Jameson - Third World Literature in The Era of Multinational Capital

Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism
Author(s): Fredric Jameson

Source: Social Text, No. 15 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 65-88
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466493
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intheEraof
Literature
Third-World
Multinational
Capitalism
FREDRIC JAMESON
intellectuals,thereis
Judgingfromrecentconversationsamong third-world
now an obsessivereturnof the national situationitself,the name of the country
thatreturnsagain and again like a gong,thecollectiveattentionto "us" and what
we haveto do and how we do it,to what we can't do and what we do betterthan
in short,to the level of the
this or that nationality,our unique characteristics,
have been discussing
not
the
American
intellectuals
is
This
way
"people."
"America,"and indeedone mightfeelthat the whole matteris nothingbut that
old thingcalled "nationalism,"long since liquidated here and rightlyso. Yet a
certainnationalismis fundamentalin the thirdworld (and also in the mostvital
areas of the secondworld),thusmakingit legitimateto ask whetherit is all that
bad in theend.' Does in factthemessageof some disabusedand moreexperienced
first-world
wisdom (thatof Europe evenmorethanof theUnitedStates)consistin
nationstatesto outgrowit as fastas possible?The predictblereminthese
urging
ders of Kampuchea and of Iraq and Iran do not really seem to me to settle
anythingor suggestby what thesenationalismsmightbe replacedexceptperhaps
culture.
some global Americanpostmodernist
Many argumentscan be made for the importanceand interestof noncanonicalformsof literaturesuch as thatof thethirdworld,2but one is peculiarly
because it borrowsthe weapons of the adversary:the strategyof
self-defeating
tryingto provethat these textsare as "great" as those of the canon itself.The
object is thento show that,to take an example fromanothernon-canonicalform,
and therefore
can be admitted.
Dashiell Hammettis reallyas greatas Dostoyevsky,
to wish away all tracesof that"pulp" formatwhichis
This is to attemptdutifully
of sub-genres,and it invitesimmediatefailureinsofaras any passionconstitutive
ate readerof Dostoyevskywill knowat once, aftera fewpages, thatthosekindsof
are notpresent.Nothingis to be gainedbypassingoverin silencethe
satisfactions
of non-canonicaltexts.The third-world
novelwill not offerthe
radical difference
of Proustor Joyce;what is moredamagingthanthat,perhaps,is its
satisfactions
culturaldetendencyto remindus of outmoded stages of our own first-world
to
conclude
to
cause
us
that
are
still
and
"they
velopment
writingnovels like
Dreiser or SherwoodAnderson."
A case could be builton thiskindof discouragement,
withitsdeep existential
to a rhythmof modernistinnovationif not fashion-changes;
commitment
but it
65
66
Fredric
Jameson
would not be a moralizingone-a historicistone, rather,which challengesour

in the presentof postmodernism
and calls fora reinvention
of the
imprisonment
of our own culturalpast and its now seeminglyold-fashioned
radical difference
situationsand novelties.
But I would ratherargue all this a different
way, at least fornow3: these
texts are at one and the same time perfectly
reactionsto third-world
natural,
and terribly
parochial.Ifthepurposeof thecanon is to
comprehensible,
perfectly
to developa rangeof richand subtleperceptions
restrict
our aestheticsympathies,
whichcan be exercisedonlyon theoccasion of a smallbutchoicebodyoftexts,to
discourageus fromreadinganythingelse or fromreadingthosethingsin different
Indeed our want of sympathyforthese
ways,thenit is humanlyimpoverishing.
oftenunmodernthird-worldtexts is itselffrequentlybut a disguise for some
about thewaypeople actuallylivein otherpartsof the
deeperfearof theaffluent
world-a way of lifethatstillhas littlein commonwithdailylifein theAmerican
in havingliveda shelteredlife,in
suburb.Thereis nothingparticularly
disgraceful
the complicationsand the frustraneverhavinghad to confrontthe difficulties,
tionsof urbanliving,butit is nothingto be particularly
proudofeither.Moreover,
life
does
not
make
for
a
wide rangeofsympathies
of
a limitedexperience
normally
kindsof people (I'm thinkingof differences
that rangefrom
with verydifferent
genderand race all the way to those of social class and culture).
The wayin whichall thisaffectsthereadingprocessseemsto be as follows:as
westernreaderswhose tastes (and much else) have been formedby our own
noveltendsto come before
a popularor sociallyrealisticthird-world
modernisms,
but as thoughalready-read.We sense,betweenourselvesand
us, not immediately,
this alien text,the presenceof anotherreader,of the Otherreader,forwhom a
or naive,has a freshness
ofinformation
whichstrikesus as conventional
narrative,
and a social interestthatwe cannotshare.The fearand theresistanceI'm evoking
withthatOtherreader,
has to do, then,withthesenseofourown non-coincidence
fromourselves;our sense thatto coincidein any adequate way with
so different
thatOther"ideal reader"-that is to say,to read thistextadequately-we would
haveto giveup a greatdeal thatis individuallypreciousto us and acknowledgean
existenceand a situationunfamiliarand thereforefrightening-onethat we do
not know and prefernot to know.
Why,returningto the question of the canon, should we only read certain
we shouldnotreadthose,butwhyshouldwe
kindsof books? No one is suggesting
not also read otherones? We are not, afterall, being shipped to that "desert
island" belovedof the devisersof greatbooks lists.And as a matterof fact-and
thisis to me theconclusivenail in theargument-we all do "read" manydifferent
kindsof textsin thislifeof ours,since,whetherwe are willingto admitit or not,
we spendmuchof our existencein theforcefieldof a mass culturethatis radically
in theEra ofMultinational
Literature
Third-World
Capitalism
67
fromour "great books" and live at least a double life in the various
different
of our unavoidablyfragmented
society.We need to be aware that
compartments
we are evenmorefundamentally
than
that;ratherthanclingingto this
fragmented
of
and
the
unifiedpersonalidentity,
the
"centered
we
subject"
particularmirage
on a global scale; it
would do betterto confront
honestlythefactof fragmentation
withwhichwe can hereat least make a culturalbeginning.
is a confrontation
A finalobservationon myuse of the term"thirdworld." I take thepointof
criticismsof this expression,particularlythose which stressthe way in which it
betweena whole rangeof non-western
obliteratesprofounddifferences
countries
and situations(indeed,one such fundamental
opposition-betweenthetraditions
of thegreateasternempiresand thoseof thepost-colonialAfricannationstatesis centralin what follows).I don't,however,see any comparableexpressionthat
articulates,as thisone does, the fundamentalbreaks betweenthe capitalistfirst
world,thesocialistbloc ofthesecondworld,and a rangeof othercountrieswhich
havesuffered
theexperienceofcolonialismand imperialism.One can onlydeplore
theideologicalimplicationsof oppositionssuch as thatbetween"developed"and
"underdeveloped"or "developing"countries;whilethemorerecentconceptionof
northernand southerntiers,which has a verydifferent
ideologicalcontentand
the
of
than
rhetoric
and
is
used
import
development,
by verydifferent
people,
nonethelessimplies an unquestioningacceptance of "convergencetheory"namelytheidea thattheSovietUnionand theUnitedStatesare fromthisperspectivelargelythe same thing.I am using the term"thirdworld" in an essentially
sense,and objectionsto it do notstrikeme as especiallyrelevantto the
descriptive
I
argument am making.
theold questionof a properlyworldliteraIn theselast yearsof thecentury,
of our own
turereassertsitself.This is due as muchor moreto thedisintegration
of
the
lucid
awareness
to
as
of
cultural
greatoutside
any very
study
conceptions
therefore-as
world around us. We may
"humanists"-acknowledge the pertinence of the critiqueof present-dayhumanitiesby our titularleader,William
Bennett,withoutfindingany greatsatisfactionin his embarrassingsolution:yet
anotherimpoverishedand ethnocentricGraeco-Judaic"great books list'of the
civilizationof theWest,""greattexts,greatminds,greatideas."4 One is tempted
to turnback on Bennetthimselfthequestionhe approvingly
quotes fromMaynard
Mack: "How longcan a democraticnationaffordto supporta narcissisticminorthepresentmomentdoes offera
byitsown image?" Nevertheless,
ityso transfixed
to rethinkour humanitiescurriculumin a new way-to
remarkableopportunity
re-examinethe shamblesand ruinsof all our older"great books," "humanities,"
and "core course" typetraditions.
"freshman-introductory"
68
Fredric
Jameson
of culturalstudiesin the UnitedStates demandsthe

Today the reinvention
in
a
new
reinvention,
situation,of what Goethe long ago theorizedas "world
literature."In our moreimmediatecontext,then,any conceptionof worldliterature necessarilydemandssome specificengagementwith the questionof thirdworldliterature,
and it is thisnot necessarilynarrowersubjectabout whichI have
to
something say today.
to offersomegeneraltheoryofwhatis oftencalled
It would be presumptuous
third-world
literature,
giventheenormousvarietyboth of nationalculturesin the
in each of thoseareas. All ofthis,
thirdworldand of specifichistoricaltrajectories
intended
to
forresearch
is
and
both
then, provisional
suggestspecificperspectives
and to conveya senseoftheinterestand value oftheseclearlyneglectedliteratures
for people formedby the values and stereotypesof a first-world
culture.One
to
itself
the
distinction
would
seem
at
outset,namelythatnone
impose
important
of theseculturescan be conceivedas anthropologically
independentor autonomous, rather,theyare all in variousdistinctwayslockedin a life-and-death
struggle
culturalimperialism-a culturalstrugglethatis itselfa reflexion
withfirst-world
of the economicsituationof such areas in theirpenetrationby variousstagesof
termed,ofmodernization.
This,then,
capital,or as it is sometimeseuphemistically
culturenecessarilyentailsa new
is somefirstsensein whicha studyofthird-world
view of ourselves,fromthe outside,insofaras we ourselvesare (perhapswithout
at work on the remainsof older
forcespowerfully
fullyknowingit) constitutive
culturesin our generalworldcapitalistsystem.
But ifthisis thecase, theinitialdistinctionthatimposesitselfhas to do with
of olderculturesat the momentof capitalistpenetrathenatureand development
me most enlightening
to examine in termsof the
to
it
seems
tion, something
historiansseemto be in
marxianconceptof modesof production.5Contemporary
of feudalismas a form
the process of reachinga consensuson the specificity
which,issuingfromthe break-upof the Roman Empireor theJapaneseShogunate,is able to developdirectlyintocapitalism.6This is notthecase withtheother
modes of production,whichin some sensemustbe disaggregatedor destroyedby
violence,beforecapitalismis able to implantits specificformsand displace the
older ones. In the gradual expansion of capitalismacross the globe, then,our
economicsystemconfrontstwo verydistinctmodes of productionthatpose two
typesof social and culturalresistanceto its influence.These are
verydifferent
so-called primitive,or tribalsocietyon the one hand, and the Asiatic mode of
production,or the great bureaucraticimperialsystems,on the other.African
societiesand cultures,as theybecame theobject of systematiccolonizationin the
1880s, providethe moststrikingexamplesof the symbiosisof capital and tribal
societies;while China and India offertheprincipalexamplesof anotherand quite
different
sortof engagementof capitalismwiththegreatempiresof theso-called
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Third-World
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69
Asiatic mode. My examplesbelow,then,will be primarilyAfricanand Chinese;

however,the special case of Latin America must be noted in passing. Latin
Americaoffersyet a thirdkind of development-one involvingan even earlier
of imperialsystemsnow projectedby collectivememoryback intothe
destruction
archaicor tribal.Thus theearliernominalconquestsofindependenceopen themat
once to a kind of indirecteconomicpenetrationand control--something
Africa
and Asia will come to experienceonly morerecentlywith decolonizationin the
1950s and 60s.
Having made these initialdistinctions,let me now, by way of a sweeping
culturalproductionsseem to have in
hypothesis,tryto say what all third-world
commonand what distinguishes
themradicallyfromanalogous culturalformsin
I want to argue,allegorical,
the firstworld.All third-world
textsare necessarily,
and in a veryspecificway: theyare to be readas whatI willcallnationalallegories,
when theirformsdevelopout of
evenwhen,or perhapsI shouldsay,particularly
such as the novel.Let me
westernmachineriesof representation,
predominantly
in
to
state
this
distinction
a
oversimplified
way: one ofthedeterminants
try
grossly
of capitalistculture,thatis, thecultureofthewesternrealistand modernist
novel,
is a radical splitbetweenthe privateand the public, betweenthe poetic and the
political,betweenwhat we havecome to thinkof as the domainof sexualityand
the unconsciousand thatof the public worldof classes, of the economic,and of
secular political power: in other words, Freud versus Marx. Our numerous
theoreticalattemptsto overcomethisgreatsplitonlyreconfirm
itsexistenceand its
shapingpoweroverour individualand collectivelives.We have been traiAedin a
deep culturalconvictionthat the lived experienceof our privateexistencesis
somehowincommensurable
withthe abstractionsof economicscienceand political dynamics.Politicsin our novelstherefore
is, accordingto Stendhal'scanonical
a "pistol shot in the middleof a concert."
formulation,
I will argue that,althoughwe may retainforconvenienceand foranalysis
such categoriesas thesubjectiveand thepublic or political,therelationsbetween
in third-world
themare whollydifferent
culture.Third-worldtexts,even those
which are seeminglyprivateand investedwith a properlylibidinaldynamicnecessarilyprojecta politicaldimensionin theformofnationalallegory:thestory
of theprivateindividualdestinyis alwaysan allegoryoftheembattledsituationof
thepublic third-world
cultureand society.Need I add thatit is preciselythisvery
different
ratioofthepoliticalto thepersonalwhichmakessuchtextsaliento us at
firstapproach,and consequently,
resistantto our conventionalwesternhabitsof
reading?
I will offer,as somethinglikethesupremeexampleofthisprocessof allegoriof China's greatestwriter,Lu Xun, whose neglectin
zation,the firstmasterwork
westernculturalstudiesis a matterofshamewhichno excusesbased on ignorance
70
Fredric
Jameson
can rectify.
"Diary of a Madman" (1918) must at firstbe read by any western
reader as the protocol of what our essentiallypsychologicallanguage termsa
of a subjectin intensify"nervousbreakdown."It offersthenotesand perceptions
the
conviction
thepeoplearoundhim
to
a
that
psychicdelusion,
ingprey
terrifying
are concealinga dreadfulsecret,and thatthatsecretcan be none otherthanthe
obviousfactthattheyare cannibals.At theclimaxofthedevelopment
increasingly
of thedelusion,whichthreatenshis own physicalsafetyand hisverylifeitselfas a
thathis own brotheris himselfa cannipotentialvictim,thenarratorunderstands
bal and thatthedeathoftheirlittlesister,a numberofyearsearlier,farfrombeing
theresultofchildhoodillness,as he had thought,was in realitya murder.As befits
the protocol of a psychosis,these perceptionsare objectiveones, which can be
renderedwithoutany introspectivemachinery:the paranoid subject observes
sinisterglancesaroundhimin the real world,he overhearstell-taleconversations
betweenhis brotherand an allegedphysician(obviouslyin realityanothercannibal) whichcarryall theconvictionof thereal,and can be objectively(or "realistiin anydetailtheabsolute
This is nottheplace to demonstrate
cally") represented.
westernor first-world
pertinence,to Lu Xun's case history,of thepre-eminent
of the paranoiddelureadingof such phenomena,namelyFreud'sinterpretation
oftheworld,a radicalwithdrawal
Schreber:an emptying
sionsof Senatsprdisident
followedby the atof libido (what Schreberdescribesas "world-catastrophe"),
temptto recathectby the obviouslyimperfectmechanismsof paranoia. "The
Freud explains,"which we take to be a pathologicalprodelusion-formation,"
a processof reconstruction."7
duct,is in realityan attemptat recovery,
is
a
What is reconstructed,
however, grislyand terrifying
objectivereal world
beneaththeappearancesof our own world:an unveilingor deconcealmentof the
nightmarishrealityof things,a strippingaway of our conventionalillusionsor
rationalizationsabout daily lifeand existence.It is a process comparable,as a
and in particueffect,
onlyto someoftheprocessesofwesternmodernism,
literary
for
in whichnarrativeis employedas a powerfulinstrument
lar of existentialism,
the experimentalexplorationof realityand illusion,an explorationwhich,however,unlike some of the older realisms,presupposesa certainprior "personal
knowledge."The readermust,in otherwords,have had some analogous experience, whetherin physicalillnessor psychiccrisis,of a livedand balefullytransformedreal worldfromwhichwe cannotevenmentallyescape,forthefullhorror
of Lu Xun's nightmareto be appreciated.Termslike "depression"deformsuch
it and projectingit back intothepathologicalOther;
experiencebypsychologizing
while the analogous westernliteraryapproaches to this same experience-I'm
thinkingof the archetypaldeathbed murmurof Kurtz, in Conrad's "Heart of
Darkness,""The horror!thehorror!"-recontainspreciselythathorrorby transformingit into a rigorouslyprivateand subjective"mood," which can only be
Literature
Third-World
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71
designatedby recourseto an aestheticof expression-the unspeakable,unnamecan onlydesignateit fromwithout,

able innerfeeling,whose externalformulation
like a symptom.
But thisrepresentational
powerof Lu Xun's textcannotbe appreciatedproperlywithoutsome sense of what I have called its allegoricalresonance.For it
in the
should be clear thatthe cannibalismliterallyapprehendedby the sufferer
attitudesand bearingofhis familyand neighborsis at one and thesame timebeing
attributedbyLu Xun himselfto Chinesesocietyas a whole: and ifthisattribution
is to be called "figural,"it is indeeda figuremorepowerfuland "literal"thanthe
"literal" level of the text. Lu Xun's propositionis that the people of thisgreat
China of the late and post-imperial
maimedand retarded,disintegrating
period,
his fellowcitizens,are "literally"cannibals: in theirdesperation,disguisedand
indeed intensified
by the mosttraditionalformsand proceduresof Chinese culto stayalive.This occursat all levels
ture,theymustdevourone anotherruthlessly
of thatexceedinglyhierarchicalsociety,fromlumpensand peasantsall thewayto
the most privilegedelite positionsin the mandarinbureaucracy.It is, I want to
stress,a social and historicalnightmare,a visionof the horrorof lifespecifically
graspedthroughHistoryitself,whose consequencesgo farbeyondthemorelocal
of cut-throatcapitalistor market
westernrealisticor naturalisticrepresentation
a
it
exhibits
and
competition,
specificallypolitical resonance absent fromits
of Darwiniannatural
westernequivalentin thenightmare
naturalor mythological
selection.
Now I wantto offerfouradditionalremarksabout thistext,whichwilltouch,
ofitsallegory,
on thelibidinaldimensionofthestory,on thestructure
respectively,
on theroleof thethird-world
culturalproducerhimself,and on theperspective
of
projectedby the tale's double resolution.I will be concerned,in dealing
futurity
difference
withall fourof thesetopics,to stresstheradicalstructural
betweenthe
of
of
third-world
culture
those
the
first-world
cultural
traditionin
and
dynamics
whichwe have ourselvesbeen formed.
textssuch as thisstoryby Lu Xun the
I have suggestedthatin third-world
relationshipbetweenthe libidinaland thepoliticalcomponentsof individualand
fromwhat obtains in the west and what
social experienceis radicallydifferent
me
or ifyou
our
own
cultural
forms.
Let
tryto characterizethisdifference,
shapes
like this radical reversal,by way of the followinggeneralization:in the west,
is recontainedand psychologizedor subjecconventionally,
politicalcommitment
for
tivizedbywayofthepublic-private
splitI havealreadyevoked.Interpretations,
in
movements
of
the
60s
terms
of
revolts
are
familiar
of
Oedipal
example, political
comment.That such interpretations
to everyoneand need no further
are episodes
in a muchlongertradition,
is re-psychologized
and
wherebypoliticalcommitment
or theauthoritaaccountedforin termsofthesubjectivedynamicsofressentiment
72
Fredric
Jameson
is perhapsless well understood,but can be demonstrated

rian personality,
by a
carefulreadingofanti-political
textsfromNietzscheand Conradall thewayto the
latestcold-warpropaganda.
What is relevantto our presentcontextis not,however,thedemonstration
of
in third-world
thatproposition,butratherofitsinversion
culture,whereI wantto
or morespecifically,
libidinalinvestment,
is to be read in
suggestthatpsychology,
I
to
and
social
terms.
is,
(It
hope,
unnecessary add thatwhat
primarilypolitical
followsis speculativeand verymuch subject to correctionby specialists:it is
offeredas a methodologicalexample ratherthana "theory"of Chineseculture.)
We'retold,foron thing,thatthe greatancientimperialcosmologiesidentifyby
analogywhat we in thewestanalyticallyseparate:thus,theclassicalsex manuals
are at one withthetextsthatrevealthedynamicsof politicalforces,the chartsof
theheavensat one withthelogicof medicallore,and so forth.8
Here alreadythen,
in an ancientpast, westernantinomies-and mostparticularlythatbetweenthe
subjectiveand thepublicor political-are refusedin advance.The libidinalcenter
of Lu Xun's textis, however,not sexuality,but ratherthe oral stage,the whole
bodily question of eating,of ingestion,devoration,incorporation,fromwhich
such fundamentalcategoriesas the pure and the impurespring.We must now
recall,not merelythe extraordinary
symboliccomplexityof Chinesecuisine,but
also the centralrole thisart and practiceoccupies in Chinesecultureas a whole.
When we findthat centralityconfirmedby the observationthat the veryrich
Chinese vocabularyfor sexual mattersis extraordinarily
intertwined
with the
languageof eating;and whenwe observethe multipleuses to whichtheverb"to
eat" is put in ordinaryChinese language (one "eats" a fear or a fright,for
example), we may feel in a somewhat betterposition to sense the enormous
sensitivityof this libidinal region,and of Lu Xun's mobilizationof it for the
dramatizationof an essentiallysocial nightmare-something
whichin a western
writerwouldbe consignedto therealmofthemerelyprivateobsession,thevertical
dimensionof the personaltrauma.
can be observedthroughoutLu Xun's
A different
alimentarytransgression
as in his terriblelittlestory,"Medicine."
works,but nowherequite so strikingly
The storypotraysa dyingchild-the death of childrenis a constantin these
works-whose parentshavethe good fortuneto procurean "infallible"remedy.
At thispointwe mustrecallboththattraditionalChinesemedicineis not"taken,"
as in thewest,but"eaten," and thatforLu Xun traditionalChinesemedicinewas
the supremelocus of the unspeakableand exploitativecharlatanryof traditional
Chineseculturein general.In his cruciallyimportantPrefaceto thefirstcollection
of his stories,9he recountsthe suffering
and death of his own fatherfromtuberculosis,while decliningfamilyreservesrapidlydisappearedinto the purchaseof
expensiveand rare, exotic and ludicrousmedicaments.We will not sense the
Third-World
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73
symbolicsignificanceof this indignationunless we rememberthat forall these

reasonsLu Xun decidedto studywesternmedicineinJapan-the epitomeofsome
new westernsciencethat promisedcollectiveregeneration-onlylaterto decide
thattheproductionof culture-I am temptedto say,theelaborationof a political
formof politicalmedicine.10As a writer,then,Lu
culture-was a moreeffective
Xun remainsa diagnosticianand a physician.Hence thisterriblestory,in which
the cure forthe male child,the father'sonly hope forsurvivalin futuregeneraChinese steamed rolls,
tions,turnsout to be one of those large doughy-white
soaked in the blood of a criminalwho has just been executed.The child dies
anyway,of course,but it is importantto note thatthe hapless victimof a more
properlystate violence (the supposed criminal)was a political militant,whose
coveredin flowersby absent sympathizersof whom one
graveis mysteriously
knowsnothing.In the analysisof a storylike this,we mustrethinkour conventionalconceptionofthesymboliclevelsofa narrative(wheresexualityand politics
mightbe in homologyto each other,forinstance)as a setofloops or circuitswhich
of therapeuticcannibalism
each other-the enormity
intersectand overdetermine
in a pauper'scemetery,
withthe moreovertviolenceof family
finallyintersecting
betrayaland politicalrepression.
This new mappingprocess bringsme to the cautionaryremarkI wantedto
make about allegoryitself-a formlong discreditedin the west and the specific
targetof the Romanticrevolutionof Wordsworthand Coleridge,yeta linguistic
structurewhich also seems to be experiencinga remarkablereawakeningof interestin contemporary
literary
theory.Ifallegoryhas once again becomesomehow
for
over
us
as
of
congenial
today,
againstthemassiveand monumentalunifications
an older modernistsymbolismor evenrealismitself,it is because the allegorical
of the
discontinuous,a matterof breaksand heterogeneities,
spiritis profoundly
of
dream
than
the
rather
the
of
multiplepolysemia
homogeneousrepresentation
the symbol. Our traditionalconceptionof allegory-based, for instance,on
of Bunyan-is thatof an elaborateset of figuresand personifications
stereotypes
to be read againstsome one-to-onetable of equivalences:this is, so to speak, a
viewofthissignifying
one-dimensional
process,whichmightonlybe setin motion
and complexified
werewe willingto entertainthemorealarmingnotionthatsuch
at each perequivalencesare themselvesin constantchange and transformation
petual presentof the text.
Here too Lu Xun has some lessons forus. This writerof shortstoriesand
sketches,whichneverevolvedinto the novelformas such, producedat least one
approach to the longerform,in a much lengthierseries of anecdotes about a
hapless coolie named Ah Q, who comes to serve,as we mighthave suspected,as
the allegoryof a certainset of Chinese attitudesand modes of behavior.It is
of the formdeterminesa shiftin tone or
to note thatthe enlargement
interesting
74
Fredric
Jameson
that had been strickenwith the stillnessand

genericdiscourse:now everything
withouthope-"the room was not only too
emptinessof death and suffering
silent,it was far too big as well, and the thingsin it were far too empty""11
becomes materialfora more properlyChaplinesque comedy.Ah Q's resiliency
springsfroman unusual-but we are to understandculturallyverynormaland
familiar-technique for overcominghumiliation.When set upon by his perseoverthem,reflects:"'It is as ifI werebeaten
cutors,Ah Q, serenein his superiority
world
the
What
is
own
son.
comingto nowadays...' Thereuponhe too
by my
would walk away,satisfiedat havingwon."12Admitthatyou are notevenhuman,
he tellsthem,I'm
theyinsist,thatyouare nothingbut an animal! On thecontrary,
worsethanan animal,I'm an insect!There,does thatsatisfyyou?"In less thanten
seconds,however,Ah Q would walk away also satisfiedthathe had won,thinking
and thatafterremovingthe
thathe was afterall 'numberone in self-belittlement,'
what remainedwas stillthegloryofremaining'numberone."'13
'self-belittlement'
When one recallsthe remarkableself-esteem
of the Manchu dynastyin its final
for
who had nothingbut modern
the
devils
and
serene
throes,
contempt foreign
science,gunboats,armies,technologyand powerto theircredit,one achievesa
moreprecisesense of the historicaland social topicalityof Lu Xun's satire.
Ah Q is thus,allegorically,China itself.What I want to observe,however,
what complicatesthe whole issue, is that his persecutors-theidlersand bullies
who findtheirdailypleasuresin gettinga riseout ofjustsuch miserablevictimsas
Ah Q-they too are China, in the allegoricalsense. This verysimpleexample,
then,shows the capacityof allegoryto generatea range of distinctmeaningsor
as theallegoricaltenorand vehiclechangeplaces: Ah Q
messages,simultaneously,
is China humiliatedby the foreigners,
a China so well versedin the spiritual
that such humiliationsare not even registered,
let
techniquesof self-justification
alone recalled.But thepersecutorsare also China, in a different
sense,theterrible
China of the "Diary of a Madman," whose responseto powerself-cannibalistic
lessnessis the senselesspersecutionof the weakerand moreinferiormembersof
the hierarchy.
All ofwhichslowlybringsus to thequestionofthewriterhimselfin thethird
it beingunderworld,and to what mustbe called the functionof the intellectual,
stood that in the third-world
situationthe intellectualis always in one way or
anothera political intellectual.No third-worldlesson is more timelyor more
urgentforus today,amongwhomtheveryterm"intellectual"has witheredaway,
as thoughit werethename foran extinctspecies.Nowherehas thestrangeness
of
thisvacantpositionbeen broughthometo me morestronglythanon a recenttrip
to Cuba, whenI had occasion to visita remarkablecollege-preparatory
school on
the outskirtsof Havana. It is a matterof some shame foran Americanto witness
theculturalcurriculumin a socialistsettingwhichalso verymuchidentifies
itself
Literature
Third-World
Capitalism
75
withthethirdworld.Oversomethreeor fouryears,Cuban teenagersstudypoems

of Homer,Dante's Inferno,theSpanishtheatricalclassics,thegreatrealisticnovels
of the 19th-century
European tradition,and finallycontemporaryCuban reof
we desperatelyneed Englishtranslavolutionarynovels, which, incidentally,
I
work
found
most
the
semester's
tions.But
challengingwas one explicitlydevoted
to the studyof therole of the intellectualas such: the culturalintellectualwho is
also a political militant,the intellectualwho produces both poetryand praxis.
of thisprocess-Ho Chi Minh and AugustinoNieto-are
The Cuban illustrations
obviouslyenoughculturallydetermined:our own equivalentswould probablybe
the morefamiliarfiguresof DuBois and C.L.R. James,of Sartreand Neruda or
Brecht,of Kollontaior Louise Michel. But as this whole talk aims implicitlyat
suggestinga new conceptionof the humanitiesin Americaneducationtoday,it is
appropriateto add thatthestudyoftherole oftheintellectualas such oughtto be
a keycomponentin any such proposals.
I've alreadysaid somethingabout Lu Xun's own conceptionof his vocation,
and its extrapolationfromthepracticeof medicine.But thereis a greatdeal more
to be said specificallyabout the Preface.Not only is it one of the fundamental
documentsforunderstanding
the situationof the thirdworld artist,it is also a
dense text in its own right,fullyas much a work of art as any of the greatest
stories.And in Lu Xun's own workit is thesupremeexample ofthe veryunusual
ratio of subjectiveinvestment
and a deliberatelydepersonalizedobjectivenarration.We haveno timeto do justiceto thoserelationships,
whichwould demanda
I
Yet
will
the
little
fable
line-by-linecommentary.
quote
by which Lu Xun, refor
to
his
friends
and
futurecollaborators,
sponding requests
publication by
dramatizeshis dilemma:
withmany
windows,
indestructible,
absolutely
Imaginean ironhousewithout
die ofsuffocation.
Butyouknowthat
peoplefastsleepinsidewho willshortly
sincetheywilldiein theirsleep,theywillnotfeelthepainofdeath.Nowifyou
few
cryaloudto wakea fewof thelighter
sleepers,
makingthoseunfortunate
theagonyofirrevocable
suffer
death,do youthinkyouaredoingthema good
turn?14
The seeminglyhopelesssituationof the third-world
intellectualin thishistorical
period (shortlyafterthe foundingof the ChineseCommunistParty,but also after
the bankruptcyof the middle-classrevolutionhad become apparent)-in which
no solutions,no formsof praxis or change,seem conceivable-this situationwill
finditsparallel,as we shallsee shortly,
in thesituationofAfricanintellectualsafter
the achievementof independence,when once again no political solutionsseem
of
presentor visibleon thehistoricalhorizon.The formalor literarymanifestation
76
Fredric
Jameson
this political problemis the possibilityof narrativeclosure,somethingwe will

returnto morespecifically.
In a moregeneraltheoreticalcontext-and it is thistheoreticalformof the
problemI shouldnow likeat leastto thematizeand setin place on theagenda-we
mustrecovera senseofwhat"culturalrevolution"means,in itsstrongestform,in
is notto the immediateeventsof thatviolent
the marxisttradition.The reference
of the "elevenyears" in recentChinese history,aland tumultuousinterruption
to Maoism as a doctrineis necessarilyimplicit.The term,
thoughsome reference
Lenin's
we are told,was
own, and in that formexplicitlydesignatedthe literacy
campaignand thenew problemsof universalscholarityand education:something
ofwhichCuba, again,remainsthemoststunningand successfulexamplein recent
to includea range
history.We must,however,enlargethe conceptionstillfurther,
of
of seeminglyverydifferent
preoccupations, which the names of Gramsciand
Wilhelm Reich, Frantz Fanon, Herbert Marcuse, Rudolph Bahro, and Paolo
I will suggest
Freire,maygivean indicationof theirscope and focus.Overhastily,
that"culturalrevolution"as it is projectedin such worksturnson thephenomenon of what Gramscicalled "subalternity,"
namelythe feelingsof mentalinferiorityand habits of subservienceand obedience which necessarilyand structurally
developin situationsof domination-most dramaticallyin the experienceof coland psychologizing
onized peoples. But here,as so often,thesubjectivizing
habits
us
of first-world
ourselves
can
false
and
into
such
as
lead
us
misunplay
peoples
is not in thatsense a psychologicalmatter,althoughit
Subalternity
derstandings.
governspsychologies;and I suppose that the strategicchoice of the term"culthatview of the problemand projectingit
tural" aims preciselyat restructuring
outwardsintotherealmofobjectiveor collectivespiritin somenon-psychological,
or non-economistic,materialisticfashion. When a
but also non-reductionist
psychicstructureis objectivelydeterminedby economic and political relationships,it cannot be dealt with by means of purelypsychologicaltherapies;yetit
of the
equally cannotbe dealt withby means of purelyobjectivetransformations
economic and political situationitself,since the habits remain and exercisea
balefuland cripplingresidualeffect.15This is a moredramaticformof that old
in thecontextofthis
theunityoftheoryand practice;and it is specifically
mystery,
so
alien
to
of
cultural
revolution
and
us) thatthe achieve(now
strange
problem
mentsand failuresof third-worldintellectuals,writersand artistsmust be replaced if theirconcretehistoricalmeaningis to be grasped. We have allowed
culturalintellectuals,to restrictour consciousnessof our
ourselves,as first-world
life'sworkto thenarrowestprofessionalor bureaucraticterms,therebyencouragand guilt,whichonlyreinforces
the
ing in ourselvesa special senseof subalternity
could
a
article
be
a
with
vicious circle.That literary
real consequpolitical act,
ences,is formostof us littlemorethana curiosityoftheliteraryhistoryof Czarist
Third-World
Literature
Capitalism
77
Russia or of modernChina itself.Butwe perhapsshouldalso considerthepossibilitythat as intellectualswe ourselvesare at presentsoundlysleepingin thatindestructableiron room,of which Lu Xun spoke, on the point of suffocation.
The matterof narrativeclosure,then,and of the relationshipof a narrative
textto futurity
and to some collectiveprojectyetto come, is not,merelya formal
or literary-critical
issue. "Diary of a Madman" has in facttwo distinctand incomwhich
to examine in lightof the writer'sown
proveinstructive
patible endings,
hesitationsand anxietiesabout his social role. One ending,that of the deluded
subjecthimself,is verymucha call to the future,in the impossiblesituationof a
well-nighuniversalcannibalism:thelast desperatelineslaunchedintothevoid are
the words,"Save thechildren.. ." Butthetale has a secondendingas well,which
is disclosed on the opening page, when the older (supposedly cannibalistic)
brothergreetsthenarratorwiththefollowingcheerfulremark:"I appreciateyour
comingsuch a longwayto see us, but mybrotherrecoveredsometimeago and has
gone elsewhereto take up an officialpost." So, in advance, the nightmareis
his briefand terribleglimpseofthegrislyreality
annulled;theparanoidvisionary,
now
the
returnsto therealmofillusion
beneath appearance
vouchsafed,gratefully
and oblivionthereinagain to take up his place in the space of bureaucraticpower
and privilege.I want to suggestthatit is only at thisprice,by way of a complex
play of simultaneousand antitheticalmessages,thatthe narrativetextis able to
open up a concreteperspectiveon the real future.
I mustinterruptmyselfhere to interpolateseveralobservationsbeforeproceeding. For one thing, it is clear to me that any articulationof radical
difference-thatof gender,incidentally,
fullyas muchas thatof culture-is susthat
to
ceptible appropriationby
strategyof othernesswhichEdward Said, in the
contextof theMiddle East, called "orientalism."It does not mattermuchthatthe
as in
radical othernessof the culturein questionis praisedor valorizedpositively,
and once that
theprecedingpages: theessentialoperationis thatofdifferentiation,
has been accomplished,the mechanismSaid denounceshas been set in place. On
the otherhand, I don't see how a first-world
intellectualcan avoid thisoperation
withoutfallingback into some generalliberal and humanisticuniversalism:it
seemsto me thatone ofour basic politicaltaskslies preciselyin theceaselesseffort
of othernational situato remindthe Americanpublic of the radical difference
tions.
But at thispointone shouldinserta cautionaryreminderabout thedangersof
the conceptof "culture" itself:theveryspeculativeremarksI have allowedmyself
to make about Chinese"culture"will not be completeunlessI add that"culture"
in thissense is by no meansthe finaltermat whichone stops. One mustimagine
78
Fredric
Jameson
and attitudesas havingbeen themselves,

such culturalstructures
in thebeginning,
realities(economicand geographic,forexample),
vitalresponsesto infrastructural
as attemptsto resolvemore fundamentalcontradictions-attemptswhich then
outlivethesituationsforwhichtheyweredevised,and survive,in reifiedforms,as
"culturalpatterns."Those patternsthemselvesthenbecome part of the objective
situationconfrontedby later generations,and, as in the case of Confucianism,
havingonce been partof the solutionto a dilemma,thenbecomepartof the new
problem.
Nor can I feelthatthe conceptof cultural"identity"or evennational"identity"is adequate. One cannot acknowledgethe justice of the generalpoststructuralist assault on the so-called "centered subject," the old unifiedego of
bourgeois individualism,and then resuscitatethis same ideological mirage of
psychicunificationon the collectivelevel in the formof a doctrineof collective
identity.Appeals to collectiveidentityneed to be evaluated froma historical
perspective,ratherthan fromthe standpointof some dogmatic and placeless
writerinvokesthis(to us) ideological
"ideological analysis."When a third-world
value, we need to examine the concretehistoricalsituationcloselyin orderto
determinethepoliticalconsequencesof the strategicuse of thisconcept.Lu Xun's
moment,forexample,is veryclearlyone in whicha critiqueof Chinese"culture"
and "cultural identity" has powerful and revolutionaryconsequencesThis is then,
consequenceswhich may not obtain in a latersocial configuration.
perhaps,anotherand morecomplicatedway of raisingthe issue of "nationalism"
earlier.
to which I referred
As faras nationalallegoryis concerned,I thinkit maybe appropriateto stress
its presencein what is generallyconsideredwesternliteraturein orderto underThe example I have in mind is the work of
score certainstructuraldifferences.
of 19thcentury
BenitoPerezGaldos-the last and amongtherichestachievements
realism.Galdos' novelsare more visiblyallegorical(in the national sense) than
mostoftheirbetter-known
Europeanpredecessors:16
somethingthatmightwellbe
Alterminology.17
explained in termsof Immanuel Wallerstein'sworld-system
the
of
counis
not
after
fashion
the
19th
strictly
peripheral
century
Spain
though
trieswe are here designatingunder the termthirdworld, it is certainlyseminot
peripheralin his sense,whencontrastedwithEnglandor France.It is therefore
of
Fortunata
of
male
find
the
situation
the
to
y
protagonist
terriblysurprising
Jacinta(1887)-alternating betweenthetwo womenof thetitle,betweenthewife
and themistress,betweenthewoman of theupper-middleclasses and thewoman
of the "people"-characterized in termsof the nation-stateitself,hesitatingbetweenthe republicanrevolutionof 1868 and the Bourbon restorationof 1873.s18
Here too, the same "floating"or transferablestructureof allegoricalreference
detectedin Ah Q comes into play: forFortunatais also married,and thealterna-
Third-World
Literature
Capitalism
79
tion of "revolution"and "restoration"is likewiseadapted to hersituation,as she

leaves herlegal home to seek herloverand thenreturnsto it in abandonment.
What it is importantto stressis not merelythe wit of the analogyas Galdos
uses it, but also its optionalnature:we can use it to converttheentiresituationof
the novelinto an allegoricalcommentaryon the destinyof Spain, but we are also
free to reverseits prioritiesand to read the political analogy as metaphorical
decorationforthe individualdrama, and as a merefiguralintensification
of this
last. Here, farfromdramatizingtheidentityof the politicaland theindividualor
psychic,the allegoricalstructuretendsessentiallyto separatetheselevelsin some
absolute way. We cannot feel its forceunless we are convincedof the radical
differencebetween politics and the libidinal: so that its operationreconfirms
(ratherthanannuls)thatsplitbetweenpublic and privatewhichwas attributedto
westerncivilizationearlierin our discussion.In one of the morepowerfulcontemporarydenunciationsof thissplitand thishabit,Deleuze and Guattariarguefora
conceptionof desirethatis at once social and individual.
thecinemais ableto capturethemovement
How doesa delirium
begin?Perhaps
or regressive,
becauseit is notanalytical
butexploresa
of madness,precisely
film
of
coexistence.
a
Nicholas
field
Witness
by
representRay,supposedly
global
of a cortisone
delirium:
an overworked
a high-school
father,
ingtheformation
fora radio-taxi
andis beingtreated
forheart
whoworksovertime
service
teacher
in general,
theneedto
trouble.He beginsto raveabouttheeducational
system
ofthesocialandmoralorder,
thenhepassesto
a purerace,thesalvation
restore
of
a
return
to
the
But
the
timeliness
Abraham.
whatin factdid
Bible,
religion,
Abrahamdo? Wellnow,he killedor wantedto killhisson,and perhapsGod's
onlyerrorliesin havingstayedhishand.Butdoesn'tthisman,thefilm'sprohavea sonofhisown?Hmmm.... Whatthefilmshowsso well,to the
tagonist,
is first
ofall theinvestment
shameofpsychiatrists,
is thatevery
delirium
ofa field
thatis social,economic,
racial
and
and
cultural,
racist,
political
pedagogical,
the
a
delirium
to
his
and
delirious
his
son
that
family
personapplies
religious:
overreaches
themon all sides.19
I am not myselfsurethatthe objectiveconsequencesof thisessentiallysocial
and concretegap, in first-world
experience,betweenthepublicand theprivatecan
be abolished by intellectualdiagnosisor by some more adequate theoryof their
Rather,it seems to me thatwhat Deleuze and Guattari
deeperinterrelationship.
are proposinghereis a new and more adequate allegorical readingof thisfilm.
cultural
Such allegoricalstructures,
then,are not so muchabsentfromfirst-world
textsas theyare unconscious,and therefore
must
be
decipheredby interprethey
tivemechanismsthatnecessarilyentaila whole social and historicalcritiqueofour
situation.The point hereis that,in distinctionto the unconcurrentfirst-world
80
Fredric
Jameson
scious allegoriesof our own culturaltexts,third-worldnational allegoriesare

and objectiverelationshipof
consciousand overt:theyimplya radicallydifferent
politicsto libidinaldynamics.
Now, beforeturningto theAfricantexts,I remindyouof theveryspecial occasion
of the presenttalk,whichis concernedto honorthe memoryof RobertC. Elliott
and to commemoratehis life'swork.I take it thattheverycenterof his two most
importantbooks,The PowerofSatireand The Shape of Utopia,20is to be foundin
his pathbreakingassociationof satireand the utopianimpulseas two seemingly
antitheticaldrives(and literarydiscourses),which in realityreplicateeach other
such thateach is alwayssecretlyactivewithinthe other'ssphereof influence.All
withinitself;
satire,he taughtus, necessarilycarriesa utopianframeof reference
all utopias, no matterhow serene or disembodied,are drivensecretlyby the
satirist'srage at a fallenreality.When I spoke of futurity
a momentago, I took
in
the
to
withhold
world
which
pains
"utopia,"
mylanguageis anotherword for
the socialistproject.
But now I will be moreexplicitand take as mymottoan astonishingpassage
fromthe novel Xala, by the great contemporarySenegalese novelistand filmmakerOusmane Sembene.The titledesignatesa ritualcurseor affliction,
of a very
which
on
has been visited
a prosperousand corruptSenegalese
special kind,
businessmanat the momentin which,at the heightof his fortune,he takes to
himselfa beautifulyoung(third)wife.Shades of The Powerof Satire!,thecurseis
of course,as you mayhaveguessed,sexual impotence.The Hadj, theunfortunate
hero of thisnovel,desperatelyexploresa numberof remedies,both westernand
tribal,to no avail,and is finallypersuadedto undertakea laborioustripinto the
hinterlandofDakar to seekout a shamanofreputedlyextraordinary
powers.Here
is the conclusionof his hot and dustyjourneyin a horse-drawncart:
froma ravine,
As theyemerged
with
roofs,grey-black
theysaw conicalthatched
outagainstthehorizonin themiddleoftheemptyplain.
weathering,
standing
hornsfencedwithone
skinnycattlewith dangerous-looking
Free-ranging,
in the
anotherto getat whatlittlegrasstherewas. No morethansilhouettes
a fewpeoplewerebusyaroundtheonlywell.Thedriver
ofthecartwas
distance,
in familiar
and greetedpeopleas theypassed.SereenMada's house,
territory
in construction
withall theothers.It
size,was identical
apartfromitsimposing
inthecenter
wassituated
ofthevillagewhosehutswerearranged
ina semi-circle,
The villagehad neither
whichyouentered
bya singlemainentrance.
shopnor
schoolnordispensary;
therewas nothing
at all attractive
aboutit in fact[Ousmaneconcludes,
thenhe adds,as ifinafterthought,
thissearingline:]Therewas
at all attractive
aboutit in fact.Itslifewas basedon theprinciples
of
nothing
community
interdependence.21
Third-World
Literature
Capitalism
81
thanvirtuallyany othertextI know,thespace of

Here,then,moreemblematically
a past and futureutopia-a social world of collectivecooperation-is dramatically insertedinto the corruptand westernizedmoneyeconomyof the new postindependencenationalor compradorbourgeoisie.Indeed,Ousmane takespains to
that his business is in no sense
show us that the Hadj is not an industrialist,
middle-man
between
but
functions
as
a
European multinationalsand
productive,
local extractionindustries.To this biographicalsketch must be added a very
fact:thatin his youth,the Hadj was political,and spentsome timein
significant
activities.The extraordinary
satireof
jail forhis nationalistand pro-independence
thesecorruptclasses (whichOusmane will extendto the personof Senghorhimselfin The Last of the Empire) is explicitlymarkedas the failureof theindependence movementto developinto a generalsocial revolution.
The fact of nominal national independence,in Latin America in the 19th
in Africain the mid-20th,puts an end to a movementforwhichgenuine
century,
nationalautonomywas theonlyconceivablegoal. Nor is thissymbolicmyopiathe
only problem: the Africanstates also had to face the cripplingeffectsof what
Fanon propheticallywarned them against-to receiveindependenceis not the
same as to take it, since it is in the revolutionary
struggleitselfthat new social
new
and
a
consciousness
is
developed.Here again the historyof
relationships
Cuba is instructive:Cuba was the last of the Latin Americannationsto win its
freedomin the 19th century-a freedomwhich would immediatelybe taken in
charge by anothergreatercolonial power. We now know the incalculable role
playedin theCuban Revolutionof1959 bytheprotractedguerrillastrugglesofthe
late 19thcentury(ofwhichthefigureofJoseMarti is theemblem);contemporary
one wants
Cuba would not be the same withoutthatlaboriousand subterranean,
to say Thompsonian,experienceof the mole of History burrowingthrougha
lengthypast and creatingits specifictraditionsin the process.
So it is that afterthe poisoned giftof independence,radical Africanwriters
like Ousmane, or like Ngugi in Kenya,findthemselvesback in the dilemmaof Lu
whichhas notyetfound
Xun, bearinga passion forchangeand social regeneration
itsagents.I hope itis clearthatthisis also verymuchan aestheticdilemma,a crisis
it was not difficult
of representation:
to identifyan adversarywho spoke another
wore
and
the
visible
trappingsof colonial occupation. When those are
language
replacedby yourown people, the connectionsto externalcontrollingforcesare
muchmoredifficult
to represent.The newerleadersmayof coursethrowofftheir
masks and revealthe personof the Dictator,whetherin its older individualor
newermilitaryform:but thismomentalso determines
problemsofrepresentation.
The dictatornovelhas become a virtualgenreof Latin Americanliterature,and
such worksare markedabove all by a profoundand uneasyambivalence,a deeper
ultimatesympathyfortheDictator,whichcan perhapsonlybe properlyaccounted
82
Fredric
Jameson
forby some enlargedsocial variantof theFreudianmechanismof transference.22

The formnormallytakenby a radicaldiagnosisof the failuresof contemporthird-world
societiesis, however,what is conventionally
designatedas "culary
turalimperialism,"a facelessinfluencewithoutrepresentable
agents,whose literary expressionseems to demandthe inventionof new forms:Manuel Puig's Beof
trayedbyRita Hayworthmaybe citedas one ofthemoststrikingand innovative
those. One is led to concludethatunderthesecircumstances
traditionalrealismis
less effective
thanthesatiricfable:whenceto mymindthegreaterpowerofcertain
of Ousmane's narratives(besidesXala, we should mentionThe Money-Order)as
overagainstNgugi's impressivebut problematicalPetals of Blood.
With the fable, however,we are clearly back into the whole question of
allegory.The Money-OrdermobilizesthetraditionalCatch-22 dilemma-its hapless protagonistcannotcash his Parisiancheckwithoutidentitypapers,but since
he was bornlongbeforeindependencethereare no documents,and meanwhilethe
uncashed,beginsto meltaway beforean accumulationof new cremoney-order,
that this work,
dits and new debts. I am temptedto suggest,anachronistically,
dramatizesthegreatestmisfortune
thatcan happublishedin 1965, prophetically
in
the
to
a
our
of
vast
third-world
amountsof
time,namely discovery
country
pen
oil resources--something
whichas economistshaveshownus, farfromrepresenting salvation,at once sinksthemincalculablyinto foreigndebts theycan never
dream of liquidating.
On anotherlevel,however,
thistale raisestheissueofwhatmustfinallybe one
of the key problemsin any analysisof Ousmane's work,namelythe ambiguous
role playedin it by archaicor tribalelements.Viewersmayperhapsrememberthe
curiousendingofhis firstfilm,The Black Girl,in whichtheEuropeanemployeris
inconclusively
pursuedby thelittleboywearingan archaicmask; meanwhilesuch
historicalfilmsas Ceddo or Emitai seemintenton evokingoldermomentsoftribal
resistanceeitherto Islam or to thewest,yetin a historicalperspective
whichwith
fewexceptionsis thatoffailureand ultimatedefeat.Ousmane cannot,however,
be
suspectedof any archaizingor nostalgicculturalnationalism.Thus it becomes
of thisappeal to oldertribalvalues,parimportantto determinethe significance
more
in modern works like Xala or The
as
are
active
ticularly they
subtly
Money-Order.
I suspect that the deeper subject of this second novel is not so much the
evidentone of the denunciationof a modernnationalbureaucracy,
but ratherthe
historicaltransformation
of the traditionalIslamic value of alms-givingin a contemporarymoneyeconomy.A Muslim has the duty to give alms-indeed, the
work concludes with just such another unfulfilledrequest. Yet in a modern
into a frenziedassault by
economy,this sacred dutyto the poor is transformed
fromall the levelsof society(at length,the cash is appropriatedby a
free-loaders
Third-World
Literature
Capitalism
83
westernizedand affluent,
influential
cousin). The hero is literallypickedclean by
thevultures;betterstill,theunsoughtfor,unexpectedtreasurefallenfromheaven
at once transforms
the entiresocietyaround him into ferociousand insatiable
in
petitioners, somethinglike a monetaryversionof Lu Xun's cannibalism.
The same double historicalperspective--archaiccustoms radicallytransformedand denaturedby the superpositionof capitalistrelations-seems to me
demonstrablein Xala as well, in the oftenhilariousresultsof the moreancient
ofpolygamy.This is what Ousmane has to say about
Islamic and tribalinstitution
thatinstitution(it beingunderstoodthatauthorialintervention,
no longertolerable in realisticnarrative,
is stillperfectly
suitableto theallegoricalfableas a form):
Itcould
aboutthelifeled byurbanpolygamists.
It is worthknowing
something
to
rural
where
all the
be calledgeographical
as
polygamy,
polygamy, opposed
in thesamecompound.
In thetown,sincethe
livetogether
wivesand children
withtheirfather.
arescattered,
thechildren
havelittlecontact
families
Becauseof
mustgo fromhouseto house,villato villa,andis only
hiswayoflifethefather
He is therefore
a sourceoffinance,
therein theevenings,
at bedtime.
primarily
whenhe has work.23
Indeed, we are treatedto the vivid spectacleof the Hadj's miserywhen, at the
momentof his thirdmarriage,whichshouldsecurehis social status,he realizeshe
has no real home of his own and is condemnedto shuttlefromone wife'svilla to
the other,in a situationin which he suspects each of them in turn as being
But the passage I have just read shows thatresponsibleforhis ritualaffliction.
whateverone would wish to think about polygamyin and of itself as an
institution-it functionshere as a twin-valencedelementdesignedto open up
historicalperspective.The moreand morefrenziedtripsof the Hadj throughthe
greatcitysecurea juxtapositionbetweencapitalismand theoldercollectivetribal
formof social life.
themostremarkablefeatureofXala, whichcan
These are notas yet,however,
be describedas a stunningand controlled,virtuallytext-bookexercisein what I
The novel begins,in effect,in
have elsewherecalled "genericdiscontinuities."24
in
the
one genericconvention, termsof which
Hadj is read as a comic victim.
Everything
goes wrongall at once, and thenews of his disabilitysuddenlytriggers
his numerousdebtorsbeginto descendon someonewhose
a greatermisfortune:
bad luck clearlymarkshim out as a loser.A comic pityand terroraccompanies
this process, thoughit does not imply any great sympathyfor the personage.
Indeeditconveysa greaterrevulsionagainsttheprivilegednew westernized
society
ofthewheelof fortunecan take place. Yetwe have
in whichthisrapidoverturning
all been in error,as it turnsout: the wiveshave not been the sourceof the ritual
84
Fredric
Jameson
reversal
andenlargement
to someofthe
curse.In an abruptgeneric
(comparable
Freuddescribesin "The Uncanny"),we suddenlylearnsomething
mechanisms
abouttheHadj's past:
newand chilling
beforeyourmarriage
to that
"Out storygoesbacka longway.It was shortly
I wassureyouwouldnot.WhatI amnow"
womanthere.Don'tyouremember?
him)"what I am now is yourfault.Do you
(a beggarin ragsis addressing
of
remember
a
to our clan? After
selling largepiece land at Jekobelonging
of
the
with
the
in
clan
names
complicity people highplaces,youtook
falsifying
ourlandfromus. In spiteofourprotests,
ourproofof ownership,
we lostour
withtakingourlandyouhad methrown
case in thecourts.Not satisfied
into
prison.''25
crimeofcapitalism
is exposed:notso muchwagelabor
Thustheprimordial
and impersonal
as such,or the ravagesof themoneyform,or theremorseless
of
the
of
the
this
olderformsof
but
rather
market,
primaldisplacement
rhythms
It is theoldestof modern
collective
lifefroma landnowseizedand privatized.
on thePalestinians
visitedon theNativeAmericans
yesterday,
today,
tragedies,
reintroduced
and significantly
by OusmaneintohisfilmversionofThe Moneyis now threatened
Order(calledMandabi),in whichthe protagonist
withthe
imminent
itself.
lossofhisdwelling
The pointI wantto makeaboutthisterrible
"return
oftherepressed,"
is that
ofthenarrative:
it determines
a remarkable
we
generictransformation
suddenly
are no longerin satire,butin ritual.The beggarsandthelumpens,
led bySereen
Mada himself,
fortheremoval
descendon theHadj andrequirehimto submit,
of
of ritualhumiliation
his xala, to an abominableceremony
and abasement.
The
is liftedto a new genericrealm,which
representational
space of thenarrative
reachesbackto touchthepowersof thearchaicevenas it foretells
theutopian
ofthefallenpresent
in themodeofprophecy.
destruction
The word"Brechtian,"
whichinevitably
to mind,probablydoes inadequatejusticeto thesenew
springs
forms
whichhaveemerged
froma properly
third-world
Yetin lightofthis
reality.
the
text
satiric
is
itself
transunexpected
preceding
genericending,
retroactively
Froma satirewhosesubject-matter
orcontent
formed.
wastheritualcursevisited
on a character
withinthenarrative,
itsuddenly
becomesrevealed
as a ritualcurse
in its own right-theentireimaginedchainof eventsbecomesOusmane'sown
curseuponhisheroandpeoplelikehim.No morestunning
confirmation
couldbe
intotheanthropological
adducedforRobertC. Elliott'sgreatinsight
originsof
satiricdiscoursein realactsofshamanistic
malediction.
I wantto concludewitha fewthoughtson why all thisshouldbe so and on
as theprimacyof nationalallegory
the originsand statusof what I haveidentified
in third-world
culture.We are, afterall, familiarwith the mechanismsof auto-
Third-World
Literature
Capitalism
85
in contemporary
westernliterature:is thisnot simplyto be takenas
referentiality
another form of that, in a structurallydistinctsocial and cultural context?
Perhaps.But in thatcase our prioritiesmustbe reversedforproperunderstanding
of thismechanism.Considerthedisreputeofsocial allegoryin our cultureand the
well-nighinescapableoperationof social allegoryin the west'sOther.These two
contrastingrealitiesare to be grasped,I think,in termsof situationalconsciousness, an expressionI preferto the more commontermmaterialism.Hegel's old
may stillbe the mosteffective
analysisof the Master-Slaverelationship26
way of
betweentwo culturallogics.Two equals struggleeach
dramatizingthisdistinction
forrecognitionby the other:the one is willingto sacrificelifeforthis supreme
value. The other,a heroiccowardin theBrechtian,Schweykiansenseof lovingthe
body and the materialworld too well, gives in, in order to continuelife. The
of a balefuland inhumanfeudal-aristocratic
disdain
Master-now thefulfillment
forlifewithouthonor-proceeds to enjoy the benefitsof his recognitionby the
other,now become his humbleserfor slave. But at this point two distinctand
dialecticallyironicreversalstake place: onlytheMaster is now genuinelyhuman,
so that"recognition"bythishenceforth
sub-humanformof lifewhichis theslave
evaporatesat the momentof its attainmentand offersno genuinesatisfaction.
"is theSlave; whilethetruthof
"The truthof theMaster,"Hegel observesgrimly,
the Slave,on theotherhand,is the Master." But a second reversalis in processas
well: fortheslaveis called upon to labor forthemasterand to furnishhimwithall
his supremacy.Butthismeansthat,in theend, only
the materialbenefitsbefitting
theslaveknowswhat realityand theresistanceof matterreallyare; onlytheslave
can attain some true materialisticconsciousnessof his situation,since it is precisely to that that he is condemned.The Master, however,is condemnedto
idealism-to theluxuryof a placelessfreedomin whichany consciousnessof his
on thetip of
own concretesituationfleeslike a dream,like a word unremembered
the tongue,a naggingdoubt whichthe puzzled mindis unable to formulate.
It strikesme thatwe Americans,we mastersof theworld,are in somethingof
thatverysame position.The view fromthetop is epistemologically
crippling,and
to the
reducesits subjectsto the illusionsof a host of fragmented
subjectivities,
of
of
the
to
individual
isolated
individual
bodies
monads, dying
experience
poverty
withoutcollectivepasts or futuresbereftof any possibilityof graspingthe social
thisstructuralidealismwhichaffordsus the
totality.This placelessindividuality,
luxuryof the Sartreanblink,offersa welcome escape fromthe "nightmareof
history,"but at the same timeit condemnsour cultureto psychologismand the
All of this is denied to third-world
culture,
"projections"of privatesubjectivity.
which must be situationaland materialistdespite itself.And it is this, finally,
which mustaccount forthe allegoricalnatureof third-world
culture,wherethe
tellingof theindividualstoryand theindividualexperiencecannotbut ultimately
86
Fredric
Jameson
involvethe whole laborioustellingof the experienceof the collectivity

itself.
of thisunfamiliarkindof
I hope I havesuggestedtheepistemological
priority
allegoricalvision; but I mustadmitthatold habitsdie hard,and thatforus such
unaccustomedexposureto reality,or to thecollectivetotality,
is oftenintolerable,
the
leavingus in Quentin'spositionat theend ofAbsalom,Absalom!,murmuring
greatdenial, "I don't hate theThird World!I don't! I don't! I don't!"
Eventhatresistanceis instructive,
however;and we maywell feel,confronted
of theglobe,that"therewas nothing
withthedailyrealityof theothertwo-thirds
at all attractiveabout it in fact." But we must not allow ourselvesthat feeling
withoutalso acknowledgingits ultimatemockingcompletion:"Its lifewas based
on the principlesof communityinterdependence."
NOTES
as BenedictAnderson'sinterest1. The whole matterof nationalismshouldperhapsbe rethought,
ing essay Imagined Communities(London: Verso,1983), and Tom Nairn's The Breakup of Britain
(London: New LeftBooks, 1977) inviteus to do.
2. I havearguedelsewherefortheimportanceofmass cultureand sciencefiction.See "Reification
and Utopia in Mass Culture,"Social Text no. 1 (1979), 130-148.
3. The essaywas writtenforan immediateoccasion-the thirdmemoriallecturein honorof my
of California,San Diego. It is essentially
late colleague and friendRobertC. Elliot at the University
as
reprinted given.
4. William Bennett,"To Reclaim a Legacy,"Text of a reporton the Humanities,Chronicleof
HigherEducation, XXIX, 14 (Nov. 28, 1984), pp. 16-21.
5. The classictextsare F. Engels,The Originof theFamily,PrivatePropertyand theState (1884)
and the earlier,but only more recentlypublishedsectionof Marx's Grundrisse,oftencalled "Pre1973), pp. 471-514.
capitalisteconomicformations,"trans.MartinNicolaus (London: NLB/Penguin,
See also Emmanuel Terray,Marxism and "Primitive"Societies, trans. M. Klopper, (New York:
MonthlyReview,1972); BarryHindess and Paul Hirst,Pre-CapitalistModes of Production(London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975); and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari,"Savages, Barbarians,
of
CivilizedMen," in Anti-Oedipus,trans.R. Hurley,M. Seem,H.R. Lane, (Minneapolis:University
Minnesota press,1983), pp. 139-271.
Besides mode-of-production
theory,whose validityis in any case widelydebated,therehave also
workson third-world
historyas a unified
appeared in recentyearsa numberof importantsynthesizing
field.Three works in particulardeservemention:Global Rift,by L.S. Stavrianos(Morrow,1981);
Europe and thePeople withoutHistory,by Eric R. Wolf(California,1982), and The Three Worlds,by
PeterWorsley(Chicago, 1984). Such workssuggesta moregeneralmethodologicalconsequenceimthatthekindof comparative
plicitin thepresentessaybut whichshouldbe statedexplicitlyhere:first,
literatureinvolvescomparison,not of the individual
work demandedby thisconceptof third-world
fromeach other,but of the concretesituations
texts,whichare formallyand culturallyverydifferent
fromwhichsuch textsspringand to whichtheyconstitutedistinctresponses;and second,thatsuch an
approach suggeststhe possibilityof a literaryand culturalcomparatismof a new type,distantly
modelledon the new comparativehistoryof BarringtonMoore and exemplifiedin books like Theda
Skocpol'sStatesand Social Revolutionsor EricWolf'sPeasantRevolutionsofthe20th Century.Such a
Third-World
Literaturein the Era of MultinationalCapitalism
87
and similaritiesof specific

new culturalcomparatismwould juxtapose the studyof the differences
literaryand culturaltextswitha moretypologicalanalysisofthevarioussocio-culturalsituationsfrom
which theyspring,an analysiswhose variableswould necessarilyinclude such featuresas the interrelationshipof social classes, the role of intellectuals,the dynamicsof language and writing,the
of traditionalforms,the relationshipto westerninfluences,the developmentof urban
configuration
to third-world
experienceand money,and so forth.Such comparatism,however,need notbe restricted
literature.
6. See forexample,PerryAnderson,Lineages of theAbsolutistState (London: New LeftBooks,
1974), pp. 435-549.
7. Sigmund Freud, "PsychoanalyticNotes on an AutobiographicalAccount of a Case of
Paranoia," trans.James Strachey,The Standard Edition of the Complete PsychologicalWorksof
SigmundFreud (London: Hogarth,1958), VolumeXII, p. 457.
8. See forexampleWolframEberhard,A HistoryofChina, trans.E.W. Dickes, (Berkeley:Univerof
sity CaliforniaPress,1977), p. 105: "When we hear of alchemy,or read books about it we should
alwayskeepin mindthatmanyofthesebooks can also be read as books ofsex; in a similarway,books
on the art of war, too, can be read as books on sexual relations."
9. Lu Xun, SelectedStoriesof Lu Hsun, trans.Gladys Yang and Yang Hsien-yi(Beijing:Foreign
Languages Press,1972), pp. 1-6.
10. Ibid., pp. 2-3.
11. Ibid., p. 40.
12. Ibid., p. 72.
13. Ibid. I am indebtedto PeterRushtonforsome of theseobservations.
14. Ibid., p. 5.
15. Socialismwill become a reality,
Lenin observes,"when thenecessityof observingthe simple,
fundamentalrules of human intercourse"has "become a habit." (State and Revolution[Beijing:
ForeignLanguages Press,1973], p. 122.)
16. See theinteresting
discussionsin StephenGilman,Gald6s and theArtof theEuropean Novel:
1867-1887 (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity
Press,1981).
17. ImmanuelWallerstein,
The Modern WorldSystem(New York: AcademicPress,1974).
18. For example: "El Delfin habia entrado,desde los uiltimosdias del 74, en aquel periodo
sedanteque seguilainfaliblemente
a sus desvarios.En realidad,no era aquello virtud,sino casancio del
en e1
pecado; no era el sentimiento
puroy regulardel orden,sinoel hastiode la revoluci6n.Verificaibase
lo que don Baldomerohabia dicho del pais: que padecia fiebresalternativasde libertady de paz."
Fortunatay Jacinta(Madrid: EditorialHernando,1968), p. 585 (PartIII, chapter2, section2).
19. Deluze and Guattari,op. cit.,p. 274.
20. PrincetonUniversity
of Chicago Press,1970, respectively.
Press,1960; and University
21. SembeneOusmane,Xala, trans.Clive Wake,(Westport,Conn.: LawrenceHill, 1976), p. 69.
22. I am indebtedto Carlos Blanco Aguinagaforthe suggestionthatin theLatin Americannovel
this ambivalencemay be accountedforby the factthatthe archetypalDictator,while oppressinghis
own people, is also perceivedas resistingNorthAmericaninfluence.
23. Xala, op. cit.,p. 66.
24. "Generic Discontinuitiesin Science Fiction:Brian Aldiss' Starship,"Science FictionStudies
#2 (1973), pp. 57-68.
25. Xala, op. cit.,pp. 110-111.
26. G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology
of Mind, trans.A.V. Miller,(Oxford: OxfordUniversity
Press,1977): SectionB, ChapterIV, PartA-3, "Lordshipand Bondage," pp. 111-119.The otherbasic
of thisargumentis Lukics' epistemology
in Historyand Class Consciousphilosophicalunderpinning
88
FredricJameson
orthegrasping
ofthesocialtotality
nessaccording
towhich"mapping"
is structurally
availabletothe
rather
thanthedominating
classes."Mapping"isa termI haveusedin"Postmodernism,
dominated
or,
theCulturalLogicof Late Capitalism,"
1984],pp. 53-92).
(NewLeftReview#146[July-August,
ofjustsuchmapping
ofthetotality,
a form
isclearly
so thatthe
Whatis herecalled"nationalallegory"
ofthird-world
a theory
ofthecognitive
aesthetics
a
literature-forms
present
essay-whichsketches
whichdescribes
thelogicofthecultural
ofthefirst
totheessayonpostmodernism
imperalism
pendant
worldandaboveall oftheUnitedStates.
New PoliticalScience
Summer1986 No. 15
and Politics
Literature
J.Derrida
"On the Declaration of Independence"
M. Blanchot
"Marx'sThreeVoices"
Plus
J.Arac, "Mathiessenand theAmerican

Renaissance."
and theLiberalSelf."
D. Sommer,"Whitman
C. Kay, "Wollstonecraft's
Critiqueof Adam
Smith."
T. Norton,"Deleuzeand PoliticalScience
Fiction."
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Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism

Author(s): Fredric Jameson

would not be a moralizingone-a historicistone, rather,which challengesour

of culturalstudiesin the UnitedStates demandsthe

Asiatic mode. My examplesbelow,then,will be primarilyAfricanand Chinese;

designatedby recourseto an aestheticof expression-the unspeakable,unnamecan onlydesignateit fromwithout,

is perhapsless well understood,but can be demonstrated

symbolicsignificanceof this indignationunless we rememberthat forall these

that had been strickenwith the stillnessand

withthethirdworld.Oversomethreeor fouryears,Cuban teenagersstudypoems

this political problemis the possibilityof narrativeclosure,somethingwe will

and attitudesas havingbeen themselves,

tion of "revolution"and "restoration"is likewiseadapted to hersituation,as she

scious allegoriesof our own culturaltexts,third-worldnational allegoriesare

thanvirtuallyany othertextI know,thespace of

forby some enlargedsocial variantof theFreudianmechanismof transference.22

involvethe whole laborioustellingof the experienceof the collectivity

and similaritiesof specific

"On the Declaration of Independence"

J.Arac, "Mathiessenand theAmerican

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