Reflections of Loko Miwa: A Novel

Abstract

Reflections of Loko Miwa: A Novel. Lilas Desquiron. Translated from French by Robin Orr Bodkin. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1998. xxxii + 183 pages. $55.00 cloth; $16.95 paper. Reflections of Loko Miwa by Lilas Desquiron, recently translated from French, is aimed at readers outside its narrative space, writes Marie-Agnes Sourieau in her introduction. Reflections certainly does open up a world only vaguely familiar to average American reader in its relentless critique of inner hypocrisies of Haitian society. The inevitable challenge of writing such a novel is in integrating strong, character-powered fiction with a political statement that doesn't preach to reader. Though weaknesses in character development at times prevent novel from wholly achieving such an integration, Reflections sheds significant light onto complexities of class and racial stratification in Haiti. By using a variety of first-person narrators to tell story of rebellious Violaine, who flouts her money and privilege in favor of a poor black revolutionary, Lilas Desquiron exposes intricacies of a mid-twentieth century society shaped by intersections of colonial repression and Vodou-inspired rebellion. Unlike many other Caribbean writers who show Vodou as a positive force for reclamation of an African ancestry, Desquiron shows how Vodou is employed for harm by proud, austere mulatto society of Jeremie, Haiti. Loko Miwa is Vodou god of marasa, twins. The use of marasa both literally and figuratively in novel conveys much about history and underlying problems of Haitian society. Though not literally twins, central characters of novel, Violaine and Cocotte, see themselves as spiritual twins despite differences in their skin color and class. Cocotte's displacement at age of eight from her poor mountain home to house of rich, light-skinned Delavignes in Jeremie is meant to appease a god but also to acknowledge link that even whitest mulattoes of Jeremie have with darker Haitians, what older narrator-Cocotte refers to sarcastically as the original sin of their negritude. Desquiron makes her most clearly articulated critique of Haitian society when she depicts use of Vodou by light-skinned elite to preserve social order. When Violaine is punished for trespassing against Jeremian sexual taboos, punishment is emblematic of fate of many light-skinned women throughout Haitian literature: she is turned into a zonbi, that state of half-death reminiscent of enslavement of African people. The zonbi is representative of the dissociation between Haitian people's body and their will that centuries of brutality have perpetuated, notes introduction here. The theoretical and political impetus for novel is abundantly clear. Unfortunately, lack of concrete details and illustrative incidents in characters' lives .detracts at times from novel's sense of reality and truth. For example, we never actually get to see incidents in which Violaine's and Cocotte's relationship is developed. 'When Cocotte arrives at Delavigne house, Violaine feels a thirst finally quenched, of wholeness, of loneliness abolished. However, she never explains exactly how Cocotte does this: is it merely having a friend to talk to? Are they able to understand each other's thoughts without speaking? …