Flotsam in the Migratory Wake: Relating the Plight of the Old in Frangipani House and Un Plat de porc aux bananes vertes

The migration ethos is a defining characteristic of Caribbean societies. From the arrival of the first native populations to the Middle Passage, from the forced or voluntary crossing of European, Asian and Middle-Eastern migrants to the current migration trends back to the (former) colonial powers and other countries, Caribbean people have contributed to the creation of the Black Atlantic ¹ and even carried their Caribbeaness beyond Atlantic shores as far as Australia. Historians, sociologists and novelists alike have explored how migration helped shape both the societies into which Caribbean migrants moved and their own identities. The Trinidadian writer Sam Selvon thus devoted several novels to the West Indian experience in London while the Haitian author Edwige Danticat wrote both short stories and novels based on her life as a migrant in New York City. Few authors have however focused on the plight of the elderly caught in the migratory wake. The old who are left in their home country as their children move overseas often suffer from isolation and a sense of uselessness after years spent caring for, and surrounded by, others. Those who leave may not fare much better as they feel alienated in their new surroundings and long for a home which, by then, may exist only in their minds. In this article, I wish to explore two Caribbean novels which have dealt with such situations. In Frangipani House, the Guyanese writer Beryl Gilroy decries the fate awaiting Mama King as she is made to stay in a genteel old-age home in Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana, where her only contact with her daughters is through their monthly checks. In Un Plat de porc aux bananes vertes, André and Simone Schwarz-Bart focus on Mariotte, and old Martinican woman confined to a retirement home in Paris. Gilroy and the Schwarz-Barts both seek to convey the alienation felt by their characters through the adoption of distinctive narrative techniques. Their literary discourse is a deliberately constructed reflection of, and on, social reality which aims to emphasize the disjunction between life in Caribbean rural areas as perceived through the characters' memory and life in prison-like retirement homes pervaded by ethnic and social rifts.

In an article published in Le Figaro Littéraire, André Schwarz-Bart explained that he was motivated to break an eight-year hiatus with the writing of Un Plat de porc aux bananes vertes in order to "relate." ² In an article dealing with A. Schwarz-Bart's literary production, Ronnie Scharfman rightly points out that "to relate" means both to narrate and to establish a connection. ³ In Un Plat de porc aux bananes vertes and Frangipani House, the authors indeed seek to establish a connection through narration and apply four strategies to reach this objective. The mimetic strategy consists in providing a story full of realistic details which tricks the reader into thinking this literary discourse is a "true" representation of reality; the temporal strategy focuses on creating the illusion of an ongoing writing process in medias res; the affective strategy supplies personal, often heart wrenching, information about the narrator and various other characters to elicit the reader's sympathy; and the suspense strategy seeks to maintain tension throughout the novel. My purpose here is to analyze how Gilroy and the Schwarz-Barts apply these four strategies in their novels to enhance the readers' belief in and interest for their elderly Caribbean characters and ultimately to denounce the enduring legacy of colonial times.

Though Gilroy and the Schwarz-Barts both set their novels in old-age homes and focus on elderly Caribbean women, they apply the four strategies outlined in different ways. The Schwarz-Barts adopt the format of a diary, enabling Mariotte to turn entrapment into a meaningful experience and...