Homework answers / question archive / For our last discussion, I would like to turn a critical lens on Rhys's novel by examining an alternative portrayal of the formerly enslaved people in Jamaica in the fraught post-emancipation period in which the novel is set

For our last discussion, I would like to turn a critical lens on Rhys's novel by examining an alternative portrayal of the formerly enslaved people in Jamaica in the fraught post-emancipation period in which the novel is set

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For our last discussion, I would like to turn a critical lens on Rhys's novel by examining an alternative portrayal of the formerly enslaved people in Jamaica in the fraught post-emancipation period in which the novel is set. Please read "In Celebration of Emancipation" by the Poet Laureate of Jamaica, Lorna Goodison. Then, since I am particularly interested in Rhys's portrayal of the black women in Jamaica and Dominica, I would also like you to read this short but haunting poem "So Who Was the Mother of Jamaican Art":

She was the nameless woman who created
images of her children sold away from her.
She suspended her wood babies from a rope
round her neck, before she ate she fed them.
Touched bits of pounded yam and plantains
to sealed lips, always urged them to sip water.
She carved them of wormwood, teeth and nails
her first tools, later she wielded a blunt blade.
Her spit cleaned faces and limbs; the pitch oil
of her skin burnished them. When woodworms
bored into their bellies she warmed castor oil
they purged. She learned her art by breaking
hard rockstones. She did not sign her work.
 

How does Rhys's portrayal of the people and tensions in Jamaica during the long process of emancipation compare with Goodison's? Are there parallels between the way Bronte portrays Bertha in Jane Eyre and Rhys portrays, say, Amelie, Hilda or Tia

In Celebration of Emancipation: A New Poem by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica | The National Library of Jamaica HOME 876-967-1526 ?ABOUT US ? nlj@nlj.gov.jm SERVICES ? ? QUICK REFERENCES ? COLLECTIONS ? RESOURCE GUIDES ? JAMLIN COVID-19 VACANCIES In Celebration of Emancipation: A New Poem by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica Lorna Goodison, the Poet Laureate of Jamaica, has penned a new composition to commemorate the country’s 2017 Emancipation celebrations. Written in three voices, this new poem explores Emancipation and the experiences of slavery from the perspective of those who lived them. Although August 1, 1834 brought the proclamation of the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire, full emancipation did not come until four years later with the end of the Apprenticeship system in 1838. Those who received their freedom on August 1, 1838 were the very last to be released from the bonds of slavery. We are so pleased to share Goodison’s powerful and tender poem here on the blog. (This poem also appeared in The Sunday Gleaner on August 6, 2017.) Testimony of First of August Negroes: the Last to Be Set Free. https://nlj.gov.jm/celebration-emancipation-new-poem-lorna-goodison-poet-laureate-jamaica/ 1/6 5/5/2021 In Celebration of Emancipation: A New Poem by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica | The National Library of Jamaica HOME ABOUT US ? SERVICES ? COLLECTIONS ? I tell my friend Quasheba, stop up you ears with this beeswax, QUICK REFERENCES ? so that the bantering song of all who get RESOURCE GUIDES ? JAMLIN COVID-19 leave scotch free VACANCIES don’t mad we who still bind to cane piece. We who get left back because spiteful Massa say: ‘Emancipation is like an aged white rum—so strong not every Negro can imbibe at one time, lest they grow drunken and stagger”. So him water down freedom, share it out little little and what left in a barrel bottom is me and you. I say, Dont bawl Q, we wait long already, we can wait more still. She say: “Since them carry me come from Guinea me want go home.” Me too. But if is one thing me learn from what Saint Paul preach is: They that wait. No, is not him say that, must be the prophet Isaiah or one other man who help write Massa bible with the lock and key. My friend say she don’t want hear no comfortable words today. My heart string stretch out too. Me disappoint. Me tired pray. Bend down! Full-free hurrycomeup dem a come down the road like a Syrian wolf upon the fold. I no rightly sure what that mean, but me like how it sound. Turn you back and bend down lower, inspect grass hard like a cruel overseer. Bend down, chop furious and cuss like wicked slave driver. Tell grass how it good- -nothing, lazy, and no make ourish. Say it bad like sin that Ham commit. Them gone? We can stand up now. Our day of Jubilee a come. Address to the weed in the cane piece: https://nlj.gov.jm/celebration-emancipation-new-poem-lorna-goodison-poet-laureate-jamaica/ 2/6 5/5/2021 In Celebration of Emancipation: A New Poem by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica | The National Library of Jamaica HOME ABOUT US ? SERVICES ? Pretty little grass weed, to me you are a sweet rose, QUICK REFERENCES ? even though some don’t think so. According to them, COLLECTIONS ? RESOURCE GUIDES ? JAMLIN COVID-19 VACANCIES it matters not that you bud and blossom, you do not count as owers, therefore you not good enough to cut and put in a water vase and set pon table in a big house. So them order me, a human weed, to dig you down, and root you up, and ing you to one side, although your roots bind the ground together. You’re as good as any other growing thing, you are just planted where you’re less counted. To me little weed you are sweet as any roses. Last Words Yes, is true. Some who get freedom rst, walk past and mock the rst of august Nayga the last to get emancipation. Yes sir. We had was to bear all the commotion and bangarang of old pan as them galang past we out a the estate. Some believe all the foolishness hard heart people say bout freedom not for any and every one. How some need to be https://nlj.gov.jm/celebration-emancipation-new-poem-lorna-goodison-poet-laureate-jamaica/ 3/6 5/5/2021 In Celebration of Emancipation: A New Poem by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica | The National Library of Jamaica HOME ABOUT US ? SERVICES ? led with bridle and bit like mule and horse. QUICK REFERENCES ? Not because some get let go rst, COLLECTIONS ? RESOURCE GUIDES ? JAMLIN COVID-19 VACANCIES always remember this: It matters not when you did leave. Every single one of a we come out a the cane piece. https://nlj.gov.jm/celebration-emancipation-new-poem-lorna-goodison-poet-laureate-jamaica/ 4/6 5/5/2021 In Celebration of Emancipation: A New Poem by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica | The National Library of Jamaica HOME ABOUT US ? SERVICES ? QUICK REFERENCES ? COLLECTIONS ? RESOURCE GUIDES ? JAMLIN COVID-19 VACANCIES Lorna Goodison is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica 2017-2020. For more information check out the Poet Laureate of Jamaica page on the National Library of Jamaica website Search our Site Search https://nlj.gov.jm/celebration-emancipation-new-poem-lorna-goodison-poet-laureate-jamaica/ 5/6 5/5/2021 In Celebration of Emancipation: A New Poem by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica | The National Library of Jamaica HOME ABOUT US ? SERVICES ? COLLECTIONS ? QUICK REFERENCES ? ? ??RESOURCE GUIDES ? JAMLIN COVID-19 VACANCIES https://nlj.gov.jm/celebration-emancipation-new-poem-lorna-goodison-poet-laureate-jamaica/ 6/6