"An Affirmative Connection": The Trope Of The Family Relationships In Crossing The River

As one of the most talented British writers with a Caribbean background, CarylPhillips never stops paying attention to the group of the diaspora and their generalsituation. Phillips focuses on the characters who are marginalized by the tradiationalhistory, represents the hidden history of the oppressed, and reveals the complicatedrelationships among the black and the white. His writings are characterized by thestate of rootlessness, the sense of ambiguous belonging, and the exilic life. Crossingthe River, as his fifth novel published in1993, is a grand epic of the diaspora with itsgeographical and historical expansiveness. In the novel, Phillips depicts in details thecomplicated family relationships. The thesis aims to exam the problematicparent-child, marriage relationships and analyze the significance of the new familyforms, so as to trace the enslaved history of the black and to present the displacedsituation of the diaspora. In the examination of human suffering, Caryl Phillipsreplaces the blind essentialism with a more inclusive approach to human relationships.The thesis consists of three parts, the introduction, the body part and theconclusion. The introduction gives a brief review about the topic and raises relatedquestions. Phillips’s personal experience enables him to understand the rootless stateof the diaspora. The family relationships discussed in his works are meaningful in theexploration of issues like diasporic identity and the sense of belonging. However, notenough attention has paid to the factor of family relationships.The body part illustrates the family relationships in Crossing the River in threeaspects: the parent-child relationships, the marriage relationships, and the new form offamily relations. Chapter One describes the African father-and-children relationship,the white father-and-son relationship, and the representations of the disrupted familyties. Love and betrayal interwoven, and regret and lament combined, are the mainfeatures of the African father-and-children relationship, which also reveals Africa’sambiguous role in the slave trade and the African diaspora. It’s the connection amongthe diasporic subjects as well as the accomplice of the evil slave trade. The relation between the white slave trader and his father shows the effect that the slave trade hadon the colonists. All participants involved in the slave trade suffer from the familydisruptions. The disrupted family tie reproduces itself in different phases. The slavetrade and the colonialism lead to the collapse of the blood-bond connections.Thereafter, the diaspora are in the permanent state of rootlessness.Chapter Two deals with the marriage relationships concerning three protagonists.Nash’s marital condition reflects his struggles in different cultures and hisdegeneration from a pious believer to a heathen. The disillusionment of Martha’shappy family with Chester shows that the sense of belonging is unapproachable forthe diaspora in the land yoked by the plantation slavery. And the white alienatedwoman Joyce is tortured by her husband. Her second marriage with Travis also breakswith the death of the husband and the abandonment of their son. Therefore, in the landfilled with exploitation, discrimination and indifference, the contract-basedrelationships cannot help the diaspora escape displacement and suffering.Chapter Three discusses the significance of the new family relationships. Thenovelist intends to build "an affirmative connection" in Crossing the River. Thefailure of keeping the family relationships based on blood and contract encourages thediaspora to explore new connections. Greer is the fruit of the white and the black. Thebirth of this hybrid son and his self-pursuit represent a hybrid family. Mostimportantly,"the many-tongued chorus" eliminates boundaries and discrimination,and suggests an equal and harmonious family relationship. Through this newrelationship based on equality and respect, Phillips explores issues like the diasporicidentity and the human relationship.The conclusion closes the thesis with a short summary of the former analyses.Through the complicated relationships, the thesis reveals the novelist’s concern aboutthe diaspora. Besides, the discussion on the diasporic identity inspires us in findingourselves in the context of globalization.