River Crossers Searching For Home

Caryl Phillips (1958-) is a black British writer with a Caribbean background. His writing career starts with drama, however, the achievements of the subsequent fiction outweigh his earlier plays. So far, his writings include ten novels, four stage plays, two screenplays, one radio play, three non-fictional works, and two anthologies. In addition, Phillips works as an editor, and he is also a regular contributor to The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, etc. Most of his works, fiction in particular, received many big awards and honours, among which A Distant Shore (2003) won four prizes and the most acclaimed Crossing the River (1993) was short-listed for the Booker Prize, and then obtained James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1994. Phillips is not only one of the most accomplished black novelists writing in English, but also a writer fast becoming known as one of the most productive all-around men of letters anywhere. No wonder New York Times thus comments, "Caryl Phillips has proved himself among the best and most productive writers of his generation," and calls him "one of the literary giants of our time."Among the writers from the so-called margins of the former British Empire, Caryl Phillips has become one of the major figures of contemporary English literature and has contributed through his works, especially fiction, to the formal and thematic renewal of a literary tradition that used to be essentially realistic and was occasionally parochialism. Of course, this originality can be traced to some of Phillips's West Indian precursors in Britain, like Wilson Harris, George Lamming and Samuel Selvon. But among the writers of Caribbean origin, Phillips is earlier recognized as belonging to the "mainstream" of British literature, with the exception of Trinidadian V. S. Naipaul who writes in a more conventional vein.Phillips has done a great contribution to the English literature by means of his acclaimed novels. In his novels, Phillips replaces the linear narrative with fragmented stories that shuttle in time and space, and this fragmentation aptly agrees with the lives of his displaced, usually dislocated, characters. The first two novels, The Final Passage and A State of Independence, combine a unity of action with flashbacks, while his later novels employ straightforward juxtaposition of isolated, often lyrical, voices which are separated from each other by gender, race, class and time, yet share a common experience of pain and loss, and an instinctive urge to hope against all odds. Another contribution of Phillips to the contemporary English literature lies in theme, which widens the area of English fiction, and also calls the existing social order into question. His novels focus on characters who are usually excluded from the traditional historiography, and recur to the hidden history of the West, the transatlantic slave trade, for example, and in the meantime underscore Britain's inherent, though long neglected, heterogeneity. Whereas slavery and the "Other" presence in England were either intentionally neglected, or, at best, treated as side issues in most English novels until the 1990s, they have become central issues in Phillips's works. Therefore, the originality of Phillips's writings in form and subject matter does reflect the influences he received, but meanwhile indicates his attachment to and detachment from the existing tradition, whether English, African, American or Caribbean.Though Phillips has made great achievements, he does not gain enough attention. In my opinion, the lack of due attention to Caryl Phillips and his works among critics may result from the fact that Phillips's works are "old materials" for the present readers. Yet, it seems to me that another major factor is Phillips's multiple identities. Of African descent, Phillips was bora in the Caribbean, and grew up in a white area of Britain, received education in Oxford, but now is teaching at Yale of the US. However, to the four identity cards, Phillips repeats, "I recognize the place, I feel at home here, but I don't belong. I am of, and not of, this place." Actually, Phillips's position, and his own border-crossing act in particular, reflect the real situation of the black. In addition, his well-known novel Crossing the River was short-listed for the Booker Prize instead of a finalist, thus it is understandable that he does not attract much attention from the common people.After a careful reading of Phillips's works, I notice that "crossing the river" is a recurrent key issue, moreover, the act of crossing directly influences the fate of river crossers. Regardless of their motives, the river crossers have similar love and pursuit towards home, and river crossing is both spatial and temporal. "River" in Phillips's fiction has literal meaning and the metaphorical one, which refers to the racial barriers. Therefore, the river combines both the black and the white crossers, who cross the rivers in the geographical sense, and also attempt to transcend the racial border. By extension, "crossing the river" can also be explored from the narrative perspective corresponding to the common theme of this dissertation. Considering the critical research on Phillips, I have observed that there are five books and monographs as well as scholarly essays in the foreign countries, and in China there are two Master's theses, and one academic article, but no dissertations or books. Based on the commentaries I have read, except Caryl Phillips's essay entitled "Border Crossings" and Boehmer's "Response to Caryl Phillips, 'Border Crossings'", there is no other article or dissertation focusing on the situation of river crossers. By analyzing crossers' hopes before crossing the river, the traumatic experience of crossing, their tragic fate, and the extensive meaning of crossing, the dissertation concludes that a variety of crossings indicate the universality of river crossing. This is my first originality.The search for the location in which the self is "at home" is one of the primary projects of literature, so Phillips's works are no exceptions. Home in Phillips's term, is a "conundrum", and he considers "where are you from" as a "problem question", a "coded question", yet Phillips explores it within and without his fiction and non-fiction. Noticeably, like the figures in his creation, Phillips earnestly joins in the probe for home. What is different is that most of the characters have a tragic ending, though with a bleak hope, while Phillips still shuttles around the Atlantic triangular area. After leaving his homeland and the adopted country, Phillips now lives in the United States, and indeed there is residence in the three locations, yet to which he feels he does not belong, which may be the true portrayal of the river crossers. The crossing, however, is a never-ending process of the fluidity, even if the characters met with unhappiness, their families far back home are eagerly looking forward to going to the mother country some day. Scholarly articles mainly touch on the displacement and dislocation of characters, but no one dwells on their attempts to settle down whether in mother country or homeland. Therefore, concentrating on the pursuit of home from the perspective of river crossers is my second originality.On the basis of the above analysis, this dissertation will use "crossing the river" as a focus to connect Phillips's works and some related theories, and analyze characters' common dilemma in pursuit of home, identity and belonging in four aspects, namely, loss of home of the black in slavery, seeking "England dream" of the migrants, the white river crossers, and crossings in Phillips's narrative.Chapter One "Loss of Home of the Black in Slavery" investigates the earlier river crossers in the slave trade, and how their homes are lost and how they try in vain to settle down in other countries. Section one tries to locate Phillips's intention of re-narrating the past of slavery in the late twentieth century. In Phillips's view, slavery in Britain is still a silenced topic, so he is devoted to dig the hidden voices out of the received history, whether a slave's or a plantation owner's daughter's. Slavery does not merely belong to the black, for it is also an essential part of the history of the white. Since history is Phillips's constant focus, especially the period of slavery, it is necessary to trace the history of slavery. To the notorious history, Britain does not admit it or the role Britain once played, but tries to hide and deny them, which might be in Phillips's argument the source of all evil of the British society. It is owing to the slavery that heralds the ensuing tide of migrants from the former British colonies. The third section gives a detailed analysis of some of Phillips's works covering slavery. Driven by the motive of interests, the slave trade forces millions of Africans to the Atlantic crossing with no return, and the black slaves try to sink hopeful roots into difficult soil, as the African father in Crossing the River wishes. In Phillips's view, in the process of river crossings, the middle road is not viable for the slaves, for they have to choose either side of the river. As for the Christianized slaves, being missionaries cannot win them status, or a sense of belonging. Last section is about legacy of slavery in Phillips's non-fiction, including racism and the problems facing non-white people in the twenty-first century Britain with national identity. It is precisely this under-explored relationship between the anxieties of contemporary Britain and the past of slavery that motivates Phillips's imaginative return to slavery in his fiction.Inspiringly thinking, the descents of the black slaves do not steer clear of the former colonists who have wrenched their ancestors from their homeland, but are attracted by them, and make their journeys to metropolis to seek "England Dream". This is the topic discussed in Chapter Two. In addition to diaspora in the period of slavery, another big migration is the famous Windrush generation migration in nineteen forty-eight. One of Britain's history amnesia strategies is to consider the Windrush arrival as the primary moment of black British arrival, in this way they might deny the infamous history of slavery, and hence exclude the outsiders. Whether out of the impetus of interests or relieving labour shortage, those "invited"—the black slaves or the Caribbean migrants in the 50s and 60s, made big contributions to the prosperity of the British Empire, yet their achievements do not gain due respect and recognition, instead, their "presence" is considered as the source of certain social problems. After combining with the author's personal experience, especially the problematic question "where are you from", I summarize several types of individual migrants, and Mircea Eliade's concept of time may explain the reason why the metropolis is such a magnet for immigrants. Furthermore, I examine the miserable fate of river crossers: being excluded and even persecuted by mother country and deprived of belonging in their homeland even if they return home. In this case, Phillips suggests an idea of "Atlantic Home", which implies the dilemma of migrants.Chapter Three is devoted to the white river crossers. Just as Crossing the River indicates, river crossers include both the black and the white, though with different purposes. The black are undoubted victims of the slave trade, yet some of the white are not immune from death either. This very disaster renders the black slaves homeless, and likewise, the white cannot return to their home. Among the academic articles and books I have read, no one mentions the white river crossers, especially the marginal white having similar fate to the black. This is the third originality of the dissertation. Therefore, this chapter firstly offers a brief history of the European's sea voyage. Under the cover of civilization mission, the Europeans begin their oceangoing voyage completely out of grabbing wealth, which laid a solid foundation for the prosperity of Europe, and also led to the colonization era for the looted countries. In the following part, the dissertation analyzes the white's passage to the "land of darkness", here referring to Africa or the Caribbean. It is in this "land of darkness" that the white recognize their awkward status and the dilemma of having home whereto one cannot return. Worse still, the reason why the white move from one place to another in their own country is that they search for a retreat, for they are also victims of the racism from their own race. As the white Judge Waring in The Atlantic Sound, excluded by his own hometown, argues that "We don't have a Negro problem in the south (America): we have a white problem." From the angle of time, slavery is indeed a past tense, yet its legacy—in the form of racism—still exerts influence on humans in the twenty-first century. If the white mainstream does not adopt a correct attitude towards slavery, then more whites, besides the black, will fall prey to the white race. In this case, the exile and home seeking of the white indicate the common situation of humans.Corresponding to the theme of "crossing the river", Phillips employs a series of narrative techniques, which consist of the extended meaning of crossings. This is the content of Chapter Four. For the sake of clarity, I classify them into two types: one is about voices, that is, polyphony, master narrative vs. slave narrative, ventriloquism, and by which Phillips explores unheard voices in the official history. And the other one I call "text" just in contrast with "voices", is intertextuality, and travel writing. With these narratives, the author purposely blurs the border between fiction and non-fiction, and connects his own text with his predecessors'. All these techniques also contribute to the common theme—characters crossing rivers to pursue home, identity and belonging.In conclusion, this dissertation asserts that through the phenomenon of river crossings, Phillips's works show the situation of crossers' quest for home. With the intercourse among nations, international migration is more evident, and the direction is multiple. Owing to the river crossers of different origin, Phillips's works posit a cross-cultural vision of world. Therefore, focusing on the river crossers—diaspora in slavery, the subsequent migration, and the internal white migration, offers critical spaces for thinking. They force us to rethink the meaning of nation and nationalism, nation-states and identity. Diaspora and migration are fluid, and the people are en route, constantly crossing geographical, cultural and psychic boundaries. Therefore, the construction of their identities is always plural and in process, which challenges the idea of the continuous, unchanging, homogenous and stable British identity. As an outsider, Phillips writes within the mother country to rouse the attention of the deliberate silence of the white, to show great concern to the special group—river crossers. In the relationship between the black and the white, some benevolent white individuals attempt to offer their outstretched hands, nevertheless the abstract act does not offer substantial help to the black, in this case, to relieve and better the enmity needs the cooperation and effort of the two sides. Thus, it is necessary to study the young writer, who is till in the rise of his writing career, and above all, his responsibility to history and race can put every of us into deep thinking. The history of river crossing is like the water of the river, flowing from the past till the present, and more and more people join in the never-ending process of crossing. So reviewing the history, re-sounding unheard voices, and learning from the history, only in this way may people find a solution to the social problems such as home, belonging and identity, and to the construction of a just future.