London: Penguin Books.
Smith, Z. “An Interview with Zadie Smith”. Masterpiece Theatre [online].
[cited
31
July
2010].
Available
from
Internet:
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/teeth/ei_smith_int.html>
Tew, P. 2007. The Contemporary British Novel. London/New York:
Continuum.
Yousaf, N. 2002. Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader’s Guide.
London/New York: Continuum.
60
The Immigrant Experience and its Representation
in Literature
Emília Janecová
Introduction
Multiculturalism, ethnic and national minorities, cultural groups. These
are terms encountered by each of us on a daily basis. In the aftermath of
technological development, the twin challenges of globalisation and a new
world order, we are now citizens of a diverse and colourful Europe; we are
members of multicultural societies and we are confronted by a variety of
multicultural factors. Dividing lines between differences are less and less
distinct, but, paradoxically, we are trying to raise awareness of them in an
attempt to preserve our own ‘otherness’. These notions are inevitably
reflected in various fields of study, not only in socio-cultural studies, but
also in history, politics, philosophy, economics and, moreover, in literature
and literary criticism. Cultural diversity is a phenomenon present in most
countries. It gives rise to many important questions - “minorities and
majorities representation, education curriculum, land claims, immigration
and naturalization policy, even national symbols, such as the choice of
national anthem or public holidays” (Kymlicka, 1996, p. 1).
Modern societies are confronted with minority groups demanding the
acceptance of their identity and accommodation of their cultural differences.
This is often stated as one of the challenges of modern-day multiculturalism,
which, according to Kymlicka, covers various forms of cultural pluralism, with
its own problematic issues. In general, there are many ways in which the
incorporation of any kind of minority into a political community can be
understood: “from the conquest and colonization of previously self-governing
societies, to the voluntary immigration of individuals and families” (ibid.,
1996, p. 10), while all ways modify the character of the group and its
relationship with the dominant majority group. It is important to point out
that in the case of non-voluntary immigration the individual, or group of
individuals, tends to maintain its distinction from the majority nationality,
while in the case of voluntary immigration full integration into the dominant
society is usually desired.
61
The aim of this article is to offer a more complex overview of the
abovementioned topics, by presenting the main debates and conclusions
emerging from globalisation and the close contact between various cultural
groups, especially the immigrant experience in Great Britain. The second part
of the article is focused on the portrayal of these ideas in literature.
Even though various discussions and information are offered via the
media, the topic is seldom explored from both relevant perspectives. All the
abovementioned ideas are, in recent years, regularly portrayed in literature.
In addition, more individual consequences of displacement and its new
reality, such as the search and creation of one’s identity, the questioning of
national memory and belonging are presented as well. The article is focused
especially on problems and ambiguities within the immigrant experience,
problems with labelling immigrant generations, the integration of those
generations into the society of the host state, and their portrayal in
literature. It is interesting to observe how these issues are viewed and
presented by various authors (many of them having immigrant experience, or
being of immigrant parentage themselves) and how they refer to the
problems of immigrant generations in their writing. Many current bestselling
literary works describing experience from various places in the world may be
used to exemplify the thesis mentioned above. The much-acclaimed debut
novel White Teeth (2000) written by Zadie Smith, Caryl Phillips’s The Final
Passage (1985), Hanif Kureshi’s My Son the Fanatic (1994), or Marina
Lewycka’s immigrant novels A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (2005),
her second novel Two Caravans (2007), and her last novel We are All Made of
Glue (2009) are global bestsellers, not only because of their writers’ unique
writing styles, but also because of the accurate response to the situation
present across the continent of Europe. Thus, it is pertinent to extrapolate
the socio-cultural theory to be explored using these works as examples.
Globalisation, Multiculturalism and Immigrant Experience
Globalisation has long been an alluring vision. Philosophers and politicians
have often welcomed the view of a universal and peaceful unity. Certainly,
the world seems to be binding itself ever more tightly into seamless webs
and networks. However, discussions on globalization rarely consider the
notion of migration, which is increasingly becoming a relevant issue for every
state and nation. After dealing with the problems of groups and minorities as
62
such, in recent years, the question of the rights and the position of a social
group marked as ‘immigrants’ has started to play an important role, not only
in international cultural and political studies, but also in philosophy, history
and literature. According to the International Organization for Migration,
nowadays there are more than 300 million migrants around the world, of
which the greater part are immigrants settled throughout Europe. Shortly
after the revolutionary events in Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern Europe,
the world public became aware of the serious ethnic and national issues
concerning the migrants of these formerly communist countries.
There is no other process more characteristic of our continent than
migration. Its fundamental cause has always been a gap in the condition and
living standards between one country, and another: a poor economic
situation in the motherland, racial tensions, fear, on the one hand, and hope
for change on the other. After the end of the Second World War, the
countries characterised by emigration turned into migrant-receiving
countries, a situation valid for more than fifty of the following years. With
continuing issues connected to immigration (residential problems, rights of
immigrants, education, employment, but also increasing fear and
intolerance), the process of integration has increasingly come to the fore in
various fields of study. It has also led to a different attitude to immigrants
from various countries. While in the 1980s and 1990s, immigrants were
forgivingly accepted, the subsequent decade has shown a rise in intolerance
and various related problems.
Due to migration, there is no country which could be described as
homogenous in present-day Europe. After World War II, a huge flow of
migrants from Central and Eastern Europe was recorded. These migrants
were to leave their homes and property in their home country, and come to a
new country searching for work opportunities in pursuit of creating new,
more favourable living conditions. Always considered a labour force coming
from ‘elsewhere’, the concept of identity and belonging was not questioned
as much as in later years. Usually, they tended to live within communities
clearly stating their origin and considering the host country as a source of
opportunity, not as a new home.
During the economic migration which followed World War II, nobody in
the 1940s would have ever disputed that the best way for first wave
immigrant integration was assimilation. Based on racial prejudices and beliefs
that some races, or groups, could be more easily ‘assimilated’ than others, it
63
was not unusual for job adverts to feature the addendum ‘no blacks need
apply’ or ‘no coloureds’. Reoccurring problems became a part of everyday life
and it became obvious that assimilation was not the way to solve such a
complex issue as the integration of immigrants.
The late 1960s brought a new form of migration - so called ‘family
migration’. Members of families were migrating to another country in order
to gain the same benefits of the host country as their relatives did. In these
years, after the sympathy and tolerance to war immigrants passed away, and
when the range of immigrants expanded to peoples from other parts of the
world, immigrants were more-or-less expected to leave their distinctive
heritage and assimilate entirely into existing cultural norms. This used to be
known as the ‘Anglo-conformity’ model of immigration. Assimilation was
understood as essential for political stability and was further rationalised
through ethnocentric denigration of other cultures. Thus, for example, the
groups which seemed to be inassimilable were denied entry (Kymlicka, 1996).
In analysing the situation in Great Britain, the two biggest causes of the
search for a new integration approach soon become apparent. While
immigration policy was being continuously tightened, within normal society a
new regime of racial, ethnic and cultural groups was created. Another cause
was a diversion from the assimilation model and its intention to coordinate
cultural relationships within various groups of society. The administration did
not deal with the manner in which new immigrants should assimilate into
British society, but, instead, attempted to balance the differences and to
guarantee social cohesion. When, in 1965, the incoming Labour government
introduced an integration approach, based on good race and cultural
relations, the crucial factors were no longer the obligations and needs of the
individual, but the satisfactory provision of rights to different ethnic, racial
and cultural communities, based on equality. Finally, at the end of the 1960s
and the beginning of 1970s, under pressure from immigrant groups and
international criticism, most of the migrant-receiving countries rejected the
assimilatory model, and adopted a much more tolerant policy where, for a
while, it eventually became fully accepted to let immigrants keep their
customs, traditions, religious convictions and free demonstration of
belonging to their motherland.
However, increased integration attempts were suspended when, in the
1970s, the Conservatives came to power. Subsequent policy focused on an
immigration regime that had many strict measures and controls. The 1971
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Immigration Act, and the even more restrictive 1982 Nationality Act, were
enacted in order to control, and eventually prevent, secondary migration.
The adopted measures were designed to solve problems with increasing
unemployment and global recession. Increasing disorder in the 1980s caused
by residual problems within the coexistence of the majority and culturally
different minority groups, and the deepening social crisis within these
communities brought increasing intolerance to the issue of incoming
immigrants (Hellová, 2008).
Paradoxically, it was socio-economic difficulties which brought back the
idea of multiculturalism into politics. Local authorities renewed their
attempts to adopt a series of measures ensuring tolerance and equality, such
as an equal approach in terms of social housing, representation of ethnic
groups in local administration and factoring cultural differences into the
provision of services. Even though in Great Britain Thatcher’s government
described multiculturalism and the multicultural model of integration as a
primary danger harming the identity of Great Britain, and that the only way
to prevent the country’s identity becoming redundant, or, at very least its
modification, was to restrict immigration and preserve integration in the
form of assimilation. The result was not a final repudiation of
multiculturalism - due to the increasing amount of votes among minorities.
When, in 1997, the Labour Party of Tony Blair came to power, it managed to
revive a policy of multiculturalism. It introduced a new strategy in solving the
question of immigrant integration based on the celebration of
multiculturalism, following the concept of Britain as a ‘community of
communities’ (where the citizens are not understood only as individuals, but
also as members of a certain ethnic, religious, cultural or regional
community) and offering a new definition of British identity (Hellová, 2008).
This is probably one of the reasons why, in the late 1990s and beyond, a
migratory process described as ‘reunification migration’ saw an increase. By
the end of the twentieth century, the population of Western Europe changed
to include people from Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean area, Africa, Asia
and India who were no longer temporary workers, but permanent residents.
Globalisation nowadays offers various opportunities to manual workers, as
well as to highly qualified specialists. Especially in Great Britain, immigrants
have a wide spectrum of privileges and rights: they can use the benefits of
social security, education in their own language is ensured, and they are
encouraged to promote their cultural differences in the public sphere.
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Therefore, they are not expected to become “exemplary Englishmen, Scots or
Welsh anymore” (Modood, 1997, p. 79). However, they are still obliged to
respect British law and the legislative system and be loyal to British
citizenship. As Modood later states, “divergence is accepted, but it cannot
make a negative effect on British life-values construction” (ibid., 1997, p. 78).
People from all cultures and ethnicities can be found in every corner of
Britain and each person, in his or her own way, has contributed to make
Britain the place it is. Nowadays, minority groups in Great Britain make up
almost eight percent of the country’s population - over 4.6 million people.
But it is important to differentiate between the concept of cultural diversity
and that of national minorities. According to Kymlicka, “immigrant groups are
not ‘nations’, and thus do not occupy the homeland. Their distinctiveness is
manifested primarily in their family lives and in voluntary associations, and is
not inconsistent with their institutional integration. They still participate
within the public institutions of the dominant culture(s) and speak the
dominant language” (Kymlicka, 1996, p. 14). This notion makes us understand
that finding a correct answer to the question of immigrant integration is a
complex process realised on more than one level.
After the final rejection of Anglo-conformity, immigrants were no longer
expected to subject themselves entirely to the norms and traditions of the
dominant culture, and indeed were encouraged to maintain some aspects of
their separateness. This caused a paradigm shift in how immigrants
integrated into their host country’s society. As Kymlicka points out, “affirming
the rights to maintain immigrants’ ethnic heritage to some extent also
involved reforming the public institutions of the dominant culture, so as to
provide some recognition or accommodation of their heritage” (ibid., 1996,
p. 78).
Obviously, the binding of various cultural units raises many questions that
need to be answered. Every European state and nation has its positive and
negative historical experience regarding the coexistence of various minorities
on its territory. However, the experience up to now, in the search of
coexistence between minority and majority communities, shows that there is
no general model which can be applied in cases where tension occurs. The
situation of each national minority is different; each has different cultural,
social and political ambitions and a different relationship with the majority
community.
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The multicultural model of integration of immigrants adopted primarily in
Great Britain, but also in Canada, Australia and Sweden, can be understood
as a long-term process of integration of miscellaneous groups based on
various ethnic and cultural allegiances to a particular community. Apart from
the abovementioned privileges of the communities, integration is based on
equal rights, but also upon obligations of the minority groups as well as the
majority society. So far, it is still the most relevant theoretical model of
integration emerging from the aforementioned assimilation model, within
which nation is defined as a political entity with a constitution, law and
citizenship, and immigrants are considered as assimilated only if they respect
the legal system and national culture of society based on common principles.
The multicultural model also requires a political society based on
constitution, law and membership, but immigrants do have all the rights and
privileges ensuring their cultural differentiation. However, they still need to
adopt legal and political acceptance of the host country, in full respect of its
cultural values. Thus, the process of integration still has a strong tendency to
naturalisation.
In recent years, the question of the further development of the
multicultural model has been raised. The experiences of the first adult
immigrant generation are important for the future of later established groups
or ethnicities, but even more decisive is the subsequent fate of their children.
Some of the new prognoses suggest a procedural state which stays culturally
neutral and leaves the individual and a group to influence each other freely,
with only minimal procedural intervention. Despite the fact that such a
constitution would be a highly decentralised unit, under the impact of
continuing migration and globalization, the ability to organise different
identities in one country is, from a future perspective, undoubtedly
unrealistic.
It is important to consider that immigration, together with the
incorporation of national minorities, are the two most common sources of
cultural diversity in the modern state. However, it needs to be mentioned
that there are some groups that would not exactly fit into either the national
minority or voluntary immigrant group. Those are, for example, refugees,
who, like immigrants, came to the country as individuals or families, but their
arrival cannot be marked as ‘voluntary’. There are also immigrants who
actually came through choice, but only because they had been previously
67
promised to be allowed to re-create their own separate self-governing
community (Kymlicka, 2007).
In dealing with the topic, it is important to define the concepts as well.
From the sociological point of view, migrants should be clearly differentiated
from ethnic minorities. Firstly, Kymlicka splits these according to the
character of their desired rights (for ethnic minorities it is apparently a
question of cultural rights, while, for immigrants, more important are the
rights opening the possibility of their integration into the majority society)
and then according to the existence (ethnic minorities) or non-existence
(migrants) of their own culture (Kymlicka, 1996). It is important to state that
at present, when we are already encountering the second generation of
immigrants, the formerly bipolar division of ethnologist and culturologist
cannot be stated that firmly, since both of the mentioned terms have been
coming closer in meaning, and merging.
Another theme needed to be delineated and observed is the generationlabelling of immigrants, since labelling and distinguishing between first and
second generation of immigrants is primarily an unsolved problem, not only
in the field of literature and literary criticism, but also in the political and
cultural sciences, and sociology. The very basic definitions and differentiation
between the first and second generation of immigrants found in various
cultural and sociological studies show some ambiguities. A group of
immigrants labelled as ‘first generation’ is often understood as a group of
immigrants which has moved to a new country and has been assimilated. The
label ‘second generation immigrants’ is then understood as the generation of
descendants of the immigrant parents. In an attempt to clearly distinguish
the immigrant generations and immigrant waves, other explanations regard
the label of first immigrant generation as the first generation born and raised
in the host country. Therefore, the second immigrant generation is
represented by the descendants of the first one. These men and women,
born and raised in the host country – which in this case is actually their
motherland – consider their futures mostly in an urban context.
Another term which has arisen recently is the notion of the ‘1.5 immigrant
generation’, represented by immigrants who were born in the motherland,
spent the early years of their lives there and were then brought to a host
country. Their situation is specific, since they carry the basic social and
cultural values from the motherland but then mix them with the values of a
host country, which, after being raised and educated in that country,
68
becomes their new homeland. Some ethnologists have also used the term
‘third generation migrants’, though it is highly questionable whether this is
meaningful, since a third generation is culturally distinct and, in some cases,
it is probably more accurate to speak of an established ethnic minority.
Reassessing the definition of generation labelling, this article utilises the
first definition, describing the first immigrant generation as peoples coming
to a new country and settling there, and the second generation as their
descendants. This approach is much more established in numerous sociocultural debates and essays, as well as in literary works, especially when
dealing with the numerous problems of second immigrant generation - those
who did not directly influence the process of displacement and are searching
for their identity in order to establish the idea of a home country, vacillating
between the country of origin of their parents and their host land. The term
‘1.5 immigrant generation’ is later used, especially in order to distinguish
between those who were already born in the new country from those who
were raised in the new country, but who remember the motherland from
their own experience.
When discussing the second generation of immigrants in particular, from
the many-layered problems of this group (the problem of identification with
the state and country, the theme of country as one’s home, the question of
two motherlands, choice of nationality, portrayals and stereotypes of the
other, relationships with the majority group, notion of history, relationship to
languages and their symbolic aspects, attitudes towards customs and family
traditions, degree of organisation in institutions) the main question that
arises is that of convergence with the values of the host country and
divergence from the values of the first generation (Benža, 1998).
Thus, the socio-cultural and political approach to this generation, as well
as its portrayal in literature, is viewed as a specific process. The process of
adaptation for recent second generations is a matter of coping with many
challenges on many levels emerging from growing up in an environment
formerly foreign to their parents. The principal outcomes of this process are
determined by education and school performance, language, knowledge and
use, ethnic or cultural identities, the level of parent-child generational
conflict and the extent to which peer relations reach beyond the ethnocultural circle. As Hevešiová claims in her article Exile and Displacement,
“second generation immigrants often tend to loosen the ties to the parent’s
motherland more easily. The process of assimilation seems to be less
69
complicated, if not even desired. The differences that separate them from
the rest of the society become the driving force in the process of their
identity construction” (Hevešiová, 2008a, p. 89).
To be a second generation immigrant is a big challenge indeed. Although
one feels oneself to be a member of the current society, internal or external
differences are always going to be present in one’s identity. Despite being
born in the host country, most members of this generation were raised in a
bilingual and bicultural environment, so the presence of a dual-identity is
indisputable. Discussion of the dilemmas that members of this generation
have to face and the many psychological and sociological challenges they
have to overcome do not often take place within socio-cultural theory,
although they can be observed at all levels in almost all countries.
When preserving bilingualism in the second immigrant generation, an
interesting comment can be made. As Simona Hevešiová points out in her
article Language as a Medium of Resistance language is one of the main tools
not only to provide cultural exchange but also to reflect one’s attitude to one
or the other culture. Thus, not only self-representation, but also the power,
superiority and dominance of a certain culture can be expressed (Hevešiová,
2008b). If it is believed that the language used by the individual forms his
view of reality, the preference of one or another language in the case of the
second immigrant generation can strongly influence the ties either to host
country, or motherland society. Therefore, many of members of this group
intentionally either limit or intensify the usage of one or another language.
But what happens if the usage of either language is restricted externally?
Just to present an overview in connection to bilingualism and secondgeneration immigrants, in the early 1920s opposition to bilingualism derived
strength from the dominant scientific wisdom – various studies in education
and psychology argued that bilingualism brought “failure, mental confusion,
and damaged the well-being of immigrant children” (Portes, 1996, p. 10). It
was believed that genetic differences between races limited the ability to
learn both languages properly, or that the environment of the immigrant
children, in particular the use of foreign language at home, had “a negative
impact on their consciousness and creates a linguistic confusion” (ibid., 1996,
p. 11). This idea was unimaginably preserved almost until 1962 when new
research showed that bilinguals had actually achieved higher scores in a
variety of intelligence tests.
70
The typical pattern for the first immigrant generation was to learn English
in order to be able to handle all the issues of everyday life. The mother
tongue was often spoken at home and passed on to the children. The
children of immigrants then continued to speak the language of their parents
at home, but in school, work and public life they used mostly English. Then
the following third generation changed the home language to English, which
thus became the mother tongue of following generations. This process is
accelerated by the fact that most education is provided only in English. As
Kymlicka later points out in his study Multicultural Citizenship, “given the
spread of standardised education, the high demands for literacy in work, and
widespread interaction with government agencies, any language which is not
a public language becomes so marginalised that it is likely to survive only
among the small group, or in ritualised form, not as a living and developing
language underlying a flourishing culture” (Kymlicka, 1996, p. 78). However
natural this effect is, the rapid transition towards monolingualism most
certainly represents an enormous loss. Understanding language as one of the
basic means of representation in the subject of identity, there is no doubt
that ethnic, linguistic and cultural characteristics will eventually virtually
disappear within the third immigrant generation. Learning the old language
could be an interesting hobby or business skill, but for this immigrant
generation, it is an Anglophone culture which defines their territory, identity
and choices.
This could have a strong influence on both individuals and common
cultural group identity. It is indisputable that members of a society share not
only the same language, but also share similar basic ideas, concepts, and
beliefs. Moreover, these commonly shared ideas are crucial for developing
the cultural identity of the group. If there is another concept creating
personal, local or national identity, it is one’s memory. As well as with
recently experienced events, memory also deals with the deeper past. It is
represented within the media, the arts, and social science. But most of the
artefacts brought by the individual are gained from domestic customs and
memories, as well as from family narratives. These together create a
common experience, common values and common memory.
During the changing of world (b)orders, very often the manipulation of
cultural memory occurred. There were especially cases of civil disturbance,
whose suppression would be assiduously media-managed, which could cause
long-lasting hatred against the dominant culture (for instance concealing the
71
racial motivation of numerous attacks during the Notting Hill riots in late
1950s, or Southall riots in late 1970s). The witnesses of the abovementioned
experiences are passing away and a modified kind of cultural memory is
emerging.
Both individual and cultural memories are an integral part of human lives.
The present socio-cultural conditions of an individual are definitely
conditioned by the origin and experience of the group. The knowledge and
awareness of the past thus shapes the identity of the individual. The question
stands: how to become familiar with the distinctive past? As Smiešková
points out in her article “Memory and Time: The Historiographic
Represenation”, it is nowadays almost “impossible to transmit the real
objective truth, because it will always be contaminated by the process of
subjectivisation. Objective history is only one narrative and its quality refers
to the general characteristics of any other text” (Smiešková, 2008, p. 19).
Therefore, while the bare historical data can be easily found in various
resources, the outlook of the individual with personal experience can also be
found in memorial or recollective narratives included in various artistic
works, which can serve as equally important to reconstruct what is
understood as a personal or narrative history.
Stories of Past and Present: The Representation of the Immigrant
Experience in Literature
Altered socio-cultural circumstances, and their consequences, ordinarily
result in new types of literature, new ways of writing and representation and
in increased reader interest. The literary works to be analysed here, written
by various authors, have gained huge attention and popularity due to new
supranational forces crossing the boundaries between different racial, ethnic,
and religious groups, or just among people in general.
Since the 1980s, growing interest in a field of literature designated as
‘migrant literature’ has been increasingly observed and discussed. This
interest can easily be explained by the presence of new problems and
emerging issues in daily life. Migrant literature is a group of writings which
initially concerned people who left their homes for either political, economic
or religious reasons to settle in countries, or cultural communities, which are
often very alien to them. Today, we can also talk about migrants leaving for
new reasons, such as better opportunities for career progression and study,
family reunification, or for a myriad of personal reasons.
72
In cultural and ethnological studies, two migrant perspectives are often
strictly distinguished: the emigrant perspective - of those whose main focus is
backwards to the country of origin; and the immigrant perspective – that of
the migrant who is reconciled with the prospect of permanent residence in
the country of arrival. Although these terms are often used within literary
criticism, it is important to reassert that emigrant and immigrant perspectives
in a socio-cultural context refer to two separate outlooks (although the
emigrant perspective can often transform into an immigrant one) while in
literary portrayal, the line between perspective focused on the country of
origin, and the perspective towards the host country cannot be firmly drawn.
Here, we see the definition of ‘in between’ identity being understood as the
continuous questioning of the bonds to the host or mother country. Migrant
literature, in perspective to the immigrant experience, often focuses on the
social conditions in the migrants' country of origin; the experience of
migration itself; and on the experience and reception which can be endured
in the new host country – very often involving various problematic issues and
negative experiences, such as racism and hostility, and a sense of
rootlessness. These notions are exemplified in numerous literary works such
as Caryl Phillips’s The Final Passage, Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth, Hanif
Kureshi’s My Son the Fanatic, or Marina Lewycka’s ‘immigrants’ novels.
Before looking at contemporary literary works, it is interesting to point
out one of the first novels dealing with the aforementioned issues. Samuel
Selvon’s Lonely Londoners, first published in 1956, is often considered to be
the very first novel on working (but poor) immigrant experience among AfroCaribbeans in London, focusing on their everyday struggles, such as poverty,
prejudice and injustice, in the wake of a new British nationality law in 1948.
Even though the plot is not really distinctive, the narrative describing the life
of the main character, Trinidian Moses Aloetta, captures the essence of the
immigrant experience, and is relevant even today. Although Moses has lived
in London for ten long years, he still feels he has not gained, or achieved,
anything. His mind is still tied to home, which arouses not only homesickness,
but also feelings of self-hatred, disappointment, and segregation. While in
the initial parts of the story the main characters are humbled into quiet
acquiescence by their migrant experience, later on, their register alters, and
from standardised language they change to a creolised form of English. As
the story progresses, the third-person narrator adopts this form of language
as well. This was a very new dimension added to the traditional novel,
73
representing the changing situation within the country. Here, the mention of
Hevešiová’s thesis concerning a language as a means of communication, and
tool to generate power, truth and order, and self-representation, can be
recalled (Hevešiová, 2008b). Accepting this thesis, it is very common within
migrant literary writing to use modified, or multiple, languages, establishing
“not only the intercultural dialogue, but also the multicultural experience to
the reader” (Smiešková et al., 2008, p. 6). However, this is believed to be one
of the first novels within the analysed literary canon to present a step
forward in the process of linguistic and cultural decolonization. Having
represented a group hitherto rendered invisible, it actually raised the
awareness of immigrants’ real presence within society.
Almost thirty years later, in 1985, another book portraying the immigrant
experience among Afro-Caribbeans in London was published. Displacement,
and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, is presented in Caryl Phillips’s first novel
The Final Passage. The story takes place in a similar setting, late 1950s
London, when a young family from the West Indies decides to join the exodus
from the homeland, in order to search for happiness and prosperity in a new
country. The first part of the book is set in the small Caribbean island St. Kitts.
Leila, the main character of the story, always feeling different because of the
‘lighter’ colour of her skin, was, from childhood, indoctrinated with mistrust
and vigilance against the ’whites’. Although her mother never told her, Leila
always believed herself to be a child of an affair with a white man. Later, it
turns out that her mother was sexually abused as a child by her white greatuncle. As time goes by, Leila creates her own family context with the
youthful, irresponsible Michael, and later, her son Calvin. Having settled
down, she one day discovers that her unwell mother has left for England in
order to search for specialist medical help. Increasingly, Leila longs for
reunification with her mother, so she finally decides to leave, together with
her family, to London in an emigrant ship and start a new life there. However,
the new start is not that promising and brings many difficulties. Being part of
a ‘visible minority’, struggling for a living, trying to find a job, facing all the
prejudices emerging from racism are daily realities. Finding her mother in a
hospital, and thus achieving her desired family reunification, Leila’s ‘final
passage’ should be complete. But after her mother dies, she finds out about
her husband’s betrayal, is told that she is pregnant again, and starts a new
journey - this time towards her own happiness, which leads her back to St.
Kitts.
74
It is perhaps useful to remind ourselves that the motif of passage, journey
or travel in analysed writing has more significant meanings and thus can
represent a journey not only in a physical way, but also in a spiritual,
metaphorical and existential one. Ostensibly a journey as a pursuit of a new
life and happiness, Leila’s passage reminds us of the continual process of
Afro-Caribbean people searching for a land in order to create a place they
may call home. The movement of people from the West Indies to England
can then also be understood as a further attempt to reconnect to a splintered
past and to create eventually an ethno-specific space representing a new
home.
Neither Selvon’s Moses, nor Phillip’s Leila fulfil the purpose of their
journeys - finding happiness in a new country. Instead of expected fortune
and positive challenges they meet only difficulties, hostility and contempt.
Having no property, or background in the host country, they are just other
newcomers among many. This dislocation raises multi-layered questions; on
one level, material ones - how to find proper work opportunities, how to
assert oneself, how to ensure proper conditions for the family, but on
another level, the questioning of one’s otherness, self-esteem and individual
autonomy. In Selvon’s Lonely Londoners the voice of uniqueness is
represented in the characters’ language, whereas the form of narrative in
Phillips’s Final Passage states, and answers, the aforementioned questions
explicitly. While the ‘Lonely Londoners’ idly suffer the conditions and
ambiguities emanating from their life in London, Leila later takes destiny into
her own hands and decides to start a new journey – not following her
mother, not staying with the husband, but striking out on a new path leading
to her home. This also reflects the change of portrayal of the first immigrant
generation in literature. The ‘Lonely Londoners’ stay in London in the midst
of stories of poverty, prostitution and alcoholism, whereas Leila, although
only nineteen years-old, doesn’t wait for never-to-arrive redemption, but
continuously tries to form her life on her own terms. However, it is not
claimed that Leila’s success lies in her aiming back at the motherland. Her
achievement lies in the fact that she answered the questions of identity and
belonging according to her own beliefs and values, and that she was able to
make this choice on her own.
Whilst the main concern of the previous two literary works is the problem
of adaptation by first generation immigrants, most contemporary works
focus on the issues connected to the second generation. Questioning one’s
75
sense of belonging, the portrayal of the multicultural environment,
generational conflicts, gender questions, or self-realisation attempts are
recursively presented in numerous literary works. There is no doubt that
within these works the overarching topic is searching for one’s identity.
Whether by language, behaviour, or various attempts to either reject or
adopt the values of one of their countries, the characters in the chosen
novels question their way of life, their place in it, and their sense of belonging
to one or another nation.
In Hanif Kureishi’s My Son the Fanatic, old Parvez, who migrated from
Pakistan to Britain, is trying to ensure (Western) quality of life and education
for his son, Ali. Even though, in the beginning, Parvez respected the ideas and
values brought from Pakistan, he increasingly admires and agrees with the
western way of life. He enjoys the typical English breakfast, English ale, and
English people. He makes friends with a prostitute, Bettina, whom he once
found in his taxi and tries to help her in every way possible. Later on, he
notices changes in his son’s behaviour and is afraid that Ali might have fallen
into problems with drugs, or a local gang. Eventually, young Ali, although not
brought up in a religious way, prays all day and simply refuses to speak to his
father, because of his way of life and his being corrupted by the West,
breaking the rules set in the Koran by drinking alcohol, eating pork and
consorting with a prostitute. In Ali’s opinion, his father is "too implicated in
Western civilization" (Kureishi, 1997, p. 157) and he feels ashamed of him in
front of others from the local Muslim community. The narrative reaches its
climax when Parvez, drunk and desperate, tries to speak to his son after Ali
offends Bettina, and in a furious rage starts to beat his son. Ali’s question, of
who is actually the fanatic, leads the reader to further question the search for
the character’s identity. Since the main conflict of the novel is presented
between two different overviews of Ali’s identity, and expectations of him,
the most obvious clash in the story is that of identity. While Parvez sees his
son as the fulfilment of his ‘British dream’, Ali is devoted to the roots of the
motherland, and sees England as a place full of sin, immorality and
corruption.
Hanif Kureishi, offering a narrative which inverts the conventional
paradigm, where the first generation follows the values of the old country,
and the subsequent generation is trying to assimilate with the values of the
new one, emphasises the questioning of identity and belonging, and clarifies
that it is not simply a process in which the older generation cannot untie the
76
bonds with the motherland and the new generation is constantly trying to
loosen them, but that the questioning of identity is a constructive, dynamic
process linked both with the place of origin as well as with the new home,
which is unique and individual within each character.
These generational conflicts are present in most of the literary works
concerning both first and second generation immigrants in one place. As in
Kureishi’s My Son the Fanatic, and other literary works, the conflict between
generations emerges from the attempt to preserve the cultural codes of
motherland on one side – usually by the representative of one generation –
and the will to ‘assimilate’ within the host country, on the other. For
example, Zadie Smith, in her novel White Teeth, serves us a story about the
lives of two wartime friends, Englishman Archie Jones, and Bangladeshi
Samad Iqbal, who emigrated to England after World War II and settled in
London. Problems and conflicts arising from the attempt to assimilate,
disappointment in the conditions and values of the host country, and fear of
losing his own cultural substance lead Samad to send one of his sons to
Bangladesh, hoping that he will receive a proper upbringing under the
teachings of Islam. Ironically, after coming back from Bangladesh he becomes
an atheist and devotes his life to science, while his brother, despite his earlier
(for Samad, typically Western) drinking and wildly irresponsible life, becomes
an angry fundamentalist, and a member of an Islamist organisation. The
novel depicts the lives of a wide range of immigrant backgrounds, including
Afro-Caribbean, Muslim, and Jewish, while they are confronted with conflicts
between assimilating and preserving their cultures. While all of them are
trying to create new lives for themselves, they are also still trying to hold on
to their pasts. As Hevešiová has it: “The question of one’s real homeland
associated with a sense of belonging cannot be answered straightforwardly,
since living in the ‘in between’ space often results in the formation of a
double consciousness, or a feeling of hybridity” (Hevešiová, 2008a, p. 86).
The abovementioned feature of this type of literature is firmly connected
with the attempt (through commonality between individuals) to find a proper
solution to the problem of societal cohesion. This effort is present in the
writing in various ways. For example, in Smith’s White Teeth, the repeated
motif of ‘white teeth’ presents the fact that while all the families introduced
in the novel have numerous things that set them apart, white teeth are a
unifying and all-embracing quality binding the diverse parts of different
cultures in a new host culture. In other works, such a binding force can be
77
presented as the following of the tradition of nation, or the individual within
his family in the motherland, leading a community-based life, or trying to find
clues within the country of origin. In contemporary writing, this can also be
presented by means of hybrid language, based on the language of the host
country, but flavoured with lexis and phrasing from the old one.
When discussing the use of language as a means of referring to and
representing reality, it is important to understand the role of speech and its
influence on individuals’ vision of reality. While settling, living in and – in the
case of the second generation - receiving an education in a host country, the
‘standard’ language is often adopted. On the other hand, language still
represents a powerful means how to preserve one’s connection to the
motherland. In literature, a version of language in hybridised form, using
untranslated expressions in the language of the immigrant‘s motherland is
chosen in order to demonstrate otherness, the presence of foreign roots, and
the relation of the character to the motherland and their host country.
Therefore, it is also understood that representatives of the first generation of
immigrants use a language with many more expressions in their original
language, while those representing the second generation use more ‘purified’
language. Another specific feature is the language used by the narrator of the
story. Although the undertones of a character’s approach can be observed
through that character’s register and utterances, the role of the narrator of
the story is again becoming substantial, since he/she is the one providing
connection between various attitudes of characters. “Thus the distinction
between ‘I’ and ‘We’, where ‘You’ is at once separate – interpellating the
reader as other, as witness – and inclusive – as in ‘if one is born in Britain”
(Frontier, 2003, p. 6).
All these features can be clearly exemplified in Marina Lewycka’s Short
History of Tractors in Ukrainian, chosen as a comprehensive model of this
type of writing, for it serves as a good example not only because of the
handling of the topic, but also because it is written from personal experience,
one of a writer of Ukrainian parentage herself. At the end of World War II her
parents, who had spent the war years in forced labour camps, were finally
reunited in a British-run refugee camp in Kiel, where she was later born,
raised and educated. Lewycka tends to be more than familiar with the
nuances of immigrant integration and the differences between the immigrant
generations. As she stated in an interview for The Guardian newspaper,
78
fiction is the way through which she explains the world to herself (Moss,
2007).
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was a debut novel written by
Lewycka when she was fifty-eight years-old. However, over a million copies
have been sold and the novel has been translated into 32 languages; it is
widely regarded as a hilariously funny book dealing with a genuinely relevant
issue. Set in Peterborough, in the early 1990s, it is a specific example of the
aforementioned ideas. The obscure title refers to a book within the book,
written by Nikolai, the narrator's father, detailing the contribution of the
humble tractor to modern Ukraine's violent history. Even though the title is
unclear at the beginning, by reading the novel, the reader eventually
understands it in its tragic-comic essence.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is the story of an elderly Ukrainian
widower, a naturalised British citizen, who finds love in the form of an
economic migrant. Two years after his wife, Ludmilla, dies Nikolai calls his
daughter Nadezhda with the news that he is planning to remarry - to thirtysix year old Valentina, a Ukrainian immigrant. The fact that Valentina is still
married, and only wishes to marry eighty-four year-old Nikolai to stay in
England, does not matter; he is caught up in saving this woman from the old
country. Worried that he is being taken advantage of by the attractive gold
digger, Nadia calls her sister, Vera, putting aside years of bitter rivalry, in
order to rescue their father from his Big Ideas and the calculating Valentina.
Even though this novel is regarded predominantly as a funny and
entertaining story, particularly down to the unique wit and sense of humour
of the author, it is important to consider it also as a serious novel about
family relationships and conflicts, about relations between immigrants and
their children, about the effects of a post-war mentality on one’s view of the
world, about abuse on both a personal and political scale, and about
conflicting ideologies and political states. Lewycka provides us with a
complex overview of the everyday life and problems of Ukrainian immigrants
living in Britain, not simply enumerating specific difficulties, but recounting
daily events and tensions, not only between immigrants and their situation in
the host country, but also between the generations of immigrants
themselves. For instance, Nadia, the narrator of the story, represents the
child born in freedom, able to live her life and be idealistic, to work to save
the world and make it a better place. Vera believes that Nadia can afford the
luxury of irresponsibility, because she’s never seen the dark underside of life;
79
contrarily, Nadia believes that Vera is out to feather her own nest, and
doesn’t understand the true value of hard work. These fundamental
differences between sisters represent the central conflict vividly presented
within the story. Gradually, Nadia understands why she and her sister — born
ten years apart — have grown up with such different views of their shared
Eastern European past. Eventually, she comes to understand her parents.
Getting back to the previously mentioned issue of labelling immigrant
generations, we can clearly see the features manifested on the part of
characters presented in the story. Thus, Nikolai, having lived in Peterborough
for many years, still lives in the old ‘Ukrainian’ way. Meeting only people
from the community, remembering events from the motherland, hoarding
cans of food at home, he serves as an archetype of a first generation
immigrant. The older daughter Vera, born and raised in Ukraine, happy to live
in Britain, but still remembers and compares the values of motherland with
the newer values in Britain, strictly conservative and raising her children the
old-fashioned way, indoctrinating them with the values and history of Eastern
Europe, represents the ‘1.5 immigrant generation’. The younger daughter,
Nadia, the narrator of the story, raised in Britain, remembers the Ukraine
only vaguely; being a liberal, she often argues over different ideas and values
with her sister, and represents the second generation immigrant. It is
important to state that this is only an initial differentiation between the
generations. None of the characters stays unformed and during the story
further development of their values and attitudes concerning the homeland
and obtained identity and belonging can be observed. According to Stuart
Hall, “cultural identity is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’ and is
not to be understood as a fixed essence” (Hall, 1990, p. 112). Thus, in the
novel we can see the younger Nadia start to understand her father and sister,
and finally accept some of the values with which she was subjected to by her
Ukrainian mother as a child.
The particular role of Valentina, the newcomer, coming to Britain to gain
property and better social conditions for her and her son, shows us another
perspective on how immigrants themselves differentiate between various
groups within their community. Valentina, physically admired by the old
Nikolai, who understands her situation and sees the parallels with his own,
feeling sorry for her and wanting to help as well, finally turns out to be an
empty calculating character. Presented as a wilfully ignorant woman
determined to get what she wants, by using her appearance she serves as a
80
source of many funny moments. Both daughters, despite the many
differences between them, see her as an enemy, ignoring the fact that they
actually share the same motherland.
The tendency of “more assimilated” immigrants (the first two
generations) to reject more recent incomers, even those of their own kind,
occurs in the book repeatedly. When Valentina is about to arrive in
Peterborough, Nikolai remembers the happy days in the old country, while
his younger daughter obviously doesn’t share his notions: “Ukraina, he sighs,
breathing in the remembered scent of mown hay and cherry blossom… But
I can catch the distinct synthetic whiff of New Russia” (Lewycka, 2006, p. 1).
Lewycka also makes many incisive comments concerning the long-lasting
consequences of abuse, and those of certain political systems. For example,
Vera, the older of the two sisters, even though partly representing a secondgeneration immigrant, also represents the asylum seeker and the immigrant,
suffering from a post-war mentality, desperate for the luxuries of the West
and believing in the superiority of capitalism to provide security. Valentina,
portrayed as a money-grubbing wanton willing to do anything and take
advantage of anyone to be able to stay in England, is actually following
similar motivations. Maybe that’s why, in some ways, she can be seen as a
sympathetic character. Nikolai forgives her anything, blaming it on the “postwar” mentality: “You see, he explains, it is her last hope, her only chance to
escape persecution, destitution, and prostitution. Life in Ukraine is too hard
for such a delicate spirit as hers” (Lewycka, 2006, p. 4). Valentina is indeed a
victim of the privations she experienced; however, she carries her anger
forward and turns it against others.
Best of all is the author’s rendering of the hybrid half-English/halfUkrainian language spoken by her characters, whose fractured syntax and
colourful neologisms give the narrative its zest and uniqueness. This is
obviously most relevant to Valentina and her narrative, and is implied at the
very beginning of the story: “She wants to make a new life for herself and her
son in the West, a good life, with good job, good money, nice car - absolutely
no Lada no Skoda - good education for son - must be Oxford Cambridge,
nothing less. She is an educated woman, by the way. Has a diploma in
pharmacy. She will easily find well-paid work here, once she learns English”
(Lewycka, 2006, p. 2). Later on, Valentina, speaking her pidgin UkranianEnglish, invents many remarkable denominations, such as, “stop talk this bad
news you peeping no-tits crow” (ibid., 2006, p. 98) or “you useless shrivel81
brain shrivel penis donkey” (ibid., 2006, p. 138) or “you dog eaten-brain old
bent stick” (ibid., 2006, p. 190), which are typically vigorous examples of her
invective.
However, having Ukrainian roots and background, the portrayal of
immigrants in the novel resulted in offended readers and critics in Ukraine.
Commenting on a statement of one of them in an interview for The Guardian,
Lewycka claims: "It has taken me a while to understand why he hated it so
much," says Lewycka, “but I think I do understand now. I've met a lot of
Ukrainians since then. Before I wrote it, I didn't know many Ukrainian
Ukrainians. I knew a lot of Ukrainians who lived over here, and they all
thought it was a hoot. The Ukrainian Ukrainians are quite self-conscious
about Ukraine as a country because it's newly emerged on to the world
stage. They always ask you what people in the West think about Ukraine, and
I think, 'Gosh, what can I say?' I can't tell them that actually people in the
West don't think about Ukraine at all” (Moss, 2007).
The novels dealing with this topic, such as Marina Lewycka’s A Short
History of Tractors in Ukrainian, can give an interested reader a clearer
overview on the subject of immigrants living in Britain. The author herself
deals with the topic in all her literary works. For instance, in her follow-up
novel, Two Caravans, Lewycka brings a story of the young Irina coming to
England as an agricultural worker. Comparing a naïve, unspoilt Irina to her
Western companions and other people she gets to know the writer points
out the differences between the values of the two different worlds. Later on,
still using her wit and black humour, the reader is offered an insight into the
harder and darker sides of economic migration in connection to Western
capitalism and the emerging problems of immigrants coming to the country,
such as slum-like immigrant hostels on the coast, and the vicious exploitation
of illegal workers and human trafficking.
Her third novel We Are All Made of Glue is the story of an elderly Jewish
immigrant, Naomi Shapiro and her struggles against authority in Great
Britain. Later, through the memories of Mrs. Shapiro, the writer takes us on a
nightmarish journey through the ghettos, camps and partisan enclaves of the
1940s Europe. As in the case of the first bestselling novel, even when dealing
with serious issues, Lewycka does not fall into moralising or judgmental
undertones. Gently pointing out the difficult issues, she still uses that unique
sense of humour, contrasting the characters and placing them in odd
situations.
82
All three of Lewycka’s immigrant novels introduce the reader to a variety
of migration stories and the obscured causes hidden behind them.
Reflections on the post-war socio-economic situation in Ukraine, the dark
side of economic migration and its abuses all over the world, and descriptions
of the ghettos and camps in 1940s Europe can all be found in various
reference books and internet sources, but representation of these events and
their outcomes through memorable, interesting and funny narrative can
create a much more powerful effect upon the recipient. When discussing the
immigrant experience in particular, its portrayal in literature offers the
opportunity to present an individual’s story in a wider context, referring both
to past and future, explaining both rational and personal motivations, while
letting the reader decide which of them he, or she, would adopt placed in a
similar set of circumstances.
To conclude, the article introduced several significant literary works,
which in different and remarkable ways portray various types of immigrant
experience. Although the chosen novels are only some examples of a growing
body of contemporary writing dealing with the problems, they clearly outline
an interest in responding to real issues related to a global, culturally diverse
society. Their themes, such as identity and a sense of belonging, selfawareness, gender-identity, equality, and their projection through language
give us, in relation to the principal concepts of socio-cultural theory
delineated in the first part of this article, a wider context of the continuous
struggle between various cultural entities. As stated in one of the novels,
“This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow, and white. This has
been the century of the great immigrant experiment… Yet, despite all the
mixing up, despite the fact that we have finally slipped into each other's lives
with reasonable comfort, despite all this, it is still hard to admit that there is
no one more English than the Indian, no one more Indian than the English”
(Smith, 2000, pp. 271-272). Thus, one can say, the abovementioned struggle
is just a natural attempt to preserve individuality in today’s multicultural
environment.
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Stalker, P. 2000. Walkers without Borders: The Impact of Globalization in
International Immigration. London: Rienner.
Phillips, C. 1985. The Final Passage. London: Faber and Faber.
Portes, A. 1996. The New Second Generation. New York: Russel Sage
Foundation.
Smiešková, A. 2008. “Memory and Time: the Historiographic
Representation.” In Smiešková, A., Hevešiová, S., Kiššová, M. 2008.
Multicultural Awareness: Reading Ethnic Writing. Nitra: Univerzita
Konštantína Filozofa, pp. 19-49.
Smith, Z. 2000. White Teeth. Lodon: Penguin books.
Suwara, B. 2007. Globalizácia/antiglobalizácia a preklad (aj kyber-textov). In
Gromová, E. (ed). 2007. Preklad a kultúra 2. Nitra: FF UKF, pp. 198-210.
85
Culture and Children´s Literature
Mária Kiššová
Children, culture, literature
Written mainly by adults and aimed mainly at children, the development
of children´s and young adult literature has proven that literary works
definitely reflect the social and cultural milieu of the time in which they were
set down. Concepts of a child and childhood as social constructs – and thus
also cultural constructs of the specific time and place - are reflected by
children´s literature authors in their works consciously or subconsciously.
However, the promotion of universal and supposedly timeless values is not
always as straightforward and definite as one would think. Since its
beginnings, children´s literature has changed a lot, and observing the
alterations has become one of the most fascinating quests in literary history
and tradition.
Children´s literature (and the children´s world as such) often tells us much
about the culture of adults at the time; paradoxically, sometimes even more
than the adults would admit. A close reading of such literature and its
reception by adults frequently disclose the trends in thinking and ideology of
the era. Though predominantly fascinating, from time to time it also offers a
rather scary image. Thus, issues like censorship in children´s and young adult
literature, lists of recommended books and university syllabi may give us an
interesting picture of what we consider worth reading for children, i.e. what
values we have. Stories from, or set in, the past show our reading and
interpretation backwards in time; here, history is rewritten, reshaped and
relived in order to give meaning to the present. And, of course, equally
important is the future as today´s children are future adults.
It is thus natural that in order to pass down knowledge, the role of
education cannot be suppressed. There have been several functions of
children´s literature which have appeared over time and we can argue that
morality and didacticism are the key elements of children´s and young adult
fiction present since its very beginning, and are still very important regardless
of the writers´ attempt to disguise them. As Enid Blyton – the author of The
Famous Five series - confesses: “Naturally, the morals or ethics are intrinsic
to the story – and therein lies their true power” (Dixon, 1977, p. 57).
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The term culture is extremely wide, very general, frequently used in a very
vague way and seems almost impossible to grasp. Tony Watkins refers to
Raymond Williams, who summarises it as “one of the two or three most
complicated words in the English language” (Williams, 1976, p. 76 quoted in
Watkins, 2005, p. 7). Discussion of culture is everywhere, and it sometimes
appears as if there exist innumerable different definitions of the term suiting
various discourses, fields of study and concepts. And, of course, the term
culture is extremely popular nowadays. One simply cannot deal with the
humanities today without encountering or using the term. Thus, we
sometimes work with the concept we do not know much about – obviously
not a very desirable approach.
The complexity of the term is expressed by Watkins: “Culture is an
ambiguous term: a problem shared, perhaps, by all concepts which are
concerned with totality, including history, ideology, society and myth”
(Watkins, 2005, p. 57). A more detailed account and far broader definition of
culture is explained by Mitchell as quoted in Watkins: “First, culture is the
opposite of nature. It is what makes humans human. Second, ´culture´ is the
actual, perhaps unexamined, patterns and differentiations of a people (as in
´Aboriginal culture´ or ´German culture´ - culture is a way of life). Third, it is
the process by which these patterns developed… Fourth, the term indicates a
set of markers that set one people off from another and which indicate to us
our membership in a group… Fifth, culture is the way that all these patterns,
processes, and markers are represented (that is, cultural activity, whether
high, low, pop, or folk, that produces meaning). Finally, the idea of culture
often indicates a hierarchical ordering of all these processes, activities, ways
of life, and cultural production (as when people compare cultures or cultural
activities against each other)” (Mitchell, 2000, p. 14, quoted in Watkins, 2005,
p. 58, emphasis mine).
One thus starts to hesitate if the discussions and agenda about culture –
and in this case children´s literature - do not just lead to some blurred
peripheral descriptions of customs, habits and strange names used in fiction
for the young reader. To clarify things, we have to say that the aim of the
present study is not to offer new cultural theories and apply them to literary
works for children and young adults. We will just try to show some major
trends and present their key concepts. Literature on cultural encounters will
be divided into two subgroups. First, there are books actually depicting
cultural encounters (e.g. a European child versus an African-American, a
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Chinese child versus an American child). Secondly, there are books simply set
in another culture, in which the cultural encounter occurs between a reader
and a book, and the work does not necessarily present a cultural encounter
in its content per se. Naturally, there are also cases in which these two
subgroups merge.
Historical perspective – British literature
To discuss the present, a short glimpse to the past can explain a few
modern children´s literature phenomena. Dealing with the literature written
until the middle of the twentieth century, the emphasis must be put on the
different standpoints and approaches to the issue. The first one is the
overwhelming policy of ´the white western superiority´ reflected in children´s
literature and resulting in the creation of a number of deeply rooted cultural
stereotypes.
A basic overview of cultural stereotyping in British literature is discussed
by Bob Dixon in Catching Them Young 2: Political Ideas in Children´s Fiction
(1977). Dixon analyses several books pointing at the ways in which the
cultural supremacy of whites is implied in works for young readers, and doing
this he shows how the political goals of empire-building found their way into
literature (as a part of specific cultural milieu). Dixon interestingly analyses
and demonstrates how the ideas of the imperialism and superiority of the
white race were widely used in children´s fiction. Starting with the
eighteenth- century The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe he shows how the
nineteenth century became “the heyday of the imperial tradition in
children´s literature” (ibid., p. 79). Since then, children´s fiction has shown
colonial exploitation and its “ideological justification” perceived today as
ethically unacceptable (ibid., p. 74). It is interesting how the analyses of
works such as Morryat´s Masterman Ready, Kingsley´s Westward Ho!,
Ballantyne´s Coral Island and Kipling´s Stalky & Co show the typical elements
of colonial politics taking the side of the oppressor. In this way Dixon
presents how Frederick Marryat (1792-1848), W. H. G. Kingston (1814-80),
Charles Kingsley (1819-75), R. M. Ballantyne (1825-94), G. A. Henty (18321902), H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925), R. Kipling (1865-1936) and many others
helped to create a long tradition of an adventure story in which the
dominance of white British culture is significantly overt.
Two basic notions must be taken into account when discussing this kind of
fiction. The first notion is that books helped to sustain and justify the social
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order of the time; we may even add that they were powerful, delicate tools
serving as subtle propaganda. Dixon also hints at the manipulative function of
texts when he stresses that “it seems impossible to subject people to an alien
rule without believing in their inferiority” (ibid., p. 76). Of course, the whole
ideological concept of racial supremacy is much more complex; one,
however, cannot deny that literature used to be a vital means of the spread
and support of such ideas. Putting what might be called the philosophy of
whiteman-superiority (based on the presupposition of the truth of such a
position) in children´s fiction inevitably lead to the further justification of the
discourse. Political and cultural dominance went hand in hand. As Dixon
further mentions: “Violence and sadism of all kinds, as a matter of fact, are
rife in imperialist literature for children and usually it´s cloaked in religion,
racism, or patriotism, or combination of these” (ibid., pp. 77-78). In the
depiction of slavery, the treatment of native peoples and cultural encounters
of the past, a white man´s world is strikingly and unquestionably the only
right one and almost any means it uses to justify the notion is accepted.
It is true that for the modern reader these concepts of the everyday
reality of the past seem unnatural, artificial and absurd. The second notion is,
however, that one must not forget the concepts which are now perceived as
prejudicial and racial were strongly embedded in society and to question
them at the time was a social challenge often resulting in ostracism of the
individual. Consequently, children´s works obviously reflected the then
socially and politically acceptable rules and behaviour towards the
supposedly inferior.
Typical for this type of fiction are mainly the unquestioned racial
hierarchy, a strong impact of religion, clashes with other imperial powers and
rather stereotypical portrayal of the slave characters. Bob Dixon makes his
analysis more challenging showing that even in Roald Dahl´s Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory – one would say an altogether ´innocent´ book in terms of
political references -, the echoes of colonialism still resonate. Two editions of
the book – the original United States edition of 1964 and the first British
edition, slightly differ. Let us quote some of Dixon´s fascinating observations:
“In those earlier editions, the children exclaim, on first seeing the OompaLoompas, ´Their skin is almost black!´(not rosy-white´) and Wonka explains,
´Right!... Pygmies they are! Imported from Africa!´ ´Now, neither “Africa” nor
“Pygmies” are mentioned in the Penguin edition and nor are Wonka´s
original details of the immigrant or guest-workers given: ´I brought them over
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from Africa myself – the whole tribe of them, three thousand in all. I found
them in the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no
white man had ever been before.´ In the original edition, the OompaLoompas are illustrated as being black, unlike either of the other editions”
(ibid., p. 112).
The works of the abovementioned authors (maybe with the exception of
Defoe and Kipling) are almost forgotten by modern readers and sentenced to
oblivion due to the minor artistic qualities of the texts. Regardless, we think
that however uninteresting and boring they might seem today, literary
criticism definitely should not turn a blind eye to them. We claim that a close
observation and contextual interpretation of such works may help to show
the framework of the cultural constructs of the past. It is important not to
forget the contexts in which the then literary works were created – and thus
justified – but at the same time to observe what the justification meant and
how it was achieved in literature.
Cultures and multiculturalism in modern children´s literature
It is clear that the debate about the relation between culture and
(children´s/young adult) literature is inescapable and inevitable today. Due to
its powerful presence and dominance in scholarly talks and discussion it is
rather interesting that The Cambridge Companion to Children´s Literature
edited by M. O. Grenby and Andrea Immel (2009) does not deal with the
issues of contemporary cultural encounters in children´s literature at all. A
slightly surprising fact is very clearly and easily explained in the preface
where the editors mention that “To attempt to give multicultural children´s
literature the attention it deserves, as well as to include discussion of other
national traditions, would have broadened the volume´s scope, but only at
the expense of trivializing these important issues” (ibid., p. xiv). The absence
thus does not suggest the minor position of multicultural texts within
children´s and young adult literature but quite the opposite. It is already so
important that its study deserves particular attention and scholarship.
Having seen the proof of the significance and relevance of such literature,
let us have a look at another recent book on children´s literature, namely in
Modern Children´s Literature (2005) edited by Kimberley Reynolds and how
the issue is treated there. The key chapter discussing culture and children´s
literature (“Postmodernism, New Historicism and Migration: New Historical
Novels”) is written by Pat Pinsent. The author of the chapter emphasises the
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significance of children´s and young adult books dealing with multicultural
issues or any cultural encounters, stating that “One of the most rapidly
growing areas in children´s literature in recent decades is fiction that deals
with the experiences of young people, past and present, who for a variety of
reasons find themselves caught between cultures” (Pinsent, 2005, p. 173).
Though the author does not provide us with the precise definition of culture,
further depiction of such literary works gives us certain clues. Pinsent
continues: “Often these are accounts of children and adolescents whose
families have been forced to migrate to new countries as a consequence of
war, economic necessity, or oppression. Some reflect the experiences of those
whose countries have been invaded and/or colonized” (ibid., p. 173, emphasis
mine). In other words, here in the first case the cultural encounters refer to
the immigrant novel and in the second case represent war or postcolonial
narratives. Pinsent thus limits her study to what might be called political
fiction for children.
A significantly broader characterisation is offered by Pamela Gates and
Dianne Hall Mark (2006): “[Multicultural] literature [is] a body of literature
that spans all literary genres but generally focuses on primary characters who
are members of underrepresented groups whose racial, ethnic, religious,
sexual orientation, or culture historically has been marginalized or
misrepresented by the dominant culture” (Gates and Mark, 2006, p. 3,
quoted in Sanders, 2009, p. 194). This basically proclaims that multicultural
literature would include any form of expression of the marginalized, and
though the definition gives primary importance to racial and ethnic
difference, it also covers the sensitive question of sexuality, which is
occasionally excluded from multiculturalism.
Obviously, multicultural literature is an umbrella term and its recent boom
in Britain and especially in the US must also be perceived as a part of the
huge cultural, social and demographic changes of the modern world.
According to the 2003 statistics conducted by the National Centre for
Education Statistics (2005), forty-two per cent of all pupils and students in
American state schools came from cultural minorities. Another survey has
revealed that the parent of one child out of five was not born in the States.
American education on all levels stresses the use of literature written either
by authors coming from various cultural backgrounds or literature depicting
other cultures as such. The recent trend unquestionably reflects cultural
diversity and demographic changes in American society with the constant
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emphasis on the importance of multiculturalism and multicultural education
as the key theme of the American school curriculum. As Brown and Stephens
(1995) point out, students become more open and consequently more
tolerant towards culturally distinct groups after learning about their customs
and traditions.
Literary works mapping cultural diversity and various forms and problems
of cultural encounter have been a coherent part of American literature for
adults for a very long time. A similar process has been going on in American
literature for children and young adults depicting the experience of an
African-American (E. J. Gaines, W. D. Myers, J. Spinelli), Hispanic (G. Soto, C.
Meyer, G. Paulsen, S. Cisneros, A. F. Ada) or Asian child (L. Crew, K. Mori, R.
Sasaki, L. Namioka) in a culturally distinct society. Jewish culture (I. B. Singer)
and the culture of Native Americans (C. L. Smith, M. Dorris, W. Hobbs) have
become rich sources for inspiration as well. In most cases cultures are
confronted with the American cultural majority, or with other minority
cultures. The authors depict cultural encounters of children or young adults
who search and fight for their identity and social and cultural acceptance.
They face racial prejudice, hatred and are often culturally marginalised in the
new cultural milieu. In most cases authors stress the universal values across
cultures common to all people. Many literary works emphasize the
importance of tolerance, humanity, openness, the rights of children and
education which would eliminate stereotypical thinking and prejudices.
What to read?
Anyone even slightly familiar with multicultural literature in English knows
very well that the number of books published every year is enormous and,
frankly, truly impossible to grasp in a complex way. In order to answer the
stated question we have to search for some help. Besides a few useful web
pages recommending books for children and young adults, and general
literary awards which may also be given to authors writing about cultural
encounters, there are also special literary awards which may be a very useful
guide in the ocean of contemporary literature production.
At least two major American literary awards must be mentioned which
serve to promote ethnic writers: The Coretta Scott King Award, given by the
ALA´s Ethnic Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table annually to
African American authors and illustrators for outstanding contributions to
literature for children and young adults since 1970, and The Pura Belpre
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Award, established in 1996 and given to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator
of literature for children and young adults. The first award recipients include
Christopher Paul Curtis, Julius Lester, Toni Morrison, Nikki Grimes, Mildred
Taylor, Virginia Hamilton and Walter Dean Myers, while Victor Martinez,
Alma Flor Ada, Pam Muniz Ryan, Francisco Jiménez, Julia Alvarez and Yuyi
Morales were among others given The Pura Belpre Award.
Just to suggest the genre spectrum of contemporary production it is not
only fiction and novels which reflect cultural experience. There are many
genres and what we offer is just a minute selection of what is being
produced. (We do apologize for not including a powerful area of picture
books which would require a special study itself.) A very interesting
phenomenon has been bilingual books; e.g. C. L. Garza: In my family/En mi
familia (San Francisco: Children’s Book Press, 1996). Bilingual books have
been published also by the team consisting of Aneona, George, with Alma
Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy: Mis Bailes/My Dances (La serie Somos latinos)
(2004), or Mi Escuela/My School (La serie Somos latinos) (2004). The former
is told from the perspectives of five children and shows cultural specifics of
dancing traditions. The book, illustrated with photographs, also contains a
glossary and a part “We Are Latinos” depicting the history of Latin American
dancing. In the latter book, for elementary pupils, a small boy Christopher
encounters cultural diversity and immigration. There are again photographs
and the visual aspect of the book is even emphasized through Christopher´s
´authentic´ drawings. The book Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel/Si Lakas at
Ang Makibaka Hotel (2006), written by Anthony D. Robles and illustrated by
Carl Angel, depicts a young Pilipino boy, Lakas, who also faces cultural
discrimination and learns the significance of being aware of differences
between people.
When discussing multicultural poetry, a long list of works may be offered,
too. However, as Richard Flynn emphasizes we are still waiting for the classic
and masterpiece in the field: “Anthologies of African-American poetry, such
as those by Arnold Adoff or Ashley Bryan, British-Caribbean anthologies, such
as those by Grace Nichols and John Agard, or Noami Shihab Nye´s anthologies
of poems from the Middle East are all necessary steps in moving towards a
culturally inclusive canon or in developing a counter-canon” (2009, p. 82). To
mention just a few names and titles published relatively recently, one may
include the collection edited by W. Hudson: Pass it on: African-American
poetry for children (New York: Scholastic, 1993). Talking Drums: A Selection of
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Poems from Africa South of the Sahara is a collection edited by Veronique
Tadjo. The book, which was published in 2004 by Bloomsbury (New York), is
for child readers from ten years and upwards. The anthology, which has folk
art illustrations, represents the oral traditions of sub-Saharan Africa and the
poems included celebrate nature, beauty and the people of Africa. Red Hot
Salsa is a book edited by Lori Marie Carlson and was published in 2005. The
bilingual collection deals with subjects such as family, language, culture and
identity. Poets presented include Gary Soto, Gina Valdes and Amiris
Rodriguez. Jorge Argueta is the author of Talking with Mother
Earth/Hahlando con Madre Tierra – a book illustrated by Lucia Angel Perez
and published in 2006. Its poems express what it means to be an Indian in the
society of El Salvador. As the title suggests this is again a bilingual book, and
in it the author describes in simple poems his love for nature, culture and his
feelings at being culturally discriminated and marginalized.
In the case of short stories we would like to mention a collection edited by
Donald R. Galio First Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants published in
2004. The book offers a wide spectrum of immigrant stories from China,
Romania, Palestine, Sweden, Mexico, Haiti, Cambodia, etc. Well-known
authors discuss forms of social and cultural conflicts; they depict how
teenagers experience often extremely difficult circumstances and highlight
the individual power to struggle with overt hatred and prejudice. Three
Wishes: Palestianian and Israeli Children Speak, by Deborah Ellis, was also
published in 2004. The author interviewed several children from Israel and
Palestine which obviously makes these stories very personal and authentic
and the voices we hear are full of fears, but also hope.
An interesting and thought-provoking collection of short stories, Free?:
Stories Celebrating Human Rights, was published in 2009 by Amnesty
International to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The contributing authors, David Almond,
Ibtisam Barakat (a Palestinian author living in the US), Malorie Blackman,
Theresa Breslin, Eoin Colfer, Roddy Doyle, Ursula Dubosarsky, Jamila Gavin,
Patricia McCormick, Margaret Mahy, Michael Morpurgo, Sarah Mussi, Meja
Mwangi (a Kenyan novelist) and Rita Williams-Garcia are all well-known,
distinguished and awarded writers of children´s or young adult fiction. The
collection is said to be aimed at young adults though we think that most
stories suit a younger reader more and might be too preachy for a teenager.
The stories are very straightforward in their educational function and each
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short story is followed by the specific article/s of the Declaration which
has/have been referred to in the preceding text. The naivety and rather
explicit political messages of the texts raise the question whether a child/a
teenager would choose the book and whether the collection is not merely
culturally-aware and politically correct educational material.
It is obvious that a collection thematically focusing on human rights would
depict multicultural relations. The celebrated author of British children´s
literature, Dame Jacqueline Wilson, in the foreword to the book, suggests
that cultural encounters indeed play a major role in human rights issues. She
recalls her childhood reading The Diary of Anne Frank at twelve, the
experience which brought her to realize that it is precisely the power of
literature which may show children, in a suitable way, what life in other
countries looks like, and that to be culturally different often means to be
marginalized, discriminated and oppressed. The collection consists of stories
depicting immigrant experience and struggles with assimilation (Klaus Vogel
and Bad Lads), there are stories set in countries where children suffer
because of political oppression (If Only Papa Hadn´t Danced), their social and
cultural background (After the Hurricane) or stories showing various forms of
cultural prejudice and discrimination (Scout´s Honour).
The first story, by David Almond, is called Klaus Vogel and the Bad Lads
and illustrates the first Article of the Declaration: “We are all born free and
equal. We all have our own thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated in
the same way.” The story takes us to post-war Britain where Klaus Vogel, a
boy smuggled in the boot of a car from East Germany, has to face a group of
thirteen-year-old English boys. Klaus, who has just escaped one oppressive
regime, is unwillingly thrown into another one, as the boys in the gang he is
to join follow and obey their leader Joe Gillespie blindly and unquestioningly.
Joe represents everything they admire. With his long hair, dates with girls,
and physical power he easily positions himself at/ the top of the gang
hierarchy. When Joe stubbornly decides to go on with the activities against
the social outcast Mr Eustace (who refused to fight in WWII), the group –
except for Klaus – shamefully agrees. It is obvious that Gillespie´s radicalism
has its roots in his family. Joe repeatedly mentions what his father would do,
what he would think, how he would react, and so on. It is clear that his
´adult´ opinion about Mr Eustace is indeed an adult one – just a verbatim
copy of his father’s and when Joe scorns their neighbour he simply repeats
what he heard at home: “He was a coward and a conchie. And like me dad
95
says – once a conchie…” (Almond, 2009, p. 15). “It´s like me dad says,” (…)
“He should´ve been drove out years back” (ibid., p. 25). The whole story is
thus built up upon the father–son relationship. Joe and his father stand for
extreme radicalism, while both the narrator and his father are indifferent at
first: “Nobody knew the full truth, said my dad, not when it happened so far
away and in countries like that. Just be happy we lived in a place like this
where we could go about as we pleased” (ibid., p. 17). Quite expectedly,
when he sees Mr Eustace the next day, he justifies the destruction of his
hedge and belonging to Joe´s gang, paradoxically blaming Eustace – and again
with father´s thoughts: “You´re useless! What did you expect? You should
have started a new life somewhere else!” (ibid., p. 17). Klaus, a parentless
child, naturally feels a close affinity to Eustace. Both culturally oppressed,
they show others what the values of freedom are, and why cultural
marginalization is the subtle vermin of any society. Almond emphasizes in the
story the impact of adults as role models on children. Directly presented
through three character pairs, it is clear that the stress lies in family
education; expressed significantly in the ´like father, like son´ proverb.
School Slave, by Theresa Breslin, depicts a spoilt boy who hates school,
often plays truant and considers himself a slave. There is obvious reshaping
of language – and devaluing the power of meaning - as for him the institution
of education represents the worst form of slavery. At one point, a discovered
message lures him into skiving again, but this time the adventure leads him
to a hut where he discovers kids being kept as slave workers, and the boy is
thus confronted with a real form of modern slavery. Functioning as an
epiphany for the boy, the child protection officer informs him about the child
abuse which is still going on, and in which innocent children – who would
much rather have preferred school slavery – have to suffer just because of
their Third World background: “Organized criminals buy children in Third
World countries, promising their parents that they´ll get an education and
employment. Some are trafficked into the UK and kept hidden in out-of-theway places so no one will find them” (Breslin, 2009, p. 43). School suddenly
appears more of a privilege than an institution of oppression.
In Patricia McCormick´s If Only Papa Hadn´t Danced, a family has to flee
from the oppressive Zimbabwean regime in April, 2008, when thousands of
people had to escape the country. Though the first results had indicated the
defeat of the president and had given hope of change to many, the election
recount nevertheless stated that Robert Mugabe had won. McCormick´s
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story elaborates upon Article 14: “If we are frightened of being badly treated
in our own country, we all have the right to run away to another country to
be safe” and tackles the serious issues of freedom of speech and political
oppression. Quite similarly, in Jojo Learns to Dance, by Meja Mwangi, we are
taken to an anonymous African country where election campaign fever is just
occurring. The young Jojo is a fervent observer listening to Popo the Wise
who teaches him why the right to vote is important and why one should use
it.
The analysed collection – with its thematic focus and direct message that
the problems children all around the world face are very often the same
universal ones based on cultural prejudices and ignorance – has opened a
very challenging and interesting question regarding adult´s responsibility or better said – willingness to shape children. We decided to use some of the
short stories from the collection in our children´s literature university course
and it was very useful and interesting to observe the reactions of mostly
Slovak students - future teachers - towards such texts. Some of their
reactions were very restrained claiming that such serious political topics are
not suitable for any children, and they would not use the texts in class.
Besides that, they also criticized the very obvious preaching and teaching
character of the stories and the direct instruction how to behave in order to
be a good citizen and, of course, the stories aimed to be absolutely politically
correct.
It is natural that adults have their say in the selection of books for
children, though we do think that the process of erasing anything which may
be even potentially dangerous for the child reader is not the way forward.
Putting aside children´s reviews of books, we already mentioned hundreds of
web pages with various reading lists recommending multicultural books
obviously created by adults and based on their ideas what should and should
not be read. As Deborah Stevenson notes: “This adult mediation tends to
treat books and reading on the nutritional model, operating on the theory
that children, left to their own devices, will tend to consume junk, but that
tactful adult assistance will lead them to partake of equally enjoyable and
much more healthful fodder. This mediation is justified by the conviction that
books affect young readers, that children cannot always judge what is and
isn´t good for them, and that adults have not just a right, but a duty, to
ensure children´s lack of judgment does not result in harm” (2009, p. 109). As
a helping tool for teachers and parents there is even a list of “10 quick ways
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to analyze children´s books for racism and sexism” approved by The Council
on Interracial Books for Children. We leave readers to decide upon the merits
of its criteria and requirements for the selection of books suitable for children
and young adults.
1. Check illustrations for stereotypes or tokenism. Determine if the cultures
presented are oversimplified (“blacks are the happy-go-lucky,
watermelon-eating Sambo” or of “Chicanos, the sombrero-wearing peon
or fiesta-loving macho bandito”. Determine if racial minority characters
are stereotypically presented and if minorities play subservient or
leadership roles.
2. Check storyline focusing on the standard for success (Does it require
“white” behavior for the minority character to succeed?), the resolution
of the problem (Who solves the problem and how?), and the role of
women (Do the women succeed because of initiative and intelligence
versus appearance?).
3. Check lifestyles avoiding “cute-natives-in-costumes” syndrome.
4. Check relationships between people determining who holds the power or
takes a leadership role and focusing on family dynamics as appropriate.
5. Check hero traits. Ask “Whose interest is a particular hero really
serving?”
6. Check effects on a child´s self image. Determine if norms are established
that hinder a child´s aspirations or self-concept. Ask if there is at least
one character with whom a child can easily identify that uses positive
traits throughout the story.
7. Check author´s or illustrator´s background by reading the biographical
information on the book jacket. Determine their qualifications on the
topic.
8. Check author´s perspective asking if the perspective is patriarchal or
feminist and if minority cultural perspectives appear.
9. Watch for loaded words (words with insulting overtones such as
“savage”, “crafty”. “docile”, or “backward”) or sexist language (for
example – chairperson versus chairman, firefighters versus fireman,
manufactured versus manmade).
10. Check copyright date. Non-sexist books “were rarely published before
1973” while multiracial books that correctly represented multicultural
realities did not appear until the early 1970s.
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Reading the list of criteria, there are some problems which might occur as
a result of this approach, such as positive discrimination, artificial and
unnatural constructions in literary texts (if authors take the list into
consideration), the problem of reshaping and rewriting history so that no one
would be offended, and even deleting history if we take point 10 seriously.
We will leave point seven with no comment at all. Whether we admit it or
not, what we face here is a very direct censorship. It is more than clear that
when the artistic value of literature is suppressed, there is a danger of the
text becoming just a political tool. When judging and analyzing any book
dealing with cultural encounters, the literary qualities of the text should be
regarded as a matter of course. While it is understandable to agree with the
proposal: “We do care what our kids read!”, we must be very careful of how
we approach the text so that literature will not become just a scrutinised
propaganda. Furthermore, raising the level of critical thinking in our pupils
and students (and discussing the texts with them) is a much better
investment of time than worshipping extreme political correctness which has
been a recent trend in many literary genres.
Why to read?
We started the study with the notion that children´s and young adult
literatures reflect culture and the issues of cultural life in a specific time, and
this is definitely true about modern multicultural literature. Though more
time is needed to fill the classics bookshelves, one cannot question the
multicultural boom of recent years. Comparing today´s literature with the
past, “when the genre´s subject sand authors were rarely identifiable as
anything other than white and heterosexual” (Stevenson, 2009, p. 116), one
must inevitably marvel at the colourful plethora of children´s literary works
which have been recently created. It is normal that the recent growth in the
production of literature for children and young adults with the themes
related to cultural aspects of life and various forms of cultural encounter has
naturally led to a sharp increase in its use in schools at all levels of the British
and American education systems ; and subsequently to English and American
university departments worldwide.
The analysis and examples of the syllabi designed specifically to study and
use multicultural children´s literature in teaching will help us to understand
the key notions and answer the question Why read?. For this we used syllabi
available on the internet, particularly: Multicultural Children´s Literature
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prepared by Professor Carolyn Sigler from San Jose State University;
Introduction to Multicultural Children´s Literature prepared by Dr. Annette
Wannaker from Children´s Literature Studies at Eastern Michigan University;
and Multicultural Children´s Literature prepared by Terri Wheeler from
California State University, Monterey Bay.
Several perspectives are to be taken into consideration with the question
WHY read/study multicultural literature. The first important emphasis – and
already a partial answer - is the personal development of the reader, which
stresses the educative function of literature. Of course, the texts are written
primarily for children and young adults as the primary addressees; however,
it is stressed as equally important for the development of university students,
i.e. future teachers. For instance, Terri Wheeler from California State
University suggests: “Reading, understanding, discussing, and analyzing
literature written from diverse ethnic, linguistic, and cultural perspectives
provides students the opportunity to make important connections across and
within groups that can facilitate and expand the reading and writing skills of
children as well as their view of what it means to be human.” Thus, Professor
Carolyn Sigler from San Jose State University uses the passage from Richard
E. Ishler's "The Preparation of Elementary School Teachers," which appeared
in the Spring 1995 Phi Kappa Phi Journal, to emphasize the importance of
multicultural literature: “Persons who will spend their professional lives as
elementary school teachers must be liberally and broadly educated, more so
than individuals with other careers, because of their positions as role models
for our children - positions that are crucial not only to the students whose
lives are directly affected, but to the general society as well. Other than a
student's parents, no other person has such an opportunity to influence, to
motivate, and to inspire a child to value the intellectual life. In fact, acting as
an intellectual role model may well be the single most significant aspect of
the teaching profession.” (1995, p. 4, emphasises mine) The statement thus
proclaims the merits of a multicultural text as a cross-over phenomenon
equally enriching for both a child and a mature reader. Sigler notes further
on: “Through the readings, lectures and our class discussions you will develop
your awareness of social and pedagogical issues that impact the use of
children´s literature both in and outside of the classroom, your ability to read
texts carefully and with attention to their literary merit, and your ability to
write clear, thoughtful and persuasive prose.”
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Also Poe emphasizes that “One way to help students develop
multicultural understanding is to offer them young adult literature with
characters and/ or situations that are both familiar and unfamiliar. Characters
or situations readers can identify with enable them to enter stories where
they meet and learn from characters and situations outside their personal
experiences” (1998, p. 148). Furthermore, “Multicultural awareness can also
be sparked by encouraging students to read books about contemporary
teens from ethnic or racial groups different from the reader´s. Feeling or
experiences common to adolescence may enable the reader to identify with
a protagonist and create an interest in that character´s culture. If the
character develops an interest in his or her own cultural identity, the reader
can vicariously enter into the heritage of another group. Such an interest may
lead to further reading of historical fiction or nonfiction related to that ethnic
group” (ibid., p. 149).
To relate these questions to the university courses of children´s literature
in English in Slovakia, we suggest that the very same arguments and
approaches can be used. It is unquestionable that children´s literature should
be a part of university preparation for future teachers of English.
Furthermore, as we observe aspects of modern culture in Britain and the US
related to demographic changes, and also the increase in the significance of
multicultural children´s literature reflected in the established literary awards
- we are convinced that multicultural literature should be reflected in the
syllabi in our cultural context as well. Besides that, as it has been suggested
multicultural literature promotes universal values and thus we assume that
its use may generally help to raise cultural awareness in students (future
teachers) and thus to prepare them better for the life in a globalized and
culturally challenging world. And last, but not least, our experience has also
proven that teachers of English at the primary and secondary level of
education have very little knowledge of the children´s and young adult
literature texts in English which they could use in the classroom as authentic
material to work with. In this way, information about multicultural literature
may be also very useful and practical for the practice of teaching as such.
How to read?
There are two basic ways in which multicultural literature can be
approached at the university level and the following discourse will be
concerned mostly with Slovak university students. First, there is a
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methodological approach, which means literature discussed and presented as
a material for further use in the class. As we all know, multicultural literature
plays a key role in the preparation of future teachers, especially in the US,
where it can be found as a separate university course on a very frequent
basis. In many other countries, children´s literature is studied as a part of
English language and literature studies, and multicultural literature for
children and young adults in English is usually a part of general courses on
children´s literature, and is therefore only discussed in a few seminars during
the semester. As a methodological means, multicultural children´s literature
is therefore used not only in teaching English and in developing reading skills,
but also as a very effective cross-curricular means and tool. With its emphasis
on cultural diversity, it is easy to find and make links with geography, arts,
social studies, history, civics, etc. In claiming this, we emphasise the
educative function as we expect a child/student would find useful, new and
coherent information which might be later used and contextualised. We think
that this approach is the one which may be very practical for future teachers
of English in the Slovak educational system, too. With the call for
interdisciplinarity and linking subjects, multicultural books are an excellent
way in which to present and actually use authentic materials, and to teach
English and acquire information from other fields as well. This approach, of
course, means that a lecturer will present and offer examples of books and
will also show how they can be used in the classroom.
On the other hand, we would be much more careful with the second
approach, which is a scholarly treatment of children’s literature texts
subjected to literary criticism. The field is relatively new even in the Englishspeaking countries, and there has only been a very short tradition of scholarly
research of children’s and young adult literature in English in Slovakia. This
basically means that since we are only just starting this kind of research, we
should be also very careful with the way in which students approach it. For
the time being, we would suggest to keep with the methodological approach
while not forgetting about artistic qualities and discussions about literary
devices of the texts. It is important that students have a general knowledge
of this area of literature, and that they are familiar with authors, themes but
also questions and challenges which its reception brings.
Multicultural graphic narratives
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There has been a recent rapid growth in the popularity and production of
graphic narratives in English, and publishing companies offer many appealing
books. This part deals specifically with the graphic narratives which present a
variety of multicultural themes and issues, and as multicultural literature
includes not only racial, ethnic and religious difference, we also discuss books
depicting other forms of marginalization, such as the sexual and political. We
introduce books which have gained wider attention and appeal, and we
definitely do not propose the suggested account as a complete list of
significant graphic narratives of recent years.
A graphic novel is often quite wrongly referred to as a specific genre;
while it is the form which distinguishes it from other narratives. The graphic
narrative as an umbrella term covers multiple genres including fantasy,
memoir, gay stories, adventure stories, spy stories, and so on. Generally
speaking, the terminology in the field is still quite vague and graphic
narratives often appear under other labels. For example, Persepolis by
Marjane Satrapi is referred to as “graphic memoir, graphic biography, graphic
book, comic book, picture novella, etc.” (see Malek, 2006, p. 354). Some
authors even suggest that the term graphic narrative is more appropriate
than the graphic novel, since the novel suggests a longer text, while the
graphic narrative may include a wider spectrum of works. In our case, we use
both terms, as all works discussed belong to both categories.
Until very recently, graphic novels had a very ambiguous position in the
general context of texts. One surely recalls the problems caused by
Spiegelman´s Maus which still in 1992 represented a medium almost
impossible to categorize. Thus, Thomas Doherty explains: “The obvious rubric
(Biography) seemed ill-suited for a comic book in an age when ever-larger
tomes and ever-denser scholarship define that enterprise. Editorial
cartooning didn´t quite fit either, for Maus illustrated not the news of the day
but events of the past. The classification problem had earlier bedevilled the
New York Times Book Review, where the work had criss-crossed the Fiction
and Non-Fiction Best Seller Lists” (1996, p. 69). Confusing reactions came
from the publishers´ side in the late 1990s when Judd Winick offered his
graphic novel Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss and What I Learnt (2000) to
several companies to meet only lukewarm and hesitating responses. Winick
explains: “Everybody loved it, but nobody wanted to publish it. They didn´t
want to touch a graphic novel. Jill kept plugging along and at one point I
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thought of self-publishing it. But after 30 publishers rejected it, we found
Marc Aronson” (quoted in Maughan, 2000, p. 37).
While traditionally on the margin of scholarly interests, graphic narratives
have started to gain in significance in terms of publication, as well as in
scholarly research. Several contemporary books exemplify the interpretation
and reception of the graphic novel format, including Paul Gravett´s Graphic
Novels: Stories to Change Your Life published in 2005. The book Gravett – for
a long time associated with the British alt-comics movement - analyses 30 key
graphic novels and suggests more titles for further reading. Among other
influential works on graphic novels one must at least mention the already
classic Understanding Comics (1993), by Scott McCloud, and the 2007 This
Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature by Rocco Versaci. Due
to their visual and verbal complexity, graphic novels require a specific
approach, and definitely an interdisciplinary one. In order to discuss the issue
adequately, knowledge of other fields (including art history, media and the
theory of communication) is essential. In particular, this may bring certain
misinterpretations when approaching graphic novels, and we think that their
supposed straightforwardness can easily turn into a double-edged sword,
causing undesirably shallow analyses. As Hatfield observes: “Despite their
reputed simplicity, then, comics present daunting complexities on many
levels—aesthetic, semiotic, historical, cultural, disciplinary, institutional—and
so are potentially as challenging to scholars as any cultural form” (2008, p.
130). As he further notes: “Positing comics as literature (…) represents a
challenge to the structuring assumptions of literary studies itself” (ibid., p.
131).
It is important to emphasize that the implied readership of graphic novels
has a broader span, as the books are very popular with adult readers as well
as with teenagers and children, and thus belong in the cross-over area par
excellence. As Rachel Cooke points out, graphic novels are not an adolescent
form anymore, and the quality of today´s books makes it a respectable (the
biggest publisher in the UK is Cape) and popular form among literary
celebrities including Zadie Smith and Nick Hornby (2006, p. 74). Of course,
there are graphic novels designed specifically for children and, on the other
hand, those primarily addressed to adult readers, but most of them – offering
more layers of meaning - appeal to a universal readership. Generally
speaking, visual narratives, such as picture books, or, in our case, graphic
novels, document that the form does not necessarily imply the reader, and
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forms traditionally regarded for children and young adults often aim at a
wider spectrum of readers. However, it must be emphasized that even
though crucial changes in the reception of graphic narratives have emerged,
there are still certain ambiguities around them. For instance, Marjane
Satrapi´s Persepolis – definitely a cross-over book – received awards for
children´s and young adult fiction thus limiting it to this age-specific audience
(it was the winner of the 2004 ALA Alex Award, and was included as a YALSA
Best Book for Young Adults, Booklist Editor’s Choice for Young Adults, the
New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age, and the School Library
Journal Adult Books for Young Adults) (see Malek, 2006, p. 366).
To prove the ambiguous, but also essential, feature of its cross-over
characteristics we will shortly discuss two graphic narratives reflecting the
Iraq invasion in 2003. Both books, namely Mark Alan Stamaty´s graphic novel
Alia´s Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq (2004) and Jeanette Winter´s picture
book The Librarian of Basra: A True Story of Iraq (2005) were inspired by the
2003 rescue of an Iraqi´s library books. As a librarian, Alia Muhammad Baker
(Baqir) managed to smuggle an enormous 70 per cent (30,000 books out of
40,000 books) from Basra Central Library to her home just a couple of days
before the library burnt down. Thematically, both books stress the
importance of cultural heritage and the educative function is rather obvious
(Stamaty´s 32 pages even offer an afterword about historical libraries in the
Middle East which enriches the overall cultural context of the story) and the
books are sometimes recommended as an introduction to the current
conflict. While criticising both books for political incorrectness and bias, ElTamami, in his review, praises specifically the attention given to a minute,
but influential detail from the New York Times article covering the rescue of
books: “One of the most striking details in the original article, a detail that
was incorporated into Alia’s Mission, is that some of the people who helped
to rescue the Basra Central Library collection did not – indeed, could not –
read. Yet somehow they understood the vital importance of what they were
carrying to safety. They rallied to an urgent call, a survival instinct – not of an
individual, but of a cultural collective” (2009, p. 349). Although depicting a
politically extremely sensitive and still current conflict, the books aim
primarily at a young reader. Stamaty himself – quoted in Mattson´s article
comments: “I knew I wasn’t making a political cartoon and I didn’t really want
to introduce some kind of partisan political view” (2005, p. 958).
Consequently, it is quite interesting to observe how the spectrum of readers
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is covered. One would expect that a graphic novel would address older
readers, while Winter´s picture book would be for the younger ones, which is
also supported by Mattson´s comment on Stamati´s book: “His editors were
convinced that the graphic novel form would appeal to the broadest possible
audience and would express the story’s complexities more completely than a
traditional picture book” (ibid., p. 958). On the other hand, in a different
place she also emphasises that “Younger readers will be instantly drawn by
the story's anthropomorphic book emcee, but this sophisticated and timely
work will also appeal to older admirers of Spiegelman's Maus books” (ibid., p.
26). Interestingly enough, in El-Tamami´s review Alia´s Mission is criticised as
“confused about its target audience: combining language which is not
calibrated to a younger readership with an anthropomorphic creature that
would only appeal to very small children” (2009, p. 350). On the other hand,
Winter´s picture book and its wider spectrum of readers is stressed: “In a
couple of deceptively simple pictures and lines, Alia has been introduced, and
her library is established not as a stuffy storehouse where books go to gather
dust but as the gathering place of a dynamic cultural community. The chosen
register of the language is important: it is simple and concise enough to be
understood on the literal level by the very young, but oblique enough
(‘matters of the spirit’) to hold the interest of anyone who wishes to delve
deeper” (ibid., p. 344).
There are many reasons why graphic narratives appeal to readers. We live
in a world of the visual image and young people feel comfortable with the
visually attractive format; graphic narratives are in this way the childrenartefacts born of modern culture. This is not a negative thing; quite the
contrary. No matter how much the advocates of graphic stories talk about
their complexity (and – repeatedly – we do not deny that, and the works
discussed are the best proof for the statement), they are definitely easier to
approach than plain text narratives. This also makes them very appropriate to
concentrate on the issues of cultural difference and the depiction of
multicultural society – hot and sensitive topics about which readers of all
ages should approach and think critically. As Rachel Wilson points out: “With
the multicultural graphic novel, complex stories can be told without the
writer having to trivialize his or her narrative” (2006, p. 33). Regardless of the
popular culture genre status, graphic novels can successfully carry messages
which might, in other contexts, seem either too banal, or too complicated.
The expressive means are simply different, which creates vast possibilities to
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re-tell and re-create in order to offer new perspectives in a cultural sphere
where the word has always had a dominant position. The form itself
inevitably bears specific characteristics and attributes, a fact which may be
used for its own benefits. Nick Hornby also concludes that “It’s not possible,
[…], for a graphic novel to be as patiently and complicatedly internal as the
best fiction, but then, that’s not possible for cinema, either. But the best
graphic novels are punchy, immediately emotional, capable of sudden,
surprising tonal shifts, and more likely to make you laugh than a lot of literary
novels” (Hornby cited in Cooke, 2006, p. 75).
Visual imagery certainly crosses cultures more easily than textual
references, and since the mass spread of comic books in the US there have
been strong attempts to incorporate them into schools and use them as
study material. However, as Gene Luen Yang – the author of American Born
Chinese – mentions, the trend stopped after the research conducted by a
psychiatrist, Frederic Wertham, followed by a book “that basically said that
comics were the cause of juvenile delinquency. After that, in the ‘40s and
‘50s, many comic-book companies went out of business. American society
just kind of abandoned it as a legitimate medium” (Engberg, 2007, p. 75).
Another thing is, as Gene Luen Yang continues, that “ten years ago, people
were predicting the death of the American comic book” (ibid., p. 75), we can
definitely see the rebirth of the genre.
In an extremely rich spectrum of graphic novels for young adults there are
some significant multicultural books which should be pointed out. As Kuhr
and Rosenfeld (2005) observe, Hispanic, African American and other ethnic
characters were present in graphic novels and comic books since time
immemorial. However, until quite recently, their portrayal was racially
biased, and extremely stereotyped. Racially distinct characters held inferior,
degrading positions and they appeared either as supporting characters (the
White Tiger – the Hispanic hero in the Superman series) or team members
(Thunderbird, a Native American cofounder of the X-Men) and Falcon – an
African American appeared in 1969 in Captain America.
We may also note that the portrayal of characters representing other
cultures changed with the spread of cultural encounters in the books as such,
which of course happened parallel with wider social, historical, political and
ideological changes in western society. To emphasize the quality of any visual
narrative on a multicultural topic (in this case, for children and young adults)
El-Tamami summarizes what is essential for a good book: “Two things, I
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believe, are paramount. The first is that the story must succeed on its own
terms as a creative work. Noble intentions alone cannot hold up a poorly
structured piece or flimsy characterization. The second is that it must convey
a quality of ‘openness’. As with any good conversation, the parties involved
do not enter with their minds irreversibly made up and with the sole aim of
imparting their supreme wisdom. To allow for an exchange, the writer must
tread lightly, provoking questions rather than presenting pat answers and
leaving plenty of interpretive and explorative room for the reader. Picture
books, with their uniquely evocative alchemy of words and images, are, in my
opinion, an ideal forum for dialogue” (El-Tamami, 2009, p. 344, emphasis
mine).
In the following part of the study we will introduce a specific genre within
graphic narratives: that of graphic memoirs depicting the culturally
marginalised. The first one is definitely a cult representative of the genre, the
work by Art Spiegelman, Maus. This will be followed by Marjane Satrapi´s
Persepolis (first published in English in 2003) and Alison Bechdel´s Fun Home
(2006). Subsequently, other major publications dealing with multiculturalism
will follow chronologically, including Ho Che Anderson´s King (1993), Judd
Winick´s Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss and What I Learnt (2000) and Gene
Luen Yang´s American Born Chinese (2006).
In The Cambridge Companion to Children´s Literature (2009), the chapters
are preceded with a chronology of the influential works of literature for
children and young adults. Interestingly, Art Spiegelman´s Maus is included,
characterised as “a graphic novel with cross-generational appeal” (xxiv).
Indeed, it is really difficult to label the work which received the 1986 Pulitzer
Prize; it has changed the perception of graphic writing, and has become a key
representative not only of novels in pictures, but also of the serious theme it
discusses. Two volumes, Maus: A Survivor´s Tale – My Father Bleeds History
(1986) and And Here My Troubles Began (1991), capture the Holocaust in a
surprising and untraditional way. A format conventionally suited to a teenage
hobby with made-up grinning monsters, it radically changed the way in which
historically delicate issues might be tackled. The decision for the comic strip
was not an easy one. Struggles are also frequently mentioned in the novel
itself, e.g. when Art thinks about the limits of the picture story: “There´s so
much I´ll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too
complex for comics... So much has to be left out or distorted” (2003, p. 176).
Maus is bitter-sweet, authentic and true – a subjective opinion which one
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soon accepts as a conclusion after reading, an opinion other readers will
easily agree with as well. There are two basic timelines. The first is the
narrative of the author´s parents, the line re-created through the memories
of Art´s father, Vladek – a Holocaust survivor who recalls the tragedy of his
life in which animal animosity is expressed in cartoons with Jews drawn as
mice and Nazis as cats.
The second line of the memoir is the author´s Sisyphean struggle with his
father to get memories from him and put them into comics, but also to come
to terms with Vladek´s difficult personality, his often stubborn and
intransigent attitudes getting on everyone´s nerves, having the manners of
an old man, obsessed with food (not a crumb wasted) and a mania to keep
everything for bad times, including money, so much that it drives people
around him mad. In the third chapter of the second book there is a scene
when – with Vladek in the car – Francoise and Art stop to take a hitchhiker.
Vladek reacts: “A hitchhiker? And – oy – it´s a coloured guy, a shvartser! Push
quick on the gas!” (2003, p. 258). What follows is a waterfall of swearing and
grumbling, and when Art remarks “That´s outrageous! How can you, of all
people be such a racist! You talk about blacks the way the Nazis talked about
the Jews!” it is simply Vladek´s “persuasive” argumentation which proves
that nothing at all could have changed him. This is one of the most powerful
parts of the book. Reality is far from being black and white – and it is all those
darker and brighter hues we must learn about to understand and see the
world clearly.
Marjane Satrapi´s Persepolis: Persepolis I: The Story of a Childhood (2003)
and Persepolis II: The Story of a Return (2004) has gained a strong position
among graphic narrative output, and it has become one of the most popular
books of the graphic memoir genre, ever. The story was first published in
France in 2000 (volumes 1 and 2) selling 20, 000 copies in a single year,
followed by the 2003 volumes 3 and 4 (Persepolis II in English). More than
400, 000 books of the series were sold in France, and over a million
worldwide in the translations which formed two books. After Persepolis was
published in the US in 2003, comparisons to the also black-and-white Maus
by Art Spiegelman were immediately drawn. It did not take long, and the film
version was prepared; directed by Satrapi, with Vincent Parronaud, and with
the voices of Chiarra Mastroianni (Marji), Catherine Deneuve (Marji’s
mother), Danielle Darrieux (grandmother), and Simon Abkarian (Marji´s
father). As Malek explains, the series belongs to the increasing amount of
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literary works which has started to flourish written by members of the Iranian
diaspora, and she characterises them as examples of exile cultural
production: “Community awareness within the Iranian diaspora community
thus established and growing, the coming-of-age of the second generation
has been heralded by the publication of numerous memoirs that have
brought the Iranian diaspora experience to the realm of popular culture”
(2006, p. 353). Furthermore, “qualitative analysis has revealed that many
Iranian exiles/immigrants have, since their migration, become much less
politicized and much more interested in culture” (ibid., p. 358). There are
many reasons for the popularity of the book in which Satrapi´s black-andwhite drawings and simplified illustrations document a coming-of-age story
set on a backdrop to the often misunderstood history of post-revolutionary
Iran. Some of them include a seemingly easy accessibility, quick identification
with Marji, and even as Constantino mentions: “Satrapi’s depiction of Muslim
leaders as uneducated, primitive, and narrow-minded brutes strengthens her
connection with her Western readers whose perception of Muslim extremists
might indeed be quite similar to the one crafted in the autobiography” (2008,
p. 432). Persepolis represents the narrative “in-between”; on one hand it
approaches the exotic and usually ignored exotic setting and educates a
Western reader. On the other hand, as Malek points out, the book is equally
important for the identity formation of the Iranian diaspora: “Undeniably,
along with teaching Westerners about Iran and attempting the much-needed
work of cultural translation and all-identification across cultures, memoirs by
Iranian women have also served the Iranian diaspora by helping the second
and third generations understand their cultural history and diasporic
heritage. During an informal discussion at the most recent International
Conference on the Iranian Diaspora, in Washington, D.C., a self-selected
group who identified themselves as second and third generation IranianAmericans offered interesting responses to the recent Iranian memoir boom
that speaks to this generational significance” (2006, p. 367). The story begins
as a ten-year-old Marji experiences her first encounters with cultural clashes,
witnesses the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the eight-year war with Iraq,
moves to Austria, comes back home after her turmoil stay in Europe, and
finishes as the twenty-four year-old young woman returns to Europe. As
Malek observes further on: “Throughout both of these experiences, the
loneliness, recurring identity crises, and feelings of frustration at feeling
misunderstood everywhere while having a home nowhere become themes of
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exile and return that are wholly relatable, to Iranian and non-Iranian,
immigrant and nonimmigrant readers alike—a success made possible
through the universality of her illustrations” (2006, p. 370). Due to the
general reception of Satrapi´s book, one may consider it a crucial work in the
field of multicultural fiction. A child´s perspective and suggestive visual
means both contribute to the overall appeal of the work to cross-over
readers.
Alison Bechdel´s memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) tackles
the question of sexual identity in the context of a troubled and
unconventional family life. The author´s first graphic novel won extremely
positive acclaim, including Time Magazine’s Best Book of 2006. In the work,
Bechdel depicts a nuclear family, with patriarchal father, Bruce, who wears a
mask of honesty while his daughter´s lesbianism represents a burden she
should inevitably get rid of. Bechdel´s memoir is extensively rich in older and
modern literary allusions, more or less obvious hints referring particularly to
James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde and Albert Camus. Ariela Freedman
observes: “In telling her story, Bechdel explicitly places the graphic narrative
in irreverent, iconoclastic dialogue with literary modernism. In repeatedly
citing, revising and challenging writers including Joyce, Fitzgerald and Proust,
she is inviting the reader to read her book alongside theirs and making a
space for herself on the shelf of modernist literature” (2009, p. 126). The
work, which interweaves Western cultural tradition, melding its mythological
background and Modernist literature with contemporary autobiographical
material, resembles a Joycean attempt, even with the ten years it took
Bechdel to finish the project. The perspective of a woman, and of a lesbian,
has not received positive reaction everywhere and – for instance – American
libraries banned the book because of the explicit pictures of sexual matters.
Bechdel, with her book, tackles the issues of cultural difference which are
often ignored - the reason why the book is included in a chapter on
multicultural graphic narratives for children and young adults. We think that
her memoir may easily get a warm welcome from the cross-over spectrum with teenagers and young adults as potential readers. The abovementioned
protests might – according to us – make the book even more appealing for
these age groups.
A remarkable book appeared in 1993 by an author-illustrator, Ho Che
Anderson, which saw the first part of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
published. King was followed by two consequent volumes in 2002 and 2003.
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The comic-biographies give a detailed account of King´s life, his relationship
with Coretta Scott, and his fight for equality. The second part begins in 1958
and depicts the Birmingham protests, the march on Washington, and the
immortal “I have a dream” speech. The third volume starts with the JFK
assassination, captures the death of King in Memphis, where he went in
support of a garbage-workers´ strike, and questions the present state of
American society where even after a few decades many of the things that
worried King are still there. The black and white drawings used accentuate
the drama, and the comic-book faithfully presents the crucial events of
American history.
In Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss and What I Learnt (2000) Judd Winick, a
professional cartoonist, draws upon his experience of an MTV television
show the Real World 3: San Francisco, first aired in 1994, where seven young
strangers became housemates in a reality show recording their life together.
An autobiographical story, it depicts how Winick meets a young Cuban
immigrant raised in Miami, Pedro Zamora, an HIV-positive AIDS activist and
educator. Becoming HIV-positive at 17, he devoted the rest of his life to
educating others in schools and various public organizations on national
level. The story thus emphasizes the power of friendship and focuses on the
dilemma people feel when facing HIV-positive people. It is interesting how –
despite his politically correct attitude – Zamora confesses his reservations
about living with an HIV-positive roommate before the show started. When
the two meet, they gradually become very good friends and it is eventually
Winick who continues with Pedro´s educatory mission after his death. The
crucial and very emotive scenes are those depicting their friendship as the
show finishes, and Judd with his girlfriend Pam are with Pedro when he dies.
As Pedro had already passed away in 1994, it took Winick a few years to
finish the book which has become not only a tribute to his late friend, but
also a powerful educational tool concerning AIDS awareness. As Winick
emphasises: “There are so many clichés out there about AIDS. I hope that
people will see what a remarkable person Pedro was. I want them to realize
that there are so many people out there like him and that this doesn´t have
to happen – it doesn´t take that much (to prevent the spread of AIDS)”
(Zamora in Maughan, 2000, p. 37).
In 2006 Gene Luen Yang published American Born Chinese, a story of a
young Asian American struggling with his Chinese American identity,
nominated also for the 2006 National Book Award in the Young People´s
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Literature section. There are three parallel stories uniquely interwoven at the
end. The first story is about the Monkey King, a mythical hero from Chinese
folklore, frequently used by Chinese American authors and representing on
the one hand resistance and subversion, on the other hand the bridge
between supposedly distinct cultural worlds. Gene Luen Yang explains his
interest and inspiration for the character, which resembles him, using the
immigrant experience: “In a high-school art class, I drew a picture of the
Monkey King. When I showed it to my mom, she said, ‘You drew it wrong.
The Monkey King always wears shoes.’ I asked why, and she said, ‘Well, he
doesn’t really want people to know he’s a monkey.’ That feeling connected
well with something that I think Asian Americans in particular, and maybe
immigrants to America in general, struggle with” (Engberg, 2007, p. 75). It
was only his story that Gene Luen Yang had wanted to write initially, though
later he decided to put the story into a wider perspective and incorporated
the old myth into the modern world. In the second narrative, Jin Wang
(Danny), a Chinese American boy faces hatred and bullying in a suburban
school where most kids are white; and the third one portrays the highly
satirized Chin-Kee, an amalgam of the worst stereotypes, who visits Danny
and turns his life upside down. Gene Luen Yang also explains why he decided
to make Chin-Kee a sit-com character: “Iconically, the sitcom family is the
ideal American family, in which the characters are living ideal American lives,
things get solved within half an hour, and everything’s funny. I think in lots of
ways that that’s what Asian American kids strive for” (ibid., p. 75). Suggesting
that there are cultural faults on both sides, Gene Luen Yang also emphasises
the universality of the human condition, and making fun of the stereotypes,
he questions the deep-rooted, but often just arbitrary and falsified poses.
Between childhood and adulthood – the case of Chinese Cinderella
The Chinese-American author, Adeline Yen Mah, is probably most wellknown for her autobiographical story depicted in two bestsellers: Falling
Leaves: Return to Their Roots, The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese
Daughter (1997) and Chinese Cinderella: The Secret Story of an Unwanted
Daughter (1999). Her other literary works include Watching the Tree: A
Chinese Daughter Reflects on Happiness, Traditions, and Spiritual Wisdom
(2000), A Thousand Pieces of Gold: A Memoir of China’s Past Through Its
Proverbs (2002) and Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society (2005).
All of them are related to Yen Mah´s life; they reflect author´s cultural
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background and – among other issues – depict her adult experience of being
´the other´ in the foreign cultural milieus of Great Britain and the US. The
texts Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter (1997)
and Chinese Cinderella: The Secret Story of an Unwanted Daughter (1999) tell
the same story using slightly different discourses and language, since their
implied readers differ in age. The former, brought out in 1997, aims at adult
readers while Chinese Cinderella – The Secret Story of an Unwanted Daughter
(1999) is a story for children published after the great success of its
predecessor.
The author Adeline Yen Mah revives the harsh life recollections of a
Chinese girl, hated, unwanted and rejected by the family, a Cinderella for the
modern age. The title of the children´s story suggests the universality of a
folktale-like modern narrative based on the idea that folktales - as rooted in
the shared experience of the past – are part of the universal cultural heritage.
Initially belonging to the world of adult oral narratives, there is still
something enchanting and magical in the universality of the Little Red Riding
Hood or Cinderella stories with very slightly modified structures found in
geographically distinct areas. Though born into a rather well-off family in
Tianjin in 1937, Adeline bears the heavy burden of being the cause of her
mother´s death in childbirth - a bad omen which would haunt her all her life.
Hardly a year passes since the death and – like in a folktale - Adeline´s father
remarries a proud and self-confident Eurasian woman just a few years older
than Adeline. With new stepchildren coming, the family soon breaks into two
strongly divided halves; one privileged, and the other one with Adeline and
her four siblings constantly reminded of their inferior status.
The hatred and jealousy of the new family members turn Adeline into a
quiet but hard-working and studious Cinderella who though she cannot trust
her closest family does everything to be worthy of her father´s pride. The
educative function of Chinese Cinderella is to show that if you try hard, you
can do anything. It also emphasises the meaning of parental love for a child.
For Adeline, her father is the highest authority whose orders must be
accepted. There is a scene in Chinese Cinderella which illustrates this fully.
When Adeline´s father asks her about her future choice of career, she first
answers that she would like to be a writer. Her father refuses, claiming it
would not be not possible since her English language skills are not sufficient
to achieve any success. Both books (international bestsellers) prove the
authority wrong. Here, again, is a significant hidden culture clash: the
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traditions of Chinese society, with its accent on unmistakable parental
authority, opposed to the Western idea of individualism and fulfilling one´s
dreams, which win in this case. Little Adeline excels at school, and to the
great surprise of her father wins an international competition in writing. His
daughter´s success persuades him to agree to studying medicine abroad – the
only way she may escape the web of hatred and overwhelming jealousy.
Chinese Cinderella finishes with a happy ending, as Adeline achieves the
main goal of her childhood, when she proves that she is worthy of her
father´s love, while Falling Leaves takes her story further, describing Adeline
setting up her medical practice in California and finding - after a disastrous
marriage - desired harmony in both private and work life.
There are several fundamental differences - some more, some less
obvious - between the two age-related books. The characters, setting and
style of both books are comparatively alike, differing only in a few minor
aspects. However, there are other issues such as the titles of both books
hinting at the age group of their readers. Falling Leaves – Return to Their
Roots implies a serious attempt to investigate family history, while Chinese
Cinderella stresses the folktale-like character of a children´s narrative.
Similarly, while Falling Leaves provides us with a rich socio-political account
of Chinese history, Chinese Cinderella only gives its simplified version
essential for a child to understand a distinct cultural and political context.
Apart from the factual side of the stories, there is also the difference in
Adeline´s life span covered in the books: the story for adults depicts her life
far into the adulthood, while Chinese Cinderella stops when she gets the
approval of her father to study medicine abroad.
Yen Mah, with her Chinese Cinderella: The Secret Story of an Unwanted
Daughter, belongs to one of the key streams in modern children´s literature
which explores the intercultural world and wide spectrum of cultural
encounter. Young protagonists in such stories are often outsiders, social and
cultural outcasts, likely brought up - in a better case scenario – by a oneparent family, but usually struggling on their own. The work of Adeline Yen
Mah belongs here in a specific way. On one hand, for any Western reader,
Yen Mah´s stories are definitely set in a culturally distinct country; however,
as it is pointed out later, they are rather based on similarity/universality
between cultures than on differences. The stories do not imply Adeline´s
exclusion because of her cultural background in childhood; she suffers as a
family outcast, simply because of her unfortunate status of a half-orphaned
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kid. (Though, there are references to cultural marginalisation in the adult
version – when Adeline moves to Britain and then to the US.) However, the
stories stress another – and more general - dimension of intercultural
discourse and encounter. It is not her personally who is in immediate danger,
but the cultural heritage of her native country, as such: Chinese culture being
threatened and mutilated by Western influence and dominance. A child in
Yen Mah stories notices that Chinese culture and language are marginalised
by the overwhelming influence of English, but experiencing cruelty within her
family, she observes it more or less passively, as if from a distance. It is only
after some years, as a writer who has learnt what is like to be ´the other´,
Adeline points out that all elements of cultural heritage, including language
and history, should be preserved regardless of one´s difficult life conditions.
Interestingly enough, it is the children´s story which focuses on the
importance of one´s cultural background, and identity, to a much larger
extent than the book for adults. With her family background promoting an
international ethos, little Adeline grew up only with very scarce contact with
genuine Chinese culture. Her perspective is highly influenced by the school
she attends: “My teacher Mother Marie says the only way to succeed in the
second half of the twentieth century is to be fluent in English” (Yen Mah, p.
170). She does not like learning Chinese and she often expresses her distaste
for the language: “I’m sick and tired of blindly copying Chinese characters
over and over into my notebook like a robot! I hate studying Chinese!” (…) “I
only want to learn English, not Chinese” (ibid., p. 170). Ye Ye is the only
person who reminds Adeline of the importance of values rooted in the
history of their nation: “You may be right in believing that if you study hard,
one day you might become fluent in English. But you will still look Chinese
and when people meet you, they’ll see a Chinese girl no matter how well you
speak English. You’ll always be expected to know Chinese and if you don’t,
I’m afraid they will not respect you as much” (ibid., p. 171). Ye Ye also in
other places explains that it is important to know the history of one´s country
and suggests that to gain the respect of others, a person cannot be ashamed
of his/her background. Here we find a universal message about one´s cultural
heritage and identity: You should not (cannot) deny your cultural background
because it is a natural part of your identity. In doing so, you would betray not
only your roots, but also yourself.
Adeline Yen Mah´s narratives contain several allusions – direct or indirect
– to the Cinderella folktale, and the children´s version is a modern
116
version/rewriting of the traditional tale which turns autobiographical stories
(in their essence subjective and individual) into folktale narratives (in their
essence true and universal). In the preface of her Chinese Cinderella, Adeline
Yen Mah expresses the significance clearly: “every one of us has been shaped
and moulded by the stories we have read and absorbed in the past. All
stories, including fairy-tales, present elemental truths which can sometimes
permeate your inner life and become part of you” (Yen Mah, p. ix). It is
important to point out that the emphasis put on the universality of the story
makes it attractive for any child, and thus stresses the idea that cultural
awareness is nothing other than discovering universal and common ideas
between distinct cultures.
As it has been already shown in some other examples of texts, literature
about cultural or racial difference often presents education as an important
part of one’s social inclusion and similarly; in Yen Mah´s children´s story there
is a much bigger emphasis put on the value of language, learning, education,
and the already discussed cultural aspect, than in the version for an older
reader. Children’s literature depicts the role of education through two basic
aspects. The first may be the institution of school as the major story setting,
and the place where crucial cultural encounters take place. At school children
have to face them on their own, without parental help. School thus proves to
be the place of the successful, or unsuccessful, inclusion of a child
(Hevešiová, Kiššová, 2008). Other authors concentrate on the importance of
education as the process of gaining knowledge important for life, in a cultural
milieu where the dominant culture is different from their own. In other
words, to be socially accepted by the people of the majority culture, one has
to be educated and vice versa – as the process of education naturally involves
also the people of the dominant culture being educated about the culture of
the minority. In this sense, education is stressed as the means of achieving a
better future for both cultures: for the minority it implies the key to social
recognition and acceptance; for the majority – understanding of otherness
and the realisation that both groups may profit from their coexistence.
School is everything for Adeline. It is the place where social inclusion brings
her happiness: “I was always happy when our rickshaw approached the
imposing red brick building of St Joseph’s. I loved everything about my
school: all the other little girls dressed in identical white starched uniforms
just like mine; the French Franciscan nuns in black and white habits with big
metal crosses dangling from their necks; learning numbers, the catechism
117
and the alphabet; playing hopscotch and skipping at recess. My classmates
made me feel like I belonged. Unlike my siblings, nobody looked down on
me” (Yen Mah, 1999, p. 14). It is the place of predominantly positive
connotations, in strong contrast with the family, as everything she lacks at
home, Adeline gets at school. She experiences success and feels satisfaction
when she is praised for her work: “I was winning the medal every week and
wearing it constantly. I knew this displeased my siblings, especially Big Sister
and Second Brother, but it was the only way to make Father take notice and
be proud of me. Besides, my teachers and schoolmates seemed to be happy
for me. I loved my school more and more” (ibid., p. 16). Adeline, as a modern
Cinderella, wants to be respected, but there is no fair treatment and justice
in the world where her stepmother governs. She feels that her future is
rather dark, but again it is school and education in general which bring hope
for a better tomorrow for her: “But, if I tried to be really good and studied
very very hard, perhaps things would become different one day, I would think
to myself. (…) I must just go to school every day and carry inside this dreadful
loneliness, a secret I could never share” (ibid., p. 63). The emphasis put on
the importance of education and cultural awareness in Chinese Cinderella is
there on purpose, and we suppose that it is highly conditioned due to the age
relatedness of the book. While Falling Leaves is a book for adults about an
adult´s life, Chinese Cinderella is a story with a fundamental message for
children. Ending the story with Adeline´s success of being allowed by the
father to study abroad gives education the priority - and the key to a brighter
future.
Interestingly enough, the story for adults continues with the depiction of
the family hatred and injustice felt by Adeline because of her siblings´
intrigues. As an adult reader, I enjoyed reading Chinese Cinderella much more
than Falling Leaves, maybe for the way in which the two versions show what
the writer considers important for a specific age group, and I was thus a bit
ashamed that the gossipy tale was intended for the older readers. The
children’s story put the emphasis on the importance of writing, language,
knowing one´s historical and cultural background, and concepts such as
family, home and education belonging to universal values. The story for
adults aimed at depicting family hatred and small war-like conflicts among
siblings and the desire for material well-being. It is always interesting for an
adult reader to discover what thoughts adults want to pass down to other
generations. In this way, Chinese Cinderella plays with the universality of the
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folktale modified to coincide with specific trends in contemporary children´s
literature.
Conclusion
Multicultural fiction is – without doubt – one of the most significant and
dominant streams within contemporary literature for children and young
adults, and also includes the cross-over literature phenomenon. The trend
has been obviously shaped by demographic changes, accompanied with the
desire to reflect and educate children in terms of cultural awareness,
tolerance, the ideals of humanity and the politics of equality. Thus, the
educative function and the discussion of cultural issues of such literature
frequently dangerously outgrow its aesthetic function. Censorship has always
been a very delicate and sensitive topic. Yes, we all are interested in what our
children read, and we feel obliged to “protect” them against racist,
misogynist and misanthropic attitudes; however, the whole issue sometimes
goes too far. No one questions the need to be interested in the reading lists
of the young, as books inevitably shape their worldview and make them
aware of the various problems of the world around them. We agree that a
child cannot grasp the complexities of cultural issues and needs an adult
supervisor. But, the danger is that the process of controlling and actually
censoring texts may lead to positive discrimination, and what is much worse
– the deformation of reality and distortion of the truthful picture of the
matter, when bad and unpleasant things are simply not presented. The
approach that one must not offend anyone because this misdemeanour is
automatically related to cultural background is simply not the way. So the
question arises: What solution are we offering here? The answer is obvious.
Critical thinking, the engagement of adults, discussions and particular
attention paid to reception of multicultural literature. The role of adults
(parents, teachers) is in this sense unquestionable; however, not that of
controllers, but of active participants in the debate.
In today´s global world, multicultural literature in English may also serve
as a useful and very illustrative means for Slovak students and pupils. Of
course, in the Slovak context we face slightly different cultural issues;
however, the universal concepts of humanity, democracy and shared cultural
benefits stay the same. That is actually why we strongly support the use of
multicultural literature at all levels of education. Future teachers of English
(at university level) should be aware that such literature exists, and they
119
should know how to make use of it in their classes. For students and pupils at
primary and secondary level of education multicultural literature serves as a
tool for learning English, and at the same time, as a tool for inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, including the significant ethical dimension of the
texts.
The analyses of specific works for children – though still limited if one
considers the vast number of multicultural books published - have shown
that authors´ approaches differ, but they have also some things in common.
From our perspective we observe that there are a few major trends – some
of them closely examined in our study. First, authors often use
autobiographical knowledge (also presented in the visual narratives discussed
above), explain how they experienced cultural clashes and managed to
handle the problems successfully. Second, they address an ‘international
child’, and it is true that it is much easier today than ever before for children
from all over the world to obtain and read literature written for children in
other countries, and thus discover what problems they share, and which
make them unique. Naturally, this dimension is very important in the global
world, as children get a broader context of the world around them. Third
(and most significant) is the fact that it is awareness – cultural, multicultural,
and intercultural - which is generally sought as an essential attribute of an
educated child of the twenty-first century. The work and mission of Beverly
Naidoo focuses precisely on this fact: children should read about problems of
children from other countries to become culturally and socially aware people,
and to prevent any form of future cultural marginalisation and oppression. In
this sense, multicultural fiction prepares children and young adults for life as
we imagine it in the future, though sceptics may note essential utopian
features of the West in the image: a democratic society with human rights,
where marginalisation of any sort would be erased.
Talking so much about the serious issues of life (and multicultural issues
are serious), we should not forget that the fundamental attributes of
childhood include joy and delight and - as a matter of fact - putting too much
pressure on the young, we might easily and undesirably produce the
miniature adults already observed in the past. Following that path, Western
society would gradually change again; interestingly, some of the changes can
already be seen (the process of strong individualisation, money acquisition,
consumer culture and activity on internet social networks are just a few
hints). We think that it is indeed an issue to give some thought, and hence
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let’s keep an open and vigilant eye on the writings for children and young
adults. They tell us much about our desired future, but also reveal the reality
we will eventually deserve.
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Ružomberok: Faculty of Philosophy, Catholic University in Ružomberok, June
24 – 26, 2009, in print.
KIŠŠOVÁ, M.: 2010. “Multicultural Fiction as a Part of the Children´s and
Young Adult Literature University Courses”. Paper presented at Literary and
Cultural Education conference at Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia,
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KIŠŠOVÁ, M. 2009. “Adeline Yen Mah’s Autobiographical Narratives from the
Perspective of A Reader’s Cultural Experience”. Paper at the International
Conference Languages And Cultures In Contact - Then And Now,
Czestochowa, Poland, March 26-28, 2009, in print.
126
LITERATURE AND CULTURE
Anton Pokrivčák et al.
Vydavateľ:
Posudzovatelia:
Jazykový redaktor:
Technický redaktor:
Náklad:
Rozsah:
Formát:
Rok vydania:
Tlač:
UKF Nitra
Doc. PaedDr. Silvia Pokrivčáková, PhD.
Doc. PhDr. Jaroslav Kušnír, PhD.
Marcos Perez
Anton Pokrivčák
80 ks
127 strán
A5
2010
Vydavateľstvo Michala Vaška, Prešov
ISBN
EAN
978-80-8094-790-3
9788080947903
127