Sentimentalism, Interracial Romance, and Helen Hunt Jackson and Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Attacks on Abuses of Native Americans in Ramona and Aves sin nido

Abstract

Sentimentalism, Interracial Romance, and Helen Hunt Jackson and Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Attacks on Abuses of Native Americans in Ramonci and Aves sin nido^ John C. Havard U N I V E R S I T Y O F R O C H E S T E R Helen Hunt Jackson and Clorinda Matto de Turner’s novels Bjimona. (1884) and Aves sin nido {Birds Without aNest, 1889) share much in com¬ mon. Perhaps most importantly, both authors wrote their novels as part of a program of advocacy for Native Americans. In this essay, Iargue that in their activist novels, both authors employ the tropes of sentimentalism and inter¬ racial romance to criticize the ideology that defended the mistreatment of Native Americans.^ Imust qualify this statement by saying that while in cer¬ tain ways sentiment and interracial romance function hand in hand in these works, in other ways they work independendy. In other words, one should not confuse the cultural work they do,^ and Iwill thus draw an analytic dis¬ tinction between the function of sentiment and interracial romance in both novels.After discussing the ways in which these novels utilize these strate¬ gies, Iwill discuss the discursive limitations of the criticisms that Ramona and Aves sin nido propose, i. e., how their attacks fail. In making these claims, Iwill keep in mind that while the two novels utilize similar rhetorical strategies in order to criticize race-based oppression, the cultural work done by the two novels is distinct in response to the particular socio-cultural needs of the United States and Peru. Specifically, Ramona criticizes United States expansionismandIndiandispossession,whileAvessinwfrfopromotesamod¬ ernizing agenda in favor what it understands as barbaric modes of victimiz¬ ing Indians. With these differences in mind, Iwill devote part of my discussion to detailing Jackson and Matto’s particular national and historical c o n t e x t s . Oftentimes, those doing comparative analyses of Inter-American litera¬ tures come to an impasse when trying to find common ground between North American and Latin American texts. The fact that the United States and Latin American nations have extremely divergent histories has caused this difficulty, and these differences have become more obvious in our con¬ temporary world, in which the United States and its southern neighbors have an antagonistic relationship and differ greatly in terms of culture as well as statures and aims in international politics. These differences find, of course, iteration in the nations’ respective literatures, and the consequent incommensurability has prompted anumber of critics, such as the Cuban poet and essayist Roberto Fernandez Retamar, to assert that comparing Intertexts, Vol. U, No. 22007 ©Texas Tech University Press f I N T E R T E X T S s 1 0 2 the literatures of the Americas is naive and impossible> Retamar is correct to point out the significance of the Americas’ divergent histories and the challenges that difference presents to comparatists. However, the problem is not insurmountable, as discussing parallel rhetorical strategies, such as the similar ways in which Jackson and Matto employ sentiment and inter¬ racial romance in Ramona and Aves sin nido, does allow the critic to find significant links. Indeed, there is agrowing body of scholarship that fruit¬ fully compares Latin American and North American texts.s Furthermore, I would contend that one can think of the incommensurability that Retamar points out as less of ahindrance than atool because when one thinks of these differences in conjunction with rhetorical similarities, it allows the critic to better conceptualize the specificities of the nations in the Amer¬ icas. In other words, by comparing rhetorical and generic links in New World literatures in ahistoricist vein, one can bring into greater view the diverse ways in which the nations in the Americas formed, and in keeping with this claim, Idevote much attention in this essay to discussing the par¬ ticularhistoricalcontextsthatproducedthesetwonovels.Insum,Iintend forthisessaytobeapartofthisgrowingbodyofcomparativescholarship and to build on work like Debra J. Rosenthal’s by further analyzing the relationship between Ramona and Aves sin nido. At atime when demo¬ graphic shifts in the Americas are making it more and more difficult to claimstrictdelineationsbetweenNorthAmericanandLatinAmericancul¬ ture, such comparative work is nothing short of necessary as it begins...