Author Archives: Vincent Konzelmann

Fictional History and True Memory

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Here is my second essay, discussing the theme of “memory” in Cristina Garcìa’s Dreaming in Cuban, it is entitled Fictional History and True Memory. Here it is:

Fictional History and True Memory

Between 1952 and 1959, Cuba was subject to the dictator Fulgencio Batista who supported U.S. business and economy to develop his own profit. All the industry was in their hands and therefore, Cuban people had no power against Batista and the U.S. In this context, the Cuban revolted against the dictator to regain, not only their freedom, but as well their collective identity. Nowadays, Cuba got rid of dictatorship and, “memory becomes an important way of uniting the past with the present” (Justin D. Edwards, 2008 p.130). In her novel Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcìa presents a Cuban family who has partly emigrated to the U.S. after the Cuban revolution. In this novel, memory is a central theme conveyed through the story’s structure, historical facts opposed to that memory and Celia’s letters.

The plot line of the story is not chronological, thus showing that this book is written as if it came from memory. In fact, the story timeline and the plot line are not the same throughout the book. The plot line starts in 1972 and finishes in 1959 (“Celia’s letter” p.249), but passes by 1935 (“Celia’s letters” p.49) or 1980 during the novel. The chapters are therefore not linear because of “Celia’s letters” coming in-between them. “Celia’s letters” are the written proves of Celia’s memory. However, inside the chapters, the plot is not linear as well. For example, in the first chapter “Ocean Blue” happening in 1972, other dates such as 1952 or 1967 referring to historical events are mentioned. This is due to the memory; in order to remember something about our past, we have to do links with what happened during that time, politically, historically, socially, … Memory is not linear and so is not this novel. “The structure … is non-linear and, as such, it follows the flow of … memory” (Edwards 2008, p.131). In addition, this story is told from different points of view, such as Pilar, Celia or Lourdes. It gives an importance to individual memory, whereas the historical elements accentuate collective memory. Mixing different points of view and historical elements, this novel deals with individual and collective memory.

Historical elements are supposed to be facts and therefore non-arguable, however this novel presents an history made by the ones in power and offers a quest for truth. This novel, as Naomi Nakane’s narrative in Joy Kogawa’s novel does, “interweaves two stories, one of the past and another of the present, mixing experience and recollection, history and memory throughout” (Edwards 2008, p.134). A good example of that is on page 28, when Pilar says: “If it were up to me… in Bombay”. It continues with two rhetorical questions: “Why don’t I know anything about them? Who chooses what we should know or what’s important?” She knows the answer; it is the ones in power. It is supported by rhetorical questions in Edwards’ article as well: “What has been erased from the history of colonization? Whose memories are privileged in historical narratives? And whose perspective or point of view is foregrounded in stories about the past?” (Edwards 2008, p.136). Edwards underlines that memory can be used “to explore the complexities of truth” (Edwards 2008, p.137). It contradicts what Pilar says about her mother, with a metaphor replacing her eyes by a “distorting lens” (176). For her, this “lens” prevent her from seeing “what’s really there” (176), the truth. However, Felicia tells his son that “Imagination, like memory, can transform lies to truths” (88). With this sentence, we can understand that it is not what really happened in the past that matters, but rather how we choose to bring together the memories. The sentence “the war that killed … thousands of other blacks is only a footnote in our history book” (185) shows once again that history is written by the ones in power and the only way to know what really happened is memory.

Memory being linked with history; it can be a source of trauma for those under the power during the colonization. According to Cathy Caruth, a trauma must “be spoken in a language that is always somehow literary: a language that defies, even as it claims, our understanding” (Edwards 2008, p.136). It is interesting in Dreaming in Cuban because of Celia’s letters. In fact, the chapters of that book are intertwined with letters that Celia wrote to Gustavo from 1935 to 1959. Reading them afterwards could make them see as memories. However, on page 47 and 48, we can see that for Celia “Memory cannot be confined” (47). She thinks as well that “capturing images [is] an act of cruelty” and that “it [is] an atrocity to sell cameras at El Encanto department store [and] to imprison emotions on squares of glossy paper” (48). This is a personification of images and emotions. So, for her, we cannot fix memories, however, she can relieve them when she encounters a place that was important to her. For example, on page 43: “She imagines him swinging … and shattering her past”. Moreover, for Celia, memories can live through objects, like her pearl earrings. It is a recurrent object in the novel, but it is only on page 38 that we understand its importance: “Celia has removed her drop pearl earrings only nine times, to clean them. No one ever remembers her without them” (38). In this sentence, the pearl earrings are a marker of Celia’s identity. Through the character of Celia, we have a different approach on memory; it is strong, cannot be fixed but can be relieve through objects and places.

Having a non-linear plot line, and opposing history and memory, Dreaming in Cuban offers a mix between individual and collective memory, and presents as well a truth-seeking. It would be interesting to link memory with orality, since “oral information is ephemeral and relies on memory for its durability” (Edwards 2008, p.41). However, we need to be cautious with this theme because “memory is not always perfect; it can distort or change information” (Edwards 2008, p.41).

Bibliography

  • Edwards, Justin. “Orality.” Postcolonial Literature. Hampshire: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, 2008. Pp.40-50.
  • Edwards, Justin. “Memory.” Postcolonial Literature. Hampshire: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, 2008. Pp.129-138.

Web Reference

Bounded Suffering

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Here is my first essay about a close reading of a passage situated on pages 21 and 22 of Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban, it is entitled Bounded Suffering. Here it is:

Bounded Suffering

In 1959, Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Mouvement revolted against the dictator Fulgencio Batista whose government was supported by the US. Born during the Cuban revolution, Cristina Garcìa, a Cuban-born American, wrote Dreaming in Cuban in 1992, telling the story of a Cuban family after the revolution, that still has, nowadays, consequences. This family is composed by Celia and Jorge who have three children: Lourdes, Felicia and Javier. In the second chapter, from the first paragraph on page 21 to the beginning of page 22, Garcìa presents a portray of Jorge and the consequences for Lourdes, his daughter and Rufino, her husband. Through hyperboles and similes, the reader can understand the suffering this three characters feel and the different links between them.

Analyzing the passage from “Lourdes’ agility” to “she wasn’t sure what”, we can admit that Rufino suffers and his agony contrasts with the well-being of Lourdes, his wife. In these two paragraphs, Lourdes is described entirely with figures of speech. The simile “her legs looped and rotated like an acrobat’s” (21) displays her flexibility and her good physical shape. It is emphasized by two hyperboles functioning as well as metaphors comparing her to a machine: “her neck swiveled with extra ball bearings” (21) and “Lourdes’s mouth and tongue were like the mouths and tongues of a dozen experienced women” (21). However, this second paragraph contrasts sharply with the one that follows. Unlike Lourdes’s good physical shape, her husband, Rufino, suffers physically and psychologically. The words “ached” (21), “exertions” (21), “arthritic” (21) and “begged” (21) are all linked to the theme of the suffering. Moreover, the simile “his joints swelled like an arthritic’s” (21) reinforced the pain in Rufino’s body. The meaning of this last quotation contrasts with the meaning of the simile “her legs looped and rotated like an acrobat’s”. However, there is, as well, a parallelism in the structure of these two sentences. Rufino’s suffering contrasts with Lourdes’s well-being, and they are therefore linked.

Lourdes hides herself behind her fake well-being: deep down, she suffers in a way his family cannot imagine. In fact, for her, moving to the United States of America did not only meant leaving Cuba, but as well leaving the loss of a child and a brutal rape behind her. Earlier in the story, we learned that “her appetite for sex and baked goods increased dramatically” (20). Moreover, “the more she took her father…, and for Rufino” (20), and she certainly had to take him a lot to the hospital because he had cancer. These two sentences reveal that her desire for sex and her eating obsessions are linked to her father’s suffering and to the exile in the US. In the first paragraph, we learn through the simile “she submitted to them like a somnambulist to a dream” (21) that she has no “control” (21) of “her cravings” (21). However, she has control of her husband because she has a “bell” (21) to ring him. She always wants him to have sex with her, she “led him by the wrist to their bedroom” (21) and that makes him suffer. Lourdes’s cravings have control of her, and she has control of Rufino. Therefore, Lourdes’s cravings have directly control of Rufino, and Lourdes, despite appearing healthy and having a strong character, is submitted and suffers as well. Her rape, her insatiable sexual desires and her eating disorders are all indicators of her suffering.

Jorge, despite his whole existence taking care of himself, has suffered during his life and especially at the end of it. The last paragraph of page 21 from the beginning to “microbios” (21) helps up identifying what kind of man he is. Jorge was “a fastidious man, impeccable, close-shaven, with razor-sharp” (21) and this description shows that he took good care of himself and perhaps too much. He certainly suffers from mysophobia because he never walks “barefoot” in order to avoid “microbios”. Moreover, for him, “they are the enemy!” (21). However, it is a hyperbole because “microbios” are certainly not more dangerous than the revolution. Even the word, “microbios”, put in italics because borrowed from Spanish means microbes and is probably written in Spanish in order to underline that Jorge used to say it all the time. In the text, this word is followed by a dead metaphor: “the very word lit a fire in his eyes” (21) which emphasizes his hatred towards “microbios”. The hyperbole “culprits of tropical squalor” (22) accentuates it once again, because they are not the only responsible for the filth Jorge and his family live in. However, despite avoiding the “microbios” his entire life, he died from cancer. More importantly, the passage from “Lourdes lifts her dead father’s gnarled hands” (21) to the end of the paragraph shows that cancer made him suffer a lot. The simile “his fingers are […] stiffened haphazardly like branches” (21) presents him not as human anymore, but part of nature, of a dead nature. The hyperbole “his skin is so transparent that even the most delicate veins are visible” (21) makes it seem as if he were a ghost. This is reinforced by the oxymoron: “The vast white bed obscures him” (21). The color white cannot obscure anything or anyone. It demonstrates that he is even more white or “transparent” (21) than the white itself and therefore it emphasizes his sickness and his pain. Consequently, we can see that Jorge, despite being really careful about his health during his life, has suffered a lot and is now dead.

Through a variety of figures of speech, this passage presents us the suffering of three characters of that novel and their relationship. Even if their sufferings are different, we can say that they are bounded because one helps to understand another. It would be interesting to analyze how Lourdes’s suffering evolves once she gets back to Cuba, her roots, reminder of her rape and lost child.

Vincent Konzelmann