Reintroduction of slavery in Guadeloupe
The reintroduction of slavery in Guadeloupe is a short story by Anna Seghers that appeared in Berlin in 1949. The text, along with The Wedding of Haiti and The Light on the Gallows, is one of the Caribbean Stories published in 1962 .
The question is on the test: How should the gift of freedom be dealt with? According to Brandes, Anna Seghers had an enlightening effect with such an “aesthetically complex masterpiece”.
content
- The history
Robespierre had abolished slavery in Guadeloupe at the beginning of 1794 . Slave overseers such as Cantal, formerly the administrator of the Rohan estate, had fled the island. Commissioner Hugues had expelled the British occupiers from the French colony, was summoned to the convention in Paris around 1798 and becomes Commissioner of Guiana .
- The history
Three declared opponents of slavery meet with the black family mother Manon. There is the mulatto Berenger. With military training in Paris, he became commandant of the fort of Guadeloupe the year before the start of the action. The white Beauvais is an officer from Paris and the black Paul Rohan is a former field slave. These men are not wasting the time until the arrival of Inspector Hugues' successor. All these fighters against the slaveholders, like the black smith Jean Rohan, are hated by the less than ten thousand blacks in Guadeloupe. Because these few new drivers remind the islanders to work regularly on the plantations on a daily basis. The persistently persuasive attempt fails. Those freed from Robespierre know what to do with their freedom; do not want to toil voluntarily. After 1799, Napoleon put an end to the chatter. Commissioner Vigneron, Hugues' successor in Guadeloupe, is replaced by Commissioner Boisseret. Six years after their liberation, the blacks in Guadeloupe are again enslaved by the Corsican. France is expecting ships loaded with coffee from the island. Sugar is also needed. The enemy England must be defeated.
Blacks will be removed from the new island administration. On orders, all former workers and their families should appear at their former workplaces.
Resistance stirs. Berenger blows up his fort. Shot at Cantal, who ventured back to the island. None of the slaves talk about Paul Rohan's end. The narrator is also silent. The hints about Manon's end are turned back and forth. It must have been a bad one. It's better not to talk about it. Manon had attacked a pushy white officer with a knife and had been brutally murdered on the spot with her family. Beauvais falls in the armed struggle with black fighters against slavery. Although Jean Rohan opposes the presentation order, he does not pull himself up to resist. The black blacksmith is chased by dogs while fleeing through the forest and shot by a white patrol. Blacks had cleared a path for the soldiers with a machete.
Quote
Anna Seghers about two old former slaves: "As soon as they were alone, they admitted that their life was more beautiful in the time of slaves."
Form and interpretation
In the fifteenth and final chapter, Anna Seghers quickly introduces a certain Colonel Boyer. At the time when Napoleon became emperor , the Bonapartist recovered a little on the Swiss border and told his listening family about Marengo , Egypt and, among other things, the island of Guadeloupe. Just with an incident that happened on this Antilles island, he touched a boy among the audience "to the heart of his heart". Among the numerous dead black fighters against the Napoleonic troops, a single white man was discovered and buried with all of them. Only the author and the reader know - it is Beauvais. Incidentally, Boyer also learns of Toussaint's death in a fortress in the vicinity of his resort.
The reader has to figure out the death of Paul Rohan. Cantal had exchanged Claire, the former field slave's bride, for a slave from another estate and thus separated the couple. When Cantal ventures back to the island, he is received with a volley of rifles on the Rohan estate. Anna Seghers only writes, the resistance was stifled and news of the incident spread across the island.
The sentence above, “Berenger blows up his fort.” Is initially not exactly accurate, but is only a summarizing conclusion. Because Anna Seghers first announced that the fort was blown up. Then she reproduces a previous dialogue between the black smith Jean Rohan and Berenger, from which the reader can infer the alleged “perpetrator”. However, Anna Seghers clarifies seven pages later.
The highest demands are placed on the reader's ability to remember. For example, the fourth chapter talks about the manager of the Rohan estate. In the thirteenth chapter his name comes up: Cantal.
reception
- Anna Seghers wrote against oblivion.
- The psyche of ordinary people has been exposed with empathy. The example of the officer Beauvais shows that the oppressed need the help of men from the oppressive camp.
- Brandes extrapolates the apathy of the slaves on the GDR population. Hilzinger argues in this direction with the thesis of the criticism of current events.
- Schrade declares the description of Jean Rohan's flight and death to be the narrative climax because the exaggeration of the entire process results in “a perspective beyond defeat”.
- 1982, Manfred Behn-Liebherz: “The writer as the memory of the revolution. The Caribbean Stories by Anna Seghers. "
literature
Text output
First edition
- Reintroduction of Slavery in Guadeloupe in Anna Seghers: The Wedding of Haiti. Two novels. (together with the title story) 140 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1949
Used edition
- Reintroduction of slavery in Guadeloupe . P. 279–339 in: Anna Seghers: Erzählungen 1952–1962. Volume XI of the Collected Works in separate editions (also contains The Man and His Name . The First Step . Bread and Salt . Forty Years of Margarete Wolf and the “Caribbean Stories” The Wedding of Haiti and The Light on the Gallows ) . 2nd Edition. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1981.
New work edition
- Anna Seghers: Stories 1948–1949 (Work Edition Volume II / 3). Tape editing Robert Cohen . Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2012 (contains The Wedding of Haiti , Reintroduction of Slavery in Guadeloupe , The Argonaut Ship , The Cookbook and an early fragment of The Light on the Gallows ).
Secondary literature
- Heinz Neugebauer: Anna Seghers. Life and work. With illustrations (research assistant: Irmgard Neugebauer, editorial deadline September 20, 1977). 238 pages. Series “Writers of the Present” (Ed. Kurt Böttcher). People and Knowledge, Berlin 1980.
- Kurt Batt : Anna Seghers. Trial over development and works. With illustrations. 283 pages. Reclam, Leipzig 1973 (2nd edition 1980). Licensor: Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 3-87682-470-2 ( Röderberg-Taschenbuch Volume 15)
- Ute Brandes: Anna Seghers . Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1992. Volume 117 of the series “Heads of the 20th Century”, ISBN 3-7678-0803-X
- Andreas Schrade: Anna Seghers . Metzler, Stuttgart 1993 (Metzler Collection Volume 275 (authors)), ISBN 3-476-10275-0
- Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. With 12 illustrations. Series of Literature Studies. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, RUB 17623, ISBN 3-15-017623-9
annotation
- ^ Toussaint from the wedding of Haiti died in 1803 at Château de Joux .