Author Archives: brenda.deoliveira@unil.ch

The truth behind memories

Leave a reply

 

The novel Dreaming in Cuban written by Cristina García, often addresses the theme of memory, which can be either personal or cultural, and which brings on various other sub-themes such as identity, legacy, and distortion. It is through the analysis of these sub-themes and with the help of the author’s interview as well as Justin D. Edwards’s chapter on Posctolonial Literature, that the reader will be able to determine how important memory is to the construction of the main characters’s truth.

In the book’s reader’s guide, Cristina García explains how memory comes as a “need [for her characters] to reinvent themselves and invest themselves in narratives of their own devising” (García 255). Pilar does feel this need as she devotes herself to “[record] everything down” (García 7) in a diary, making sure that no details of her life are left behind. In fact, she later adds that she made sure to “remember[s] everything that’s happened to [her] since [she] was a baby, even word-for-word conversations” (García 26). According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the verb “to remember” means “to keep a piece of information in your memory,”1 however in this quote Pilar affirms that she has a memory of every single event that has happened in her life. Indeed, this precision can be seen in her use of the pronoun “everything,” the use of the adverb “even” and the expression “word-to-word.” Although this could be read as being hyperbolic, it shows how important memory is for her, especially since she does not allow any detail of her life to be forgotten. To get a true sense of her identity however, Pilar needs to understand where she comes from and her memory alone is not enough as she says that “[e]veryday Cuba fades a little more inside [her]” (García 138). Since she lived most of her life in the United States and did not really experience the Revolution, Pilar has a lack of knowledge regarding her native country and its past. Indeed, she “do[es] not have [any] personal memories of the hardships, exploitation, cruelty and torture” her ancestors have endured, thus she needs stories which, as Edwards writes in his chapter, “fill in [the] past-narratives [to] help [one] remember where [one] come[s] from” (Edwards 129). These stories can come from people she has talked to as well as books she has read.

When trying to fill the gaps between her own memory and the history of Cuba, Pilar is soon faced with disappointment after she finds out no one has covered subjects she would have been interested in, like the hailstorm in Congo (García 28) for example. History books are thus incomplete, as she realizes that “there’s only my imagination where our history should be” (García 138). The use of the verb “shall” expresses that her expectations have not been met and the adjective “only” emphasizes the fact that imagination is not enough since it is not reliable. In this respect, the author of the novel states in the reader’s guide, that memory is “a product of both necessity and imagination” (García 255). Pilar has the urge to know her cuban history and believes it is the duty of her ancestors to share their history and not hers to create one. At one point, Pilar asks the rhetorical question: “Who chooses what we should know or what’s important?” (García 28) which she later replies to by stating that it is “the politicians and the generals” who she “resent[s] the hell out [and] who force events on [them] [to] rupture [their] lives, that dictate the memories [they]’ll have when [they]’re old.” (García 137-8). The use of the words “resent” and “hell” show how outraged Pilar is, while the use of the verbs “to force” and “to dictate” highlights how powerless she feels before the politicians and the generals. She also feels disgusted “that men who had nothing to do with [her] had the power to rupture [her] dreams” (García 199-200). In parallel, Herminia also feels angry and powerless in front of those who get to decide what is important, as her black ancestors are “only [considered] a footnote in [these] historybooks” (García 185) which is merely nothing. In this regard, Edwards states that “colonial narratives often try to influence collective memory and stories of the past by white-washing the history of conflict, violence and trauma” (Edwards 130). With the term “white-washing,” Edwards means that history is often told by the colonizers’s point of view, while the colonized’s perspective is not taken into account or deliberately forgotten. In Edwards’s chapter, Kincaid claims that “[w]ithout responsibility, there can be no apology, reparation or forgiveness” (Edwards 131). Since the colonizers do not take responsibility for their past actions against african and caribbean people, it is impossible for either Pilar or Herminia to forgive them. Having a collective memory is thus very important since it “plays a significant part in the symbolic relationship between the mother country (the imperial power) and the infantilized nation (the colony)” (Edwards 131). This symbolic relationship is what both Herminia and Pilar strive for, as it would help them find a proper balance in their hybridity, as well as finally find their own true identity. Yet, the informations they get in these history books are only one sided, which means that one part of their identity is totally disregarded. This is the reason why Herminia also questions how she can “trust anything [she] read[s]?” (García 185) which she then answers to herself by stating that she can “[only] trust what [she] see[s]” and “what [she] know[s]” and “nothing more” (García 185). Because of the biased perspective and selective memory of historical books, Herminia feels as if she has no choice left but to trust her own memory exclusively.

According to Celia, “memory cannot be confined” (García 47), which she explains with the example of selling cameras. She believes, in fact, that it is an “act of cruelty” and “atrocity” to sell those as they “imprison emotions on squares of glossy paper” (García 48). She is personally all about writing down her own memories since the act of writing is a “solitary act” (Edwards 43) that lacks the immediacy of photography. Indeed, writing allows her to explore her emotions with all the time she needs as well as to rearrange her memories the way she likes, which is not possible with photography. The last time Celia writes to Gustavo is actually the day Pilar is born. Indeed, she tells Gustavo: “I will no longer write to you, mi amor. [Pilar] will remember everything” (García 245). The fact that Celia no longer needs to write to her Spanish lover is because she finally has someone she can bequeath her memories to. Indeed, Gustavo only represents an idea, since she does not actually send her letters to him. The author of the novel herself, explains that “the letters provide a window into her inner life and yearnings” (García 252). Furthermore, Celia states that “only [her] granddaughter can save [her]” and “guard [her] knowledge like the first fire” (García 222). For Celia, being saved means that someone is going to protect what she values the most, which is her “knowledge.” Cristina García declares in her interview that each of her characters “needs to be a heroine, to believe [they] [are] doing the right thing, choosing the only path to a kind of personal redemption,” she also adds that “[t]hey need their memories in this sense to survive” (García 255). The fact that Celia shares a “box of letters she wrote to her onetime lover in Spain” (García 235) with her granddaughter, is actually the only path for her to attain “a personal redemption” (García 255). By sharing these letters, Celia actually “offers a sense of collective identity” to her granddaughter, which is very important as Edwards himself states that it “links the past with the present” (Edwards 129): the past being Abuela Celia and the present being Pilar. The latter, starts to feel differently after receiving her grandmother’s legacy. Indeed, shortly after she “feel[s] [her] grandmother’s life passing to [her],” she feels “a steady electricity, humming and true” (García 222). She also starts to have dreams in Spanish, which she insists “has never happened before” (García 235). These changes happen because she finally knows where she belongs. Indeed, the lack of information she had about her cuban ancestors is now filled in with her grandmother’s legacy of her memory.

One may argue, indeed, that Celia’s letters are based on her own perception of reality. In this respect, Edwards states that “memory is not always perfect; it can distort or change information” (Edwards 41). Felicia also believes that, as she tells her son Ivanito that: “[i]magination, like memory, can transform lies to truths” (García 88). Indeed, memory is very powerful in the way that it can change someone’s opinion on a memory or on the opposite, make someone keep their opinion. Both cases can be seen many times in the book, as a shared event is told various times by different characters. This causes each character to have their own sense of what is true and what is not. For example, Lourdes and her parents each believe the veracity of their own memory of a shared event. Lourdes has always believed that her mother had intentionally abandoned her but it appears that she was missing an essential piece of the puzzle. Indeed, her father later confessed to her that he was the one that “tried to kill” and “to break” her mother until the point where “[s]he held [Lourdes] out to [him] by one leg and told [him] she would not remember her [daughter’s] name” (García 195). Although Jorge shared his truth, Lourdes decides not to believe it and holds on to her own truth:
She knows that she cannot keep her promise to her father, to tell her mother that he was sorry, sorry for sending her away, sorry for her silent hands. The words refuse to form in her mouth. Instead, like a brutal punishment, Lourdes feels the grip of her mother’s hand, hears her mother’s words before she left for the asylum: “I will not remember her name.” (García 238)
In a way, Lourdes both punishes herself as well as her parents by deciding to keep her own truth and neglecting theirs. A shared memory can thus be extremely distorted, since one person can perceive a truth as a lie, and vice-versa.

In conclusion, it is important to note how memory is closely connected to each character’s sense of self. While some characters are eager to receive another person’s memory in order to complete the missing bits of theirs, others prefer to stay completely in their own truth and avoid other’s perspectives.

Bibliography:

  • Edwards, D. Justin. Postcolonial Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

  • García, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban : a novel. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/remember

Felicia’s madness explained through senses

Leave a reply

 

In the novel Dreaming in Cuban, written by Cristina García, each character has an unique way of expressing and dealing with its own emotions. The passage starting with “Felicia del Pino doesn’t know what brings on her delusions” (75) and ending with “[s]he never knows the time” (76) particularly addresses how the character Felicia del Pino deals with her mental illness. It is through the imagery of sound and sight, as well as the use of other figures of speech, that Felicia is able to communicate the pain behind her loneliness and inability to fit in.

The opening sentence of the chosen passage introduces Felicia’s awareness of her own mental illness as well as her inability, or perhaps reluctance, to understand what causes it as the third-person narrator mentions that Felicia “doesn’t know what brings on her delusions” (75). Her madness is further highlited at the ending sentence of the chosen passage, as she is said to “never [know] time” (76) which proves that there is a break from reality. Furthermore, the emphasis on the adverb “never” makes her condition an unending problem, as there is no hope of it changing anytime soon. It is as if the narrator wants the reader to feel Felicia’s despair dragging her down. To express her inner suffering, she has developed a deep sense of hearing as the narrator states that “she can hear things” (75). This statement is later rectified as “ she can hear everything” (75) and as the passage progresses, the vocabulary is more and more assertive. Indeed, the uncertainty that comes with the modal verb “can” is later erased with the affirmation: “She hears [the people] talking but cannot understand what they say” (75-76).

The sense of sound is a a key element in the understanding of Felicia’s madness. The first paragraph of chapter six is full of words of the lexical field of sound such as: “hear,” “every sneeze and creak and breath” (75) which shows how Felicia’s painful sense of hearing mirrors the pain she feels in her life. The emphasis on “every” and the way she compares those sounds to “[t]he scratching a beetle on a porch” and “[t]he shifting of the floorboards in the night” (75) foregrounds the uneasiness and unpleasantness that comes with hearing everyone and everything’s noises constantly. The only way to “lessen the din” is to loudly play “the Beny Moré records […] warped as they are” (75) whose voice comes to replace the others and to stand for her own. The only way for her to have a break from these sounds is to play a music even louder than her own thoughts. Also, the fact that the records are bent mirrors the distorted view she has of reality as well. Although she is aware of the sounds surrounding her, the problem seems to lay in her inability to understand “what [people] say” (76) and her inability to speak the same language.

In the Reader’s Guide at the end of the book (247-58), Cristina García mentions how her first intention was to make Dreaming in Cuban a poem. Although she later changed her mind and wrote a novel, the particularities of poetry remained. For example, each sentence in the quote: “The scratching of a beetle on the porch. The shifting of the floorboards in the night” (75) has ten syllables. This iambic pentameter pattern is typical in the poetic genre. The repetition of the determinant “the” appears four times and the rhymes in “-ing” all contribute to the lyrical tone of the novel. As for the alliteration of the vowel sound “ee,” is also reiterated many times. The fact that these sounds appear constantly in the text, parallels the sound Felicia hears in her head. The use of rhymes makes certain words stand out and induces the reader to make connections between them. The second sentence of the chosen passage, for example, uses rhymes finishing in “-ly” such as: “only,” “suddenly,” and “vividly” (75) which emphasize the way Felicia has a very detailed sense of hearing. The rhyming words “luminosity” and “enemy” (75) can also be linked together and give us an idea that Felicia sees light as a very hostile thing. Not only do all these repeated sounds give the text a sort of musicality but they also give fundamental information about the character.

After the sense of sound, comes the sense of sight, which appears mostly in the second paragraph of the chosen passage. Felicia’s mood is decreasing due to the unstoppable sounds inside her head and this can also be sensed with the disappearance of colors one by one, moving her out of brightness and into darkness. Each color has a symbolic value and each moves away from Felicia, thus showing how her mood influences her surroundings and vice-versa. Symbolically perceived as the color of passion and love, the color red is personified as it “floats above the carnations” (75). Then, the color blue, which is said to stimulate the sense of calm “ rise[s] from the chipped tiles” (75) leaving Felicia in her own anxiety. Her favorite color green “flees the trees” (75) which can signify that there is not even hope left. The emphasis on “even the greens” (75) conveys a sense of fatality since she is left with black and white. Felicia enters thus a monotone and monochromatic stage. The white, with its overpowering intensity, erases all of the colors around. Felicia even goes as far as to feel “assault[ed]” and “threaten[ed]” (75) by its luminosity. She is so scared that she “tightens the shutters” (75) of her windows, not allowing any ray of sun to come. In a way, the whiteness symbolizes the outside and real world which she feels attacked by and the darkness, her inside world as she physically closes herself from emotions or even from people that she does not understand.

Her isolation is established by the fact that she secludes herself at home, rarely “dar[ing] [to] look outside” (75). When she does so, she compares people to paintings who are “outlined in black, their faces crushed and squarish” (75). She describes people as being two-dimensional, flat and oddly shaped which highlights how distant and different she feels they are to her. In a way, she fears their judgement as the third person narrator states that “their white shining eyes” are what makes her feel “threaten[ed]” (75). The human characteristics that she removes from people, Felicia gives to objects. In fact, this inversion can be seen with the use of prosopopeias, as she gives a human action to the concept of color: “The colors too, escape their objects” (75) which she herself is unable to do.

In conclusion, it is through the metaphor of the senses that the reader gets to understand how Felicia’s break from both reality and human contact has clearly contributed to her madness. It also shows how Felicia expresses her emotions since what she is unable to articulate with words, Felicia communicates with sounds and colors, which is a language on its own.