In Keene’s Counternarratives, “the white girl” is used repeatedly to mark Eugénie, while “the blacks” are solely used in the grand historical narrative (“the blacks did triumph” p93), except for when near the end, Eugénie calls Carmel “you black witch”. The moments of calling Eugénie “white girl” stabs the narrative back into the contemporary USA for me. It’s a phrase circulated among my group of friends, each calling entail a bit of a callout, if not at the person, against the racialized institutions.

Perhaps because of the constant use of the white girl, despite the pseudoacademic air of much of the writing, it feels likes Carmel is somehow internally living in our bettered, more “enlightened” age. And hence, when at the very end of the story, where Carmel locks Eugénie in a burning house, in Eugénie’s desperate attempt to coerce and insult, she drops “you black witch”; the contrast painfully reminds us of the unquestioned sharpness with which race is used to mutilate.

I was found myself rereading passages of Hartman’s piece over and over because it seemed so critical to the questions this class inherently raises about representing suffering and injustice as writers. Her piece presented various tensions and questions and moral dilemmas around writing the narratives of silenced people, and refused to wrap a bow around this tension by providing us a clear answer. I thought Keene’s changing narrative tone aided him to, in Hartman’s words, “tell impossible stories.” Hartman calls on writers to “expose and exploit the incommensurability between the experience of the enslaved and the fictions of history, by which I mean the requirements of narrative, the stuff of subjects and plots and ends” (10). This refusal to provide as satisfying story or narrative—that is, to wrap up the conflict or violence in some sort of bow whereby readers can make sense of it—shows throughout Keene’s narrative of Carmel. There were certainly points in which I, as a reader, was confused about who was speaking as the tone of the piece changed fluidly. Closer to the beginning of the narrative, Keene’s spoke about the slaves with Carmel on the plantation in the second person. He broke up this narrative in different sections, at points asking philosophical questions about the role of duty and ethical responsibility that slaves might consider before revolting or resisting. Then, the story develops to reveal Carmel as its main narrator. Throughout the piece, she experiences agency and power in strange ways; she draws anonymously, driven by some overwhelming force to do so. And in the end of the story, she exercises magical powers hinted at before only in the story of her mother. This type of agency and expression provided to Carmel is one we can’t necessarily wrap our heads around. Sometimes it seemed to come out of the blue in the story. I found this to be a really effective way of  “exposing and exploiting the incommensurability between the experience of the enslaved and the fictions of history” that drive storytellers to create a more “cohesive” subject and plot.

As many of the responses mentioned, the shifts in how Keene presented Carmel’s story struck me the most while reading Counternarratives. From the matter-of-fact tone presenting Carmel’s background to Carmel’s own journal entries and eventually embodying Carmel’s voice itself, the way Keene illustrates Carmel’s story shifts in a jarring way throughout the narrative. His style made me wonder why Keene did not choose to stick to one style alone- perhaps readers would be better able to understand Carmel if the narrative was shaped only on her perspective. However, the way Keene deals with his description of plantation owners contributes to the narrative by showing their brutality in a nonchalant manner. Parts such as “He remembered having lashed her once- or thought he remembered he had- along with all of the other slaves under forty, upon finding ten gold pieces missing from his library safe” (90) highlights how cruel slaves were treated at the time in an ironic manner by taking on a seemingly “objective” form.

It was also interesting how Carmel’s story began as an index of an academic writing, which expands into a larger story than what it began from. Although history does not often shed light to narratives like Carmel’s narrative, it is her story that occupies the most space in this text. This is where the title plays its role- because Carmel’s story subverts the idea of who the ‘main character’ is in a historical narrative, it could be a narrative that counters the historical narratives of the past.

Our reading this week made an interesting point on how truly historical stories can hardly ever capture the entire picture of a situation, making these kinds of works essential for readers to be able to relate with what people may have experienced living in different time periods. The beginning of A Gloss on History of… was pretty jarring to me until I continued reading. I thought it was going to be a boring piece about history because of the language used. I found myself reading quickly through the annotation, in an attempt to get back to the main story, until I realized that the annotation was the story and everything previously mentioned was not about “history” but about Carmel and her relationship to the world around her. I thought this was a cool way to start. With that being said, the narrator keeps his sort-of-academic tone for a lot of the work, which I found charming, but left me feeling a little detached from the world written about.
The different voices and writing styles used in Carmel’s story reminded me of what Hartman said in his writing. The voices gave life to the story and showed the reader how complex the world around Carmel actually is. It is interesting how these styles of writing highlight Carmel’s own silence. She has no voice in the narration. She is silent up until she erupts, making her outburst all the more powerful. In making her silent, it could be that Keene is trying to show how alone she has been in her terrible world ever since her parents passed away.

“Walgreens, other pharmacy chains sue doctors in opioid crisis”

Alex hurt her back hiking hiking with her boyfriend, Stefano in Cuyahoga Park. She had studied botany for years. Alex bent down to look closer and a flower she did not recognize and felt a slight twinge in her lower back. She did not really think anything of it, but she did not want to risk anything because auditions were coming up. Alex visited her doctor six months ago.
…
Alex stuck her hand between her mattress and bedframe until she found the little orange bottle she was looking for. Yesterday it was one, but last night’s wine left her head throbbing, so today she ate two for breakfast. The real trick was hiding it. Hiding it from her staff, her friends, her family, James. Hiding it from everyone. If anyone found out, they might think Alex had a problem, which she didn’t. She knew she had no problem. The only reason she was even hiding it in the first place is because she didn’t want anyone to worry. She lied and told everyone her back had healed. Truthfully, for some reason her back pain had gotten even worse since the muscle pull, not that this was any of their business. It wasn’t even that big of a big deal, anyway. She knew people couldn’t even tell that she took them. It’s not like they made her act any different, they just made her back hurt less…
Anyways, she was late for work. That was six months ago.
…
Alex sat with her head in her hands as pedestrians passed her without any acknowledgement, when she heard a familiar voice.
“Can you believe that worked?”
Alex peaked up to see Stefano shouting at his cell phone about some big win for him and his company. As he walked past, she mustered up the courage to reach out to the former life she once had.
“Sorry, I don’t have any change.”

Process Notes:
I decided this week to try a different topic from climate change/environmental stuff because Prof. Scappettone had mentioned something about trying to personalize and relate to the writing exercises. To be honest, this switch proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I tried to create a linear story, but also take large leaps in time in order to allow for a change in voice and simply to keep it short. To be honest, I am not super thrilled with how well the three parts work together, but I am happy that each has a unique voice. This was done in an attempt to show the reader that there was a kind of mental shift in the way Alex was thinking.

Keene begins with a writing style akin to historical textbooks, utilizing an impersonal, unemotional tone that he seems to criticize through subtle moments of irony. For instance, when Grace de L’Ecart is considering how she will deal with “mulattoes grown so presumptuous as to declare themselves on equal footing with their former masters” and is said to be willing to “weather it” (98) and when describing the convent’s estate as being on the grounds of “one of the region’s first white settlers” with the acknowledgement that it was also “partly constructed on the site on an Indian burial mound” (111) briefly thrown into the midst. The only personal glimpse we get into Carmel’s character is through her perplexing drawings until Keene departs from this narrative style into a section wherein Carmel’s diary entries are presented. This section poses a challenge for the reader in understanding what is being said through her various language transitions and adapted grammar. In creating this space, Keene seems to similarly emphasize Hartman’s belief that understanding lost voices is incredibly difficult, especially those that would be so differently constructed from the prose contrasted at the beginning and within our history books; this does not however mean it is unimportant. In the final section, Keene shifts into a first-person narrative of Carmel, wherein the reader finally gets a deeper understanding of Carmel’s unmuted reality. As Kat noted, this shift from her diary entries to her inner voice allows for the readers to confront the fact that Carmel cannot be fully realized until we can see her from her own perspective and not our own or others’ presumptions. She is only recognized by the other characters and readers as she vanishes at the end with the covenant, initially described as a “forget-me-not” (86) and now pronounced to be a scene that “reminded (her) nothing less of a forget-me-not” (158). This interestingly mimics Hartman’s point that such individuals are often “only visible in the moment of their disappearance” (12).  Lastly, I found it significant that Carmel gains power and a voice in the end when she is able to mute the voices of oppressive characters, which seems to say that for voices such as hers to be actualized, certain ones must be silent.

Keene fills the silence in the archive surrounding enslaved women with the crafting of numerous perspectives around the same story. He shifts the telling of the story from that of third person, to the written journal entries of Carmel, to finally the first-person perspective of Carmel herself. The story begins with a rather cut-and-dry telling of the history of Carmel’s first residence, where she serves as a slave girl treated in various characteristic ways: expected to taste the food she cooked first, whipped for some barely remembered transgression, hardly noticed as a person. All of this reads as a rendition of “official history,” but considering it is the reader’s first exposure to the chapter matter, is not so overtly violent. In the description of her wall drawings, Carmel plays a passive role, as if she is whooshed away by some explainable artistic impulse — similarly, subtly violent in its narrative distance. Her relationships with Eugenie and fellow slave “PH” are especially prominent in her journal entries, which notably lack grammar and punctuation, given her lack of formal schooling. Keene depicts her entries as blunt yet endearing in the specific way of a young woman in the world, such as when Carmel notes every day that Eugenie doesn’t speak to her, and the number of rosaries she does every day. The concrete moments of her days are noted in this perspective. We come to know much about what goes on in her life, but not so much of what transpires in her mind. Finally, Keene fills the silence with interiority into Carmel’s thoughts, and the story comes alive. The shift from her sometimes-barely comprehensible journal entries to the melodic, intricate channel into her mind nearly scolds the reader for their limited humanization of Carmel via the earlier perspectives — made most prominent by the realization that Carmel actually is in touch with these fantastical elements which allow her to control the actions of others and predict/manifest the future. In such a way, the reader is slowly lulled into a closeness with Carmel’s character, and the unique process of transition recognizes Keene’s rendition particularly successful at filling the silence in the archive without requiring the continuation of “official history.” 

Definition: Hysteria

Hippocrates (5th century BC) is the first to use the term hysteria. Indeed he also believes that the cause of this disease lies in the movement of the uterus (“hysteron”) [2–4]. The Greek physician provides a good description of hysteria, which is clearly distinguished from epilepsy. He emphasizes the difference between the compulsive movements of epilepsy, caused by a disorder of the brain, and those of hysteria due to the abnormal movements of the uterus in the body. Then, he resumes the idea of a restless and migratory uterus and identifies the cause of the indisposition as poisonous stagnant humors which, due to an inadequate sexual life, have never been expelled. He asserts that a woman’s body is physiologically cold and wet and hence prone to putrefaction of the humors (as opposed to the dry and warm male body). For this reason, the uterus is prone to get sick, especially if it is deprived of the benefits arising from sex and procreation, which, widening a woman’s canals, promote the cleansing of the body. And he goes further; especially in virgins, widows, single, or sterile women, this “bad” uterus – since it is not satisfied – not only produces toxic fumes but also takes to wandering around the body, causing various kinds of disorders such as anxiety, sense of suffocation, tremors, sometimes even convulsions and paralysis. For this reason, he suggests that even widows and unmarried women should get married and live a satisfactory sexual life within the bounds of marriage [2–4].

Source: Tasca, Cecilia, et al. “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health.” Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health : CP & EMH, Bentham Open, 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480686/.

Creative Exercise:

It all started the day after Mary Ann broke up with me. It felt mutual, at the time. But later I realized I had been dumped. Dumped at 14 — precocious! The next morning I woke up and nothing was the same. You see, I finally understood — girls were not all like I had been misled to believe. They were not always sweet, and laughing, and pretty, nor were they badass and seductive and calculating, like Shego. Most of the time, they’re mainly, well, hysterical. Case in point — Mary Ann couldn’t stop sniffling when she told me our chakras did not align, while we sat on the bleachers by the school’s tennis courts. The whole time she had her hands clasped her in front of her stomach, as if she was holding herself together, holding something in. I think that’s when I got my first clue. When we stood up to leave — me first and then her, because I was ready to move on — I saw it: her uterus, thumping like a rabid animal, just below the elastic band of her black gym shorts. When she saw me looking, she shifted her hands quickly to hide it. By the expression on her face, I knew that she knew that I knew — she let the crazy in her eyes show, for the first time, right then. A foul smell percolated in the air, a smell that I realized had been there all along, barely masked by her potent feminine wiles. She scuttled away, certainly driven by the erratic commands of that rogue organ, and started going around calling me all sorts of snide names — certainly, in an attempt to discredit me, for I knew her secret. The secret kept by all of them. Her reconnaissance efforts were in vain, however, because there was nothing that could be done at that point. The next day, I glimpsed the savage tyranny of the uteruses everywhere, shifting into view like chinks in armor — whenever the females laughed, through which you can also catch a hint of madness — but especially when they preened, for that is when they think they are being the most careful, the most discreet, and foolishly let the facade flicker. I thought long about how I should approach the matter. After all, it was no coincidence that I of all people had been shown. It was a power that came with great responsibility. It wasn’t until a week later, when we were well into the last month of ninth grade, that I knew what I had to do.

Like Lucy, I focused on the different narrative styles that Keene employed to tell Carmel’s story, and found transitions between styles incredibly jarring. We begin with a third person historical point of view, akin to how one writes in academic papers, to a third person narrative, where we lack a complete understanding of what Carmel knows. Then we transition to reading her journals, which help paint a better picture of what she can communicate, to her first person narrative at the end, which is incredibly precise and forces you to realize the depth of the stories she could tell. We slowly become more intimate with her in a way that is almost absurd; she is a mute girl that we can fully understand by the end of the narrative. She, like Hartman explains, is telling an impossible story, and this last section forces you to further grapple with that idea. Like Chloe mentioned, this is further exemplified by the idea that this entire story is written in the space of an asterisk, stating that no definitive records of the school exist, and yet, somehow, we read. In that context, I found this narrative to be incredibly haunting; the idea that we have erased so many people and the only stories we are given are stories of people who have been chosen. More often or not, that choice is because of what has been done to them, rather than as actors with their own agency. These narratives are just our attempt to deal with the idea that we have lost these stories forever,and that we can never lose sight of that.

I found the development of Carmel’s voice, or rather, the changes that occur in how her narrative is told, to be very interesting. At the beginning of the story, the language used to describe Carmel and her family is very factual. It is what one would expect when reading a history book: “Carmel was the lone child among the handful of bonds people remaining at Valdore, the coffee plantation to which Olivier de L’Ecart returned in late July 1803” (86). There is also a constant emphasis on her not talking: “None of the bonds people still present…could recall having heard her utter a single word” (88). Most of the time, others see this as an advantage. For example, Eugenie thinks this will make Carmel a great confidant of all of her secrets. Or rather, she cannot snitch on her. We are often told that the other servants exclude her because they find her silence strange. So in this way, the reader is made to feel like her silence is a disadvantage. Carmel is never shown to explicitly want to learn to speak out loud when this happens.

Eventually, she starts creating her own language and learns several languages at the convent. Even more striking is the samples of her “voice” that appear between pages 124-131. The language reveals someone who is learning to write and speak. It can be very difficult to understand at times. But, within these passages, Carmel’s opinions of Eugenie are revealed, whereas before, she would just be silent and not voice her opinions. For example, when Eugenie tells her she should not study so much, it is written that “I rolld my eyes” (125). So, we can see some confidence or at least her opinions beginning to be revealed. By the end of the story, the language is that of a traditional narrative. It is told from Carmel’s perspective by using “I”. It is not hard to follow, and the language is not as “textbook” as it was at the beginning. Carmel, by this point, is more in control of her powers. She is finally ready to take action, which has been contemplated throughout the entire short story.

I wanted to comment on Sofia’s point about the control of Carmel’s narrative and the incomplete, detached image of Carmel that remains. Although we are told that Carmel begins to move more confidently, these changes occur very abruptly. She switches from not talking and her thoughts/opinions not be known to making it clear where she stands very quickly. I found it hard to exactly pinpoint why these changes occurred and often had to reread pages to see if I’d missed something. We also don’t get to learn much about how Carmel mastered her powers and her night interactions with her mother. So much is still left unexplored.