Valuing Ones Otherness: Hero as the Marginalized - Essay Example

Valuing One’s Otherness: Hero as the Marginalized We often think of hero is an almighty man who is able to help everyone in the society and thus is welcomed wherever he goes. However, in the five literary texts that I am going to discuss, it appears that heroes are not often male, and they are also not often the popular ones; the one common feature they share is that they are confident about their self-worth as Persons, and fully accept their ethnicity, culture and history even though those features make them the marginalized. Ngugi wa Thiong’O and the protagonists in Langston Hughes “I,Too,” Etheridge Knight’s “Hard Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane,” John Hope Franklin’s “The Train from Hate,” and Claude McKay’s “Outcast” are all racial Others, yet they exhibit integrity and determination by and by accepting what their blackness entails while strongly believing that they are not inferior to their white counterparts. They alter the definition of a hero as someone who is confident about their self-worth even though social injustice marginalizes them as the Others. In “The Language of African Literature,” Ngugi first discusses the colonial alienation children in Kenya experiences as a result of the superiority of English over Kikuyu. In other words, the colonial power implied in the English language is perpetuated through education. Thus, Ngugi explains that he decides to write only in Kikuyu so that all local people in Kenya would be able to understand his work. The subject matter of his work includes revolutionary ideas that challenge the authority, and the government sees it as a threat as Ngugi’s writing is highly popular at the grassroots level where people are unfamiliar with English. Ngugi’s act displays his pride towards his own culture, even though it is undermined by the colonial power. His insistence to speak and write in Kikuyu has resulted in imprisonment, yet he continues to promote a wider usage of the native language so that the colonial power would no longer be able to dominate the Kenyan people in education and in everyday life. As he wrote, “We African writers are bound by our calling to do for our language what Spenser, Milton, and Shakespeare did for English” (452). This statement challenges the status quo between the Kenyan and British culture and promotes pride in Ngugi and other Kenyan people for their original language. Ngugi’s willingness to accept his blackness and his persistence in challenging the colonial oppression through writing and action exhibit integrity and excellence as he seeks only to assist his Kenyan peers in overcoming the sense of alienation induced by colonialism. His confidence and pride in blackness, together with his determination to overcome the power imbalance, makes him a hero who is willing to forsake his own comfort for social justice. A similar positive attitude towards one’s ethnicity, despite the Otherness it entails, can be found in Langston Hughes’s poem, “I, Too.” In the second stanza, the narrator recounts that he is often isolated when “they”, the white people, have guests at their house. However, he is not at all upset; instead, he “laugh[s],/ And eat[s] well,/ And grow[s] strong” (line 5-7). In the following stanza, the narrator, similar to Ngugi, attempts to assert his status: “Tomorrow,/ I’ll be at the table/ When company comes” (line 8-10). Without any violent or revolutionary rhetoric, the narrator calmly states that the white people will begin to perceive his beauty and be ashamed on how they have shunned him. The poem displays the narrator’s confidence and a strong sense of self-worth even though he is marginalized as the racial Other in a white society. The narrator embraces his blackness wholeheartedly and thus negates the white peoples’ perception of blackness as an inferior quality. The first and last lines of the poem—“I, too, sing America,” and “I , too, am America”—is the narrator’s attempt to both celebrate his race and unity in the country. The narrator is a hero as he asserts his agency and equality through confidence and pride of his race instead of avoidance of the unjust situation. In addition, he also displays steadfastness and integrity in his strong belief that black people are as worthy as any other race. Although Etheridege Knight’s poem “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane” does not explicitly discuss Negritude, it expresses a desire from the inmates, mostly black, to rebel against the oppression of the prison authority. Through the narrator’s description, Hard Rock is a black man who is fearless, “the doer of things/ We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do” (line 34-35). They admire him for his rebellion against the prison guards. In other words, Hard Rock is the symbol of Black power who dares to challenge the oppressive authority. As Hard Rock is crushed by the authority, the rest of the inmates are also crushed as they lose a hero who can openly defy against the authority. Hard Rock’s constant fight against the white system serves a symbolic meaning on the struggle of the marginalized, thus making him a hero who is unafraid to assert himself despite his inferior status. Contrary to the violence displayed by Hard Rock and the optimism in “I, Too,” the narrator of “Outcast” is mellower as he remembers and embraces the history of his blackness. In the first two lines, the narrator acknowledges the bond between him and his ancestors. He then reminds himself of the “forgotten jungle songs” (line 4) that is buried within the history of his race. Although as the title suggests, the narrator is the outcast of the society, he does not emulate the white people who possess more authority than he does. Instead, he says that he “would go back to darkness and to peace” (line 5) without looking towards imitating his colonizers. Unlike the heroes discussed above, the narrator of “Outcast” is neither fearless nor revolutionary. However, he remains a hero as he is able to explicitly and calmly discuss the oppression he experiences as the colonized, while at the same time embraces the history and culture of his own race, even though he is marginalized by that element. The author’s mother in “The Train from Hate” displays a similar quality—a willingness to accept blackness without viewing it as a symbol of inferiority. In very plain language, the mother reassures the author that “the conductor was not superior because he was white, and [the author] was not inferior because [he] was black” (204). The statement is calm yet it is extremely powerful because the notion of human equality is presented as a simple and universal fact that even a child can fully comprehend. The author’s mother is a hero in the sense that she denies the unequal status between black and white people without violence or hatred. Instead, she asserts equality through being confident that black people are valuable human beings just like their white counterparts. Her speech to the young author is presented with integrity and determination so powerful that it affects the author’s attitude towards racial injustice in the future. Following the guidance of his mother, the author also supports nonviolence by “distanc[ing] [himself] from the perpetrators and purveyors of hate and misunderstanding” (204). Thus, his mother is a hero also because she has effectively prevented future bloodshed in racial struggle. In conclusion, a hero may not be the most popular person who contributes to everyone in the society. Such a definition of a hero ignores the injustice embedded in the social structure. The heroes discussed above defy the conventional expectation, yet they are heroic because they are willing to accept their identity despite oppression and discrimination. In addition, most of these protagonists are unafraid to challenge the status quo and to assert equality for the marginalized. Works Cited Franklin, John Hope. “The Train from Hate.” Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Missy James and Alan Merickel Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002: 203-204. Print. Hughes, Langston. “I, Too.” The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. Mark Strand and Eavan Boland Ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000: 266. Print. Knight, Etheridge. “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminally Insane.” Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Missy James and Alan Merickel Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002: 186-187. Print. McKay, Claude. “Outcast.” Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Missy James and Alan Merickel Ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002: 189. Print. Ngugi wa Thiong O’. “The Language of African Literature.” Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman Ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994: 435-455. Print. Read More