VIII. The role of Art in Condé's writings
Art in Condé's writing helps express this rhizomatic aspect of the Creole identity. In spite of the apparent unsolvable tangle of the Creole identity, Condé really believes something can be done to ease its understanding. Acknowledging the Black Diaspora is a first step towards that goal but not the last. Indeed, Condé suggests that it is art, rather than racial ancestry, as her novels of the seventies suggested, that could create the strongest bond between members of the Black Diaspora, thus giving a better sense of identity.
Condé uses art in two ways to express the Creole identity : Condé first uses her own art, her writing, to re-unify members of the Black Diaspora across borders. The characters of her novels of the eighties and nineties often interact with people from Africa , France , the US , the Caribbean and even South America . In her 1985 collection of short stories titled The Land of Many Colors , her characters often find themselves in the US . In a later novel, Desirada (1997), the protagonist's quest for her identity makes her travel from Guadeloupe to France and then to the Boston , MA where she finally is able to find herself. It is thanks to the people she meets in the US that Marie-Noëlle manages to forget about her previous desire to find her past and her father. Though the art of writing, Condé crosses borders and weaves the destinies of characters from around the world without necessarily turning the Creole identity into a perfectly harmonious entity or a model to follow. The cosmopolitan friendships that come to life in Condé's novels underline the double meaning of "pays mêlé" (the original title of the collection The Land of Many Colors ) which suggests both a country of mixtures and of problems ("mêlé" meaning problem in Creole). Condé's art creates a geography that ignores borders and where members of the Black Diaspora unite again, proving with every character that identities can no longer be limited to the place of origin nor to past ancestors but are built little by little as life goes on.Condé's second way of using art in her writing is by referring to Black artists and personalities from the Americas without ever explaining who they are in footnotes or endnotes (as her publishers often suggest her to do). Her readers must make the effort to go and look up those artists by themselves if they do not know them. It is a subtle way to confront readers with the limits of the western canon, and to try to open the latter to a Black canon that could be as respected. A canon (and not necessarily an elitist one) being the best expression of the culture one belongs to. It can be a source of pride or a model to look up to, but it is mostly a testimony for one's identity.
With this in mind, Condé refers to writers such as Zora Neale Hurston in "Three women in Manhattan " short story from The Land of Many Colors (1985). Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye also appears in Condé's 1999 childhood tales. In one tale titled openly "The bluest eye," she recalls a young boyfriend telling her she had beautiful blue eyes. The boyfriend had read so many (western) stories with beautiful blond and blue-eyed heroines that he thought all beautiful women bore those features, so much so that his beautiful girlfriend Maryse Condé, no doubt had blue eyes as well. The young Maryse was shattered when she read the compliment addressed to her for it did appear to be for someone else. This true childhood tale seems to be the seed from which her second most important theme grew: the theme of the female identity.
| ART LINK: Creole Art, Images and Excercises |
| ART LINK: Francophone Art section of this website |
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