Irish Postcolonialism and James Joyce's Araby--Bradley and Annalisa

We are presenting this week on Irish Postcolonialism. Brenda Murray defines Post-colonialism as "Post-colonialism – essentially a critique of colonialism, is characterised by a

process of disengagement from the colonial epoch and has taken many forms" in her essay Ireland – a test case of Post-colonialism / Post colonialism.

Here's a timeline that outlines some key events in Ireland's history including its struggle for independence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1038669.stm

Araby, published in Joyce's collection, Dubliners (1914) was originally written in 1905, during the height of Irish nationalism. Sinn Féin, a left-wing Irish Nationalist group was founded in 1905, and most of the members partook in the Easter Rising of 1916.

Here is a summary of Araby, along with character descriptions, and plot themes:

http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides5/Araby.html

The website states: "Joyce presents a bleak city struggling against oppressive forces."

In Joyce's description of the city, hints of eager nationalism are elicited, in passages such as:

“We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs’ cheeks, the nasal chanting of street singers who sang a come-all-you about O’Donovan Rossa or a ballad about the troubles in our native land” (Joyce, 1225).

O' Donovan Rossa is a reference to Jeremiah Donovan, and Irish Nationalist, who was sentenced to a lifetime of penal servitude but was granted amnesty and departed for America (Broadview).

Although short, the protagonist's arrival to a vacant Araby is even further disillusioned by his encounter with an English attendant.

"I remarked their English accents and listened vaguely to their conversation...Observing me, the young lady came over and asked me did I wish to buy anything. The tone of her voice was not encouraging: she seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty" (Joyce, 1227).

This brief but acerbic encounter marks the struggle between the Irish and the English, and serves as a microcosm for the hostility between Irish nationalists and the British government.

References:

Joyce, James. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature Concise Edition Vol. B. Ed. Don LePan.

Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2008.

Irish Independence -- Joel, Jessica and Dorian

James Joyce and Araby

To start you off because James Joyce wrote in a stream of consciousness writing i will give you the term at the back of the book:

Stream of Consciousness: narrative techniques that attempts to convey in prose fiction a sense of the progression of the full range of thoughts and sensations occurring within a characters mind. Twentieth-century pioneers in the use of the stream of consciousness writing include Dorothy Richardson, Virgina Woolf and James Joyce.

- James Joyce is a well known Irish Novelist who redefined realism
- James Joyce grew up in a middle class family only later to fall to poverty due to having an alcoholic father
- His mother played a large role in his life by showing him the pleasures of art and Catholicism
- Later while at school James became very cynical of the church and believed Religion among other things to be a distraction for the budding artist
- He is best known for Ulysses a modern day retelling of The Odyssey
-Each chapter is an ironic rewriting of a chapter from Homer's Odyssey
-It is said that his book Ulysses can sum up the entire Modernist movement in writing

Wikipedia is a great place to get an over view of his life if you're interested in looking in more detail at his life and his works

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_joyce

Araby

- Araby is a Charity bazaar held in Dublin in 1894
- It is another of his works that deals with the Stream of Consciousness writing style that James Joyce Develops and perfects
-The story discusses themes of coming of age and the loss of innocence
-In Joyce's life it said that he became cynical of the church one of the first things in this story that happens is a priest dies
- not only does this priest die but in his room not only are there good and religious books there are also books about criminals among other things
- The story is told by a narrator of which we know nothing really about not even a name
- We know the narrator is a boy who is still attending school so he must be fairly young
- There is a lot of imagery in the story, and is told through the boy's observations
- In the short story there is reference to a number of literary works

West Indian Plantation Slavery

West Indian plantation slavery has four important components that provide a basic overview of its importance both historically and in relation to literature.

European Colonization
· The area that is known today as the Caribbean was first discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492
· After his discovery, the Indians of the Caribbean land were now enslaved to the Spanish crown – all traces of the former life on this land were erased by the Spanish rule
Emergence of the Slave Trade
· New plantations were created, requiring an army of human hands to work them
· By the 17th century the majority of the original inhabitants of the West Indies had been wiped out by a combination of European diseases and physical exploitation – black slaves were brought in bondage from Africa
·
Slave Treatment
Duties:
· The cultivation of crops and tending of the animals
· Serving their “owners” in any way possible
· Sixteen to eighteen hours of work per day, and during the season of sugarcane harvest most slaves got only four hours of sleep
· Severe punishment for disobeying orders
· Etc.
Slave Compensation
It wasn’t until the mid 1800’s that the Emancipation Act of 1838 freed the slaves of the West Indies, however the unequal system still continued. The owners of these slaves were paid compensation by the British government, applying to the British colonies in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Belize, Guyana, Mauritius, and Cape Colony (South Africa).
West Indian Slavery and Literature
Slavery is a recurring theme in the literature of the Caribbean. Many writers feel the need to attempt a vocalization of all that was denied under the brutal system. Writers such as Derek Walcott in Omeros, and George Lamming in In the Castle of my Skin talk about the difficulty of moving forward from the feelings of injustice inspired by the slave system and the lack of improvement of life after slavery.
Video
This video sums up the main points about West Indian plantation slavery, outlining its emergence, purpose, and conditions:
Video – “The Caribbean: Colonial Past”
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/640195/West-Indies/54384/Plantation-slavery

Other useful resources:
European Colonization (Christopher Columbus)
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/columbus.htm
(Columbus's journal appears in Olson, Julius, The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 (1926); Dyson, John, Columbus: for Gold, God, and Glory (1991); Morrison, Samuel Eliot, Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942); )
Slave Compensation Claims – The Emancipation Act
http://compensations.plantations.bb/
Slavery and the Caribbean – Literature
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/carib/slavery.htm

West Indian Plantation Slavery and Jane Eyre

As mentioned, once Columbus took over the Caribbean new culture and traditions were established to replace the original customs and way of life. This can be immediately related back to Jane Eyre and how she was almost forced to go to Lowood. Jane is taken over by the reforms and rules placed upon her by Lowood. Her choices are limited and her life is regulated harshly. Like slaves relocated from Africa, she was taken from a place she knew and relocated to a cold, unrecognizable place. On page 103 Jane is interviewed by a women who seems kind enough and says “She hoped I would be a good little child” “and dismissed me”. Although this women is kind enough to Jane. The girls, especially Helen are subject to other unfairness in the classroom picked on for simple and unrealistic things. They have less then standard food, live in below par housing and have unsatisfactory food. When Mr. Brocklehurst comes to the school he can be compared to a plantation owner. The girls must live in these horrible conditions and Mr. Brocklehurst continues to subject the girls to tyrannical rules: cutting the girls hair, limiting their clean clothes and proper food. He also separates Jane from the rest of group and subjects her to humiliation in order to make her loose self esteem.
As mentioned - in the 17thC majority of the inhabitants had been wiped out from disease and physical exploitation. At Lowood, Jane explains how semi starvation and neglected colds (caused by poor conditions) had killed many of the girls. Their deaths are hidden, like they aren’t human - which is the same treatment slaves received.
Lowood was not the only place in which Jane was subject to slave like treatment. In Thornfield Jane was still considered an outcast, as she was not a servant but not a person of higher status. She is lucky, in the fact that some governesses had worse treatment during this time. As part of the Slave treatment they would have to “Serve their owners”, and this could be applied to governess’s at the time, who would be disgraced and out of jobs. When she leaves Thornfield she lives in poverty and starvation as many freed slaves had to do after the emancipation act, unsure of what they could do with their lives or where they could go.When telling her cousin St. John about their relationship Jane speaks about the relationship as if he is trying to control and own her. He tries to make her feel guilty about moving to India without being married.

Also, see page 607 on “Race, Empire, and the West Indies”