“Knives at Noon” can be found in The Complete Poetry of Aimé Césaire: Bilingual Edition. Aimé Césaire was a Martinican poet, playwright, and politician. He is best known for his role in the development of the concept of négritude, which celebrates African cultural identity and heritage. Cesaire was a key figure in the Caribbean and African struggle against colonialism and advocated for the recognition and celebration of Black culture and heritage. His work, both as a writer and a politician, had a significant impact on postcolonial literature and movements for decolonization.
The theme of resentment versus forbearance can be seen throughout AImé Césaire’s poem, “Knives at Noon.” The poem illustrates a revolt by Blacks in the Caribbean against perhaps what they see as their white oppressors.
It opens with the image of the Blacks throwing giant tress at the “sweltering whiteness of the sky.” The whiteness of the sky itself is a metaphor for Whites, and Césaire confirms this when he goes on to say, “…whiteness is the very force contested by the blackness which they carry in their hearts and which endlessly conspires in the little all too regular hexagons of their pores” (paragraph 1). Here, he is suggesting here that Whites are inherently hateful towards Blacks. This is where the resentment stems.
He also mentions the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Cluny, a Roman Catholic Institute known for its missionary work and for educating the poor, in his opening paragraph. He paints an image of nuns lathering their coifs with tropical soap, which suggests the institute’s attitude of having to cleanse others. When Césaire says, “emptying the sky of the smug cotton-wool which muffles [his] words…” it sounds as though he is denouncing the haughty mindset of white saviourism and being looked down upon.
In paragraph three, he says that he spits bitterly at those who “starve” and “insult” the Blacks, and refers to the Lord as “callous”, perhaps for not intervening. Yet, he goes on to describe his own whistling as “gentle” He also proclaims that he will keep his word to “stand upright in [his] wounds. This portrays that he will not become violent in anger like the opening paragraph suggests. He concludes by calling for a day with “rancorless” hands (hands free of bitterness/resentment). And in the end of the poem, the Blacks go off singing. It is my opinion that Césaire was trying to illustrate how Blacks in the Caribbean have often been quiet and forgiving when it comes to the transgressions of their colonizers. It is possible though for their anger to reach a breaking point. The word “noon” is commonly defined as “mid-day.” The other definition of “noon”, however, is “the highest point.” Césaire may have been referring to a breaking point when he titled this poem, “Knives and Noon.”, wishing to show how the Blacks in this poem felt great anger/resentment towards their oppressors to the point of wanting to physically revolt. However, they chose to take what is called the high road by remaining “gentle.” They continued going on about their lives while envisioning better days, a day for [their] faces free of shame” (paragraph 3).
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid is a short story about how Kincaid, a native of the Caribbean island of Antigua, feels about the island itself. It was written in 1998. She was born as Elaine Potter Richardson in 1949. She currently resides in the state of Vermont, United States. Her work is mostly biographical and includes such titles as At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, and The Autobiography of My Mother. Kincaid is known for being blunt in the way that she presents topics (BritishCouncil.Org).
In A Small Place, she makes it very clear that she is anti-tourist in regard to her home country. She even goes as far as saying, “An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze…” (Kincaid, p. 17). It can be argued that here she is using hyperbole as a tool to emphasize her sentiments towards a tourist’s need for escapism, corruption within her country, and how she feels about colonialization. On a side note, I found the subject of colonialization to be most compelling because she hints that it is the root for various issues throughout the story. Although Kincaid does not say it outright, colonialization had such a large impact on the island of Antigua that it has given it a false sense of identity. In my opinion, this is perpetuated by how outsiders seem to only view it as a tourist attraction, how Antigua seems to prioritize investing into tourism as opposed to its locals, and how non-black foreigners sometimes hold so much power that they can exclude the predominately black locals.
The concept of feeling alone in a crowd can be applied to almost anyone but it is something that those who live in major cities can especially relate to. It is said that when you get accustomed to the daily grind of working to survive you can eventually feel as though you have lost your sense of self or you may feel disconnected from others. Thus, Kincaid beautifully describes the desire for many North Americans and Europeans to escape their mundane lives by vacationing on an island such as the warm and sunny Antigua. She starts off by saying …
But one day, when you are sitting somewhere, alone in the crowd, and that awful feeling of displacedness comes over you and though the words ‘I must get away’ do not actually pass across your lips, you make a leap from being that nice blob just sitting like a boob in your amniotic sac of the modern experience to being a person visiting heaps of death and ruin and feeling alive and inspired at the sight of it…
(Kincaid, p. 16)
Kincaid thinks that tourists view Antigua as just an exciting getaway. The traces of the island’s past that she refers to as “heaps of death and ruin” seem to trigger her, but would also be deemed as exciting – or at least new – for said tourist. Antigua is a popular tourist destination with many cruises, hotels, and resorts. It fits the ideal image of a Caribbean vacation destination, which seems to include that of sun, white sand beaches, and clear blue sea water. This invokes images of luxury and relaxation. In fact, in an effort to maximize the feeling of poshness and exclusivity for their tourists, some hotels and resorts have tried to prevent local residents from accessing what are deemed as public beaches. A few of years ago, in Antigua, a stop order was issued to a landowner how tried to fence off a pathway to the beach. This occurred near an area called Buccaneer Cove. Legislation is in place to prevent other landowners from doing the same, as beachgoers are entitled to ease of use. Antigua’s Mill Reef Club is a popular clubhouse that was founded back in 1947. It is referred to several times in A Small Place for being anti-local/anti-black, and has been accused of doing the same, restricting beach access in the recent past (AntiguaObserver.com).
In the story, Kincaid describes how she is extremely bothered by what happened to the island’s library. In 1974, an earthquake devastated the Lesser Antilles and Antigua’s public library was badly damaged. She came to ask herself, “Why is the old building that was damaged in the famous earthquake years ago, the building that has the legend on it THIS BUILDING WAS DAMAGED IN THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1974. REPAIRS ARE PENDING, not repaired and the library put back in the place where it used to be?“ (Kincaid, p. 42). She is upset because, being an avid reader, the original library had been one of her favourite places to spend time. Because the government chose not to restore it to its original state, it sat in a state of disrepair for years, waiting for someone with money or influence to fix it. It is commonly understood that being well-read can increase one’s fluid intelligence. The government’s indifference towards the damaged library is a prime example of how Antigua chooses to invest in things such as tourist attractions as opposed to the betterment of its locals. Kincaid later reveals that the land that the library stood on was actually rumoured to be reserved for construction of boutiques and shops. The government’s main interest here is in making its tourists the priority.
The influence of white supremacy continues to prevail in Antigua and is illustrated by the way that non-black foreigners behave. Kincaid speaks about how they come to Antigua to open businesses. A white lady connected to the Mill Reef Club even told her brazenly, “The government is for sale, anybody from anywhere can come to Antigua and for a sum of money can get what he wants” (Kincaid, p. 47). Apparently, this is something that Kincaid had already heard many times. The Mill Reef Club was founded by North Americans who set up shop in Antigua. Many years went by before they allowed a black person to patronize their establishment or become a member. However, like similar establishments, they had no qualms employing blacks in servant-like positions. Barclay’s Bank is another example. At Barclay’s Bank, they refused to hire black tellers for many years. (Kincaid, p. 27). Rightly so, Kincaid was appalled that foreigners would decide to take residence in a country yet feel so above their hosts, the locals, to the point that they would not even associate with them. The main difference between them? The colour of their skin.
Syrians and Lebanese, who are not white, and are universally considered as Arab, seem to hold the same attitude of not wanting to assimilate or associate with the black locals. They are said to own large amounts of property in Antigua as well, which they use to build condo-style buildings on. They sell these to tourists from North America and Europe (p. 62). The foreigners who buy land in Antigua only seem to be interested in their commercial endeavours, and respecting the locals seems furthest from their mind.
Not only is she anti-colonial, but Kincaid is anti-capitalist. She explains…
Do you know why people like me are shy of being capitalists? Well, it’s because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were the commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this is so strong, the experience so recent, that we can’t quite bring ourselves to embrace this idea that you think so much of.
(Kincaid, p. 36)
In the above quote, she is referring to the slave trade. Because the British once sold her people for economic gain, this has turned her off to the concept of capitalism. However, when she says “we” here, she is referring to present-day black Antiguans, and by “you”, she is referring to non-blacks, people who may not even be of British descent and whose ancestors may or may not have owned slaves. With blanketing statements like this, she is often labelled as an angry writer who infuses her own issues and personal biases into her writing (Marquis, 2007).
In the late 1960’s, a professor by the name of Gordon Lewis penned The Growth of the Modern West Indies. It explores the impact of British colonialism on islands such as Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua. In an excerpt, he states, “Abolition of chattel-slavery precipitated a real property revolution, with the master-slave relationship being replaced however, slowly, with an employer-tenant relationship (NewWorldJournal.org). Lewis is saying that slavery never really went away. Instead, it was transmuted. The North Americans, Syrians, Lebanese, etc. who own large amounts of property or major businesses in Antigua are in positions of power, while the locals remain working-class at best, often taking up menial jobs at these businesses. This seems to fit Lewis’s belief that, post slavery, “The economic struggle between former master and slave continued, but in new forms, so that the labourer came to depend more and more upon his new power to influence wage rates and the estate proprietor upon his power over rent, accompanied by the power of eviction”(NewWorldJournal.org).
To conclude, because it is mostly the foreigners who hold the economic power and the tourists that the government caters to, Antiguans seems to believe that non-blacks have the right to hold positions of dominance and that the island is best suited catering to them. Foreigners therefore see Antigua as just a cash grab or vacation destination. The government emphasizes this by investing in the hospitality industry rather than investing in institutions like the library. To add to this, in slaves times, slaves were not taught to read and were actually discouraged from doing so. This is partly because their only perceived value was to work and contribute to their master’s economic prosperity.
A few of the major elements of one’s culture include language, norms, and artifacts. Although Antiguan Creole English is spoken in Antigua, English itself is still the tongue of their British enslavers. When it comes to norms, the locals seem to accept the idea that non-blacks – even as foreigners – deserve to hold the most positions of power in their country, perhaps because they are still deemed as superior due to their race. Reminders of colonialization such as the Prime Minister’s office, Government House, and its parliament buildings continue to litter the streets of Antigua. (Kincaid, p. 10). And so, it seems as though the island still clings to British concepts and somewhat of a slave-like mentality. This makes it difficult to determine what Antigua’s culture would even look like if it were its natives who had more of a voice. Although I do not agree with Kincaid’s stance that all tourists are terrible people, I do feel that if one decides to contribute to the Antiguan tourism industry, one is inherently contributing to the exploitation of its locals.
Kincaid, Jamaica. A Small Place. 1st ed., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
“Stop Order Issued on Fence barring Beach Access.” Antigua Observer Newspaper, 8 Sept. 2018, antiguaobserver.com/stop-order-issued-on-fence-barring-beach-access.
Marquis, Claudia. “‘Not At Home in Her Own Skin’: Jamaica Kincaid, History and Selfhoo…” Open Edition Journals, 1 May 2007, journals.openedition.org/caliban/1883.
“The Social Legacy of British Colonialism in the Caribbean – New World Journal.” New World Journal, newworldjournal.org/independence/the-social-legacy-of-british-colonialism-in-the-caribbean. Accessed 07 Dec. 2020.
