(Connie Tseng:)
In Annie John, Miss Edward presents dual identities.
She is a colonizer and at the same times an educator. Education is one
efficient and major way of colonizing. Miss Edward emphasizes her English
identity strongly and shows it by demanding the schoolgirls to cultivate
the English manner. As a colonizer and also a teacher, Miss Edward¡¦s
mission is to make the native children think and act like English. She
makes students wear cap with the word ¡§dunce¡¨ on
it, if the students can not answer her question. By humiliating students
when they can not answer her questions, Miss Edward teaches them that it
is shameful and blamable to not know those English-written histories.
Annie John is not Miss Edward¡¦s favorite
student, although she is the brightest one. Annie John¡¦s
inner spirit identifies with her own country too much that annoys Miss
Edward whose mission is to convert the native children into English. Miss
Edward senses Annie John¡¦s strong native nature and instinct,
with which she knows that she can never conquer by English education.
In sugar Cane Alley, the two teachers both misunderstand
the boy once but through it they discover the boy¡¦s talent
and provide him great help. One of the teachers is not a colonizer; he
teaches in a smaller school where black students are the majors. He tries
his best to help students to study further, however, without the cooperation
of parents he can do nothing sometimes. His relationship with the students
is natural and harmonious. As a black, he identifies with the students
easily and establishes mutual trust easier.
The second teacher is a colonizer. He misunderstands the
boy and accuses him of copying. Fortunately, the teacher is aware of the
truth quickly and provides the boy great amount of scholarship. The white
teacher has stereotype about the black students. He can not believe that
a black student can do such a good job. This kind of colonized judgement
may easily deny the value of black men and make them lose opportunities
they desert to have.
In The Rain Child, the narrator and Miss povey
are both colonizers. They have deep colonized judgement and prejudice against
the colonized. Especially for Miss povey, she thinks all the African parents
are illiterate and hard to communicate. The narrator has her unfitness
and pride to the colonized as well, despite her caring to the children.
The weather annoys Neddy and her clumsy overweight body. When she is all
alone, the slight resentment to the place bitters her colonized pride.
Neddy¡¦s ebony cane is the symbol of her colonized pride and
power. She can not let it drop in front of the colonized to which she has
to show the power. In a way she identifies with Mr. Qunsah, so that there
is no need to pretend. ¡§My ebony can slipped to the ground
just then, and Dr. Quansah stooped and picked it up, automatically and
casually, hardly noticing it, and I was startled at myself, for I had felt
no awkwardness in the moment either¡¨ (281).
Generally speaking, Neddy is close to the colonized children.
She is caring, loving and fair to her students. Her good nature rarely
confronts her colonized pride; therefore, she can open herself more to
the native children.
|
(Faith Yang:)
From the texts, Annie John, Sugar Cane Alley
and ¡§Rain Child¡¨, different types of teachers are
presented. It is rather arbitrary and unfair to label all the teachers
as colonizers. Although none of them are the natives of the colonies, they
hold distinctive manners in education and possess different attitude toward
their students. Take Miss Edward, the slightly sadistic teacher of Annie
John, the teacher in
Sugar Cane Alley who doubts that Jose copies
his homework from somewhere but afterwards admits his fault, and Violet
Nedden, the handicapped teacher in Africa, for instance, each of them have
different relationships with their students. By observing the teacher /
student relationships the roles these teachers play are manifested.
In Annie John, if the educational system is regarded
as the major way to carry out colonization, Miss Edward, the English teacher,
is the very abler who employs all colonizers¡¦ ideas to either
dominate or humiliate her students. What she renders to her student in
the history class is nothing but the English dominated and colonial concepts,
such as Christopher Columbus¡¦s being a man who discover
Dominica. Moreover, she designs a dunce cap for the students who are
unable to answer her questions. The dunce cap which is depicted as ¡§in
the shape of a cornet¡¨ (400) and ¡§could fit any
head¡¨ (400) symbolizes Miss Edward¡¦s, a colonizer¡¦s,
intention to mold the colonized. From the interrelationships among Miss
Edward and her students, the process of molding the colonized into a certain
ideology is presented. The students are taught to celebrate Queen Victoria¡¦s
birthday and that West India is but ¡§new land¡¨ that
is found by a white in his voyage. Therefore, these students, or to a broader
sense, the colonized, are gradually enslaved and lose the West Indian identity.
Different from Miss Edward, who deliberately creates hierarchy in class
and enjoys humiliating her students, in Sugar Cane Alley, Jose¡¦s
teacher in the white school rather like a benefactor who gives him guidance
and knowledge that make him successful. Apparently, Jose does not belong
to one of the oppressed and identity losing colonized people. Instead,
what he obtains from education and his teacher enables him differ from
those uneducated ones. Unlike the students who are exploited and taken
off their cultural identity by Miss Edward, Jose receives formal education
at school which ¡§opens the second door to freedom¡¨
and even after his success is allowed to take his Black Shack Alley with
his, namely, keep his own Caribbean identity. Compared with Miss Edward
and Jose¡¦s teacher, Miss Nedden in ¡§Rain Child¡¨
is a teacher taking in-between position who is that dominating like Miss
Edward but still keeps her colonizer¡¦s identity. She also
differs from the teacher in Sugar Cane Alley who benefits Jose so
much but is quite aware of the multiple cultures in a colony. Having more
cultural understandings than Miss Edward, Violet, instead of teaching English
literature, she ¡§spoke instead of Akan poetry, and read them
the drum prelude Anyaneanyance in their own tongue¡K¡¨
(273). Neither does she convey the colonizer-oriented ideas to her students,
nor does she devotes herself in the life in Africa, the role Miss Nedden
plays is a bystander who perceives the conflicts stemming from multileveled
colonial society.
Not all the teachers are colonizers who dump the self-centered
ideologies to the colonized. Miss Edward, Jose¡¦s teacher
and Violet Nedden can be perceived as playing different roles as a colonizer,
a benefactor or a bystander who illustrate not only the subtle relationship
among teachers and students but also colonizers and the colonized. |
Joy
Although the whole educational system is still governed by the colonizers¡¦
mentality, still teachers can take the stance of supporting the system
or going out of themselves to reach out to the colonized. This we can see
in "The Rain Child"¨ where the teacher
Miss Nedden, an English, has taken the side of the natives. She knows their
language. I think this is important since with this tool one can communicate
with the people and can understand them more without the natives having
difficulty in expressing themselves with a language not their own. She
also knows the people’s tradition (rite of
passage of Kwaale). Even if she is supposed to teach "affodils"¨ in
poetry lesson, she adapted her teaching materials to the natives¡¦"Akan
Poetry,"¨ (which I supposed have wild orchids in it, as hinted by Kwaale’s
bringing of them) and translating the poetry into English. She had cried
for these poor, outcast children (Ayesha and Ruth) and tried hard to find
ways where these children who don’t belong
will have somebody. Of course, her coming to this place is also tainted
with her desire or ambition to be self-fulfilled (“hoping
for a place where my light could shine forth¡¨). In fact there
is an allusion to her having power or clinging to a power with her use
of language: calling her cane as 'scepter'¦
and her garden chair as 'throne.¡¦
But the whole tone of her narration is filled with self-consciousness that
enabled her to critically see others including herself. I think her experience
of being a stranger to this place made her sensitive to how others feel
when they are not accepted by the group. She also accepted her own limitation
of not being able to understand these children as much as she likes to
(Ayesha), and felt helpless as she faced the situation of these outcast
children.
In "Annie John,¡¨ Miss Edward
has a colonizer attitude especially in her method of teaching. She imposed
knowledge on her students, knowledge that comes directly from the book
and giving importance to details such as the discoverer of this country.
She is also particular with how the girls behave in and out of the class,
that even recreation or recess time, is not really recess in the strict
sense of the word since they are supposed to learn and talk in the lady-like
way (as those to be presented to the Queen, I guess) or play cricket (an
English game) instead of playing band or singing calypso music or do their
own thing. Annie, the main character though, fought back (by her writing
on her textbook of Columbus being “unable
to get up and go,¡¨) but as a child, she is helpless especially
that even her own mother is supporting the system and could not see Annie's
rebelling against the system.
In Sugar Cane Alley, there are two types of teachers: the ones
at school and among the colonized themselves. The first teacher of Jose
at the Black Shack Alley acknowledged Jose’s
intelligence even though if at one point he punished Jose for being late.
He was the one who helped Jose to get a scholarship to pursue higher learning.
The teacher at Fort-de-France at first accused Jose of plagiarism, but
later on changed his mind and helped Jose procure a living allowance. He
taught them an important saying that “education
is a way to be freed from second slavery.¡¨ What he did with
Jose at first (that is, his accusation of Jose as plagiarizing and then
his change of mind after) is something intriguing in the sense that he
has the power to do that. What if he didn’t
like the person, or he didn’t change, that
would have been an injustice to Jose. The other informal teachers like
the grandmother or Medouze or even Jose himself actually helped in the
education of the main character. Jose’s grandmother
wouldn’t like him to work in the sugarcane,
or let him read anything in order to practice. This is the case of a colonized
woman who only wanted a better life for her grandson, even if she has suffered
or still suffering. As for Medouze, he taught him about philosophy of life
and transmitted his desire of going back to Africa to Jose. Jose himself
is teaching Carmen, whose ambition is to be an actor in Hollywood. Anyway,
as what an analysis of the film says: “colonial
education provides no way for someone from the lower rungs of the society
to honor their own and their culture’s experience
of struggle.¡¨ The film portrays this concept through the teacher’s
rejection of Jose’s essay regarding life in
the sugarcane, the grandmother’s prohibition
on Jose as working in the sugarcane, Ms. Flora’s
hatred against the black (which is just a projection of her self-hatred,
as what we’ve discussed), and to an indirect
way, Carmen’s ambition to be an actor in Hollywood.
The film though, ends positively and somehow contradicts this statement
with Jose leaving the Black Shack Alley saying he has put this place forever
in his heart.
Through these different stories we can see education as something continuing
the process of colonization, since they still have the upper hand in terms
of materials. At the same time we see that teachers have a great influence
on how they impart knowledge to the students, since they can choose which
part to emphasize or delete or change, or what methods to use, since in
every method, there must be an accompanying ideology. The person of the
teacher becomes important, which side he or she is, and what experiences
does she/he have. |
Ruth Wang
Teachers in these three texts use different ways to teach
their students. Students of Miss Edward in Annie John are asked
to be ladylike, so their playing in the churchyard is not allowed. Miss
Edward doesn¡¦t want them to have their original customs or
games belong to people there. Annie says ¡§ . . .but most of
us would go to the far end of the school grounds and play band.¡¨
Their teachers and parents disapproved and don¡¦t allow them
to play it. Because this game shows their native spirit, it is not an English
game. And the texts they read are about English. But in Rain Child, the
teacher Miss Nedden encourage her students to keep their native spirit
by keeping their own language. She becomes very surprised when she know
that Ruth doesn¡¦t speak Twi. Ruth¡¦s being disable
tp speak Twi makes her distanced from other students. She is not like teachers
in Annie John, who totally deny people¡¦s native culture,
instead, she tries to be optimistic in dealing with their native culture
and spirit. Besides, Miss Nedden harbors love and patience to her students.
Although she is reminded ¡§ not to have too-great-affection,¡¨
because these students were not her children. She is careful at the first,
but later she cannot help to love her students. Like when Ruth disappeared,
she was anxious and cried for her. When Ruth shows her being uncomfortable
of living there, Miss Nedden tries to help her and convince her to accept
some thing there. She doesn¡¦t use punishment to her students,
nor arise their competitive emotion. The teacher in Sugar Cane Alley
are like the combination of the teachers in Annie John and in Rain Child.
The younger male teacher (I forgot his name, but he is younger than the
second important teacher in this film) teaches his students to be strong
for their own country. In order to make the colonizers become strong, they
need to learn western culture, but at the same time, they are supposed
to keep their own treasure. And the teacher uses both encouragement and
punishment to teach his students. So his students respect him and love
him. |
Tina Pan
In Annie John, we have a very distinct opposition between the
protagonist/narrator and the teachers, especially Miss Edward. This one
is a mere humiliator from the words of Annie John. She was the history
teacher, and her role overlaps symbolically with the ¡§past¡¨
or ¡§history¡¨ of English colonization in Jamaica.
I doubt that she was creole without any local blood. There is a passage
about the transformation of Miss Edward into a beastly appearance from
the point of view of Annie John (404-5). In her own imagination, she was
completely free from the oppression of history or its emblem. On the other
hand, however, Annie John, being a self-conscious and history-conscious
girl, was obsessed with the ¡§past¡¨ as well. Her
disparaging the teachers and preference of being with the dumb English
girl, Ruth, was all reaction towards the residue of past colonizations.
Sometimes, these reactions of self-defense and disparagement are necessary
in the reconstruction of national identity or value. The self-awareness
of Annie John seems to me too clever to be the true criticism of a young
girl. It was so well-thought that it is almost ironic. I wonder if a girl
of her age can really have a clear idea as to what should be criticized.
She was even conscious of her own role as a criticizer behind all of her
playful judgment and comment. Anyway, the teachers were all turned into
the oppressed in this text. Whether the tone and the observation are convincing
is not important here, but I suppose the reversion counts a lot considering
the post-relationship between the colonized and the colonizers. The victimization
of the ex-colonizers was purposely depicted that the role or attitude of
the ex-colonized was suspect. For example, the mother of Annie John was
also turned into a crocodile in the end of the chapter. The Pa Chess was
paralleled to Columbus. The father of Annie John was only a husband needing
special attention from the wife. The wife herself was a cheater. The authority
of parents and teachers was subverted and suspected. From the eyes of a
girl, these conducts of adults were belittled and interpreted with reality
that any form of colonization can still take place in the post-colonial
period. It can be only more complicated. The ex-colonizing power still
persisted, as was the fact that Annie John was constantly reminded of the
colonizing history and the influence of colonizer¡¦s literature.
In the film of Sugar Cane Valley, we see two teachers: one educated
and groomed into the mainstream or sub-mainstream culture; one from the
colonial country. These two were positively presented, and this fact contributes
to the general optimism of the film. Education was the ultimate salvation
of Jose according to the village, the grandmother, and the environment.
It holds true in many third-world countries. The expatriates can have a
lot of difficulties in their instruction, which was seldom paid attention
to. From the story of Annie John, it can all the same happen. Here,
the teachers are still the all-power symbol of authority existing in a
community where the general belief and hope is education. When education
is monopolized by the colonizers, the belief is not to blame. They had
to survive with the impeccable command of the language and competence suggested
in it. The colonized had to gauge everything according to the standard
of the colonizers. The conflict and doubt of the stable relationship was
emphasized when discrimination against the local by the local was presented.
The teachers then in a way were helpers to Jose in his personal achievement.
Actually, the teachers in this film were not given much chance to be discussed.
The punishment was exercised in a lenient way so that the way to success
was not obstructed and so was the suspicion of the French teacher. He was
no longer the stereotypical colonizer/oppressor. He had to have the second
thought to admit his own fault to let Jose go on with his growth and success.
The teacher in ¡§The Rain Child¡¨ was accorded
much more room to speak for herself. The situation of Ruth and her maladjustment
was exactly her own projection. Her being an expatriate for decades did
not allow her to examine her possible difficulties after her return to
the home country. The doubts produced in these events with the arrival
of Ruth enabled her to take a deeper view at her own life and life of all
kinds of diaspora. She shared with the other characters a similar sense
of loss. That put her in a position more prone to feel empathy for them
than her colleague, Hilda. The rain in Africa was similar to the rain back
at home of Ruth. To Ruth, being a rain child was the dear records of her
life in England; while to Violet, it was the tropical rain of the African
country that records the most part of her life. No matter where her home
country was, she would always bring this inheritance of rain with her just
like her tropical sore.
This is a very moving story. Through the self-conscious narrative, the
role of expatriates is demystified. We come to observe the triviality and
routines of these foreigners in a colony. The narration is enticing because
of the shade of truthfulness to her limitations as a foreigner. She did
not pretend to understand everything though she had already lived there
for most of her life. The main difference between Violet and Hilda Povey
her colleague was that they took quite a different attitude towards the
local students. To Hilda, they were simply ¡§locals¡¨
ready for further ¡§enlightenment¡¨ and ¡§edification.¡¨
For Violet, she was able to incorporate herself into the local context.
Therefore, when she saw how unfit Wordsworth¡¦s poem could
seem to the children there, she was flexible enough to adapt her instruction
to the local needs and was totally conscious of the imposition of the ¡§alien
speech¡¨ (273).
In a contrast, Ruth represents the double conflicts which would occur
in a situation where the local turned to a foreign arena to her and where
she looked at the place with the imperial and oppressor¡¦s
point of view. Ruth, after her frustration being with the schoolgirls,
turned to the English boy David Mackie who seemed to be more familiar and
closer to her. Her in-between position was soon exposed to her as a cruel
part of reality. This revelation of Ruth was also one to Violet Nedden.
She bore the African mark on her once she came to settle in this place
(273). The frustration now exploded in the recognition that she was also
an in-between. She could not be genuine anymore after all these years of
life here. By way of the disappointment, she came to realize that under
the surface of her comfortable life and ease, behind her pretension as
a queen with power, she was only an individual who had to ultimately deal
with her sense of loss and uprooted identity. She, like Ruth, could not
be recognized by the locals or could never be part of the locals while
she picked the culture and the habits of the place. When she did retire
to return home, she would not be considered the same as her own people
either. |