Caribbean Women Writers: Stories of Growth

1. Stories of growth: Caribbean Women Writers (2) Olive Senior’s “Bright Thursday”

2. Olive Senior’s “Bright Thursday” Questions for All Do you have experience of living with your grandma or aunty in a house or place very different from your own? Do you know what claustrophobia and agoraphobia are?

3. Outline • Olive Senior and the Caribbean Women Writers: Introduction. • Youtube films: • “You Think I Mad, Miss” “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMuq8J9bErk • Democratic Voice and “Missing” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs1i_GcNGU0 • Tree Reading Series Featured Reader 27 Jul 10 - Olive Senior http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaoX9I9LKmw • “Bright Thursday” • color scheme and education; • the father’s (lack) of influence

4. Five Caribbean Women Writers Sugar Cane Alley

5. Colonial, Creole & Black Identities

6. Brazil 背風群島 向風群島

7. Caribbean Women Writers: Major Themes 1) Creole identity vs. Black identity 2) female Bildungsroman: • stories of growth and development // the process of socialization as well as alienation • racial and class issues (black, white and mulatto) • + gender stereotypes and inequality 2) “Mother Country” vs mother land (relations to the Caribbean landscape) • [English] education and mother-daughter relationship -- usually alienation the grandmother as an influential or positive figure

8. Working Miracles: Women’s Lives • 3) Family Structure a. absent father (mother) • child-shifting (adoptions –“Bright Thursdays” adopting to fill in an empty space for the grandparents 210) b. Single mothers as breadwinners (1/2 of the Caribbean households are headed by women) c. Outside children -- children born out of a father’s stable residential union; legitimacy is not an issue Olive Senior, Working Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean (Chapter 1)

9. Olive Senior: an Embodiment of Conflicts • The daughter of peasant farmers, she grew up, after four, with well-off relatives whose lifestyle was the opposite of what she had known as a child.  tension between two different households, between rural and urban settings  “two Jamaicas”(source: http://www.nalis.gov.tt/Biography/bio_OLIVESENIOR_Jcanauthor.htm )--> Children moving between two “households.”

10. “Bright Thursdays”--Genealogy • Dolphie Watson Miss Christie • Mina Bertram Myrtle Johnstone (white U.S.) (brown) (dark) Laura 2 sons (2 fathers) (Bertram’s Mistake; Bertram’s stray shot) A child’s perspective— a gradual process of alienation

11. WWS: The Ending: Questions • How is the English house and “England” described by Grace first and then by Antoinette? • What are the significances of the red dress in Part III? (109) • Part I – Part III: What traces of Part I and II do we see in Part III? For instance, Tia’s & “his” roles; the fire scene in Part I and that in Antoinette’s dream in part III. Dreams (Is there a parallel between the parrot in the first fire and Antoinette in the second? • The ending: An open or close ending? Is Antoinette mad? Can she escape from the narrative containment? Has she burned down the house?

12. Group Discussion Questions • G1: Gender, Colorism and Social Climbing: Ms. Christie and Myrtle as Mothers (188-89): how do they differ and what do they share in common? How do look at each other? How is Myrtle compared with Mina? Bertram: What kind of person is he? • G3: Laura’s Personality & Views of the Photographs: how do the two women educate Laura? Their influence on her personality, and the roles the photos play? • G4: Laura’s Fear: Why is Laura agoraphobic? Her views of the cloud and digging potatoes? • G2: Laura’s Desire & Growth: Why is “Bright Thursday” scary? What does she expects of her father, Bertram? What happens at the end?

13. “Bright Thursdays”--Questions • 1. If we divide up the story into the beginning, middle and end, where is the “middle” part in which the action starts? Why does the story have a long introduction? What does the intro. show about Laura? Why does she feel alienated from her siblings? What is she afraid of? • 2. What is the significance of the photographs, mirror, the mountains vs. the wide open space and the clouds, and Laura’s sense of space? • 3. Why is Laura’s story not like ours visits of our grandparents?

14. Color System in the Caribbean Society • Ms. Christie: “Dying to raise their color all of them” (199) • The color triangle: white brown dark Ref. Behind Closed Doors: 'Colorism' in the Caribbean –Dominican Republic (“white” defined in terms of hair and nose)

15. “Bright Thursday”: Ms. Christie vs. Myrtle • Intro. Pp. 194 - 207 • Myrtle as a single motherin conformity with social values • Myrtle’s view of Laura’s father—proud of being associated with him, not expecting him to do anything (p. 197) • Myrtle’s dream of status improvement (197-98; 200) • Myrtle vs. Ms. Christie – Myrtle all polite and Ms. Christie, condescending and implicitly critical (pp. 198-99;) • Ms. Christie as a dutiful mother: arranging “good marriage” -202 -- calls Laura “my little adopted,” instead of granddaughter -- criticizes Myrtle’s attempt at whitening her family, but she herself has been doing it.

16. “Bright Thursday”: Laura in Two Households • Laura in the two households • at her mother’s: feeling well protected p. 200 • at Ms. Christie’s: feeling displaced and scared p. 195; 196 • Laura’s sense of space: dinner table 195-96; • Home in the mountains vs. grandma’s 203

17. Contrasts between the two households • Mountains vs. hills pp. 203 – 204  sense of insecurity as reflected in her views of the clouds (204) Meanings of the clouds?

18. Space and its Symbolic Meanings • Spatial imagery • psychological -- Laura’s sense of displacement • Feeling alienated (because of the mother’s special treatment) even at home. • “permanently” transported from mother’s house to father’s • out of place or no space (photos on the bureau195) • Social -- Laura’s sense of inferiority • enclosed and protected(mother’s house in the mountains, hemmed in 203); • empty space (the dining table 196; father’s house 203-04) • fear of the open space, which is still constraining ( like a “blue bowl” 204-205) • Fear of bright Thursday and the need to walk to school 206-207 (the bus) • Need protection and safety from the earth (digging potatoes 207)

19. The Cloud and Agoraphobia • geographic metaphor attached with social meanings: The Cloud = Christ’s judgment? • A projection of social hierarchy from one social field (Ms. Christie’s household) to another (religion/Christ); • Metonymic displacement of Christ to the Cloud which he is associated with. • Laura’s fear of open space or agoraphobia – • physical factor: moving to an area she is not familiar with • psychological factor: sense of placelessness and inferiority • Social factor – see definitions of agoraphobia

20. agoraphobia • Agoraphobia is a condition where the sufferer becomes anxious in environments that are unfamiliar or where he or she perceives that they have little control. Triggers for this anxiety may include wide open spaces, crowds, or traveling (even short distances). Agoraphobia is often, but not always, compounded by a fear of social embarrassment, as the agoraphobic fears the onset of a panic attack and appearing distraught in public. This is also sometimes called 'Social Agoraphobia' which may be a type of social anxiety disorder also sometimes called social phobia. … • Agoraphobia occurs about twice as commonly among women as it does in men.[4]The gender difference may be attributable to social-cultural factors that encourage, or permit, the greater expression of avoidant coping strategies by women.…. • Branches of the social sciences, especially geography, have increasingly become interested in what may be thought of as a spatial phenomenon. One such approach links the development of agoraphobia with modernity.(source; see also panic attack)

21. Laura’s Development • Bertram • present only as a photo 208; few fathers around; • dreaming about being rescued by her father, who will clear the clouds and bring nothing but bright Thursdays (208)

22. Ending: final revelation and initiation • Color hierarchy represented by the opposition between the mother and Mina p. 210 • A story of disillusionment—the breaking up of her hope and dreams—“bloody bastard” (211) • Turned into an orphan + no more clouds = isolation and independence? • Running for education …

23. References • Behind Closed Doors: 'Colorism' in the Caribbean (case in Dominican Republican) 2007 • Caribbean Dictionary: http://wiwords.com/ • bankra • A large hamper/basket carried by donkeys and mules. • faas • Nosy. Inquisitive. Showing excessive curiosity about the affairs of others.