Riassunto esame Cultura e Letteratura Inglese I, prof. Polopoli, libro consigliato Cambridge, Caryl Philips

The novel is set in an unnamed small Caribbean island during a transitional period, between the

abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the emancipation of the slaves in 1834. The novel is made

up of three different chapters, framed by a Prologue and an Epilogue, told from Emily’s point of

view. Cambridge’s story occupies the central chapter of the novel. The narrative of the colonized

occupies the central space of the text, while the colonizers’ narrative filled the margins. The novel

structure questions the idea of centrality and marginality.

Text structure:

• Emily Cartwright’s first-person narrative; Emily’s narrative is the first and the longest. It

takes up over two thirds of the novel and it takes up form of a journal, which contains her

impressions. She was an English woman, 30, unmarried; she lived in England and went to

the Caribbean to supervise her father’s plantation and to escape an arranged marriage to a

much old man. She intends to stay in the Caribbean no longer than three months. Emily

initially sympathized with the liberal agenda of the anti-slavery campaign but later she

changed her mind. She uncritically developed the racist ideology of the plantation, giving up

her liberal ideas.

Emily starts her “adventuring” (p.8) as an abolitionist, condemning the “iniquity of slavery” (p.8).

She begins to write her observations in a journal precisely to instruct her father as to as the “pains”

endured “by those whose labour enables him to continue to indulge himself in the heavy pocketed

manner to which he has become accustomed” (p.7). At first, she has a critical but balanced view of

absentee landlords who like her father, derive huge profits of their Caribbean plantations without

visiting them.

Emily’s attempt to convert her father to the abolitionist cause can be interpreted as her attempt to

escape her destiny. She wants to escape from the English society, the “lonely regime which

fastened her into backboards, corsets and stay to improve her posture. The same friendless

regime which advertised her as an ambassadress of grace.” (p.4).

In a sense, Emily, too is a slave by the patriarchal system, where men dominate and subdue

women, who have no right to speak. This makes Emily and Cambridge strangely close. Like black

slave, Emily is a profitable exchange for her father. They both stay in the margins because of

gender and race. It also dismantles the dichotomizing barriers erected between the two narratives,

Emily’s and Cambridge’s one. These two narratives are representative of the Empire, from different

point of view. They are separated because they belong to two different characters, but they are not

completely divided, because they interact. They are both exiles, victims of white male supremacy.

In other words, her indictment of the institution of slavery abroad is an oblique form of protest the

regime of gender at home. This patriarchal regime dictates that she marries on her return from the

West Indian plantation a fifty-year old prosperous widower with three children to ensure her father’s

future. The “Prologue” equates marriage with “the rude mechanics of horse-trading.” (p. 4) To

Emily, her arranged marriage is nothing less than “a mode of transportation through life.” (p.3)

However, Emily is sceptical of the “abstract” (p.8) beliefs of the abolitionists. No sooner does she

enter the “dark tropical unknown” (p. 22), escorted by the plantation bookkeeper, then she

uncritically adopts a pseudo-scientific tone: “There are many shades of black, some of which

signify a greater acceptability than others (…) The lighter the shade of black, the nearer to

salvation and acceptability was the negro. A milkier hue signified some form of white blood, and it

should be clear to even the most egalitarian observer that the more white blood flowing in a

person’s veins, the less barbarous will be his social tendencies.” (p 25)

With the pseudo-scientific tone she adopts, she expresses not the truth but her personal point of

th

view. Her narrative can be considered as a euro-dominated one. It is an example of 19 century

colonial writing, because colonial people used to take journal where used to describe what they

saw.

Emily tries to be a neutral observer, using rhetorical strategies of the perfect scientist, in order to

sound objective and truthful. However, in colonial writing, the notion of absolute objectivity is false

and it’s used to construct a Eurocentric perspective. Emily: ‘as is commonly known’ p. 24; ‘I am led

to believe’ p. 28; ‘it should be clear’ p. 25; “The gentleman informed me, in a short but edifying

lecture, that the true natives of this region were of an Indian origin (hence the name West Indies).

Sadly, they were discovered to be too troublesome and unused to European ways and has to be

dispatched.” P. 24.

Despite her objective formulation, her words contain her subjectivity. She never questions white

superiority but she always takes it for granted. She always uncritically accepts historical facts and

events that white men tell her, without investigate about their truth.

As a would-be scholar, her diligent report reveals an uncritical mind rather than an investigative

mind.

When Emily describes black people what she usually does is to employ a zoological vocabulary.

Her choice of words and terms is not innocent and limited to the European world view. In front of

the unknown she describes it using a European code.

Still on a carriage on her way to the plantation, she comes across “a number of pigs (…), and after

them a small parcel of monkeys.” But what she has taken for pigs and monkeys are “nothing other

than negro children, naked as they were born, parading in a feral manner” (pp. 23-4). She

repeatedly associates the black inhabitants of the island with the animal kingdom and classifies

them as subhuman. In negating their humanity, she constructs the slaves different from white

people and their unredeemable savagery.

Emily’s point of view expresses an idea of identity and culture, that is fixed. The colonizers role

was that of making black people civilized. She refers to slave homes as “narrow nests” (67) and

the noises coming from the slave village as a distant “braying” (32). Observing the black people’s

favourite pastime of dancing after sunset, she comments as follows: “their movements appeared to

be wholly dictated by the caprice of the moment” (p. 44)

Throughout the text there are many examples of Emily’s reflections about her changing ideas, and

in this way, she constructs black people otherness. She reacts to the unknown, by building their

difference, using, and creating stereotypes. The colony and its inhabitants are constructed in

Emily’s mind, which mirrors the European mind.

“I looked on with revulsion as these cannibals clamoured to indulge themselves with this meat, and

I wished that with the growth of civilisation in the negro, the gorging of such unacceptable swinish

parts might soon cease” (p. 44)

Emily casts a disapproving look upon black people’s passion for wearing extravagant clothes on

Sundays and festive occasions. She prefers to see “the negroes, male and female, in their filthy

native garb, for in these circumstances they do not violate laws of taste which civilized people have

spent many centuries to establish.” (p. 66)

The eating habits of the slaves make Emily be convinced that they are below or beyond what she

considers properly human and that’s why she feels this hate towards them, their cultures, and their

habits. For Emily, their half-nakedness is itself sign and symptom of sexual intemperance: “Negro

relations would appear to have much in common with those practised by animals in the field, for

they seem to find nothing unnatural in breeding with whomsoever they should stumble upon.” (p.

36) • Cambridge’s first-person narrative is in the form of a spiritual testament. He recounts his

life, his childhood in the Africa where he grows up as Olumide. He was kidnapped and

carried off to the coast, survived the Middle Passage and was immediately returned to

England where he serves as “Black Tom” (Thomas) in a rich man’s household, Pall Mall.

There he met the Christian faith thank to Miss Blackheath, who renamed him as “David

Henderson” and married a white servant, Anna. Freed after the death of his master, he

received an unexpected inheritance from his master and then decided to set out to do

missionary work in Africa, in order to spread the Christian message and the laws of

civilization.

He was kidnapped again and carried to America; there, he was purchased by Mr Wilson, manager

of the plantation, who renamed him Cambridge, and made him work as a common slave. During

this period, he became attached to Christiana, a black woman, born on the plantation, whose

mother died and father left her. She was married at the age of ten to an older man, who treated her

brutally while she refused to produce children. Eventually the man was moved to another

plantation and she remained alone. She was unable to talk to everybody except Cambridge, who

later took her as his wife. She developed a deep interest for the African pagan religion and became

an obeah.

Then, Mr Wilson was moved from the plantation by Mr Brown, who offered Cambridge the position

of Head Driver. Since he refused, Mr Brown could not tolerate his disobedience and between the

two started a conflict. Also, Christiana because of her madness, thought of herself as the mistress

of the Great House, causing fear among the other black people, while Mr Brown tolerate this

behaviour. The arrival of Emily caused Christiana pain because of the lack of attention of Mr

Brown, engaged in love affairs with Emily. So, the woman began to annoy the Englishwoman and

the servants of the house, becoming more mad and frightful every day. Cambridge wanted to talk

to Mr Brown and ask him to stop tormenting his wife; however, the discussion resulted in a struggle

and Mr Brown died. Then Cambridge was hanged for the murder.

Cambridge’s life story occupies the central position between the first and the second chapters. This

is a paradox because he doesn’t belong to the centre but to the margins. It opens and closes with

the words: “Pardon the liberty I take in the burdening myself with these hasty lines.” P. 133, 167.

It’s as if Cambridge apologies for his introduction into the European history. The ideas of

marginality and centrality are presented in order to be questioned. Cambridge’s focal position is

also reflected in the title. What Philips does is to question the logic of imperialism and colonization,

euro-centric culture, showing that the boundaries between colonizers and colonized disappear,

influencing each other.

Post-colonial writers look at the world with transnational eyes,