CULTURAL CLASHES IN
JEAN RHY’S THE DAY THEY BURNED THE BOOKS
S. Ragapriya,
Department of English
Adhiyaman Arts and Science
College for Women
Uthangarai
&
S. Sathyarani
Department of English
Adhiyaman Arts and Science
College for Women
Uthangarai
Abstract:
Migration is very common in present days and people
invade from their country in search of job to another country. This migration
will result in the adoption of new countries tradition and culture. This paper
reveals the difficulties of acculturation and the cultural discrimination
between two countries. Jean Rhys The
Day They Burned the Books is the best example for the cultural
discrimination. Here the parents of protagonist belong to two different
cultures and he was forced to follow both. They dominated their own culture and
finally the boy was confused to choose his own culture. Jean Rhys is a famous
feminist writer and she connects herself with this work and reflected the
complexities of cultural identity in colonized society. The story also suggests
the migration and cultural blending will result in creation of new hybrid
identity.
Keywords: Discrimination,
Migration, Tradition
The Day They Burned the Books is a short story
written by Jean Rhys. She uses complex themes such as migration, colonialism,
multiculturalism and cultural identity. It presents a subtle study of conflict
in culture and identity in Caribbean, it also highlights the tension between a
new colonizer and the people already colonized over there for a long time.
Jean Rhys was born in
1890 in Dominica and she is a British Dominican writer. Here, Rhys faced a
mixed heritage, where as her father belongs to welsh and her mother a white
Creole, the author faced the complexities of colonial life and identity.
Rhys has spent most
of her life in Europe but experienced as Caribbean and shaped her with
multicultural perspectives in many of her stories and in this short story The Day They Burned the Books too. Rhys
father was a British welsh doctor and he brought the values of literature and
the traditions of British. Rhys gets his education in British colonial school
and expose to its norms and terms. Rhys mother belongs to Creole and she
introduces a unique culture and its landscape.
The whole story is
about a young boy named Eddie. His father is abusive to his mother and he made
every possible way to be fewer women than him. Mr. Sawyer belongs to English
and fall in love with Mrs. Sawyer, who belongs to a Caribbean country. He
marries her and shifts to Caribbean without liking the place. Rhys must have seen first-hand the
tensions between Western culture and Caribbean culture. These tensions between
concepts are exemplified through her writing. For instance, while Mrs. Sawyer
has a general distaste toward books, Mr. Sawyer gravitates toward and hoards
them. According to Mrs. Sawyer, books are the symbol or reminder of their
Western oppressors or books are a symbol of the "Homeland" and the
Western world. These ideals contrasted greatly with Mr.
Sawyer’s Western ways of thinking which ultimately resulted in a tense and
hateful relationship between them. Even so, simply from examining the creation
of the character’s unique situations, it is quite clear that Rhys’ was drawing
off of her own cultural experiences to contribute to the story because she also
was born from "mixed race" parents in the Dominican.
Mr. Sawyer forced Eddie to learn
English and forced him to follow his own culture but where as his mother
insisted him to follow her culture. The conflict between the two culturesof
them as made Eddie clueless of choosing his own culture. When he called himself
English his friends snubbed him and told “you’re not English; you’re a horrid
colonial’. But he replied ‘well, I don’t much want to be English’. After the
death of Mr. Sawyer Eddie chooses the English library as his own, but his
mother sold the good books and burned the rest of the books. This shows that he
books are a symbol of her hatred. In between Eddie and the narrator stole two
books that are set to be burned. The children ran with the book realizing they
saved the books. Though they ran out with the book both were feared of getting
back to their home.
Mr. Sawyer was seen as a symbol of colonial
migration who belongs to British colonial, power in Caribbean, he has migrated
himself from England to Caribbean. His passion towards his culture was shown in
the collections of his English books. Eddie was born in Caribbean but was stuck
between his father (English culture) and his mother (west Indian culture),
represented a personal migration between conflicting cultures. The story also
portrays the cultural conflict by Eddie and his internal struggles. The
Caribbean is a place of multiculturalism, it was influenced by European,
African and domestic cultures. The act of burning books represented the
rejection of colonial authority by Mrs. Sawyer. At the end the protagonist as
complication of knowing to which culture he really belongs to neither fully a
British nor fully a Caribbean. Rhys as used the character “Eddie” as a
protagonist to depict the struggles she as faced being a dual culture follower
because of her parents.
Rhys’ short story Eddie identifies
himself with his father hence the quote: “He was white as a ghost in his sailor
suit, a blue-white even in the setting sun, and his father’s sneer was clamped
on his face” (Bozzini, Leenerts, p. 149). Thus, after Eddie’s active act of
defiance in opposition to his mother's act of burning his father’s books, Eddie
becomes symbolically all-white or all-western. Thus, while Eddie identifies
himself with British culture, he also now is subjected to viewing himself as a
minority in the Caribbean. This idea is exemplified in a conversation between
Eddie and the narrator, “‘Who’s white? Damned few’” (Bozzini, Leenerts, p.
149).
Before Mr. Sawyer’s death, Eddie
seemed to identify himself with his mother's Caribbean roots. For instance,
Eddie makes this clear during a conversation with the narrator: "I don’t
like strawberries," Eddie said on one occasion."You don’t
like strawberries? No, and I don’t like daffodils either. Dad’s
always going on about them. He says they lick the flowers here into a cocked
hat and I bet that’s a lie" (Bozzini, Leenerts, p. 147).
However, despite his cultural adaption
to the Caribbean, following his father’s death, Eddie began to gravitate
towards books and identify himself with his father. Thus, while Eddie viewed
books as a symbol or reminder of his father, Mr. Sawyer’s library also became
an emblem of British nationality and Western culture within their Caribbean
house; this was an object of identification that was incompatible with his
mother's culture. Perhaps she felt this way because she felt as if the books,
like Britain, would infiltrate into the household, into the families’
consciousness, into their Caribbean ways of life, threatens the community of
the colonials, and ultimately taint Eddie’s identification with her cultural
heritage in favor of their oppressors.
Works Cited
ReadWrite. “Jean
Rhys.” ReadWrite, readwrite.typepad.com/JeanRhys.pdf.
WOC Short Stories.
“The Day They Burned the Books.” WOC Short Stories, 26 Feb. 2013,
wocshortstories.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/the-day-they-burned-the-books/.
Cambridge University Press.
“Jean Rhys: ‘The Day They Burned the Books.’” Cambridge UniversityPress,www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/jean-rhys/day- they-burned-the books/2603136D398692B984B2DB70D9AA66ED.
Tales of Mystery.
“Jean Rhys: The Day They Burned the Books.” Talesof Mystery, Mar. 2014,
talesofmystery.blogspot.com/2014/03/jean-rhys-day-they-burned-books.html?m=1.