Syncretic religions are an important and often neglected aspect of the Latin American culture. They are the result of centuries of colonization that brought together people from various continents, cultures and religions. In Cuba, while Catholicism was the official religion of the colonizers, Santería emerged from the confluence of Catholicism and Yoruba as the religion of the colonized (slaves). In Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, this dichotomy between metropolis and colony concerning religion is manifested in the Del Pino family, through the characters’ religious and political beliefs.

Catholicism is represented in Lourdes and Jorge del Pino characters, the only two of the family who, “during high mass, recited the Lord’s Prayer with loud precision” (76). In the story, most of the Christian universe turns around these characters: Lourde’s daughter, Pilar, studied in Martyrs and Saints, a school administrated by nuns (58); Jorge stayed in the Sisters of Charity Hospital, administrated by nuns who thought he was “a saint” (19) when he died; and in a moment of great despair, “Lourdes imagines white azaleas and an altar set for high mass on an April Sunday” (197), revealing that what brings her comfort is indeed her religion. Likewise, Jorge’s faith is putted in evidence when he blames Felicia’s troubles in adult life on the fact that she didn’t have her confirmation (77).

The relation between Christianity and imperialism is unbreakable in the context of the European colonization, and this connection is somehow explored in the book by the fact that the Catholic characters inhabit in the United States. Over the twentieth century, the United States became the symbol of imperialism and capitalism by excellence, representing everything that was fought in the Cuban revolution. Celia and Felicia, supporters of the revolution, are not Catholics and live in Cuba, while “Lourdes and her father […] denounce the Communist threat to America” (171). Jorge, and especially Lourdes, incarnate the ideals of both European and American imperialisms: triumph of Christianity and of capitalism (or communism’s defeat). Lourdes is not only against communism, but she believes in the “American Dream”, “she envisioned a chain of Yankee Doodle bakeries stretching across America” (171), a dream which would be impossible under communist regime.

This connection between imperialism and Christianity is important to understand how a hybrid religion such as Santería can be linked to the characters that represent the fight against imperialism. Justin D. Edwards, in his book Postcolonial Literature (2008), affirms “hybridity has also been invoked as an expression of resistance to colonial discourse” (140), since it was a way for the slaves to overcome the prohibition of the practice of their religion. On one hand, Lourdes and Jorge, Catholics, embrace (to a different degree) the colonial, imperialist and capitalist discourse. On the other hand, Celia and Felicia, that practice the Santería to different extents, embrace the postcolonial and communist discourse (also to different extents).

Celia is an atheist but she is “wary of powers she [don’t] understand” (76), she is superstitious and she even calls a santera in a moment of desperation (159). Nonetheless, when Felicia is dying in the house on Palma Street, Celia destroys all the objects related to Santería and accuses it followers of “witch doctors” (190). This ambiguity can be explained by the fact that Celia “dabbles in santería’s harmless superstitions, but she cannot bring herself to trust the clandestine rites of African Magic” (90-91), perhaps as a reflex of the communist point of view on religion (“religion is the opium of the people”, Karl Marx). She discourages Felicia’s “devotion to the gods” because she “[reveres] el Líder and [wants] Felicia to give herself entirely to the revolution” (186).

Santería is mainly represented in the character of Felicia, who “refused to be confirmed at all” (77) because she couldn’t choose Sebastian as a confirmation name – the nuns preferred María, like Lourdes had chosen. Felicia is introduced to this syncretic religion by Herminia, her childhood friend whose father was a santero. In fact, Herminia is a central character in the discussion around hybridity and post colonialist discourse because, as Edwards states in Postcolonial Literature (2008), “new identities [hybrid identities], Gilroy asserts, arise out of black diasporas, and these hybridized cultures must be analysed in complex ways” (147). Herminia descends from slaves that were brought to America in the black diaspora, and she and her family are the ones that originally represent the religious hybridity “as an expression of resistance to colonial discourse” (Edwards 140). Nevertheless, Felicia expresses her “resistance to colonial discourse” by not being racist (García 184), by staying in Cuba instead of going to the United States, by joining the guerilla training (105) and by being initiated and becoming a santera.

Pilar’s character is the one that makes the connection between all of these members of the Del Pino family. At first she is Catholic, then at third grade she stops praying (60), eventually she stops to believe in God (175), like her grandmother, and in the end of the story she is identified as daughter of Changó (200). She starts in a religious school in the United States and she finishes taking nine baths with special oils and travelling to Cuba to see her grandmother and to try to find herself. Indeed, her hybrid character, that questions and contests authority (her mother, the nuns, God, politicians), is also a big part of the discourse against colonialism.

The Del Pino family represents two opposite points of view concerning religion and politics. On the one hand, Lourdes and Jorge, Catholics, live in the country that is emblem of imperialism and capitalism. And on the other hand, Celia, Felicia, Pilar and Herminia (even though she does not belong to the family) are not Christians, believe in a hybrid religion and live in Cuba, country that personifies communism in the figure of El Líder. The family becomes then the portrait of the dichotomy between metropolis and colony, capitalism and communism, authentic and hybrid, through the characters’ beliefs and actions.

Reference

GARCIA, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993

Secondary source

EDWARDS, Justin D.. “Hybridity”. Postcolonial Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 139-149

Selected passage: pp. 49-51, five letters – “April 11, 1935 […] December 11, 1936 […] stuffed with anchovies. Thank you. C.”

In Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, the narrative is constructed through several points of view that shift from an omniscient third-person narrator to a first-person narrator, giving the voice to different characters. While the third generation of the Del Pino family is contemplated with a direct first-person narration (Pilar, Luz, Ivanito), the story of the two first generations is told in the third-person (Celia, Lourdes, Felicia). However, Celia’s letters to Gustavo are a form of first-person narration and they constitute an important mechanism, which allows the reader to fully understand central elements of the story. In the selected sequence of letters, the difference of tone and register, expressed through metaphors, vocabulary and textual coherence, reflects Celia’s feelings towards other characters and the alterations in her state of mind.

The letter of April 11, 1935 (p. 49), written by Celia during her honeymoon, starts with a list of mundane facts about the location and the weather, and changes into a poetic love letter, with metaphors concerning her relationships with Jorge and with Gustavo. Even though there is an abrupt change in the subject, from “It hasn’t rained a single day since we’ve been here” to “Jorge makes love to me as if he were afraid I might shatter” (p. 49), the textual coherence is still present due to the fact that both sentences correspond to the same general topic, the honeymoon (and love). The letter finishes like many of the letters, namely, with a love note such as “I am still yours, Celia”, or “I love you, Celia” (p. 50).

Such love note is not found in the end of the letter of January 11, 1936 (p. 50), the most succinct and objective letter among all the ones Celia wrote to Gustavo. The lack of adjective in the greeting and the lack of any kind of complement in the only sentence, “Gustavo, I am pregnant” (p. 50), can be seen as a reflex of Celia’s perspective towards her pregnancy. Concerning the greeting and the salutation, the absence of adjectives and of words that express emotion can be interpreted as a sign that Celia wants the focus to be on the message, on the main phrase, because that is what is important, urgent. On the other hand, in the main sentence, the absence of adjectives and details can be interpreted as a sign of absence of care and love (for the child). Indeed, as the following letter (August 11) reveals, Celia does not desire this child at all.

The general tone of disdain present in the letter of August 11, 1936 (p. 50), is expressed by means of a negative vocabulary related to the baby. The opening metaphor used to describe the fact that she is pregnant, “a fat wax grows inside me”, portrays the baby as an inanimate being and contrasts with the sentence in the next paragraph, “the baby lives in venom” (p. 50), in which the baby is portrayed as a creature that lives, therefore is alive. The disparity and lack of coherence found in these affirmations can also be observed throughout the letter, especially if compared with the letter from April 11 (p. 49). In this letter of April, there are no linking words between the sentences and the subject changes abruptly, but the sentences all fit in the same general theme and this gives coherence to the text. However, in the letter of August 11 (p. 50), the coherence is less evident, it is necessary to follow Celia’s thoughts to find the connection between the subjects. Twice, on the first and on the second paragraphs, the narration goes from one subject to another completely different, “it’s looting my veins […] from the heat” and “the baby lives on venom. Jorge has been in Oriente […]” (p. 50), announcing a change in Celia’s metal health and reasoning.

The extended metaphor present in the letter of September 11, 1936 (p. 50), starts with “the baby is porous” and evolves into the idea of porosity, of letting things through or absorbing them. The image of the porous baby consuming its own shadow, followed by its lack of shadow, can be associated with the figure of the devil or with the supernatural (in western culture), as it is the capacity of reading thoughts, what gives a tone of anguish and fear to the letter. The extended metaphor finishes with “she reads my thoughts, Gustavo. They are transparent”. The vocative “Gustavo” in the end of the sentence works as a way of calling for attention, maybe calling for help, and reinforces the feeling of concern and anxiety generated in Celia by the baby.

The letter of December 11, 1936 (p. 50-51), is the one that puts in evidence the gravity of Celia’s mental health. Through the use of the pronoun they – “they’ve hung gold stars in the hallways” (p. 50) – it is possible to assume that Celia is being taken care in some kind of sanatorium (as it becomes clear throughout the book). Furthermore, the letter starts with a description of the Christmas decoration in the hospital and it suddenly switches to a list of facts and events that do not have a real connection, or follow a real logical sequence. The letter presents then little coherence in both textual and phrasal levels: “they flay my skin and hang it to dry. I see it whipping on the line. The food is inedible” (p. 51). The lack of lexical and semantical coherence observed in these sentences is indicative of Celia’s mental state, that is the one of a person that is in an asylum.

The change in the style and tone of the letters, combined with the different enchainment of subjects and sentences, follow the development of the story and of Celia’s personal transformation: as her mental health declines, so does the coherence in her letters. These letters cover a critical moment in Celia’s life, that starts in her honeymoon and finishes with the birth of Lourdes and her confinement in the asylum, which means that all of her hopes to one day live with Gustavo – “I’ll sail to Spain, to Granada, to your kiss, Gustavo” (p. 50) – are over. Moreover, the letters are an important part of the story and of the plot, revealing the character through her own words and thoughts.

Reference:

GARCIA, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993

Everyone in Cristina García’s postcolonial novel Dreaming in Cuban has been displaced: some by exile, some by madness, some by family crises. The novel reveals the similarities and differences of the scattered characters’ varying experiences through the historical, cultural and personal memories which connect them to each other. García employs the narrative structure as a rhetorical tool by making it dependant on changing narrative perspective. By moving between early and mid-twentieth century Cuba and the United States, the characters of the novel are defined through their collective memories. The three generations of the del Pino family – Celia, Lourdes and Pilar – inhabit the space between past actualities and deceptive memories as playing a pivotal role in their respective lives. The different narrative voices of these women show memory as dependent on perspective, creating in turn, individualized historical truth.

Pilar, as a limited first person narrator, notices the fine line between the actual recollection of the past and its distortion into fiction, and is frustrated that she has to rely on what other people value as important in order to create her cultural and political history. In Postcolonial Literature, in the chapter on Memory, Justin D. Edwards cites the Caribbean poet and play writer Derek Walcott who highlights this fine line by defining history as “a complex negotiation between memory, forgetting and fiction.“ (Walcott: in Edwards 2008: 132). The term “negotiation” accurately describes the complex compromise that has to be made in order to represent history. The choice of integrating some facts, will leave others out and it is impossible to authentically represent the past. Pilar argues that “we only know about Charlemagne and Napoleon because they fought their way into prosperity” (García 1992: 28). The synecdoche of famous characters such as “Charlemagne” and “Napoleon” represents the winners of history who have whole history books dedicated to them. For Pilar and her precursors the physical fight that brought them to the present, is merely a narrated memory of unmentioned battles. The use of the nature-based metaphor “prosperity” is a further tool, to create a circular notion of thriving, prospering and decaying. Characters such as Napoleon or Charlemagne are being eternalized in history books and prevented from historical decay. Pilar defies this sole historic truth and states that “If it were up to me, I’d record other things.” (García 1992: 28). The linguistic use of the conditional tense “were” and “I’d” highlights the unlikeliness of an ordinary female middle class character to make decisions on what to document and what not. Pilar further develops what “other things” she would record, such as “the time there was a freak hailstorm in the Congo and the women took it as a sign that they should rule. Or the life stories of prostitutes in Bombay.” (García, 28). Nothing is known about these events and about these women, due to historians’ decisions. The two rhetorical questions asked by Pilar “Why don’t I know anything about them? Who chooses what we should know or what’s important?” show to what extent she is questioning our common knowledge (García 1992: 28). History is not a proof of what really happened, but rather a choice of perspective by people in power.

Lourdes, as well as Historians, creates her own truth by choosing a perspective on events and people. Although she does not speak in first person narration[1], Lourdes’ character is revealed through an external narrator and  through other characters’ supplements. Pilar observes that “Mom [Lourdes] filters other people’s lives through her distorting lens.” (García 1992:176). Through the lexical field of photography (“filters”, “lens”), the reader is confronted with a paradox. On the metaphorical level the concept of a photograph is as an excerpt of an immutable truth. Lourdes is portrayed as choosing a certain perspective and therefore distorting reality. Opposing “what is really there” with “what she wants to see”, Pilar stresses the difference between the two and that Lourdes makes a choice of the way she portrays her own memory (García 1992: 176). Lourdes judges events she was not present at and although these events are static, the interpretation and focus change with time. What happened in the past is not as pivotal as how we choose to reassemble it. What we remember and what we choose to forget is who we are, it constructs our identity. Edwards paraphrases Jamaica Kincaid’s statement about selective memory, who states that: „This process of erasure is a way of controlling and manipulating stories about the past“ (Kincaid: in Edwards 2008: 132). The importance of this “process of erasure”, is that it has the power to create a new truth by choosing what we see and also what we do not see.

Celia’s narrative switches between a limited first person narration in her expressive letters, as well as a third person narration that is generally limited to her own observations and thoughts. For her, the beauty of recollection lies in the ability to interpret and rearrange the original experience at will and “Capturing images suddenly seems to her [Celia’s] an act of cruelty” (García 1992: 48). Images suspend the possibility of rearranging the past, but rather present a given frame of an excerpt of truth. The hyperbolical portray of images as an “act of cruelty”, stresses Celia’s resentment to fixing memories that can never be changed nor forgotten.  Reflecting that “memories cannot be confined” Celia reasons with the metaphor “to imprison emotions of glossy paper” to show that memories should not be rigid and eternized (García, 47-49). Contrasting Celia’s attitude towards “imprisoned emotions” on images, is Celia’s action of writing letters for 25 years on the eleventh of each month to her Spanish lover Gustavo, without ever sending them off (García 1992: 36). By writing her personal truth on paper from 1935 to 1959, Celia restricts her memories to momentary choices that will remain unchangeable on paper. After having intermitted the structure of the novel various times through Celia’s letters, the novel ends with Celia’s last line “She [Pilar] will remember everything.” (García 1992: 245). The use of the hyperbole “everything”, shows Celia’s hope of finally letting her memories keep living in another form than through unsent letters. Celia sees them safe in her granddaughter’s hands, giving Pilar the choice of perspective to create a new historical truth.

Through the narratives, constructed of the three generations del Pino women, it becomes evident, that history is not a proof of reality but rather a choice of perspective. Memories do not portray the complete truth of history and just because something is history does not mean that it represents individual memories. Pilar, as a central first person narrator, stays close to narrating her own perspective of people and situations. Lourdes, through Pilar’s narration, embodies the choice between remembering certain aspects and forgetting others, to create new historical truths that give the characters the power to control and manipulate their past. Celia’s narratives switch between a limited first person narration in her expressive letters, as well as a third person narrator generally limited to her own observations and thoughts. Thus, narrative perspective is used as a powerful tool to intertwine different characters’ realities in Dreaming in Cuban. What we hear is an opinion not a fact and history, created of memories, is one perspective not the sole truth.

Wordcount: 1214 words

Bibliography:

• Edwards, Justin D. “Chapter Twelve: Memory.” Postcolonial Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
• García, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992

[1] Except when she has visions of her dead father.

Dreaming of Cuba in Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban

The Interlacing of Pilar’s Hybridity through meaning and stylistic figures

The political post-Cuban revolution context left many people exiled and evoked the issue of hybridity. Pilar’s inner turmoil concerning her immigrant experience is explored by contrasting the character’s longing for her home country with the slow detachment from her origins. In the chosen passage from page 137 to 138[1] in Dreaming in Cuban, the Cuban-born American novelist Cristina García plays with figures of speech to engage the reader in a reflection about the sense of belonging. By intertwining the meaning of the passage with the employment of stylistic figures such as metaphors, hyperboles and comparisons, a better understanding of Pilar’s hyphenated existence is enabled.

The different ways in which Pilar’s parents react to the separation of their homeland as well as Pilar’s own disruption between instances of longing for Cuba and letting go are explored through the use of stylistic figures. Pilar’s mother Lourdes tries to detach herself from Cuba by refusing to talk about her personal past “It doesn’t help that Mom refuses to talk about Abuela Celia. She get’s annoyed every time I ask her and she shuts me up quickly.” (138). The use of familiar language such as “she shuts me up” as well as the draconic way of showing the resistance of Lourdes dealing with her past “Mom refuses to talk” and “[Mom] gets annoyed every time” highlight the different demands from mother and daughter concerning their past. Pilar is longing for more information about her past while Lourdes is trying not to be involved in conversations concerning her personal history. Opposing Lourdes who tries to break bonds with Cuba, Pilar’s dad, Rufino Puente, is presented as being strongly attached to Cuba “Dad feels kind of lost here in Brooklyn. I think he stays in his workshop most of the day because he’d get too depressed or crazy otherwise.” (138). By using hyperbole “he’d get too depressed or crazy” attention is drawn to the inability of Rufino to find his place in Brooklyn. The trope “feeling kind of lost” is a paradox because it is impossible to be only half lost. The symbolic term “orbit” „he’s [Rufino] just in his own orbit.” (138) indicates his solitary lifestyle in the United States. As Cuba is “mostly dead” for Pilar (138) a parallel can be drawn by showing that Rufino only “looks alive” when remembering Cuba and his past (138). To demonstrate the importance of the instances where Pilar longs for Cuba, a dead metaphor is used: “But every once in a while a wave of longing will hit me and it’s all I can do not to hijack a plane to Havana or something.” (137). By using waves as a metaphor, the fragile and unpredictable state of Pilar’s feelings become evident. Feelings of longing can break out at any moment and when they do, they have a fluctuating impact. Letting Pilar be “hit” by waves exposes the force, the suddenness and also the coming and going of the above mentioned stylistic figure. This discrepancy shown by the dead metaphor “a wave of longing will hit me”, is a strong indication about Pilar’s uncertainness of where she belongs and about her inner conflict of slowly letting go of Cuba but simultaneously longing for it.

By choosing the teenage girl as a limited first person narrator as well as through the use of comparative figures of speech, Pilar’s detachment from Cuba and her ancestors can be examined.  By using antithesis “Most days Cuba is kind of dead to me.” (138), the reader’s attention is attracted to the paradox of this central statement. Firstly, although a country cannot be dead in the literary sense, the dead metaphor “being dead to someone” highlights the finality of the relationship between Cuba and Pilar. Secondly, it is impossible to be “dead on most days” which would have for consequence to be alive on the other days. During Pilar’s reflection she manifests her resentment against politicians and people in power positions, who write history by choosing a certain point of view. “I resent the hell out of the politicians and the generals who force events on us, that structure our lives, that dictate the memories we’ll have when we’re old.” (138). By using hyperbole “the hell” as well as military terminology such as “forcing”, “structuring” and “dictating” the restrictions which the politicians impose on Cubans and which will always remain in their memory no matter the context, are stressed. Through the use of the first person plural pronoun “on us”, “our lives”, “memories we’ll have”, it becomes clear, that Pilar still identifies with Cubans and feels as one of them. Pilar’s detachment from both Cuba and her grandmother occur day by day and is reinforced through the use of repetition demonstrating the slow and reoccurring progress. “Max knows about Abuela Celia in Cuba, about how she used to talk to me late at night and how we’ve lost touch over the years.” (137). The use of the past tense “how we used to” indicates the termination of this mental and emotional connection. Although the trope “losing touch” is a conventional expression, it underlines not only the loss of a mental connection, but also a physical loss. The slow detachment from Cuba, described as “fading”, gives Pilar’s self-reflection a temporality “Every day Cuba fades a little more inside me, my grandmother fades a little more inside me.” (138). Through the use of repetition “a little more inside me” we are brought back to the essential part of the phrase – the slow detachment from Pilar of her origins.

It can be concluded, that Pilar’s hybridity is demonstrated through intertwining meaning with stylistic figures. Through the effective use of drawing parallels and highlighting important elements through metaphors and hyperboles, Pilar’s inner conflict of both longing for Cuba and simultaneously letting go of it is shown. The opposing ways of dealing with the past of Pilar’s parents, reflect on Pilar who is torn between the two extremes: Lourdes who is trying to refuse her past and only lives in the moment and Rufino who is only happy when talking about Cuba. Thus Pilar has to find her own balance of these two extremes. She is torn between the two, struggling with her hyphenated existence and longing to find a way to reconcile the two sides of her life to know where she belongs.

Wordcount: 1055 words

Bibliography:

García, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992

[1] From page 137 “Max knows [ … ]” until page 138 “[ … ] about Cuba.”.

Every day, we see refugees on the news, people fleeing revolutions, finding themselves with no ‘home’ and constantly reconstructing their lives. Cristina García, with her novel Dreaming in Cuban, explores the consequences of the Cuban Revolution that took place in 1953. Identity issues, broken families, generational gap and political conflicts are at the centre of García’s work. Pilar Puente is one of the many characters of this novel to go through the struggles that followed the revolution. In fact, Pilar’s need to escape America to find salvation in Cuba is emphasized in this passage (GARCÌA 25, 26). By means of an extended metaphor, lexical field and a contrast between two verb tenses, this passage confronts the reader to the misery she is going through in America and the comfort she hopes to find in Cuba.

Firstly, the passage opens with an extended metaphor of superficiality and consumerism which can be interpreted as the occidental lifestyle. Superficiality and consumerism are characterized by the relationship between Pilar’s father and the ‘beauty queen’ (GARCÌA 25). The superficiality is highlighted with the description of the woman. Only described physically, the beauty she radiates is truly fake. Her hair is ‘blond and puffy’ (25) but it is only ‘bleached hair’; She is a canon of beauty (‘1950s beauty queen’) but she ‘[has] gone to seed’ and her face is ‘waxy [and] bloated’ (25). As can be seen, her beauty is based on fake ornaments. She characterizes the superficiality of the occidental culture. Moreover, the occidental consumerism is emphasized with their actions. Consumerism is ‘the belief that it is good for a society or an individual person to buy and use a large quantity of goods and services’[1]. Consumerism is the action of buying a great number of consumables because it is seen as “good”. For example, the first thing the reader learns about Pilar is that she ‘[is] trying on French-style garters and push-up brassieres’ in a shop (25). Right after that, she is ‘hiding behind racks of hats and on-sale sweaters’ (25). There is such a large number of goods that she is able to hide behind them. Thus representing the ridiculousness of consumerism. It is further seen that consumerism is used as an excuse for the couple to see each other: ‘They walk down Fulton Street arm in arm, pretending to window-shop.’ (25) To sum up, consumerism and superficiality are characterized in this passage by Pilar and the couple.

Even though Pilar almost embraced this style of living at the beginning by trying on goods and ornaments but she later realizes that she resents this lifestyle. Through a lexical field of disgust, this passage shows her repugnance towards this lifestyle. The moment she sees this woman with her father is clearly a turning point. As said earlier, she was living this lifestyle, but, as she ‘[sees] them’, she panics: ‘Shit! I can’t believe this!’ Indeed, in this passage, the physical attributes of the lady are often linked with elements of disgust: ‘like a 1950s beauty queen gone to seed’; ‘flicking, disgusting tongue’; ‘It makes me sick’; ‘that flycatcher tongue of hers’ (25). Pilar cannot stand this superficiality and realizes that the consumerism based lifestyle is a nonsense as she sees them ‘walking down’. Indeed, she realizes that the shops are ‘just a run-down stretch of outdated stores with merchandise that’s been there since the Bay of Pigs’ (25). It is through the lexical field of disgust that the reader can understand the Pilar’s misery. Pilar slowly realizes that she is living a lifestyle based on consumption and appearances and it disgusts her.

Following her disgust, is her will to go back to Cuba. Her decision to return there is accentuated in this passage by the opposition of two verb tenses: present and future. These two verb tenses are geographically attached: present for the United States and future for Cuba. As said before, when Pilar is talking about her life in America, it is associated with disgust. Furthermore, it is narrated in the present tense: ‘I think I hear’; ‘I stick my head’; ‘She has’; ‘They walk’; etc. This present tense is associated to her present life and is therefore synonym of disgust. She is not satisfied with her present life… Which leads her envision a different future. This future is linked to Cuba, as when she thinks about it, there is a shift of verb tense that occurs: ‘I’m going back to Cuba’; ‘I’ll be able to’; ‘She’ll be sitting’; ‘She’ll smell’; ‘There’ll be’ (26). The opposition between these two tenses emphasizes the struggle she is going through and the political ambivalence of the character. Not only this, but the opposition between her present and her future are opposed in terms of lexical field too. The future she envisions is a future full of hope, a future where all of her senses are pleased: ‘overlooking the sea’; ‘she’ll smell of salt and violet water’; ‘She’ll stroke my cheek with her cool hands, sing quietly in my ear’ (26). The lexical field of the five senses highlights the opposition between present and future. Pilar’s present lifestyle is full of disgust whereas her future is a collection of physical bliss. On the whole, there is a clear opposition between America and Cuba. Both geographical regions are associated with a lexical field and verb tenses that are diametrically opposed: disgust and the present tense for America and the five senses and the future tense for Cuba.

All in all, this passage shows Pilar’s necessity to go back to Cuba and to leave the repugnance of America. Through an extended metaphor of superficiality and consumerism characterized by the couple and a lexical field of disgust the passage highlights her disgust toward this lifestyle. Thus leading to her hope to find bliss in Cuba emphasized by an opposition between present and future tense both geographically attached to Cuba and America. This passage is a clear turning point in the life of Pilar as we will see later in the book where she is self-reflecting on this precise moment (p.138).

Bibliography

GARCÌA, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.

[1] http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/consumerism

The novel Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García is filled with themes, a lot of them linked to identity, exile and family. In this novel, each primary female character has her own issues, and her own way of coping with them. However, they all have one thing in common: memory is a big part of their lives and identities, and of the way they deal with their own problems. In this essay, I will discuss the role of memory in the lives of the four main characters: Celia, Felicia, Lourdes and Pilar.

Memories are a big part of Celia’s life. As a matter of fact, the way Jorge and his family treated her in her early years, trying to erase all trace of remembrance in her mind, has left a mark in her that can never disappear. However, as Maya Socolovsky points out, there is a paradox in the way Celia “remembers the process that was intended to create forgetfulness” (Socolovsky, 150). The letters that she writes for her old lover are a good way to show that she has not forgotten this violent experience (Socolovsky, 151). Later, Celia arranges her entire life around the Cuban Revolution, even replacing her husband’s photograph by one of Castro: “[Lourdes] snatches the picture of El Líder off Abuela’s night table. It’s framed in antique silver, wedged over the face of Abuelo Jorge, whose blue eye peers out from behind El Líder’s army cap.” (219). The novel ends on the scene of Celia drowning herself in the ocean, but only after making sure that her granddaughter Pilar will carry on the family’s memory, showing once again how important it is to her: “I will no longer write to you, mi amor. She will remember everything.” (245).

Dreaming in Cuban mentions a scene from Felicia’s childhood, where she plays on the beach before a tidal wave appears. In her article, Elena Machado Sáez points out that as the wave withdraws, little Felicia can see the sand at her feet, and that it “serves as a metaphor for the narrative record of history”, while the tidal wave represents the Revolution, “[breaking] with this historical record and [blurring] the boundaries between the public sand-history and the private homes of the families” (Sáez, 141). This shows that memory, both historical and personal, has always been a big part of this family. As a result of her illness, Felicia is actually “unable to produce representations of memory”, which explains her confusion and misunderstanding of most situations (Socolovsky, 154). To fill this void, Felicia uses her imagination as we can see in the novel: “Felicia’s mind floods with thoughts, thoughts from the past, from the future, other people’s thoughts” (76). Sáez even notices that “Felicia’s amnesia mirrors a national one, identifying the Revolution as a break within Cuban time”. In fact, she argues that Cuba, being isolated from the rest of the world, will fall to its demise just as Felicia does (Sáez, 141). In conclusion, memory is very important in Felicia’s story, but only through its absence. Her lack of memory is what eventually leads to her death.

Lourdes’ perspective on memory is somewhat contradictory. On one side, she fears her traumatic experiences (her rape and the death of her unborn child) will be forgotten by the world and serve no purpose. The novel states that Lourdes “hungers for a violence of nature, terrible and permanent, to record the evil” (227). She wants her experience to be meaningful, to stay in the world in some way (Socolovsky, 146-147). Simultaneously, Lourdes wishes to erase the memories of the past, to distance herself from it and to achieve “complete forgetting” (Socolovsky, 151). In other words: Lourdes wants to erase her traumatic memories from her own mind, to be released from the pain they inflict upon her; however, she hopes that the world will not forget them and that they will not have been pointless.

The last character I will talk about is Pilar. Memory is a fundamental element of Pilar’s life and identity. She thinks in a unique way and asks unusual questions, like, “who chooses what we should know or what’s important?” (Dreaming in Cuban, 28). This already shows certain maturity in her awareness of collective and individual memory. Additionally, the novel states that Pilar remembers everything: “I was only two years old when I left Cuba but I remember everything that’s happened to me since I was a baby” (Dreaming in Cuban, 26). However, Sáez points out that as Pilar gets older, the knowledge she had been acquiring through hearing her grandmother talk to her at night disappears when their connection fades, and, like Felicia (but not to the same extent), she is forced to fill in the blanks with her imagination (Sáez, 132). It is also interesting to notice that Pilar’s political views are somewhere between Lourdes’ and Celia’s, and so is her memory of Cuba. This is represented by the fact that Pilar has the opportunity to reconnect with her origins through music albums and santería herbs, but that she remains “ambivalent regarding the access these products supposedly provide” (Sáez, 136). Pilar inherits her grandmother’s spirituality, but it is influenced by the skepticism she gets from her mother. Celia gives Pilar a mission: that of preserving her family history. Her return to Cuba allows her to reconnect with this mission and with the elements of Cuba she has been missing (Sáez, 131). However, she fails her grandmother, as she is not able to complete her mission. Pilar realizes that Cuba is too complex to be recorded entirely: “Nothing can record this, I think. Not words, not paintings, not photographs” (Dreaming in Cuban, 241).

Through the short analysis of the role of memory in the lives of the four main female characters, I have proven how important it is in the novel in general. Additionally, we have seen that memory can vary enormously depending on the past experiences and the personality of each character. Memory is an important factor of personal and cultural identity, whether the person might be holding on to precious memories – like Celia and Pilar – or desperately trying to forget the past – like Felicia and Lourdes.

Bibliography:

Primary:

Cristina GARCÍA, Dreaming in Cuban, Ballantine Books, New York, 1993.

Secondary:

Elena Machado SÁEZ, The Global Baggage of Nostalgia in Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, MELUS, Vol.30, No.4, Home: Forged or Forged? (Winter, 2005), pp.129-147.

Maya SOCOLOVSKY, Unnatural violences: Counter-memory and preservations in Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban and The Agüero Sisters, Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory, 11:2, 143-167.

The Connection between the Past and the Present through Celia’s Letters and Memories in Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban

Memory is a recurrent theme in Cristina García’s novel Dreaming in Cuban. Being the oldest main character alive, Celia is the one that has the most stories to tell. She is the only character that writes letters and the reader knows their precise content. Celia writes down her memories because she is a passionate woman. With the letters she writes to Gustavo and then by sharing a peculiar connection with her granddaughter, Celia attempts to forget the loneliness of her past showing therefore how past and present are entangled in the novel.

Celia is described as a lonely and dreamy character. “She [lives] in her memories” (92) and she fears that her past “is eclipsing the present” (92). Also, “despite all her activities, she sometimes feels lonely. Not the loneliness of previous years, of a reluctant life by the sea, but a loneliness borne of the inability to share her joy” (119). Celia is thus represented as a melancholic character unable to share her happiness. However, Celia has a peculiar connection which seems comforting with Pilar. She “remembers the afternoons on the porch when her infant granddaughter seemed to understand her very thoughts. For many years, Celia spoke to Pilar during the darkest part of the night, but then their connection suddenly died.”(119) Celia misses the connection they managed to have while they were apart respectively in Cuba and in the United States. “Pilar feels much more connected to Abuela Celia than to [her mom]” (176) This connection is surprising because the young girl barely spent time with her grandmother. Celia and Pilar share emotions and experiences. For example, Pilar hears her grandmother “speaking to [her] at night just before [she] fall[s] asleep. [Celia] tells [her] stories about her life […] She seems to know everything that’s happened to [Pilar]” (29). From her perspective, Pilar “know[s] what [her] grandmother dreams” (218). The supernatural experiences they share illustrate the bonds of the two characters. Celia has a caring attitude towards Pilar and she seems much attached to her granddaughter. She is relieved when she says that “everything will be better now that Pilar is here” (230). It is as though Pilar brings comfort to her.

In opposition with the previous reassurance, Celia experiences a strong feeling of loneliness when her husband Jorge is not there. The time seemed too long to her during her past, shortly after she married Jorge. It seemed that “Jorge’s business trips stretched unendurably” (40). What adds to her sadness is that she cannot get along with Jorge’s sister and their mother. What is more, she still has her ex-lover Gustavo on her mind because “for twenty-five years, Celia wrote her Spanish lover a letter […] each month” (38). But Celia never sent the letters. Her aim was to recollect the most important events such as when the Revolution in Cuba was happening: “The rebels attacked again, this time in Oriente” (208). Celia also wrote about her children’s births and how she was melancholic about the past, particularly in her letter from April 1945 in which she writes “I remember our spring walks through Havana” (98). It implies that Celia misses Gustavo. She demonstrates her caring attitude when she uses words such as “Querido Gustavo” (49) (“Dear Gustavo”) in her letters. In one of them, Celia writes “I still love you, Gustavo, but it’s a habitual love, a wound in the knee that predicts rain. Memory is a skilled seducer. I write to you because I must.” (97) The young Celia is in love but it hurts her. Writing letters has become a habit. By putting words down, these important moments are implemented in her memory.

As Justin D. Edwards mentions in his book Postcolonial Literature, “memory becomes an important way of uniting the past with the present” (130). Eventually, the novel ends with the reader understanding that Celia stops writing letters because Pilar is now born. The last letter of the novel hints that from then on, Pilar will be the recipient of the memories of her grandmother. The last letter says: “Pilar Puente del Pino […] was born today. It is also my birthday. I am fifty years old. […] [Pilar] will remember everything.” (245). The last sentence of the novel contrasts with Celia’s declaration after Lourdes’ birth: “I will not remember her name” (43). It is a striking comment coming from a mother. Celia could not have the same bound with her own daughter. Memory is a central theme in Celia’s discussions, firstly in its mention in the letters and secondly when she speaks of Pilar and Lourdes.

Another point expressed in Edwards’ book is the following: the “narration […] interweaves two stories, one of the past and another of the present, mixing experience and recollection, history and memory throughout.” (Edwards 134) In fact, past and present are mixed in Dreaming in Cuban too. This novel having a non-linear plot, Celia’s letters about past events are found in between other chapters, giving another meaning to the present. Even in the non-epistolary chapters, Celia’s character is linked to memories. When Celia is lost in her thoughts her “memories flood back to her, the past [being] revived and resuscitated” (Edwards 132). But one also observes another major effect of memory (that could have been troublesome for Celia): “in time every event becomes an exertion of memory and is subject to invention” (Edwards 132). It means that memory is not precise and therefore Celia cannot be perfectly sure about her memories. That is why writing letters is way for Celia to have a more realistic memory of the events (instead of trusting her thoughts only).

Celia’s desire to recollect memories is shown through the wide content of the letters she writes to Gustavo. It also serves the purpose of ordering her thoughts and recollecting the important facts of her life. By having a peculiar connection with Pilar, Celia has a way of sharing her memories with the young woman. The last letter Celia writes is a symbol of the connection between past and present.

How Pilar Puente Shows her Creativity with her Descriptions in Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban

Caught in a context of a shattered family, Pilar Puente appears as a creative teenager. When she stares at the sky, she discovers a new scenery at which she is not used to. Her description of it reveals her strong interest in painting. Pilar’s attention to details is shown through the use of specific vocabulary and the references to buildings’ characteristics. The extract used in this essay is from page 60 of Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban. It starts by “I still don’t know […] anything is possible”. The use of artistic metaphors, precise architecture vocabulary and interest in shapes in this extract of Dreaming in Cuban highlights Pilar Puente’s vision of a painter that sees every details.

Once she gets to Florida, Pilar discovers new buildings and a different architecture. By thinking “in New York, the sky gets too much competition” (60), Pilar is referring to the high buildings and skyscrapers in her city. The metaphor of height she uses accentuates that the buildings in New York are very high and that they almost fight together to be the highest. She notices that the buildings are different in Florida, where “the land is so flat” without all the very high buildings around. What is more, there are also “huge Spanish colonial houses and avenues” to which Pilar is not accustomed to at all. She notices that the architecture is different and her precise description highlights the fact that she sees everything, every detail. She knows the exact terms to describe the surroundings. She makes reference to the “colonial houses”. The fact that Pilar knows this precise term shows her knowledge in architecture. Also, she describes the place as a “one of the ritzy neighborhoods of Miami”. By looking at it, Pilar guesses that rich people must live there. She describes it using irony, but it also shows that she perceives elements in these buildings that lead her thinking it is a luxurious neighborhood. Later in the novel, on page 216, Pilar thinks “all Mom says is that the buildings in Havana are completely decayed […] What I notice most are the balconies.” Pilar is aware of the architecture and she is interested by it. Her mother only sees the drawbacks while Pilar views it more positively since she is more familiar with the subject.

Not only is Pilar accustomed to the architecture, but she is also used to landscapes. While Pilar is starring at the horizon, she thinks: “the sky seems to take over everything, announcing itself in a way you can’t ignore”. This statement of occupied space emphasizes the greatness of the sky. The latter is described as dangerous and threatening. With that statement and especially by using a formulation in the negative form, Pilar accentuates the fact that no one can miss such spectacle. Pilar is impressed by the sky and finds it wonderful. At this point, “the sky looks like a big bruise of purples and oranges”. This simile is a proof that Pilar’s thoughts are artistic too, while it makes it clear that Pilar has a sense for painting and colors. This artistic comparison with the colors highlights the fact that Pilar is very familiar with them and how they are arranged together. Considering Pilar’s thoughts earlier in the novel on page 59, it is understood that painting itself is metaphorical. “Painting is its own language”, Pilar’s statement means that painting itself is complicated. It is her way to express herself. What is more, it implies that painting might be hard to understand because it has a deeper meaning to her than simply a combination of colors. She also expresses her dream to “be a famous artist someday” which would fit her because she already has the sensitivity of a talented painter.

Pilar has skills in painting but she also pays attention to details, shapes and sizes. She looks at the shops and the mannequins inside. “The shops along the Miracle Mile look incredibly old-fashioned. It’s like all the mannequins have been modeled after astronauts’ wives.” Pilar uses irony in her statement and says that the shapes of the mannequins are all alike. While Pilar is observing them, she notices their figures and their shapes. Pilar pays attention to their features which are necessary aspects to bear in mind as a painter. Pilar is therefore a great observer. Another example that highlights her ability is that she notices that “all the streets in Coral Gables have Spanish names- Segovia, Ponce de Leon, Alhambra”. Pilar looks attentively at the street names written in Spanish. It implies that she pays attention to details, this is another great quality that a painter can have.

While Pilar notices details, she also uses some expressions that are typical for creative people. Firstly, she uses the words “I imagine”. It is important for a painter to imagine before doing. Pilar needs to picture something in her mind before actually being able to paint it. She needs to visualize what she intends to paint. Secondly, by thinking that “anything is possible”, Pilar demonstrates an interesting idea because it illustrates her determination as a teenager. Moreover, this dead metaphor itself states truly that “anything is possible” in painting. Pilar is free to paint whatever she chooses. Her imagination won’t be restrained. Thirdly, Pilar’s “mind whirs this way and that, weighing the alternatives”. The latter dead metaphor expressing doubt shows a feature that creative people might share: uncertainty.

To conclude, the precise vocabulary that Pilar uses shows her knowledge of the architecture of the buildings around her. Pilar notices colors, shapes and sizes. In this extract, the metaphors work in an artistic way reinforcing the painter’s eyes’ view of the character. The artistic metaphors highlight the fact that Pilar was creative from a young age (her adolescence) and that painting is necessary for her at this moment of her life. It is constantly on her mind. The following of the novel will prove that her interest does not decrease.

Deconstruction of the Classical Way of Writing

Reversal of power in Christina Garcia’s “Dreaming in Cuban”

In “Dreaming in Cuban” Christina Garcia’s post-colonial narrative, power is a central theme. At the time when the book was written, power was usually associated to white, wealthy, upper class men and it was mostly them who also ruled History writing. Women and lower class people were not giving any voice and this created a lack in the historical perspective of events. This patriarchal superiority and women oppression and oblivion are also deeply debated in Justin D. Edwards’ “Postcolonial Literature” and “Understanding Jamaica Kincaid”, where an alternative storytelling is evoked, to counteract this empirical point of view. In this novel, Cristina García highlights a whole new aspect of power that breaks with classical rules, by giving a voice to those who were considered not being in power and forgotten by history, thus including mostly women and black people as narrative voices, in order to show another side of mythologization.

In García’s book, power reveals to be a very complex theme that can be analyzed in many aspects, as it has so different demonstrations. First of all, if we take account of the fact that men were always described as the ones in power, it is not astonishing to observe that in this novel there are some passages that depict perfectly this classical tradition too. For example, in the last part of the book, where Jorge confesses to his daughter Lourdes his actions towards his wife Celia, we can observe that he used his male power to overpower her. This moment sets the male dominant atmosphere where women are made invisible. Celia is in a vulnerable position as she is the victim because of male domination. In fact, Jorge says: “After we married, (…) A part of me wanted to punish her. For the Spaniard. I tried to kill her (…) I wanted to break her,” (p. 195) giving for reason to this psychological violence the fact that he wanted Celia to be punished for having another man before him. Most of all, this man was a stranger, a “colonizer” that possessed what was supposed to be his. This possession term remembers us the relationship between colonizer and colonized, where women were often used to embody the conquered land and sexually possessed to emphasize this male dominance. Edwards describes this sexist behavior in his book about post-colonial literature, when he writes that Haggard’s map is a “patriarchal fantasy that feminizes the colonial territory and, in turn, subjugates it to the imagined dominance of male phallic power.” (Edwards 96) meaning that women are metaphorically like a piece of land waiting to be possessed.  Furthermore, as McClintock depicts the women in post-colonial discourses as “sexually available, exotic and erotic” (Edwards 97), it shows that women were always considered inferior and that it was legitim to have them under male control and at their disposal. Besides expressing revenge and patriarchal dominance, this extract with Jorge’s confessions, allows us to replace this allusion to colonialization into a more precise historical context, where women’s inferior condition is directly evolved. Nevertheless, it is important to consider that Celia made it through and even scared her husband and this shows the beginning of power holding.

However, one of the main characters, Lourdes, is a perfect contradiction of those usually submitted represented women of that time, as when Spivak says there was the “tendency historically to prioritize men” (Edwards 100). Lourdes on the contrary would never let anyone tell her what to do, as she acts like an independent woman in a rather feminist way. One of many examples where García gives her a voice, is when she marries Rufino Puente and Lourdes refuses not to work even if it is considered not suitable for her new social status, as women normally only take care of the houses, the children and their husband. She goes against the stereotypical behavior of the women surrounding her as it is depicted when it is written that: “Cuban woman of a certain age and a certain class consider working outside the home to be beneath them. But Lourdes never believed that. (…) Lourdes never accepted the life designed for its woman.” (p.130), referring to the women in the Puente family. She acts like an independent woman who knows what she wants and does everything to achieve her goal. To go a little further, she even pursues equality between men and women by being engaged as “an auxiliary policewoman, the first in her precinct.” (p. 127), an exception for woman. She is looking for equality in holding power and her working shoes reinforce this feeling of a controlling position: “These shoes are power.” (p.127), meaning she feels powerful. Lourdes is a very obstinate and strong character and all that she suffered reinforced this though side. She is also a fighter and may be considered as a rebel even if she clearly stands against them. As illustration, as the soldiers came to her house, she bravely defended her husband by physically protecting him with her body and making them go away: “She jumped of her horse and stood like a shield before her husband. “Get the hell out of here!” she shouted with such ferocity that the soldiers lowered their guns and backed towards their Jeep.” (p.70). By acting this way, she shows that she is not docile as other women may be. Even when they come back to rape her, she “did not close her eyes but looked directly into his.” (p.71), as a sign of resistance instead of submitting herself completely to him. Lourdes is an admirable example of bravery and a powerful woman that contradicts with woman’s submission by this time.

Rebellion, feminism and commitment are characteristical traits in the woman of this family. As we previously saw Lourdes’ temperament, we can also retrace this determination in her mother’s and daughter’s behavior and comments. As Celia del Pino was pregnant for the first time, she had in mind to leave, but “if she had a girl, Celia decided, she would stay.” (p.42).  Because she wanted to prepare her daughter to “read the columns of blood and numbers in men’s eyes, to understand the morphology of survival. Her daughter, too, would outlast the hard flames.” (p.42). By telling this she reveals that she would let nothing harm her daughter the way she has been suffering because of her husband’s actions. No men would ever do her wrong and even if she had to go through some hard times, she would be ready to resist as Celia overcame her psychological destruction.

Moreover, Pilar has this fighter vain too. As an artist, she strongly believes that women are as capable as men to do astonishing work of arts and that it is not normal that their work is not considered as equal. She says: “Even supposedly knowledgeable and sensitive people react to good art by a woman as if it were an anomaly, a product of a freak nature or a direct result of her association with a male painter or mentor.” (p.139-140). She defends women’s circumstances and denounces the cliché that a woman can only exist through a leading man and that she would in this case only be a non-relevant being with no own credit. She declares that she wants herself to “obliterate the cliché” (p.139), that women are less talented than men and can only succeed through a man’s influence. Each of them in their own way manage to have a voice about how they think society should be and mostly about the place women should have in comparison to men. Equality and consideration are the main messages of their speech and this is a whole new element in post-colonial literature. The main narrative voices change and become these of women.

In addition, we also have to consider the fact that the women are not only given a voice through narrative voice, but that their position in History are also being questioned and redefined. Through Pilar, García denounced the fact that History has been very selective and excluded women. As Pilar says: “If it was up to me, I’d record other things.” (p.28) and then enumerates a considerable amount of woman who fought for their rights, such as “the women” in Congo, “prostitutes in Bombay” and her grandmother. She is giving importance to other protagonists of history and challenges white men’s power. Once more, she moves the centered men to the margins and shows what and who should also be reminded. By acting this way, she deconstructs the classical standardized narratives and sheds light on a new kind of “heroes”.

In fact, not only rather white women, but also black people are being giving the power to speak and express themselves, to claim all the things that have been hidden by History. As Edwards says it properly in his chapter about memory, “postcolonial writing often deals with the recollection of traumatic events, sometimes trying to heal the wounds left by colonial rules” (Edwards 132), and this is exactly what Herminia’s character does. In this novel, there is a black woman named Herminia Delgado who allows us through her father’s stories, to learn what really happened in black history in the context of Cuba and which were the forgotten elements. She says that “for many years in Cuba, nobody spoke of the problem between black and whites.” (p.184-185) and this truly reveals the social discrepancies and climate of these times, when segregation and racism where still very present and applied.

Furthermore, Herminia also recovers a part of the collective black community’s memory, by retelling what really happened with black people during war because the elements were selected. It is necessary to know the truth, as Kincaid says when she tells of “the importance of understanding history, particularly a past that is marked by colonization and slavery” and “the importance of depicting racial difference alongside gender distinctions” (Edwards, Understanding Jamaica Kincaid 13), meaning that differences were categorized on different levels.  Herminia reports that her father denounced “what happened to his father and his uncles during the Little War of 1912, so that I would know how our men were hunted down day and night like animals, and finally hung by their genitals (…)” (p.185). The atrocities endured by these black men is here depicted very crudely and it underlines even more this abuse of power they went through. Besides, the use of the “our men” emphasizes the feeling of unity concerning the black people and strengthens even more this separation between black and white. However, the most important point here is that she adds that “the war that killed my grandfather and great-uncles and thousands of other blacks is only a footnote in our history books.” (p.185) and this reveals the inequality in relation to power, because it was mostly the white men who had the power and supposed knowledge to write History and who did not found relevant to mention what they did to other people. As Kincaid understands it: “that act of forgetting has a purpose, for it erases abuse and illegitimate power and negates responsibility.” (p.131), and this is what History really reveals us, that it is only a partial, fragmented history.

Finally, she also has a word to say about male dominance in general, as she utters that: “One thing hasn’t changed: the men are still in charge. Fixing it is going to take a lot longer than twenty years.” (p.185), talking about how politics nowadays tend to say that we are all equal. By saying that, she denounces the fact that women are yet not considered to be alter-egos to men and that the change is going to be way more difficult than it was to reunite black and white people. She embodies the representation of black women willing to take power to tell the truth and redefine archaic stereotypes.

In conclusion, the way Cristina García wrote the story allows us to truly redefine women’s place and importance in this period, by giving them a voice. This new point of view contrast with for instance, the typical remarks mentioned in Edwards’ text, where women are marginalized. In fact, we are used to men centered stories with men’s opinion about everything in general and where women may only have a small place in the margins but that does not count. As Miller says, “woman are neither writers nor readers, and that woman have no played a role in the articulation, dissemination or condemnation of Orientalist discourses.” (Edwards 100) These words resume the cliché we believe in, are tend to follow and contribute to.

Bibliography:

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

—. Understanding Jamaica Kincaid. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007.

García, Christina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.