Theory, Polygamy?

Mikhail Bakhtin uses the term “hybridization” to describe the meeting of speaker/writer and listener/reader (Bressler 46)[1] He claims that in certain types of writing, truth resides in this dialogic interaction. He says that “…truth…is an active creation in the consciousness of the author, the readers, and the characters, allowing for genuine surprises for all concerned” (46).

Bakhtin describes this meeting as “carnivalistic,” a setting that reveals a sense of “joyful abandonment” where many voices are simultaneously heard and able to influence the hearers (46).

Obviously, the terms hybridization and carnival have obvious (too obvious?) connections to the Caribbean. But, the search for a collective and individual post-colonial Caribbean "truth" despite and because of hybrid ancestry, violent history, and the mixture of cultures/religions is not an isolated search occurring in the paradisiacal islands of the Caribbean alone.

It is a modern quest, for a modern identity, in a modern time. In a global society, there are few whose parents/ancestors share the same race, ethnicity, economic status, morals, and religion. There are few who can claim “home” as one town, one state or even one country. There are few family histories that don’t come with adventure and chaos, shame and joy. And even if there is a person who met this simple description, when has an identity search (or a search for one's own "truth") ever been a simple endeavor? The Caribbean writer’s (and Walcott’s specifically) hybrid aesthetics are almost universally applicable. Even to those of us who seem an unlikely candidate for its application.

I come from a two-parent home with an arguably monolithic history. My parents are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, they share households and finances. They are both of European descent and come from the western United States. And yet, as I grow older, my own seemingly unified background deconstructs itself with the nuances of hybridity, with the dismay of conflict, and with the haunting of History.

I am the product of a long line of opinionated, flawed, and strong women. My grandmother raised nine children while working full-time as a night nurse. Her daughters, my six Aunts (and mom) pursued careers, managed family farms and family businesses, raised copious amounts of children, survived difficult marriages and still can’t help but cross their legs and giggle at almost every opportunity.

These women are my Mount Rushmore, my historical and institutional memory. Recently as I was reading a popular book, I was reminded of another (controversial) face for my mountain. This book recounted a history of fundamentalism. It covered settlements in Utah, Arizona, Canada, and Mexico. It spoke of the nascent beginnings of these sects, their destructive past and present, and their arguably dysfunctional relationship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (from which these groups are off-shoots).

As I was looking at the maps in the book, I noticed a telling similarity between the locations of these sects and the birth and marriage locations of my great grandmother. I compared and dissected the similarities with both amazement and dismay. My great grandmother lived before these sects became disassociated with mainstream culture, but her closeness to their beginnings made me wonder who this person “really” was.

Emma Isabella Carroll married my great grandfather at the age of 21. He was 53. She was his third wife. They were married in Mexico in 1889 (one year before the Manifesto where then President of the church, Wilford Woodruff, outlawed the practice of polygamy for LDS saints). They had five children together in less than ten years. He was murdered by a neighbor over water rights on his front porch, in front of my great grandmother and their children when their youngest was four months old. Emma raised five children on the milk and meat from the sheep and cattle left to her from the sale of my great grandfather’s ranch in Pipe Springs, Arizona (the proceeds of which were divided among the three wives and a co-owner of the ranch).

In my grandfather’s history, he speaks lovingly and lauditorily of his mother mentioning her frugalness, her strength, her faith. He said, “She will always stand out in my mind as one of the great women of that day. She was active in the church and took part in public affairs.”

I can read the words of my grandfather and guess at their accuracy. I can look at her genealogical records (although she is shown to be born after she was married). I can think of her, wonder, try to empathize. And yet, she is silent. I have no record of her. Maybe with all of her responsibilities, she just didn’t have the luxury of reflection. But, her account might have illuminated something about being a woman in that culture, at that time, something about fundamentalism, and maybe through the often distorted mirror of history, something about me, about my culture, about my beliefs.

Was the religion she was raised in responsible for the fundamentalist culture to follow? Was the “weirdness” or “immorality” of polygamy an oddity of excess or ascetics? What does an off-shoot say about the mainstream? Does it reflect weakness in the institution or the individual?

As an active member of the mainstream church from which these fundamentalist off-shoots sprung, these questions are haunting for me. They are part of my own hybrid aesthetics. They are what make me, like Derek Walcott, wonder what the twilight says.

“But I see what it is, you are not from these parts, you don’t know what our twilights can do. Shall I tell you?

--Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (Walcott 3)[2]

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[1] Bressler, Charles E., ed. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 4^th Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2007.
I will include full references within the text of each blog post.

[2] Walcott, Derek. What the Twilight Says: Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus And Giroux, 1998. This is the quote used at the beginning of his essay of the same title.