Wide Sargasso Sea; "language"

How is the issue of  “language” reflected in "Wide Sargasso Sea"? Is it a block or a border between two groups, or a means of communication between different cultures?

Firstly, it is for sure that language in this novel is not a simple medium to transfer the emotions, desires and opinions as a whole. Rather, it symbolizes the social strata in which the character is; that is we, as readers, understand that this character belongs to this category because he or she speaks in a different dialect whether for worse or for better. For instance, we immediately identify Christophine with her patois dialect as we do the same in the case of Rochester although he is unnamed in the novel.

We see the strong force of language throughout the novel; because it is as if having a mirror function which reflects the effects of language on people through bias, lies and gossips. For instance, let us think of the dialogues between  Antoinette and her husband and Amelia or Christophine. There is not any problem in the communication between the partners; but Rochester remarks his detest for their dialects. He says that “Christophine’s coffee is delicious but her language is horrible; she is a very worthy person no doubt, but I can’t say I like her her language.” In another passage, he directly thinks that he does not trust to these people as Antoinette does. Besides their outlooks, he is under the strong impression of language.

As we regard the label of “mad” which is given to the mother of Antoinette, we come to the same conclusion that “language” is the utmost importance which  may have result in disastrous effects on every single person. Anette is sent away from her daughter Antoinette and is not allowed to see either her neighbours or her family. Christophine says that she may not be mad; but after such a treatment, she gives up struggling and be a “mad” which is a role cut by other people through the language.

We also see  different versions of the “truth” of Antoinette’s family experiences. Later in the story, Daniel writes a letter to Rochester informing him of the “real” aim of the family and his wife. However, when we listen to Antoniette’s version, we see that it sharply contrasts with the previous one. In this point, language does not serve as a facilitative medium; rather, it is presented as a “power” which causes discrepancies and scandals to block the communication between peoples.

In another part, Rochester calls Antoniette as “Bertha”, because he is fond of the name. Antoniette sees it as an effort to “make her into another person”. We clearly know that this can not be materialized in fact. However, remembering the “mad” label cut for her mother Anette, she gradually becomes that mad woman. Therefore, there is the definite effect of the language which is used in a community to “shape” its inhabitants. Language, as we see in the case of Antoinette and her mother throughout the novel, is the most effective way in forming the direction of  peoples' life styles. 

Wide Sargosso Sea, Part I

In the first part of the novel "Wide Sargosso Sea" written by Jean Rhys, we witness the simple portrait of a child with her family. According to my own interpretation of these sixty pages I studied, this is a different view from the previous novel which we have studied, "Heart of Darkness" in that this is not a voyage taken to the deep forests and islands on the board in Africa. Rather, what we see is a child who struggles to live with this "scar" of being humiliated by the other people living in the same state. Jean Rhys narrates the story from the eyes of a child; that is, from the eyes of an  individual. What we can understand from the novel is that we hear the voice by "herself" rather than a third person narrative which takes place in "Heart of Darkness". "She" speaks, in this one, about her emotions, about being the center of hatred, humiliation and injustice.

The similar point between those two novels is that they both underscore the racial inequality and injustice which have been experienced in the past- and we know still it is going on in other forms. That is, the theme of these novels is the same; they explore the issue of race and racism and its implementation upon innocent people. However, the narrative  techniques differ greatly according to each other. We have different protagonists, for example. Whereas, in "Heart of Darkness" we have Marlow travelling and narrating the experiences he undergoes in Congo; in "Wide Sargosso Sea" a girl named Antoinette Mason narrates the story. Compared to each other, then, we can interpret this one as an account given by a "female" rather than by a male point of view.

Lastly, I want to add that "Wide Sargosso Sea", reading up the second part, has attracted my attention much more than "Heart of Darkness", with its characterization, and with its plot. It is not stable and more flowing.

W.G. Sebald, Rings of Saturn, Chapter 5

In the text of "Rings of Saturn" in its fifth chapter, we see all the phases of Conrad's life with every single detail. It is a comprehensive account even if there are some parts of Conrad's life that are unknown to the contemporary readers.

Firstly, the point that draws my attention while reading the text  is that Conrad goes through an unhappy period of childhood. Because he loses his mother Evelina from tuberculosis in exile and his father Apollo in the spring which later causes him to be orphaned. That should be the point to be kept in our minds.

As the narrator suggests, Conrad acquires his "unfamiliar" language which enables him to be famous all over the world. We learn that Conrad himself is a seaman in his private life. Therefore, it can be said that he takes the subject of his famous novel "Heart of Darkness" from his individual experiences. He always travels, for example to Poland, Ukraine, Africa and Congo. He is the first person who undergoes those experiences in Congo, rather than relating from a third person's point of view.

It is interesting that Conrad most probably gets the idea of colonialism during these voyages. Because he writes in a letter to his aunt about the ocean, sky and green vegetation in those regions that could not be reached by the eye, and about the gun-firings into the African continent "with neither purpose nor aim".

After seeing many places, he arrives at Congo finally. Conrad describes the situation in which the natives are; they- these nameless victims- die of several diseases, starvation and physical exhaustion. Then, he becomes ill and returns to his home, adding that: "life for people gradually become more tolerable." This is a sharp contrast drawn again between Congo -Africa in general, and Europe.

Edward Said, "Two visions in Heart of Darkness", Culture and Imperialism

Edward Said analyses two issues  of “culture” and “imperialism” and their interrelation affecting each other in his article named “Two visions in Heart of Darkness, Culture and Imperialism”. In relation with Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness”, I am planning to underscore the several important points in Edward Said’s article and the novel itself “Heart of Darkness” in this essay.

Edward Said begins his essay with an outstanding paradox in the ways Marlowe behave while narrating his voyage to the heart of Africa. Depicting their heartbreaking situation;  their being hungry as a wolf, their being thin and weak , he objectively gives  account of what he sees  with these native inhabitants, saying that “They were dying slowly, it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation…”.  However, he also mentions the enormous power of Mr. Kurtz throughout the novel up to his death. He seems as if to be fascinated by his authority to oppress the native peoples. This is also the point which draws my attention at first sight. Because it is controversial, it can be interpreted from both sides. I can clearly say that this dilemma makes me think of an alternative narrative method used by Joseph Conrad to encourage the reader to philosophize over the “facts” deeply. This “enormous” power of Mr. Kurtz may  symbolise the deeper meaning beneath the word; Europeans’ imperial acts to colonize more and more non-Western, non-Christian people.  Because, in another passage, we understand that all European point of view is the same with Kurtz’s. "All Europe  conributed to making of him.” Joseph Conrad, then, by using this power relationship throughout the novel seems to imply that this “work” will never end as long as  human nature and his characteristics continue to exist such as greed and underestimation of others, unless there is a radical change.

In another point, in relation with the previous paragraph, I do not agree with Edward Said’s comment about Marlow who “misstates” the situation in the land. We talked in our sessions, too, that they fire “into a continent” meaninglessly, but not to a specific person or people. We see Marlow’s friendly attitude towards natives from the beginning of the novel. For instance, he shares the biscuit in his pocket with the native man and feels sorry for him. In another passage, he directly says that: " It was unearthly, and the men were- No, they were not inhuman. What thrills you is just the thought of their humanity, just like yours." Thus,  I think Marlow remains  objective and realistic in his narration of natives, because he self-consciously  does not draw an “imaginary”, non-existent land   in contrast to Edward Said’s view.

In Edward Said’s article, another interesting passage including the other “part”: Iranian intellectuals and their interpretation of colonialism in the  statement “ The West is an enemy, a disease, an evil.” strikes my mind. In return, just as Marlow or Mr. Kurtz does in “ The Heart of Darkness” , they depict  a “black” man who journeys to a white ragion. In order to compare or contrast, this narrative voice should also be analysed in a different manner.   

Edward Said concludes his essay by adding the view of  most post-colonial writers about the past, their seeing it as a scar which certainly have effects on their future. He comes to conclude that- and I sincerely agree with-  those people have been misrepresented throughout the ages and their intellectual powers or capacities to write and read have been underestimated, with several examples of Rushdie, Derek Walcott or Aime Cesaire etc.

A programme for comparative ethnology, Bartolome de Las Casas

Anthony Pagden, in his analysis, examines and compares de Las Casas' work with his other contemporary counterparts. As we see in his other article "Devastation of Indies", in contrast to what  many other historians do, he tries to "prove" the exact situation of those "barbarian" people in his novel "The Natural Fall of Man"  that we are actually all same in our roots, even if there are certain cultural and sociolagical differences. Pagden says that Las Casas is aware of the problem of classification, because people are categorized as "barbarians" according to whether they are Christians or not, or whether they have similar cultural features or not, or just because of the idea that if they possess the same thing which they held. He criticizes the way people are categorized as "barbarians" according to Americans because of such simple causes.

To speak of the connotations of the word "barbarian", Las Casas says that there are multiple references of this word which can be understood by  different cultures in a very different manner. He makes a realistic comment in his sentence: " This sort of barbarians can be found even in finest polities." In addition, Pagden talks about the "language" issue because it has very important effects upon societies to be regarded as civilized and modern, according to the classification of Las Casas. We know that language is the unique medium through which people do understand and dominate over each other. In the text, along with Siculus, Vitruvius and Condillac, he gives a reference to Rousseau who gives a special importance to the role of language in the creation of a civilized society. Just as outside the society, there cannot be a system of language, without a language there cannot be thought of a modern society.

To continue with, Aquinas argues for another connotation of the word barbarian. He says that, it means foreigness or rather strangeness to a certain people. That is, there is the perception among people that if a person is stranger to another  person, then he is possibly barbarian.

At another point, Las Casas puts himself in a paradoxical situation. At first, he is impressed by Homer and by his thoughts about those people, their inability to know friendship or to socialize. They neither live in communities and cities, nor they have "proper" marriage rites. Rather, those people live in woods alone as wild animals do. Here we may question their barbarism defined by those criterias as nobody has to live in cities and communities, to have the same rituals, traditions and cultural features and patterns. However,   he also claims that those Indians are "legimate" because they rule each other according to custom and the law even before their conquest by Europeans.

Las Casas points out that "Such creatures exist, but their number must be very small just as heroes or demi-gods are rare." In this point, Las Casas, arguing for the scarcity of those "barbarians",  approves of the assertion of the perfectibility of God's creation. I think that this may be interpreted as the acceptance of imperfections God has in itself when analyzed from a theologican point of view. And we know that it cannot be true.

Finally, Las Casas observes that, "Had the Indians not been fully rational beings, it is inconceivable that they would have been able to create such a polity." They may lack the ability to write or read, but this is not because of their being unskilled, They are skilled very much but they are not educated. As Democrates puts it out, "The Indians are not bears or monkeys, wholly lacking in reason."

All "that" thing we are talking and talking about originates from the injustice between people  in several different aspects of educational and sociological devices through which "we" are regarded as civilized or not.

The Devastation of the Indies, A Brief Account, by Bartolome de Las Casas

The Devastation of the Indies
A Brief Account
by Bartolome de Las Casas

SHORT SUMMARY:


Bartolome de Las Casas, in this article, talks about two opposite peoples: Indians and Spaniards in relation to their "life style" in general, making specific comparisons between the native inhabitants and the newcomers to the land which makes us think a deeper meaning of the question which people are more civilized or barbarian than others. He says that after the exploration of the Indies by Christians, most islands begin to be destroyed enormously as he implies in the headline: "The Devastation of the Indies". For example; he gives the example of the island which is called Hispaiola and its population, the number of its inhabitants before and after the discovery of the Indies. Because of the violent, bloody and cruel actions of Christians towards the native inhabitants, the population decreases and people- old women, children, babies- are killed in those wars or if they survive, they become slaves under the control of "noble" Christians according to their ranks in the society. Additionally, he mentions, in his writing, about the five kingdoms that once upon a time existed there, and how they been treated by Christian peoples and their kings.
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Bartoleme de Las Casas tells his own experiences with those native Indians and their relationship with Christians through his article named "The Devastation of Indies". The first thing that draws the attention, throughout his short account of what has really happened in Indies, is that he never becomes a "partial" narrator. He describes what he sees and witnesses there. Thus, we can say that he is a more reliable narrator compared to Montaigne's article, in that he "mirrors" the facts and the true virtues of Indians such as their being humble, patient, peaceable and helpful. Las Casas gives many specific details about native Indians: their being poor but clean, their intelligence but never being arrogant. He even praises the native inhabitants saying that: ".. the goodness of the Indians is undeniable and that if this "gifted" people could be brought to know the one true God they would be the most fortunate people in the world."


Just after describing how actually well virtues Indians have, he turns to Spaniards and makes a sharp distinction between the two  communities. Whereas Las Casas disscusses the "honourable and chaste" charactestics of Indians, he associates Spaniards with ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions. And the following sentence is more interesting which says: " Spaniards have behaved in no other way during the past forty years, down to the present time, for they are "still" acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing and destroying..."


In another passage, he clearly says that these Christians devastates this fertile land and exterminates the rational inhabitants. To make a radical comment and draw the reader's attention, he tells about how much these native people are innocent and blameless. He says: "They regarded the Spaniards as angels from Heaven. Only after the Spaniards has used violence against them, killing, robbing, torturing, did the Indians ever rise up against them." In another sentence, Las Casas talks about their being vulnerable against the Spaniards' cruel actions. He gives the example of people's taking precautions by saying: "... others concealed their wives, and children and still others fled to the mountains to avoid the terrible transactions of the Christians." The thing de Las Casas forgets to say in this sentence is to add "have to". Under these circumstances, those native Indians have to flee away, and leave their houses.


Near the middle of the article, Bartolome de Las Casas mentions about his own experience which he perceives with his own eyes. Just because these "barbarious" people make such loud screams while they are burned- which is so natural to scream loudly while being burned alive- and thus their screams disturb the captain's sleep, they are sentenced to be strangled. However; the executioner does not obey to this order and donates these people, and decides to put a stick over the victims' tongues. This may be interpreted as a relatively "pleasant" action compared to other previous tortures done  by Christians. At the end of that paragraph, de Las Casas says that "I saw all these things I have described, and countless others". De Las Casas makes the similar comments throughout his writing, from beginning to the end. He says again in relation with this: "There were countless people that I saw burned alive or cut to pieces or tortured in many ways of killing pain."


To underline another significant point, these native Indians are totally defenseless, and vulnerable to every single dangerous attack by the Spaniards. When Indians flee to mountains, these inhuman, cruel Spanish captains pursue them with fierce dogs to attack and tear them into several pieces. In addition to that, if  Indians kill only one Christian, they would kill a hundred Indians in return.  This is the misconception of our modern times that one individual feels himself superior to other, this one to that, that one to this; thus there occurs hierarchical relationships which can not be changed easily.


Near the end of this article, de Las Casas makes another interesting comment about Christians' another terrific action towards Indians. After taking the exiled king of India, Christians send him in a vessel to another place. But many Christians are drowned along with the king. The significant point is that there were very huge amount of gold in the shipwreck and the comment made by de Las Casas points out the real condition: "Such was God's vengeance for so many terrible injustices."


Bartolome de Las Casas gives another example of the real situation that is true in Indies. A king named Behechio and his sister Anacona make great services to Christians and they are beneficted from these deeply as they avoid innumerable dangers and remain alive. However, Christians come back to the island with a cavalry force behind. The native people were shut in a house and burned alive. Moreover, the helpful sister was hanged as a apecial "honor" in return.


We saw that Christians acted cruelly against Indians many many times without any reasonable cause. They tortured, killed, hanged, burnt alive these innocent people. How can Christians justify themselves of their inhuman actions towards Indians? How could they be the "teachers" who declares to teach moral and religious virtues to thesse people? How could they be caretakers of souls? Are Christians caretakers of  their own souls? Didn't those people kill countless people just because they are not caretakers of their souls? Bartolome de Las Casas answers all of my questions in his article and says: "Were I to describe all this and the buffetings and beatings and birchings endured by Indians at their labors, (at their own country) no amount of time and paper could encompass this task!" And de Las Casas ends his article with a direct criticism of those people who think themselves as the peak of all mountains over the world: ".. wherever they have landed, the Christians have always committed atrocities against Indians, and have added worse and more cruel acts." For sure, he implies that they have not stopped throughout the history, and they will not stop in the future either.




Hande ÇAKIR

SADECE VAZGEÇMEYİ BİLDİM - CAN YÜCEL

 

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SADECE VAZGEÇMEYİ BİLDİM


Asla sevmediğim birine seni seviyorum demedim,

Ya da asla birini severken karşılığını beklemedim.

Dostluğuma değer biçmedim,sevgime ise hiçbir zaman sınır çizmedim.

Sevdiysem sonuna kadar gittim, bitirdiysem öldürse de hasreti geriye dönmedim.

Bazen çok kırıldım, bazen belki de kırdım.

Ama hata insana mahsustur dedim.

Affettim, af diledim.

Kimileri birden fazla kırdılar kalbimi ama ben onları yinede affettim.

Onlar belki beni saflıkla yargıladılar.

Belki de içten içe sinsice güldüler.

Ama asıl unuttukları şuydu;

Ben aldanmadım..!

Aldanan her zaman kendileri oldular ama bunu anlayamadılar.

Bir insan kaybının ne olduğu bilemedikleri için,

Kaybetmek onlar için bir alışkanlık haline geldiği için.

Oysa ben hiç insan kaybetmedim.

Sadece zamanı geldiğinde vazgeçmeyi bildim o kadar..
CAN YÜCEL

Kadın kalbi mezar gibidir; giren dışarı çıkmaz. Erkek kalbi bakkal gibidir; giren çıkanın hesabı olmaz.

Virginia Woolf

ÜÇ TÜR KİŞİLİK...

" Herkesin üç kişiliği vardır : Ortaya çıkardığı, sahip olduğu, sahip olduğunu sandığı... "

-Alphonse Karr-