Language, Literature, and Culture
A Limited Caribbeanness? The Continental Caribbean as Visions of Hell in Alejo Carpentier's El siglo de las luces and Maryse Condé's La vie scélérate
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Alejo Carpentier and Maryse Condé are widely held as proponents of pan-Caribbeanism, a concept which El siglo de las luces and La vie secrète were instrumental in foregrounding. These novels reflect the individual as well as collective wandering of the Caribbean people through the exploration of the continuous exchanges within the archipelago: between Cuba, Guadeloupe, and French Guyana in the time of the French Revolution for Carpentier's work, and between Guadeloupe and Panama during the construction of the Canal in Conde. These authors' encompassing vision of the region beyond its linguistic fragmentation is evidenced in the sort of chiasmus observed in the fiction under discussion: the Cuban text devotes large segments to French insular and mainland territories, while sections of the Guadeloupean novel take place in a Hispanic continental country and in Jamaica. Carpcntier illustrates how a pan-Caribbcan consciousness inadvertently emerged of the French revolutionaries' attempts to spread ideals and measures such as the emancipation of the slaves across European colonial empires, and in particular to the Americas. Similarly, the construction of the Panama Canal brought together people from various parts of the world and especially from all over the Antilles, resulting in the Caribbeanisation and further creolisation of Panama. In both works, intra- and interregional migrations arc seen as fundamental in the shaping of the Caribbean, binding the various islands on the cultural, social, economic and political levels. Furthermore, historically Panama and the Guyanas have been lands of opportunities for Antilleans.
Publication Title
Caribbean Quarterly
Publication Date
3-2009
Volume
55
Issue
1
First Page
43
Last Page
59
ISSN
0008-6495
DOI
10.1080/00086495.2009.11829748
Repository Citation
Ferly, Odile, "A Limited Caribbeanness? The Continental Caribbean as Visions of Hell in Alejo Carpentier's El siglo de las luces and Maryse Condé's La vie scélérate" (2009). Language, Literature, and Culture. 17.
https://commons.clarku.edu/llc/17
