Cesaire - Minji Kim

Aime Cesaire, who was born and raised in one of the French colonies, Martinique, initiated the Negritude with his colleagues. Negritude is an ideological and literary movement that promotes the values of black cultures and the idea that their culture and society is not inferior to that of white people. Also this movement strongly opposes colonialism. In order to spread the Negritude movement Cesaire published one of his most famous poems, “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.”  Throughout the poem Cesaire surrealistically approaches his poem in order to emphasize Negritude and efficiently opposes colonialism. The poem, “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land,” is characterized by sarcasm toward colonists, irony, and various surrealistic metaphors and imageries. One of the many passages in this poem that shows Cesaire’s use of surrealistic metaphor and sarcasm is well depicted in page 49.

“ Reason, I crown you evening wind. / Your name voice of order? / To me the whip’s corolla. / Beauty I call you the false claim of the stone. / But ah! My raucous laughter/ smuggled in/ Ah! my saltpeter treasure! / Because we hate you / and your reason, we claim kinship / with dementia praecox with the flaming madness / of persistent cannibalism” (page 49)

Cesaire utilizes surrealistic metaphors to emphasize cruelty of colonists and to criticize their self-justification for conquering and abusing colonized people under the name of colonialism. For example, in the passage above, Cesaire uses a surrealistic metaphor by comparing reason to whip. Reason represents colonists’ excuses for conquering and colonizing countries, and the whip symbolizes what people under the colonial system actually experienced and got wounded from colonialism. Also the word “dementia praecox” is another word for schizophrenia and Cesaire cries out that colonized people are so furious about the colonialism and colonists that they almost get mental illness. One of the interesting features about Cesarie’s use of surrealistic metaphors is that he employs botanical and scientific words such as corolla and dementia praecox. By using sophisticated words, Cesaire is trying to show that colonized black people are as bright as white people and that they have the capability to learn and become independent from colonists. Persistent cannibalism is a metaphor for colonialism, which leads to thousands of death. In this passage, Cesaire not only uses surrealistic metaphors, but he also asks rhetorical questions to express sarcasm against colonialism. He asks, “Your name voice of order?” This rhetorical question gives readers feeling of sarcasms and criticism against colonists. Another sarcasm is found in the very first sentence when he says, “Reason, I crown you evening wind.” Cesaire is sarcastically praising the “reason” which represents the self-justification of colonialism. And the “evening wind” symbolizes the wind of death or dark side of colonialism. In this passage, Cesaire uses stream of consciousness. His thoughts and feelings are scattered all over the place. His expression of hatred to colonialism and sarcasms against the colonial system is not put in order. Therefore, Cesaire effectively illustrates his tension with colonialism by employing surrealistic ideas and surrealistic techniques.