Brian Bass
Caribbean
Imagination
Professor
González
10.17.2003
In Maryse Condé’s The Last of the
African Kings, the main characters have been dispersed throughout the
Caribbean and United States due to years of oppression and colonialism. In the preface to the novel, Richard Philcox
writes: “African American music influences not only the atmosphere of the novel
but also its structure.” He continues by
saying, “Just as Jazz is a reworking of African rhythms so the structure of the
book reworks the links between Africa, the place of origin, and its Diaspora of
Guadeloupe and South Carolina” (ix).
This constant movement has created an ever changing development in their
art and culture.
Condé’s novel depicts
how constant movement from one society to another creates new directions for
the African culture.
Jazz creates an
expression of African emotions and beats.
Rhythm and syncopation are most key to the structure of jazz.
“Rhythms became one of the most
important elements of this rich cultural expression that would find its way
into the folk and religious music of white European Colonists. The unlikely mixture of such diverse cultural
activities between black and white people produced the basic elements for jazz
music in terms of rhythm and harmony” (Yurochko 4).
Throughout the development of jazz
there have been different genres of jazz including, ragtime, bebop, swing, etc,
but fundamentally jazz is the culmination of African tribal sounds and
traditional brass and woodwind instruments.
The rapid evolution of jazz from one style to another reflects the
changing African culture. While
analyzing Jazz as a constantly changing sound, one can see the connections to
the African culture within the music. As
the beginnings of African king culture started in Benin so did the tribal
sounds of African music. From there the
African culture swept to the Caribbean where they picked and engulfed new
cultural influences and infusing them with the traditional African traditions. As with Jazz, the movement from Africa to the
Americas brought about new sounds that developed an alternative, creative form
of music. In the United States Jazz continued to develop. In New Orleans, New York and all across America,
jazz became popularized by great artists such as Charlie Parker, Louie
Armstrong and Duke Ellington. As the jazz movement evolved in America, so did
the African American culture. With
movements like the Harlem Renaissance, African Americans began new forms of art
and exploration.
From
the beginning of the African culture in Benin to the depressing aftermath in
South Carolina, the trail of African culture is constantly changing. The opening scene in the novel entails Spero
having a reoccurring nightmare about his ancestors in Benin. He has haunting images of his ancestors
running through his head in disgust and sadness.
“Djéré, Spero’s
grandfather, was cradled on the far left in the arms of the oldest queen; this
blissful, apparently loved illegitimate son, however, would be left behind by
the family together with other relics when they returned to Africa. This abandonment would drastically affect
Djéré’s entire existence and that of his descendants” (Condé 5).
Spero, being a
descendant of Djéré feels this abandonment and in turn cannot connect with his
past. His inability to fully embrace his
ancestors has spawned a new culture which can be seen through the eyes of his daughter,
Anita. Spero, a man of few morals,
reflects the unfortunate happenings of his ancestors through his affairs with
women and alcohol. If he was content
with his past, he wouldn’t have to drink all the time to erase his painful
memories. On one level, he seems aware of the sins he commits but
subconsciously through his dreams he appears haunted by the memories of his
past. “He had been having the same dream
for two years, three or four times a week....
What sadness was hidden at the bottom of his heart” (Condé 5). As Condé emphasizes throughout the novel, the
history of the African heritage exists in their culture forever, regardless of
whether or not one chooses to embrace it.
Spero’s acknowledgement of this fact truly has made him a flawed
character. Condé writes:
“He really was suffocating in
Charleston! He had his fill of black
churches, black universities, and black stories by black friends! Sometimes he was taken with the urge to go
home. Take a plane. Land at le Raizet….
But can you return home empty handed with holes in your pockets….He was one of
those immigrants whose stories are best left untold so as not to frighten
candidates about to leave” (Condé 27).
It is evident here that Spero
appears to struggle with his personal identity.
He lives in America but feels disconnected from his peers, but his past
in the Caribbean and before are too troubled to return to, so in turn he lives
in confusion.
In any family
household, the parent-child relationship has a profound impact on the mentality
of the offspring. As for Spero’s
daughter, Anita, witnessing her father as an unemployed glutton has had an
extreme impression on how she views not only her father but her own culture and
history. To balance her life, Anita’s
mother, Debbie has made an effort to form her into a respectable woman. Debbie, who is the bread winner in the
family, provides the role-model status for Anita by having her be educated and
cultured in an American perspective.
Ironically enough, throughout the lineage of their African heritage, the
men have always fallen short and it is the women who maintain and preserve
their culture.
Sometimes in society when one’s relationship
with their father becomes shattered, those feelings are reciprocated to their
kin. Spero’s lack of fatherhood can be linked to the severed bond between Spero
and Justin (Spero’s father). When Spero
lived with Justin in Martinique, he meant the world to Justin. It was Justin’s dream to have Spero pass on
the heritage that came from Benin, but when Spero denied his own culture and
moved to the United States, this tore Justin apart.
“He was shattered when Spero left
for America” (Condé 37).
Similar
to how Spero had issues with his father, Justin had trouble connecting to his
father, Djéré.
“Justin could not bear his father…. Why did Djéré just sit at the dining room
table, dipping his pen into a glass inkwell, scribbling and scratching from
morning to late afternoon on pieces of paper, and in the evening when he was
drunk, telling stories that nobody could make head or tail of?” (Condé 29).
The troubling relationships in Martinique
and Guadeloupe are not at all different from those in South Carolina. Just as Debbie controlled the positive flow
of African influence into the next generation, Marisia provided the same
support for when Justin was of no service.
It seems that in the evolution of the African movement the women have
played the strongest role in preserving and forwarding their own heritage. On the other side, the men appear to be the
characters that lack structure and stability.
They generally are absent from their own family and drown themselves
with alcohol. Their jobless, sloth ways
only hinder the positive movement of their culture.
In
the novel, The Last of the African Kings the ethnic trail from Africa to
the United States created many ups and downs for their culture. The constant change from location created new
influences in language, music and art.
The collaboration of all the positive and negative outcomes of the
developing heritage has shaped the African community to what it appears
today. Just as Jazz moves and changes
over time, with advents of new genres like bebop and swing, so did the
characters of The Last of the African Kings.
The cycle of African displacement
and movement has created a contemporary culture that’s rooted in the history of
the old Africa with the hopes and aspirations of the new African society. At the end of the novel, Anita continues her
education and proves herself to be a respectable woman. She stands as the new hope for the African
culture in the family lineage.
“The fact of continuous singing
and dancing by the African from his home to shipboard to a new home on an ocean
away proves one thing: The African never
stops such activities any more than he stops breathing” (Lovell 49-50).
Whether it stems from music or ancestry,
the African culture will always be moving, changing, evolving and rearranging
itself forever.
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