Stories in Santo Domingo

David Pan

Humanities Core Course

Winter 2012

Toni and Gustav are

A. Heroes

B. Villains

C. It depends (on what?)

This man, who came originally form the Gold Coast of Africa, had seemed in his youth to be of a loyal and honest disposition, and having once saved his master’s life when they were sailing across to Cuba, he had been rewarded by the latter with innumerable favours and kindnesses. Not only did Monsieur de Villeneuve at once grant him his freedom, and on returning to Santo Domingo make him the gift of a house and home; a few years later, although this was contrary to local custom, he even appointed him as manager of his considerable estate, and since he did not want to re-marry provided him, in lieu of a wife, with an old mulatto woman called Babekan, who lived on the plantation and to whom through his first wife Congo Hoango was distantly related. Moreover, when the negro had reached the age of sixty he retired him on handsome pay and as a crowning act of generosity even made him a legatee under his will;

Description of Guillaume de Villeneuve’s kindnesses

and yet all these proofs of gratitude failed to protect Monsieur de Villeneuve from the fury of this ferocious man. In the general frenzy of vindictive rage that flared up in all those plantations as a result of the reckless actions of the National Convention, Congo Hoango had been one of the first to seize his gun and, remembering only the tyranny that had snatched him from his native land, blew his master’s brains out. He set fire to the house in which Madame de Villeneuve had taken refuge with her three children and all the other white people in the settlement, laid waste the whole plantation to which the heirs, who lived in Port-au-Prince, could have made claim, and when every single building on the estate had been razed to the ground he assembled an armed band of negroes and began scouring the whole neighborhood, to help his bloodbrothers in their struggle against the whites. Sometimes he would ambush travellers who were making their way in armed groups across country; sometimes he would attack in broad daylight the settlements in which the planters had barricaded themselves, and would put every human being he found inside to the sword. Such indeed was his inhuman thirst for revenge that he even insisted on the elderly Babekan and her young daughter, a fifteen-year-old mestiza called Toni, taking part in this ferocious war by which he himself was feeling altogether rejuvenated:(232)

Description of Congo Hoango’s cruelty

There Herr Stroemli settled, using the rest of his small fortune to buy a house near the Rigi; and in the year 1807, among the bushes of his garden, one could still see the monument he had erected to the memory of his cousin Gustav, and to the faithful Toni, Gustav’s bride. (269)

The Narrator’s final words

The narrator in “The Betrothal in San Domingo”:

A. Should be considered seriously.

B. Should be considered ironically.

What is more important for judging the characters as heroes or villains?

A. Individual traits

B. Political loyalties

Black slaves

White planters

Small whites

Mulatto planters

Wealth

Social Status

“do you mean to say that you yourself, who as the whole cast of your features shows are a mulatto and therefore of African origin, that both you and this charming mestiza who opened the door of the house to me, are condemned to the same fate as us Europeans?” (236-37)

The wretched man, who knew neither that the girl was sick nor what disease she suffering from, came to her room full of gratitude, thinking himself saved, and took her in his arms; but he had scarcely been half an hour in her bed caressing her and fondling her when she suddenly sat up with an expression of cold, savage fury and said: “I whom you have been kissing am infected with pestilence and dying of it: go now and give the yellow fever to all your kind!”‘ And as the old woman loudly proclaimed her abhorrence of such a deed, the officer asked Toni: ‘Could you ever do a thing like that?’ ‘No!’ said Toni, casting her eyes down in confusion. The stranger, laying his napkin on the table, declared that it was his deep inner conviction that no tyranny the whites had ever practiced could justify a treachery of such abominable vileness. ‘Heaven’s vengeance is disarmed by it,’ he exclaimed, rising passionately from his seat, ‘and the angels themselves, filled with revulsion by this overturning of all human and divine order, will take sides with those who are in the wrong and will support their cause!’ (242)

Gustav’s story

Toni’s confusion

Gustav’s convictions

Gustav’s story about the woman with yellow fever

Colonialist defense of slavery

On the pretext that she was my accomplice, they dragged her instead of me to the scaffold. No sooner had this appalling news been conveyed to me than I emerged from my hiding-place into which I had fled, and hastened, pushing my way through the crowd, to the place of execution, where I shouted at the top of my voice: “Here I am, you inhuman monsters!” But she, already standing on the platform beside the guillotine, on being questioned by some of the judges who as ill-fortune would have it did not know me by sight, gave me one look which is indelibly imprinted on my soul, and then turned away, saying: “I have no idea who that man is!” And a few moments later, amid a roll of drums and a roar of voices, at the behest of those impatient butchers, the iron blade dropped and severed her head from her body. (246)

Gustav’s story about Marianne Congreve

Gustav’s critique of inhumanity

Marianne’s false denial of Gustav

Marianne’s self-sacrifice

Gustav’s story of the future

Told her, stroking and kissing her hand, that he would tomorrow morning seek her mother’s permission to marry her. He described to her the little estate he possessed on the banks of the Aar; a house sufficiently comfortable and spacious to accommodate her and her mother as well, if the latter’s age would permit her to make the journey; (247)

‘What harm has this young man done to us? He is not even a Frenchman by birth, but a Swiss, as we have learned; so why should we fall on him like bandits and kill him and rob him? Do such grievances as we may have against the planters here exist in the part of the island from which he comes? Is it not, rather, quite obvious that he is an entirely noble-minded and honourable man who has in no way participated in the injustices committed by his race against the blacks?’ (249)

Emphasizes Gustav is neutral

Judges Gustav’s individual qualities

Toni defends Gustav against Babekan

Bourgeois Family Drama

Friedrich SchillerIntrigue and Love (1784)

•Ferdinand, an aristocrat, and Luise Miller, a bourgeois seek to marry against the wishes of both fathers

•Ferdinand’s father forces Luise to write a love letter to another man so that Ferdinand will reject her

•In despair over her disloyalty, Ferdinand poisons himself and Luise

Bourgeois qualities: honesty, loyalty, pity

Aristocratic vices: deceit, treachery, cruelty

Heinrich von Kleist“The Betrothal in San Domingo” (1811)

The narrator and Gustav:

•defend bourgeois qualities

•criticize the blacks for having “aristocratic” vices

•imagine the bond between Toni and Gustav as the basis for loyalty

‘God, who loves humanity and compassion,’ replied the stranger, ‘will protect you in your kindness to a victim of misfortune!’ (238)

She added that the negro Komar, whom she had afterwards married, had in fact adopted the child, butthat her real father had been a rich merchant from Marseilles called Bertrand, and that consequently her name was Toni Bertrand.[…]The stranger, smiling at Toni, took her hand and said: ‘Why, in that case your are a nobly born and rich girl!’ He urged her to make use of these advantages, saying that she might well expect, with her father’s assistance, to rise again to a social position more distinguished than her present one. ‘That can hardly be so,’ replied the old woman, restraining her evident resentment at this remark. ‘During my pregnancy in Paris, Monsieur Bertrand, feeling ashamed of me because he wanted to marry a rich young lady, went before a court and formally repudiated the paternity. I shall never forget the brazen perjury he committed to my face; the consequence was that I fell into a bilious fever, and soon after that Monsieur Villeneuve ordered me to be given sixty lashes too, as a result of which I have suffered from consumption to this day.’ (240)

Babekan’s story about Toni’s fatherKomar adopted Toni

Toni’s real father is Bertrand

Monsieur Bertrand falsely denies the paternity

Babekan’s punishment

For Nanky and Seppy, Hoango’s bastard children, were very dear to the old negro, especially the latter, whose mother had recently died;[…]She therefore rightly concluded that it would be very advantageous for the company of fugitives to be in possession of both the little boys, as a form of guarantee for their safety should they be pursued by the negroes. (262)

In vain Herr Stromli, whose wound was insignificant, stationed his men at the windows and tried with musket fire to check the advance of the negro rabble; heedless of the fact that two of them already lay dead in the courtyard, they were about to fetch axes and crowbars in order to break down the door of the house which Herr Stromli had bolted (263)

Congo Hoango’s household

Toni approached Babekan and, full of an emotion which she could not suppress, tried to give her her hand in farewell, but the old woman vehemently repulsed her. She called her a contemptible traitress and, bound as she was to the legs of the table, twisted herself round and predicted that God’s vengeance would strike her even before she could enjoy the fruits of her vile deed. Toni replied: ‘I have not betrayed you; I am a white girl and betrothed to this young man whom you are holding prisoner; I belong to the race of those with whom you are openly at war and I will be answerable before God for having taken their side.’ (264)

Traitress

Loyal to whites

Toni’s defense

Three definitions of conflict:

A. Human vs. Inhuman

B. Whites vs. Blacks

C. Hoango household vs. Strömli household

She exulted in the prospect of dying in this enterprise designed to save his life. (260)

Words as:

The girl stood gazing at the proclamation fixed to the door, which on pain of death forbade all blacks to give accommodation and shelter to whites; (250)

‘Oh’, cried Toni, and these were her last words, ‘you should not have mistrusted me!’ And so saying, the noble-hearted girl expired. Gustav tore his hair. ‘It’s true!’ he exclaimed, as his cousins dragged him away from the corpse, ‘I should not have mistrusted you, for you were betrothed to me by a vow, although we had not put it into words!’ (267)

Law

Vow

Story

Toni and Gustav are

A. Heroes

B. Villains

C. It depends (on what?)

A. Literature imitates society

B. Society imitates literature

Individual

StoryIndividual

Individual

Society