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TG The Longest Memory 10 Pages
TG The Longest Memory 10 Pages
Ross Huggard
The Longest
Memory
Fred D’Aguiar
Copyright © Insight Publications 2011
First published in 1998 by
Insight Publications Pty Ltd
ABN 57 005 102 983
89 Wellington St
St Kilda VIC 3182
Australia
www.insightpublications.com.au
Character map iv
Overview 1
About the author 1
Synopsis 1
Introduction 4
Chapter-by-chapter analysis 20
character map
Sanders Junior
Unaware that Chastises Mr Whitechapel
Legitimate Chapel is his Plantation
Sanders Senior son of half-brother; owner; has a
Slave overseer; fearful of slaves. ‘humanitarian’
desperate widower approach to his
with one son; t slaves.
ou f
unable to control ab ss o
Despises
s
lust for Cook. rie ne
or us
W ellio
reb
Criticise
Rapes
es
Illegitimate son of
Lydia
u
val
Daughter of
Cook
and
plantation owner;
Retains her dignity; falls in love with Plantation owners
res
becomes integral the slave Chapel. Self-serving,
mi
to plantation house self-righteous and
Ad
Kills
M rebellious slaves.
an arr
d l ies
ov ire
e
worries about
lov
es m
Ad
Loves and
Overtly supports
en
idd
Co
Whitechapel
b
rre ith
For
Central voice;
spo
w
es n’ ‘loyal slave’;
ds
Lov y ‘so
l integral to the
Chapel on
stability of the
Taught to read by plantation. Editor of The
Lydia; learning Virginian
creates agitation; Provides
mixed race. justifications for
Cares for
OVERVIEW
Synopsis
Remembering: Old Whitechapel, speaking in the first person, experiences
the painful impact of allowing himself to remember the death of his son
Chapel and his complicit part in those events.
Whitechapel: Whitechapel begins the story central to the novel,
recalling the first morning after Chapel’s terrible death. He admits that he
was wrong to give his son up to Sanders for punishment and reflects that
he deserves to be called a betrayer like the Biblical Judas. We learn that
he has buried two wives, many children and his only son. He recounts
the death of his second wife and his desire for death to relieve him of his
suffering.
Mr Whitechapel: This is the voice of the plantation owner who
believes he treats his slaves humanely. He is speaking to Whitechapel,
his Deputy, and his Overseer, Mr Sanders. He reprimands Whitechapel
for not containing ‘his son’s anarchic spirit’ (p.28) for now he will have a
plantation of disgruntled slaves. He then accuses his overseer of spreading
discontent among the slaves, being negligent of his duty by being absent
and of ignoring his orders to hold Whitechapel’s son – in short he sees
him as responsible for Chapel’s death (see p.31) and he fines him. He
informs Sanders that his father raped Whitechapel’s second wife. Sanders
has therefore whipped and killed his own brother (in fact his half-brother).
2
We can discern that Sanders did not know this. This chapter is important
in revealing past information and the way Whitechapel’s long memory
links them to that past so that it cannot simply be forgotten. It shows the
less humane attitudes of Mr Whitechapel – his concern for his reputation
with other plantation owners and his disregard for Chapel’s suffering
when he reprimands Sanders for losing a slave on economic grounds.
Sanders Senior: He was a slave overseer on the plantation and his
story comes to us through his journal entries. These include his attraction
to the new slave, Cook. He rapes her twice – once before her marriage
to Whitechapel when he impregnates her and again brutally after the
wedding. He is fined for the rape and forced to marry a woman he detests
in order to protect the plantation from gossip and unrest. The reader now
has to reconsider Whitechapel’s references to Chapel as his only son.
We learn that Sanders Senior has also whipped a young runaway slave
200 times.
Cook: Speaking with childlike simplicity, Cook recounts her pain
but mainly focuses on her love for her husband Whitechapel who
married her even though she was pregnant to another man. Her love and
appreciation of Whitechapel’s strengths reinforce others’ respect for and
praise of Whitechapel in earlier chapters.
Chapel: Chapel’s only chapter is related in poetic form. Whitechapel
never beat him, his mother gave him much love, and the master’s
daughter taught him to read but swore him to secrecy. Her father
discovered them and he was whipped and told to tell no one for his
parents’ sake. He acquiesces but continues to meet Lydia at night. He
becomes increasingly critical of Whitechapel. He would have run away
except that his mother falls ill with fever and he helps nurse her until her
death. He then has nothing to hold him to the plantation – he feels joy
that he is finally leaving.
Plantation Owners: This chapter is the second time Mr Whitechapel
speaks. The title of the chapter directs us to see the broader picture –
the plantation owners and their attitudes to the problems that beset
Mr Whitechapel. Italics indicate Mr Whitechapel’s fears and thoughts,
The L o n g e s t M e m o r y 3
justify slavery. This gives the reader access to the wider cultural context
of slavery and the thinking that colours the attitudes of the characters
depicted. In this way some of the major issues raised in this novel are
debated here. Lydia’s defence of slaves becoming literate is praised for
its intelligence but her support for liaisons between white women and
African men is rejected as scandalous.
Great Grandmother: Despite the title, this is the voice of Whitechapel’s
great granddaughter who dreams of Africa. Because she has believed
Whitechapel to be infallible, she is confused by Whitechapel’s revelation
of Chapel’s whereabouts to the master, clearly an act of betrayal, and not a
protective act as he claims. Her pained experience of the whipping results
in the death of her dreams of Africa. She also describes Whitechapel’s
pain and withdrawal from virtually everyone after the event. At the end
of this section we learn that old Whitechapel has finally died; his great
granddaughter is asked to help wash his body but has to be taken from
the room.
Sanders Junior: Sanders is speaking to the now-dead Whitechapel –
thinking aloud about his mistake in hitting him, apologising for killing
his son, refusing to believe Chapel is his brother. He cannot understand
Whitechapel’s thinking and, shockingly, we learn that Whitechapel
misguidedly ordered the number of lashes.
Forgetting: Whitechapel’s last reflections before his death. He
imagines that he is speaking to his son, trying to make peace in his
mind for his inadequacy as a father and his failure which he admits; he
knows that Chapel is involved with Lydia; he admits that Chapel has ‘two
races ... distributed evenly in [his blood]’ (p.136). He welcomes death in
order to forget. ‘Memory is pain trying to resurrect itself’ (p.138).
Introduction
Frank D’Aguiar’s novel, The Longest Memory, recounts the story of the
slave Whitechapel whose remarkable and long life straddles the 18th and
19th centuries. His white master, Mr Whitechapel, and his fellow African
The L o n g e s t M e m o r y 5
It is important to put the events of this text into historical context. They
prefigure the events of the American Civil War, which occurred around
50 years later (1861–1865), giving subtle hints of the disquiet that would
fuel much of the warring between the Southern (Confederate) States and
the Northern (Union) States. The practice of slavery was a key trigger for
the Civil War, as so much of the wealth and power of the rural South
depended unashamedly upon the use of slaves. In the novel, the fact that
Chapel is half black and half white (as the natural offspring of Cook who
was raped by Sanders Senior), makes him a logical vehicle to challenge
the existing system. How could such a young man be expected to accept
such a racist and unjust system?
A time-honoured mechanism for controlling others deemed less
worthy or important is to keep them ill-educated and illiterate. Today we
may not perceive the ability to read and write to be special and yet for
millions in developing countries even today, a lack of literacy continues
to be an enormous barrier to progress and independence. So it was for
slaves in the Deep South – they were consciously kept illiterate, since it
was presumed that they were inferior beings. Therefore, when Lydia, the
daughter of the plantation owner (Mr Whitechapel), teaches Chapel to
read and write, she contravenes a basic principle. That Chapel becomes
so proficient in his command of language that he relishes great literary
works and even writes his own poetry is both ironic and revealing.
In the end, it seems, only the use of physical brutality, and even
murder, will keep these slaves ‘in their proper place’. Yet, it is clear to us
that slavery is not destined to last much longer; a fact even recognised
by the controlling whites as represented by the plantation owners and
the editor of their paper, The Virginian. Chapel’s gruesome death will
not stem the flow of agitation or the talk of abolitionists (those who
advocated that slavery be abolished and outlawed). Old Whitechapel’s
own pathetic death seems to signal the end of an era and register change
to the prevailing social order.