Rose Poku

Negritude is a movement, primarily literary, that occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century. In this movement, black artists and writers from the French-speaking world published poems, essays, and books that reclaimed the power and pride of being black in a racist French-speaking world, steeped in the history of slavery and colonialism. In many works of this movement, there is a recurring trope: a metaphor that represents black women as the earth. As we will see later in this essay, male writers of Negritude use this trope to try to give importance to Africa and the role of the black woman, but we find that this form of representation actually dehumanizes black women because the metaphor reduces the woman to a thing without autonomy. For this reason, it must be recognized that in the 1970s, there is a recovery of the role of the black woman by black women writers. They reevaluate the role of women by showing that black women are not non-living things like the earth, but complex and strong people. In particular, in the novel Rain and Wind on Télumée Miracle (1972), the writer Simone Schwarz-Bart reevaluates this negritudian relationship between black women and the earth. In her book, women are not passive things like the earth; on the contrary, they are independent and powerful beings who cultivate the earth themselves. 

The Negritude movement began around 1930, and there are three men who are well known as the founders of the movement: Aimé Césaire, Léon-Gontran Damas, and Léopold Sédar Senghor. There are many black women who contribute to this movement as well (for example: Jane Nardal, Paulette Nardal, and Suzanne Césaire), but they do not get the same recognition as their male counterparts.[1] In fact, Negritude writer Paulette Nardal argues that women's ideas were most fundamental to Negritude, but that men (who possibly stole their work) are the ones who receive almost all the credit (Sharpley-Whiting, 10). As a result, the Negritude movement is implicitly recognized as a black men 's movement , and the movement erases women's work.

In this masculine movement emerges the metaphor that associates women with the earth. An example of this connection between a woman's body and the African earth can be seen in the poem "Femme Noire" written by Leopold Senghor in 1945. He explicitly compares the body of a black woman to the earth in his poem: "Naked woman, black woman... I discover you, Promised Land," (Senghor, lines 1,8). In the context of this metaphor, the black woman is literally the earth—a sacred land, but a land nonetheless. Again, Senghor writes: "Naked woman, obscure woman / Ripe fruit with firm flesh" (Senghor, lines 12-13). In this quote, Senghor uses a food metaphor that compares the black woman to a fruit. She has the skin of a fruit, and so, she is not recognized as a human. Furthermore, he writes "I grew up in your shadow" (Senghor, line 4). Here, the black woman is like a tree that gives shade to the narrator. The black woman is not a human being. According to Senghor's metaphors, she is the earth.

Negritude writers like Senghor use this metaphor to try to exalt African land and black women. As Renée Larrier explains in her text "Reconstructing Motherhood: Francophone African Women Autobiographers," by creating this trope of the black woman as land, Negritude writers are trying to reject negative images of black women and African land: "The fetishization, idealization of the body, of the 'mother/earth,' is one characteristic of negritude whose writers were responding to the negative images of Africa that were prevalent at the time" (Larrier, 195). In responding to anti-black ideas, writers use the metaphor of the woman (or mother) as the earth to try to redefine Africa and show the beauty of the continent and its black inhabitants.

However, it should be noted that this metaphor is also problematic. As the previous quote suggests, the trope fetishizes the body of the black woman, reducing and dehumanizing her. As Mariama Bâ, a Senegalese novelist, explains: "Nostalgic songs dedicated to the African mother confused in the anxieties of men to Mother Africa are no longer enough for us" (Bâ "La Fonction", 408). According to Bâ, this metaphor is an example of how the men of Negritude try to link the black woman to sacred Africa, but in doing so, they reduce the black woman to a "weak and helpless" being (Ajayi, 39). If the black woman is the African land, she is exploited by colonialism, and she cannot respond to this violence. Thus, it is the black man who becomes the protector of Africa-woman. This deprives black women of their own autonomy, humanity, and political engagement. Also, by comparing black women to the earth, writers reduce women to the parts of their bodies (as, for example, when Senghor refers to the skin of the black woman as the skin of a fruit). The metaphor is dehumanizing. 

However, in the 1970s, black women writers began to reclaim the roles of black women in their writing. As Renée Larrier explains: "When francophone women writers began to publish novels in the 1970s, women were no longer reduced to body parts, but were represented as whole persons who played several roles in the home and wider community" (Larrier, 196). For example, in the novel Une si longue lettre (1979), an epistolary novel that explores polygamy in Senegal through the character of Ramatoulaye, Mariama Bâ shows the complexity of being an African woman and mother. Her characters are complicated and original: there are independent and autonomous women, selfish and generous, progressive and conservative. For example, the protagonist Ramatoulaye decides to stay with her polygamous husband, while another woman, Aïssatou, leaves her husband because of his polygamy. In addition, the character of Aunt Nabou represents a very traditional vision of the couple and by orchestrating a marriage, she ruins the life of a woman. At the same time, other women, like Ramatoulaye and Aïssatou, work to help all women. Above all, Bâ's women are human; they are complicated and imperfect, but independent. 

Simone Schwarz-Bart wrote Pluie et vent on Télumée Miracle during the same decade, and in her text, she also shows the complexity and humanity of black women. The novel, which tells the story of several generations of Guadeloupean women, highlights the power of the affinity between women. All the main characters in her book are women, and if men exist, it is the women who move the story forward. Therefore, we can really see the humanity of women in the novel. They are intelligent and strong, and they have autonomy. However, women are not perfect. They also make mistakes, they get angry, and they question their identity. Like Bâ, Schwarz-Bart creates complicated and powerful characters. Also, her female characters have autonomy and knowledge about life and the land. As we discuss below, Bâ and Schwarz-Bart show that the black woman is powerful, resilient, and human in all her complexity.

For example, Schwarz-Bart shows the autonomy of black women in her book with the protagonists of Reine Sans Nom (or Toussine) Lougandor and Télumée Miracle in particular. For example, there is an adage that Toussine repeats throughout the novel: “[…] The horse must not lead you, it is you who must lead the horse” (Schwarz-Bart, 82). This adage inspires the actions of Reine Sans Nom and those of her granddaughter, Télumée. Following these words, they refuse to allow life to control them; they control their own lives. Almost every time Télumée has to make a difficult decision about her life and happiness, she reflects on this advice from Reine Sans Nom. With this adage, she tries to take control of her own life. 

This takeover of life can also be seen at the beginning of the novel when Télumée says “… I did not come to earth to weigh all the sadness in the world” right after explaining the story of her ancestors who were slaves (Schwarz-Bart, 11). She explains that although there are horrible things that impact her life and the lives of her family, she chooses not to wallow in the sadness of this story. However, it should be noted that Télumée is very aware of the slavery of her ancestors. She understands that one cannot forget or ignore this past. In fact, when she is old, she tells the oral stories of slavery to the younger generation: “… I told them old tales… these stories of slavery” (Schwarz-Bart, 234). However, she also tries to take control of her life and her emotions, and she does not allow the sadness to destroy her. She chooses to seek bliss. 

Another moment when Schwarz-Bart's black women show that they are autonomous and not passive objects like the earth is when they tend the earth themselves. This is seen in Télumée's words at the end of the novel: "So am I in my role as an old woman, making my garden" (Schwarz-Bart, 249). When she is old, like her grandmother and other women in the book, Télumée has her own garden where she cultivates the earth. She loves her garden, and she is an excellent gardener: "I was then able to return to my garden and soon found that the plants appreciated my influence," Télumée says (Schwarz-Bart, 235). She tends the earth and she helps and supports the herbs and plants. By cultivating her garden, Télumée subverts the Negritudian metaphor of the black woman as earth. She is not the earth; she is the one who controls and cultivates the earth. 

However, there is a moment in the novel where the metaphor of the black woman as earth emerges. When Télumée is old, the young women of her community tell her: "Sometimes those of La Folie ask me to go back up there... mother Miracle, you are the tree against which our hamlet leans" (Schwarz-Bart, 249). Télumée rejects this assertion, however: "Then I remind them of what I am, not a tree, but an old piece of dry wood, and I tell them that they are simply there to prevent me from dying under the leaves" (Schwarz-Bart, 249). Télumée rejects the metaphor that compares her to a tree and prefers to be seen as the wood. So, Schwarz-Bart does not completely reject metaphors with nature since Télumée asks to be seen as something that comes from nature (the wood). Yet it is important to note that she does not want to be the whole tree because this metaphor gives her too much responsibility. She does not deserve the burden of representing and supporting the entire community. Schwarz-Bart subverts natural metaphors to give more humanity to black women. She is human , and she depends on her community of women . She specifies gender when she says, “… they are simply there to keep me from dying under the leaves” (emphasis added) (Schwarz-Bart, 249). While the Negritudian metaphor of comparing black women to the earth is problematic because it gives too much power to the black man as the protector of the weak and powerless black woman, here Télumée also rejects the idea of ​​the womanblack woman as the sole protector of the community. Being the sole protector is too much responsibility for a human being. Télumée is powerful, of course, but she is part of the human community. Dehumanization can happen when someone is less than human, but also more than human. So this metaphor gives her too much responsibility – more than a real human can sustain. She cannot support and represent the entire community.[2] So Télumée acknowledges her humanity and rejects this metaphor. Women are not protected by men, but neither do black women protect the world or the entire community. Télumée acknowledges the humanity of black people and especially black women, and she wants the black community to work together to support one another. 

It should be noted, however, that Schwarz-Bart does not shy away from acknowledging the connections between black women and the land. These connections exist almost everywhere in her book. For example, the title of the novel ( Rain and Wind on Télumée Miracle ) suggests that the protagonist Télumée exists with nature. Also, throughout the text, women cultivate the land. They grow plants and herbs that provide them with food and also power. Furthermore, Télumée demands to be seen as wood (which comes from nature) in order to show her humanity, and not, like the Negritude writers, to glorify—and therefore dehumanize—black women. It is for this reason that I argue that Schwarz-Bart writes about nature and the land in a more complex and dynamic way than Negritude writers. While Negritudian men use the metaphor of the black woman as land to create generalized ideas about women and land, Schwarz-Bart writes about women and land to show the complex humanity of black women and also to represent their connection to nature.

In Rain and Wind on Télumée Miracle , Schwarz-Bart disrupts the Negritudian metaphor of the black woman as the earth by showing the humanity of black women. She shows this humanity through the power and autonomy of black women, but also through the dependence of women on other women. They are strong, but they are not so strong that they do not need anyone in their lives. Schwarz-Bart shows that black women are completely human: no more, no less. Thus, the novel could be considered a "novel of Negritude" considering the power and humanity that Schwarz-Bart grants to black characters. However, the novel is more a critique of the masculine Negritude movement than an example of a Negritudian text since the novel demonstrates the power and humanity of black women . Schwarz-Bart truly subverts the Negritude trope of black women in her novel by showing what is missing from Negritude: the humanity and complexity of black women.   

_{[1] See in particular, for example T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Négritude Women (2002); Brent Hayes Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora (2003); Shireen K. Lewis, Race, Culture, and Identity (2006).} 

[_{2] An example of the burden of representation can be seen here. The burden of representation is a concept in postcolonial theories that explains how marginalized subjects are expected to unfairly represent their communities. Kobena Mercer gives an example of this burden when she explains how many black artists are expected to represent the entire race in their exhibitions –– an impossible task (234). In the metaphor of Télumée as the tree, she is burdened with the burden of representation for her community.}