Who Is The Protagonist In The Novel Island Beneath The Sea
Island Beneath the Sea: A Feminist Study
Introduction
The novel, Island Beneath the Sea, is a historical tale that takes place in the Caribbean and New Orleans, at the turn of the 18th century. The story, which is written from several characters perspectives, is primarily centered on the life of a slave named Tété. Tété, the principle protagonist in the novel, is a mulatta who spends most of the novel enslaved by her main antagonist, a Frenchman named Toulouse Valmorain. Written from both a historical and a feminist standpoint, Allende paints a picture of the privilege of French and male colonists, and the burdens of Black people and women. The author weaves several feminist themes together in her story. Throughout the novel, not one female character is truly free. Specifically, the protagonist has to contend, most obviously, with the institution of slavery. Aside from the indignities of being bought, being sold, being controlled, and being forced to labor, Tété had to deal with the reality of also being a sexual slave. Within the societies that the Valmorains live, slavery and the subjugation of women are societal mores: …show more content…
they are written into moral code. As chattel, Tété tries to keep as low a profile as possible, numb herself to pain, and indulge herself in work to psychologically survive. Physically, many Blacks who surround Tété are subjected to horrible conditions, beatings, sickness, and death. After Tété and her daughter, Rosette, are eventually granted their freedom, they can only scratch out a meager of existence. Despite Rosette’s education; Rosette is groomed to be a man’s legal concubine. Reflecting the reality of the time, all women’s fate were inescapably tethered to the men in their lives; however, the lives’ of women of color dangle from the day-to-day whim of the dominant culture.
Background
Tété’s mother was an African woman that made the transatlantic voyage on a slave ship, and her father was one of many white slave ship sailors. After being sold to Toulouse Valmorain as a child, Tété was forced to become a domestic (house) slave on a large sugar plantation in Saint-Domingue. Subsequently, Tété is made to suffer the indignities of being human property without the slightest bit of sympathy from her owners. After having to give up her own son, Tété is forced to care for the master and mistress’s son. When the house’s mistress became demented, Tété is forced to be Toulouse Valmorain concubine resulting in the birth of Tété’s second child, a daughter. Living as such, Tété clings to hope that one day she will gain her freedom. After enduring the horrors of giving birth to children she may not be able to keep, Tété and her owner’s family flees from Saint-Domingue with the flames of a slave revolt burning at their heels. After the Volmorains immigrate to New Orleans, Toulouse Valmorain remarries and Tété eventually gains her freedom. Nevertheless, when Tété is liberated, she still is struggles to keep herself and daughter safe from the horrors of 19th century New Orleans.
The Subjugation of Women One can witness the subjugation of women, in Allende’s novel, through the female characters’ roles and relationships. The only way that Violette Boisier was able to maintain a raised position in society was by prostituting herself to the ruling class. Tété, who lacked any sort of freedom, was cruelly abused and raped, which was acceptable behavior towards slaves. Valmorain’s first wife, Eugenia García del Solar, was her brother’s unwanted property; she lacked beauty and so, therefore, was not worth very much. The only reason why Valmorain married Eugenia was because he believed that, despite her lackluster beauty, she can fulfill her wifely duty of producing children. When Eugenia could not produce a viable child, she was worthless to him. Hortense Guizot, Valmorain second wife, lacked any value before she was married; she was too old and therefore could not attract a husband. The only way Hortense was able to fulfill her ambitions was to marry a wealthy man whom she could easily manipulate. Lastly, Rosette, Tété daughter, was forced to consider being a man’s placée (concubine) rather than waste her life away in abject poverty; no man would ever want to marry an educated mulatta. Of all the women in the novel, Tété greatly suffered from the result of intersectionality of her sex, race, ethnicity, and status.
Exploitation, Intimacy, and Power The relationship between Tété and Valmorain was tumultuous and peppered with inconsistency. To Valmorain, Tété was not human, yet he placed the lives of his wife, son, and house squarely in her hands. On an occasion, when Valmorain was arguing with a reoccurring character, Dr. Parmentier, if Black people were really human, Valmorain asked Tété’s opinion. Cognizant of the brutalization she would receive for saying the wrong answer, she replied, “A being who is not human has no opinions, maître” (Allende, 2010, p. 87). Valmorain can see that Tété is extremely articulate as she is the manager of his own home; however, when commanding Tété to his bed, “Valmorain never wondered what she felt in those encounters, just as it would never have occurred to him to ask what his horse felt when he rode it” (Allende, 2010, p. 105). Subsequently, one can see how far societal mores allowed colonists to oppress, what they considered, draft animals.
Institutions and Mores of the Colonial French The institution of slavery was the hub, from which the French Colonials based their lives. The primary producer of wealth was sugar cane and what allowed it to be produced was an “imported work force.” Anyone who opposed slavery was shunned or abused by the rest of French society. The narrator described Valmorain’s first contact with his father’s “imported laborers” by stating, “[H]is father’s slaves lasted on average of eighteen months before they dropped dead of fatigue or escaped” (Allende, 2010, p. 8). Black women, who were especially at risk as they were treated as breeder stock. Not only were they expected to toil like the men in the fields or labor in the master’s house, they also produced new slaves for the master when they became pregnant. If the female slave overcame the threat of dying in labor, she was expected to pull double duty after a hard day’s work. Andersen and Witham described this phenomena by stating, “Black women in slavery provided domestic labor not only in the White households but also in the own” (Andersen & Witham, 2011, p. 182). Even if a Black woman, such as with Tété, were able to eventually obtain their freedom, there was little employment for a person who was competing for jobs with an unpaid labor force.
Psychological Well-Being It was important for women in Tété’s position to be as invisible as possible: the less one is seen, the less likely they will be singled out.
Regardless of how hard Tété tried, she could not escape scrutiny. Consequently, she suffered many traumas at the hands of her master. Tété never forgot the traumas she was forced to suffer. In one passage, Allende wrote of Tété, “She had not forgotten the first time she was raped by her master when she was a girl, the hatred, the pain, the shame, nor the later abuses she’d borne for years” (Allende, 2010, p. 363). According to Andersen and Witham (2011), “Specific data show the connection of rape to the women’s status in society; women of the lowest status are the most vulnerable to rape” (p. 277). As Tété was Black, a slave, and a woman, there was no one lower in status in her
society.
Health Status of Women Within the story’s pages, health was a constant concern. Allende described the slave population as, “[N]othing but bones” (2010, p.76). She went on to describe mothers who recently birthed as “During the first two months, they were given time to nurse, but after that they had to leave their infants in a shed under the care of an old woman. . .” (Allende, 2010, p. 76). Towards the end of the book, Tété’s pregnant daughter, Rosette, was unjustly given a sentence of two years in prison for wearing a gold religious medal and defending herself against a white woman. Allende (2010) wrote, “When she heard the sentence, a hurricane was unleased in Tété. Rosette would not survive two years in a filthy cell, even less her baby” (p. 452). Although her mother and friends were able to get Rosette out of prison before her child was born, because Rosette’s weakened condition, she died giving birth and so did her child. Shedding light on present day women’s issues, Andersen and Witham (2011) explained, “Health care in women’s prisons is also limited, particularly in meeting needs specific to women’s medical and reproductive care. . . . One in four is pregnant or has recently given birth” (p. 291). As one may surmise, many contemporary women’s issues are historical in nature.
Labor
Tété is a slave: She is not compensated for the labor of her house manager position and her duties varied broadly. Tété was originally bought as a lady’s maid for Eugenia; however, she also worked as a nurse maid for the master’s child, she was a sugar cane cutter when she fell out of the family’s favor, and she also worked in the plantation’s infirmary, too. While in the infirmary, she helped the new overseer’s wife, who was assisting with a slave’s delivery, Tété had the insight of “[having] the girl get on her knees with her head on the floor and rear in the air to relieve pressure on the pelvis as she massaged her belly, pressing with both hands to turn the baby from outside” (Allende, 2010, p. 295). According to Andersen and Witham (2011), Tété would have been considered part of a family-based economy in that, “The family-based form of economic production was one where the household was the basic unit of the economy, since economic production was largely based on households, including small farms, large plantations, and haciendas [emphasis added]” (p. 113). In conclusion, Tété labored in employment that was not of her choosing, primarily based on her ascribed status within French colonial society.
Recommendations
If the character Tété had the use of a modern day social worker, that social worker would probably conduct a strengths analysis first in order to provide helpful suggestions. Within the novel, Tété embodied strength, bravery, resourcefulness, and exercised monumental prudence. The problem with trying to rearrange the relations in her life is that her physical liberty is totally impeded. Noticing this fact, the generalist may try to give Tété dignity by advocating on her behalf and connecting her with available services. Ignoring the attitudes and mores of the day, a generalist social worker may speak with the slave master, the courts, or other people of interest who have a profound influence on Tété. A social worker may also act as a broker by connecting Tété in contact with the charities of the day. As any charity would be closely connected with a church, the generalist social worker would connect Tété with Père Antoine (the parish priest from the novel) or Quakers that were eventually key contributors to the Underground Railroad. Eventually, the ultimate goal of the generalist social worker to put Tété on the road to emancipation.
Summary
Island Beneath the Sea brought to light the many struggles of women and slaves in the late 1700s. The author summed up the predicament of women in the 18th century best, when her character, Valmorain stated, “Women are never free…They need a man to look after them” (p. 204). The roles of women were limited to being a man’s plaything, a housekeeper, or a baby-maker; however, if one was a Black woman, they would not be considered human. This aforementioned fact is problematic for the Black community (to include Black women), as the labor of multitudes of Black people created all of the wealth within the French colonies. Subsequently, slaves’ physical and psychological wellbeing suffered greatly. It was by this downpour of oppression, that the labor of slaves created all the wealth within the French colonies. The two options for the slave population were to toil until the end of one’s short life or to risk the gauntlet of becoming a fugitive. Unfortunately, there were very few people who championed the cause of the slave population during this time period.
Introduction
The novel, Island Beneath the Sea, is a historical tale that takes place in the Caribbean and New Orleans, at the turn of the 18th century. The story, which is written from several characters perspectives, is primarily centered on the life of a slave named Tété. Tété, the principle protagonist in the novel, is a mulatta who spends most of the novel enslaved by her main antagonist, a Frenchman named Toulouse Valmorain. Written from both a historical and a feminist standpoint, Allende paints a picture of the privilege of French and male colonists, and the burdens of Black people and women. The author weaves several feminist themes together in her story. Throughout the novel, not one female character is truly free. Specifically, the protagonist has to contend, most obviously, with the institution of slavery. Aside from the indignities of being bought, being sold, being controlled, and being forced to labor, Tété had to deal with the reality of also being a sexual slave. Within the societies that the Valmorains live, slavery and the subjugation of women are societal mores: …show more content…
they are written into moral code. As chattel, Tété tries to keep as low a profile as possible, numb herself to pain, and indulge herself in work to psychologically survive. Physically, many Blacks who surround Tété are subjected to horrible conditions, beatings, sickness, and death. After Tété and her daughter, Rosette, are eventually granted their freedom, they can only scratch out a meager of existence. Despite Rosette’s education; Rosette is groomed to be a man’s legal concubine. Reflecting the reality of the time, all women’s fate were inescapably tethered to the men in their lives; however, the lives’ of women of color dangle from the day-to-day whim of the dominant culture.
Background
Tété’s mother was an African woman that made the transatlantic voyage on a slave ship, and her father was one of many white slave ship sailors. After being sold to Toulouse Valmorain as a child, Tété was forced to become a domestic (house) slave on a large sugar plantation in Saint-Domingue. Subsequently, Tété is made to suffer the indignities of being human property without the slightest bit of sympathy from her owners. After having to give up her own son, Tété is forced to care for the master and mistress’s son. When the house’s mistress became demented, Tété is forced to be Toulouse Valmorain concubine resulting in the birth of Tété’s second child, a daughter. Living as such, Tété clings to hope that one day she will gain her freedom. After enduring the horrors of giving birth to children she may not be able to keep, Tété and her owner’s family flees from Saint-Domingue with the flames of a slave revolt burning at their heels. After the Volmorains immigrate to New Orleans, Toulouse Valmorain remarries and Tété eventually gains her freedom. Nevertheless, when Tété is liberated, she still is struggles to keep herself and daughter safe from the horrors of 19th century New Orleans.
The Subjugation of Women One can witness the subjugation of women, in Allende’s novel, through the female characters’ roles and relationships. The only way that Violette Boisier was able to maintain a raised position in society was by prostituting herself to the ruling class. Tété, who lacked any sort of freedom, was cruelly abused and raped, which was acceptable behavior towards slaves. Valmorain’s first wife, Eugenia García del Solar, was her brother’s unwanted property; she lacked beauty and so, therefore, was not worth very much. The only reason why Valmorain married Eugenia was because he believed that, despite her lackluster beauty, she can fulfill her wifely duty of producing children. When Eugenia could not produce a viable child, she was worthless to him. Hortense Guizot, Valmorain second wife, lacked any value before she was married; she was too old and therefore could not attract a husband. The only way Hortense was able to fulfill her ambitions was to marry a wealthy man whom she could easily manipulate. Lastly, Rosette, Tété daughter, was forced to consider being a man’s placée (concubine) rather than waste her life away in abject poverty; no man would ever want to marry an educated mulatta. Of all the women in the novel, Tété greatly suffered from the result of intersectionality of her sex, race, ethnicity, and status.
Exploitation, Intimacy, and Power The relationship between Tété and Valmorain was tumultuous and peppered with inconsistency. To Valmorain, Tété was not human, yet he placed the lives of his wife, son, and house squarely in her hands. On an occasion, when Valmorain was arguing with a reoccurring character, Dr. Parmentier, if Black people were really human, Valmorain asked Tété’s opinion. Cognizant of the brutalization she would receive for saying the wrong answer, she replied, “A being who is not human has no opinions, maître” (Allende, 2010, p. 87). Valmorain can see that Tété is extremely articulate as she is the manager of his own home; however, when commanding Tété to his bed, “Valmorain never wondered what she felt in those encounters, just as it would never have occurred to him to ask what his horse felt when he rode it” (Allende, 2010, p. 105). Subsequently, one can see how far societal mores allowed colonists to oppress, what they considered, draft animals.
Institutions and Mores of the Colonial French The institution of slavery was the hub, from which the French Colonials based their lives. The primary producer of wealth was sugar cane and what allowed it to be produced was an “imported work force.” Anyone who opposed slavery was shunned or abused by the rest of French society. The narrator described Valmorain’s first contact with his father’s “imported laborers” by stating, “[H]is father’s slaves lasted on average of eighteen months before they dropped dead of fatigue or escaped” (Allende, 2010, p. 8). Black women, who were especially at risk as they were treated as breeder stock. Not only were they expected to toil like the men in the fields or labor in the master’s house, they also produced new slaves for the master when they became pregnant. If the female slave overcame the threat of dying in labor, she was expected to pull double duty after a hard day’s work. Andersen and Witham described this phenomena by stating, “Black women in slavery provided domestic labor not only in the White households but also in the own” (Andersen & Witham, 2011, p. 182). Even if a Black woman, such as with Tété, were able to eventually obtain their freedom, there was little employment for a person who was competing for jobs with an unpaid labor force.
Psychological Well-Being It was important for women in Tété’s position to be as invisible as possible: the less one is seen, the less likely they will be singled out.
Regardless of how hard Tété tried, she could not escape scrutiny. Consequently, she suffered many traumas at the hands of her master. Tété never forgot the traumas she was forced to suffer. In one passage, Allende wrote of Tété, “She had not forgotten the first time she was raped by her master when she was a girl, the hatred, the pain, the shame, nor the later abuses she’d borne for years” (Allende, 2010, p. 363). According to Andersen and Witham (2011), “Specific data show the connection of rape to the women’s status in society; women of the lowest status are the most vulnerable to rape” (p. 277). As Tété was Black, a slave, and a woman, there was no one lower in status in her
society.
Health Status of Women Within the story’s pages, health was a constant concern. Allende described the slave population as, “[N]othing but bones” (2010, p.76). She went on to describe mothers who recently birthed as “During the first two months, they were given time to nurse, but after that they had to leave their infants in a shed under the care of an old woman. . .” (Allende, 2010, p. 76). Towards the end of the book, Tété’s pregnant daughter, Rosette, was unjustly given a sentence of two years in prison for wearing a gold religious medal and defending herself against a white woman. Allende (2010) wrote, “When she heard the sentence, a hurricane was unleased in Tété. Rosette would not survive two years in a filthy cell, even less her baby” (p. 452). Although her mother and friends were able to get Rosette out of prison before her child was born, because Rosette’s weakened condition, she died giving birth and so did her child. Shedding light on present day women’s issues, Andersen and Witham (2011) explained, “Health care in women’s prisons is also limited, particularly in meeting needs specific to women’s medical and reproductive care. . . . One in four is pregnant or has recently given birth” (p. 291). As one may surmise, many contemporary women’s issues are historical in nature.
Labor
Tété is a slave: She is not compensated for the labor of her house manager position and her duties varied broadly. Tété was originally bought as a lady’s maid for Eugenia; however, she also worked as a nurse maid for the master’s child, she was a sugar cane cutter when she fell out of the family’s favor, and she also worked in the plantation’s infirmary, too. While in the infirmary, she helped the new overseer’s wife, who was assisting with a slave’s delivery, Tété had the insight of “[having] the girl get on her knees with her head on the floor and rear in the air to relieve pressure on the pelvis as she massaged her belly, pressing with both hands to turn the baby from outside” (Allende, 2010, p. 295). According to Andersen and Witham (2011), Tété would have been considered part of a family-based economy in that, “The family-based form of economic production was one where the household was the basic unit of the economy, since economic production was largely based on households, including small farms, large plantations, and haciendas [emphasis added]” (p. 113). In conclusion, Tété labored in employment that was not of her choosing, primarily based on her ascribed status within French colonial society.
Recommendations
If the character Tété had the use of a modern day social worker, that social worker would probably conduct a strengths analysis first in order to provide helpful suggestions. Within the novel, Tété embodied strength, bravery, resourcefulness, and exercised monumental prudence. The problem with trying to rearrange the relations in her life is that her physical liberty is totally impeded. Noticing this fact, the generalist may try to give Tété dignity by advocating on her behalf and connecting her with available services. Ignoring the attitudes and mores of the day, a generalist social worker may speak with the slave master, the courts, or other people of interest who have a profound influence on Tété. A social worker may also act as a broker by connecting Tété in contact with the charities of the day. As any charity would be closely connected with a church, the generalist social worker would connect Tété with Père Antoine (the parish priest from the novel) or Quakers that were eventually key contributors to the Underground Railroad. Eventually, the ultimate goal of the generalist social worker to put Tété on the road to emancipation.
Summary
Island Beneath the Sea brought to light the many struggles of women and slaves in the late 1700s. The author summed up the predicament of women in the 18th century best, when her character, Valmorain stated, “Women are never free…They need a man to look after them” (p. 204). The roles of women were limited to being a man’s plaything, a housekeeper, or a baby-maker; however, if one was a Black woman, they would not be considered human. This aforementioned fact is problematic for the Black community (to include Black women), as the labor of multitudes of Black people created all of the wealth within the French colonies. Subsequently, slaves’ physical and psychological wellbeing suffered greatly. It was by this downpour of oppression, that the labor of slaves created all the wealth within the French colonies. The two options for the slave population were to toil until the end of one’s short life or to risk the gauntlet of becoming a fugitive. Unfortunately, there were very few people who championed the cause of the slave population during this time period.