Daniel Alexander Apatiga
In
the film, “Sugar Cane Alley,” Jose’s relationship with his grandmother develops
throughout the film from that of a maternal-son relationship, to a
grandmother-son relationship, as his grandmother gets older. Their relationship, which begins in medias
res, is a positive relationship that she enjoys cooking for him due to his
youthful age and he enjoys playing with his friends. Although, he does some bad things. First, he sets the barn on fire and gets all
his friends in trouble, presumedly since the scene is in elision. At this point, his grandmother’s relationship
with him deteriorates as he begins to see her as being too possessive perhaps
of his time and controlling of him. When
he throws a dish across the dishes that his grandmother made him put out in the
sun to dry, his grandmother gets angry, but she deserves it because she made
him be late to class. However, throwing
a glass and breaking things is not mature and never solves problems.
In Sugar Cane
Alley, there are no teachers and students who are women, and women are
working behind prison-looking bars, in outside appearance, and they do not have
meaningful work. Women are taken
advantage because of their seeming weaker state than the bozo men, thieves subjugate
them under. The protagonist, Jose, and
the other grown up teachers who help him, Carmen, and Moudouze, do not share their
pillaging philosophy, which is why they support gender equality more so than I
see other characters in the film.
Despite the fact that there are no women in the school system, the idea
of a co-ed school might have been considered, culturally, as taboo, and so this
separation of spheres is reinforced and women are portrayed for their homeliness
and marriageability. We do not get to
see their intellectual side as much.
The
film portrays discrimination in a subtle way because it rarely explicitly
(though it does state) that there is disparity in economics and power between Creoles
and pureblood whites. The French seem to
be the ones who can afford a car and it seems like they all have access to
education, for the most part, though not as good as it is today. Only one Creole, Jose, was able to pass the
test to receive a scholarship, and so what about all the other kids who wanted
an education? They have no wealth or low income due to slavery, and so receiving an education was not allowed for
them.
In
Sugar Cane Alley and “So What are You Anyway, the concept of a hybrid or
an individual of mixed heritage denigrates different meanings under different
contexts. The context of Sugar Cane
Alley can be seen more through the economic disparities that are the
remnants or ruins of a slavery system imposed by France. In the United States, where the setting takes
place in Hill’s short story, a married couple confronts a young lady with their
negative baggage: racism, anti-bigotry, intolerance, unthoughtfulness, and
inconsideration. The entire discussion
is about race for them, though they do not take into consideration what Amy
wants to talk about.
Jose’s
character is different than Carmen’s because he’s younger, but also I think he’s
getting an education because of his brilliance and giftedness. Carmen, however, is well off because he
appears to have his own home. Carmen
appears to have success with women that Jose does not yet understand, because
he’s too young. In terms of their
relationship to Jose’s grandmother, they both share a positive, loving relationship
with her.
The
last line of the movie, “Tomorrow I will return to Fort de France, and I will
take my Black Shack Alley with me,” spoken by Jose, seems to suggest that Jose
had learned a lot from Moudouze, because that is exactly what Moudouze had taught
him: that one day, blacks will return to Africa to reclaim their identity, much
like in the “Cultural Diaspora” essay suggests to be true, which is a
predicament that explored more fully in in Stuart Hall’s essay. That was before his death; Jose wants to
better understand cultural heritage and identity, too, being a gifted
student. In Rushdie’s “Imaginary Homeland”
essay, Rushdie makes the claim that as a transnationalist, one must look into
the past to “restore the past to myself” (Rushdie, page 10). Likewise, Jose looks into his past to restore
himself in the aforementioned sentence.
Since Jose wants to be a writer, Rushdie and Jose are both parallel with
one another in terms of their interests to succeed.
