The Paradox of Female Agency in Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s Novels TERESA BONDS

The Paradox of Female Agency in Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s NOVELS

BY TERESA BONDS

In Marie View-Chauvet’s provocative triptych Amour, Colère, Folie, the author directs her aim at governmentsanctioned terror and violence, and through the use of three unconnected, revolutionary female protagonists offers a scathing and realistic portrait of life under a ruthless dictatorship.

When contemplating the importance of women’s narratives, novelist and playwright Marie Vieux-Chauvet (19161973) is considered to be one of the most influential writers to come out of Haiti. In addition to her œuvre, her lived experience as a member of the “occupational generation”1 served as a critical examination of a politically divisive Haiti after French colonization and subsequent US occupation. Vieux-Chauvet’s body of work provided a first- hand documentation of life under totalitarian rule, with particular focus on the social inequalities in Haiti that saw a small, wealthy “mulatto” middle class ruling over a poverty-stricken black majority. This social and economic disparities became more disconcerting under the reign of populist François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who ran on a campaign that centered himself as a champion of the exploited and historically undervalued masses, shifting special attention to the country’s disenfranchised black middle class.

Though colorist rhetoric, “Duvalier strongly emphasized the color issue, exploiting the fact that in Haiti as in other parts of the Caribbean there has been, since colonial times, a general coincidence between color and class, so that most rich are mulatto and most poor are black” (Nicholls 1239-1240). This extensive cultural practice of colorism does not escape Marie Vieux- Vieux-Chauvet, either, and through her work she explores the complex and often overlooked interrelation of colorism and misogyny, using her unique tapestry of tragic and ambiguous female characters to reflect the “psychopathy of mixed-race identity in Haiti” (Asibong 147). The widespread implementation of Duvalierism further divided the already embattled nation; the struggle between race and class relations further soured; it added new layer of fear for Haiti’s already disenfranchised women. In her masterwork Amour, Colère, Folie, Vieux-Chauvet lays bare the experience of the Haitian woman through three different, yet correlating paradigms, with each of her characters representing different aspects of gender-based persecution, state- sponsored terror, and the traumatized womanhood.

Chauvet’s status in Haiti’s elite upper echelons of Haitian society drew some criticism, and illustrated the challenges of writing about experiences related to destitution while living a life of professional and academic opportunity. Her lack of awareness and social positioning left her far removed from the political unrest of the country, and the inner turmoil of its impoverished lower-class demographic. “As a bourgeois ‘mulatto’ woman writer who claimed no explicit political affiliation, Chauvet was long placed at a remove from existing canons (anti- colonial, nationalist, and social realist, in particular)” (Glover and Benedicty-Kokken 1). While scholarly interest in Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s texts has been renewed in recent years due to feminist interpretations of her work, her writings were notoriously absent from the Haitian literary canon, while the works of her notably male contemporaries have seen far more visibility in the academic and scholastic sphere. “This exceptionalized status has much to do with the fact of her nonparticipation in the gender-bound political culture of her time. While her narratives offer terrifically scathing portraits of Haitian society, they identify no clear ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys, and her biography suggests a real wariness with respect to activism and practical engagement” (Glover 7).

Despite her lack of performance in radical Haitian politics, Vieux- Chauvet, like many other intellectuals under Duvalier’s dictatorship, was labeled a dissident after her scathing denouncement of the government was considered a threat. As a result, Vieux-Chauvet and her family faced heavy surveillance and persecution from the regime. Scholars speculate that gender politics might have caused her omission from the Haitian literary canon, but despite the growing

threat, Vieux-Chauvet –a privileged member of Port-au-Prince’s elite “mulatto” bourgeoise— remained an active writer in the community, even holding meetings attended by other writers, of which she was the only female participant. Despite her increasing popularity, she remained removed from any radial political affiliation and was unwilling to commit to a life of nationalist ideology. “Unaffiliated, though, with any of the Marxist, syndicalist, or nationalist groups active during the period, and not writing for any of the radical journals in circulation, Chauvet remained––noted by her daughter Erma Saint-Grégoire, among others––firmly at a distance from organized politics” (Glover 9-10).

Subsequently, she was banned from the public sphere, her work removed from the diaspora as the regime’s threats grew more persistent. Fearing further retaliation from Duvalier’s regime, Vieux-Chauvet’s husband tracked down and destroyed all the copies of Amour, Colère, Folie he could find in Haiti, with her daughters buying the remaining copies from the publisher, who had since ceased to publish any more copies of the triptych, at the author’s personal request. Some modern scholars even argue that Chauvet’s removal from the pantheon of Haitian literature was not solely because of her refusal to participate in political activism but additionally as a punishment for using her artistic influence as an act of female resistance. Her literary effort reframed the culturally accepted roles of women in Haitian society to transcend beyond subservience, and into the freedom of thought and movement that existed in more male- dominated positions of power.

Through seditious female-driven narratives and patent revolutionary ideology, “Chauvet criticized despotism and radicalized social hierarchies but also the reason that her book was banned was that she questioned and condemned the patriarchal and elitist structure of Haitian society” (Charles 67). The demonization of Marie Vieux-Chauvet as a female intellectual who dared to challenge the status quo, coupled with the subversive nature of her work, likely lead it being forcibly erased from the diaspora and subsequently going unnoticed for decades after her death.

Chauvet’s political critique proved to be a source of contention for Duvalier, who had already leveled a campaign of harassment against artists and intellectuals within the country. In response to the novel, Duvalier employed the use of his loyal police force, the ruthless Tonton Macoutes, a special operations unit established to extinguish political opposition and answered only to the dictator. After the Tonton Macoutes murdered three of Chauvet’s family members, she fled Haiti to settle in New York City, where she remained in exile until her death in 1973. The last few years of her life saw her living in obscurity, working as a housekeeper in Queens, NY, a stark contrast to her privileged life as a mulatto elite in Port-au-Prince. Despite her works being banned in Haiti and no longer in print on the global scale, there was a renewed interest in Vieux-Chauvet’s work in 2005, and in 2009, the first English translation of Amour, Colère, Folie, translated as “Love, Anger, Madness” was published.

Like Marie Vieux-Chauvet herself, the female heroines in Amour, Colère, Folie remain persistently unequivocal, and their complexity becomes the focal point of postmodern and feminist discourse. Rose, the young, dark-skinned protagonist of Colère, uses her position within the bourgeoise to push against oppressive binaries that focus not just on class, gender, and race— and the intersectionality of these individual oppressions—but on the way women are expected to interact within a community dominated in all relevant facets by men. This is done with a clear and critical objective, as women’s existence within Haiti’s polarizing political landscape is packed with numerous layers that construct what it means to be a liberated woman.

Amour, Colère, Folie contains three distinct narratives that place complex female protagonists into rigid social—and ultimately, unescapable—hierarchies. The beginning of Colère (Anger) introduces the Normil family, proud upper middle class landowners who find themselves suddenly embroiled in a desperate battle to preserve their heritage when ‘men in black uniform’ descend onto their property, with intent to divide and redistribute it. Rather than confronting the source of his family’s oppression, milquetoast patriarch Louis Normil devises a plan to reclaim is family lands through bribery and negotiation, and offers the sexual service of his beautiful daughter, Rose, in exchange for the return of their property, along with protection from further harassment and abuse. It is clear these violent and nameless “men in black” who represent the background antagonists in colère also serve as the audacious representation of Duvalier’s own real-life Tonton Macoutes, who eventually forced Chauvet into exile and banned her works from mainland Haiti.

The Normil’s property ownership serves as a pinnacle of their wealth and in addition to being a burial ground for their ancestors, establishes their highly coveted status amongst the poorer, lower-class citizens. Thus, land ownership is directly related to socioeconomic status, and Rose’s participation in this system presents her as both a casualty—and a co-conspirator. As her body, an initially her prized virginity, is commodified, introduced as a method of exchange for preservation of her father’s lands, she comes to the grim realization that her oppression and place in Haitian society will never allow her to maintain the same degree of inherited wealth that her father currently enjoys.

“Rose’s special relationship to her father’s land reinforces her entrapment in the society’s practice of plaçage2, where women’s roles and places are prescribed in order to maintain an exploitative system of economic and social hierarchies” (Mayes 85). It is Rose’s initial lack of self-awareness and political understanding that prevents her from exposing this corruption at the very start, and ultimately, she becomes consumed by the desire to preserve the ownership of something that she will never truly own, and something she will never benefit from economically, due to her gender and social standing in Haitian society. This societal incapacity has a marked effect on the young woman, and as the narrative progressive, she begins to mitigate her own position not just within her own family, but in her communal relationships as well. “It is from this position of power of powerlessness that Rose is developed into a heroine who controls her own body” (Mayes 86).

Rose’s motivation is a restoration of normalcy for herself and her family, and when she considers the alternative of poverty, homelessness, and lack of educational access, her sacrifice seems inconsequential. With the hope of her family lands being restored and the prospect of this return to routine, Rose endures thirty days of pain, torture, and sexual humiliation at the hands of a government official Chauvet only refers to as “le gorille,” who brokers a grim deal with Louis Normil. In addition to a five-hundred-dollar fee, Le gorille offers to restore his family to greatness and offer additional protection from his ruffians in exchange for nonconsensual sex with his daughter.

Rose, presumably with her father’s approval, must submit herself to the sexual depravities of le gorille, who represents the power and control that can only be derived from his maleness. After he informs Rose of the deal, he informs her of the specific terms of their arrangement, and what penalty awaits her if she disregards his authority:

“If you resist, I won’t be able to do anything. You have to do what I say, without hesitation, otherwise, it’s a no go, you understand? I can only be a man with a pretty saint’s face like yours, a defeated martyr with a pretty little face. Do what I say, do it, or get out of here! But remember that no one else will ever be able to do anything for you and you will lose your land. On the other hand, if you are cooperative and do what I ask, then I promise, I swear to you on all that is most holy to me that you will have my personal protection and will have restitution of your property.” (Chauvet 244)

Now aware of the deal brokered between le gorille, the lawyer, and her father, Rose is now required to play the part of his victim, and by doing so, her act of forced submission calls into question the hierarchy of organizational, gender-based violence.

Historically speaking, slave plantation societies preserved their power through the violent domination and segregation of its enslaved population, and were structurally similar to social organizations that shared features with totalitarian autocracy. “While post-slavery Haiti continued to suffer from various forms of authoritarianism, the Duvalier era brought an increased level of corruption and intensified and institutionalized state violence” (Charles 77). Women found themselves treated as equals under this regime, and this grim concept of equality brought repression to both men and women, who were harassed, arrested, detained, tortured, and murdered. “Regarding the status of women, the uniqueness of Duvalier’s violence was, ironically for a country where the ideology of women’s weakness runs high, the negation of that aspect of patriarchy in the indiscriminate use of violence” (Charles 78).

In an effort to exercise some bodily autonomy, Rose approaches the family doctor, Dr. Valois and offers her virginity to him, explaining, “I knew it would come to this, I knew it. To make sure he wouldn’t be the first, I had offered myself to Dr. Valois, but he pushed me away” (Chauvet 246). Though Dr. Valois admits to his romantic feelings for Rose3, he does not comply, insisting she is “too young.” Her newly acquired knowledge with le gorille forces her to reflect on her body, and how concepts such a purity and chastity exist in proximity to it.

Because of her lack of involvement during her sessions with her rapist, Rose experiences a bodily awareness, and she rekindles the possibility of a romantic encounter with Dr. Valois: “That night, when my mother found me on the landing, she feared the worst. And yet, I felt almost purified. Once this torture is over, I’ll have even more innocence and chastity to offer him. The soul, not the flesh, is the true seat of virginity, so I don’t know what lovemaking feels like. I have erected a wall between my body and my soul, a granite wall” (Chauvet 246).

But for now, with her proposal rejected, Rose once again is not permitted any modicum of control over what happens to her physical body and must submit to the emotional and physically abusive systems that rely on keeping the populations terrorized and controlled. As the abuse progresses, Rose is determined to survive it, and her bodily

2 Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which men of ethnic European descent entered into civil unions with native women. These women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées

transformation begins, with the violence she endures escalating over time, which Chauvet does not hesitate to portray in graphic, uncensored detail. The acts of rape and assault become progressively more brutal and outlandish, at times, borderline absurdist in nature. Rose herself begins to question le gorille’s actions, wondering silently if he is even something she should fear. Even her family’s reactions to the situation grow increasingly outlandish, to the point where productive communication between the members nearly ceases to exist.

Back at the Normil estate, older brother Paul is tortured by visions of his sister being defiled by the men who are threatening their livelihood. After confronting Rose about her meetings with le gorille, he directs his aggression towards their mother, who has chosen to turn a blind eye to the abuse, perhaps in an attempt to preserve her daughter’s honor. Now violently frustrated by his own lack of power, Paul himself begins to collapse, as his psyche begins to splinter under the weight of his own impotent rage. Incensed by his father’s indecisiveness and seemingly lack of action, he observes Rose’s deteriorating physical state:

“’Dirty coward!’ I feel like shouting at my father…My father’s face has returned to lifelessness: he knows he won’t get fired now. In any case, he has really managed to set up Rose. Was he naïve when he cast her to the vultures?

Perhaps he’s seething with remorse, rage, hatred! It would drive you to despair to admit to yourself that nothing lives behind that impassive mask. Has he noticed Rose’s new face? Frozen, dead. That’s right, dead. What have they done to her? Not, I don’t want to know. Not now, at least. It’s too soon.” (Chauvet 231-232)

However, Rose is not the only member of the Normil family selling their bodies. Chauvet approaches Louis Normil’s secret sexual engagement with a wealthy woman as it does Rose; Louis must submit himself to the protection and patronage this woman can provide for him, thus disrupting the patriarchal power matrix established at the beginning of the narrative. It is during this affair, when Louis must put aside his pride and defer to his mistress for funds to preserve his lands, that he begins to also fracture, and lose his identity as the dominant male and sole provider of the Normil family.

Near the end of Rose’s sexual servitude, she attempts to find refuge in her own mind, surrendering only her body to le gorrile’s crude and terroristic caprices, but keeping her mind detached from reality. Her struggle to distance herself from dominant forces determined to break her down and complete her subservience do not go unnoticed by her tormentor, who proudly boasts how his attraction to her deepens as a result of her apathy. Rose herself even begins to question her own motives, and grows worried that, were she to experience pleasure from the sexual assault, she would become as tainted and evil as the man violating her:

“There must be something unsettling and innocently perverse in me, and only the fact that I’ve been forced stops me from climaxing in this man’s arms” (Chauvet 249).

He even begins to regard her with a sort of misguided fondness—as it would be dangerous to categorize his feelings as anything remotely romantic—and after confessing to her that he was aware of her unattraction to him, considers her for marriage, and subsequently questions her about her love for jewelry and finer things. This attempt to buy her affection incenses Rose, and she resolves to remain even more detached during their encounters. She soon arrives at the realization of the power contained within her own mind, and as each act of rape grows more intense in its violence, she begins to experiment with disassociation. With this radical act, Chauvet attempts to remove Rose’s position not just from submission to le gorille, but from the gender inequality in which she has since become socially conscious.

Rose even treats herself as a hollow shell, with little more value than a corpse, and with this act, her own fragmented psyche regards maleness as a sort of deficiency: “What’s it to me? I would have brought dishonor on myself only if I enjoyed it as he did, but he slept with a corpse. A corpse, and he has no idea. That is my revenge” (Chauvet 245). She transforms this sexual ascendancy into an awakening, and through her own actions, initiates an exploration into elements of ownership, masculine dominance, and existential humanity. This newly discovered power begins to alter her consciousness, allowing her to streamline her response to the sexual torture, and she looks to the future, of the benefit the arrangement will bring to her family and the restoration of their property.

She even reconsiders her previous request to attend school abroad with her brother, and thus she begins to traverse into an amorphous entity that transcends time and space, completely removing herself mentally from the suffering she must endure if she even hopes to survive it. Her position in le gorille’s bed as a “corpse” has culminated into one glorious and rebellious act of defiance, and “she will enter her death before it happens, declare herself deceased before anyone else can, thus performing a last radical act of self-creation that will cut her off forever from the abusive systems in which she has been so intensely caught up” (Asibong 152).

Near the end of her thirty-day torment, Rose has virtually slipped into an almost solipsistic trance. Her pain became the price for her family’s freedom from oppression, and in doing so, she makes peace with the knowledge that her suffering was for the benefit of others, that the land she saved from the men in black will never be hers to claim or inherit. When her service to le gorille is concluded, Rose’s disembodied, fragmented self now embraces this new ethereal

identity, even as she lingers on the fault line between life and death. As more trauma awaited her at home, she becomes more detached, except now the disconnection transcends into the realm of physical. Paul senses her weakness, and follows her to her room, hoping his presence will provide some comfort:

They looked at each other in silence. Then Rose lifted her hand and stroked his face. He felt as if she were fighting off some terrible exhaustion and that at any moment she would collapse before him, flimsy and disjointed like a puppet. (Chauvet 285)

Even she furiously fought to disengage from the painful conditions of her trauma, she ultimately falls victim to the generational brutalities of fascism and colonialism, and when she is secured behind the walls of her own home, with the knowledge that Paul is safe, she quietly surrenders to her own annihilation.

As Colère winds down to its inexorable climax, it embodies all the structure and atmosphere of a Greek tragedy. With the Normil family approaches the end of their tragic predicament, nearly a month after the men in black began hammering stakes into their land, Chauvet makes it clear that no heroes will emerge from this tale. The family begins to succumb to the contagious fear building up and dividing them for years. It is this lack of cohesion that proves to be their undoing. Louis, now desperate to join the oppressors and reclaim his tarnished reputation, begins working for the Blackshirts, all to garner favor and rise within the ranks. His wife sinks deeper into alcoholism, after coming to the profound realization that she never felt accepted by this family since wedding her husband, with whom she no longer shares an emotional connection. Grandfather and disabled young Claude begin entertaining wild fantasies of revenge against the men in black, which ultimately ends in tragedy.

While some might not consider Rose to be the gallant protagonist destined to find her own happy ending, she represents the sophisticated experiences of women in historically structured patriarchal customs and the traumatized endurance the were required to endure in a postcolonial Haiti. “In the end, all the female characters in Chauvet are agents able to navigate and negotiate the many fields of power relations; yet, they are also commodities, things that can be traded, exchanged, controlled, or excluded” (Charles 83). For Rose, her desire to return to normal meant a return to the same pyramid of nationally condoned gender oppression and degradation.

By the end, none of the members of the Normil family have achieved any interconnected solidarity; one-by-one, they become victims of their own reckless choices, ironically perpetuating the same cycle of violence and rage they sought so desperately to avoid. More importantly, as they were in the beginning, the female characters of are entombed in their own social stations, aware of their status yet unable to carve out a new identity.

WORKS CITED

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