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COPYRIGHT 2006 University of Texas at Austin (University of Texas Press)
Speech acts of all forms--praying, swearing, cursing, and so forth--burst unremitting from the page in black Atlantic writing of the eighteenth century. (1) For evidence of this claim, one may turn to virtually any page in the autobiographical narratives of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1776), John Marrant (1785), and Olaudah Equiano (1789), but let me highlight a few instances. For Gronniosaw, exposure to excessive cursing is a crucial part of his entrance into white culture:
... the servants used to curse and swear surprisingly; which I learnt faster than any thing, 'twas almost the first English I could speak. If any of them affronted me, I was sure to call upon God to damn them immediately; but I was broke of it all at once, occasioned by the correction of an old black servant that liv'd in the family--One day I had just clean'd the knives for dinner, when one of the maids took one to cut bread and butter with; I was very angry with her, and called upon God to damn her; when this old black man told me I must not say so. I asked him why? He replied that there was a wicked man call'd the Devil, that liv'd in hell, and would take all who said these words, and put them in the fire, and burn them.--This terrified me greatly, and I was entirely broke of swearing. (2)
While the young Gronniosaw is frightened of the power that words command, Marrant learns that words in the form of prayers act like a valuable resource, saving him more than once:
I was in the sea a third time about eight minutes, and several sharks came round me; one of an enormous size, that could easily have taken me into his mouth at once, passed and rubbed against my side. I then cried more earnestly to the Lord than I had done for some time, and he who heard Jonah's prayer, did not shut out mine, for I was thrown aboard again; these were the means the Lord used to revive me, and I began now to set out afresh. (3)
Speech acts contain a vibrancy, a pseudo-magical quality, for these early black writers that appears to be far less potent among the white community. While words possess the ability to bring about felicitous actions for Gronniosaw and Marrant--summoning the Devil or enlisting God's aid--whites (and blacks who have long been indoctrinated into the white community) typically use words casually or even abusively; in speech-act parlance we might say that such casual usage is "parasitical," containing the external signs of a speech act but lacking the requisite locutionary force.
Combining a sensitivity to the spoken word, the product of an African oral culture, with an absorption of Biblical mythology, the product of a Western literate culture, the incantational power of the speech act arises as a product of the dual identity of the speaker. For Equiano, recall, words had been prized in his native Essaka; as he writes in his autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1789), "I remember we never polluted the name of the object of our adoration; on the contrary, it was always mentioned with the greatest reverence; and we were totally unacquainted with swearing, and all those terms of abuse and reproach which find the way so readily and copiously into the languages of more civilized people." (4) Words and names signify quite heavily in Equiano's native culture. When the narrator tells us that his name "Olaudah" means "vicissitude, or fortunate," the moment offers more than a bit of foreshadowing; it is, in his own words, rather a "fancied foreboding" (41), as though the very pronouncement of the syllables "Olaudah" during his naming has set in motion the inevitable course of action that we are about to read. Indeed one of the most attractive aspects of Equiano's newfound Christian culture must have been his recognition that words bring about actions routinely in the Bible, beginning with almost its first words, "Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light" (Genesis 1.3). For a writer obsessed with compiling ways in which his two cultures are similar, the power of speech acts seems to be another prominent common denominator. (5)
In addition to this fascination with speech acts, the boundary between the written word and the verbal utterance is very fluid for writers of the black Atlantic, as has often been noted, with the written word possessing a voice and a presence--a sonic quality--that never seems to disappear entirely even after extensive exposure to the literate culture of the Europeans. The emblem for this conflation of writing and utterance is of course the "talking book" trope, which, despite sometimes being played for laughs at the expense of the naive protagonist, nevertheless distills several essential issues. (6) Even though the young Equiano's "great curiosity to talk to the books" may strike us as slightly amusing, several later episodes reinforce its relevancy in understanding the complex amalgam of linguistic beliefs held by the later Equiano. One episode resonates in particular with Equiano's resistance to the traditional division of written word and verbal utterance characteristic of European culture: while working as a missionary among the Musquito Indians, Equiano quells a riot by threatening them, "if they did not leave off, and go away quietly, I would take the book (pointing to the bible), read, and tell God to make them dead" (208). Though Equiano is now in the role of the mystifier, rather than the mystified, he only gains this power "something like magic" precisely because he understands the linguistic beliefs of a preliterate culture--the Musquito Indians, in fact, bear some resemblance to his earlier self. The text of the Bible is not inert matter, but rather contains the two attributes necessary for conversation--namely, the ability to listen and to speak. For Equiano, the Bible not only recounts a history of the world including the acts of the original Apostles; in the proper hands it may produce felicitous actions by new apostles, as he surely fancies himself. In this way the familiar frontispiece from the first several London editions of The Interesting Narrative, with the handsomely garbed Equiano piously holding a thumb to "Acts," signifies doubly: in addition to portraying the author as a modern apostle, the portrait offers the Bible as the very instrument whereby the author's pious "acts" (serving as missionary, quelling a riot, and so forth) are accomplished. Whereas a soldier might wield a sword, and a poet a pen, the Bible serves Equiano as an artifact wherein mere words are converted into acts.
These two aspects of language that I have outlined with respect to early black writing--the heightened awareness of speech acts and the ability of written text to produce locutions--suggest to me that Equiano really has little notion if any of constative language, instead seeing language as essentially performative in nature. (7) This is quite obvious within the text, as even the most casual or insincere speech acts jump off the page sparking actions even when not intended. For example, as Equiano is pumping the deck of the Nancy on his way to Georgia, his impatience causes him to utter the oath, "Damn the vessel's bottom out" (148), and indeed this very pronouncement nearly comes to pass, as a violent storm threatens to tear the ship asunder. The locutions of the crew carry a similar irresistible force; during another storm, "All the swearers on board now began to call on the God of Heaven to assist them: and sure enough beyond our comprehension he did assist us, and in a miraculous manner delivered us!" (156). Cursing, swearing, blasphemy, oath-making, praying: all these and many other performatives carry an almost mystical power to summon danger or help, intensify wind or calm, and create fortune or misery. Yet, far from merely being devices internal to the narrative, I believe these aspects of language also interrogate the nature of our reading experience. There can be no doubt that The Interesting Narrative itself carries a highly performative content, evincing a similar talismanic power to do, rather than simply to recount. Other scholars have addressed this point, however obliquely. Because the act of composing the text is simultaneously the act of demonstrating subjectivity (via a conscious invasion of several white technologies), early black writing works as a form of prolonged speech act. For instance, Houston A. Baker Jr. discusses the "southern slave's struggle for terms of order" as an "autobiographical act" (8)--that is, the writing of the black autobiography engages in the sustained action of world-making. Henry Louis Gates Jr. offers a more refined version of this thesis, suggesting that writing for blacks in the eighteenth century was simultaneously an act of signifyin(g) on the Great Chain of Being, of demonstrating mastery over the technology of literacy. (9)
In this essay I add another dimension to the view of Equiano's Interesting Narrative as performance, created and sustained through the willing participation of an audience of readers. For I believe that The Interesting Narrative involves an even more complex illocution than has thus far been allowed: by writing an autobiography and by recounting his story, Equiano is simultaneously acting to recruit the reader to serve as a character witness. Further, the narrator's ability to give evidence--to recount the content of the narrative--depends on producing this...
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