To Da-Duh In Memoriam
→ The story title indicates that it is a tribute to the grandmother who has passed away. The grandmother figure played an important role in the granddaughter’s life.
→ It should be noted that the narrator has a negative opinion of Caribbean life and she does not welcome it as a new experience.
→ In the story the child's family has migrated to North America for reasons like;
For better opportunities
Jobs and education
Security
Better standards of living
Better healthcare
→ The locals are amazed by the visitors from New York as North American are more developed than caribbean islands. Many people migrated from Caribbean islands.
→ The granddaughter is expected to form a connection with the grandmother.
→ Barbados is where the mother’s roots have originated as well as traditions.
→ ‘‘To Da-duh, in Memoriam’’ is an autobiographical story told from the point of view of an adult looking back on a childhood memory. The story opens as the nine-year-old narrator, along with her mother and sister, disembarks from a boat that has brought them to Bridgetown, Barbados. It is 1937, and the family has come to visit from their home in Brooklyn, leaving behind the father, who believed it was a waste of money to take the trip.
→ The hard-hitting reality of a life-death cycle is inevitable. Time stands testimony to this fact. Paule Marshall has illustrated this through the depiction of conflicting ideas between her and Da-Duh and she conveys this message at the start when she writes, “both knew, at a level beyond words, that I had come into the world not only to love her and to continue her line but to take her very life in order that I might live.”
SUMMARY;
This short story is about a young girl's vacation to the island of Barbados from New York. The protagonist travels to Dah-Duh with her sister and mother. The visit is fascinating, as Dah-Duh and the protagonist form a caring, yet competitive, friendship.
The protagonist shows her grandmother to the steel and concrete world of New York, while Dah-Duh introduces her to the riches of Barbados (nature) (industrialism). Their interactions have a competitive aspect to them since they are each trying to outdo the other on the merits of their respective homes.
Dah-Duh, on the other hand, suffers a setback when she learns of the Empire State Building, which is many stories taller than the highest point she has ever seen — Bissex Hill. She lost a little of her zeal that day, and she didn't get an opportunity to reclaim it because the protagonist moved for New York not long after.
The plot picks up after Dah-death Duh's during the historic 1937 strike. She had refused to leave her house and was eventually found dead by her window, in a chair.
The protagonist spent a brief period in penance, living as an artist and painting landscapes that were reminiscent of Barbados.
| Characters | NBS
Da-duh;
The narrator's grandma, Da-duh, is eighty years old. She has lived on Barbados her life and is confident and proud of her lifestyle, surroundings, and perspectives on life. She is uneasy in Bridgetown because she dislikes the trappings of the modern world, such as any machinery. When Da-duh first meets the narrator, the narrator imagines seeing "something in me that she found troubling for some reason." Da-duh, on the other hand, feels a strong bond with her granddaughter, as evidenced by the way she clasps her hand.
Paule Marshall aptly portrays the cycle of the nature of life and death through her last line “she died and I lived” referring to her grandmother. Death is not physical alone. It is the death of old ideologies, dated traditions and disparate acceptance of modernization.
The interactions that the narrator has with her grandmother remind us of the passage of time between generations. The demise of Da-Duh signifies the change that is inevitable, the transition from the old to the new.
Techniques Used;
The use of Adjectives and descriptions to show the authors first hand experience
Symbolism
Describing the foreboding character of death, the narrator feels that the planes that bring death to the little village are “swooping and screaming…monstrous birds”. The sugarcanes that grow in the village are Da-Duh’s delight and also the reason for the exploitation in the village. The pride of Da-Duh, the sugarcanes appear threatening to the narrator; she feels that the canes are “clashing like swords above my cowering head”. This is a description of the duality of life. Where there is joy, there is pain and when there is life, death is bound to follow.
The SYMBOL used; Empire State Building
This building represents power and progress. It is in the midst of the cold glass and steel of New York city and, therefore, deforms Dah-Duh’s symbol of power; Bissex Hill. It is not by accident that the knowledge of this building shakes Dah-Duh’s confidence. Steel and iron, the symbol of progress, is what shakes the nature loving Dah-Duh. It can, therefore, be said that her response to the knowledge of the existence of the Empire State Building – defeat – is a foreshadowing of her death. This is the case because it is metal, in the form of the planes, that ‘rattled her trees and flatten[ed] the young canes in her field.’ (Marshall. p.186). This is a physical echo of her emotional response to the knowledge of the existence of the Empire State building. The fact that she is found dead after this incident is not a surprise to the reader.
Imagery
The life-death antithesis is depicted in the closing lines of the book where the narrator paints “seas of sugar-cane and huge swirling Van Gogh suns and palm trees [in] a tropical landscape . . .while the thunderous tread of the machines downstairs jarred the floor beneath my easel.’’ Light is identified by the surrounding darkness and life, by death that eventually follows. The transient nature of life is evidenced by the changes that happen over a period of time.
Death’s morbidity invades the colorful mind. The narrator imbues the reader’s mind with images that allude to this dark reality. “All these trees….Well, they’d be bare. No leaves, no fruit, nothing. They’d be covered in snow. You see your canes. They’d be buried under tons of snow.”
Metaphor
The narrator draws us to the reality of inevitable changes that our lives are subject to. Again, the sugarcanes are metaphorically perceived as the ominous danger that “…would close in on us and run us through with their stiletto blades.” Later, the planes that cause the death of her grandmother are visualized by the narrator as “the hardback beetles which hurled themselves with suicidal force against the walls of the house at night.” She points at our dogmatism in accepting the fact that the world is constantly changing. Those who fail to see this at first, experience it the hard way later.
THEMES USED;
Race:
Dah-Duh and the protagonist discuss the fact that she ‘beat up a white girl’ in her class. Dah-Duh is quite shocked at this and exclaims that the world has changed so much that she cannot recognize it. This highlights their contrasting experiences of race. Dah-Duh’s experience of race relations is viewing the white ‘massa’ as superior, as well as viewing all things white as best. This is shown at the beginning of the story when it was revealed that Dah-Duh liked her grandchildren to be white, and in fact had grandchildren from the illegitimate children of white estate managers. Therefore, a white person was some-one to be respected, while for the protagonist, white people were an integral part of her world, and she viewed herself as their equal.
Love and family relationship:
This story highlights the strong familial ties that exist among people of the Caribbean, both in the islands and abroad (diaspora). The persona and her family left New York to visit the matriarch of the family, in Barbados, highlighting the ties. The respect accorded to Dah-Duh by the mother also shows her place, or status, in the family. The protagonist states that in the presence of Dah-Duh, her formidable mother became a child again.
Gender Issues:
This is a minor theme in this short story. It is highlighted when it is mentioned that Dah-Duh liked her grandchildren to be boys. This is ironic because the qualities that are stereotypically found in boys – assertive, strong willed, competitive – are found in her granddaughter. An example of this is the manner in which the protagonist / narrator was able to win the staring match when she first met Dah-Duh, this proved her dominance and strength.
No comments:
Post a Comment