George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin

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George Lamming,In the Castle of My Skin
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• V.S. Naipaul
• (Indo-Trinidadian writer, Nobel prize winner)
• "the Caribbean is a place without history"

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• George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin
• ? at first seems like a confirmation of
  Naipaul's statement

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George Lamming

• born in Barbados in 1927
• moved to Trinidad in 1947
• migrated to England in 1950
• In the Castle of my Skin (1953)

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In the Castle of My Skin (1953)

• Rain, rain, rain ... my mother put her head
  through the window to let the neighbour know that
  I was nine, and they flattered me with the
  consolation that my birthday had brought showers
  of blessing. That evening I kept an eye on the
  crevices of our wasted roof where the colour of
  the shingles had turned to mourning black, and
  waited for the weather to rehearse my wishes. (9)

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In the Castle of My Skin

• No one seemed to notice how the noon had passed
  to evening, the evening to night nor to worry
  that the weather had played me false. Nothing
  mattered but the showers of blessing and the
  eternal will of the water's source. (9)

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What sense of time do we get in this passage?
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Sense of Time

• Caribbean as a timeless place
• sense of eternity
• absence of change
• "It was my ninth celebration of the gift of
  life, my ninth celebration of the consistent lack
  of an occasion for celebration." (9)

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• My mother said it was a shame. What precisely
  was a shame? Was it the weather or the village of
  the human condition in which and in spite of
  which the poor had sworn their loyalty to life?
  (11)

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• Then she broke into a soft repetitive tone which
  rose with every fresh surge of feeling until it
  became a scattering peal of solicitude that
  soared across the night and into the neighbour's
  house. And the answer came back louder, better
  organized and more communicative, so that another
  neighbour responded and yet another until the
  voices seemed to be gathered up by a single
  effort and the whole village shook with song on
  its foundation of water.

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Alternative Sense of Timelessness

• solidarity across temporal lines
• "foundation of water" does not matter because the
  song rises above it
• water and poverty can be transcended through
  human (poetic) effort

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Alternative Senses of History

• a) history is what makes the record (history
  book)
• b) alternative histories Alice Walker, In Search
  of My Mother's Gardens

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Sense of Timelessness

• Caribbean as a place without history
• vs.
• alternative sense of history

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What role does ancestry play in people's lives?
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• "Where you say my grandmother went?"
• "To Panama," my mother answered. "It was the
  opening of the canal. She is now in Canal Zone.
  It's time you wrote her a letter."
• "And my grandfather who was your father?"
• "Oh, he died, my child, he died before I was
  born." (12)

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• "And my uncle who was your brother?"
• "My brother went to America," my mother said.
  "It's years now. The last we heard he was on a
  boat and then take sick, and is probably dead for
  all we know." Her feelings were neutral. (12)

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Ancestry Genealogy History
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Ancestry Genealogy History

• My birth began with an almost total absence of
  family relations. (12)

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• "absence" of ancestry absence of history
• sense of timelessness, of futility
• "patchwork" families
• substitutes for family?
• feeling of neutrality

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What does this imply about the Caribbean?
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What does this imply about the Caribbean?

• history is made elsewhere

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• Pacing the roof, the landlord, accompanied by
  his friends, indicated in all directions the
  limits of the land. The friends were mainly
  planters whose estates in the country remained
  agricultural or otherwise there were English
  visitors who were absentee owners of estates
  which they had come to see. The landlord, one
  gathered, explained the layout of the land, the
  customs of the villagers which he performed as
  cartaker of this estate. The villagers enthralled
  by the thought of tea in the open air looked on,
  unseen, open-mouthed. (25-26)

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Colonialism

• sense of futility, of timelessness, as brought
  about by colonialism
• no native ownership of the land
• admiration for the landlord's greatness history
  is made elsewhere (by the landlord, in the mother
  country)

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• The landlord's light had been put out. The
  landlord had gone to bed. It was time they did
  the same. A custom had been established, and
  later a value which through continual application
  and a hardened habit of feeling became an
  absolute standard of feeling. I don't feel the
  landlord would like this. It operated in every
  activity. The obedient lived in the hope that the
  Great might not be offeneded, and the uncertain
  in the fear it might have been. (29)

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How is colonialism protrayed?
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Colonialism

• colonialism as "the Great"
• internalized feeling that colonialism is just

27
Is there any contact between the landlord and the
natives?
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Overseer

• Patrolling the land at all hours of the day were
  the village overseers. They were themselves
  villagers who were granted special favors like
  attending the landlady or owning after twenty
  years' tenure the spot of land on which their
  house was built. They were fierce, aggressive and
  strict. The overseers carried bunches of keys
  strung on wire which they chimed continually,
  partly to warn the villagers of their approach,
  partly to satisfy themselves with the feel of
  authority. (26)

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• Occasionally the landlord would accuse the
  overseers of conniving, of slackening on the job,
  and the overseers who never risked defending
  themselves gave vent to their feelings on teh
  villagers who they thought were envious and
  jealous and mean.

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• Low-down nigger people was a special phrase the
  overseers had coined. The villagers were low-down
  nigger people since they couldn't bear to see one
  of their kind get along without feeling envy and
  hate. (26)

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How is colonialism portrayed?
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What is the paradox of "low-down nigger people?"
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Colonialism

• politics of "divide and rule" dividing the
  colonial population against itself (overseers vs.
  villagers)
• internalized racism make the natives think of
  themselves as "low-down nigger people"

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• My people are low-down nigger people. My people
  don't like to see their people get on. The
  language of the overseer. The language of the
  civil servant. The myth had eaten through their
  consciousness like moths through the pages of
  ageing documents. Not taking chances with you
  people, my people. They always let you down. Make
  others say we're not responsible, we've no sense
  of duty. That's what the low-down nigger people
  do to us, their people. (27)

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Colonialism's most pernicious effect
internalizing colonial logic

• " Not taking chances with you people, my people"
• confusion of pronouns there is no distinction
  between overseer and village
• fear that one is really a "low-down nigger"
• colonialism pervades every action
• your body becomes unknown to yourself

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"In the Castle of My Skin"
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In the Castle of My Skin

• colonialism has attributed meaning to skin color
• blackness low-down nigger people
• question how do you unlearn the color of your
  skin, the meaning attributed to it?
• "castle of my skin" skin color as an enigma
• race has no meaning