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Realism, Form, Politics: Reading Connections in Caribbean Migration Narratives

Realism, Form, Politics: Reading Connections in Caribbean Migration Narratives Abstract This essay argues that the Caribbean migration narratives of Jean Rhys and George Lamming employ formal tactics associated with modernism to question values subtending literary realism and provide alternative models for thinking about relations between the novel form and community. The systematic orchestration of two key devices in Rhys's Voyage in the Dark and Lamming's The Emigrants challenges modes of perception, temporality, and history shaping the realist discourses each novel directly or indirectly invokes. Voyage in the Dark responds to Zola's naturalist novel Nana through the use of parataxis; The Emigrants responds to the generic conventions of postwar British neo-realism through parataxis as well as paralipses. These experimental strategies interrupt the plotting of migration as Bildung . The resistance to character development and narrative closure enacted in Voyage in the Dark and The Emigrants through parataxis and paralipses leaves the colonial migrants in the grip of an unresolved past. Yet these same devices also operate on a wider textual register to shift readers' focalization from realism's gaze, which disjoins observing subject from observed object, suturing readers and colonial migrants into what Jean-Luc Nancy calls a communité desouvré , a precarious collectivity that is never completely enclosed or stabilized, always safeguarding a discrepancy among members. By doing so, these novels work to transform what Lamming calls “ways of seeing.” CiteULike Complore Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? « Previous | Next Article » Table of Contents This Article doi: 10.1215/00104124-1444437 Comparative Literature 2011 Volume 63, Number 4: 383-401 » Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Classifications Article Services Email this article to a colleague Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Download to citation manager Citing Articles Load citing article information Citing articles via Web of Science Google Scholar Articles by Rizzuto, N. Related Content Load related web page information Social Bookmarking CiteULike Complore Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? Current Issue Fall 2011, 63 (4) Alert me to new issues of Comparative Literature Duke University Press Journals ONLINE About the Journal Editorial Board Submission Guidelines Permissions Advertising Indexing / Abstracting Privacy Policy Subscriptions Library Resource Center Activation / Acct. Mgr. E-mail Alerts Help Feedback © 2011 by University of Oregon Print ISSN: 0010-4124 Online ISSN: 1945-8517 var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5666725-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Literature Duke University Press

Realism, Form, Politics: Reading Connections in Caribbean Migration Narratives

Rizzuto, Nicole
Comparative Literature , Volume 63 (4) – Sep 21, 2011
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Duke Univ Press
ISSN
0010-4124
eISSN
1945-8517
DOI
10.1215/00104124-1444437
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Abstract

Abstract This essay argues that the Caribbean migration narratives of Jean Rhys and George Lamming employ formal tactics associated with modernism to question values subtending literary realism and provide alternative models for thinking about relations between the novel form and community. The systematic orchestration of two key devices in Rhys's Voyage in the Dark and Lamming's The Emigrants challenges modes of perception, temporality, and history shaping the realist discourses each novel directly or indirectly invokes. Voyage in the Dark responds to Zola's naturalist novel Nana through the use of parataxis; The Emigrants responds to the generic conventions of postwar British neo-realism through parataxis as well as paralipses. These experimental strategies interrupt the plotting of migration as Bildung . The resistance to character development and narrative closure enacted in Voyage in the Dark and The Emigrants through parataxis and paralipses leaves the colonial migrants in the grip of an unresolved past. Yet these same devices also operate on a wider textual register to shift readers' focalization from realism's gaze, which disjoins observing subject from observed object, suturing readers and colonial migrants into what Jean-Luc Nancy calls a communité desouvré , a precarious collectivity that is never completely enclosed or stabilized, always safeguarding a discrepancy among members. By doing so, these novels work to transform what Lamming calls “ways of seeing.” CiteULike Complore Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? « Previous | Next Article » Table of Contents This Article doi: 10.1215/00104124-1444437 Comparative Literature 2011 Volume 63, Number 4: 383-401 » Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Classifications Article Services Email this article to a colleague Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Download to citation manager Citing Articles Load citing article information Citing articles via Web of Science Google Scholar Articles by Rizzuto, N. Related Content Load related web page information Social Bookmarking CiteULike Complore Connotea Delicious Digg Facebook Google+ Reddit Technorati Twitter What's this? Current Issue Fall 2011, 63 (4) Alert me to new issues of Comparative Literature Duke University Press Journals ONLINE About the Journal Editorial Board Submission Guidelines Permissions Advertising Indexing / Abstracting Privacy Policy Subscriptions Library Resource Center Activation / Acct. Mgr. E-mail Alerts Help Feedback © 2011 by University of Oregon Print ISSN: 0010-4124 Online ISSN: 1945-8517 var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-5666725-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview();

Journal

Comparative Literature – Duke University Press

Published: Sep 21, 2011

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