An African’s Trouble with His Masters’ Voices
In: The Politics of English as a World LanguageSearch for other papers by Michael Meyer in
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Abstract
The Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw appropriates Evangelical discourse in order to establish Gronniosaw’s moral authority, which is derived from Gronniosaw’s submission to God, has to be authenticated by clerical authorities and allows him to criticize his corrupt masters. Gronniosaw exposes discrepancies between his masters’ religious and economic discourses and practices less by direct argument than by the negating force of conspicuous silence, by repetitions of scenes of abuse and abject poverty and by the ironic emplotment of his life. Being a good Christian alienates him from Western society and endangers his very survival in a commercial culture, which undermines the language of the spirit and compares unfavourably to the African subsistence economy.