Myriad Responses to Beauty in Literature
– IV
So akin to Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, where, ‘blue eyes,
blonde hair, and pale white skin’ were the definition of beauty to the black
girl Pecola Breedlove, whose avowed
dream was to be beautiful, we have a much similar strand woven into Maya
Angelou’s autobiographical story, I Know
Why the Caged Bird Sings, where, yet again, Maya, the narrator has
internalized the idea that blond hair is the yardstick to beauty, and because
she is a fat black girl, who ain't a blond, she ain't beautiful to look at. Hence she
feels quite unwelcome and ugly!
In her way with the counterfactual, she
imagines –
Because
I was really white and because a cruel fairy stepmother, who was understandably
jealous of my beauty, had turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black
hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two
pencil.
When Maya’s father Bailey takes her to
St. Louis to see her mother Vivian, Maya poignantly gives out her musings on her
momma, on how beautiful and charming she was, in Chapter 9 of the book!
To
describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or
the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow. We were both fearful of Mother’s
coming and impatient at her delay. It is remarkable how much truth there is in
the two expressions: “struck dumb” and “love at first sight.” My mother’s
beauty literally assailed me. Her red lips (Momma said it was a sin to wear
lipstick) split to show even white teeth and her fresh-butter color looked
see-through clean. Her smile widened her mouth beyond her cheeks beyond her
ears and seemingly through the walls to the street outside. I was struck dumb.
I knew immediately why she had sent me away. She was too beautiful to have
children. I had never seen a woman as pretty as she who was called “Mother.”
Bailey on his part fell instantly and forever in love. I saw his eyes shining
like hers; he had forgotten the loneliness and the nights when we had cried
together because we were “unwanted children.” He had never left her warm side
or shared the icy wind of solitude with me. She was his Mother Dear and I
resigned myself to his condition. They were more alike than she and I, or even
he and I. They both had physical beauty and personality, so I figured it
figured.
There is here a demarcation that’s made
so subtly between the culturally defined image of self, vis-à-vis her real view
of her ‘self!’ Now, since the
culturally defined image of self, is to Maya, a product of the patriarchal
milieu in which she is placed, she has a painful realization that she is not
beautiful based on the normative handed down to her creed in society, and hence
she tries to construct for herself, an alternate self, devoid of these
normatives!
Hence, there’s a disastrous fragmentation
of her identity, which results in raising apprehensions about her own
‘subjectivity’ status in society! Eventually, there arises a fear and disdain
of her body, which, results in somatophobia, which is defined as a morbid fear and
devaluation of one’s own body.
On the other hand, there’s yet another
portrayal of a black ‘royal slave’ by name Oroonoko, the titular hero of the
poignant tragic novel, written by Aphra Behn, way way back in 1688!
Well, although there are many many claimants to the sobriquet, ‘father of the English novel’, they all have made
their mark and their work, their name and their fame only at a very later
stage, whereas Aphra Behn wrote Oroonoko as early as in 1688! So much for the
Power – knowledge connect and its sway over society! But that’s another story!
Moreover, the concept of the ‘noble
savage’, owes its origins chiefly to Oroonoko and his famed beauty!
[Although the term ‘noble
savage’ has now attained a pejorative label to it as a racist invention, it was
once, a romanticized stereotype of the indigenous people, and hence was also a popular theme in
western thought!]
Coming back to our premise, as a black, Oroonoko still
continued to enjoy all respect and attention from the English colonizers because
of his unusual physical beauty and royal bearing, along with his endearing
manners and graceful social etiquette.
The narrator highlights the fact that,
Oroonoko distinguishes himself starkly from slaves of his own ilk, kith and kin
by his European characteristics, with his straight hair, Roman nose etc, which
exemplifies a Eurocentric vision of beauty!
Giving y’all snippets from the rich descriptions
of this black beauty!
This great and just character of Oroonoko
gave me an extreme curiosity to see him, especially when I knew he spoke French
and English, and that I could talk with him. But though I had heard so much of
him, I was as greatly surprised when I saw him as if I had heard nothing of
him; so beyond all report I found him. He came into the room, and addressed
himself to me and some other women with the best grace in the world. He was
pretty tall, but of a shape the most exact that can be fancied: the most famous
statuary could not form the figure of a man more admirably turned from head to
foot. His face was not of that brown rusty black which most of that nation are,
but of perfect ebony, or polished jet.
His eyes were the most awful that could
be seen, and very piercing; the white of 'em being like snow, as were his
teeth. His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat. His mouth
the finest shaped that could be seen; far from those great turned lips which
are so natural to the rest of the negroes. The whole proportion and air of his
face was so nobly and exactly formed that, bating his color, there could be
nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable, and handsome. There was no one
grace wanting that bears the standard of true beauty. His hair came down to his
shoulders, by the aids of art, which was by pulling it out with a quill, and
keeping it combed; of which he took particular care.
Nor did the perfections of his mind come
short of those of his person; for his discourse was admirable upon almost any
subject: and whoever had heard him speak would have been convinced of their
errors, that all fine wit is confined to the white men, especially to those of Christendom;
and would have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of reigning well,
and of governing as wisely, had as great a soul, as politic maxims, and was as
sensible of power, as any prince civilized in the most refined schools of
humanity and learning, or the most illustrious courts.
This prince, such as I have described
him, whose soul and body were so admirably adorned, was (while yet he was in
the court of his grandfather, as I said) as capable of love as 'twas possible
for a brave and gallant man to be; and in saying that, I have named the highest
degree of love: for sure great souls are most capable of that passion.
Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles offers a different perspective to beauty,
albeit from another planet altogether!
When humans plan a mission to outer
space, they intend to begin with the red planet, Mars! A female Martian by name
Ylla (or Mrs K) has dreams of explorers from earth, named Nathaniel York and
his co-astronaut, Bert. She also has romantic inclinations towards him, much to
the chagrin and envy of her husband! She also tells her passive husband of her
dreams, in which she gives out her perspectives on beauty, and how the earthy
Nathaniel had a great sway over her!
Over to Ray Bradbury for y’all! [As
usual, just snippets, and no spoilers though!]
Mr. and Mrs. K were not old. They had the
fair, brownish skin of the true Martian, the yellow coin eyes, the soft musical
voices. Once they had liked painting pictures with chemical fire, swimming in
the canals in the seasons when the wine trees filled them with green liquors,
and talking into the dawn together by the blue phosphorous portraits in the
speaking room.
Her husband appeared in a triangular
door. "Did you call?" he asked irritably.
"No!" she cried.
"I thought I heard you cry
out."
"Did I? I was almost asleep and had
a dream!"
"In the daytime? You don't often do
that."
She sat as if struck in the face by the
dream. "How strange, how very strange," she murmured. "The
dream."
"Oh?" He evidently wished to
return to his book.
"I dreamed about a man."
"A man?"
"A tall man, six feet one inch
tall."
"How absurd; a giant, a misshapen
giant."
"Somehow"- she tried the words -
"he looked all right. In spite of being tall. And he had - oh, I know
you'll think it silly - he had blue eyes!"
"Blue eyes! Gods!" cried Mr. K.
"What'll you dream next? I suppose he had black hair?"
"How did you guess?" She was
excited.
"I picked the most unlikely
color," he replied coldly.
"Well, black it was!" she
cried. "And he had a very white skin; oh, he was most unusual! He was
dressed in a strange uniform and he came down out of the sky and spoke
pleasantly to me." She smiled.
"Out of the sky; what
nonsense!"
"He came in a metal thing that
glittered in the sun," she remembered. She closed her eyes to shape it
again. "I dreamed there was the sky and something sparkled like a coin
thrown into the air, and suddenly it grew large and fell down softly to land, a
long silver craft, round and alien. And a door opened in the side of the silver
object and this tall man stepped out."
"If you worked harder you wouldn't
have these silly dreams."
"I rather enjoyed it," she
replied, lying back. "I never suspected myself of such an imagination.
Black hair, blue eyes, and white skin! What a strange man, and yet - quite handsome."
"Wishful thinking."
"You're unkind. I didn't think him
up on purpose; he just came in my mind while I drowsed. It wasn't like a dream.
It was so unexpected and different. He looked at me and he said, 'I've come
from the third planet in my ship. My name is Nathaniel York -'"
"A stupid name; it's no name at
all," objected the husband.
"Of course it's stupid, because it's
a dream," she explained softly. "And he said, 'This is the first trip
across space. There are only two of us in our ship, myself and my friend
Bert.'"
"Another stupid name."
Mr. K touched a pillar. Founts of warm
water leaped up, steaming; the chill vanished from the room. Mr. K's face was
impassive.
"And then," she said,
"this man, who said his strange name was Nathaniel York, told me I was
beautiful and - and kissed me."
to be contd...
Images: Amazondotcom
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