Otherness in The Holder of the World

Bharati Mukherjee's The Holder of the World is a story about, according to the back cover, "Hannah Easton, a unique woman born in the American colonies in 1670, 'a person undreamed of in Puritan society.' Inquisitive, vital, and awake to her own possibilities, Hannah travels to Mughal India, with her husband, an English trader. There , she sets her own course, 'translating' herself into the Salem Bibi, the white lover of a Hindu raja." And while it claims to "deconstruct the barriers of time and geography," which in many ways it does, this novel fails in promoting an actual recognition, acceptance, and embrace of the theme of alterity that Jacques Lacan terms "the Other."

In many ways the novel does expose the ridiculous hatred of otherness, and challenge the hegemony associated with this construct, with examples of the relations and beliefs of Americans, Europeans, Indians, and Muslims and Hindus. First on page 13, Mukherjee talks about the difference between Puritan simplicity and Asian gaudiness and the ethnocentrism of Americans about this difference between us and them. On page 21she exposes the American view of Native Americans in the 17th Century: "they are children; they are trusting; they are proud and generous. Even capable of nobility. But at heart they are savage: bestial, unspeakably cruel." When Hannah is living in Fort St. Sebastian, India, she remarks on page 99 that the English separated "oneself from Them primarily by staying clean and upright: starched, dignified, sober, righteous and faithful...but the occasional misstep was not to be confused with the gleeful wallow of the Hindus and, only slightly above them, the Muslims." The Indians "all spoke different languages, they owed fidelity to different masters, they worshiped different gods..." and Mukherjee shows the difficulty in experiencing otherness by the fact that "It had been inconceivable to a Puritan soul like Hannah's," (100) "She had not been raised in a world of savagery, not on the scale of India. The vast inequalities, as well as the injustice and superstitions of India, seemed to her unnatural and unbearable" (237).

People feel comfortable with what is most the same, which is why, as Hannah says, the Hindus were hated more by the English than the Muslims: "Muslims seemed a more knowledgeable people than Hindus; Muslims' aversions and their attractions struck familiar chords with devout Christians. They had a heaven a hell...Their dialectic codes were harsh, but logical. The idea of Hinduism was vaguely frightening...English attitudes saw Islam as a shallow kind of sophistication; Hinduism a profound form of primitivism...[And so] Christians and Muslims tended to concentrate the opprobriums against the common Other" (212-220). Another kind of Other not accepted are the "disfigured" two-headed, six-legged humans and animals, the "freaks of nature [who] were given less opportunity to emerge and no comfort to thrive. And, of course, the authorities would not permit it" (173).

Despite this uncomfortableness, Hannah took "sheer pleasure...in the world's variety," showing that otherness is not as bad as it is wonderful. Hannah also is able to grow out of the societal values that have constructed her beliefs and finally accept, sympathize with, and admire her mother, who had followed her heart in the face of adversity and ran off with her (Other) Native American lover. Mukherjee deconstructs the ideals of American history, exposing the violence, hatred, and injustice all around: things that public schools don't typically teach. She also is deconstructing space in the fact that she is considering New England's relationship not only to England in the 17th century, but also India and "Other" countries. She compares the battle between New England and Native Americans with that of England and the Indians: "the story of the Coromandel Coast is the story of Europe, of white nations battling each other in outposts paved with gold. It is the story of North America turned inside out.

But despite these deconstructions and demystifications, she still practices some of the same white arrogance and doesn't fully accept all aspects of otherness. It isn't until Hannah becomes an outcast herself (215) that she can have a "moment's sharp awareness" (222) that brakes down the barriers of Otherness for her. She still portrays a type of white ethnocentrism, only enhanced by the fact the Mukherjee talks about fate and destiny several times throughout the book and what this means for the White Salem Bibi. Even the future Beigh Masters get a little kick out of thinking that the women in the painting are all struck by the white foreignness of the Salem bibi (and in turn all Europeans): "black-robed women with haggard faces tug loose edible tufts of samphire and sea grasses. I was right--they were fascinated by us" (16). So if Hannah did break down any barriers, this doesn't seem to have an affect on her descendant, also evident when she chooses to use the word "should" (meaning the right way) when describing how the painting is like an Indian dessert: "things fried that shouldn't be, hot that should be cold, sweet that should be tart" (19).

Near the end of the story Hannah is able to recognize the thin line of Other that causes the fighting between the Raja and Aurangzeb, so she takes on the task of "righting" (in the way Beigh used "should" earlier) their ways, as "Only a person outside the pale of the two civilizations could do it. Only a Woman, a pregnant woman, a pregnant white woman, had the confidence or audacity to try it. Besides the fact that realistically this would probably put her at every kind of disadvantage in that culture, the war is remembered as a war "fought over a diamond and the demands of an American lady." And Hannah is able to talk to Aurngzeb, try to push her ideals of peace and democracy on him, like "no man, no matter how powerful" (270) could have. This type of ideological way of writing about the American hero is very reminiscent of the message in Binyavanga Wainaina's How to Write about Africa. This is especially obvious on page 268: "The was the moment...when the gods that controlled the universe had conspired to put her Christian-Hindu-Muslim self, her American-English-Indian self, her orphaned, abandoned, widowed, pregnant self, her firangi and bib self, into a single message, delivered to the most powerful man those separate worlds had ever known. She stood."
(I realize that this may not be the main point of the novel, but it is something that interested me, and I want to apologize for you having to read so many quotes, but I really wanted to back up this argument with textual evidence!)

Hannah goes back to New England, as she couldn't change the war due to her own "otherness" and womanhood. Although she seems strong and resourceful at some moments, her lack of accomplishment in the end sort of outweighs that (Like Hester Prynee). Hannah returns to suffer the same stigma's (as Hester Prynne) associated with adultery, single-motherhood, and otherness. So in the end she is punished for her ability to embrace otherness? Some call Hawthorne feminist, despite his constraint of that feminism, because he was radical for that time, but in 1993 why tell the same story?

To the right is a video of Slavoj Zizek speaking about otherness. You can watch the whole thing if you would like, but if you skip to about 4 minutes and 45 seconds, he talks about the animation Shrek and I think this explains the point I am trying to make about The Holder of the World: The displacement in the work actually tells the same old story, the fact that she "re-makes" The Scarlet Letter is reactionary but it prevents us from asking, "Why not tell a different story," and in the end it does denounce the rejection of otherness but it simultaneously practices it.

Agency, Representation, Space, and Tactics and Strategies in Relation to "The Writer"

In Jane Juffer's Single Mother and Naomi Klein's No Logo, both authors portray, explain, deconstruct and expose, in their respective fields of interest (single mothers for Juffer; brands, logos, and marketing for Klein), agency, representation, space, neoliberalism, and tactics and strategies. But what do these themes mean in relation to us as writers and/or English majors?

Agency is the power or operation of action: the ability to do something.  A writer is someone who has agency to represent those who cannot represent or advocate for themselves, such as single mothers who do not have the space, the time, or the energy. And such as 15 year old girls working in factories along the U.S.-Mexico border where they are too young, uneducated, and poor to quit their jobs and so they suffer the abuse and long hours for little pay in order to survive. Writers have the ability to write and use language in order to make our point understood in the most clear and succinct way possible, or to be verbose in order to "show our intellect," or to be creative and to set a tone and pace that fits our agenda. As writers who are able to be published in scholarly outlets, we also have agency due to "credibility" and "authority" in our field of study or research. The point of agency is not just to have all of this ability, we need to take action and do something about it! Klein is a great example of this as she is a journalist and uses her agency to write books such as No Logo that deconstruct a system in society that a lot of people are not aware of or don't care about because they don't realize its agency and what the effects are.

Representation often produces and reinforces complicated and hegemonic stereotypes which can either empower or dis-empower certain people or groups. This often becomes a tricky problem for English majors and writers because while we are deconstructing representations of people and groups in many different types of spaces and communities, thereby becoming knowledgeable and credible on these topics, we are often dis-empowered by the public sphere because we are represented as idealists, flowery poets, experts in the humanities but novice or impractical about our expectations and ideas for the "real" world. So while we may be represented as smart, we are often looked at by other departments or majors as "useless." While we all know this is highly false and kind of stupid, it does sadly affect our power of agency, especially in the public sphere and government. Especially when the representation of fictional writing and films scripting is determined as "Oh, it's not a big deal, it is only entertainment." Wow.  This literature is not just entertainment, it can have and has had HUGE affects on cultural work and changing society(i.e. Uncle Tom's Cabin--Challenged Slavery, The Scarlet Letter--Promoted Feminism (at least in opposition to The Coquette), The Godfather--Thin line between right and wrong, 1984-Exposes totalitarian regimes....and the list goes on indefinitely.)

Space is something that I have briefly mentioned already in this post because in many ways it relates to all of my other topics. It makes sense that events in our lives and our agency is very dependent on spaces; spaces we inhabit, work, study, play, think, etc.... For us in the university, we have a space in which we can freely discuss and challenge "the outside" world, politics, government policies, social norms, representation, and so much more. This physical space opens up a metaphorical "safe" space to do all of this. Also, journalists have the work space in order to research and write. But for those who work, have children, socialize casually but do not have a space, such as the university, to openly discuss and challenge the constructs of society around them. How can they challenge their government if they don't have a space to meet with others, nor the energy and time to put into it? They can't because they need to keep their jobs and their livelihood. How can they challenge their employer, who used factories overseas to eliminate the cost of production labor? They can't or they will be canned. Although they may disagree with certain things, it would be irrational for them to put that before their livelihood, especially if they have others to care for. Juffer does a great job of exposing this for single mothers, who need to be concerned with the well-being of their child in addition to themselves. We've also discussed space as it involves the government, public, and private spheres. The public sphere is supposed to be the connection between the other two spheres, but there is always a great division between what is real and what is ideal in all of these. This lack of communication between them causes definite problems for those not adhering to the Nuclear family (i.e.The Golden Girls), especially those of us who are able to see the benefits and practicality of alterity to the nuclear family in many circumstances.They use legal structures such as tax cuts and health-care laws to promote marriage and having children. By promoting this, they are in many ways illegitimizing any other sort family or familial-type support center. So even though this could be workable and beneficial to many different people, including those of us (English majors) who can recognize it, most of us will still get married because of the market incentives to do so and the "rational"-ness of it. (Not saying that the Nuclear family isn't what might work best for some people, but it excludes the needs of a great portion of the population).

Tactics and Strategies sometimes seem to mean the same thing, but they are actually different. Tactics are ways in which a writer can respond to and operate within the spaces that they are given to create, but also those that limit them. In literature we can layout the problem, expose it, deconstruct it, pose solutions and alternatives, much like Juffer does in the case of representations, space, and agency of single mothers. She also does this by demonstrating, in her example of the Puerto Rican mothers, the effectiveness of forming networks and groups for help. They are finding a way to work within the system. Strategies are different from tactics in that they actually reorganize space rather than just responding within it, like Naomi Klein's example of re-organized sweatshops "taken" from the bosses by the workers. With strategies you don't only pose an alternative, but you create one that no longer works within the system. In relation to literature I think that writers are able to be strategic and tactical by not only writing their ideas down but using their agency and putting them into ACTION.

Writing as an Edge Species

Chapter 10 of the Theory Toolbox begins by asking does the race, gender, ethnicity, class, or sexual preference of a cultural producer like an author, a filmmaker, or an artist, or that of the reader as subject, make any difference in the interpretation of mass media, history, or literature? Do the categories of sexual, racial, economic, and ethnic difference make a difference in our reading and writing of the world? Can a straight white male banker from London even read or understand the poems of a poor lesbian from Haiti? Is any identification possible from such disparate subject positions? These are all very good questions that lead me to wonder if it is possible for an outsider to write as if they are on the inside, or to write about characters who are in the inside, and avoid scrutiny for doing so, for "pretending" to have that knowledge. How can someone from the outside ever write with the knowledge from someone on the inside, and if they do are they judging, misinterpreting, or using this as a strategy for their own means?

Binyavanga Wainaina's How to Write about Africa would seem to answer yes. This article tells you exactly how not to write about Africa by exaggerating, or maybe not really exaggerating but just exposing, how people do take advantage of writing about Africa: "Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshiped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed." This leaves me with the impression that maybe the only people that can acceptably write about Africa, whether about the good or the bad, are people from the inside: people who have been born there, grew up there, and lived there their whole lives. This also brings me back to earlier topics of whether the author matters or if the text is the most important thing to look at when interpreting and examining writing. I personally thought that the reader, the author, and the text matter. So does this mean that I could never write about a different culture even if I studied it because I am an outsider? And does this depend on if I am writing fictional or nonfictional stories? Does Wainaina only mean fictional stories when she talks about how outsiders use common themes of Africa to portray one certain image, or is nonfiction included in this also?


I went to a conference on undergraduate research this week and one of the keynote speakers was Anne Fadiman. She spent 8 years researching and writing a book called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures. This book chronicles the struggles of a Hmong refugee family from Laos, the Lees, and their interactions with the health care system in Merced, California. Lia Lee, the youngest daughter, is diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Through miscommunications about medical dosages and parental refusal to give certain medicines due to mistrust and misunderstandings, and the inability of the doctors to have more empathy toward the traditional Hmong lifestyle or try to learn more about the Hmong culture, Lia's condition worsens and she becomes brain dead. In the Hmong religious belief of shamanistic animism, epileptic attacks are perceived as evidence of the epileptic's ability to enter and journey momentarily into the spirit realm. This ability is often considered an honorable condition and many Hmong shamans are epileptics and teachers. The book discusses broader themes of Hmong culture, customs, and history; American involvement in and responsibility for the war in Laos; and the many problems of immigration, especially assimilation and discrimination. While particularly sympathetic to the Hmong, Fadiman presents the situation from the perspectives of both the doctors and the family, whom she spent much time with over the course of her 8 years of research. And in the end, Anne says that Lia did grow up to be a teacher. She taught Anne and changed her life, and at that university she was teaching all of us.

So is this similar to How to write about Africa or is it different? I was happy when Anne actually addressed this during her speech. She says that the essence of research is finding out something you don't know, but you shouldn't pretend as if you are writing from the inside. Anne is white, mid-upper class New Yorker writing about a Hmong family in California and obviously vying for the side of the Hmong and the need for intercultural competency skills in the medical field. She says that men can write about women, blacks about whites, straights about gays...etc and vice versa because people always have the right to research (and I believe she is only discussing research and nonfiction here, fictional portrayals from the outside may be viewed differently without research, I really don't know?)

And Anne never states this as a requirement to writing from the outside, but she does explain how being an edge species has helped her in her research. An edge species (i.e. skunk) is one that lives on the edge or border of two very different environments. She thinks that being looking from the edge has given her a better understanding and view than she would have had being at the center of any one culture. But even so, 1/3 of Anne's emails are negative and criticize her for writing about the Hmong, part of her story being from their perspective, because they want the Hmong people to be able to write their own story.

She left us with some advice when encountering people whose backgrounds are different from your own: Do not retreat into the safe comfort of your own culture when you are stressed. See things from the other point of view and see people as individuals and not only members of a culture. Accept that you have your own culture with baggage. Try to find things in common.

So, for those of you who will comment on my post, please tell me if you think Anne is doing just what How to write about Africa teaches not to do, or if there is a way to write about a culture from the outside?