Outward Evil Inward Battle: Human Memory in Literature

Chapter 9. There’s No Place Like Home: Cultural Memory in Toni Morrison‘s Tar Baby and Edwidge Danticat‘s Breath, Eyes and Memory

171 Chapter 9 There’s No Place Like Home: Cultural Memory in Toni Morrison‘s T Tar Baby and Edwidge Danticat‘s Breath, Eyes and Memory Rhonda Collier I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, -A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. William Wordsworth - Daffodils (1804) Unsuccessful during its film-debut in 1939, it is surprising that the film based on L. Frank Baum‘s best-selling children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), written 112 year ago, is more than familiar to today’s television and movie audiences. Around the globe, The Wizard of Oz represents the magic of self-discovery and cultural memory. Extrapolating from Homi K. Bhabha‘s use of the term in Locating Culture (1994), “cultural memory” refers to the dichotomy that exists as a person or group experiences “historical” events in relation to one’s interpretation of “historical” events. The Wizard of Oz is after all a multi-layered tale about a young girl, Dorothy, who runs away from home, only to be reminded that home is where she belongs. The film version of Baum‘s book, now over 70 years old, is listed as one of the top 100 films of the twentieth century. No less surprising is that Salman Rushdie, famed author of Midnight’s Children (1980) and Satanic Verses (1989), claims “The Wizard of Oz as his very 172 first literary influence” (9). This explains why Rushdie‘s first story written, at the age of ten, is entitled Over the Rainbow (9). Given the film’s influence on contemporary culture, it seems more than appropriate to draw upon The Wizard of Oz to discuss the idea of cultural memory in literature. For Dorothy, as with the characters Jadine Childs in Toni Morrison‘s Tar Baby (1982), and Sophie Caco in Edwidge Danticat‘s Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), the power to embark on the journey homeward lies within words and the knowledge of important historical elements. As the post-colonialist writer Jamaica Kincaid warns, interpreting historical events is almost impossible without being able to perceive the past, to appreciate the present and to anticipate the future. This chapter explores how Toni Morrison and Edwidge Danticat reflect on the connection between place and cultural memory. Jamaica Kincaid‘s A Small Place (1988) provides an interesting post-colonial framework in which to view cultural memory. Kincaid’s Antigua, a nine-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies, has a confused identity that has yet to attain the secure, self-assured existence that independence promised. She suggests that the decolonization and the true independence of Antigua is complicated by a cultural tradition which does not make distinctions between the past, the present, and the future. Kincaid notes: To the people in a small place, the division of Time into the Past, the Present, and the Future does not exist. An event that occurred one hundred years ago might be as vivid to them as if it were happening this very moment. And then, an event that is occurring this very moment might pass before them with such dimness that it is as if it had happened one hundred years ago. No action in the present is an action planned with a view of its effect on the future. When the future, bearing its own events, arrives, its ancestry is then traced in a trancelike retrospect, at the end of which, their eyes wide with astonishment, the people in a small place reveal themselves to be children being shown the secrets of a magic trick. (54) 173 Here, Kincaid describes self-discovery as an act of magic seen through the eyes of a child. More importantly, she implies problems of identity lie with the interpretation of “events.” For example, in the film version of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy experiences the Land of Oz as a dream. But in her mind’s eye, she actually experiences the Land of Oz as a real place. Upon her return to Kansas, Dorothy adamantly comments to her Aunt Em: No, Aunt Em, this was a real truly live place. And I remember that some of it wasn’t very nice—but most of it was beautiful!! But all the same, all I kept saying to everybody was, ‘I...