From Collage to Confessional: An Analysis of Drawing Down a Daughter

by Deborah Leitch

In her book, Drawing Down a Daughter, Claire Harris not only presents the reader with the details of a women’s musings during the final days before she gives birth, but she also provides a rich portrait of a person coming to terms with her past as she prepares for the future. Harris weaves a wide array of threads throughout the book, and utilizes a variety of literary styles, as the narrator composes her "birthgift" for her daughter. The work that takes shape covers a very narrow time frame - from Friday night through to Sunday morning - through the narrator’s thoughts and dreams reach back many decades. What begins as a collage ultimately becomes the women’s confessional, a speaking of the past in order for her to begin anew. Before delving into a detailed analysis of Harris’s work, it may prove informative and enlightening to provide information on some of the literary devices used, as well as a summary of the cultural and personal threads that Harris interweaves throughout Drawing Down a Daughter. The book makes use of several different literary styles to denote a variety of scenes and voices. The most prominent is the prose poem, which is found throughout the work, though most especially in the first half. Michael Benedikt, an American poet and contributing editor for poetry journals, defines the prose poem as "a form of poetry self-consciously written in prose, yet characterized by the conscious, intense use of virtually all the devices of verse poetry - except for strict meter, rhyme, and the line-breaks" (Stone). The very name ascribed to the prose poem illustrates its ability to defy strict characterization: it is neither completely prose nor completely poetry. Believing the prose poem has its origins in the unconscious or the dream state, Benedikt, himself a writer of prose poetry, suggests that "the Prose Poem encourages a tremendous flexibility of dictional, imagistic, and tonal approach" (Stone). As stated so eloquently by Charles Baudelaire, the 19th century French poet often credited with beginning the modern trend towards the writing of the prose poem:

Which one of us, in his moments of ambition, has not dreamed of a miracle of poetic prose, musical without rhythm and without rhyme, supple enough and rugged enough to adapt itself to the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of reverie, the jibes of conscience? (The Prose Poem)

Harris uses the form to great effect throughout Drawing Down a Daughter, whether it is to describe the baby’s movements, the narrator’s memories of Trinidad, or the view from her Calgary apartment. The medium of the prose poem adds a touch of freedom to her words, expanding the imagery even to the point of position words on the page to form a picture of sorts. In this way, Harris is able to illustrate the fluidity and creativity of the thought processes - in this case, of a woman writer about to give birth.

"I come from an oral culture," Harris says - and so she knows we're not in one here and now. The way she writes, "dancing with language" and using all of the space on the page, recognizes that poems now live in books, which are" meant to be held in the hand." (Vandervlist)

Harris also makes use of stream of consciousness writing to emulate the bombardment of thoughts and images during the dream sequences. Drawing on her experience with oral history and culture, the author also endeavors to capture the magic storytelling, not only in a purely narrative format, as with Burri’s tale, for example, but also in the dialect of the original storyteller herself, the narrator’s Great Aunt.

"[L]ife writing is used to incorporate ‘the recorded life’.as it is represented in the vernacular - personal narratives, oral narratives, and life testimonies or testimonials" (Kadar, 81). Drawing Down a Daughter utilizes several elements of life writing, again to denote differing voices and scenes. Life writing is usually associated with women giving voice to their own stories, and it encompasses several forms:

In Canada, immigrant women’s life writing is no less diverse, ranging from oral histories, "as tolds," and short autobiographical essays, to "ethnographic self-portraits".fictionalized memoirs, spiritual autobiographies, and extremely sophisticated, highly self-conscious autobiographical metafiction. (Karpinski, 111)

Drawing Down a Daughter creates the written equivalent of a collage, a literary compilation of who the narrator is, her past, her heritage, as well as her pre-birth thoughts and experiences. The collage utilizes visual and narrative variety in its presentation: the way the words are placed on the page; the differing typestyles that are used; the variety of literary styles (poem, prose poem, narrative) and voices (first person, third person, even the voice of her Great Aunt, the old storyteller). It is important to note that the women states outright that "I prefer the third/person." (Harris, 9). She will often lapse into third person or storytelling mode, especially when relating thoughts or events that are difficult for her to reveal or discuss. The narrator is ultimately writing an autobiographical account - what she herself refers to as "an autobiography. Of sorts" (Harris, 58). There is a sense of urgency in her writing, precipitated not only by the imminence of the birth, but by her need to tell her story and thus exorcise the voices from the past that haunt her still. The women could have chosen to keep a journal throughout her pregnancy, or written a memoir at a more leisurely pace during the preceding nine months, but instead she has chosen to begin writing her "birthgift" at this late stage. What has initiated this last minute flurry of literary and creative activity appears to be the restless, dream-filled Friday night, brought about, no doubt, by her husband’s trip to Trinidad. Her deep-rooted fears, concerns, and memories have finally demanded to be heard. Most of the main images and themes of her work are revealed during the dream-waking cycles of the Friday night, and are expanded upon throughout the following day’s writing. She is concerned about the possibility of moving back to Trinidad, as her thoughts and dreams are filled with reasons for not wanting to return. She worries about her loss of independence and the lack of career opportunities in Trinidad, although this is contrasted with references and actions that belie her independent nature. She frets over the state of the world, and wonders how she could even contemplate bringing a black child into a white-dominated country. Her knowledge of biblical references attests to her early religious exposure to the Catholic Church, but it becomes evident that she has lost her faith, and has instead searched out and surrounded herself with knowledge and artifacts of her African heritage. Death, too, infiltrates her thoughts, and one must ask why she is compelled to include such references in a "birthgift" for her daughter. It is evident that everything included in the collage - all the memories and stories - is leading toward a specific end, even if the writer is seemingly unaware of it until she has finally completed her story. There is a sense of foreshadowing in the writing, in the comments and in the apparent anomalies that appear throughout her work. Time itself becomes an image, often flowing in directions other than what we have come to believe as true. There is also an element of superstition - which often crosses the line into the supernatural - throughout her dreams, waking thoughts and memories, and the story she tells. Burri intrudes on her dreams, an odd presence if he were indeed just a character in her Great Aunt’s story, told long ago to a group of singing, dancing children. The mere inclusion of Burri’s tale in such a prominent way - it occurs in the center of the book, and is written in the very middle of the period covered by the collage, the Saturday afternoon - is no coincidence or simple example of her culture’s storytelling tradition. While Drawing Down a Daughter is divided into seventeen segments, each flowing into the next and often incorporating images or thoughts from the previous section, it is appropriate to separate the work into two sections - as per the only two headings in the book - for purposes of analysis. The first section, entitled "The Gathering," takes place from the fitful, dream-filled Friday night through to the Saturday afternoon and her penning of Burri’s tale. Once that story has been put on paper, the second section - headed simply "Sequel" - takes over, encompassing the remainder of the Saturday and concluding with her telling of Jocelyn’s story and the onset of labour on the Sunday morning. The heading, "The Gathering," elicits a comparison with the "Gathering of the Clans, " an ancient Scottish assembly of family. In fact, "clan" is defined as "a social group whose core comprises a number of families derived from, or accepted as being derived from, a common ancestor" ("Nessie's"). This fits in with the narrator’s reference to "the scientist whose name escapes her [who] found us all simply one entity" (Harris, 85), as well as to the common heritage of the slaves brought to the West Indies from Africa centuries before. As she prepares to give birth, the composer of the collage draws together members of her immediate family, as well as ancestors and others important to the story, in her writing. The narrator herself includes a reference to "the gathering" in the second half of the book, when the receptionist at the multicultural center states that "[f]amily is really important to ethnic people. We have gathering with children every Sunday. First the mass, then the big dinner" (Harris, 104); the narrator confirms that such gatherings were also part of her life when she lived in the islands. "The Gathering," therefore, conjures images of women/family coming together to celebrate the impending birth. However, it could also refer to the gathering of memories, dreams, thoughts and concerns, which are all components of the collage. It could also be seen as a gathering of courage by the writer for what is to come, in effect a gathering of her inner self in preparation for the birth, as well as for the possibility of a move back to Trinidad. Throughout the course of the dream-narrator’s Friday night, her concerns and fears, the pregnancy, memories past and present, religious/cultural references, the supernatural, as well as hints of Burri’s tale, are all revealed. The inclusion of these central elements illustrates how fully integrated they are in the narrator’s consciousness and sub-consciousness. Her dreams flow into waking thoughts and back into dreams again in a cyclical motion - four cycles of dream-waking, to be precise - which is reminiscent of the motion of a wave or the movements of the child she is carrying. The narrator herself connects her child with the eternal flow of life when she writes "she is an ocean" (Harris, 11), paralleling the fact that the child is "immersed in an amniotic fluid that has the salinity characteristics of sea water of millions of years ago" (Seabased). The baby’s movements flow with the words on the page as Harris uses their placement to visually present the image of the baby’s head dropping lower in the pelvis, for example, on page 11 of Drawing Down a Daughter. The narrator’s reluctance to move back to the island of her birth, where "your daddy’s looking for a safe place/ for your childhood and his" (Harris, 15), is a central component of the collage. She evidently dreads returning to her mother’s "terrible love" (Harris, 8) and her "silent impossible demands" (Harris, 32). In a dream, she recalls the necessity of hiding underground during a hurricane. Her waking thoughts on the Saturday touch on memories of a dead body emerging briefly from the river, the beauty and danger of jelly fish, and even snakes, of which there are several poisonous varieties in Trinidad (including boa, anaconda and vipers). The drawbacks inherent in the island paradise - the racism, the pernicious assumptions of class, the superstitions, the lack of opportunities - in addition to the aforementioned physical dangers, contrast sharply with the safe refuge that her husband envisions Trinidad to be. Lopinot is first mentioned when one of her dreams becomes a amalgamation of past and present, Calgary and Trinidad. Even Burri makes a brief appearance in this dream. Names - people and places - are significant in Drawing Down a Daughter, and Lopinot is no exception. Lopinot refers not only to a river and falls, but to an entire valley region, including a town, and was named for the French count, Charles de Lopinot. The Compte de Lopinot arrived in Trinidad in 1800, where he settled with his family and slaves on a cocoa plantation. His ghost is said to appear on stormy nights, often mounted on a white horse. Specific references to the Song of Solomon illustrate the women’s pride in her colour and her heritage: ".now I shine/black as the light eyes of many suns have pierced your skin" (Harris, 13), and "yes you are black! And radiant/the eyes of many suns have pierced your skin" (Harris, 24). The passages to which she refers are

.a female song of self-praise, which was a stock feature of erotic poetry as early as in the Song of Songs, where one poem begins "Yes, I am dark! And radiant. The eyes of many morning suns/Have pierced my skin and now I shine/Black as the light before dawn," .where a self- assertive girl defiantly counters the angry stares of other women, society’s guardians of female virtue, by declaring that she has been burned by the admiring gaze of the piercing sun." (Vasvari, 3)

Her evident pride is in stark contrast with her husband, who feels the need to leave Canada and immerse himself in a predominantly black culture in order to flee "racism as his body must once/have fled the coffle" (Harris, 18). Her husband exhibits a propensity to walk away, to flee as from the coffle, when faced with adversity, which he illustrates by walking away from the car during their heated discussion and in his determination to flee to Trinidad because life in Canada is not perfect. The image of the coffle, a train of slaves fastened together as they are led out of their homeland to waiting slave ships, is both poignant and repugnant. The mention of slaves is not only associated with the history of the Lopinot region, where slaves worked on the cocoa plantations, but with the narrator’s own history, with her ancestors who were forced from their homes in Yoruba and transported to the West Indies. The restless Friday night ends with a whiff of the supernatural, as the women "hears her name a sigh low/expressed into silence/the withdrawn" (Harris, 15) on two occasions, "calling/as if she were lost" (Harris, 16). Her past is calling her; her memories beckon. Despite recalling her Great Aunt’s advice - "if the dead call don't answer" (Harris, 16) - she does answer, in her writing. As the Saturday dawns, the page presents words once again arranged in an image. Visually, the words - which allude both to time and her body - illustrate the heightened sensitivity of the narrator’s swollen body brought bout by her advanced pregnancy. The ending of the previous night’s musings is also presented visually on the page in the form of a silhouette of a pregnant belly, reinforcing the women’s awareness of her changed body. The narrator’s prose poems now take on an almost journalistic or diaristic feel; she spends much of her morning carrying on very usual and mundane tasks, such as reading the newspapers, making breakfast, joking with her friend, Rosemarie, and, of course, writing. Utilizing a stream of consciousness approach to her work, the newspapers remind the women of the sorry state of the world and fuel her fears for her child, which she has already expressed when she wonders "who would bring a child/skin shimmering black" (Harris, 18) into the world. Her flowing thoughts touch on the subject of abortion, on Chantal Daigle who, in 1989, went to court to try to obtain an abortion after her boyfriend was granted an injunction to prevent it. The Supreme Court of Canada eventually struck down the injunction, but "the ruling comes too late.as Daigle has already had the operation in the U.S." (Leake). The narrator counters these thoughts with mention of "the anti-abortion president, George Bush" (Clarkson), and "wonders if she had refused this child." (Harris, 23). She even intimates that it is her husband who insisted that she have the baby. The fact that the women already knows the sex of her unborn child indicates she has undergone an amniocentiesis, a test usually conducted when the pregnant women is older. This fits with the references to the "plastic clock a clanger a bird popping in/out [that] was bound to raise the pressure" (Harris, 40), an allusion to the ticking of her own biological clock. While it is not until Burri’s tale that dates are revealed which would assist in affixing an age to the women, it is safe to say that the women is over forty years of age. The women’s heritage provides her with comfort and pride as she "lifts the Great Mask to her shoulders covers/her body with its bleached grass skirts" (Harris, 24) and sings from Songs of Solomon. It is here that she facetiously states she should have insisted on Yoruba - the land of her ancestors - as a possible destination for relocation. The Great Mask donned by the women is from the "Gelede masquerades.lavish spectacles of carved wooden headpieces, cloth costumes, dances, songs and drumming found principally among western Yoruba peoples in Nigeria and Benin" (Drewal, xv). "It is no accident that the Yoruba cultural influence spread across the Atlantic. In Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, and Trinidad, Yoruba religious rites, beliefs, music, and myths is evident even at this late day" ("Yoruba"). The rituals were spread to dispersed Yoruba populations as a result of the slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries:

The strength of belief in the traditional African gods was therefore extremely strong among the early slaves who brought it with them. This strength allowed the religion to survive. It is a mark of respect for these elders that the religion today is being brought back to the African traditions that they knew and respected before enforced Christianity changed its beliefs and rituals. (Henry, 7)

Yoruba culture and religious rites, which honour in excess of four hundred deities, place great emphasis on women, especially elders and mothers. Due to their unique ability to give life, women are believed to possess mystical powers, and thus "the fundamental purpose of Gelede spectacle is to pay tribute to and therefore to derive benefit from female mystical power" (Drewal, 7). The Great Mask, representing the Great Mother, is noted for its massive size and large, deep-set eyes. A long, board-like piece extends from the chin like a beard, and represents the knowledge and wisdom associated with an elder. Along with the grass skirts, which are worn during the night festivals to honour the mothers and grandmothers, the writer is acknowledging her place in a culture that places great value on her gender. Her woman’s prayer to Obatala flows from the Yoruba traditions she has embraced. Her request for the wisdom of the grandmothers, as well as her desire for a daughter, echoes the female focus of the Gelede rituals, during which "Obatala was called first" (Drewal, 273). Obatala is a central figure in Yoruba creation myth, and is believed to have descended from heaven on a chain in order to shape the first human, as well as all subsequent unborn children. "Obatala has been carried to many cultures of the New World, where for centuries he has been honored as the patron of children, childbirth, albinos, and anyone with a birthmark" ("Obatala"). Obatala is also known by the name "Alamo Re Re, the One Who Turns Blood into Children.and he is O Ho Ho, the Father of Laughter, ‘Who sits in the sky like a swarm of bees’" ("Obatala"). Both images are included in her women’s prayer to Obatala. After noting reluctantly, as evidenced by the hesitant spacing of words on the page, "how sweet it is/to shield/even/from ourselves/our own/intimacy/with evil" (Harris, 25) - an example of the element of foreshadowing - the women finds she is too depressed to continue. She inserts instead "last year’s poem on this year’s famine" (Harris, 25), which is headed by a quote from Job 2:vi (And the Lord said to Satan, Behold he is thy hands; but save his life, Harris, 26). By drawing in the story of Job, which "is concerned with the problem of suffering.[which] is permitted as a test" (Most), she provides the first indication of her disillusionment with Christianity. That such suffering, especially of innocent women and children caught up in the seemingly endless cycle of famine, would be allowed by God is evidently a sore spot for the writer. Even the culturally accepted "preference" for males over females in some parts of the world works its way into her poem, when the meagre crumbs received are not shared equally among the children - two girls and a boy - but are only given by the mother to her son. Such a situation would be an anathema to a modern, educated, and proud woman, especially one who has prayed to Obatala for a daughter. The narrator’s feeling of impotence and perhaps even guilt, as she is now part of the civilized world - "here she votes shares spoil" (Harris, 25) - is voiced in the poem on famine: she feels the need to "thrash out in black agony" (Harris, 26). No doubt she feels something of the "there but for the grace of God go I" syndrome, which is aptly described in the following quotation by Keith Richburg, author of Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa:

It was a feeling that pained me to admit, a sentiment that, when uttered aloud, might come across as callous, self- obsessed, even racist. So let me drop the charade and put it as simply as I know how: There but for the grace of God go I. You see, I was seeing all of this horror a bit differently because of the color of my skin. I am.a black man, a descendant of slaves brought from Africa. When I see these nameless, face-less, anonymous bodies washing over a waterfall or piled up on the back of trucks, what I see most is that they look like me. (Richburg)

When the narrator recalls her grandmother, who "died sitting straight up in scent/of holy oils/waiting for her husband/and God" (Harris, 41), her disdain for the Christian tradition becomes evident. She dismisses God and the symbolized, sanitized and deceptive religion that has grown up in His name when she notes that ".we can never wait who/have reduced Him/to the cool/deceptive logic/of symbol" (Harris, 41), and continues with "God dispersed/while we/confined by words/trapped in numbers/and time/seek/to deconstruct creation" (Harris, 42). What has led her to turn her back on the Christian God of her childhood and instead find comfort in ancient rites and rituals? She must progress further in her writing before acknowledging the reason. A first attempt to relate the story of Burri and Jocelyn, written as if by a romance novelist, is quickly aborted, as her thoughts flow to a recollection of "how the Lopinot/had presented her first dead body/eight years old dream ridden." (Harris, 34). She describes in great, almost loving detail the body that momentarily reveals itself from the Lopinot’s depths. To still see the scene so vividly after all these years illustrates what an indelible impression it made on her young mind. That she feels the need to include such a morbid image in her daughter’s collage is telling, especially as it establishes a connection with Burri. This is not only because the image springs to mind right after writing about him, but by virtue of the fact that she is "haunted/by bamboo tunnels" (Harris, 34), an image which will appear in her upcoming tale. Referring to Burri’s tale as "a Matter of Fact" (Harris, 48), she starts by writing in straight narrative style, as if composing a fiction. A seemingly neutral, educated voice, removed yet uncannily familiar with the events, suddenly intrudes, revealing the old storyteller’s purpose - "Her tale is a celebration, and a binding of community. Her theme is survival in the current of riverlife" (Harris, 52). The narrator’s interjection segues into a tale told by the old storyteller herself, utilizing her dialect and even including the responses of the children listening to the tale. As if a ghost story told around a campfire, Burri’s tale is told with the lights off and the candles lit and, of course, contains the requisite supernatural element. In this case, the ghost is La Diablesse (pronounced "la jah-bless"), from the French meaning "devil woman" or "female devil." She is a well-known character in Trinidad, where the "folklore is predominantly of African origin, flavoured with French and, to a lesser degree, Spanish and English influences" ("Our Folklore"). La Diablesse, complete with cloven foot, often appears as a desirable young woman, "her rich perfume blending with the smell of damp and decaying things.[and] she will be dressed in the ancient costume of these islands" ("Our Folklore"). All of these traits are attributed to the beautiful woman who lures Burri to what is presumed will be his death - the "funny foot," her "frothing green frill of a skirt," and "how sweet she smelling, like is flowers," though too late does Burri realize that those flowers smell like "the wreaths for his mother funeral" (Harris, 55-57). The story as she remembers it now complete, the writer herself, in her role as the educated, modern woman, reinforces her personal connection with the story. Once content to write it as a fictional narrative, she now finds she has "so little control over what is being written that I know the story is writing me. this has become an autobiography. Of sorts" (Harris, 58). Something deep inside her is demanding to be heard, something evidently connected with this seemingly innocuous tale she heard as a small girl. John Burian Armstrong, his full name reflecting the British heritage of the island, appears one day at the narrator’s home, searching for her father, Mr. Williams. A seemingly common name, Williams would have great significance to Claire Harris. Dr. Eric Williams (1911-1981) held the posts of chief minister and premier of Trinidad and Tobago from 1956 to 1962; he became the country’s first black prime minister in 1962, a position he held until his death in 1981. "Often called the ‘Father of the Nation,’ Williams remains one of the most significant leaders in the history of modern Trinidad and Tobago" (Trafford). It is only fitting that Harris chooses such a name for "the only educated black man who came to the village regularly" (Harris, 59) - the narrator’s father. Burri reveals the name of the mysterious woman during his conversation with Mr. Williams-Ramera. Not only does the name reflect the Spanish influence of Trinidad’s early colonizers, but Ramera means "harlot" or "trollop" in Spanish. The name has a biblical connotation as well: "The Great Ramera.is the goddess universal, [the] pagan mother, that is to say, the paganism (the idolatry) in all its manifestations, the one of the corrupted Christianity.being against and rising against everything that God is called" ("The Great Ramera"). Ramera is a fitting name, given her role as La Diablesse in Trinidadian legends. The date of Burri’s visit to the Williams home is disclosed as March, 1954. It is at this point that the fluidity of time, or perhaps the vagaries of memory, or, as the narrator even considers, the slipping of the face of reality, emerge as possibilities. Burri asserts that the events occurred three years earlier, in 1951, while the narrator herself heard the story from her Great Aunt in 1947. By asking, "Is it possible that that old lady bodying forth a world in that long ago August night gave it flesh?" (Harris, 62), the narrator acknowledges an ancient belief:

Yoruba believe strongly in the power of the word.[which] once uttered - come true. It would appear that their background conception is that to utter the name of something may draw that something into actual existence.not only within the mind and body of he who utters and he who hears the word, but also in the physical world as well. (Drewal, 5)

All the elements of the collage now in place, the second and final heading - "Sequel" - signals a change, both in the narrator’s focus and in literary style. "Sequel" is defined in The Concise Oxford Dictionary as "what follows after, a continuation or resumption of a story or process or the like after a pause or provisional ending" (Fowler). Narrative overtakes the prose poem as the predominant method of disseminating thoughts and occurrences; the events of the present day outnumber recollections of the past; facing reality now becomes her main focus. Her work now taking on the characteristics of a true story, dates are provided to lend credence to the tale. In 1983, the woman made one of her rare trips back to the island to learn more about Burri’s accident. One can only wonder why, after the passage of so many years, the woman feels the need to verify the facts surrounding the accident. As she herself points out at the end of "The Gathering," she had already mapped out several possible scenarios over thirty years ago in anticipation of her writing the tale as purely a fictional account. Instead, she now presents a litany of facts as she traces the events through the local newspaper (and Trinidad’s newspaper is indeed called the Guardian) and the police inspector who investigated the case. Witnesses (the De Silvas) confirm the presence of a woman with Burri immediately prior to his accident: ".though she had a limp she walk real queenly. Also she had on a very long skirt with a frill, like she was going to a ball. She thought it very funny to see that in the country, coming out of the bush" (Harris, 66). The inspector can only conclude that it "is the kind of thing you think is story. You have to think is story" (Harris, 66). To think otherwise is to admit the existence of the unknowable, the unthinkable - the supernatural. By mid-afternoon, Burri’s story written in its entirety, reality rushes headlong onto the pages - her husband returns from Trinidad and announces they will be moving. It is noteworthy that his new position does not begin for nine months, a uniquely specific length of time that could imply he must live through his own gestational period of sorts before being "re-born" in Trinidad. By suggesting his wife "Recite ‘bury me in Blanchisseuse’" (Harris, 71), he attempts to appeal to her positive memories of her homeland. The narrator does indeed think of Blanchisseuse as she drives home alone after verbal altercation: "sunborn I shiver at the thought of burial/in such cold cold ground if I die/(it will be an accident Baby lapse of attention)/I want to hear the Caribbean muttering/on hot white sand:/bury me at Blanchisseuse" (Harris, 73). French for "washerwoman" and named by early explorers for the women seen washing clothes in the river, Blanchisseuse is the last of a chain of bays on Trinidad’s north coast, and contains a beach, a river, and a series of waterfalls. This parallels the woman’s recollection of ".washer/women their lives/surrounded by water/pounding white sheets/against rocks worn women/their faces gone" (Harris, 86). She even wonders, "do people still have washerwomen" (Harris, 77). While recognizing life would be easier in Trinidad, where servants take on the burdens of running a household, she exhibits distaste for the hypocrisy of wealthy black women hosting fundraising luncheons for agencies such as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization) and CARE (Cooperative for Assistance & Relief Everywhere). It is ironic that such funds will be "donated/for starvelings/across seas" (Harris, 88) when there are those in Trinidad - possibly even in their own employ - who would benefit from such help.

Obviously perturbed at the loss of freedom such a move would impose on her, the narrator reveals that "you wouldn't believe the way in which everybody knows exactly who everybody is, and what that means" (Harris, 69). Just what does that mean to the woman? Still she does not reveal what is truly troubling her, instead lashing out at her husband's arbitrary decision, at her loss of independence. As she confided earlier to her unborn daughter, "Child if he hauls us home/your collage may never be published" (Harris, 15). She has established herself in Canada, embarked on a career, even adopted a hyphenated name rather than just taking her husband’s. He even refers to her feminist bent ("Don't try to be a feminist" Harris, 75). However, she has a tendency to exhibit less-than-independent behaviour by not renewing her driver’s license, for example, or, for the seven years since her marriage, not driving in winter and thus reinforcing her dependence on her husband. She even vocalizes her current condition in terms that are the bane of feminists - "bare foot and pregnant/in the kitchen" (Harris, 28). The narrator voices her concerns about her husband and their future together, as "she begins to amuse herself with visions of a quickie divorce and real freedom" (Harris, 74), and even as she wonders if their marriage would be able to survive in a male-dominated society like Trinidad. She vows to her daughter that she will "keep this father for you/as long as I can but don't count on it" (Harris, 75). As a result of her growing resentment of his increasing possessiveness, she thinks "of all his ‘my’/as if he had somehow acquired her for all time/as if theirs was not a contract of gift/renewable from moment to moment" (Harris, 109), a further indication of her sense of loss of freedom and independence. Perhaps it is nothing more than the difficulties that often arise after seven years of marriage (the so-called "seven year itch"); perhaps it signals deep-rooted concerns that have been troubling the woman for some time. The narrator’s admonition that "Every woman needs a profession that way your aren't/dependent on any man" (Harris, 75) reflects a sentiment expressed by Harris herself in an interview:

When I was about three years old, my mother told me that every woman has to have a profession. That way you are not dependent on any man. Plus if you have a profession you do not merely continue in the tradition of the African woman who could not lead a self-determined life. (Kraus)

Despite her education and her career in Canada, the narrator seems trapped, ostensibly destined to bend to her husband’s will and move back to Trinidad. She has lost the power of choice and, as she states succinctly, "it’s all about power!" (Harris, 73). The exact time of year comes to light "when Anthony Griffin’s mother appears on the news" (Harris, 88). Anthony Griffin, a 19-year-old black man, was actually killed in precisely the manner described by the narrator - on November 11, 1987. The prose poem she writes as she attempts to describe what it must have been like for Mrs. Griffin to identify her son’s body, knowing "this is what is left of baby’s baths of/bare chested summer days of paintings/stuck to the fridge" (Harris, 89), strikes the narrator as sadly lacking. Unable to find the right words herself, she needs Mrs. Griffin "to make a language that would rend and wrack/like Maria Tholo from near South Africa" (Harris, 91). Maria Tholo is the subject of a book entitled The Diary of Maria Tholo by Carol Hermer. "This book is taken from a series of weekly, tape-recorded interviews conducted over a year.[but] the diary format was chosen to lend immediacy to the events [in South Africa]" (Lewis). This particular reference from this book included in the collage again evinces images of death, of searching through unidentified bodies as if searching through a pile of old clothes. How can one not be touched by the surreal and very painful picture painted by Tholo’s words, or by the image of a mother identifying her dead child’s body? It is only upon waking early on the Sunday morning that the narrator is finally able to begin her confession, which is notably written in the third person. She names herself at last - Patricia Whitaker-Williams - as well as the person who has so blatantly intruded upon her unconscious thoughts. Patricia includes a re-wording of several lines from "The Highwayman" - a poem which deals with death, sacrifice and the supernatural - with this name, Enid Thomas. That this mysterious person is named Enid Thomas is significant, as Enid means "soul" or "life" and Thomas is Aramaic for "twin." Enid Thomas does not exist physically, of course, being merely the pseudonym used by Jocelyn Romero to enter Canada to have Burri’s baby, and yet she is just as important to the story as if she were a real person. At the age of eight, when Patricia first met Jocelyn, "She say it ain't have no difference. She could be Jocelyn, Jocelyn could be she. She look in Jocelyn eye and fell she self Jocelyn" (Harris, 105). Even as a child, Patricia realizes something profound: "What if she wake up one morning and find she self Jocelyn? She ain't want to be poor" (Harris, 106). The two girls may be the same age, but their lives are completely different - Jocelyn is poor while Patricia is part of a wealthy family - again bringing to mind the saying, "There but for the grace of God go I." The name Enid Thomas - twin soul - takes on a deeper meaning with this revelation; a connection between Patricia and Jocelyn, neither explainable nor rational, exists - almost out of space and time. Patricia’s revelations about Jocelyn are peppered with references to something secret and just out of reach. It is as if she has purposely forgotten the horrifying incident decades before; as if, in a form of self-defence, her mind has all but blocked the memory. Buried deep in her psyche, aptly choosing now to bubble up to the surface - as she prepares to give birth and is faced with the very real possibility of returning to Trinidad, where her involvement with Ashley and Jocelyn’s fate would be known - many clues emerge in her writing. In a dream, she experiences a "sense of stifled horror to know/once and for all what it is that eludes and teaches" (Harris, 96), and realizes she must "reach what there is teasing beyond the edges" (Harris, 96). "What is a dream without revelation/I watch as from a great distance above how she/come face to face with her self that other that/in the dream is glimmering" (Harris, 96) - that other self, that twin soul which she recognized even as an eight year old child, is Jocelyn.

Only two statements are made in bold lettering in the entire collage, reflecting their importance to Patricia. The first, "he really doesn't know anything about us." (Harris, 80), illustrates the cultural differences between husband and wife. The second is more ominous: "things above things beneath the earth remain matters of suspicion" (Harris, 82). Patricia is understandably uncertain of the reception she will receive in Trinidad, especially from Jocelyn’s family and friends. While Patricia uses her Great Aunt’s voice, the old storyteller’s words seemingly kind and sympathetic to Patricia, the fact remains that when Patricia visited Trinidad in 1983, the old woman was neither kind nor sympathetic. Instead, she looked at Patricia cynically, revealed next to nothing about Burri, and refused to sell her a plot of land, even though "she owned thirty acres" (Harris, 63). The Great Aunt would have been aware of Patricia’s role in what had befallen Jocelyn and Ashley, as indeed would most people in the tight-knit community, and appears to be unforgiving of Patricia’s thoughtless, selfish actions.

Too difficult to acknowledge directly, even on paper, Patricia reverts to the comfort of the old storyteller’s voice to relate portions of her confession; at other times, she utilizes an impersonal narrative style. She states that the trouble - which all begun when Enid Thomas appeared in one of Patricia’s dreams - was because the young Patricia "learn a writer have a right to write anything, do anything for the writing. She want every life she see, every life she dream.just to lay it out on paper, like butterfly on a pin" (Harris, 100). Rational thought does not seem to have played a role in Patricia’s subsequent actions:

Somehow the very elusiveness of her dream-woman makes the search more important, the possible story looms fantastic in her mind. It never for one moment occurs to her that Enid Thomas may not exist. That she may be simply the figment of her dream, a name she once heard and last night put to a use of her own. Normally brimming with the psychological imperative, she does not recognize it now. (Harris, 101)

The reason for Patricia’s loss of faith now becomes painfully clear. As she sees Jocelyn in the multicultural center, they are drawn together "[l]ike is a magnet. Like they can't stop. People say things like that is God's will. That is slander, yes! Think about it. Something lead to blood and guts in the street, and you are saying is God's will. What kind of God is that? Such a God!" (Harris. 107). The words may be written in her Great Aunt's voice, but they are from Patricia's heart. While she never explicitly confirms that Jocelyn and/or Ashley died that fateful day, it is likely that neither survived. "If He wanting her to dead, you ain't think He could let her dead in bed. Private like! With some dignity! God! My foot!" (Harris, 107). Patricia's impotent rage is revealed; she has lost her faith. As she laid bare Jocelyn's life with tragic consequences many years before, so Patricia is now laying bare her own: "She finds her image Butterfly on a Pin" (Harris, 96). It is only once she has set the account on paper, confessing her role in a true "soupcon of horror" (Harris, 58) after four and a half hours writing, that "she slips back into bed falls into a healing dreamless sleep" (Harris, 108). Confession is good for the soul. The timeline presented in Drawing Down a Daughter contains anomalies, some intended to illustrate the possibility of "experience/delusion stretching both backwards and forwards into time" (Harris, 62), and others that intimate "reality is beyond my poor comprehension" (Harris, 95). Burri’s tale is said to have occurred in 1947, 1951, and 1959. The date of Anthony Griffin’s death in November, 1987, coincides with the reference to the hunter’s moon, which usually occurs in early November, yet the narrator knows about the Chantal Daigle abortion case, which did not go to the Supreme Court until 1989. A further anomaly occurs just prior to the conversation between husband and wife in the car. While the time of day is appropriate - four-thirty in the afternoon - the month is not. It states she is sitting in "turbulent silence" with the "bulk of the General Hospital pressing down" (Harris, 68) - in March. Husband and wife are not experiencing any silence on their way home in November. It is likely that this is an emerging, once-repressed memory, a recollection of an event that occurred after her encounter with Jocelyn and Ashley. Perhaps she recalls being in a car with the Immigration officers or the police, either going to or coming from the General Hospital after the accident. Seeing the hospital on the way home with her husband could be the trigger that brings the previous scene to mind. Drawing Down a Daughter reveals "a world in which each fact like the legs of runners photographed at slow speeds is an amalgam of variations of itself. Myriad versions of events reaching out of time, out of space, individual to each observer" (Harris, 62). It is the story of a woman torn between past and present, Calgary and Trinidad. Her descriptions of her home island are lush, and she lovingly recalls traditions and even foods that characterize her Trinidadian heritage. Conversely, her descriptions of Calgary are cold and stark: "houses iced with snow" (Harris, 21); "the Bow sneaking through/curdled banks" (Harris, 34); "white sky/arching over us white snow below" (Harris, 48). It is only when she has come to terms with what she has done - however selfishly or unintentionally, however young and experienced she was at the time - that she is finally able to see even a glimmer of beauty in the northern environs in which she has settled. It is "as if all my striving to order existence with your birth/were less even than this view grey pink clouds/trees/river/thin frill of ice/the drowned city" (Harris, 112). By presenting her work as a fictive autobiography, Claire Harris "would seem to eliminate the problem of closure: since the future is unclear to the autobiographer as well as to his or her audience, the ending of any autobiographical work is often ambiguous" (Cook, 166). And so it is with Drawing Down a Daughter, where the reader is left to ponder the future of mother and child.

Copyright Deborah Leitch, Port Alberni, B.C.

Student & Academic Services - Last Updated June 04, 2010