Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes [1 ed.] 9788126931712

Citation preview

Marginalized Voices •

Ill

Atnerican Literature Margins and Fringes

ATLANTIC

Edited by Sunita Sinha

Marginalized Voices in American Literature Margins and Fringes

Edited by

Sunita Sinha

ATLANTIC PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS (P) LTD

Preface Published by

ATLANTIC PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS (P) LTD

7/22, Ansari Road, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002 Phones: +91-11-40775252, 40775214, 23273880, 23275880 Fax: +91-11-23285873 Web : www.atlanticbooks.com E-mail : [email protected] Branch Office: Chennai Phones : +91 -44-48531784, 28291383 E-mai l : [email protected] © 2021 Su nita Sinha for selection and ed itorial matter; the contributors for individual chapters

Ali rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Application for such permission should be addressed to the publisher. Oiselai mer • The author and the publisher have taken every effort to the maximum of their skill, expertise and knowledge to provide correct material in the book. Even then if some mistakes persist in the content of the book, the publisher does not take responsibility for the same. 1l1e publ isher shall have no liability to any persan or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book. • The author has fully tried to follow the copyright law. However, if any work is found to be similar, it is unintentional and the same should not be used as defamatory or to file legal suit against the author.

• If the readers find any mistakes, we shall be grateful to them for painting out those to us so that these can be corrected in the next edition. • Ail disputes are subject to the jurisdiction of Del hi courts only. Printed & bound in India by Atlantic Print Services

l've had enough l'm sick of seeing and touching Both sides of things Siek of being the damn bridge for everybody The bridge I must be Is the bridge to my own power I must translate My own fears Mediate My own weaknesses I must be the bridge to nowhere But my crue self And then I will be useful The above poem by Donna Kate Rushin voices the rejection of the role as an alienated person which discusses the idea that black women always live in the liminal space between race and gender issues, and cannot pick a side-they are always explaining issues of race to white women, and issues of gender to black men. The book makes it clear that women of color-no matter their racial or ethnie identities-are banding together for the sake of democracy and human rights. Marginalization is a universal issue that has an adversarial effect upon societies around the world. The OECD report 'E't]uity, Excellence, and Inclusiveness in Education' reveals: "The challenge we face is how to ensure our education systems give every child the quality learning experiences they need to develop

iv Preface ----------------------

and realize their individual potential, and to do so in ways that value who they are, their language, identity, and culture. How do :'e harness diversity, create fairness, and ensure our learning env1ronments engage a nd achieve the best outcomes for ail individuals, not just a few?" In her collection of her provocative essays on Third World art and culture, Trinh Minh-ha offers new challenges to Western regimes of knowledge. Bringing to her subj ects a profound ~ense of the various denotations of the marginal, she explores issues "such as Asian and African texts, the theories of Barthes, questions of spectatorship, the enigmas of art, and t he perils of anthropology." Marginalization at the individual level leads to an individ_ual'~ exclusion from significant involvement in society. The margmality of a person may be the result of exclusion from the Society by its other members, or it may be a choice made by the individual. Being margina l may form an essentia l part of a person's identity, for this makes it possible to differentiate oneself from the values of the w ider society. On the other hand being excluded from one group often opens up an access another group. People who are identified as marginal w it hin the traditional Western culture may be viewed as existing in "an elsewhere-wit hin-here". They live in a marginal reality w ithin a society and culture, which is not, however, as strictly banned from the world of the mainstream as it could seem. Commenting on the marginal status of Man, the American urban sociologist, Robert. E. Park states, "The marginal man ... is one whom fate h~s condemned to live in two societies and in two, not merely d1fferent but antagonistic cultures .... His mind is the crucible in which two different and refractory cultures may be said to melt and, either wholly or in part, fuse."

r;

Marginalized groups often confront compound alternati ves in interpreting and representing their own identities. T hey may choose, or feel impelled, to assimilate to the patterns and beliefs of the dominant group, thus renouncing alternative identities, or at least judging them by the standards of the domina nt group and ~eakening the collective bonds which had defined them as a group ~n the first place. Alternatively, they may choose to highlight an mdependent separate identity in contrast to dominant norms and

Preface

V

to act this out as demonstrably as possible, drawing individual pride and collective strength from such challenges. Such a move may run the risk of increasing the isolation of marginalized groups and prompting a repressive backlash from the dominant group if it feels its power is threatened. It may also produce a new set of dominant norms within the marginalized group itself, resulting in new fractures and experiences of marginalization for those members who are unable or unwilling to comply. In reality, most marginalized people steer a path between these two extremes, developing a multifaceted identity and negotiating complex relationships with a wide variety of individuals and groups. In her collection, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose, Alice Walker remarks, "When we have pleaded for understanding, our character has been distorted; when we have asked for simple caring, we have been handed empty inspirational appellations, then stuck in the farthest corner. When we have asked for love, we have been given children. ln short, even our plainer gifts, our tabors of fidelity and love, have been knocked down our throats." Phillis Wheatley, an American poet, spent most of her life entangled in a collision of cultures. H er poetry speaks much a bo ut colonial society in eighteenth century New England and its hierarchal relation ships. As a Christian, a slave, a woman, a poet, and an African, Wheatley experienced racism on various fronts. Her poetry gives insight into marginalized groups in colonial America often quietened due to illiteracy. The anthology opens w ith Billy Bin Feng Huang's scholarly paper, '"It's Ail in My Letters!' - On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced H er Protest From Behind an Epistolary Mask " . Huang tries to demonstrate that W heatley has applied the same strategy in her letters; that is, she has built an epistolary mask, from which she has voiced her protest against enslavement. Jeffer y Moser's article, "Marginalization and Faulkner's Melancholy: The Blues, Southern History, Black and White Consciousness, and Faulkner's That Evening Sun", shows a deep concern about race and a keen sensitivity to the changes in art and literature happening around Faulkner, especially with regard to the movement of modernism. It studies the great and arduo us struggle of Faulkner in the

vi

Preface

advocacy for the civil and economic rights of African Arnericans, and eventually, of a il Americans. In their analytica l article, "Wandering Jasmine: A Roped-off Life", Carole Rozzonelli and Alessandro Monti focus on the issue of marginalization of South Asians in the United States and try to investigate the white Americans' inability to embrace the racial difference of an lndian immigrant. Priyankar Datta's essay, "Marginalized Voices in J.O. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye" points out that the recent trend of literary analysis on the basis of literary theories has presented diverse causes of marginalization-gender (Feminist criticism), power (Post-Colonial criticism), economy (Marxist criticisrn), etc. but Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye does not belong to any of these categories because its protagonist Holden Caulfield is an adolescent whose main trouble is that he does not want to grow up. This unrealistic attitude counts for his marginalization. Reena Mitra's article, "J.O. Salinger's The Catcher in The Rye: A Modern Rendition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", tries to express how teens are marginalized in the society. lt discusses how the most of American societies reject those who suffer from mental illnesses or disorders. M itra's second a rticle, "Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine: An Immigrant's Peregrination from Defiance to Resolutio n", airns at discussing the marginal identities in t he fiction of Mukherjee. lt tries to explore the feminine anguish ernanating out of their marginal status in the society. Bhaskar Roy Barman's article, "Alex Haley's Roots: The Saga of Black Myth", examines the trauma, pa in of dislocation, of rootlessness and unbelonging. M ehar Fatima's article, "The Kite Runner: Voicing the Unheard", tries to express human cultures, sentiments, believes, and practices of those who lived unknown a nd unconsciously find their voices heard through diaspora w ith realization of rooted identities, gains and lasses of ideologies. Goutarn Ghosa l, in his a rticle, " The Killers-H erningway's Prose Art and Social Commitment" , tries to study the p light of underrepresented people in American society-misogyny, racism, and in general a troublingly nonexistent concern for minorit ies, or anyone who is not white and male. Sarani Ghosal Mondal's article, "Celie in The Color Purple: Acquiring Voice through a Womanist Quest", explores the struggle of blac k women w ho

Preface

vii

rise to power and acquire a subjective voice of their own through a series of blows at home and outside. Sneha Sawai's article, "Reclaiming Oneself: Subaltern Perspectives in Toni Morrison's Beloved", ably delves into the complexity of being a black woman in a patriarchal racist society. It presents a penetrative insight into the black community in the United States, its utility and its colorful and bright nature in the opposition to the lethality of its situation in the world of unevenness, separation, inj ustice, and Jack of understanding and communication between whites and blacks. We may conclude with Martin Guevera Urbina's remark in his book, Twenty-first Century Dynamics of Multiculturalism: Beyond Post-racial America: After centuries of marginalization and neglect, we need to cast our own movements, projects, and ideas as a battle for relevancy in the face of historical manipulation, exploitatio n, and oppression. We need to fight, tooth and nail, for equity in ail areas of social life. One point to make clear, ethnie and racial minorities are not looking for scraps or a handout from the old paternalistic system but an equitable, stable, and leveled playing field. This study brings marginal issues to the fore and offers readings of a w ide range of contemporary Ameriéan literature that represent characters or communities at the margin of society. I wish to express my gratitude to the contributors in this editorial venture, who enth usiastically contributed to this project and enriched the anthology with their perceptive papers. I am particularly thankful to Dr. K.R. Gupta, Chairman, Atlantic Publishers and Distributors (P) Ltd . for the confidence evinced in me and for seeing the book through the press.

Sunita Sinha

Contents Preface .....................................................................

1t1

Contributors ...........................................................

XI

1. 'lt's Ail in My Letters!'-On How Phillis Wheatley

H as Voiced Her Protest From Behind an Epistolary M ask ..................................................... Billy Bin Feng H uang

1

2. Marginalization and Faulkner's Melancholy: The Blues, Southern H istory, Black (and White) Consciousness, and Faulkner's That Evening Sun (1931) ............................................................. Jeffery Moser 3. Wandering Jasmine: A Roped-off Life ................... Carole Rozzonelli and Alessandro Monti

4. M arginalized Voices in J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye .. .......... ........ .................. ......... ....... ........ Priyankar Datta

25 39

57

5. J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye: A Modern Rendition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ................................................... Reena M itra

64

6. Bharati M ukherjee's Jasmine: An Immigrant's Peregrination from Defia nce to Resolution ............ Reena Mitra

78

7. Alex H aley's Roots: The Saga of Black Myth ........

90

Bhaskar R oy Barman

X

Contents

8. The Kite Runner: Voicing the Unheard. ................. Mehar Fatima

100

9. "The Killers"-Hemingway's Prose Art and Social Commitment ............................................... Goutam Ghosal

112

10. Celie in The Color Purple: Acguiring "Voice" through a Womanist Quest.................................... Sarani Ghosal Mondai

122

11. Reclaiming Oneself: Subaltern Perspectives in Toni Morrison's Beloved........................................ Sneha Sawai

134

Con tributors Billy Bin Feng Huang. Ph.D., is working as Senior English Teacher of Shilin Vocational High School of Commerce, Taipei, Taiwan (R.O.C. ). Jeffery Moser is completing his doctorate in Renaissance poetry and drama at the University of Denver, Denver, Colorado (USA). His current research is about William Shakespeare's non-dramatic verse and the culture of print. He has also written and given presentations on the verse language and structure of Tudor poetry and a bout the poetry and poetics of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Carole Rozzonelli, Associate Professor of English, ITC, and Communications Law (Law of the New Informa tion Technologies, Media and Communications Law) at the Institute for Information & Communication, University of Lyon 2, France. Former Vice-Chancellor in Communication of the University (2008-2012). Associated with the Research . Centre PASSAGES XX-XXI and Le Grimh in Lyon. After specializing in the area of English language and ITC literacy, English literature and cinema, now, she specializes in Media Law, covering both traditional mass media as well as the law of the New Information Technologies. She currently lectures on English, ITC and Media Law. Speaker in conferences in France and also in international conferences on English and ITC (Bergamo, Torino, Antwerp). She collaborates with Professor Alessandro Monti and has participated in the research international series DOST on Oriental Studies with the Department of Oriental Studies, Torino, Italy. Also, she edited the series DOST Educational. She published in Italy, India and France with Loescher Editore, L'Harmattan Italia, Edizioni dell'Orso, Atlantic Publishers, Cercles Editions,

xii

Contributors

EADTU, Le Grimh Editions. On the advisory editoria l board of The Atlantic Review of Feminist Studies. Alessandro Monti, Retired Full Professor of English and Contemporary Indian Studies, University of Palermo then University of Torino, Italy. Formerly Head (for six years) of the Department of Oriental Studies (Turin). Member of the National Committee for the evaluation of University Research. Visiting Professor with the Kakatya University (Warangal). Joined the Committee for Commonwea lth Studies (Delhi) replacing Mulk Raj Anand after his demise. ICCR Fellow with the Banares Hindu University. Associated with the Research Centre CESMEO for Advanced Studies in Oriental Studies, Turin. Chief Guest in Tirupathi at an International Conference on Indian Contemporary Literature. Speaker in analogous conferences in Edinburgh, Delhi, Trivandrum, Singapore, also speaker in international conferences on Indian and Sanskrit Culture (Milan Rome ' ' Turin). He founded and directed for 6 years t he research international series DOST on Oriental Studies with the Department of Oriental Studies, Torino, editing or taking charge of more than 20 books. Previously, he edited the series Paradoxa with L'Harmattan, Italy. H e published in India with Atlantic Press, Prestige, Women Unlimited and others. Internationally with Greenwood, Hong Kong University Press, University Press of America, Rodopi, Le Grimh Editions. On the editorial board of The Journal of Aesthetics (no more published, Kerala) and on the advisory editorial board of The Atlantic Review of Feminist Studies. Priyankar Datta is an M.A. in English from the University of Burdwan. He has qualified N.E.T. At present I am employed as an Academic Counsellor of N etaji Subhas Open University (Suri Vidyasagar College Study Centre. Centre Code: C-03 ). He is doing my Ph.D. on the "Quest for Justice in the Selected Novels of Doris Lessing" from Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University. Reena Mitra, M.Phil., Ph.D. (English), a gold-medallist from Lucknow University, bas taught in Lucknow University itself

Contributors

xiii

and in Christ Church P.G. College, Kanpur, for over four decades. She has to her credit six internationally acclaimed books as sole a uthor/editor and about ninety r esearch papers published/presented at International and National conferences and seminars. She is currently working in Amity University, Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow Campus) as Professor of English. Bhaskar Roy Barman is an internationally p ublished and anthologized poet, novelist, short-story writer, critic, editor, book-reviewer, translator and folklorist and recipient of a good many national and international awards. He has authored and edited as many as ten books out of which six books have been published. They are: 'Gateway to Heaven', English original novel, Modern Short Staries: The Trap and Other Staries, an original short story collection , " Tagore in Tripura", dealing with Rabindranath Tagore's visits to Tripura from a literary and political perspective, Folktales of Northeast Jndia (compiled and edited ) El Dorado: An Anthology on World Literature (Edited ), fe atur ing comprehensive and research-oriented papers contributed by eminent scholars from around the world on different aspects of world literature and South-Asian Literature: Criticism and Poetry (Edited). Dr Roy Barman translated into English from Bengali a good many short stories and the translations have been published in literarily prestigious journals. He presented papers at a good many national and international seminars and is listed in 49 national and international who's whos. He is associated with many national and international literary organizations in important positions. He has fathered "World Literature Society", "Tripura Poetry Society" and "Sahitya Adda" (Literary Rendezvous). Mehar Fatima, is working as Assistant Professor, The School of Law Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi. Goutam Ghosal, Ph.D., D.Litt., is Professor of English, VisvaBharati (A Central University) Santiniketan. His areas of specialization are Indian English Literature and Indian Literature. His other areas of interest are 19th century British

xiv

Contributors

a nd American Literature, Tagore and Sri Aurobindo . Ghosal was the Chief Editor of The Visva-Bharati Quarter/y between 2005 and 2007. Sarani Ghosal Mondai, Ph.D. is an Associa te Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Sciences and Deanlnter-lnstitutional Relations and Alumni Affairs at N ationa l lnstitute of Technology, Goa. She is the author of a pioneering book entitled Poetry and Poetics of Walt Whitman and Sri Aurobindo. She has also edited another book entitled Indian R esponses to Shakespeare. H er areas of interest include Comparati ve Literature and App lied Linguistics. She ha d been a research associate at India n lnstitute of Advanced Study. She has presented papers on Comparative M ysticism and Applied Linguistics at different universities of the US and Asia. She has also collabo rated in a UGC fu nded project under e-Pathshala and ber present resea rch is on Sufism and Advaita Vedanta under MHRD's seed grant. Currently, Sarani Ghosal is wor king on the 21st Century Teaching Pedagogy a nd delivered lectures on it at Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, Yogyakarta State University, lnstitute of Technology, Cambodi a and State University of New York, South Korea.

Sneha Sawai has completed her gradua tion from Lady Shri Ra m College and post-grad uation from Sri Venkateshwara College, University of Delhi. I have been teaching in Kalindi College as Assistant Professor since July 2011. She is presently doing her Ph.D. on African-American Literature from Ignou under Professor Nandini Sa hu. Her area of interests rare- American Literature, Women's Wri ting and Popula r Literature.

1 CHAPTER

'It's Ali in My Letters!'-On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest From Behind an Epistolary Mask Billy Bin Feng Huang

Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,/ Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,/ Whence fl ow these wishes for the common good, (Phillis Wheatley, "To the Right H onorable William, Earl of D artmouth," Il. 20-22)

[An epistolary nove! is a] narrative in the form of letters .. .. The form enabled {Samuel} Richardson (1689-1761) conveniently to reveal his heroine's priva te tho ughts and feelings while advancing the plot. The reader, in the role of literary voyeur, could then see the shifting points of view without the intrusion of the author. (Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz, Literary Terms, 79, italics mine) Introduction

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) is the first p ublished female Afro-American poet, whose poetry lays the fo undation of the genre of African American literat ure. A black slave born in Africa (probably in today's Senegal or Gambia), Wheatley was brought to Boston in 1761. She was purchased by John Wheatley, a wealthy tailor, for bis wife, Susannah, as a companion, and was named after the vesse! that had carried ber to America. O ut of ber sympathy for this frai! but remarkably intelligent

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

2 ----

child, Susannah taught her to read and write. Later, Wheatley came to learn about the Bible as well as some prominent English poets, like Milton a nd Pope. Eventually, she acquired the skills of writing poetry. In 1773, the Whea tleys helped publish her first volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in London, w hich soon created a sensation, for people got irresistibly curious to see this self-taught Negro poet glorify God (Norton, 824). Recently, there has been a trend in literary circles towards a careful rereading of Wheatley's poetry. To be more specific, Wheatley, on the surface, may seem to be celebrating God in her poetry; " however, the poet [Wheatley] wears a mask. lt is beneath the surface that she chastises Christian slaveholders" (Loving, "Uncovering Subversion," 69, italics m ine). That is, in reading her poetry, it is critica l that we should read between the lines to uncover her voice of protest. Unfortunately, critics decades ago simply fa iled to do sol As a consequence, Wheatley used to be 'marginalized' poet: not only was she dismissed as a minor poet but also her poetry was relegated to the secondary section in the anthology. Not until now, an era of globalization and feminism, has her poetry been reread and reevaluated. ln addition to her enormously successful poetry, Wheatley has corresponded quite often with the dignitaries then. As Beckson and Ganz state, the epistolary nove! enables readers to hear a character's inner voice. Likewise, we can ga in an in-depth understanding of an author by studying his or her letters properly, for after ail, "a wide stock of correspondence between" two pa rties truly "affords us a rich window onto" the author 's mind (King and Jones, "Testifying for the Poo r," 787). ln this paper, I will first study the attributes of epistolary communication. Then I will do a close reading of Wheatley's letters. My goal is to discover how Wheatley has voiced her protest from behind an episto lary mask. Wheatley: A Marginalized Poet Before, Now 'De-Marginalized'

As stated above, Wheatley is a self-taught poet whose works are mainly about extolling the Lord . Naturally, she would take the blame for catering to the W hites and t urning her back on her fellow Black people. H er "To the King's Most Excellent M a jesty" is a notable example:

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

3

Your subjects hope, dread SireThe crown upon your brows may flourish long, And that your arm may in your God be strong! 0 may your sceptre num'rous nations sway, And ail with love and readiness obey! Great God, direct, and guard him from on high And from his head let ev'ry evil fly! And may each clime with equal gladness fee A monarch smile can set his subjects free ! (Collected Works, 17, Il. 1-5, 11-14) In this poem, Wheatley implores God to enable George III to bask in His graces, so that his sovereign may flourish. Above a il, she lauds him for repealing the Stamp Act to set his subjects free. Seemly, Wheatley has unconditionally identified with the Whitebased, British empire, taking a grossly subservient attitude. It is beca use of such a reading of her poetry that has rendered her reproachable. For a long time, she has been "critiqued for being a poor imitator of Alexander Pope and his contemporaries, for not reflecting the black experience, and for writing in a neoclassical or 'white' style" (Walker, "T he Defense of Phillis W heatley," 235). H enry Louis Gates Jr. has also noticed that " the overwhelming tendency in Wheatley's criticism has been to upbraid her for 'not being black enough"' (The Trials, 81). Eleanor Smith has relentlessly inveighed against Wheatley because she has turned her back on her fellow African Americans: [Phi/lis W heatley is one of those blacks] who are taught to think white and to divorce themselves from who they are. When they direct their energies, be they creative or otherwise, towards Whites, they are never consciously contributing to their own liberation or the li beration of Black people. Phillis Wheatley did not ... con tri bute to the well-being of black people of her time. ("Phillis Wheatley: A Black Perspective," 407, italics mine) For these critics, Wheatley's disrepute as a traitor of her own race ought to be well-deserved. As mentioned previously, such

4

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

prejudice against her derives from the misinterpretation of her poetry, or the failure to dig out her hidden voice of protest, to be more specific. Luckily, this error has been redressed by cri tics today, and as a result, she has been 'de-marginalized.' First of ail, critics today have noted that Wheatley "must have recognized her paradox ica l social position, near the fulcrum of privilege and disenfranchisement." H ence, "Wheatley's distinctive response to the spirit of her times was to project a reflexively race-conscious presence in her poetry... " (Harris, "Phillis Wheatley, Diaspora Subjectivity, and the African Canon," 36). The analysis above can boil down to one single principle: be sure to capture her voice of protest against slavery that is hidden between the lines! A no table example would be Wheatley's " On Being Brought from Africa to America": In the beginning of the poem, Wheatley states that it was God's mercy that brought her " from her pagan land" (18, 1. 1), and then she came to know that "there's a God, that there's a Savior, too" (18, 1. 3). Most of ail, she writes, Sorne view our fable race with scornful eye, "Their coloris a dia bolic die." Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. {18, Il. 5-8) Here Wheatley's message of racial equality is more obvious. Harris sees how she "highlights the redemptive captivity in Christ" (37). In other words, as she thinks that God will p ut her on the "angelic train" despite her " diabolic" color, she may as well be saying that there has to be equality between her fellow people and the Whites! In other words, while Wheatley seems to be praising the Lord for His graces, but actually, she is secretly projecting out her voice for racial equality. About Epistolary Communication

As stated a bove, an epistolary text may enable its readers to grasp the author's most intimate feelings. Furthermore, it may a lso be the author's means to subjectivize himself or herself. And it is at this point where epistolary communication becomes interconnected with the social ambia nce. Meritxell Simon-

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

5

Martin regards letter writing "as performative autobiographical acts of self-formation." In addition, letter-writers work out their subjectivity through the signifying practice of self-narrating by means of their epistolary 'l'-in dialogue with culturally embedded discourses and determined by the features of the epistolary genre (most notably the intrinsic presence of the epistolary 'you'). Letters act as spaces where letter-writers uncritically adopt, partially or openly challenge, and individually reappropriate .. . normativity. ("Barbara Bodichon's Travel Writing," 292) To sum up, as the author commences subjectivizing himself or herself in the letter, (s)he also begins interacting with the cultural discourses in society. ln an epistolary manner, the author takes his or her own stance on these discourses. Therefore, as "one of the most widely diffused print genres during the early modern period" (Altman, "Political Ideology in the Letter Manual: France, England, New England," 106), epistolar y writing "provide[s] evidence of discursive, commercial, and social conventions as well as reflecting changes in these conventions" (Mitchell, "Entertainment and Instruction," 439, italics mine). Moreover, epistolary communication is basically an act of exchange. Peter Brooks notes that an epistolary author has to see and respect his or her addressee, because only when the recipient reads the letter will the epistolary communication serve its purpose. The writing subject (J) must always be aware of the one (s)he corresponds with (you) . This 1 must be conscio us that this you will be reading the letter as an J ("Words and 'the Thing,"' 542). Susan Foley also emphasizes such a reciprocity The writer reaches out to the recipient, expressing the value of tha t person for the writer. Explicitly or implicitly, the writer seeks reciprocation of the gesture .... Nevertheless, ail letters are intended for reading by another person. The exchange of correspondence- envisaged as an "epistolary pact" ...-serves primarily to construct the bonds between people. ("Your Letter Is Divine, Irresistible, Infernally Seductive," 239-48)

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

6 -----

Just as Emile Benveniste observes, whenever the pronoun I is seen in a sentence, another pronoun you has to be called for explicitly or implicitly. And this is when a human experience is communicated ("Language and Human Experience," 1-2). That is, you and I create a polarity in language, and epistolary communication simply hinges on this polarity; a letter is written to be read, which is also an underlying principle of letter writing. 1 In addition, a letter writer, most of the time, will be looking forward to a reply from the recipient. This is Foley's socalled "epistolary pact," a notion Altman considers a necessary component of epistolary com munication. ln Epistolary: Approaches to a Form, Altman a rgues that in an epistolary narrative, the reader/addressee is expected to respond. And his or her response should be thought of as a contribution to the epistolary narrative. This is the essence of an epistolary pact (89). As a matter of fact, the concept of "epistolary pact" has a sol id psychoana lytic basis: the fort-da game. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud observes how grandson derives pleasure from playing this game repeatedly, in order to overcome the Joss of his absent mother (8 -10). Following Freud's theorizations about the fort-da game, Gayatric Spivak states: The unpleasure of the fort .. .is ... for the pleasure of the da: more pleasing than pleasure itself. This affectional asymmetricality renders the phenomenal identity of pleasure undecidable; and keeps t he game forever in-complete, although Freud insists to the contrary. ("Love Me, Love M y Ombre, Elle," 30) Spivak's point of view is that unlike Freud's observation, the fortda game is forever incomplete. lt will go on repeating itself, for the "unpleasure" and "pleasure" is always in an asymmetrical relationship. And this asymmetrical oscillation between Joss/ fort and return/da leads to the excess of desire (Hu, "Seemly Close, Really Distance," 72); namely, the desire never really gets satisfied. As a consequence, the player of the fort-da game will definitely repeat playing.2 This is exactly the case scenario of a letter w riter: (s)he has a desire to write a letter and looks forward

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

7

to the addresses' reply. However, his or her desire never gets truly satisfied; consequently, (s)he will keep his or her epistolary communication going on and on. There is another aspect of the fort-da game tha t is worth looking into: fort means "gone" or " Joss;" in the case of epistolary communication, it simply indicates that the addressee is absent. In other words, there has to be some distance between the letter writer and the recipient. Otherwise, it wo uldn't be necessary to write a letter! This is a nother underlying principle of epistolary communication: a letter travels between a present sender and an a bsent recipient, and between the presence and the absence is the distance. William Merrill Decker notices that absence and distance are two key factors in the epistolary communication of the 19th cent ury, when "separated parties more commonly created elaborate texts of their friendships" because of formidable distances and " the presence and absence of one person to another" (Epistolary Practices, 4). O n the other hand, the distance denies the letter writer a simultaneous response from the addressee and postpones the satisfaction of his or her desire (Hu, 71 ). 3 Most of al!, distance is responsible for a major attribute of epistolary communication: the inexact communication of the letter writer's ideas. To be more specific, acts of epistolary communication are basically "also acts of transformation because a letter's original meaning and intention are never completely received" (Duyfhuizen, Narratives of Transmission, 49). ln addition, " there is no reason to s uppose that the letter means anything" to the man/recipient because he "will try to put meaning into this empty space" (Leader, "Extract From "Why do Women Write More Letters Than they Post ?"," 106). In Kafka: Toward a Minar Literature, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in commenting on Kafka's L etters to Felice, sees such a discrepancy from the perspective of the subject of enunciation and the subject of the statement: But how do the letters fonction ? Without a doubt, because of their genre, they maintain the duality of the two subjects: for the moment, let us distinguish a subject of enunciation as the form of expression that writes the letter, and a subject of the statement that is the form of content that the letter is

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

8 ----

speaking a bout (even if/speak about me). lt is this duality that Kafka wants to put to a perverse or diabolical use. Instead of the subject of enunciation using the letter to recount his own situation, it is the subject of the statement that will take on a whole movement that has become fictive or no more than superficial. (30) For Deleuze and Guattari, epistolary communication fonctions the letter writer/the subject of enunciation and the contents of the letter/the subject of the statement. We must note that the latter is sometimes insignificant because it is may not be a truthful reflection of the former's intention of writing the letter. And this is precisely how Kafka manipulates his correspondence with Felice bath perversely and diabolically.4 Wheatley's Epistolary Mask and Her Voice of Protest Before taking a close look at Wheatley's epistolary mask, we must first take the social ambiance then into consideration: Wheatleyemerged as a poet in the 18th century, when Christianity exerted its infinite influence on American society, though its interna i conflicts were also beginning to surface. Puri tan heritage began to be questioned but remained to be mainstream religious thinking, and Calvinism was also gradually challenged. 5 At the same time, " beliefs about equality did not encompass women or blacks; women were excluded from the vote, and blacks were denied even the dignity of being considered human beings. They were property" (Literature in America, 77-90). The above is what Foucault terms " the dominant discourse;" power monitors the production of dominant discourse in order to ensure its own best interest, " ... these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a [dominant] discourse" (Power!Knowledge, 93, italics mine). On the other hand, Foucault a lso thinks that while power is producing its dominant discourses, it "always produces resistances and these resistances can be and often are positively productive. " That's why we have various cases of "counterknowledges" (Shrift, Nietzsche's French Legacy, 42-44 ), or the so-called " resistant discourses." The resistant discourses in

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

9

Wheatley's time include Briton Hammon's A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprising Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man in 1760. Moreover, James Albert Ukawsaw Grinniosaw, a former slave, also published his A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Grinniosaw, An African Prince, as Written by H imself in 1770 (Harris, 28 ). These are the social realities Wheatley were confronted with while she was corresponding with the dignitaries then. Above all, according to Foucault, power is capable of absorbing resistance. Jana Sawicki explicates Foucault's idea about the absorptive capability of power, "Foucault hoped to create the space necessary for resistance, for taking advantage of what he referred to as the ' tactical polyvalence' of discourses and practices .... " Then she states that one of Foucault's emphases is power's "capacity to co-opt all forms of resistance" ("Foucault, Feminism, and Questions of Identity," 294). ln Wheatley's case, should she join the resistant forces then, there's a good chance that her voice of protest would be marginalized or co-opted. It's especially so when Wheatley's precarious social situation is also compounded by the factor of her gender. As "American society is one in which racial imperialism supersedes sexual imperialism" (Hooks, Ain't I a Woman, 122), Wheatley must have suffered the 'double oppression' of racism and sexism.6 Hence, it stands to reason that a blatant outcry of protest from Wheatley would be utterly fu tile. As mentioned above, a letter writer, within an epistolary space, tends to construct his or her subjectivities and assume an attitude towards the social discourses. It is noteworthy that Wheatley's epistolary self is being shaped under such social conditions. ln Gender Trouble, Judith Butler emphasizes the simultaneous effect of a discourse which " bath interpellates and constitutes a subject" (5). However, the case of Wheatley's epistolary self is a bit more complicated. M erle A. Richmond has put it to a nicety, " [Wheatley is characterized by] an awareness of one's self and the relationship of this self to contemporary society" (Bid the Vassal Soar, 65, italics mine). With the contemporary society so oppressive and tyrannical,

10

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

Wheatley, regardless of how marginalized she is, is still intent on "describing a thoroughly plausible ... probability, the dignity of political liberty for ail human beings" (Shields, Phi/lis Wheatley's Poetics of Liberation, 33 ), which will certainly antagonize the White-dominated society. The point is that W heatley is very aware of this antagonistic relationship; she must know that the White dignitaries she's writing to will never grant her the opportunity to subjectivize herself. Therefore, w hile presenting her true self in her letters, she builds an epistolary mask to shield it from the hostile social realities. This epistolary mask is the seemly White-friendly language in her letters, under whose veneer she is voicing her protest against enslavement. In a sense, this epistolary mask, pulling the wool over White people's eyes, not only faci lita tes the construction of Wheatley's subjectivity in her mail, but also enables W heatley to wage war against White people's slavery in an extremely subtle way. Take her letter for Rev. Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803) for instance. ln the beginning of the letter, W heatley says, " Rev'd Sir,-1 ta ke with pleasure the opportunity by the Post, to acquaint you with the arrivai of my boo ks from London" (175). Regarding her newly published book, Wheatley later says: Europe and America have long been fed with the heavenly provision, and I fear they loath it, while Africa is perishing with a spiritual Famine. 0 that they could partake of the crumbs, the precious crumbs, which fa ll from the table of these distinguished children of the kingdom .... I hope that which the divine royal Psalmist says by inspiration is now on the point of being accomplished, namely, Ethiopia sha ll soon stretch forth her hands unto God. (175-76) Besicles, Wheatley once wrote Wi lliam Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801), a British statesman who opposed to the Stamp Act and then played a significant role in contributing to the American Revolution: The Joyful occasion which has given me this Confidence in Addressing your Lordship in the inclosed piece will, I hope sufficiently apologize for this freedom in an African who with the now happy America exults w ith equal transport in

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

11

the view of one of its greatest advocates presiding with the Special tenderness of a Fatherly Heart over that Department. Nor can they my Lord be insensible of the Friendship so much exemplified in your Endeavors in their behalf during the late unhappy Disturbances. (166) A perfunctory perusal of the passages in both the letters will give us the impression that Wheatley is truckling to the powerful Whites. ln her letter to Rev. Samuel Hopkins, she thinks that she's from Africa, a place "perishing with a spiritual Famine. " So, she could only "partake of the crum bs, the precious crumbs, which fa ll from the table of these distinguished children of the kingdom," namely, the White celebrities. As for her letter for William Legge, she seems to be showing her admiration for him, addressing her thanks to him for what he's clone for the American people. H owever, these are just manifestations of Wheatley's epistolary mask; we must, as l've mentioned in Section II of this paper, read between the lines. When she tells Rev. Samuel Hopkins that Africa "perishing with a spiritual Famine," her main emphasis actually lies in this sentence, "Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God ." That is, Ethiopia, namely, Africa, shall be basking in the Lord's graces, like Europe and America. So, the Africans shall be entitled to the same rights with the Whites. Likewise, in Wheatley's letter for William Legge, her emphasis is this sentence, "1 hope sufficiently apologize for this freedom in an African who with the now happy America exults with equal transport. " While she appears to be demeaning herself on the surface, she is in fact " insinuating that a Negro like her shares the equal right with the Whites to show respect to him" (Huang, "Resistance in Disguise," 137). In conclusion, if her fellow Black people are entitled to God's graces and human rights as the Whites are, then slavery m ust be condemned. This is Wheatley's voice of protest against the White enslavement. By projecting out such a voice, her subjectivity as an advocate of her own race's human rights can be ascertained. lt is true that Wheatley has worked out her subjectivity in her letters, and she has inveighed against the White slavery. However, she has accomplished both the objectives from behind an epistolary mask, and we readers just have to find a way

12

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

to decode her language. Ail in ail, it's "an intricate rhetorical negotiation," as Russell J. Reising has called it ("Trafficking in White," 259). H er 1774 letter for Rev. Samson O ccom (172392) is another example. First, Rev. Sa mson Occam was halfWhite and ha lf-Native-American, the first o f his kind w ho published his w ritings. And Wheatley clearly thinks that she is more capable of relating to him than to the Whites. So, her language in this letter is less encoded: Those tha t invade them cannot be insensible that the divine Light is chasing away the thick D arkness w hich broods over the Land of Africa; and the Chaos which has reigned so long, is converting into beautiful Order, and revea ls more and more clearly, the glorious Dispensation of civil and religio us Liberty, w hich are so inseparably united, that there is little or no Enjoyment of one without the other: O therwise, perhaps, the Israelites had been less solicitous for their Freedom from Egyptia n Slavery. (176) Compared with the two letters quoted above, Wheatley's subjectivity is revealed more clearly in this letter: she is apparently playing the p art as a spokeswoman of her race. And her voice of p rotest is a bit louder. White she is extolling the Whites for civilizing the African continent, she is delivering a message to the Whites that her people deserve to be freed from enslavement, just as the Israelites were to be freed from the Egyptian slavery. H er message becomes clearer as she la ter states in t his letter, "God has implanted a Principle, w hich we call Love of Freedom ... and by the Leave of our Modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same Principle lives in us .... This I desire ... to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct w hose Words and Actions are so dramatically op posite" (177) . Indeed, she is questioning t he W hites about t he a bsurd combination of their love for freedom and their pro-slavery attitude, but by no means does it indicate that she's not putting her epistolary mask to good use. ln this letter, she mockingly refers to the W hites as "our M odern Egyptians," and then "proceeds to an indictment of those would-be modem s as slave drivers w ho deny Africans not only their freedom but also their human desire for salvation ' 'civil a nd religious'" (Wa ldstreicher, "Ancients, M odem s, and

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

13

Africans," 702). Considering the fact that it appears that she's emphatically praising the Whites for enlightening the Africans she's still using the epistolary mask to obviate the possibility of the Whit~s• reproa~h. And her voice of protest is still coming from behmd the ep1stolary mask. To _a large ~x tent, the functionality of Wheatley's epistolary m~sk 1s contmgent upon another important property of ep1stolary communication , that is, the ambivalence of the ?1es~age delivere? to the addressee. As l've shown, Wheatley 1s v1rtually playmg an ingenious word game, disguising her otherwise radical arguments in her letters. Such an word game ~an b_e understood as what H omi Bhabha terms "mimicry," ... m1m1Cry represents an 1ro111c compromise .. . the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is a lmost the same but not qui te ... mimicry is like camouflage ... a form of resem blance ... " (The Location of Culture, 86-90). If ~o, the nature of her epistolary mask is mimicry, and above ail, 1t works par ticularly well in the contex t of her correspondence. As l've said previously, epistolary communication is supported a pa_ct between the sender and the addressee, and this pact 1s prem1sed on the you-1 polarity. Above ail, this pact will also ensure tha t the letter will be read. When writing to a White celebrity (you), Wheatley (J) chooses elegant, White-accepted language. It would appear that in Wheatley's case, this J is doubtless subservient to this you, or that she has compromised with her formidable O ther, the Whites, but actually, it is mere ber camou~age. Most of ail, as the you-1 polarity or the epistolary pact w1ll guarantee that ber letter will be read, her linguistically veneered voice of protest will eventually be projected out. Of course, for her m imicry-plus-epistolary-pact strategy to work her White recipients must put meanings as they see fit into th; letter contents, and her literary training must also be a key factor. Khara H ouse observes that "Wheatley's "art" and "genius" as a black w riter " enables her to "criticize ... ideologies of the African slave trade and provide standards for" her fellow Africans ("Ignatius Sancho's LETTERS OF THE LATE IGN ATIUS SANCHO, AN AFRICAN," 198). Wheatley's 1778 letter to Mary Wooster, the wife of General David Wooster (1711-77),

?Y

14

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

is a fine instance. Wheatley wrote this letter to express her condolences for General Wooster's tragic death in the American Revolutionary War. Apparently, Wheatley doesn't know Mrs. Wooster personally, for she wrote, "I am extremely sorry not to have been honour'd with a persona! acquaintance with you. " She also wrote, lt was with the most sensible regret that I heard of his fa!! in battle: but the pain of so afflicting a dispensation of Providence must be greatly alleviated to you and ail his friends in the consideration that he fell a martyr in the Cause of Freedom .... I hope you will pardon the length of my letter, when reason is apparent-fondness of the subject-& the highest respect for the deceas'd .... (186) W ith a casual reading, we readers might jump to the conclusion that it typifies a letter of consolation, written in standard Whitebased, C hristian language. This is also the meaning an average W hite reader will tend to put into t he contents of this letter. However, as Phillip M. Richards has noticed, W heatley primarily writes in response to her trauma tic experiences as a Black slave in White society ("Phillis Wheatley," 262). ln this letter, Wheatley thinks that Mary Wooster as wel l as General Wooster's other friends deserves providence because General Wooster has been martyred for the cause of freedom. W hile feeling sympathy for his tragic death, W heatley has implicatively stated that her fellow Black brothers and sisters, like General Wooster, have been sacrificed in battling the White slavery. Her secret but clever equation of the dead Africans with General Wooster could be evidenced by her phrase "fondness of the subject & the highest respect for the deceas'd." The subject matter of this letter is Wheatley's favo rite because she'd like to show her highest respect for General Wooster and her deceased African slaves, both of w hom are sacrificed in the name of liberty. This is Whea tley's message of protest against enslavement. 7 She has managed to deliver it from behind an epistolary mask, w hich is manufactured on the principle o f mimicry. And the epistolary pact stipulates that this message w ill arrive at the recipient. The epistolary you-1 polarity is also closely connected with the other major qualities of epistolarity, such as the epistolary

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

15

distance a nd the epistolary fort-da game. The former denies the addresser an instant response, and the latter makes sure that the correspondence will keep going on. One of Wheatley's most frequent correspondents is Obour Tanner, another female Black slave from Newport, Rhode Island. Most of Wheatley's correspondence with her deals with the subject matter of theology. That is, the distance between them compels Wheatley to write her frequently in order to fully get her ideas about God across to her. Her 1774 letter to Obour Tanner is a good example. This letter is a reply to Tanner's previous letter, for Wheatley wrote in the beginning, " Dear Obour I rec'd last evening your kind & friendly letter and am nota little animated thereby." Then she wrote: Assist me, dear Obour! to praise our great benefactor, for the innumerable benefits continually pour'd upon me, that while he strikes one comfort dead he raises up another. But 0 that I could dwell on & delight in him alone above every other a bject! While the world hangs loose about us we shall not be in painful anxiety in giving up to God that which he first gave to us. (181) Wheatley's correspondence with Tanner is full of such a theological discussion, which corroborates the view l've posited about the epistolary fort-da game: as the desire never gets fully satisfied, it is permanently incomplete. And in the course of the ongoing correspondence, Wheatley is able to instill the idea of her protest against slavery into Tanner. In the quoted passage above, Shields believes that Wheatley plays on the p un of sun and Son. In other words, she has " identified the sun as the supreme symbol of divine wisdom," and it is through "the heavenly sun's soothing warmth" that "she (and her readers) may achieve freedom " and vow never to relinquish hope ("Phillis Wheatley's Struggle for Freedom," 242-43). Shields' point of view may be parallelized with the workings of Wheatley's epistolary mask: beneath the surface of an ordinary theological argument is Wheatley's protest against enslavement. With one letter after a nother, Wheatley, on a step-by-step basis, has convinced Tanner that since they are basking in God's graces along with the Whites, God's supreme divine power will one day free them.

16

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

This is the belief they must hold on to; if this logic can stand, then slavery must be so diabolically perverse and inhumane that it has to be protested against. A more obvious instance is Wheatley's correspondence with Rev. John Thornton (1720-90). Thornton is a British merchant and philanthropist "who annually dispensed two to three thousand pounds sterling on charitable purposes" (Silverman, "Four New Letters by Phillis Wheatley," 258). He has long-term correspondence with Wheatley. For instance, Wheatley wrote him a reply letter in 1772, stating "I thank you for recommending the Bible to be my chief study, I find and acknowledge it the best of Books, it contains an endless treasure of wisdom and knowledge." Then, she went on to state how the Bible inspired her: I am still very weak & the Physicians, seem to think there is danger of a consumption. 0 that when my flesh and my heart fail me God would be my strength and portion for ever, that I might put my whole trust and Confidence in him, who has promis'd never to forsake those who seek him with the whole heart. (163) Wheatley seems to be telling him that regardless of her poor health, God will a lways empower her. She is a lso convinced that God will never forsake her, judging from her faith in Him. By implication, she has informed Thornton that from the Bible, she has learned that God will deliver her from the Whites' enslavement at last. By implication, she also wants Thornton to see how absurd slavery is! In 1773, Wheatley wrote Thornton to tell him of her safe return from England, " lt is with great satisfaction, I acguaint you with my experience of the Goodness of God in safely conducting my passage over the mighty waters, and returning me in safety to my American Friends" (172) . Theo Wheatley talks to him a bout God, " the great Maker of all": Therefore, [Gad] disdain[s] not to be called the Father of Humble Africans and India ns; though despis'd on earth on account of our colour, we have this Consolation, if he enables us to deserve it. "That God dwells in the humble &

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

17

contrite heart." 0 that I were more & more possess'd of this inestimable blessing; to be directed by the immediate influence of the divine spirit in my daily walk & Conversation. (17374, italics mine) Here, Wheatley's voice of protest against enslavement is a bit louder. She leads Thornton to acknowledge this logic: God, the great Maker of the world, has to be the Father of Africans and Indians. If so, Africans and lndians should be egually entitled to H is inestimable blessings and divine spirit, just like Wheatley's herself. Then how corne Africans and lndians are still despised and denied all the divine consolations on account of their colors? Isn't the Whites' enslavement to blame? In 1774, Wheatley wrote Thornton notifying him of the death of her mistress, Mrs. Wheatley, "I should not so soon have troubled you with the 2nd Letter, but the mournful Occasion will sufficiently Apologize. lt is the death of Mrs. Wheatley." Then, she went on to elaborate: She did truely, run with patience the race that was set before her, and bath, at length obtained the celestial Goal. She is now sure, that the afflictions of this present time, were not worthy to be compared to the Glory. This, sure, is sufficient encouragement under the bitterest sufferings, which we can endure. (179) On the surface, Wheatley is telling Thornton about how M rs. Wheatley has reached the end of her life journey. However, we readers can't help noticing the interesting choice of word, "race," which is very likely to be a pun connoting both Mrs. Wheatley's life journey and Wheatley's race. Moreover, Wheatley's referentiality has intriguingly shifted at the end of the guoted passage, "which we can endure." Ail these can only lead to one conclusion: Wheatley has eguated Mrs. Wheatley with her fellow Africans. This is what she wants Thornton to see: just as Mrs. Wheatley's life journey is laborious, her fellow Africans are enduring a life full of the bitterest sufferings and afflictions because of the White enslavement; as Mrs. Wheatley has finally achieved "the celestial Goal, " her fellow Africans will one day be freed and bathing in God's glory.

18

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

19

From Wheatley's epistolary communication with Thornton, we see how her epistolary mask has been functioning to the full est. lt rhetorically disguises Wheatley's otherwise offensively sharp criticism of slavery. Like the case of Wheatley's correspondence with Tanner, the distance of the vast Atlantic Ocean guarantees that Wheatley, the present letter writer, won't get an immediate response from Thornton, the absent addressee. Thus, by no means can the contents of their epistolary communication be fully conveyed, which opens up sufficient room for Wheatley's clever word game, or the operations of her epistolary mask. At the same time, the epistolary pact necessitates Thornton's readings of and responses to W heatley's letters, which not only results in their epistolary fort-da game but also helps to make Wheatley's voice of protest heard by him. Above ail, Wheatley evidently knows how to play the epistola ry fort-da game. She is fully aware that in the course of her correspondence with Thornton, there are always certain things left unsaid, which necessitates the next letter. This is how she has invited Thornton to see enslavement from multiple angles: little by little, letter by letter, W heatley has led Thornton onto "a path straight into her interiority" while presenting him w ith "a radical argument for racial equality." With the ceaseless epistolary exchange, "Wheatley shores up the depth of her own mind by granting depth to" Thornton's (Rezek, "The Print Atlantic," 35). In a way, it's fa ir to say that the epistolary fort-da game ena bles Wheatley and Thornton to explore each other's minds. It also makes it possible for her to assert her values and emphasize her reactions aga inst the crime the W hites have perpetrated, namely, slavery.

the world, and clearly W heatley shares the same sympathy. She is inclined to use her wrings to struggle for the liberty of her race. As far as she is concerned, such a use "as a means to achieve freedom constitutes a poetics of liberation " (Shields, Preface, The Collected Works, xxx). The core of Wheatley's poetics of liberation is her ability to sheathe her protest against slavery with White-accepted language. On the other hand, "since the seventeenth century ... 'letters' have been made to serve the law of literary genre" (Benstock, Textualizing the Feminine, 86); as literary genre, epistolary writings do have a number of attributes, such as self-formation, the you-I polarity, the epistolary pact, the epistolary fort-da game, and the imprecise communication. T hese attri butes are the specifications of Wheatley's epistolary mask, behind which she manages to project out her voice of protest against enslavement. Namely, epistolary communication is an enabling process for Wheatley; through it Wheatley is capable of masking her protest in White-friendly language in her letters. By making the best of epistolarity, she is given leverage in her letters to voice her protest without jeopardizing her position in the White-dominated society.

Conclusion Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780), a British African composer, actor, a nd writer, once wrote, "Look round upon the miserable fate of almost ail of our unfortunate colour. .. see slavery ... hear the ill-bred and heart-racking abuse of the foolish vulgar. .. armed w ith truth honesty and conscious integrity you will be sure of the pla udit and countenance of the good " (The Letters, 31-32). Sancho sympathizes with his fellow Africans ail around

Enjoy Your Symptoms!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and out, (London: Ro utledge, C hapman, a nd H all, Inc., 1992): pp. 9-10. 2. In Seminar XI, Lacan points o ut that the repetition of t he fort-da game is paradoxicall y where diversity and pleas ure corne from " Repetition demands the new. lt is turned towa rds the ludic ... '. But this 'sliding-away' conceals what is the true secret of the ludic, namely, the most rad ical d iversity constituted by repetition in itself. M ari Ru ti also argues that "the true secret" of the ludic is repetition repetition as a vehicle su blimation ... . " That is, Ruti

NOTES 1. Interestingly, as far as Slovaj Zizek is concerned, the rea l recipient of a letter should be the Other, or Lacan's so-called Symbolic Order. H e takes the message in the bottle for instance, arguing tha t a letter always arrives at its destination, which is actually the Other/Symbolic O rder instead o f the other. Furthermore, w hen a letter is in the mail, or its sender has externalized his or her message, t he Other/Symbolic O rder becomes awa re of the message and relieves its sender of his or her d uty. See Slovaj Z izek, "Why Does a Letter Always Arrives ai lts Destination ?"

20

3.

4.

5.

6.

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes believes t hat the Lacanian sublimation wi ll basically repeat itself. See Jacq ues. Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, trans by Ala n Sheridan. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1981): p. 61. Mari Ruti, The Singularity of Being. (New York: Fordham Un iversity Press, 2012): p. 136. One of the key Lacanian concepts is Lacan's formu la of fantasy: $ ◊ a. $ stands for the "barred subject," ◊ the fantasy, and a the abject a, or the lack/castration. That is, the lack/castration leads to t he barred subject. And the latter will seek the fantasy to substitute the former. Hu, drawing on Zizek's theorizations, points out t hat epistolary distance is crucial to the operations of fantasy. Billy Bin Feng Huang also agrees, "correspondence is actually a perfect seedbed for fantasies; the existence of fantasies is guaranteed in the writing space of correspondence because letters offer them the necessary distance." See Jacques Lacan, Ecritis: A Selection, trans by Alan Sheridan. (London: Tavistock Publications, 1977): p. 313. Hu, 58 . Billy Bin Feng Huang, "Geel They're Ali in Love w ith Phantoms!"-On how the Fantasies Have Constructed the Love Triangle in Thomas Hardy's "On the Western Circ uit," Cross-cultural Studies, Vol. No. 11 (May 2014): 81. In addition to distinguishing the subject of the statement from the subject of en unciation, Deleuze and Guattari stress "the impossibi lity of visiting" w hen it cornes to Kafka's correspondence with Felice. According to them, now tha t Kafka's meeting with Felice is a sheer impossibility, Kafka's correspondence "transfers movement onto t he subject of the statement; it gives the subject of the statement a n apparent movement, an unreal movement, that spares the subject of enunciation a ll need for a real movement." To put it simpl y, the contents of the letter take the place of the letter writer because the letter writer will never meet the recipient. See Deleuze and Guattari, 31. The Cambridge History of American Literature has detailed the divided rel igious beliefs in the 18th century America. "Those who followed the intellect were t he rationa lists, or deists. Those who fo llowed sensibility were ... enthusiasts. Those w ho followed the will were the ethical reformers .... The last group constituted the Arminia ns .... " See The Cambridge History of American Literature, ed. W illia m Peterfield Trent et al. (New York: T he Macmillan Company, 1956), p. 72. Speaking of sex or gender, Butler sees it in a Foucaultian light in Bodies That Matter, "The category of 'sex' is, from the

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

21

~tart, normative; it is what Foucault has called a 'regulatory 1deal' .... Thus, 'sex' is a regu latory ideal whose materialization is compelled, and this materialization takes place (or fails to take p lace) through certain highly regulated practices." See Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Liinits of Sex (New York: Routledge, 1993): 1. 7. Actually, the same voice of protest could be heard in Wheatley's 1778 poem, "On t he Death of General Wooster," a poem she especially wrote in memory of General Wooster. In this poem, Wheatley wrote, "But how, presumptuous shall we hope to find/ Divine acceptance with th' Almighty mind-/ While yet (0 deed Ungenerous! ) they disgrace/ And hold in bondage Afric's blameless race?" ln these lines, Wheatley clearly questions the Whites' presumptuous attitude when they adhere to Christianity and hold African slaves in bondage. See The Collected Works of Phi/lis Wheatley, 149.

WORKS CITED Altman, Janet Gurkin. Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1982. - - . "Political ldeology in the Letter Manual: France, England, New Engla nd. " Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Vol. 18 (1988 ): 105-22. Baym, Nina, et al., ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998. Beckson, Karl and Arthur Ganz. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. Taipei: Bookman Books, 1995. Benstock, Shari. Textualizing the Feminine: On the Limits of Genre. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1991. Benveniste, Emile. "Language and Human Experience." D iogenes, Vol. 51 (1965): 1-17. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. Brooks, Peter. "Words and 'the Thing."' A New History of French Literature. Ed. Denis Hollier. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1989. 537-43. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex . New York: Routledge, 1993. - - . Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Jdentity. New York: Routledge, 1999.

22

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

Decker, William Merrill. Epistolary Practices: Letter Writing in America Before Telecommunications. Chape! Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Trans Dana Polan. New York: Schocken Books, 1974. Duyfhuizen, Bernard. Narratives of Transmission. London: Associated University Press, 1992. Foley, Susan. ""Your Letter Is Divine, Irresistible, Infernall y Seductive": Léon Gambetta, Léonie Léon, and Nineteenth-Century Epistolary C ulture." French Historical Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring 2007): 237-67. Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. Ed. and Trans. Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. Freud, Sigmund. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Trans. James Strachey. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975. Gates, Henry Louis Jr. The Trials of Phi/lis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounter with the Founding Fathers. New York: Basic Civitas, 2003. Harris, W ill. "Phillis Wheatley, Diaspora Subjectivity, and the African American Canon." MELUS, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Fall 2008): 27-43. Hooks, Bell. Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston: South End Press, 1981. House, Khara. "Ignatius Sancho's LETTERS OF THE LATE IGNATIUS SANCHO, AN AFRICAN." Explicator, Vol. 71, No. 3 (2013): 195-98. Hu, Chin-yuan. "Seemly Close, Really Distance: Kafka's Letters to Felice." Wen Shan Review, Vol. 1, No. 6 (March 2007): 49-80. Huang, Billy Bin Feng. '"Gee! They're Ali in Love with Phantoms!'On how the Fantasies H ave Constructed the Love Triangle in Thomas H ardy's 'On the Western Circuit,"' Cross-cultural Studies, Vol. No. 11 (May 2014): 67-91. - - . '"Resistance in Disguise'- Rethinking the Politics of Positionality of Phillis Wheatley's Poetry in the Dominant Discourse." Spectrum, Vol. 13, Issue 2 (July 2015): 123-45. King, Steven A. and Peter Jones. "Testifying for the Poor: Epistolary Advocates and the Negotiation of Parochial Relief in England, 1800-1834." Journal of Social History, Vo l. 49, Iss ue 4 (Summer 2016): 784-807.

On How Phillis Wheatley Has Voiced Her Protest

23

Lacan, Jacques. Ecritis: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Pu blications, 1977. - - . The Seminar ofJacques Lacan: Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981. Leader, Darian. "Extracts from 'Why do Women Write More Letters Than They Post?' ." Jacques Lacan: Critical Evaluations. Vol. I. Ed. Slavoj Zizek. London: Routledge, 2003. 97-116. Loving, Mary Catherine. "Uncovering Subversion in Phillis Wheatley's Signature Poem: "On being brought from AFRICA to AMERICA." Journals of African American Studies, Vol. 20, Issue 1 (March 2016): 67-74. Mitchell, Linda C. "Entertainment and Instruction: Wornen's Roles in the English Epistolary Tradition." Huntington Library Quarter/y, Vol. 79, No. 3 (2016): 439-54. Peterfield Trent, Williams, et al. The Cambridge History of American Literature. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1956. Reising, Russell J. "Trafficking in White: Phillis Wheatley's Semiotics of Racial Representation." Genre 22 (1989): 231-61. Rezek, Joseph. "The Print Atlantic: Phillis Wheatley, Ignatius Sancho, and the C ultura l Significance of the Book." Early African American Print Culture. Ed. Lara Langer Cohen and Jordan Alexander Stein. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. 19-39. Richards, Phillip M. " Phillis Wheatley: The Consensual Blackness of Early African American Writing." New Essays on Phi/lis Wheatley. Ed. John C. Shields and Eric C. Lamore. Knoxville: University Tennessee Press, 2011 . 247-70. Richmond, Merle A. Bid the Vassal Saar. Washington D.C.: Howard University Press, 1974. Ruti, Mari. The Singularity of Being. New York: Fordham University Press, 2012. Sancho, Ignatius. The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2005. Sawicki, Jana. "Foucault, Feminism, and Questions of Identity." The Cambridge Companion to Foucault. Ed. Gary Gutting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 286-313. Shields, John C., ed. The Collected Works of Phi/lis Wheatley. By Phillis Wheatley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

24

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes Preface. The Collected Works of Phi/lis Wheatley. By Phillis W heatley. Ed. Shields. New York: Oxford Un iversity Press, 1988. XXVII-XXXII.

- - . "Phillis Wheatley's Struggle for Freedom in H er Poetry and Prose." The Collected Works of Phi/lis Wheatley. Ed. Shields. New York: Ox ford University Press, 1988. 229-70. - -. Phillis Wheatley's Poetics of Liberation: Backgrounds and Contexts. Knoxville: University o f Tennessee Press, 2008. Schrift, Alan D. N ietzsche's French Legacy: A Genealogy of Poststructuralism. New York: Routledge, 1995. Silverman, Ken neth, Do n H ausdorff, Charles Kaplan, and Robert C. Albrecht. Literature in America. New York: Free Press, 1971. - -. "Four New Letters by Phillis W hea tley." Early American Literature, Vol. 8, Issue 3 (Winter 1974 ): 257-71. Simon-M artin, Meritxell. " Barbara Bodichon's Travel Writing: H er Episto lary Articulation o f Bildung." History of Education, Vol. 45, No. 3 (2016): 285-303 . Smith , Eleano r. "Phillis Wheatley: A Black Perspective." The Journal of Negro Education, 43(1974): 401-07. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. " Love Me, Love My O mbre, Elle." Diacritics, 14 (Winter 1984 ): 19-36. Trent, William Peterfield et al., ed. The Cambridge History of American Literature. New Yo rk: The Macmillan Company, 1956. Waldstreicher, David. "Ancients, Modems, and Africans: Phillis W heatley and the Po litiçs o f Empire and Slavery in the American Revolution. " Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 37 (Wi nter 2017): 701-33. Walker, Marilyn. "The Defense of Phillis W heatley." Eighteenth Century: Theory-Interpretation. Vol. 52, Issue 2. (Summer 2011 ): 235-39. Z izek, Slovaj. "Why Does a Letter Always Arrives at lts Destination?" Enjoy Your Symptoms!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out. London: Ro utledge, Chapman, and H all, Inc., 1992.1 -28.

2 CHAPTER

Marginalization and Faulkner's Melancholy: The Blues, Southern History, Black (and White) Consciousness, and Faulkner's That Evening Sun (1931) Jeffery Moser

Little can be found in William Fa ulkner's (1897-1962) writing that is not exemplary, and few, if any, of his short staries, navels, and other writings can be considered marginalized literature. In fact, most of Faulkner's staries are about the greatness of American History, in particular, of the South. H owever, Faulkner's early writings show a deep concern about race and a keen, if not abiding, sensitivity to the changes in art and literature happening around him, especially with regard to the movement of modernism-even of the literary avant-garde who were effectively connecting and percolating their new ideals about writing to editors and publishers in New York, London, a nd Paris in the 1920s and 30s and being consummated by the likes of Conrad, Eliot, Pound, Williams, Woolf, and others, and along with an affiliation for, or strong interest in, the rising popularity of the Blues. The genre and lyrics and of the Blues especially articulate and emphasize marginalization and persona! experience, and so do some of Fa ulkner's staries focus on the burdens of work and the transgressions and struggles of living. Of course, Faulkner was not immune to writing poetry, and the Blues, as a m usic genre and m usical form had originated in

26

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

the Deep South, Faulkner's regional home. W hether the blues was sung to ease the burden of work, for spiritual reasons or for popular entertainment, the lyrics were written to express how the musician (or culture) felt. The oral tradition of African music led to many characteristics of blues lyrics, including repetition, rhyming, improvisation, symbols and metaphors (General Blues). Hence, because of Faulkner's focus on promoting " his South" and to have his narratives become distinguished (which he achieved in his lifetime), it is not surprising that the musical tradition developed by African-Americans from their roots in Africa came to be embraced by Faulkner as worthy subject matter in his writing and a symbolism for the very strata of history and the human condition of his native South and its space and the characters' lives who permeate it that he aptly portrays in his prose. ln many ways, Faulkner's literary output reflects a very compressed and constraining attempt to capture the epic expanse of the invention of America and the historie mythmaking of the United States. So Faulkner's... offers a grand but conflicting account of place, legend, fear, self-motivation, genocide, brutality, and democratic vision. However, Faulkner was most keen on America's greatest sin: its deplorable adoption and morally corrupt cultivation of slavery as a monumental cog to economic development and political power, rectified only by a Civil War that raged between 1861 and 1865, a little more than three decades before Faulkner's birth. Bitterly fought between the North and the South, the Civil War was centrally prompted by the long-standing controversy and immoral economic investment in the enslavement of blacks. Therefore, if there is any silver lining to America's courtship with the a bominations of slavery, looking back upon the nineteenth century (hindsight is always 20/20), one could argue that the creativity, struggle, and resistance of generations of African-Americans produced the memorable work songs and emotional spirituals that generated the poetic Blues. The indelible imprint of the Blues, i.e. Jazz, which is an equally formidable invention like America's version of democracy is, and together with the history of African-Americans-before, during,

Marginalization and Faulkner's Melancholy

27

and after the Civil War-both have changed the texture and course of America into perpetuity. But out of this was derived the country's great national wound and chronic recovery from slavery and war that surround and inspire Faulkner's tales of ordinary men and women, black and white, who emerge on his pages, also in black and white. lt is as if Faulkner intimately knew that the only l10pe for ink and paper would be to heal and unite racial difference and civil discord through his writing that he intended to be both a metaphor for civility and civic progress in print and as a tonie through evocative storytelling during and after Reconstruction of the South. Consequently, the incorporated spirituals, work songs, field boliers, shouts, chants, and rhymed, simple narrative ballads of the "Old South" serve no less as a muse for Faulkner than they become the fitting accoutrements and reflections for the experiences of his peers and of own life, being raised in Oxford, Mississippi. As a result, he artfully turned out memorable protagonists like Flem Snopes, Quentin Compson, Gavin Stevens, Temple Drake, and Emily Grierson, and other memorable characters-a host of ordinary men and women created to dominate and populate the intriguing narratives of Faulkner's novels and short stories. Even some of Faulkner's narra tors, whether it be the youthful and corne-of-age Sarty Snopes in "Barn Burning" (1939) or the perceptive nephew to Gavin Steven, Charles "Chick" Mallison in The Town (1957), Monk (1937), and other stories, are shrewd, tolerant, and observant characters and narrators, not unlike Faulkner himself, but who accompany Faulkner's depiction of characters by the author's own sense and fascination with the detection and description of the epic spectrum of humanity. His major characters are both shadowy and striking (Wagner 225). For Faulkner then, it is simply his genius to present a literary slice of America 's humanity, carved out of the American South and that contain personalities and events of great evil, immeasurable compassion, and spiritual goodness, and all intertwined within a complex social web and networks of troubled relationships, sacred hopes, and irreversible conflict among multiple people

28

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

from diverse backgrounds, w hich Faulkner casts and recasts in his fictions. Great or small, Faulkner's characters emerge as sharp and real, and they and their stories embody the melancholic and yearoing heart and soul of the writer himself. Who cannot relate to Old Het in Faulkner's short story, " Mule in the Yard," as she walks "in from the poorhouse" a nd runs "clown the hall toward the kitchen, shouting in a strong, bright happy voice" to her white employer: "Miss Mannie! Mule in de yard!" (Faulkner Collected Staries 149). Immediately, like the beginning to almost every one of Faulkner's w orks, the reader is at once baptized and then kept submerged in a special tale about matters and manners of the American South, and then captivaced from the beginning to the end of each tale by Faulkner's uncanny and laudatory commentary. The audience is mesmerized and transfixed by everything that becomes unnecessary and horrible yet laudatory and correctable of Faulkner's fictional (but ail too real) charters and their world. However, because of Faulkner's style and the subject matter of his stories and novels, he was not a lways well-received. As John Basset noted, Faulkner's choice to write about " unorthodox" characters and tapies and his persistent default to craft stories around "romantic themes of fli ght and bravado" led some cri tics to claim that his staries reflected a "frenzied" style that is displeasing and his choice to advance " degenerate characters and unpalatable subj ect matter" lamentable (14-15). Certainly, as an emerging great author of the early twentieth century, Faulkner was not immediately a writer to be praised for his handling of the myths and makings of contemporary li fe. W hile his resonant lyricism was acceptable co many w ho read his works, some of his early scories are of social commentary chat caught readers and critics off-guard by the boldness a nd bullish promotion of America's, and in particula r, of the South's, languishing rural, quaint, and perceived backwardness, chat other writers dismissed for moderoism, urbanism, and intelligence. Of course, Faulkner was not a marginalized individual, but the reception to some of his early scories were margina lized

Marginalization and Faulkner's Melancholy

29

by the critics; this was not because Faulkner deserved to be marginalized, but readers, editors, publishers, and critics (some of them) failed to understand and embrace, at first, Faulkner's marginal characters and the deep, psychological, and political perspectives and repercussions that were promoted in his plots and tha t resounded off the pages by his characters, and native closeness to real lives and challenges in the South. Even Faul kner's careful transcription of dialogue chat he assigns to some of his characters, notably poor, uneducated, and landless non-whites and oppressed and impoverished blacks, suggest that Faulkner, while an honest writer, was producing too much truth for a race-conscious American populace, still hung over after almost a half-century beyond the Civil War and postReconstruction but unawakened and prejudiced, even among the literary astute in the States, if not among British readers and cri tics, as well (Basset 16-17) . W hite, male, and born in 1897, William Cuthbert Faulkner was the eldest of four sons blessed to the union of Murry and Maude Faulkner. The author's dad came from a railroad family, and Murry Fa ulkner was a businessman. So when the younger Faulkner's family moved to the economically progressive town of Oxford, Mississippi, shortly before William turned five-yearsold, for the rest of his life, Oxford, steeped in Civil War and Reconstruction history, discrimination served as the author's principal source to inspire and embed the rich experiences that he brings alive and dramatizes in his narratives. But what Faulkner most relies upon, is a South that is recovering into perpetuity from the Civil War, which changed America and set it on an ever-perfecting course for a new nation. First, as a result of the war, slavery was abolished with the Thirteenth Amendment. While the country would not grant full civil rights to African Americans until the 1960s, ending the abominable practice of slavery chat had been abolished in almost the rest of the Western world signaled a major turo for the United States. Faulkner is at the forefront of this great euro, and his writing must be understood as the great accompanist to the whole recovery and rebirth of a new South and a new

30

Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes

America that refuses to let go of a segregated and dark chapter o f American history. Yet, for Faulkner, it is a South and its histo ry that hold some redeeming pleasantries and enviable roma nces for study and reflection amid a regio n and all its people, black and w hite, w ho have been uprooted and demoralized by every value a nd institutio n, from religion to education to culture and wa r, and with class and race consciousness of every o ne of the South's inhabitants shaken. Thus, it is w it h little surprise and eventua l literary acclamatio n that Faulkner created characters who are subjected to marginalizatio n. In the settings and the themes that his short staries and navels project, the other of individuals is accented. Sorne of his characters face do mination and oppressio n by a privileged group or by a disgruntled, disturbed and selfish authority figure. Accenting this topic of the other came easy for Faulkner, apparently. The predicament was fa miliar to him. He was surrounded by misfits and outcasts, the discriminated and underprivileged, the downtrodden a nd dismissed. As a result, he placed his characters in the settings that he knew personally. In addition to mastering character development, alo ng w it h other elements of fictio n and d ra ma, the logic and realism of Faulkner 's sta ries solidify his lucid style and the writer's a ll-too consistent adherence to chronology. As we, readers, read his tales, we canno t break away from histo rical fiction, no r from the lyricism that