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In American culture, the way history has been used, created, taught and projected shows the ethnocentricity that America has now and has had throughout it’s past. An ethnocentric way of thinking is not isolated to just America, the literature of every nation implies a feeling of “us and the other” and the “us” is always superior. What the youth learned in school projects the idea that America is “the darling of the world” and is a shining example for all of human kind. Because of how some literature, such as Gettysburg Address, emphasizes the importance of a group, like an united nation, people rally around America and create a society-based, rooted idea of home and identity for themselves. This idea didn’t work because the projected identity of the United States only includes the Euro-American and leaves out the other regions and races that make up the whole continent and nation of America. This ethnocentric, linear style of thinking creates a racist and limited viewpoint that needs to be corrected if the United States as well as the America truly wants to be united.
Because of the limited viewpoint, other countries’ literature plays with the American notion of history in such a way that the literature could be seen as a critique on Euro-American ethnocentrism. In this paper, we will not only see how this limited view point gains it’s roots in European texts such as The Tempest we will also see the
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effect it had on American texts in the past; we will see how this societal history is questioned, how this critique is shown in writing and finally the way in which it aims to change American ethnocentrism and shape the U.S into a country that is inclusive to everyone. Through some novels like Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, one starts to see the history of human kind when he or she looks at his or her own life story in a non linear fashion. The end result in this shift of perception is how literature’s function in history changed. In texts grounded in the United States such as Kushner, the writing began to take note of this critique and the writers began to write in a more global and accepting style that focused more on individual rights instead of the rights of a society.
Shakespeare’s The Tempest lays the groundwork for the ethnocentric and racist view the United States first had. When Prospero tells Miranda about their history he does it in a very linear fashion.
“This King of Naples, being an enemy to me inveterate, hearkens my brothers suit, when was that he, in lieu o’th’ premises of homage I know not how much tribute, should presently extirpate
me and mine out of the dukedom and confer fair Milan, with all the honors, on my brother” (Shakespeare 19).
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The quote and section as a whole, tells how Prospero gave his brother, Antonio, executive control over his governmental duties so that he could focus on his studies. Because of this, Antonio betrays his brother. He takes control and forces Prospero out of the country. Because of the past events he uses his education to try and unite everyone again. There are two important things to note. One is due to the past events, Prospero is able to change through his studies and become a more powerful and evolved human. This is the goal of any linear society, to progress. Secondly, when he unites everyone again, Prospero mistreats other individuals to achieve his goal.
One could see the same linear and racist idea played out in American history. For example, when Lincoln first abolished slavery, he like Prospero, was first out casted by the people around him. The Southern states threatened to separate from the Union and as a result, we had a civil war. Before Lincoln could unite the country he first had to divide it and create an idea of the other; there was the North and there was South.
Eventually the Union defeated the Southern states and through a powerful speech, Lincoln united the country again. After the country
became whole, it evolved into a “better,” united and more grounded sense of home; America had improved as a country. Coincidently,
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Lincoln also progressed to become one the most touted leaders in American history. That is a key function of the linear, literary history in America: the events of the past propel the human race towards something that is more advanced.
What America encountered when it was moving towards a more “ideal” homeland was similar to what Prospero encountered when he tried to reconcile his country and move it towards a more prosperous future. America and Prospero both had to deal with the uncomfortable others. For America, some of these so-called others
were the Southern states. To become a more unified country, Lincoln had to force the South to change their lifestyle and follow his rule. Prospero had similar dilemma with the character Ariel.
Ariel is referred to throughout the play and in some criticism as “he,” but his gender and physical form were ambiguous. Rescued by Prospero from a long imprisonment at the hands of the witch Sycorax, Ariel is Prospero’s servant until Prospero decides it is time to release him. He is mischievous and ubiquitous, able to traverse the length of the island in an instant and to change shapes at will. He carries out
virtually every task that Prospero needs accomplished to arrive at the unified conclusion at the end of the play.
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A reason why Ariel obeys every command Prospero has is the constant threat to his well being. One example is when Prospero says “If thou more mumur’st, I will rend an oak and peg thee in his knotty entrails till thou hast howled away twelve winters” (Shakespeare 33). Because of Prospero’s threats and his constant demands, Ariel changes his whole way of living to accomplish Prospero’s vision of a united group. His whole life revolves around Prospero and his dream of freedom.
The Southern States also had to change their way of life to meet the demands of Lincoln. Their economy had depended on slavery.
The abolishment of slavery forced many plantation owners the change their everyday life. They had to cut back on the size of their
plantations, hire out help and consequently spend less money to survive. The threat of change is one reason why the South had decided to revolt. The constant loss of life became a threat that beat the South into submission as Ariel was forced to follow Prospero.
Slavery in America was a constant plague to Lincoln much like Caliban is to Prospero. Both Lincoln and Prospero viewed these others as dangerous and primitive. Prospero believes that Caliban
does not understand freedom so has to be ruled. The way Prospero and Miranda try to conform and control Caliban, the other, was
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through literature and education. In The Tempest, Miranda and Prospero try to conform Caliban by educating him. Miranda emphasizes this when she says “A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes with words that made them known. But thou vile race, though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures could not abide to be with…” (Shakespeare 37). Miranda’s hope was to improve Caliban’s way of life and Prospero set out to excuse himself for enslaving Caliban by educating him. What was Caliban’s response? “You taught me language, and my profit on’t is I know how to curse.
The red plague rid you for learning me your language” (Shakespeare 37).
Learning how to read and write does not improve Caliban’s life. Prospero and Miranda’s vision to educate Caliban is naive. Caliban already has the essential knowledge that he needs to survive. In
fact, he has the knowledge that is essential to the survival of both Prospero and Miranda. Prospero knows this in the play, hence his statement “We cannot miss him. He does make our fire, fetch in our wood, and serves in offices that profit us” (Shakespeare 33).
Did the outcome of a reconciled and united group atone for the treatment of Caliban and Ariel? Did the progression of America make up for the treatment of slaves and the forced way of life on the
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Southern states? The Tempest tells a fairly straightforward story which involves an unjust act, the usurpation of Prospero’s throne by his brother, and Prospero’s quest to re-establish justice by restoring himself to power. However, the idea of justice that the play works toward seems highly subjective, since this idea represents the view of one character that controls the fate of all the other characters.
Though Prospero presents himself as a victim of injustice working to right the wrongs that have been done to him, Prospero’s idea of justice and injustice is somewhat hypocritical—though he
is furious with his brother for taking his power, he has no qualms about enslaving Ariel and Caliban in order to achieve his ends. At
many moments throughout the play, Prospero’s sense of justice seems extremely one-sided and mainly involves what is good for Prospero. Moreover, because the play offers no notion of higher order or justice to supersede Prospero’s interpretation of events, the play is morally ambiguous. Prospero’s view for societal progression causes him to act
unjustly and it allows him to create a linear string of events to shape the outcome he desired. What is the function of literature in the past
of the United States? In America we saw Lincoln handle the Civil war much like Prospero united his people in the story The Tempest. Even though it might not have been intended or known by Lincoln, the ideas
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from Shakespeare how he handled certain situations that presented themselves.
As Shakespeare illustrates in his play, the function of and belief in a linear history caused unjust acts to be swept under the carpet just as long as society progressed. Why did people want to progress? The ethnocentric belief is that a country could become greater than any other country. Shakespeare layed the foundations of an ethnocentric and racist view of in his play.
One of the greatest speeches of United States history is very “Tempestian” in it’s content. Lincoln said in his address at Gettysburg,
“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced” (Lincoln).
For this paper, the function of this speech is to show how the ethnocentric idea of advancement introduced by Shakespeare found
it’s way into the heart of the politics of the United States. Lincoln has remember the Northerners and the Southerners that gave their life on that battlefield. The act of recognizing the sacrifices of his fellow
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countrymen on both sides show a kind of forgiveness to the Southerners. This is important because the Southerners at the time could have been seen as traitors. When one reads this quote, a certain quote by Prospero might come to mind. “But you, my race of lords, were I so minded, I here could pluck His Highness’ frown upon you and justify you traitors” (Shakespeare 147). Because Prospero has the ability to excuse the actions of the traitors, he was able to nobly advance. The forgiveness shown by Prospero and Lincoln came with a heavy price; it came with cruelty, threats and death.
The prices people had to pay to for the linear and ethnocentric progression to work became too much for some authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The first idea Marquez introduces to refute the linear function of history is how the past, present and future cannot be divided but they are one and the same. From the names that return generation after generation to the repetition of personalities and events, time in One Hundred Years of Solitude refuses to divide neatly into past, present, and future. One example of this is how literature and education cause the same outcomes for each individual (of different generations). The first Jose Arcadia we are introduced to has a shift of perception due to the texts and technologies Melquíades brought into the community. At first, Jose and the others of early
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Macondo lived with simplicity. They are not concerned with progression; they are more focused on how to survive the moment. Later, Jose has a shift in perception due to pattern of linear events introduced by the texts he reads. He now sees how he could progress his family to a life of riches and power. “Very soon we’ll have enough and more to pave the floors of the house” (Marquez 2). His shift of focus eventually leads him to be left alone; a man with no memories of the past and no regard of the future. He is no longer concerned with the progression of Macondo or the advancement of himself. He has no desire to see societal advancement or a need to be grounded in the identity of Macondo; through the texts he learns at any point in the present he is already connected with individuals of every race and culture in the past as well as the future.
We see the same actions from the first Jose Arcadia repeated with the first Aureliano Buendia. When he becomes entranced with the same texts and alchemist’s experiments of Jose, he starts to lose
touch with the essentials in life that allow him to survive. “Aureliano spent interminable hours in the abandoned laboratory…He concentrated so much on his experiments in silver work that he scarcely left the laboratory to eat” (Marquez 39). This shift in focus becomes more apparent in later years of his life. During the war, he
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becomes even more hardened to emotion, and, eventually, his memory and all his feelings are worn away. He has all of his poems
burned, and, by the end of his life, he has stopped making new golden fish. Instead, he makes twenty-five and then melts them down, using the metal for the next batch. In this way, he lives solely in the present, acknowledging that time moves in cycles and that the present is all that existed for a man like him, with no memories. He, like Jose is connected with all of humanity because he knows that his past is someone’s present and vice versa.
At the end of the book we se the repeated use of characters' names and events come to a climax with Aureliano (another repeated name) Babilonia. “He did not notice it because at that moment he was discovering the first indications of his own being in a lascivious grandfather…” (Marquez 416). In this passage, the youngest Aureliano discovers himself in the past of his grandfather (Aureliano 1) and that of his great grandfather Jose Arcadia. He discovers that his past and that of these other characters that came before him are the same and happened simultaneously. The town and his town fell apart when his past and present became one. With this event, we see how a new circular thinking destroys the remnants of the linear-created town.
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In each case, every individual who read Melquíades texts became isolated from society. What was interesting was when each
character’s past and present became one in the texts of Melquíades, their individual stories was what linked them to each other. So in a sense, societal isolation because of literature led to a unification of sorts.
Even though we see how a circular sense of time can unite people, we also see how anything linear can destroy. A good example is the railroad in One Hundred Years of Solitude. The railroad represents the arrival of the modern world in Macondo. This devastating turn leads to the development of a banana plantation and the ensuing massacre of three thousand workers. In this progression of the town, we see the same treatment of people like we saw in Shakespeare. In Marquez’s novel, people become objects utilized to further the progression of the banana company. Eventually, the people become aware of how this so-called progression is enslaving them and they riot. The end result is the massive massacre. When they are loading the bodies on the train we see how devalued some people become.
“Jose Arcadio Segundo dragged himself from one car to another in the direction in which the train was heading, and in the
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flashes of light that broke through the wooden slats as they went through sleeping towns he saw the man corpses, woman corpses, child corpses who would be thrown into the sea like rejected bananas” (Marquez 307).
How these people are devalued is similar to Shakespeare. In The Tempest, we see Ariel and Caliban as objects that are utilized to bring forth an outcome. If they do not obey Prospero, their health is not longer safe.
The next question to ask is what function does literature play for Marquez in his attempt to change the idea of time and progression in history? In the story One Hundred Years of Solitude, the texts of Melquíades introduces a new way of life into the community of Macando; a life of education and progress that shifts the social connectedness of the community. Marquez illustrates this early in his book,
“The spirit of social initiative disappeared in a short time, pulled away by the fever of the magnets, the astronomical calculations, the dreams of transmutation, and the urge to discover the wonders of the world” (Marquez 9).
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During the course of the novel, the lives of the Buendia family improves from an American sense. They gain money, demand respect from the town of Macondo and gain power and prestige in the area. From a realist glimpse, one can determine that the American glimpse means nothing. Each character becomes more and more disconnected and isolated in this progress driven way of life. Eventually the town and most of the inhabitants are eventually destroyed. This critique shows the downside of a progressed driven society; the more a community progresses there is an eventual longer fall for a town like Macando.
Because of the literature of Marquez, we have to face the fact that a linear progressed society built on a history of education and glorified events is doomed to fail. If certain people don’t buy into the direction the society is taken, they are enslaved or worse yet thrown out like rotten bananas. It may unite a small group of people but it also isolates the society from everyone else. When the fall comes who will help the pompous society with no connection to the rest of the world?
What Marquez introduces in his story is a more global sense of connectedness. His idea is that all humanity is connected through
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history because one man’s past is another man’s present and both are another man’s future. Even though this idea is only shown through the Buendia family, some American writers like Tony Kushner took ideas from Marquez and made them into a global view of history focused on inclusion instead of exclusion.
In the play Angels in America we are introduced to a character named Roy. Roy exemplifies the notion of a advancement; he is a individual in a progressing society. Because his lifestyle constantly moves forward at a rapid pace, we see confusion and stress much of the play. The first example in the play is one of Roy’s first lines.
“Bad time? This is a good time! (Button) Baby doll, get me….Oh fuck, wait….(button, button) Hello yah. Sorry to keep you holding, Judge Hollins” (Kushner 12).
In a society that aims to progress, the technology progresses with it. In Roy’s case, the new phone with all the new buttons he has makes his phone conversations much more confusing.
Roy’s life isn’t just fast paste and confusing, it is a life rot with cheating and lying. Roy is willing to do anything in his past to make his future better for himself. One good example is when Roy is talking to Joe about Ethel Rosenberg. He tells a story of this Jewish woman who was tried for treason. To win the case and further his career, Roy
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broke the law. A good description of the events is when Joe is rehashing what Roy has just told him.
“Roy, you were the Assistant United States Attorney on the Rosenberg case, ex-parte communication with the judge during the trial would be….censurable, at least, probably conspiracy and…in a case that resulted in execution its…
Roy: What? Murder?” (Kushner 108).
Another critique that Kushner makes about the linear progression of history is the insanity that is the end result from living that lifestyle. In the story, Roy’s character doesn’t believe he will die from aids because he has progressed from the realm of mortality to that of immortality. Roy is quoted as saying “I’m immortal Ethel. I have forced my way into history. I ain’t never gonna die (Kushner 112). And what is Kushner’s response? “History is about to crack wide open” (Kushner 112).
What does Kushner mean by all this talk about the Millennium approaching and how history will crack? One might believe what Kushner is advocating is a new sense of history; a new way of life. This life that Kushner presents begins with a new outlook on religion.
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One reason Kushner might want to change how religion is viewed could be because religion has shaped our past and thoughts since before The Tempest. In the book of Genesis we come across a list of a family history. So and so begat so and so….so and so begat so and so. This list helped establish the linear idea of progression we saw with Shakespeare and the United States.
How did Kushner’s literature aim to change the view of religion in regards to history? In the very last part of the play he turns the idea of religion into a tangible thing that humanity can control. The line “God almighty…Very Stephen Spielberg” on Kushner’s page 118 is a fantastic example. One might assume that since he compares God to Stephen Spielberg, Kushner is saying God is no more than the director of life. If God is a director, one could say that life itself is nothing but a play; the actors of the play are what make it work. One possible connection that one can make is that since the actor is the important aspect of the play, mankind controls the action. God is just directing the action of mankind. That direction does not have to be linear.
Another advantage that Kushner has by placing life in the realm of a play is he can propose another way to view history. One tool that
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plays use is they can have action happen simultaneously on stage. They accomplish this feat by having two different conversations in two different locations take place on the stage without any separation.
One could possibly see Kushner implying that history doesn’t happen in a linear fashion; history is more layered. A perfect example of this is when Joe and Harper are having one conversation and Louis and Prior are having another conversation at a different location.
“Harper: Oh God. Home.. The moment of truth has arrived.
Joe: Harper.
Louis: I’m going to move out
Prior: The fuck you are” (Kushner 76).
Even though Joe and Harper are having a completely different conversation then Louis and Prior their dialogue could be interchanged and the whole conversation would still make sense. Kushner captured the conversations in his play, CAPTURED! Since captured is past tense one could say that what Kushner captured was actually history. With that said, one can see the layered element of history that Kushner introduces. This view of history connects everyone involved in both conversations even if they never meet.
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An advantage of this view of history is one doesn’t have to focus on past events to propel them forward. In this play the past events that drive the action are tragic. One major event is the AIDS epidemic during the 1980’s in America. All the characters, homosexual or not are effected in one way or another by this disease. Prior, the one who doesn’t run linearly from the situation is the chosen one to help bring Kushner’s new life into reality. The way he deals with his sickness is not to push forward and progress, but instead he rotates in and out of reality. What is significant is the lack of linear movement that Prior takes.
What does this all mean? What is the function of literature in history? How has literature changed what history is since literature like The Tempest or The Gettysburg Address. One cannot truly answer this question and make this paper valid at the same time. The conclusion of this paper would be the result of linear events in the past pages. One might be able to look at the layers presented to find what they are looking for.
The act of connecting the texts is very Marquezian in itself. Every text mentioned had texts from it’s past and future influence them sometimes knowingly and other times not. To see the influence,
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one has to look at specific characters, specific events that were sometimes large and other times not. The main critique by Marquez is the lack of individual connection in a linear based idea of history. In the past of the United States during the Civil war, one from America might not know what was happening in Africa at the time, what people in Asian were doing or how a soldier on the North or the South felt when he saw a comrade drop in the name of progression. They would remember that the North won, that Lincoln united a country that was divided. And to some, this feeling might eventually lead to an unknowing feeling of ethno-superiority.
Kushner might have realized this; he also realized to have a truly united sense history, it could not be linear. It could not be driven by events. It had to be driven by individuals like Prior. One man that know one knew in the AID’s epidemic ushered in a new way of life that effects our daily lives heer in America as well as across the world. The best conclusion this paper could have is a quote from the page before Angels in America starts. “In a murderous time, the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking” –Stanley Kunits. There is no end in death but a cycle; a cycle that lets every heart, every man join in with another person anywhere in the world. Our end is someone else’s beginning, someone else’s future and another persons past.
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