Intertextualities and Contradictions in Cambridge

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“Intertextualities and Contradictions in Cambridge”
In Cambridge by Caryl Phillips, the history of the slave trade is exposed through different points of view or narratives, one by an Englishwoman and another by a slave called Cambridge. Phillips wants the reader to understand how European merchants treated the slaves and make a connection to what they went through. Evelyn O’Callaghan is one of the editors of the Journal of West Indian Literature. She had many interests like contemporary West Indian ‘diaspora’ literature, narratives of indentured servitude, the creole language in Caribbean literature and culture, etc. In 1993, O’Callaghan writes an essay called “Historical Fiction and Fictional History: Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge” so readers can understand and speculate more thoroughly about the novel, providing evidence that Phillips used other texts as reference. O’Callaghan starts her essay by exposing the idea of fiction saying: “If there is nothing to reveal but fiction, then fiction, some writers believe, can 't tell us about anything but itself” (34). In this quote, the author makes it clear that Cambridge is composed of self-conscious fiction because of the fact that it is composed of intertextualities. Intertextuality is the shaping of texts ' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. This means that Phillips used texts from other authors in his novel to make the story more factual. The narratives by Emily (the Englishwoman) and Cambridge (the slave) point out their fictionality because of their conventions of rhetoric and structure. O’Callaghan gives emphasis to this point of fiction in the novel of Cambridge so readers can understand how the novel is not completely true because Phillips does a historical reconstruction of the European record of the West Indies.
Cambridge is divided into three parts. Part one is composed of two-thirds of the novel, which is told by Emily. Part two is told by Cambridge and part three takes the form of a historical document, which explains in detail what happens to the characters and “ties up the loose ends” (O’Callaghan 36). Throughout these three parts, the reader can see the vast amount of texts that Phillips uses. In the article “Historical Fiction and Fictional History”, O’Callaghan presents evidence comparing Cambridge and other texts, such as “The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano”. One example comparing these two texts is the descriptions of the conditions on the slave ship. “We were to be lodged below deck ... Once below our bodies received a salutation of supreme loathsomeness in the form of a fetor” (Cambridge, p.137) is very similar to a quote from Equiano’s Narrative: “I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life” (26). O’Callaghan uses these comparisons to expose how “Phillips has gone to great pains to establish the historical ‘authenticity’ of his fiction” (39). Readers might ask themselves why is Phillips’ novel named after Cambridge, which is not his real name, if Emily tells the majority of the narrative. According to O’Callaghan, Phillips uses Emily as a narrator to “explore the voids and gaps between cultures, races and sexes” (40). This means that Phillips wanted his readers to “perceive, through her narrative, some of the cracks in the edifice of colonialism: its contradictions and inconsistencies, the holes in its “logic” are inadvertently exposed” (41). In other words, he wants the reader to understand the history of the slave trade by letting those gaps in Emily’s narration fill what was going on in that difficult part of life in the West Indies, the cruelties and the contradictions, so the reader can make a connection with Emily and the situations of a West Indian Estate. Through “Historical Fiction and Fictional History”, O’Callaghan reveals the contradictions in Cambridge. In Emily’s narrative, she first salutes the tropical climate and plants saying it is God’s blessing but then talks about the heat and insects saying it was an “unkind country” (129). Another contradiction is the way she talks about Cambridge. At first, she admires him and says: “This coarse man had before him a black Hercules of a brute who far outweighed and outspanned him” (Phillips 41). Later, she discovers how the slave is lettered and can read the Bible and says he is no “ordinary negro” (199). Consequently, Emily finds out he is a treacherous villain and an insane murderer. Another example of a contradiction is how Cambridge describes Mr. Brown as a “bullying brute of an overseer” (161) and on the other side Emily describes him as such an Arnold. These examples are just some of the many contradictions the reader can see while reading Cambridge, the ones that give qualities of a fictional text to the novel, according to O’Callaghan. In “Historical Fiction and Fictional History: Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge” by Evelyn O’Callaghan, the reader can identify specific points that are very important for understanding Phillip’s Cambridge and explain how these specific parts of the article enhance his/her reading and understanding of this novel. The first point brought up by O’Callaghan was the fact that Phillips uses many intertextualities and therefore makes the novel a fictional one. Her article provides evidence of the constant references to other texts, such as “The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano”. These references or comparisons allow Phillips’ text to have a historical background of the slave trade in that time of slavery. It may also have some sort of credibility due to the fact that both texts talk about the same type of story and thus makes the reader have some kind of proof that it happened during the history of the West Indies. On the other side, the reader might be confused to what really happened because of all the contradictions exposed in Cambridge. As the story goes on with its plot, certain contradictions come up, especially in Emily’s narrative. This makes the story more fictional since it is not evident. It also expands the interpretations of the reader. Everyone has a different point of view and so readers have the benefit of deciding what to believe based on their own opinions of the historical facts exposed. Although one might never know for sure the true meaning of a text, O’Callaghan’s article helps readers attain a clearer idea of the historical background and reasons behind some of the decisions that Phillips made while writing Cambridge.

Works Cited
O’Callaghan, Evelyn. “Historical Fiction and Fictional History: Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 28.2 (1993): 34-43.

Phillips, Caryl. Cambridge. New York: Vintage International Books, 1991.

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[ 1 ]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality
[ 2 ]. http://www.scribd.com/doc/35957394/DECONSTRUCTING-CARYL-PHILLIP’S-CAMBRIDGE-WITH-EVELYN-O’CALLAGHAN

Cited: O’Callaghan, Evelyn. “Historical Fiction and Fictional History: Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 28.2 (1993): 34-43. Phillips, Caryl. Cambridge. New York: Vintage International Books, 1991. -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality [ 2 ]. http://www.scribd.com/doc/35957394/DECONSTRUCTING-CARYL-PHILLIP’S-CAMBRIDGE-WITH-EVELYN-O’CALLAGHAN