Arts Entertainments

Crossing the mangrove by Maryse Conde

“Crossing the Mangrove”, by Maryse Conde, is set in 1986 on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. The story is told through the eyes of many islanders who are uncomfortable with the arrival of a strange foreigner who has come to live among them. Francisco Álvarez-Sánchez’s mysterious story invokes themes from Caribbean life past and present and the stories of the villagers combine to connect the fascinating story. The novel reflects the Creole diversity of the inhabitants of Guadalupe.

In “Crossing the Mangrove”, several prominent recurring themes in Caribbean life are evident. Colonization and the class perspective are among the most dominant themes. Guadeloupe was colonized by France in the 17th century, and like many islands in the Caribbean, Guadeloupe became a center for the slave trade. A story told by the strange recluse Xantippe shows how the colonization ideals of the past are still present on the island today. When he was young, Xantippe was happy and lucky. This gave the gendarmes (policemen) ruled in France a reason to question him. They hinted that he had enemies and burned his cabin. Xantippe describes how he lost everything and his life changed for the worse, forever. This activity recalls Cesaire’s equation: colonization = “reification”.

The class perspective exists on the island of Guadalupe, but to a lesser extent than in previous novels. The Ramsaraz and Lameanes families are exclusive. They have land for cultivation and flower nurseries. They have big houses and they drive Peugeot built in France. Although there is a population of peasants and servants, it does not appear prominently in the novel. Instead, a kind of middle-class society understood the majority class of the characters. Moise the postman, Emile Etienne the historian, and Lucien Evarist the writer are among a cast of Francis’ middle-class friends. But Francis is supposed to belong to the upper class because of his stories of travel and adventure, his ability to buy Alexis’ former property, and the daily truck deliveries of appliances such as a television, a refrigerator, a stereo. The people of Riviere au Sel envy this and question his occupation and work ethic as a writer. They ask: “He was a writer who did nothing, sitting in the shade for hours on his terrace, staring at the mountain ridge for hours and hours while the rest sweated under the blazing Good Lords sun.” One must have the feeling that the class perspective presented in “Crossing the mangrove” is a good representation of the society in Guadeloupe today.

The strong themes that are current in the society of Guadeloupe are that in a society dominated by men, women are forced to practice arranged marriages. But many of the Riviere au Sel women have contempt for their estranged husbands and their parents who make unusual arrangements. Forced marriages are common and based on tradition in this island society, but curiously, no explanation is given as to why a father would want to marry his attractive young daughters off to older men with dubious intentions. What is the motivation of the parents who participate in this practice? Yes, these men are wealthy and young women will live comfortably, but do parents receive any compensation for their generous contribution to men? All the young women seem to come from well-established families. Do parents take into account the trauma and unhappiness their daughters will suffer?

At Riviere au Sel, Dinah’s father arranged for her to marry Loulou. Dina was in favor of this, but then her husband rejected her. Dinah said, “It has been years since Loulou slept in my bed. Once night falls, I close the door and snuggle like a fetus between my sheets.” Rosa, of Indian descent, is forced to marry Sylvester; the practice of arranged marriages is also common in India, where a social caste system still exists. In his passage of the novel he wants it to be known that, “When I was married to Sylvester Ramsaran, no one asked my opinion” and “Sylvester hurt me. He tore me apart.”

Like her Indian mother before her, Vilma’s marriage was to be fixed. Vilma’s father, Sylvester, arranged for her to marry a man named Marins Vindrex. But Vilma rebelled by running away from home saying: “Marins Vindrex. But I don’t love him.” In the last act of revenge against his father, he joined the hated Francis Sánchez. Now, in a position to forever poison her gruesome marriage to the terrible Vindrex, she allowed herself to become pregnant with Francis. Sylvester is helpless to act as Francis’s questionable motives escalate among the Riviere au Sel villagers who are already suspicious of him.

Conde connects the vignettes together in “Crossing the Mangrove”, establishing the relationship each villager had with Francis Sánchez as the story progresses. Each member has a strong opinion or emotion about Francis. Some of those thoughts are positive and some are negative. At the center of the story is the wake of Francis which takes place in Riviere au Sel. It rains a lot in Riviere au Sel and on the Thursday afternoon of Francis’ awakening, it was no different. The rain seemed to act on Mother Nature’s demeanor as it cleansed the congregation of friends, enemies, and former lovers who gathered to witness Francis’s swan song.

Moise, the postman, is the first character that Conde gives us an idea of ​​the relationship he had with Francis. Interestingly, there was some speculation in the community that there might be a homosexual relationship between Moise and the great womanizer Francis Sánchez. “There were evil taunts. There was something fishy about that friendship and the two men were Makoumeh! (Gay). Adding even more to the weirdness is the fact that many considered Moise a ‘lost monster’ and ‘ugly’. Aside from these accusations, the two were friends, but the friendship was awkward and unusual. At one point we see Moise cradling Francis in his arms when something upset Francis. The next moment we see Francis accusing Moise of stealing money from his mysterious trunk.

But Francisco also had enemies. Both Loulou Lameaulnes and Sylvester Ramsaran have similar reasons for despising Francis. Francis had sex with his daughters and got them both pregnant. For these two men, Francisco was a villain for his indiscretions, but in both cases it was the young women who approached Francisco. Both women hated their parents and hated the life they led under their father’s roofs. Perhaps the parents should have blamed themselves for forcing their daughters out of their arms and into Francis’s bed. Vilma and Mira shared the same bed with Francis and attended his wake. They did not speak. Interestingly, Loulou and Sylvester were also present and both felt a strong sense that in Francis’s death justice had been served.

The congregation left the wake with the sober realization that they had just cried for a man they hardly knew. Francis had that ability. People were drawn to him, but they didn’t know why. The novel ends with the inhabitants of Riviere au Sel asking the same ironic questions about Francis as when they first saw him. “Who was Francisco Sánchez? And later, “Who was this man who chooses to die among us?

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