Artículo Sobre La Novela de Maryse Condé

The Art of Hybridity: Maryse Condé's Tituba
Author(s): Gema Ortega

Source: The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association , FALL 2014, Vol. 47,
No. 2 (FALL 2014), pp. 113-136
Published by: Midwest Modern Language Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44066192
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The Art of Hybridity:
Maryse Condes Tituba
Gema Ortega
360). Yet the main character of the

novel, Tituba, develops amid this
competition. She, I argue, tran-
the reader of Maryse scends what Bakhtin refers to as
Condes I, Tituba, Black Witch heteroglossia - the tension among
of Salem is looking for a feminist different worldviews - crafting
text, a condemnation of slavery, a narrative of identity character-
a traditional slave narrative, or a ized by its hybridity (Bakhtin
postcolonial novel, the text fulfills 269-275). Hybridity is the art
none of those expectations. In fact, of narrativizing ones subjectivity
Condes work seeks to distance out of the connections and con-
itself from any kind of discursivetacts with others. Recognizing

models, revealing that, whetherone self as hybrid necessitates the
they are informed by colonialism,incorporation of others' narratives
négritude, creoleness, feminism, orinto the narrative that we make of
ethnic nationalism, static narrativesour own selves. Bakhtin considers
limit individual consciousness and this hybrid voice "a unique artistic
its artistic representation* Condé ssystem," which is "deliberate" and

novel questions these dominant attains a "higher" unity for being
discourses by establishing a dialog-able to go beyond the fixity and
ical "fight" among them (Bakhtinbarrenness of absolute discourses

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Gema Ortega
(263). Thus, Conde 's poetics of identity in I, Tituba can be better under-
stood through a Bakhtinian interpretation of the subject as a creator.
According to Michael Holquist, "Insofar as we wrest particular
meanings out of general systems, we are all creators: a speaker is to his
utterance what an author is to his text. That anyone who speaks thereby
creates is arguably the most radical implication of Bakhtin's thought"
(314-315). This is key to understanding hybridity in the development of
Titubas "I." Authorship grants her autonomy from a multiplicity of social
and cultural positions as she moves across racial, gender, and national
borders. But as she encounters others in her journey, she assimilates their
ways of seeing the world into her own. This complex discursive process
blurs the oppositional differences between self and other.1 Hence, hybrid-
ity, as Conde conceptualizes it, does more than merely display diversity
and heteroglossia.2 The I of Tituba is artistically developed by the com-
bination of multiple discourses into a unified narrative of self;3 However,
this narrative is never finished, nor does it become a model to follow.
Titubas identity, like the novel itself, is a continuous "act of becoming"
(Bakhtin 3). Tituba consciously arranges her selfhood in the space of the
novel. Indeed, her "I" becomes indistinguishable from the novel itself and,
like any piece of literature or art, "escape [s] any fundamental determi-
nation, any assertion which could stabilize it or fix it. It is never already
there, it is always to be found or invented again" (Conde, Order 134).
Titubas Art, Titubas Magic: Her Hybridity

I, Tituba tells the life story of a woman born in Barbados in
the seventeenth century. Her mother, raped by a white sailor in the
Middle Passage, is hanged for stabbing her master in an attempt to avoid
being raped again. Tituba becomes an orphan by the age of seven and is
adopted by Mama Yaya, a free African woman who teaches her the art
of traditional healing, the language of nature, and "the upper spheres of
knowledge" (10) .4 Once she becomes a young woman, Tituba moves from
the countryside of Barbados to the city of Bridgetown and, from there,
to the village of Salem, Massachusetts. In New England, she is accused
of leading the well-known witch craze among the Puritan community.
She is jailed for seventeen months for being a "witch." After a series of
removals, Tituba goes back to Barbados, where she is hanged by the same
landowners who killed her mother.
ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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The Art of Hybridity | 115
Some elements in the plot of the novel are based on documented

events, and Tituba herself is a historical character. Yet Conde states in
her interview with Ann Armstrong Scarboro that she was never able to
"discover anything factual about [Tituba]" (199). Jane Moss argues, in
contrast, that "historians and writers have not forgotten Tituba: she figures
in all the contemporary accounts and as early as 1700 in New Wonders of
the Invisible World [and in] Robert Calef s response to Cotton Matherss
1692 official version of the trials Wonders of the Invisible World
(9). Along with these early historical accounts, Tituba appears in Arthur
Millers play The Crucible and is the victim of Ann Petry s novel Tituba of
Salem Village, among other literary works* However, in all these accounts,
if Tituba plays a significant role at all, she is merely an object to be talked
about or spoken for. This silencing opens a space for Condé to "write
[Titubas] story out of dreams" (Scarboro 199). The absence of information
about Tituba gives Conde the license to raise questions about the nature
of identity, representation, and truth in her novel.
Martin Heidegger has drawn attention to the power of language
to represent and process the world around us. In The Question Concerning
Technology, Heidegger asserts: "Man contends for the position in which
he can be that particular being who gives the measure and draws up
the guidelines for everything that is" (132). Condes approach to Tituba
echoes Heidegger's notion of language as power. She prefaces her novel
by reassigning roles to both herself and her character: "Tituba and I lived
for a year on the closest of terms. During our endless conversations she
told me things she had confided to nobody else' ' (vii). The early framing
of the narrative as a conversation between Condé and Tituba reverses
the traditional function of the writer as the active controller of repre-
sentation and the character as the passive represented object. Having
the power to tell her own story through the writer, Tituba is no longer
silenced and objectified. She becomes a speaking subject, creating her
own representation in the process of telling the story.5 Tituba effectively
reverts her invisibility and mends the image that Western historiography
has imposed on her:
It seemed that I was gradually being forgotten. I felt that

I would only be mentioned in passing in these Salem
witchcraft trials about which so much would be written

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Gema Ortega
later, trials that would arouse the curiosity and pity of

generations to come as the greatest testimony of a super-
stitious and barbaric age. There would be mention here
and there of 'a slave originating from the West Indies
and probably practicing 'hoodoo/ There would be no
mention of my age or my personality. I would be ignored.
As early as the end of the seventeenth century, petitions
would be circulated, judgments made, rehabilitating
the victims, restoring their honor, and returning their
property to their descendant. I would never be included!
Tituba would be condemned forever! (110)
The combination of writing and storytelling is a powerful

discursive strategy in the novel, since it reappropriates the past and
recreates a personal history for Tituba. Domna Stanton argues in her
study on female autobiography: "the graphing of the auto' [is] an act of
self-assertion that deniefs] and reverse [s] Titubas negative status. This
autograph' gives the female 'I' substance through the inscription of an
interior and an anterior" (14).
Despite Stanton's validation of Titubas autobiography, other
critics, like Jane Moss, reject the legitimacy of Titubas voice and personal
representation. "As readers," Moss argues, "we are so moved by Titubas
plight that we are willing to believe her and we accept at face value the
claim that Conde is filling this gap in history. The problem is that the
righteous indignation that we feel is betrayed by [historical] evidence"
(9). Conde responds by asserting that Tituba "is just the opposite of a
historical novel" (Scarboro 201). Tituba is the daughter of "will and imag-
ination " (6). It is the text that she crafts about herself that constitutes
her identification beyond any possible references to historical or recorded
events. Conde insists,
I wanted to show that there is no Truth. Everyone

recounts his/her life, life history, differently. It is not
possible to find an objective reality . . . Because every-
one lies. Not in a conscious or malicious way. Because,
ultimately, to tell a story is to embellish it, to fabricate

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it according to one's tastes and desires, to create fiction,

(McCormick 520)
Therefore, I, Tituba does not suggest that Titubas autobiogra-

phy is more reliable than the historical accounts* Conde emphasizes that
both accounts require invention, whether they are considered historical,
autobiographical, fictional, or factual From that vantage point, Tituba
claims her subject position in order to denounce the objectification and
vilification to which her character has been subjected. Early in the novel,
when Tituba is still in Barbados, Tituba critiques the way white women
alienate her from their conversations:
It was not so much the conversation that amazed and
revolted me as their way of going about it. You would

think I was not standing there at the threshold of the
room. They were talking to me and yet ignoring me.
They were striking me off the map of human beings. I
was not being. Invisible. More invisible that the unseen,
who at least have powers that everyone fears. Tituba
existed insofar as these women let her exist. It was atro-
cious. (24)
Once Tituba is among the Puritan community of New England,

she is deemed to be the personification of evil and witchcraft: "my color
was indicative of my close connections with Satan ... In Salem such con-
viction was shared by all" (65). Yet Tituba challenges this representation
of her knowledge, skills, and skin color, relativizing New Englanders'
absolute convictions about her character. "What is a witch?" she protests:
I noticed that when he said the word, it was marked

with disapproval. Why should that be? Why? Isn't the
ability to communicate with the invisible world, to keep
constant links with the dead, to care for others and heal,
a superior gift of nature that inspires respect, admira-

tion and gratitude? Consequently, shouldn't the witch
(if that's what the person who has this gift is called) be
cherished and revered rather than feared? (1 7)6

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Gema Ortega
Tituba questions the meaning of witch by subverting the negativity that

has always been projected onto her, pinning the negativity instead on her
accusers. Tituba wisely concludes: "Everyone gives that word a different
meaning. Everyone believes he can fashion a witch to his way of thinking
so that she will satisfy his ambitions, dreams, and desires" (146).
Witchcraft does not function in the novel as a mere element of
the plot but as a counter-discourse, which serves to denounce any narrative

that claims the power to represent others. The truly subversive nature of
Titubas "sorcery" resides in its capacity to disrupt and destabilize Western
master narratives. To that effect, Angela Davis states: "When Tituba
takes her place in the history of the Salem witch trials, the recorded
history of that era - and indeed the entire history of the colonization
process - is revealed to be seriously flawed" (x). Titubas authority, which
she regains through the writing of her own self, puts into question
dominant discourses that claim the right to determine and fix others.
Furthermore, Titubas "upper" knowledge and "magic" abilities
serve as metaphors of her hybrid consciousness. Crossbreeding, making
substitutions, transforming, and adapting are skills that Tituba learns
from Mama Yaya: "Under her guidance, I attempted bold hybrids,
cross-breeding the passiflorinde with the prune taureau, the poisonous
pomme cy there with the surette, and the azalêe-àes-azaXêes with the per -
sulfureuse . I devised drugs and potions whose powers I strengthened
with incantations" (11). Once she is in New England and cannot find
the same herbs due to the different climate and terrain, she decides "to
make substitutions. A maple tree whose foliage was turning red would do
for a silk-cotton tree. Glossy, spiny holly leaves would replace the Guinea
grass. Yellow, odorless flowers would do for the salapertuis . . . My prayers
did the rest" (45). Titubas ability to hybridize plants and tolerance for
alternate options transcend biological and botanical dimensions to mirror
the way she approaches a poetics of identity. She is comfortable finding
other ways of being, even if they are not "authentic" and require a bit
of imagination. For example, Tituba rejects her mothers state of mind,
which only sees in Tituba the white sailor who raped her (6). Instead,
she commends Yaos power to conceive Tituba as her child, challenging
anyone who dares to say otherwise (5). Yao gives Tituba her name and
creates for her an alternative reality that transcends the violence of the
biracial regime to which Abena was subjected. Likewise, Mama Yayas

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The Art of Hybridity ļ 119
teachings go beyond botanical crossbreeding. She understands the ability

to be fluid as the best means of survival. Indeed, Mama Yaya recommends,
"si tu arrives au pays des culs-de-jatte, traîne- toi par terre!" (Conde, Moi ,
Tituba 88)7 Mama Yaya teaches Tituba a type of adaptation that requires
agency, movement, and skill, as opposed to mere acceptance, assimilation,
or despair. This worldview assumes that everyone occupies a subject posi-
tion, and therefore people continuously evolve in contact with one another.
If Tituba challenges all essentializing notions of identity that
claim or demand authenticity, the alternative is a paradigm of identity
that focuses on fluidity, change, and inclusiveness toward others. In that
sense, Titubas identity is not defined by her birth, origin, gender, or race.
While those are elements of her personal narrative, they are external to
her representation and are not allowed to have the power to objectify
and fix her as an individual. Titubas narrative transcends monologic and
master discourses, securing a subject position in her own representation.
Yet Titubas identity is not created in a vacuum. As she rejects tradi-
tional forms of identification, she forms her "self" with and through the
discourses of others. The creation of "Titubas" subjectivity is based on a
reciprocal relationship between subject positions, in which a dialogical
interaction is established to create a fluid representation. This is not an
easy or benign process, though. As Bakhtin reminds us, the dynamic of
dialogic interactions does not lack tension and violence. The multiplicity
of discourses, embodied in the array of characters that Tituba encounters
in her lifetime, "fight" and viciously compete with each other to be the ones
to define Titubas identity. Yet Titubas ability to escape heteroglossia and
create her own voice, transcending monologic accounts, is precisely what
constitutes her hybridity. In I , Tituba, hybridity does not derive from
biological racial mixing or from pure multiplicity.8 Tituba constructs
her "higher" voice by transgressingphysical, temporal, racial, and cultural
borders in search of others. She is a "conscious hybrid" (Bakhtin 366).
As T ituba journeys farther away from her homeland, her aware-
ness of others increases, challenging any formulation of identity based on
geographical and group belonging.9 Tituba moves from a free yet relatively
isolated life on the outskirts of a plantation to a different life in city of
Bridgetown. There, she becomes a slave by choice. Her first significant
encounter with John Indian - an African slave - turns into Titubas first
major awakening. Already a young woman, Tituba falls in love with him.

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Gema Ortega
This presents her with the dilemma of leaving her freedom and solitude
for the love of a man in bondage. Realizing the impossibility of eluding
sexual attraction and companionship, she trespasses "the boundaries [she]
had set up for [herself]/' ironically giving up her freedom of her own
accord: "Hie slaves who flocked off the ships in droves and whose gait,
features, and carriage the good people of Bridgetown mocked were far
freer than I was. For the slaves had not chosen their chains . ♦ . That is
exactly what I had done" (11, 25).

The cycle of movement, awareness, and self-recognition that is
established at the beginning of the narrative continues throughout her
lifetime and the span of the novel. Described in those terms, Titubas
journey could be compared to the quests of epic heroes. She needs to pass
a series of obstacles and face her destiny, becoming someone new in the
process. However, Titubas actions are not heroic in the classical sense of
the word. She is never considered a leader, nor is she a source of inspira-
tion. Conde describes Tituba as a "mock-epic" character, an anti-heroine.
Indeed, Tituba relates more closely to the picaresque tradition than to the
heroic epic . Antonio Rey Hazas describes the character of the picaro in his
introduction of a modern edition of El Lazarillo de Tormes in this way:
He is a character opposed to the moral and social con-

cept of honor. His behavior is always against honor,
and therefore anti-heroic . . . the picaros anti-heroic
attitude implies the picaresque novel's critique of the
superficial concept of honor, based on fake appear-
ances and external pretense, money and heritage.
Simultaneously, the anti-heroism of the picaresque
novel shows a longing for freedom ... a desire to
go over the rigid social and moral barriers of the
times to defend human independence. (34)10
Tituba, like the figure of the picaro, awakens from a period of innocence
into one of adversity. The world treats her as an outcast. Throughout her
journey from master to master, the variety of characters whom Tituba
encounters represent the different sociocultural discourses that help form
her hybridity. Since she exposes these discourses as fixed and artificial
forms of identification, she remains free from them.

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John Indian exemplifies the literary figure of the trickster. He

embodies a discourse of resistance that insists on using and manipulating
the very system that oppresses him in order to survive*11 Once he becomes
her husband, he urges Tituba to play the part of the slave: "Repeat, my
love! What matters for the slave is to survive* Repeat my angel! You
just need to pretend* Repeat!" (25)* Yet throughout the novel, his per-
spective is discredited* John Indian cannot effectively fight oppression
because he does not have an autonomous voice to challenge the system*
He consciously plays the roles that the dominant discourse has imposed
on him in order to ease his situation, no matter the cost* In doing so,
he accepts his condition of slavery, maintaining the status quo* Pascale
Bécel agrees, "John Indian's motto is survival through compliance with
the plantation system" (611). John Indian defends his approach: "'I wear
a mask, my tormented wife* Painted the colors they want* Red, bulging
eyes? "Yes, Massa!" Thick, black lips? "Yes, Myssy!" The nose flattened
like a toad? "At your service, ladies and gentlemen!" And behind all that,
I, John Indian, am free'" (74)* John Indian's freedom is shallow, if it exists
at all* The "mask" he complacently wears only serves to secure the system
and to comfort those who put it in place by reassuring them of its nor-
mality and authenticity* Moreover, his performance fixes him into the
role he is expected to play* As for his consciousness, he is trapped in the
same totalizing discourse he claims to dupe: "you believe that some of
them can respect and love us* How mistaken you are! You must hate
without distinction!" (74)* Similarly, Tituba confronts the glorification of
Antillean heroism - marronagt - through the character of Christopher*
Christopher's preoccupation has less to do with the precarious situation
of the plantation slaves than it does with his own narcissistic obsession
with becoming immortal like Ti Noël, the mythical figure of the Haitian
revolution. He asks Tituba to use her powers to make him invincible*
Added to his self-centered motivations, his chauvinistic pride promises
Tituba "everything a woman desires" in exchange for her services. Tituba
defiantly responds, "Meaning what?" (146)
Through the representation of Christopher as metaphor of phal-
locentric marronage and the reappraisal of the trickster figure, Tituba
challenges the domineering power of others' discourses* On the one hand,
John Indian struggles to survive by manipulating the system from within,
and wants to impose the same kind of life on Tituba* Christopher, on

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Gema Ortega
the other hand, escapes the system in order to create and maintain at
all costs his own realm of influence and reputation, recreating the patri-
archal and oppressive structure of the white world. Tituba denounces
both discourses as flawed models of resistance. John Indian is never able
to develop an autonomous and unified consciousness to call his own,
finding himself trapped in a constant double-voiced ruse. Christopher
is ultimately unable to realize his goals for he is consumed by dreams of
immortality and power.
By the same token, Tituba challenges early white feminism as
another narrative that may limit individual consciousness and its aes-
thetic representation. Titubas encounters with women through her
journey are characterized by hatred, betrayal, rejection, suspicion, and
jealousy. Abena rejects Tituba and deprives her of any maternal affection.
Susannah Endicott, Titubas first mistress, humiliates her. Once Tituba is
in North America, Elisabeth Parris seems to establish a genuine friend-
ship with her. Nevertheless, Tituba realizes that women are not the same
everywhere despite suffering under the same patriarchal establishment:
"We did not belong to the same universe, Goodwife Parris, Betsey, and
I, and all the affection in the world could not change that" (63). Elisabeth
Parris is quick to accuse Tituba of being a witch and therefore responsible
for her child's sudden attacks of hysteria. Yet, as Michelle Smith argues,
"the most dangerous trap the novel lays for seekers of female solidarity is
the appearance of Hester Prynne in the Ipswich prison," where Tituba
is incarcerated on charges of sorcery (603). Through intertextual refer-
ences to Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Conde takes white
feminism to task. Hester has just been charged with adultery when she
meets Tituba. They automatically establish a bond that proves to be
more durable than any other relationship that Tituba has had in the
story. Nevertheless, their outlook regarding love, men, and womanhood
is widely divergent.
Hester embodies a white feminist credo that Titubas experiences
expose as unreasonable and uninformed. The first of their misunder-
standings comes from Hesters ignorance about Titubas origin. Tituba
proudly tells Hester her name, which Hester repeats "with delight" as if
it is rare and exotic. However, she becomes disappointed when Tituba
says that her father named her. Hester exclaims, "you accepted the name
a man gave you? ... I was hoping that at least some societies were an

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exception to this law* Yours, for example!" Tituba is amused at Hester's

lack of awareness about slavery and the devastating consequences of forced
removal for Africans in the New World: "perhaps in Africa where we
come from . . ♦ But we know nothing of Africa any more and it no longer
has any meaning for us" (95-96). Hester's obvious ignorance about her
own privilege as a white Anglo-Saxon woman continues to characterize
the relationship between the two women, underscoring the limitations
of considering Hester a universal symbol of female oppression.
Abortion is another topic of debate between the two characters.
While Tituba is still conflicted by her decision to abort her child and
spare the baby from a life of misery under slavery, Hester unapologet-
ically reports her success at having aborted four children. She explains
that she would have found impossible to love them due to her hatred for
her husband. Later, when Tituba learns that Hesters likely punishment
for adultery would be to wear a scarlet letter braided on the chest of her
dress, she exclaims, "Is that all they do?" (98). Tituba has been gang-
raped and tortured horrifically by the ministers to force her to confess
to "witchcraft." The contrast between the women's experiences highlights
Hesters ignorance of the intersectionality of race, gender, and class in
the face of bigotry.
The most important disagreement between Hester and Tituba
involves sexuality. Tituba describes herself as an overtly sexual being
who desires men. Hester, on the other hand, expresses a desire for a
world devoid of men and governed exclusively by women: "I'd like to
write a book where I'd describe a model of society governed and run my
women! We would give our names to our children, we would raise them
alone." Alarmed, Tituba points out that women would need men to have
children and that men would have to stay a while because, as she jokingly
adds, "I like to take my time." Immediately, Hester adds patronizingly,
"you are too fond of love, Tituba! I'll never make a feminist out of you!"
(101)12 Despite the obvious affection between the two women, Hesters
misandry prevents Tituba from partaking in her feminist agenda. Tituba
chooses to distance herself from another domineering master narrative,
preferring the freedom to control her own discourse, even though hers
is full of inconsistences and the cause of incredible pain.
This array of characters in I, Tituba exemplifies Bakhtin's notion
of heteroglossia. The characters' utterances express certain ideologies that

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Gema Ortega
struggle to dominate each other as they dominate the characters through

whom they are voiced* These characters are trapped in single, static, and
stable narratives* Tituba, in contrast, consciously fights to maintain the
control of her own representation by creating and recreating her voice
through each of her encounters with different individuals' worldviews. In
the process, Titubas voice remains active and changing Thus, as Tituba
guides her voice among the multiplicity of social ideologies present in the
novel, she engages with others, authoring an autonomous yet intercon-
nected voice* This is the voice already vigorously asserted in the title, "I,
Tituba/' The creative aesthetic nature of the process of subject formation
is opposed to the passive acceptance of external narratives* The other char-
acters' voices are not formed dialogically* They embody predetermined
discourses that do not allow for creativity, fluidity, or inclusiveness* Their
identities are fixed and naturalized by the seemingly indisputable nature
of the narratives they come to represent*
After all, Mama Yaya is right when she keeps reassuring Tituba,
"out of them all, you'll be the only one to survive" (85)* The ability to create
one's own voice out of other voices is the only way to live on* Though
Tituba dies at the end of the novel, her voice continues transforming and
creating itself through storytelling* While Tituba tells her life-story in
a relatively coherent chronological order, the framework of the narrative
is circular* This strategy underscores Condes reluctance to be the single
agent in telling one story* The retelling of the story is more important for
Tituba than the telling of the succession of events themselves* That is, the
end of the story is told at the beginning* Tituba, as a historical character,
has already passed away and the reader "knows" her story* Moreover, in
the epilogue, Tituba confirms that her "real story starts where this one
leaves off and it has no end" (175)*
If the chronological order of events is irrelevant in Titubas telling,
the state of "becoming" in time is emphasized through its circularity* Paul
Ricoeur defines this phenomenon as the indefinite extension of duration
both backward and forward, both cohesion and change (181). He adds:
By reading the end into the beginning and the begin-

ning into the end, we learn to read time backward, as
the recapitulation of the initial conditions of a course
of action in its terminal consequences* In this way, the

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plot does not merely establish human action "in" time,

it also establishes it in memory. And memory in turn
repeats - re-collects - the course of events according to
an order that is the counterpart of the stretching-along
of time between a beginning and an end. (183)
In the novel, Titubas constant movement towards "becoming" is more

important than the events that lead to her death, and the end of the
chronological tale, as a source of personal meaning. The narrative does
not tell Titubas story per se, but it re-collects through storytelling the
possibilities in which Titubas identity, as a text, stays in a constant act
of becoming. Tituba goes back in time to retell her story, so she can
arrange a voice for herself independent from historiographical accounts
and cultural theories. Condé, as the recipient of that story, writes the
information, adding new dimensions to Titubas voice until it reaches
a new recipient who, in turn, will do the same.13 Thus, the narrative of
Tituba continuously grows and changes in contact with others, replicating
the development of the character in the story itself. Each retelling requires
a return to the past, to reformulate the story in the present and to bring
it forward to the possibilities of the future. In Ricoeur's words, "it is
itself the spiral movement that brings us back to the almost motionless
constellation of potentialities that the narrative retrieves" that enables
Titubas constant change as fundamental characteristic of her hybrid
consciousness (186).
Michael Holquist indicates that the most radical implication
of Bakhtin's thought is that "anyone who speaks thereby creates" (315).
Tituba surmounts the monologic and barren ideologies presented in the
novel by creating her own voice and identity through the appropriation
and adaptation of those narratives into her own story of self. It is out of
these encounters that Tituba establishes her voice, since they assist in the
ongoing, constant process of "writing" herself. Tituba incorporates, or, to
use Bakhtin s word, "orchestrates" their ideologies into her consciousness,
maintaining at the same time her own unity and identity (299). In that
sense, Tituba embodies the transcendence of heteroglossia into hybrid
consciousness, defined by Bakhtin as "the mixture of two social languages
within the limits of a single utterance, an encounter . . . that is intentional
[and] artistically organized" (358, 366).

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Gema Ortega
Paradoxically, Titubas hybridity imposes on her a painful and

radical form of solitude. As Conde affirms, "[Tituba] lacks a sense of
community" (Fulton 150).14 Although she is constantly meeting and
serving new people, she necessarily remains alone. Her only regular
companions are the spirits of her ancestors, who mysteriously guide her
through her trials. But to be able to ascertain her unique voice, Tituba
needs to maintain a distance from the discourses she encounters. Her
hybridity, although formed in dialogue with others, is internally and
independently created, in contrast to external narratives of identifica-
tion that require no coordination or orchestration for being fixed and
imposed on the individual. This allows Titubas voice to free itself from
the controlling authority of universal narratives. Titubas voice also has
the power to reveal and challenge the fixity and artificiality of monologic
discourses. She exposes the bigotry inherent in the Western discourse
of witchcraft, the flaws of the historical accounts that chose to subdue
her voice, the Manichean structure of a slave society whose survival is
contingent on the immutability of racial divisions, the ineffectiveness of
mere double-voicedness that maintains the black-versus-white paradigm,
the reliance on myths as a way to escape reality, and finally the unreason-
able demands of absolute ideologies that undermine the self. A hybrid
narrative opens a space in which these different discourses interact with
each other while they expose their contingencies, tensions, ambiguities,
gaps, and flaws. Meanwhile, Titubas independent voice forms out of the
energy created by such dialogic dynamism. Her ability to create her own
voice while she "illuminates" the voices of others forces her to remain
detached, alone, and therefore free from monolithic and external dis-
courses of self (Bakhtin 68).15
It would be inconsistent with Bakhtinian understanding of
hybridity to claim that any given voice constitutes an ideal of conduct.
Accordingly, Conde asserts that she is "not interested in giving models" to
people. In fact, she warns us "not to take Tituba too seriously" (Scarboro
200, 212). Tituba is after all depicted as a human being: flawed, naive,
fearful, oblivious, and selfish at times. Indeed, she, like the picaro, is an
anti-heroine. Hybrid consciousness, as we have already stated, is in con-
stant movement and transformation. To be able to transform, T ituba also
needs to maintain a distance from her own discourse of self. If we take her
"too seriously," she becomes as fixed and monologic as the others. Parody

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and distortion allow for a necessary distance from the text itself By the
end of the novel, Mama Yaya asks, "you talk about freedom. Have you any
idea what it means?" (162). The novel does not give us an answer. However,
a partial understanding of freedom as implied in the novel involves what
I have described throughout this article as the art of hybridity. That is to
say, to achieve human independence from any kind of prescriptive and
restrictive narratives of self, one needs the ability to see identity as a text
in constant movement and change. This text is formed and informed by
others whom we encounter in the journey, but we cannot fall into the
trap of promoting it as a natural and incontestable representation of our
absolute Truth,
Conclusion: The Art of Hybridity

Condé s I, Tituba challenges essentializing notions of identity
that demand authenticity. Identity, in the novel, is not conceived as an
inward sense of being; rather, it is formed in and through language.
Therefore, an identity is an external narrative that seeks to establish het-
erodox links among "disparate" groups. Hence, Condé leaves the notion
of hybridity in a constant evolving state, A hybrid identity is forever in
transit and transcends monologic discourses only as a result of a con-
scious and individual act of creative power. Hybridity then can only be
understood in the form of a text that makes sense of our beings in rela-
tion to others - a discursive production characterized by its capacity to
incorporate a multiplicity of voices into a single and personal narrative of
identification. In other words, hybrid identifications disrupt the existing
orders of representation by emphasizing the multiplicity of positions,
the complexity, and the contingency of any given individual. It is in this
instability and confusion that I, Tituba opens the space to create new,
individual meanings for oneself.
For that reason, change and movement become integral compo-
nents of individual discourse, Condé states in her essay "Order, Disorder,
Freedom and the West Indian Writer," "In a Bambara myth of origin, , , ,
disorder meant the power to create new objects and to modify the existing
ones. In a word, disorder meant creativity" (130), Condé 's Tituba is not
only multiple, but also unstable within herself - open to change. She does
not attempt to organize the natural chaos existing in the exterior world
into patterns and models. Instead, she thrives on complexity, instability,

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Gema Ortega
and dynamism, since an interior creative force surges to produce a single

and personal order out of chaos. She becomes a nomad twisting and
weaving through time and space in an endless act of becoming, in search
of a personal and social identity*
Nomadism, in Deleuze and Guattari s sense, is characterized by
movement, which contrasts with the rigid and static boundaries imposed
by any monologic narrative of identity. Deleuze and Guattari explain:
The nomad has a territory; he follows customary paths;

he goes from one point to another; he is not ignorant of
points (water points, dwelling points, assembly points
etc*)* But the question is what in nomad life is a principle
and what is only a consequence. To begin with, although
the points determine paths, they are strictly subordi-
nated to the paths they determine, the reverse happens
with the sedentary. The water point is reached only in
order to be left behind; every point is a relay and exists
only as a relay. A path is always between two points,
but the in-between has taken on all the consistency and
enjoys both an autonomy and a direction of its own. The
life of the nomad is the intermezzo. (380)
The nomad offers a conscious way of being in transit between

points, resisting and challenging systems of organization that restrain
the passages of encounters with others. As Madeleine Cottenet-Hage
and Lydie Moudileno affirm, Condé 's fondness of mobility "insistently
manifests [its] denial of settlement in all its forms" (11).16 Conde deems
migration to be a process that allows for a hybrid identity not defined by
a single location or by belonging to a group. The lack of a specific place to
call home in Condes work, as Karin Schwerdtner notes, challenges the
universal reliability of origin, nationality, and family as the only principles
on which an identity can be based (135). Identity stops being something
inherited or constructed on the basis of an affiliation to a socially or geo-
graphically prescribed group. Instead, identity evolves in relation to the
ongoing movement through social and geographical spaces. Moreover, it
emerges as a result of the encounters with others that these spaces afford.

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Condé s concept of hybrid identity is not limited to space, but

also applies to her conception of time and history. This model presents
culture and history as a map with a wide array of connections and no
specific beginning or endpoint. Deleuze and Guattari explain:
What distinguishes the map from the tracing is that it

is entirely oriented toward experimentation in contact
with the real The map does not reproduce an uncon-
scious closed in upon it; it constructs the unconscious* It
fosters connections between fields ♦ . . The map is open
and connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable,
reversible, susceptible to constant modification . . . Perhaps

one of the most important characteristics of the rhizome
is that it always has multiple entry ways; . . ♦ as opposed to
the tracing, which always comes back "to the same/' (12)
Condé 's distinct use of time shows a desire to escape "the tradi-
tional terms under which the history of West has been written and the
historians have judged" (Peterson 102).17 That is, instead of relying on
a purely Western chronological conception of time geared toward the
objectification of events, she partakes of a contrapuntal consciousness of
time and history that unites subject and object as well as present, past, and
future, in a symbiotic and reciprocal relationship (Palencia-Roth 9). For
Condé, history, truth, and identity are "always in movement" (Moudileno
115 7).18 Her concept of time cannot be bounded to a chronological pro-
gression with a beginning and an end. Like the map, time and history
are at once cyclical and contrapuntal, with "lines of flight" that combine
present, past, and future in order to provide a more reliable and com-
plete, albeit chaotic and uncertain, source of individual knowledge and
awareness.
This chaotic and constant movement is, as I have m

earlier, a source of creative power for Condé. Psychologica
temporal wanderings combine to develop personal iden
transit, rejecting socially prescribed scripts linked to a si
place, community, gender, and language. In this way, a hy
of identity, as an "act of becoming," needs to be distingui

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Gema Ortega
traditional Bildungsroman . The hero of the Bildungsroman strives to root

himself or herself, to find a place in society. Condes narrative of becoming
compares, instead, to the picaresque genre, which relies on the process
of "becoming" as an endless act of wandering in which the protagonist
embodies the antithesis of the bourgeois ideal The picaresque tradition
emphasizes a loss of roots and lack of dwelling, and it does not celebrate
movement as always upward bound with a certain epiphany. On the con-
trary, the wanderer is always an outsider, destined to suffer due to his
or her difference. Migration and movement is revealed as a particularly
agonizing experience yet the only way, as Moudileno asserts, "to attain
the necessary distance for the subjects autonomy" (1158).
The idea that "we must all, perforce, become authors" is key to
understanding hybridity in I, Tituba (Holquist 314-315). Movement
and migration furnish knowledge and wisdom. Encounters with others
develop the critical, reflective, and creative consciousness that is neces-
sary to transcend parochial scripts of identity based on the traditional
determinism of nationality, race, gender, or territory. Thus, authorship,
as the distinctive feature of a hybrid consciousness, allows for an auton-
omous voice, which is the narrative that we ultimately create about our
own selves.
Dominican University
Notes
1 Bakhtin summarizes this process as the ability of "saying 'I am me' in

someone else's language, and in my own language, 1 am other'" (Bakhtin
315).
2 Heteroglossia is defined in "Discourse in the Novel" as the "multiplicity

of social voices and the wide variety of their links and interrelationships"
that enter an aesthetic discourse, which is dialogized into a higher unity
(Bakhtin 262-263).
3 My analysis of cultural hybridity in Maryse Condé departs from Homi

Bhabha's conception of hybridity here. For Bhabha, "the access to an image
of identity is only possible in the negation of any sense of originality" (51).

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Consequently, hybridization as a way to overcome cultural alienation in

Bhabhas theoretical framework entraps individuals within the parameters
of the master's language» Bhabhas hybridity does not provide individuals
the ability to speak on their own terms since occupying a liminal state
precludes the possibility of attaining a single, unique voice* Ania Loomba,
among other postcolonial critics, has expressed the same concerns with
Bhabhas understanding of hybrid subjectivities. Bhabhas "radical inde-
terminisim" does not explain the process by which a given individual
develops a hybrid voice (Loomba 172 )♦ For a critique of Bhabhas see
Ania Loomba, "Overworlding the "Third World'," Benita Parri, "Signs of
Our Times," and Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan, Diaspor ic Mediations * In
the context of the Caribbean, Shalini Puri's The Caribbean Postcolonial
criticizes Bhabha for dehistorizing and generalizing cultural hybridity
into a theoretical model devoid of any specific social reality* My analysis
of hybridity in Condé 's, I, Tituba, is informed by the same concerns
that Puri raises regarding Bhabhas failure to theorize how specific social
groups work to construct direct oppositional narratives grounded in their
unique historical and social circumstances*
4 The quotations in the text are taken from Richard Philcox 's translation
of Condé 's novel, Moi , Tituba sorcière * * . Noire de Salem (Paris: Mercure
de France, 1986)*
5 Maryse Condé 's narratives are well known by their rhizomatic struc-
ture, which underscores Condes desire to escape essentializing notions
of individual and collective identity in the Caribbean* A case in point is
her La Traversée de La Mangrove published in 1989* While the identity
of the deceased Francis Sancher (Francisco Sanchez), in La Traversée,
is represented from multiple points of view, Tituba takes control of her
own representation, despite the fact that she has also passed by the time
the novel starts* In both cases, Maryse Condé emphasizes that iden-
tity, whether collective or individual, is never singular or fixed* It is
only through the realization that identity is a dialogized story, which in
Titubas case includes the voice of the author among others, the object
and subject of representation tangle, avoiding the pitfalls of origins or
authenticity in narratives of self and others*
6 It is important to note that the English version of the French title uses
the word witch rather than the direct translation of sorcière, "sorcerer,"

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Gema Ortega
which carries fewer negative connotations for an English-speaking

readership. The choice connotes for a modern English reader the same
disapproval that Tituba faces in New England, due to prejudice against
her knowledge, skills, and skin colon In contrast, the French title, Moi ,
Tituba sorcière ♦♦♦ Noire de Salem, employs the words sorcière and noire
separated by an ellipsis. The omission and silence in the ellipsis creates an
opening for redefinition, unfinishedness, and dialogism that is analogous
to Titubas efforts to change her own representation, questioning any
given cultural preconception and judgment by others. By extension, the
comparative reading of the French and English titles replicates Titubas
struggle to represent herself across cultures.
7 The literal translation of the expression is "If you arrive in the country
of legless cripples, drag yourself on the ground," The phrase in French
shows the necessity to adapt and keep moving better than the translation
in the English version of the novel: "When you get to the blind man's
country, close both eyes" (54), I thank my colleague Elizabeth Landers
for the literal translation from the original in French,
8 Yet O'Regan claims that Titubas abilities "reside in the mixed-race

status of the protagonist" (99),
9 It is worth noting that Maryse Condé chooses to distance her charac-

ter from her homeland in the same way she distances her understanding
of hybridity from the discourse of Antillanité (Creoleness) as theorized
by French West Indian intellectuals such as Glissant and the Créolistes:
Chamoiseau, Bernabé, and Cofiant, Glissant insists in "re-rooting"
Creoleness in its "true place" (182) and the Créolist manifesto, Éloge a
la Creolité, reduces the individual, according to Condé, to a collective cul-
tural nationalism with borders geared to exclude and reproduce binaries:
Creole vs, non-Creole, For Condé, these discourses promote a national
cultural harmony, masking the prejudices, based on gender, color, class,
and national origin, that still exist on Caribbean societies, Shalini Puri
makes a similar argument in The Caribbean Postcolonial, suggesting that
the rhetoric of "nonconflictual diversity" in the Caribbean results in
inequality (48), Yet, Maryse Condes aversion to any kind of totalizing
models is influenced by her concern with external representations and
the objectifying powers that discourses of cultural identity exert upon
individual consciousness. See Condé, "Order, Disorder, Freedom, and

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the West Indian Writer" and "Reprendre la parole: Pour une littérature
du refus/'
10 "[Es] un personaje opuesto al concepto moral y social de la honra*

Su postura es siempre anti-honrosa, por lo mismo que es antiheroica
la actitud deshonrosa del picaro implica la crítica de la novela picaresca
contra la concepción superficial del honor, basada en las falsas apariencias
y oropeles externos, dinero y herencia de sangre. Simultáneamente, el
antihonor picaresco supone un anhelo de libertad ,„un afán de saltar por
encima de las rigurosas barreras socio-morales de la época, en defensa de
la independencia humana/' My translation*
11 The figure of the trickster in African-American literary criticism

has become an example of the possibility of overcoming the system of
oppression from within. In The Signifying Monkey, Henry Louis Gates,
Jr., points out the double- voiced indeterminacy of the tricksters use of
the oppressor's language as a subversive mechanism (22).
12 The word feminist, or féministe, did not exist in 1692. Condé con-
sciously uses the linguistic anachronism to emphasize contemporary
white feminism as a form of monologic discourse. Overall, Conde is not
as interested in historical accuracy as she is in questioning the authority
of master narratives.
13 In the novel, the recipient ofTitubas knowledge and story is Samantha,

who first learns about Tituba through rumors and a folk song (177).
14 "[Tituba] n'a pas les sens de la collectivité." My translation.
15 "Illumination" of one absolute language by means of another is the

major relativizing force in de-privileging languages. When cultures
are closed to one another, each considers itself absolute. Yet, when one
language sees itself in the light of another, the myth of wholeness and
closeness perish (Bakhtin 430).
16 Condé s mobility "manifeste avec insistance [son] refus de la séden-

tarisation sous toutes ses formes." My translation.
17 "Les termes traditionnels selon lesquels l'Histoire de l'Ouest est écrite

et l'historien porte jugement." My translation.
18 "Toujours en mouvement." My translation.

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Gema Ortega
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Holquist. Austin, Tex.: U of Texas P, 1981. Print.
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Créolité . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1990. Print.
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Richard Philcox. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994. ix-xi. Print.
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Condé." Dalhousie French Studies 76 (2006): 149-53. Print.
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Dash. Charlotlesville: U. P. of Virginia, 1989. Print.
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Artículo Sobre La Novela de Maryse Condé

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The Art of Hybridity: Maryse Condé's Tituba

Author(s): Gema Ortega

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44066192

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360). Yet the main character of the

itself from any kind of discursivetacts with others. Recognizing

its artistic representation* Condé ssystem," which is "deliberate" and

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Titubas Art, Titubas Magic: Her Hybridity

ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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Some elements in the plot of the novel are based on documented

It seemed that I was gradually being forgotten. I felt that

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later, trials that would arouse the curiosity and pity of

The combination of writing and storytelling is a powerful

I wanted to show that there is no Truth. Everyone

ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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it according to one's tastes and desires, to create fiction,

Therefore, I, Tituba does not suggest that Titubas autobiogra-

It was not so much the conversation that amazed and

revolted me as their way of going about it. You would

Once Tituba is among the Puritan community of New England,

I noticed that when he said the word, it was marked

a superior gift of nature that inspires respect, admira-

ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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Tituba questions the meaning of witch by subverting the negativity that

the plot but as a counter-discourse, which serves to denounce any narrative

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teachings go beyond botanical crossbreeding. She understands the ability

ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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exactly what I had done" (11, 25).

He is a character opposed to the moral and social con-

ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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John Indian exemplifies the literary figure of the trickster. He

ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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exception to this law* Yours, for example!" Tituba is amused at Hester's

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struggle to dominate each other as they dominate the characters through

By reading the end into the beginning and the begin-

ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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plot does not merely establish human action "in" time,

In the novel, Titubas constant movement towards "becoming" is more

ART & ARTIFICE | FALL 2014 | VOLUME 47 | NUMBER 2

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Paradoxically, Titubas hybridity imposes on her a painful and