Teaching African American Literature Through Experiential Praxis by Jennifer L. Hayes

Author:Jennifer L. Hayes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030485955
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Bhabha describes a trope in fiction where characters navigate a feeling of unease with their surroundings. He suggests that it is the responsibility of the critic, or for our purposes the reader, to investigate the historical and cultural ruptures that displace characters from their surroundings. In other words, what historical events from the past cause characters in the present to feel ill at ease? How does this present feeling expose the continued impact of historical events that are not addressed?

For Helga Crane, her familial narrative opens a space for conversations about colonialism. Her mother, a Danish woman, has a child with a West Indian immigrant. Lunde and Westerstahl Stenport claim that “the Danish West Indies was colonized in 1666 and ruled by Denmark for three and a half centuries until it was sold to the United States in 1917 and renamed the Virgin Islands. Although these three islands (especially Saint Thomas) played a vital role in the black Atlantic’s Middle Passage and the transfer of slaves, goods, and capital in the eighteenth century and beyond, Denmark’s legacy as a slave trader and colonizer continues to be overlooked” (Arne Lunde and Anna Westerstahl Stenport 231). Helga’s parents provide an opportunity to considering the lingering impact of Denmark’s colonial history in the modern era as Helga struggles to find a place to fit in because she is the product of a Dane and Danish West Indian. Once their relationship ends, the mother is left to struggle to raise a mixed raced daughter in the United States. Issues of race, gender, and class couple to create tension for the mother who ultimately dies. However, her life and death become a space for critical evaluation into Crane’s sense of unease in all places from Naxos to Copenhagen. Her biracial identity places her in between accepted positions in society and results in a feeling of unease or unhome. I argue that Helga’s quest for a space to feel at home is on one level a journey toward reconciling the silence surrounding her existence. She exists, but so many people wish to deny her existence because of her mix raced heritage. Acknowledging Helga’s complex familial history requires other people to recognize their connection to her or how their privileged positions rely on her subordinate status. Therefore, Helga’s feeling of unhappiness returns because no matter where she goes in the United States or in Denmark, she must negotiate how her presence welcomes a social negotiation of being separate and connected with her surroundings.

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