Extended Family in African Caribbean Literature: Cultural Themes

Introduction

African literature is more than words on a page. It tends to carry themes that relate to the writer's experiences or to the soul of a person. Both in "Nineteen Thirty-Seven" by Edwidge Danticat and "To Da-duh, in Memoriam" by Paule Marshall, one of the main themes is the importance of family — not only the immediate family but the extended family as well.

Before undertaking a textual analysis of these short stories, it is important to understand the sociological scholarship explaining the importance of the extended family in African literature. In their work "Grandparenthood in African American Families," Hunter and Taylor note that studies suggest "cultural notions of the 'traditional' black grandparenthood, in some way, inform contemporary grandparenthood" (72). Hunter and Taylor also explore the important family role of the dominant family member who serves as the family "linchpin" and how that role "emphasizes intergenerational care and obligation, family legacy and continuity, and expressive and instrumental functions" (75). Additionally, "grandparents are viewed as playing a critical role that is based upon African American cultural traditions and the economic and social realities of black life" (78, citing Gutman 1976). With these academic theories in mind, this paper will discuss the cultural importance of the extended family in African literature.

To Da-duh, in Memoriam (1967)

Paule Marshall's "To Da-duh" (first published in 1967) is an autobiographical piece that centers on conflict and even rivalry between a grandmother, Da-duh, and her granddaughter. Through this conflict between the two women, Marshall explores the dichotomies of tradition against modernity, the rural world versus the urban world, and age versus youth. Set in 1937, readers experience a family's trip from Brooklyn to Barbados — taken as a way for the narrator's mother to return to her homeland after fifteen years away and for the narrator to finally meet her grandmother.

When the narrator-granddaughter first arrives in her new surroundings, she comments, "I was busy attending to the alien sights and sounds of Barbados, the unfamiliar smells" (159). The mention of this "unfamiliarity" symbolizes the narrator's lack of knowledge about her extended family in the Caribbean. This is her first visit to see her relatives, and the fact that she notices the environment she has just stepped into is "alien" signifies her recognition of how different she is from her extended family.

Despite this unfamiliarity and new surroundings, the granddaughter understands the importance of coming to know her grandmother Da-duh for the first time. She narrates with great care and detail her observations of first seeing her grandmother. The granddaughter notices "the small, purposeful, painfully erect figure of the old woman" (159). She continues to observe: "[b]ut her eyes were alive, unnervingly so for one so old, with a sharp light that flicked out of the dim clouded depths like a lizard's tongue to snap up all in her view. Those eyes betrayed a child's curiosity about the world..." (160). One can infer that the child's detailed observation of her grandmother's appearance, and her analysis of the elderly woman's personality and character, signifies the importance placed on the grandmother. In other words, the granddaughter realizes the significance of meeting the matriarch of her extended family, and perhaps even senses how important this woman will come to be in her life.

The dichotomies Marshall builds her story upon are represented in the narrator's early impression of Da-duh: "Perhaps she was both, both child and woman, darkness and light, past and present, life and death — all the opposites contained and reconciled in her" (160). The granddaughter observes the conflicting characteristics that Da-duh seems to possess, in a way that perhaps shows the growing respect and admiration the granddaughter has for her grandmother.

Marshall introduces another issue that seems prevalent whenever a younger generation is introduced to the elders and members of the extended family: a longing to return to the safety and comfort of home. In "To Da-duh," the granddaughter narrates that she "longs for the familiar" (162). However, after this initial desire to return to the familiar world of Brooklyn, the granddaughter warms up to and begins to bond with her grandmother. They spend more time together, with Da-duh slyly seeking knowledge about the lavish-by-comparison lifestyle her granddaughter enjoys in New York. Each time the grandmother criticizes or makes a pointed comment about how life in New York could never be as great or fulfilling as life in the Caribbean, the granddaughter responds with details about prosperity and impossibly grand architecture that fascinates Da-duh. These interactions demonstrate both the dichotomy between the rural and the urban world and the tension between age and youth.

Over the course of their developing relationship, the granddaughter dances and sings for Da-duh, only to have her grandmother stare at her as if she were a "creature from Mars, an emissary from some world she did not know but which intrigued her and whose power she both felt and feared" (164). This moment also expresses the continuing dichotomy between the younger generation and the extended family in African American culture. The child's interaction with her extended family occurs only because she travels to the country of her parents' origin, where she is compelled to get to know her relatives. Both parties — the stranger from abroad and the native of the Caribbean — regard each other with caution and wonder. Yet somehow, a close bond is formed, as demonstrated throughout "To Da-duh." The granddaughter clearly becomes very fond of her Da-duh, as evidenced by their interactions during the trip and by the fact that the story itself is written as a celebratory memorial piece commemorating the grandmother's life and death.

Edwidge Danticat's "Nineteen Thirty-Seven" explores the deep relationship between a mother and a daughter in Haiti. Danticat's story highlights the importance of family, with the primary emphasis placed on the immediate family. The daughter, Josephine, has no way of interacting with her own mother except through visiting her in prison. The experience of entering the dreary prison — filled with malnourished women accused of practicing witchcraft and santeria — is almost more than the daughter can bear. Seeing her mother in such a devastating condition, with her head shaved and her skin "barely clinging to her bones" (448) due to rapid weight loss, leaves Josephine unable to find words. Throughout the entire period of her mother's incarceration, Josephine has not been able to speak a single word to her. Yet she continues to visit, which underscores the prevailing importance of family relationships in one's life.

Nineteen Thirty-Seven

"Nineteen Thirty-Seven," in addition to focusing on the immediate family relationship, briefly touches upon the strength and importance of extended family. Josephine describes how her mother survived the ordered massacre of Haitians residing in the Dominican Republic under Generalissimo Trujillo. Her mother managed to escape the soldiers but was forced to leave her own mother behind as she fled across the Massacre River into Haiti. "From the Haitian side of the river, she could still see the soldiers chopping up her mother's body and throwing it into the river along with many others" (451).

This occurrence explains the absence of extended family in Josephine's life, yet it also emphasizes that even though her grandmother and perhaps other ancestors were not physically present, they remained important figures. Josephine narrates: "[w]e were all daughters of that river, which had taken our mothers from us. Our mothers were the ashes and we were the light. Our mothers were the embers and we were the sparks. Our mothers were the flames and we were the blaze" (451). Although Josephine and other daughters had lost their extended family, they remained interconnected. Josephine recalls an utterance of her mother that highlights this importance: "'At least I gave birth to my daughter on the night that my mother was taken from me...At least you came out at the right moment to take my mother's place'" (451). This statement implies that although Josephine's grandmother is no longer physically present, she continues to live on through the spirit of her granddaughter.

Astrid Roemer's "The Inheritance of My Father: A Story for Listening" describes the strong connection between a mixed-race granddaughter and her black grandmother in Surinam — a grandmother she has gone thirteen years without ever meeting. After growing up as an African American child in the United States and entering adolescence, the daughter concludes that she was "ashamed to be the child of a woman with blond hair and grey eyes and a voice that sounds just like that of people who are not black....I longed for a mother with a scarf on her head and a skin so dark that I never would have to be afraid at night again that the sun would ever burn me" (350). It is this sense of personal shame about having a white mother, driven by the teasing of her peers, that perhaps compels the daughter's longing to travel to Surinam to meet her extended family and learn of her black father's roots. "I began to think about everything, about who my parents were, about my mother, about where my father is from, about what I am, about who we are together" (349).

Her parents are reluctant to allow their daughter to go, but finally relent when the trip coincides with the summer of her grandmother's eightieth birthday. The father and daughter make the long journey to Surinam. "I knew that we were flying away from the country of my mother and — to rid me of my frightening dreams — toward the country of my father" (352). However, it is notable that on the plane the daughter listens to a voice recording her mother left for her: "'My darling, whatever you may experience in your fatherland, do not forget that there is also a woman who has given you a motherland!'" (352). This expresses the continuing tension the daughter feels between wanting to embrace her extended family and ancestors in Surinam and her desire to remain part of her mother's American family.

Conclusion

Roemer, Astrid. "The Inheritance of My Father: A Story for Listening." The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, Ed. Stewart Brown and John Wickham. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 348–361. Print.