Paule Marshall's Caribbean Heritage

Paule Marshall’s heritage is from the West Indies. The history of the West Indies begins in 1500 BC. A tribe of hunters and gatherers called the Ciponey moved to the islands from South America. They were followed by the Arawak peoples and then the Arawak were then followed by the Caribs in AD 1000. The Caribs used warfare to take over the Arawak. They married the Arawak women and ate the Arawak men as part of their customs. Christopher Columbus reached the islands in 1492. The northern islands, Bahamas and the Greater Antilles, were settled by the Arawak and the southern islands, the Lesser Antilles, were mostly occupied by the Caribs. Columbus landed in the Bahamas and claimed the island for Spain. Columbus believed that he had reached the East Indies, in India, and goes on to call the native people Indians. He then travelled to what is now known as Cuba. He believed that it was really the island of Cipango, which is in Asia. Then, he travelled to Hispaniola. The ship the Santa Maria became shipwrecked there and so Columbus had to make the decision to leave a small group of people there with food and ammunition to last a year and he went back to Spain to deliver all of their news.

By the 16^th century AD, Spain occupied the three main islands of the Caribbean. They were Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba. From there, the Spanish conquistadors went on to conquer much of Mexico and Central America in the 1520’s. Due to the large number of actual islands in the West Indies, Spain could not maintain and control all of them. The English and French began to settle on islands in the outskirts of the three main ones. The British occupied St Kitts in 1623, Barbados in 1627, and Antigua, Nevis, and Montserrat by 1636. The French occupied part of St Kitts in 1627, Dominica in 1632, and Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1635. England went on to capture Jamaica from Spain in 1655. France occupied the western portion of Hispaniola in 1664 which is now known as Haiti. All three of these countries used the natives of the islands as slaves. By the time sugar plantations were established, which needs a lot of people to work them, they had wiped out the native population with harsh slavery and diseases brought over from Europe. They had to resort to importing slaves from Africa. They imported so many slaves that the slave population ended up outnumbering the European population in Haiti. The slaves were then able to carry out a coup-de-tat and virtually kick out the Europeans. Eventually, by the 20^th century, Haiti started to be on its way to becoming a free country.

Nowadays, the islands of the Caribbean are mainly free nations. They are large tourist attractions due to their location, climate, and sights so that is one of their main sources of income every year. Tourism is hindered in the respect that tourists only see certain parts of the places they are visiting. They visit the built up areas of the islands so they do not experience the whole feel of the islands. There are still slums and most of the citizens suffer from poverty. The heads of the tourism industry shield the tourists from that so that the tourists do not get scared away and they get to keep their business.

Works Cited

"History of the Caribbean (West Indies)". History World. rack=pthc>.

Post-Modernism in White Noise

White Noise is a postmodern novel because it fits several of the characteristics of postmodern literature. According to class notes from November 18^th, 2009, there are many characteristics of postmodernism. One thing is that there are no absolute truths. Postmodernism cannot have any kind of universal truth in the text. The text itself is very fragmented. There are choppy sentences and incomplete thoughts weaved into the book. This leads us into the fact that it is not a linear narrative. The book has many different parts that cover different topics. There can be a loss of communication in the novel and quotation-using conversation can be few and far between. This makes it harder for a reader to follow the series of events and plot. There is no metanarrative in the novel. This means there is no big entity that would define civilization. The final characteristic of postmodern literature that we discussed in class was the rejection of any one narrative.

According to my research, there are many other characteristics that we did not get a chance to cover in class. Irony, black humor, and playfulness are oftentimes incorporated into quotes and plotlines. Often authors used the Pastiche form in their writings. This means they incorporate different aspects of different genres into their writings. Metafiction is also added into the writings. It exploits the amount of fiction in these fictitious works as a way to be somewhat facetious in the way that they write. Poioumena is also an aspect of postmodern writing. It is a way to write about one thing but put a meaning behind it to be equivalent to something entirely different from the initial topic. Historiographic metafiction is also is added into the characteristics of postmodernism. It’s a way to include historic events into the writing. Another issue included in postmodernism works is paranoia. This incorporates the belief that there is something dictating every aspect of life and there is no control over it. The final things incorporated into postmodern literature are maximalism, minimalism, and magical realism.

Don DeLillo’s White Noise incorporates many of these characteristics, if not all of them. The first part is that there is not an absolute truth. Jack Gladney and his wife Babette are too infused with the constant fear of dying that they do not have the brain capacity needed to believe in any higher being. “Is this what it’s like, abrupt, peremptory? Shouldn’t death, I thought, be a swan dive, graceful, white-winged and smooth, leaving the surface undisturbed?”(DeLillo page 18). The narrative is fragmented and non-linear because it is divided into three parts. The first part is Waves and Radiation and is about academic spoof and a crazy family life. The second part is called The Airborne Toxic Event. It is about a chemical spill from a train car that lands on Jack’s neighborhood and his family is evacuated. The third and final part is called Dylarama. It is about a drug that is supposed to be the cure to stop death. As you can see, all three parts have different plotlines and are not linear in any fashion at all.

Works Cited

DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.

Bonca, Cornel. "Don DeLillo's White Noise: The natural language of the species". BNET. June 1996 .

History of Haiti

Haiti is an island located in the Caribbean between Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. The island itself is inhabited by two separate nations, the Dominican Republic and the Republic of Haiti. Christopher Columbus was the first person to “discover” the island during his voyage in 1492. He thought he had reached India when he arrived and began to call the natives Indians. However, the island was already occupied by people who called themselves “Tainos”. The Tainos occupied Cuba, Haiti and Puerto Rico and were originally from South America.

I am going to skip some of the history due to the fact that it is so vast, and there are so many people involved, that I would not be able to incorporate the book in any way. The island of Haiti went through periods of occupations. The first occupation was the Spanish occupation. The Spaniards forced the Tainos into slavery and exploited their gold mines. They even renamed the island Hispaniola, meaning “Little Spain”. When the Spaniards arrived on the island, there were as many as three million to four million Tainos on the island. Most of those Tainos were then killed due to the harsh slavery, planned massacres, and diseases they contracted from the Spaniards. A Spanish priest spoke out against this genocide and convinced the government to import slaves from Africa. The first slaves arrived in Haiti in 1503 from Spain and that ended the enslavement of Tainos. The Spaniards left Hispaniola for more gold and richer lands in South America.

Haiti was then taken over by France in 1625. The Spaniards that stayed on the island signed the Treaty of Ryswick with France in 1697 giving them the western part of the island. The French developed St Dominigue which turned into the richest colony in the world. They used slaves from Africa to achieve this. Only the landowners and other citizens besides the slaves made any actual profit, so the portion of people benefitting from the richest colony in the world was very slim. Haiti went through a series of revolutions carried out by the slaves, or “Afranchis”. The island of Haiti became a black independent republic on January 1^st, 1804. All of the remaining Frenchmen were executed. At the end of these revolutions, the republic was in serious debt with many countries, including the United States.

The United States was involved with the First World War around the time they occupied Haiti in 1915. The Haitian president Vilbrun Guillaum Sam executed one hundred and sixty-seven political prisoners during that year and the United States used it as an excuse to invade. They used the Monroe Doctrine to shield themselves from political backlash. The occupation lasted from 1915 to 1934. They changed the constitution, allowing foreign nations to own land in the Republic. The Army of Haiti was created to maintain stability while the United States was gone. In 1934, the Army of Haiti’s authority was passed over to the “Garde Nationale” which kept the power while the United States removed themselves from the country.

The government after this point was made up of military powers. In 1991, Jean Bertrand Aristide complied with the people and agreed to apply for the presidency. Seven months after his election, he was overthrown by the military and forced to leave the country. He moved to New York so he could eventually go back to Haiti and go for re-election. Another election happened after Aristide left and his former Prime Minister Rene Preval was elected. On February 7^th, 2001, Aristide was re-elected into the presidency. The country is hopeful that this democratic environment will promote stability and growth.

After analyzing Haiti’s complex history, it’s easy to see why Edwidge Danticat chose a character who was escaping the country, however unwillingly. Sophie first found out she had to leave when her mother sent for her. “I felt it in my heart and took it on Monsieur Augustin’s advice that, once you got there, you would love it so much that you would beg your mother to let you stay. You have heard with your own two ears what everyone has said. We have no right to be sad.”(Danticat page 17).

Works Cited

Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York : Soho Press, Inc., 1994.

"Synopsis of Haitian History". Discover: History. .