Aimé Césaire and R K Narayan

From African Negritude to Indian Satire, the Ways they Contend with the Desire to Restore the Pre-Colonial States 

In respect to the generic form and style of Aimé Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to My Native Land and R. K. Narayan's short story ‘Lawley Road’; this essay compares these two creative texts in which surrealism and satire have been used respectively to contend with the desire to restore the pre-colonial condition. The two imaginative and creative works show rather different tendencies in relation to the decolonisation. Generally speaking, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land emphasises a fundamental change, while ‘Lawley Road’ remains dubious about any kind of change.  In the historical context of the Caribbean, the employment of surrealism by Césaire, and the way he uses the language to evoke the African world signify the importance of transcending the conventional genre. This essay argues that in relation to decolonisation, Césaire ignites a revolt within literature, while in the instance of ‘Lawley Road’ the historical background of Indian subcontinent complements the genre short story precedent to embed scepticism.  

Narayan utilises the rhetorical device of satire in the short story of ‘Lawley Road’ to criticise the desire of restoring pre-colonial conditions. The narrative is set in the imaginary town of ‘Malgudi’, where the plot consists of the removal of Sir Frederick Lawley's statue from the town centre following an attempt to restore national symbols and rename areas and streets, “it seemed impossible to keep Lawley’s statue there any longer”.[1] Although the story happens in the post-colonial era, it remains highly sceptical about the desire of restoring pre-colonialism by revealing the fact that Lawley had sacrificed his entire life for Indian people; “he died in the great Sarayu floods while attempting to save the lives of villagers”[2]. The satire has improved within the descriptive narration consisting of a linear plot which does not in any way involve unconventional innovation in technique, language, and the form of the literary genre.

The story of ‘Lawley Road’ does not look for the historical origin of Indian identity, and neither it shows a manifestation of some particular honours or collective value. The story represents some real relationships of Indian society in the post-colonial era, and in this way, it differs from Césaire’s literary work which underpins the idea of Negritude in order to redefine the identity of Black Africans, as he explains in his essay “to plant our negritude like a beautiful tree until it bears its most authentic fruits”[3]. On the contrary, to avoid the confirmation of the Indian historical process following the colonisation, Narayan criticises the anti-colonial combats as he depicts the corrupt historical relationship between supporting the war against colonialism and the post-colonial sovereignty. The story ‘Lawley Road’ provides with the flashback which clarifies that the previous “supplier of blankets to the army”[4]  has been successful in “securing the chairmanship”[5] of the municipality during the post-colonial rule of India. Through revealing the corruption and deception in the war against colonial power, the story indirectly criticises the emphatic historical collective value of combating against colonialism in India and subsequently, discredits the desire to restore the pre-colonial state.

Unlike Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, which strives for the realisation of Negritude through poetic transformation, Narayan’s story observes the independence of India as a newer landscape for further captivity in the local sovereignty. The Municipality which is the symbolic representation of national authority in the story of ‘Lawley Road’ begins its active presence in the public domain right at the start of Indian Independence Day, “our Municipal Council caught the inspiration”[6]. The story does not comment on the oppression of colonialism in India such as tax law, though it warns against the corrupt and non-democratic domination of national authority in post-colonialism. The story broadly contends with the desire to restore the pre-colonial state through depicting the independence celebration as a field of political hypocrisy. The narrator offers to sell back the statue to the Chairman, suggesting him to use his previous gains of selling blankets to the army, “I’m sure you have enough funds of your own”[7]. The Chairman pays for the statue to gain again, this time the election. This way, the story shows that the Municipal Chairman’s efforts to buy votes, destroy the Indian democracy from within, undermines independence, and subsequently contends with the desire to restore the pre-colonial condition in India.

In the “Lawley Road”, Narayan shows a realistic approach to historical facts in relation to colonialism and does not strive for a fundamental change in any way. This inference can easily be achieved by a comparison of the initial purpose of removing the statue in the story with the actual result of re-erecting that statue in the other place of the town, as they finally “install it in a newly acquired property”[8]. The story emphasises that the colonialism has left irremovable marks in the contemporary history of India; more surprisingly, the story suggests, any attempt to escape from these historical facts would further broaden the legacy of colonialism as the unsuccessful attempt to remove the statue led another area to lose its local name, “Kabir Lane shall be changed to Lawley Road”[9]. Despite the widespread desire to restore the pre-colonial condition and the attempts to decolonize,“Lawley Road” states that colonialism has rooted deep into the contemporary history of India and the story's satire ridicules those who are unable to perceive and admit the historical fact left by colonialism.

The realistic approach of Narayan is more evident in the choice of form and title of his work. Regardless of the topic of the story, the term, Lawley road, may refer to a place without any particular literary implication, and thus, it differs to the sophisticated literary work of Césaire which its title, revolutionarily, consists the word ‘notebook’. Furthermore, Narayan chooses the form of a short story to reach a larger proportion of readers. At the time in India, as it has been quoted from Premchand the form of the short story had some more readerships because of its affordable price compared to the novel[10]. This realistic attitude of Narayan extends beyond his literary performance as his recognition of reflecting upon the desire to restore the pre-colonial state provides rather objective interpretation. 

Unlike the satire in Lawley Road, Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to My Native Land is a literary exploration for an invasive and unconscious ignition of Negritude. It consists of prose and a variety of poetic modes, and therefore, it emphasises on the language play, to create gesture and image in language rather than developing a plot in the narrative. Césaire strives to go beyond the genre, and for that purpose he takes some initiatives such as merging prose with the poem, utilising surrealism, coining the neologism, and examining poetic qualities of different modes and parallelism. This invites us to think that the extensive cultural continuity in India and its prolonged civilisation have provided sufficient historical experiences from the past, while the discontinuity of Caribbean from their original world of Africa inevitably required Césaire to have a fundamental look. Therefore, in comparison with Narayan’s “Lawley Road” where a particular genre has been taking into account to satire the post-colonial era, Césaire shows zero tolerance approach to the history of colonialism and instead of criticising its consequences at the superficial level, he essentially opposes the hegemony of Western civilisation and in his tendencies towards Negritude he fundamentally revolutionises the black literature.

The rejection of the conventional genre starts even with the title of Césaire's work consisting of the word 'notebook'. A notebook encompasses everything that has come to his mind, including any idea of rebellion, inspirational, vision, anger, shout, ecstasy, grief, and revolt. There is nothing that cannot be recorded in a notebook. Notebook of a Return to My Native Land includes all of these among many other things at the same time and yet it is about none of them. Césaire brings those ideas to create unusual juxtapositions, “and the pian / the guard dog / the suicide / the promiscuity / the boot / the stocks / the wooden horse / the cippus / the headband”[11].  Bringing the opposite ideas and different objects one after another, Césaire takes a radical experiment in which things that otherwise had no relevant connection align together and create a unique literary image. Césaire encourages fearless innovation in relation to cultural issue as he sees that any sign of future success “can only bloom in a bouquet of actions”[12]. Césaire expands the characteristics of the titling word of ‘notebook’ throughout the text, and by transcending the conventional genre he rejects the dominant view of mainstream White and thus, contends with the desire to restore the pre-colonial condition. 

Césaire combines the history, geography, and aspiration of the Caribbean to create a native African context for his literary work through which he provokes the subconscious in order to examine the intense inertia as the legacy of colonialism. This has achieved by emphasising the irrational significance of the imagery effects. In other words, the historical experiences of Caribbean are brought along with their collective ideals in a surreal context to pave a profound landscape on which Negritude would be well understood. The geographical aspects of the Caribbean are the most important sources of imagery in his poem. These imageries in the understanding of Césaire’s poetry, which is profoundly influenced by surrealism, are essential elements.  He prepares the background of an image by repeating a keyword in the previous lines. The image, which is relevant to the collective memory of Caribbean, suddenly opens up in the next paragraph and affects an everlasting literary effect. For instance, some nine times of repetition of the word ‘morne’ in less than a page, has been followed by “a hunger buried so deep in the Hunger of this famished morne”[13].  The implication of this parallelism may refer to Morne Rouge, which was a city in the north of Martinique surrounded by farms of sugar cane. In 1902, the complete destruction of the city by the volcano of Mount Pelée happened at the same time of running an election.  According to Mazisi Kunene, the authorities avoided to warning residents of about the volcano because that could terrify people and lead the voters to run away from polling[14]. Césaire's surrealistic approach of narration raises on the historical and geographical basis to create a powerful literary image.

Césaire praises the human civilisation in which the Negritude is not excluded but complimented. For that, he complains about the oppressive Western civilisation and its superiority. Although not anti-technology, he praises the humanity free from the horrors of civilisation, “Eia for those who have never invented anything”[15]. The overall atmosphere of his literary work is full of anger from the past, which seeks an outlet to erupt, “I give you the Intourist triangular circuit”[16]. Each proposition depicts a vivid image with reference to the history of Black people from the slavery to colonialism.  Every idea corresponds to another either by harmony or some contradictory stands in the oxymoronic phrases. Césaire utilises language with all its quality to enact decolonisation in his writing.

“Lawley Road” criticises the post-colonial sovereignty in independent India, while Notebook of a Return to My Native Land rejects the legacy of Western colonial civilisation entirely.  In relation to the desire to restore the pre-colonial condition, Narayan suggests enhancing the Indian national consciousness through satire, but Césaire emphasises on the ideal African self, that is Negritude.  

Bibliography

Césaire, Aimé. “Nègeries: Racial Consciousness and Social Revolution.” In Negritude Agonistes, Assimilation Against Nationalism in the French-Speaking Caribbean and Guyane, Translated by Alys Moody. Cherry Hill, NJ: African Homestead Legacy Publishers, 2008.

Césaire, Aimé. Notebook of a Return to My Native Land = Cahier D'un Retour Au Pays Natal. Translated by Mireille Rosello with Annie Pritchard. Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 1995.

Kunene, Mazisi. Introduction to Return to Native Land. Translated by Mahmud Kianush, Tehran: Agah Publication. 1975.

Narayan, R. K. “Lawley Road.” In Malgudi Days. London: Penguin Books. 2015.

Pravinchandra, Shital. “Short Story and Peripheral Production.” In The Cambridge Companion to World Literature, edited by Ben Etherington and Jarad Zimbler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 

Footnotes

[1] Narayan, Lawley Road, 113.

[2] Ibid., 115.

[3] Césaire, Nègeries: Racial Consciousness and Social Revolution, 1.

[4] Narayan, Lawley Road, 111.

[5] Ibid., 111.

[6] Narayan, Lawley Road, 111.

[7] Ibid., 116.

[8] Ibid., 116.

[9] Ibid., 116.

[10] Pravinchandra, Short Story and Peripheral Production, 2.

[11] Césaire, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, 121.

[12] Césaire, Nègeries: Racial Consciousness and Social Revolution, 3.

[13] Césaire, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, 77.

[14] Kunene, Introduction Return to Native Land, 14.

[15] Césaire, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land, 115.

[16] Ibid., 113.