BP3- Comparison & Contrast

“Little Cogburt” & “Cotton Candy”

When reading these two stories it is easy to see why they are considered classics from the Caribbean. Both authors use incredible ways to keep the audience’s attention and create a very realistic and relatable set of characters. Every human being can relate to the sense of longing that one has when daydreaming about things that you desperately want or miss. That is a very common theme with these two stories. In “Little Cogburt”, there is the longing of a mother for her children that are thousands of miles away and in “Cotton Candy”, there is the longing of a relationship-less woman that is longing for the romance of having a partner.

The story “Little Cogburt” is written by Phyllis Shand Allfrey, and is set in Dominica. The author focuses heavily on the working class and the exploitation of laborers. This stance of the author is very clear in this story because it is told from the perspective of the plantation owners which allows us to see how the owner’s wife really feels about all of the workers and their children. You can see this with the way that she describes the children as “the little dark children” and especially the derogatory language she uses to describe little Cogburt himself. The story takes place at Christmas where she spends her time comparing the worker’s children to her own that are back at home. She tells the story about the tradition of making dolls with her own hair, then the children would each get one of the Christmas angels. She states her belief that she would rather burn the hair or flush it down the toilet rather than let one of “the dark children” have it. When she thinks about throwing the workers and their children she imagines her little daughters being upset with her asking her, Mother! Don’t forget us suffering at boarding school. Don’t throw a party for those dark children!”. However, after some thought and talking with her husband, she decides to throw the party for the kids and their parents. Throughout the party you can see that her views of these children are changing, she starts to realize as they are opening presents that they are just like her own children, even though they look different. When little Cogburt was crying because he didn’t want the ball due to his handicapped hands, he cried and begged for the angel that the wife had made. That is when she realized that this “gross, unpleasant little boy” was the only one that cared about the homemade angel that she had held so dear, and when she realized that he was handicapped, she was completely in awe. This story shows that just because someone looks different than us, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot in common, never judge a book by its cover.

The story of “Cotton Candy” is quite similar in the way that the author writes about the forgotten minorities of a workforce and focuses on the “misfits of society”. The author uses very figurative language and uses a fairly common theme of the Caribbean which is “magical realism”. You see this through the different symbols that appear throughout the story, we have the butterfly that appears and represent her womanly desire for a man, then later in the story when she is much older, the animals in the zoo represent her own sexuality and she becomes in sync with the animals. These animals awoke something that she hadn’t felt since she was a young girl, she felt love and romance from watching the animals mating. She saw what she had never allowed herself to have, she had repressed her desires for so long that it had driven her partly insane over the years. However, with these animals she was able to come into herself again, she started to feel young because of these feelings that she had never experienced. In the end, she buys a mirror, when she looks into it she sees herself as a young woman again in her hometown. This is a story of rediscovering and finding love for herself, she accepted that she was an old virgin and finally got in touch with her true self from so many years prior.

Both stories share the common themes of how society views its peasantry, one from the perspective of a plantation owner and the other from the first-hand account of a woman who is a “misfit of society” living in isolation and how both battle their longings for things that they do not have. The plantation owner longs for her own children and overcoming her negative views of the “dark children” and coming to the realization that they are not any different from her own children. The second story has an old woman overcoming her desperation of wanting a romantic relationship with a man and coming to the point of loving herself again after years of misery and desperately longing for something she would never have.

BP2- Story Analysis

The Caribbean has many influential writers, from all over the region, this story from the collection titled “Contes de mort et de vie aux Antilles”, is written by an anonymous 17- year old girl and originates from the island of Guadeloupe. Tetiyette and the Devil is narrated during a traditional wake of a funeral, which in their culture are what we would consider extraordinarily long, sometimes lasting more than 24 hours. Stories from this region typically show characteristics of their French and African roots. This story is a perfect example as it was recorded originally in Creole, which is a mixture of English, French, and African languages.

Tetiyette and the Devil is an interesting story that teaches the audience a lesson that is very valuable. In my opinion, the author uses literary and spiritual text to help get her point across. With a mixture of poetry and prose, repetition and narration, this story is one that is easily remembered and easy to follow. The tale is a lesson for all people, especially young women, that even if someone looks great, that does not mean that they are a good person. When the first suitor of young Tetiyette approach, “The young girl came out, picked up the most beautiful of her silver cups and gave the goat to drink from it” (narrator, page 1). When the goat had left, the mother informed Tetiyette that the goat wished to marry her. Her response was a rejection based on the fact that the goat “ate grains” (Tetiyette, page 1). From the choice of the author to describe the man as a goat, we can infer that the setting is somewhere rural because these animal metaphors are drawn from common experience. We get an image of what this man must have looked like, maybe athletic, tall, but did not meet all of the vain requirements of the young girl. Next, there was a pig that came by asking for water just as the goat had done. This time Tetiyette does not even come out to greet the pig, her mother gives him the same silver cup as the goat and the pig asked to see her daughter. Mother called to her, “Tettiyette, Tetiyette, a pig is asking for you, a pig is asking for you” (Mother, page 2) and once again, the young girl rejects this pigs request. The metaphor of the pig gives the audience a vivid picture of a man that may be overweight, sloppy, smelly, not appealing to look at, everything the girl thinks is important.  The third suitor to come by was a devil that had been wanting to harm the girl for a long time. He dressed up in all the nicest clothes and jewelry and paid Tetiyette a visit. The young girl looked at him and was pleased with his beautiful appearance and immediately asked him to come upstairs and join her. He asked her to marry him and she accepted because he was great looking. After they were married, one night the devil started eating her up, and she cried out for help,

“Oh, Mama! Oh, Mama! Bel-air drum!

The man to whom you married me, Bel-air drum!

Is a terrible devil! Bel-air drum!

He’s eating me up! Bel-air drum!” (Tetiyette, page 3)

The use of this repetition acts as a filler in the flow of the story and the wording provides a rhythmic essence to it that creates a pattern for the audience. The unique combination between the prose creates a very interesting structure to the story and helps the reader to focus differently on the different types of writing, providing a universal way of reading the story.  In my opinion this is a very literary way to tell a story that communicates the timeless lesson of “Do not judge a book by its cover”.