Return Native Land
Autonomy and Self-Definition in Cesaire's Notebook of a Return to the Native Land
The concept of selfhood is one of the most complex and essential elements in Aimee Cesaire's book-length poem Notebook of a Return to the Native Land. There is a constant dialogue -- often an argument -- between the external and internal elements that attempt to define and control the identity of the speaker. At times, there is even a marked consciousness in the speaker's resolve to deny external influences (Cesaire). Even here, though the very refusal speaks of a certain acknowledge influence. Furthermore, the fantasies of autonomy, or at least freedom from the immediate external influence that the speaker perceives, are themselves dominated by large-scale external forces. After dismissing a cop in his immediate reality, the speaker reflects on his own fragility in respect to the Earth and "its grandiose future -- / the volcanoes will explode, the naked water will bear away the ripe sun stains" (Cesaire 3).
The earthly environment is, in fact, one of the primary constraints on identity and autonomy in the poem. At one point, the speaker states that "From staring too long at trees I have become a tree and my / long tree feet have dug in the ground" (Cesaire 18). The consequence that identity and selfhood suffer for engaging even in passive activity eliminates any notion of true autonomy in the poem; the environment and external world is in near complete control, allowing only the internal aspects of freedom any latitude (Cesaire). Even the break of the line occurring just after "my" seems to suggest that the "long tree feet" are not truly part of the speaker's body, or at least are not possessed by the internal sense of self, but rather are owned and controlled by the world at large. This is one of the central themes in Notebook of a Return to the Native Land.
Work Cited
Cesaire, Aime. Notebook of a return to the Native Land, Clayton Eshelman and Annette Smith, trans. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2001.
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