Discerner of Hearts: An Afro-Caribbean Discourse - Essay Example

Discerner of Hearts: An Afro-Caribbean Dis Introduction As Ralph Ellison once d that “it is not culture which binds the people who are ofpartially African origin now scattered throughout the world, but an identity of passions” (Olaniyan, 1995: 3). Living up to this adage is a writer who professed that she is devoting her life to represent the Caribbean people as genuine people, with aspirations, anticipations, fears and audacity, just like any other group of people across cultures. Olive Senior wrote one of her literary masterpieces entitled Discerner of Hearts to prove her established reputation as an advocate of the Diaspora of the Caribbean culture. The novel, narrated different stories of Caribbean ways of life, particularly in relation to the group’s attempt to create their self-identity on foreign lands. African-Caribbean cultural identity is demonstrated in the novel as an overall individual identity as well as attributed as a feature of the community. Moreover, African-Caribbean cultural identity, as illustrated in the novel, emphasized the commonalities among Afro-Caribbean people over time and across space. As shown by the different characters in the novels, identities have changed during periods of adjustment. For the individual, the repercussions are also reflective. There have been arrays of themes explored in the novel such as code switching and the importance of expressiveness, as well as other qualities of identity management. These can be viewed as components of the enduring and dynamic nature of identity as Afro-Caribbean preserve a sense of self while adapting to challenging situational difficulties. Furthermore, it can be assumed from the content of the novel that cultural identity will be more or less significant for individuals, particularly with respect to the Afro-Caribbean childrens’ worldview, and in specific circumstances. Hence, an Afro-Caribbean may be distressed by behaviour that pressures cultural identity in a position in which this identity is not specifically prominent. To sum it up, the novel placed stress on these particular themes in the outlook of the Afro-Caribbean children: Afro-Caribbean children and youth, education, parenting styles, Afro-Caribbean comradeship, dating, and marital bonds Furthermore, one of the most exploited themes in Olive Senior’s novels is “gardening” as a symbol of the need for identity distinctions and dynamic communications, positioning the garden as a representation of an ambivalent past, breathing space of colonial segregation and postcolonial heredity. Afro-Caribbean Children and Youth Race, gender and social status are important elements of Afro-Caribbean identity. The racial perspectives that are formed developed among Afro-Caribbean adolescents contribute to their self-identity and intercultural affairs. Afro-Caribbean children are indeed, as the novel is concerned, introduced to the concept of race early in life. Some declare this consciousness takes place before the age of 5 and others argue that this acculturation starts beyond the age of 5 (Hecht et al, 2003). Youngsters’ racial awareness is manifested by childlike questions such as “Am I a Negro/Negra?” and remarks like “Mother, I want to be white-skinned and I want my hair to be straight.” These may be aggravated by plain acts such as touching another person’s hair and latently observing the various texture of it. In the story “Zig-Zag”, the three adolescents, Sadie, Manuela and Muffet have been too much preoccupied by the appearance of their hair in their role playing games. The conversation between Sadie and Muffet while they were playing the “Queen of Hyacinth” illustrated the importance of the hair in the formation of their self-identity. Sadie did not allow Muffet to play the role of the princess because she believes that, “queens and princesses have good hair” (Senior, 1995: 159). Also, another scene which vividly narrates the fight between Sadie and Manuela because of the latter’s refusal to comb the thick and frizzy hair of the former showed the superficial racial definition of Manuela, which is quality services are only conferred to the white people who have straight, soft and flowing hairs. Afro-Caribbean Education Academic failure or lack of interest in studying posited by the Afro-Caribbean children, which is also evident in the novel may be connected to their sensitivity towards the issue of race. It can be assumed that the Afro-Caribbean youth have become excessively paranoid and as a consequence, no longer take liability for their decisions, actions, and academic performance. The young characters in the novel possess similar attitude when it comes to their objective of bettering their lives, which is to blame all their failures on Whites, including disappointments in their personal lives. However, it can be noted from the story that these children are also extremely eager to travel and reside to foreign lands to acquire the quality education they thought will alleviate them from poverty. For instance, when Jesse went to the United States, everybody was exited except for Bridgette who also dreams of studying abroad. Likewise, Sadie bereaved the news that Muffet will be studying in Europe because it will only prove her educational insufficiencies early on her life. Moreover, for the Afro-Caribbean children who are able to study even in rather remote places, performing well in school is not a primary importance because for them it is not popular to be intellectual. Following this assumption, it can be said the Afro-Caribbean children perceive kids that are smart as nerds or as an attempt to be recognized ‘White’. In the story, the children seem to be oblivious of their future because they focus more on socialization through playing role playing games and observing the activities people around them. As for the case of Gerlie, because of what she witnessed on her Uncle Johnny, which is the sudden transformation from a smart, decent and upright man to a man who seems to be having problems in sustaining his sanity. Gerlie, instead of feeling excitement when she finally went to England to study, felt anxiety and apprehension because of what she observed from her Uncle Johnny. Afro-Caribbean Parenting Styles Family life has a momentous influence on youth development and is a primary Afro-Caribbean institution, as can be observed in the novel which commonly combines the nature of family ties with the future direction of the protagonists’ decisions and actions. However, one of the most evident aspects of family life explored in the novel is the strength of the multi-network family structure of Afro-Caribbean. There is something exceptional supplemented to the family environment when mutual relationships or collective support from extended family members become frequent. Grandparents, particularly grandmothers, are usually caregivers themselves, despite of their ripe age. Grandparents who are in good physical shape are inclined to assist their sons and daughter with child nurturing and may entirely take the responsibility of child care when their children are incapable of doing so. In the novel, two instances prove this tendency of grandparents to takeover the rearing of their grandchildren if the parents are absent; Gran and Girlie in the story “The Case against the Queen”, and Ma Lou and Devonshire in the story “Windows”. These two cases of grandparents and grandchildren living together in a healthy and tightly-knit familial relationship are evidences from the novel which support the argument that indeed, grandparents play a significant role in the upbringing of Afro-Caribbean children. On the other hand, the eldest members of the family are generally acknowledged as the assigned custodians of shared knowledge and experience, family historian, and the most sensible and astute members of the family. Uncle Johnny is one of the characters in the novel which symbolizes the functions of the eldest sibling in the family. Being such, he was looked upon by his parents to be the wisest and the most promising of the siblings. Hence, he was sent to England to study medicine and came back in their hometown as a madman. Another is Jesse, who was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in the United States to study and to find a well-endowed husband. Normally, the eldest among siblings are the ones sent abroad to study because the family believes that they possess the necessary qualities to success which then will alleviate the family from poverty or any other hardship. Hence, Afro-Caribbean children in the novel see being the eldest among siblings as a necessary burden because they are expected to possess all the necessary qualities that would confer success to their family. However, being the youngest in the family can also be viewed by them as a disadvantage because they are always left behind when it comes to educational and financial support from the family. Moreover, the church serves a prime function in enhancing the relationships between parents and kin networks. For the Afro-Caribbean, the church is not merely a place of spiritual renewal. The well-built religious orientation of conventional Afro-Caribbean families is suggestive of a collective orientation, a fundamental necessity to gather and establish fellowship with individuals who share similar beliefs and values. In the story “The Glass Bottom Boat”, Sybil Pearson’s life was ruined not profoundly because of her affair with a married man but because of the denouncement made by her parents and the church against her. In this case, it is apparent that the institution of religion not only plays a significant role in the community but also in personal lives. Sybil Pearson felt deranged by the fact that she was ostracized from her family and religious community because as a child she was moulded and trained to embody the moral codes of their religion. This early religious training then could result in a conflicting view between the righteousness of being decent and the practicality of being a human. On the other hand, Afro-Caribbean children being born out of wedlock have the likelihood to behave indifferently and rather aggressively. It is established in several psychological studies that marital instability and dissolution have potentially detrimental impacts on children. Shelly-Ann, a product of a broken home in the story “The Lizardy Man and His Lady”, manifested agitated and vicious behaviours through the role playing games she plays with Roger. She likes to re-enact violent encounters such as policemen and criminal chase, terrorism and other incidences of deviancy. This is because of the kind of family she is into; her mother is comparable to a whore who had intimate affairs with notorious personalities such as the “Lizardy Man”. The violence that Shelly-Ann frequently witnesses in their house eventually materialized in her ideas and personality. Afro-Caribbean Friendship, Dating and Marital Relationships Adult friendship, just like in any other cultural groups, is also an important aspect of Afro-Caribbean’s adolescent peer group networks. Even though there are several heterosexual companionships among Afro-Caribbean men and women, same-sex heterosexual friendships are also ordinary and function to confirm masculinity, femininity, or androgynous proclivities, as well as relational approaches. Among Afro-Caribbean males, male camaraderie is particularly imperative; it becomes the foremost conduit through which a boy initiates the rites of passage of becoming a full-grown man. One character in the novel that showed an extreme form of male companionship is Grandpa, the father of Uncle Johnny. Grandpa acquires his self-identity and confidence through bragging about the imagined and real achievements of his son to his drinking buddies. The repercussion of Grandpa’s excessive socialization with men to Uncle Johnny is the formation of a belief of the latter that optimal self-confidence can be solely acquired through an unproductive socialization with the same sex. Also, Devonshire, the love interest of Bridgette in the “Windows”, was particularly influenced by his experiences in the construction of the Panama Canal along with several other men. He had established his masculinity from childhood through his connections with the other men. On the other hand, Afro-Caribbean women have a propensity to naturally relate to one another as genuine and culturally-legitimated kin. Their relationships become social ties that guide with continued existence, nourishment and overall life gratification. For instance, in the novel, there were several strong Afro-Caribbean friendship that were mentioned such as Ma Lou’s and Brid’s mother’s, Desirene and Mother Dear, Cissy and Theresa, and others. All of these social connections were characterized by mutual trust, respect, honesty and loyalty. Afro-Caribbean women tend to establish close social networks because these are well-built on shared experiences and aspirations fro childhood. Evidently, the close friendship of the children in the novel illustrated that their friendship will eventually evolve, as they grow more mature, into something founded on trust, integrity and trustworthiness. In terms of dating and marital relationships, Afro-Caribbean usually develops relationships through the investments they put in beforehand. However, relationship commitment among single Afro-Caribbean women and men seems to confront unique challenges. Afro-Caribbean are proportionately the least probable to marry, hang about in a marriage or remarry. In the novel, there are three instances which somehow validate this argument about Afro-Caribbean indifference to commitment. First is the experience of the female protagonist in the story “You Think I’m Mad Miss” who was manifesting a rather deficient sanity because of her sad experiences with men. She swings from one man to another, from Jimmy Watson to Bartolomew, because of constant failures in her intimate relationships with them. Also, she hasn’t been reared properly by her mother to the issue of love and relationship hence she created a rather naive worldview that intimate relationships with the opposite sex is just a matter of availability and demand. Second is Eric who divorced his wife because of extramarital affair with her secretary Sybil Pearson; then, eventually he also left Sybil because he still cannot obtain the self-assurance he needs from the woman he loves. Eric developed an inferior sentiment on himself because during his childhood he was extremely pressured by his father to excel in everything that he do which he failed to accomplish; this failure to live up with the expectation of high-achieving father affected profoundly the course of his life. Third is Cissy and Manuela, who were both impregnated of men they do not truly know; yet, they still accepted the prospect of being single-mothers in a rather very young age. Marriage, in the novel, is described as an accidental necessity for several of the characters. Thus, Afro-Caribbean marital relationships confront a great deal of pressure which usually results in the decline of marriages and therefore the rise of single-parent households. These perceptions on the importance of keeping the marriage are formed at the formative periods of the Afro-Caribbean youth. Gardening as an Affirmation of Cultural Identity The garden, apparently, was used by Olive Senior to symbolize the regional validation of identity, as well as for productive and often agonizing cross-cultural exchanges. Senior created the characters of Sybil Pearson, who was the mistress of Eric and who became obsessively interested with plants, and Miss Evadney who was similarly infatuated with plants, particularly with chochovine. Senior writes on the means in which gardening can become a method of associating to a new situation or of setting up identity through recognizing the place of origin, while simultaneously recounting historical dislodgment hurdled to the land. The garden signifies an ambivalent function, which is a space where the negotiation of the complex exchanges between the colonial past and the modern present takes place. Sybil Pearson and Miss Evadney made the most out of the pleasure they obtain from gardening to somehow alleviate the tension they were feeling due to the sudden interaction of their conservative past and their liberal present situation. This dichotomy between traditional, deep-seated subjectivity and the fresh possibilities of a fruitful migration is a persistent theme in Senior’s writings. Moreover, the gardening theme in the novel aims to suggest that identities seek a bond to the earth or to the soil due to the unending cycle of historical human development, namely, colonial, postcolonial and then the globalized future. From their childhood, Afro-Caribbean people were exposed to extreme prejudice with respect to the existence of the white and their historical realities. Hence, while they grow up, they seek for outlets wherein they could prove their self-worth and pour their unspoken talents such as gardening. Like plants, individuals must have a stable and firm ground or basis on which to establish their self-definition, yet must also search for new opportunities in migrations. The garden is an essential metaphor for modern identity arbitrations not merely in its history, which takes in hand issues of being in the right place and segregation, but also in its possibility for proliferation and discrimination. Conclusion Afro-Caribbean people are recently confronting a hard reality which is brought about by their great Diaspora. These magnificent people are consistently combating the harsh realities of their existence which is due to their somnolent past while simultaneously adjusting to their present conditions. As the novel “Discerner of Hearts” lay bare, Afro-Caribbean people are still struggling against the negative stereotyping of their racial and ethnic origins; they are continuing the fight against the repercussions of their colonial occupation. The characters in the novel, particularly the youngsters, collectively discovered one practicable solution to get out of their long-established disposition, which is through educating themselves with the theories, insights and knowledge of the white people. They are gradually surrendering their traditional wisdom and lore for the promise of a prosperous future. This constant attempt to blend in consequently influenced the direction of their other social institutions, particularly the family and their religion. Works Cited Hecht, Michael L., Jackson, Ronald L. & Ribeau, Sidney A. African-American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Olaniyan, Tejumola. Scars of Conquest/Masks of Resistance: The Invention of Cultural Identities in African, African-American, and Caribbean Drama. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Senior, Olive. Discerner of Hearts. Mclelland and Stewart, 2002. Read More