Healing brought about by combining cultures

“I knew I had witnesses a miraculous thing, the appearance of a Pagan god, a thing as miraculous as the curing of my Uncle Lucas. And I though, the power of God failed where Ultima’s worked; and then a sudden illumination of beauty and understanding flashed through my mind. This is what I had expected God to do at my first holy communion! If God was witness to my beholding of the golden carp then I had sinned!” (Anaya, 119).

In the novel, Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, the protagonist, Antonio, is torn between two cultures. His mother and father each want something different for him, and they each have a separate set of beliefs. Antonio’s mother is a devout Catholic, but his father believes in the Pagan God, Cico, the golden carp. Antonio is gifted, spiritually sensitive, and can see the good in both of these belief systems. However, he has not yet decided which one to associate more closely with.

The Golden Carp

Antonio’s struggle with deciding which identity is best for him reminded me of a short story I read for a course called Coming to America last year. One of the texts I studied as part of that class was a short story called “Gussuk” by Mei Mei Evans. In the story the protagonist, Lucy, leaves her home to spend the summer working as a nurse in a secluded Eskimo community in Alaska called Kigiak. The story is about whether Lucy can break free of her identity as a Gussuk (Eskimo slang for a white person) and become something else. Her realm is in the middle of the traditional American society that she grew up in and the Eskimo world she has thrust herself into. Unfortunately, at the end of the story it is evident that Lucy does not seem to fit in in either community yet the community suffers more than she does when she is forced to leave.

a photo of a rural Alaska town perhaps like Kigiak

Both Evans and Anaya use the pains of not belonging to either one of two cultures to demonstrate the development of their protagonists. Yet, each of these protagonists brings redemption and development to their society. Lucy is a nurse who cares for the ill in Kigiak, and Antonio saves his uncle through suffering. So there is an inherent danger in casting either of them out because it will bring death. They, through their mixed cultural experiences offer valuable physical healing to each of these communities. 

Carnivalesque Construction

“…Negro was the chef, with an ermine tail on his cap, who was receiving a deer borne on the shoulders of several villagers led by the master huntsman; those hussars curvetting about the riding ring were Negroes; that high steward, with a silver chain around his neck, watching, in the company of the royal falconer, the rehearsals of Negro actors in an outdoor theater, was a Negro; those footmen in white wigs, whose buttons were being inspected by a butler in green livery, were Negroes, and, finally, Negro, good and Negro, was that Immaculate Conception standing above the high altar of the chapel, smiling sweetly upon the Negro musicians who were practicing a Salve” (Alejo Carpentier, Kingdom of This World”, pg. 108-109).

In this passage Alejo Carpentier describes a role reversal between blacks and whites. Black people appear to have taken on the roles of the elite whites in Haiti. They are completely reversed. Yet, there is something about the description which seems surreal.  Even the Savior is depicted as having black skin in the painting described in the scene. The setting is even described just like the streets of Europe, even though everyone knows it is really in Haiti.

Another example of the “Carnivalesque Structure” is found in the popular movie “She’s the Man”. The concepts of carnival are evident throughout the movie, but they are most prominent in the actual carnival scene (unfortunately I could not find a clip of this scene online so I included the trailer instead). The protagonist, Viola Hastings is pretending to be her brother, Sebastian Hastings. Just like when Carpentier describes black people in white people’s roles it is obvious to the reader (audience) that Viola is not actually a boy. Yet, for the characters in the movie it is a completely believable scenario. Both Sebastian and Viola are supposed to attend the charity event for their mom’s organization, which happens to be a carnival. Throughout the scene Viola is forced to change back and forth between her actual identity and her disguise as Sebastian over and over again. She changes outfits in a few interesting places, which further develop the carnival concepts, they include a spinning ride and a children’s bouncy house. Ultimately Viola’s changing identities lead to a fistfight between her ex-boyfriend and roommate and cause a disaster at the carnival, which causes major chaos.

Perhaps this author and director choose to include recurring “carnivalesque structures” in their works to reveal something about the societies that they feature. They may be trying to prove that when one steps out of their status quo role in society, they will inevitably bring chaos to their world. When one tries to be something they are not, even if it is for a good reason, tumult follows, but order is always restored.

the Library of Babel

“The Library will last on forever: lluminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly immovable, filled with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret. Infinite I have just written.  I have not interpolated this adjective merely from rhetorical habit. It is not illogical, I say, to think that the world is infinite. Those who judge it to be limited, postulate that in remote places the corridors and stairs and hexagons could inconceivably cease—a manifest absurdity. Those who imagined it to be limitless forget that the possible number of books is limited. I dare insinuate the following solution to this ancient problem: The Library is limitless and periodic” (Borges, The Library of Babel).

In his short story, “The Library of Babel”, Jorge Luis Borges describes a library with a “limitless and periodic” collection of books. All of the books in the library have the same exact number of pages and contain every possible combination of an alphabet made up of twenty three letters, commas, and spaces. Borges uses the library as a metaphor for the universe. Although logically the universe begins and ends at one point or another in space; it is impossible for man to determine where these locations are. Our understanding is limited, and we cannot make sense of the “limitless and periodic” world around us. 

The lyrics of a hymn remind me of this concept described in Borges’s short story. This hymn, “If You Could Hie to Kolob”, also explores the idea of a “limitless and periodic” universe. The lyrics demonstrate man’s innate desire to understand the concept of eternity, beginning and end, yet his inherent inability to understand these concepts. The words state, “no man has found pure space.”

Perhaps both Borges and William W. Phelps are so fascinated by the concept of an infinity simply because in our current state we are unable to understand it. We cannot “find out the generation where Gods began to be or see the grand beginning where space did not extend, or view the last creation where Gods and matter end” nor can we read all of the books in the Library of Babel.  Yet both of these works seem to imply that at some point in the future man will have the capacity to understand the “limitless and periodic”, just not in his mortal state. Infinity is an idea which stretches the human mind to its limits. While we try to make sense of it we simply cannot comprehend it entirely in mortality. Both the library and the universe contain a secret somewhere within them—a code for the universe. It is just not yet time for that code to be revealed.

week 8

“They nullify [Nobody], cancel him out, turn him to nothingness. It is futile for Nobody to talk, to publish books, to paint pictures, to stand on his head. Nobody is the blankness in our looks the pauses in our conversations, the reserve in our silences. He is the name we always and inevitable forget, the eternal absentee, the guest we never invite, the emptiness we can never fill. He is an omission, and yet he is forever present. He is our secret, our crime, and our remorse” (Paz, Mexican Masks, pg. 25).

Paz in his essay, Mexican Masks, explains the barriers that are common in Mexican society in particular, but the world at large as well, figurative masks. By putting on a figurative mask you become a nobody. Nobodies lose their ability to create, to express, and to contribute to society. However, simultaneously they also become protected. “He is an omission, and yet he is forever present”. nobodies exist but cannot be harmed, and they cannot contribute. They merely exist. 

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

This passage from Paz’s essay reminds me of Emily Dickinson’s Poem “I am nobody! Who are you?”. Just like Paz explains that “they nullify him” and “cancel him out”, Dickinson writes that “They’d banish us” for being “nobody”. Yet, there is something bad about being a somebody. A somebody is the opposite of a nobody, they are known, understood and recognized. The speaker states “How dreary to be somebody!....To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog”. These lines express the filthiness of the somebodies. A bog is a swamp. It is wet, dirty, gross, and dangerous. Therefore, by becoming a somebody one exposes their identity to a bog—a public full of filthiness and peril.

            Both authors make the point that there is a negative impact of revealing oneself to public society. They both seem to argue that by putting on a figurative mask and becoming a nobody provides some level of protection from the world. The purpose of wearing a mask is to hide one’s face. By covering your face you hide your expressions, thoughts and emotions, in essence your identity. There is an inherent paradox in becoming a nobody, by putting up a wall between yourself and the world you are protected from the dangers of exposing yourself, but at the same time you lose freedom of expression.