Caribbean Autobiography: Cultural Identity and Self-Representation

363 Pages·2002·0.976 MB·English

by  Sandra Pouchet Paquet

CARIBBEAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography
William L. Andrews
General Editor
CARIBBEAN
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Cultural Identity and
Self-Representation
SANDRA POUCHET PAQUET
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS
The University of Wisconsin Press
1930 Monroe Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53711
www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/
3 Henrietta Street
London WC2E 8LU, England
Copyright © 2002
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved
1 3 5 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paquet, Sandra Pouchet.
Carribbean autobiography: cultural identity and
self-representation / Sandra Pouchet Paquet.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0–299–17690–8 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 0–299–17694–0 (paper: alk. paper)
1. Autobiography. 2. Caribbean Area—Biography—History
and criticism. 3. Authors, Caribbean—Biography—History and
criticism. I. Title
CT25 .P36 2202
920.0729—dc21 2001005425
In loving memory of my parents
Neville Charles Pouchet (1911–1992)
and
Ortensa Teodorini Pouchet (1917–1983)

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 3
Part 1 Gender, Voice, and Self-Representation 11
1 Testing and Testifying: The Hart Sisters 21
2 The Heartbeat of a West Indian Slave:
The History of Mary Prince 28
3 The Enigma of Arrival: Wonderful
Adventures of Mrs. Seacole 51
Part 2 The Estranging Sea 73
4 “The Traveling Ulysses Scene”:
Claude McKay’s A Long Way from Home
and My Green Hills of Jamaica 87
5 Blurred Genres, Blended Voices:
George Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin 111
6 Autobiographical Frameworks and
Linked Discourses: George Lamming’s
The Pleasures of Exile and C. L. R. James’s
Beyond a Boundary 132
7 Poetic Autobiography: Derek Walcott’s
Another Life 154
vii
viii / Contents
Part 3 Birthrights and Legacies 175
8 Fragments of Epic Memory: V. S. Naipaul’s
Finding the Center and A Way in the World 183
9 Maternal Bonds: My Mother’s Daughter:
The Autobiography of Anna Mahase., Snr.,
1899–1978 205
10 Colonist and Creole: Yseult Bridges’s Child
of the Tropics and Jean Rhys’s Smile Please 214
Part 4 Autobiography, Elegy, and
Gender Identification 227
11 Beyond Consolation: Kamau Brathwaite’s
The Zea Mexican Diary 233
12 Death and Sexuality: Jamaica Kincaid’s
My Brother 243
Conclusion 257
Notes 265
Bibliography 304
Index 321
Preface
This study began more than a decade ago with an exploratory
essay entitled “West Indian Autobiography.”1Over the years I pre-
sented papers on the subject and published several articles as I dis-
covered new texts and my interest in the field steadily grew. Much
of that material is incorporated here with changes that reflect my
continuing interest in the constitutive forms of Caribbean autobi-
ographical culture and a heightened appreciation of the dynamics
of the genre in respect to variables of Caribbean personality and
presence.
In this study my focus is on particular people, polities, and
institutions represented in selected texts, some dominant and oth-
ers secondary in the literary canon, with a view to a comparative
analysis of specific autobiographical practices. I explore conjunc-
tures between distinct modes of autobiography and the relevance
of autobiographical practice to the thematics of diaspora and
questions of intercultural identity in the different life worlds of
Caribbean islanders and exiles, travelers, and dwellers in various
colonial and postcolonial contexts.
ix