FOREIGN LANGUAGES STUDIES IN WEST AFRICA:
NIGERIA AND BENIN
Edited by
Festus Ayodeji SOYOYE, Joseph Ajibola ADELEKE
and Flavien GBETO
CONTENTS
Black Literature, White Archetype: A Fresh Reading of Aimé Césaire’s
Plays
Bukoye Arowolo
54
Black Literature, White Archetype: A Fresh Reading of Aimé Césaire's
Plays
Bukoye AROWOLO
Early European notion of the black race was based on the polarity of
black and white that had been established in the Western psyche and
archetypal symbolism. This polarity, associated with a scale of values on
which the white evokes positive response such as good, pure and beautiful,
and the black, negative response as evil, corrupt and ugly. Though the whiteblack Manichean archetypes could be found in most cultures, it is only in the
Western culture that this had been charged with the greatest emotion. It is in
the same culture that it had experienced a scope of extension that soon
included pigmentation. This extension to skin colour caused it to lose its
symbolic character so that the colour ot a man became an outward
expression of an inward nature and intelligence The jettisoning of this
symbolism to englobe the black pigmental reality was however not fortuitous.
Rather, it was a subtle and deliberate maneuver to justify white domination,
first through slavery and later through colonialism.
Critical studies on French literary texts in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries
have shown that their writers sought to perpetuate the negative image of
the black man and of Africa. Such writers created thematic and character
archetype from the prejudiced myths of the black man who is alternately
portrayed as the archetypes of the 'Ape-man" and the "Noble Savage".
The image of the "Ape-man" links the black man with the beast, Ape,
traditionally regarded as particularly lascivious and promiscuous. The logical
supposition
is that he is endowed with the same vices as his
'kinsman", the Ape.
He therefore needs to be brought into the state of
human decency and civilization. On he other hand, the myth of the "Noble
Savage" gave rise to the image of the plantation man, Sambo, who is
docile, but irresponsible, loyal but lazy, humble but
chronically given to lying and stealing; his behaviour
was full of infantile silliness and his talk inflated with
childish exaggerations. (Bergahn 1970: 13)
Other critics also confirm this image of the black man in Western Literature.
These critics assert that the writers created characters who are inferior to
their white counterparts, and who are cannibals and savages (Hoffman
1973, 1978, Nwezeh 1978, Devisse 1987, Amela 1987 among others).
The political nature of Aime Cesaire's works has been attested to by
various critics (Case 1973, Midiohouan 1995 among others). As a matter of
fact, Aime Cesaire himself confirms this interpretation of his plays while
explaining his (temporary) abandonment of the poetic for the dramatic
medium (Kesteloot 1973). In the interview, he preferred that the dramatic
form enabled him to more clearly transmit his message to the new
independent African nations. Furthermore, his adoption of drama is a
statement on his commitment to the dignity and welfare of the black man
Aime Cesaire's three plays in this study: La tragedie du roi
Christophe (1963), Une saison au Congo (1966) and Une tempete (1969)
constitute an anti-colonial trilogy. La tragedie du roi Christophe has its
setting in Haiti during the nine-year reign of Henri Christophe, a slave-turned
king, and brings into focus the immediate problem of the emergent
independent Africa. Une saison au Congo, another historical play set in
Africa, shows the difficulty of attaining true independence in Africa and
denounces the neo-colonial and religious forces. Une tempete, an
adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest demonstrates the unequal
relationship between the white (colonizer), the mulatto and the black
(colonized). Cesaire uses this play to reject the ambiguous position of the
mulatto
However, Aime Cesaire's portrayal of both the black man and his
world in his plays follows the same pattern in Western literature earlier
alluded to, in spite of contrary intentions In each of the plays, the black
hero, cast in the Western archetypal image of the black man, is a failure.
Christophe (La tragedie du roi Cjristophe) is incapable of building a dignified
image for the black race, Lumumba (Une saison au Congo) fails to lead his
newly independent nation to prosperity, and Caliban (Une tempete) remains
a slave to white Prospero. The failure or incompetence of the black hero
could be traced in the first instance to his creator's Western cultural
background which has willy-nilly initiated him into the doctrine of the black
man's sub-human nature. In Cesaire's plays therefore, the black heroes
(leaders) are evil, satanic, primitive, superfi cial and savage in
contradistinction to the perfect and civilized white man. (In the three plays:
La tragedie du roi Christophe (TRC), Une saison au Congo (Congo) and Une
tempete (Tempete). The archetypal black hero responds to the myth of the
black man's incompetence to take his destiny in his own hands. He is
incapable of ruling his people successfully without guidance from the Whites.
He is totally dependent.
Cesaire, like Leopold Senghor, has fallen into the Western trap set
to make the black man believe that he relies more on instinct while the White
relies on reason. Hence Senghor declares that "emotion est negre, comme
raison est hellene" (Senghor 1964: 24). An affirmation of the primordial
nature of the race which cannot reason but can only feel. Cesaire's black
heroes, Christophe (TRC) and Lumumba (Congo) are emotional. Their love
for their people and continent does not go beyond sentiments and is
incapable of helping the loved ones. Faced with the 'ntrigues of the mulattodominated senate, Christophe cries out in anguish;
Pauvre Afrique, je veux dire Haiti! C'est la meme chose d'ailleurs. La-bas la
tribu, les langues, les fleuves, les castes, la foret, village centre village,
hameau centre hameau. lei, negres, mulatres, griffes, marabouts, que sais-je,
Combats de coqs, de chiens pour I'os ... (Poor Africa! I mean poor Haiti! In
any case, it means the same. There, tribes, languages, rivers, castes, forests,
village against village, hamlet against hamlet. Here, Negroes, mulattoes,
claws, marabouts, I don't know ... cockfights, dogfights for bones ...) (TRC:
49) Christophe is full of the best intentions and love for his people, but he is
incapable of saving them.
More importantly, his unrealistic attitude
precludes him from appreciating the source of the racial problems he so
much wants to solve. Here lies his incompetence He wants to restore the
dignity of the black race through the black people of Haiti.
He is a man of action who believes that the black man can regain his
lost dignity and liberty through hard work. He sees the independence of
Haiti as a call to duty - a call to service. Everyone, including children, must
work hard so that the black race would have something worthy to be proud
of. But the hard work required and enforced by Christophe is based on the
same wrong perception as that of the white slave-owner who sees the slaves
as lazy persons who can only do well when coerced to work. Christophe
sees everything in relation to the white race. He wants the citadelle
monument built because the Whites build monuments. He wants something
to show off to the Western world that Blacks can be hardworking and
civilized. The citadelle would be the monument of black freedom. But he is a
tyrant who imposes his will on the people. There is no question of rest. He
takes advice from no one. And the most tragic is that he has no specific plan or
program. Christophe wants every Haitian to work hard to destroy the myth of
the lazy Blacks, but there is no realistic sense of direction: no focus. The
people must apply themselves to serious and rigorous work. The captain
radayeur remarks succinctly the futility of Christophe's effort when he tells his
apprentice:
"Le vrai du vrai n'est pas d'aller comme de savoir par ou aller" (The
simple truth is not just to go but to know how and where to go) (TRC, p.
67)
The black man under Christophe is compelled to work even though
the purpose and the goal of the work are undefined. For this reason, the
people consider the work as another form of slave-labour since they do not
know for what reason they are working and for whom. In their belief,
independence should bring relief and freedom of choice. Christophe is the
archetype of the prelogical being who is incapable of reasoning He starts a
civil war which he abandons for emotional reasons when his victory is
obvious. He thereby loses the opportunity to completely defeat Petion, his
enemy, and restore national unity to Haiti. Without any apparent reason, he
also attacks the church by killing Archbishop Brelle. After Brelle's death, he
does not perceive a favorable reorganization of the church as a strategy to
his own benefit before restoring the church and installing another
archbishop. Therefore series of miscalculations are brought to the fore, to
highlight his incompetence.
Having been brought up to believe in his own inferiority, Christophe
demonstrates lack of faith in his own competence and in his race. Cesaire's
Christophe can only conceive of his personality in relation to the white man
and the black race in relation to the white race. Tragically, Christophe can
only assert himself in the Eurocentric world by adopting a French-type
monarchy in Haiti as if he neither had a past, nor a culture. This neo-colonial
black hero and leader ironically seeking to restore the dignity of the black
man can only do so, it seems, through the adoption of an alien system of
government. Christophe should have found out about the pre-colonial
systems in Africa that were stable and better organized than those of Europe
before the intrusion of the latter into the former's way of life. Christophe's
creation is a confirmation of the total acceptance of the European myth
about Africa and her people. He wants to be original but he adopts Western
attitudes ceaselessly.
As an archetypal counterpoint to Christophe's French-type
monarchy, the mulattos who have control over the South, establish a parody of
the European parliamentary system. The mulatto leaders behave as
laughable and dignified monkeys who think too seriously of their capability
and importance but hardly know who they are. (Pestre de Almeida, 1975).
Rather than being original and reevaluating themselves, they merely
demonstrate their capacity at aping Western culture. To further assert the
incompetence of the neo-colonial black hero and the paternalism of the
former colonizer, Christophe seeks technical assistance from France to
groom his new aristocracy. The technical assistant has to guide the "black
savages" to nobility. The tragic-comic rehearsal scene shows the crudity
and the savage nature of the new nobility as (the black characters)
demonstrate their lack of decency. (TRC pp. 30-38),
Cesaire's Christophe further displays the savagery and oeastly
Disposition of a black leader. Just as in the European myth of the simian
Heritage of the black man who is portrayed as a monkey. Christophe
behaves like a naive and unintelligent creature. For this reason, his good
.mentions of uniting the Haitians and other black peoples and of building a
prosperous respectable and respected black nation turn to chimera. These
ideals, good as they are, are made impossible for Cesaire's hero,
Ghnstophe, because he cannot see beyond making himself and his people
work hard and literally to death. He is different from Lumumba, the hero of
Une saison au Congo, who insists on working hard like Christophe and
regards himself and his collaborators as "forcats" yet has a lucid and
salutary idea of why he and his people have to work. (Congo, p. 34). Even
when for selfish reasons Lumumba's collaborators betray him, th ey
appreciate his ideals, his intelligence and his zeal.
In Une tempete, Caliban the black hero, archetypal black servant of
white Prospero is infantile, naive and unintelligent. He is not only deprived
of his possession (the Island) but is also made a sla ve. By his own
confession, Caliban is done out of his own, not through conquest, but by the
wne and guile of the usurping Prospero. He has accepted without question
tor a long time his condition of the colonized and the position of inferiority.
In a sudden spark of lucidity, he confronts Prospero with his
understanding of the nature of his servitude over the years when he
accepted the maltreatment and hostile behaviour meted out to him by
Prospero, especially the condescending attitude of the latter. Caliba n
exclaims:
II faut que tu comprennes Prospero: des annees j'ai
courbe la tete, des annees j'ai accepte: tes insultes, ton
ingratitude pis encore, plus degradante que le reste, la
condescendance
[You need to understand, Prospero: for years I have
been submissive, for years I have accepted everything:
your insults, your ingratitude, worse still, more
degrading than all others, your condescension]
(Tempete, pp. 87-88) Caliban is presented as an
uncritical black man who accepts with servility all
insults, all degradation and condescension meted out
to him by Prospero -the master. He is a Caribbean
Sambo.
Moreover, Caliban's refusal of the domination of Prospero is
emotional to the extent that he expects other Whites shipwrecked on the
Island (Stephano and Trinculo) to collaborate with him to dethrone Prospero
- thereby selling himself and his land to new masters. (Tempete, pp. 57-65).
By so doing Caliban reaffirms his inferiority to the white race. As he had
showed off his Island to Prospero who earlier dispossessed him, he once
again gives the key of his possession to his drunken master-to-be. Cesaire's
Caliban clearly demonstrates that what he wants is not freedom as such, but
a change of master. His "no" to domination is merely emotional. This
unconscious portrayal of the black hero as an incapable, dependent, naive,
unintelligent and unserious emotional being is a far cry from the deliberate
esthetic use of white characters to paint a savage and cannibalistic picture of
the black hero so as to bring out the expected stereotypes. For that
purpose, Caliban is variously referred to as "villain singe" (ugly monkey), "un
barbare" (a barbarian), without civilization, "noir sauvage a civiliser" (black
savage to be civilized) by Prospero (pp. 24-25). Also Trinculo and Prospero
treat Caliban as an exotic show-piece and more importantly as a child
incapable of growing up and simplistic. This disparaging portrayal of the
hero by white characters in the play is to a great extent justified by the
actions and reactions of Cesaire's Caliban.
Christophe is a plundering, rapacious and ferocious cannibal.
Christophe seems to be a blood-thirsty ruler and kills for the mere pleasure
of spilling blood (TRC, p. 25) The analogy between the rapacious beast and
the primitive is obvious here. Our hero applies the law of the jungle and is in
no way different from the Blacks in colonial French literature. Like the black
hero in colonial literature, Christophe is let loose on his people and he kills
them at random: Archbishop Brelle is murdered for no known reason, also
Franco de Medina the French envoy, the sleeping man is shot at sight and
killed for not working and for sleeping at the wrong time (TRC, pp. 102, 90 94, 84). This could be seen as symbolic of the blood-thirsty and cannibalistic
nature of the primordial black man who would normally drink human blood
and eat human flesh. Since civilization does not permit the crude
manifestation of the repressed desire in him, the black hero can only
compensate symbolically in this manner. This cannibalistic trait in Cesaire's
hero is best portrayed when Christophe gives the order on the "Basin affair".
For maltreating the peasants, the Comte de Mont -Roni has to be
dismembered in a cruel, bestial way by the Royal-Dahomet (the special royal
guards). Christophe orders that he be attached to a tree in the public place
in full glare of the people and his body dismembered while alive with a sabre.
He instructs:
Que Ton attache le gerant-fouetteur a un arbre, sur la
place publique devant le people assemble. Que Ton le demolisse
a coups de sabre, membre apres membre.
[The master flogger should be attached to a tree, in the market
place with the people assembled. He should be demolished,
dismembered with a sword] (TRC, p. 84).
In effect, to satisfy his lust for blood, King Christophe does not order the
Comte's mere killing but he is to be killed by installments as he is cut into
pieces while still alive. It is only macabre and savage cannibalism that can
assuage the compulsive thirst for blood in Cesaire's black hero since he can
no more directly sacrifice human beings to his satanic gods. In furtherance
of this diabolical primordial desire for blood, the black hero engages in wars
The civil war opposing the Negro South led by Christophe and the mulatto
North led by Petion and other mulattoes is an example
In Congo, the civil war for Katanga and the violence in which the
hero, Lumumba, is killed also serves the same cannibalistic purpose. In
wars, human beings can be justifiably killed since those killed are the
enemies. All goes to demonstrate the penchant of the black man for bloodletting. Though war is a universal phenomenon, without respect for race or
creed, we interpret its implications in the light of Fanon's assertion on torture,
an element of warfare during the Algerian war that the Europeans who
torture, are fallen people and traitors to their history. In the case of the black
men, to torture is to affirm and assure their nature, in fact it is in the nature of
their underdevelopment. (Fanon 1982: 6). Therefore, the black man who
wages war is behaving true to type.
Cesairian heroes in all the three plays under consideration fall within
the expectation of the Western myth of libidinous pleasure-seeking black
man. The black man being a savage, has no control over his sexual urge
Therefore, in spite of Christophe's civilized desire for decency among his
subjects especially the women, the leader's savage nature takes the
foreground when he apparently jocularly taps the heavy buttocks of the
adorned noble ladies "les negresses fessues et atiffees", "Mesdames de la
Begningue, de Petit Trou, et du Trappe-l'oeil". (TRC, pp. 88-90).
In TempSte, Prospero the white master warns his daughter, Miranda
against the lascivious Caliban. When Caliban complains about the ghetto
into which he has been confined, Prospero reminds him that he (Caliban) is
removed as a result of his attempt at raping Miranda:
II y a une chose que tu as oublie de dire, c'est que c'est
ta lubricite qui m'a oblige de t'eloigner. Dame, tu as essaye
de violer ma fille.
[You forgot to say one thing, that is that it is your lubricity that
has forced me to put you at a distance. Damnit, you attempted
to rape my daughter] (Tempete, p. 27)
Caliban is accused of trying to rape Prospero's daughter. Though he denies
this vehemently, he is ordered to go back to his forced labour.
Not even Lumumba (Congo), in spite of the image of commitment
and decency, is exempted from this frailty of the black man. Though there is
no overt manifestation of lasciviousness, Lumumba shows a powerful
tendency for love of pleasure. At the peak of the civil war, he talks of going to
the « bar de I'Elite », he wants to see the most beautiful Lulua girl called
Helene Bijou. And Lumumba, though a serious hero, gloats about the
sensuous pleasure he anticipates in a good dance with the Lulua girl:
Ce soir, je danserai avec elle! Avec une fille lulua.
A la face du monde entier.
[This evening, I will dance with her! With a Lulua girl.
Before the whole world] (Congo, p. 67)
While the strategic reason for this "political dance" is obviously to show the
whole world that Lumumba does not discriminate against any tribe, the
sensuous manner in which this is said betrays his basic libidinous nature.
This is the kind of image that is deeply enshrined in the psyche of the
playwright, Aime Cesaire. The heroes in the three plays have been shown
as savages and primitives who are neither disciplined nor capable of taming
their native desires.
Cesaire also presents the image of an unserious black hero who is
at best a perpetual butt of the satiric laughter of European spectators. The
black hero in TRC, Christophe, in the early scenes makes the reader (and
spectator) laugh at his grotesque actions. He resembles the clown in the
traditional Western plays or novels where actors of comic roles would smear
their faces with ink and soot to appear black For this reason, Bergson sees
the black man as a "white man in disguise1 (Nwezeh 1978). The real black
man when he appeared, was the caricature of a real man, therefore a comic
object. Christophe is presented as a buffoon as he fumbles his way to his
own perdition.
Caliban's character is also generally presented as comic. His
infantile disposition and naive strategies for regaining his freedom are
particularly grotesque. Though he says an emphatic "no" to his
enslavement, he seems incapable of taking full control of that freedom. In
fact, most comic is his acceptance of another enslavement to other Whites
(Stephano and Trinculo) in exchange for his liberation from Prospero.
Apart from the heroes in Cesaire's plays, other black characters are
faithful to the Eurocentric myth of the black man. Judging by the portraits
painted by Cesaire, the average black man is an indolent being who is active
only during festivities. According to the German writer, Hans Gramins:
Every nigger is a loafer. Idleness is the most salient
feature of any nigger (Nwezeh 1978: 73)
It is the same contemptuous white image that the black is a loafer
and that idleness is his major feature that informs the actions of the black
hero, Christophe. This mythical concept leads Christophe to impose on the
"lazy citizens" of his kingdom, strict and rigorous hardwork without direction. A
general mobilization is decreed as "le code Henry". Like a school master,
Christophe dispatches everyone including members of the royal family, to
work on the "citadelle". We are informed of the assault on the princes and
princesses who now have to work like peasants by the 'premiere Dame":
Figurez-vous qu'il a mobilise la famille royale ... filles comprises. Et AthenaTs
et Annetyste, les princesses, comme on dit, sont desormais tenues d'aller sur
les chantiers . .. [imagine that he has mobilized the royal family . including
girls. AthenaTs and Annetyste the princesses, it is said are henceforth obliged
to work at the sites . . . ] (TRC, p. 77) Cesaire's Christophe considers his
people's indolence as the number one problem. It is the only enemy they
need to fear and not an external invasion of the French King.
Peuple haitien, Haiti a moins a craindre des francais que
d'elle-meme. L'ennemi de ce people c'est son indolence,
effronterie, sa haine de discipline, I'esprit de jouissance, de
torpeur.
[People of Haiti, Haiti has less to fear from the French than of herself. This
people's enemy is her indolence, effrontery, hatred for discipline, love of
pleasure torpor ] (TRC p 77) To combat this indolence, even the delegation
of the council of state (conseil d'Etat) which comes to implore Christophe to
reduce the charge on the people and to be a little more humane in dealing
with his subjects, is not only harangued by the king, in a tirade about
poverty, but is also encumbered at the end of its visit with working
implements - symbolic of Christophe's naive ideal.
Like Christophe in TRC, Lumumba launches himself into the ideals
of liberating his people. But his people, including his nearest collaborators,
are not of the same mind with him. For Lumumba, he and his collaborators
have sold their freedom to serve the people. They are "forcats volontaires"
and are condemned to work without end. His people do not recognize this
as they believe that independence is an excuse for indolence, laziness and
effrontery. As a result of indolence, cabinet members like Makossa are
always absent from meetings, Sikosso sleeps when he is supposed to be
working and is alert in the night when no doubt, he can enjoy himself.
Caliban the black hero in Tempete is also indolent. Prospero, the
white master complains that Caliban has been stealing his time instead of
working and therefore deserves to do more work, so he adds Fernando's
portion to his:
Tu m'as assez vole ton temps a paresser et a baraguinauder pour
qu'une fois tu travailles a double ration. [You have stolen enough
of my time in laziness and in talking to qualify you for a double
portion of work.] (Tempete, p. 55)
While Caliban's laziness could be understood in the light of a
contemptuous white master set on vilifying a recalcitrant black slave, we
consider the image of the Blacks in the first two plays, TRC and Congo as an
unconscious creation of their Europeanized black creator, Cesaire. As in the
highly prejudicial portrayal of black characters in Western literature, Cesaire
also paints in his plays the picture of a black people not yet ripe for total
liberation: a childish people who should be kept perpetually under tutelage.
This analysis will not be complete without the demonstration of the
profound myth of white superiority over black. The archetypal black hero
and other black characters are intrinsically inferior to their white
counterparts. Aime Cesaire creates a Christophe who installs a black
aristocracy like that of France. We consider this as an unconscious rejection
of the African traditional models of governance. To make this imitation more
grotesque, a white man needs to come as technical assistant to train the
new aristocrats the way of the nobility. (TRC, pp. 30-38). Ironically,
Christophe insists that the system that inculcates a servile mentality is
instituted to give the black man his dignity. By his calculation, the people
could be saved only by adopting white civilization and system.
At another level, the fact of Christophe's paralysis and eventual
death as a result of the appearance of Corneille Brelle's gh ost is a
confirmation of white metaphysical superiority Of all the murder victims and
executed persons, none except Brelle the white Archbishop, challenges
Christophe's power. Brelle even in death is able to avenge himself because
he is a pure white whereas Franco de Medina, a beke or Haitian white
cannot because the level of social and metaphysical superiority is reduced.
The fact that Lumumba loses his fight against European neo-colonialism and
is killed in Congo, and the fact that Caliban in spite of all his vociferous
struggle remains a slave to Prospero are confirmation that Cesaire upholds
(perhaps unconsciously), the myth of white superiority. In fact, the
background of the heroes, especially Christophe, a former slave-cook has
predetermined the limit of their capability.
However, Cesaire's attempt at re-africanization, a process by which
the author tries to redeem the African past through its revelation, either
through the recycling of old traditional African myths, generating new myths
or consciously creating new African heroes that are dissociated from the old
Western archetypes, needs to be examined.
In TRC and Tempete, Cesaire delves into the African traditional
mythology to redeem the images of the divinities, Shango, Eshu and other
gods of Africa are either characters or are alluded to. Ceremonies are
performed to the African gods by Madame Christophe for the recovery of her
husband. More importantly, Christophe is created in the image of Shango,
the Yoruba god of thunder whose power can at once be destructive and
benevolent. (Mideiohouan 1995).
Paradoxically, the work for which Christophe devotes his life is quasidestroyed by explosion and lightning - the fighting tools of Shango in the
African mythology. It could be inferred that the African god has been
offended somehow by Christophe's actions. Or a black man could have
committed an abomination to merit the anger of the erratic god. In Une
tempete, it is interesting to note that it is not only the black man that is
humiliated by the white man, but also his god, Eshu, who is not only inferior
to the white man's gods (Ceres, Junon and Iris) but is also subjected to the
control of the white man, Prospero. Moreover, Eshu accepts the domination of
the white man and calls him "patron" (master) (Tempete, p. 41). It is
necessary to point out how that the image of the African gods in Cesaire's
plays does not conform to the archetypes in the traditional African
mythology. Their powers have been watered down and the Eurocentric
belief of everything black being evil permeates their images.
Cesaire's painting of the archetypal black character is accompanied
by black archetypal setting The situation and decor in which Cesaire's plays
take place are of interest for the analysis of a complete image of the Black
and his environment. Cesaire's settings for his plays are in Haiti, a newly
independent black nation: Congo is in the center (interior) of the African
continent and has just obtained political independence, while Une tempete is in
colonial Africa.
In the three black settings, exoticism, mystery, oppression by the
elements, forest, animals and generally inhospitable conditions abound.
This is in line with the Western archetypes created for Africa from the myth of
"Dark Continent"; the heart of darkness. Cesaire's settings are therefore more
to the taste of European readers and spectators. It is easy to conclude that
wherever the black man is, he sows misfortunes and is enveloped in evil
Evil is ever so pervasive in Haiti, the land of adoption of the old black slaves,
that in a lapsus, Christophe, far as he is from Africa, easily confounds
Haiti with the mother-continent Africa (TRC, p. 49).
In effect, every black setting is contentious and full of inter-ethnique
disputations. No black setting can"know peace as a result of strife. No
wonder Christophe denounces the mythic atavism. The result of this
Eurocentric reasoning is that black settings are always n ebullition and full of
violence. TRC begins with a struggle for power and is impregnated with
violence till the protagonist, Christophe meets his violent end. Also the evil
is so entrenched in Cesaire's Une saison au Congo that from the beginning
to the end of the play, struggle for power, "combat de chien pour I'os",
dominates the action. The play opens with the struggle of Lumumba's party
for independence that leads to a bloody civil war and the eventual
assassination of the hero, Lumumba.
In the archetypal black setting adopted by Cesaire, even nature and
the elements are hostile. It is hell par excellence because the atmosphere is
demonic. Hence, in Tempete, Stephano describes the forest of the Island as
demonic and Prospero says it is haunted by the devil. (Tempete, p. 46).
Moreover, the plays are infested by mysteries that can only happen
in the "black continent" or black setting. The appearance of the ghost of
Brelle to Christophe and its effects on him are beyond the rational. The
invocation of the African gods is also of importance to the portrayal of the
black nation, Haiti. Tempete is also full of all sorts of supernatural beings
which Prospero has learnt to tame and to make use of.
Aim6 Cesaire's plays are replete with archetypes from Western
myths of the black man and of Africa more as an unconscious manifestation
of the Eurocentric orientation of his psyche than as a refutation of such
myths. The Caribbean writer is assimilated into the European culture and
cannot but adopt its primordial images, the repugnance for the denigrating
archetype of his race and continent notwithstanding. Not even Cesaire's
attempt at re-afncanization has been able to put an end to the original
negative Western archetypal image about the continent and her people. In
fact, the attempt at re-africanization creates more Western-oriented myths
about the black man. This is understandable in the light of the cultural
realities of the French Caribbean whose identity has been aptly described by
Cesaire himself as that of a bastard (destin du batard) and who sees himself
as a cultural half-caste ("metis culturel"} in as much as his "black" psyche
has been deformed by the Western cultural values as a result of his
geographical and political dislocation.
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