Olympe de Gouges. Black Slavery, or The Happy Shipwreck (1789) - Lamenting the potential loss of Zamor, a man he has "raised" since eight years of age, M. de Saint-Fremont cries, "That my good offices should become fatal for him! If I had left him in his rude manners, perhaps he would not have committed this crime. He had no vicious inclinations in his soul. Honesty and virtue distinguished him in the bosom of slavery" (143). My reading of Saint-Fremont's dismal reflection, as compared with the introductory words of M. de Gouges, involves the recognition of the impact of the tyrant's actions upon the psyche of his "subordinates". One of the most interesting (and problematic) themes to me in Olympe de Gouges's play was the repeated reflection on (and rejection of) the slaves' imitations of the cruelty and tyranny of their captors. Granted, this is an ongoing question in post-colonial theory. Responses range from Frantz Fanon's call to his adopted Algerians to rise against the colonial faction through violence; for Fanon, an imitation of the direct violence the conqueror has imposed upon his victims is the only sure method of permanently eradicating the tyranny. Olympe de Gouge's response, 150 years prior to Fanon's, is the opposite. Her claim that this imitation propagates cruelty is a valid one: "I shall now address myself to you, slaves, men of color; perhaps I have an incontestable right to blame your ferocity: cruel, you justify tyrants when you imitate them" (135). And indeed, it is in her play that the greed and arrogance of M. de Saint-Fremont's commander boomerangs back upon him, inciting his own murder as well as the revolt against the slave owners.

In "Reflections on Negroes" (1788), she writes, "But when submissiveness once starts to flag, what resuls from teh barbaric despotism of the Islanders and West-Idians? Revolts of all kinds, carnage increased with the troops' force, poisonings, and any atrocities people can commit once they revolt" (133), she accurately predicts the Haitian revolution of 1791, where the indigenous army defeated Napoleon's faction and Charles Leclerc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Haiti). But what would cause such a rebellion? de Gouges, who claims to "understand nothing about politics," in her play and writings, predicted the rise of slaves against oppression as an imitation of the oppression that persistently fells them. Fanon, a figure noted for blaming the black woman for her supposed complicity in colonization and oppression, does not note the advances of de Gouges in his work (nor, truly, the advances of any feminist work that rails against colonization). If alive today, would he accept the fact that in the lapse of creation of new theory, anthologies are rising everywhere? Reina Lewis and Sara Mills's Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, Mohanty's and Chow's rejection of the penetrating and violently possessive gaze of the conqueror, and Spivak's criticism of rising globalization and its resulting neocolonialism....would Fanon accept these moments of activism as an authentic rejection of colonial oppression by the doubly-displaced? Those displaced by both race and gender (an injustice to which Fanon has contributed?) Willfully omitting feminist reactions to colonial oppression, to me, is one of Fanon's greatest flaws. But this writing is to be about de Gouges, no?

About de Gouges...Why have I never heard her mentioned in post-colonial theory? Granted, I still have a lot to read...but mostly, what I read, involves the Third World Woman's rejection of Western feminism and its decimation of the male standpoint (in favor of the Western female's elevation), at the expense of the recogntion of the Third World Woman. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak writes in her essay "Literature" in A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (Harvard UP: 1999), "I have been arguing that the tropological deconstruction of the masculism does not exempt us from performing the lie of imperialism" (163)...the text also criticizes Western "gender training" as viable tool to curb domestic violence in Third World countries, when America can't take care of its own. But there is no mention of hte work of de Gouges. Through adherence to Nature and Reason (she skillfully manipulates the logic of Rousseau against him), she envisions an "enlightened" society which will rise to its calling for equality, but then ruefully acknowledges that man's desire for material wealth has outweighed even familial love.

Oddly enough!! she even predicts the rise behind Hitler's ideology: "Trading people! Heavens! And Nature does not quake! If they are animals, are we not also liek them? How are the Whites different from this race? It is in the color. . . . Why do blonds not claim superiority over brunettes who bear a resemblance to Mulattos?" (133). It is almost comical to me how a "mere woman" who is refused "equal political standing" (131) to men has predicted centuries of future ignorance and blindness.

An element I found troubling in de Gouges argument is her allegation that freeing slaves will "produce a large number of idle, unhappy, and bad persons of any kind. May each nation set wise and salutary limits for his people; this is the art of Sovereigns and Republican States" (134). Here, de Gouges may have been trying to show both sides of the issue, revealing to her male readers that she is not the consummate idealist, that she realizes man's individuality and his propensity for acting in the manner he sees fit. Here, she appears to be shortchanging herself, slipping into the masculine role mentioned in the introduction by Carroll, where she "may have internalized and conformed to tradition . . . to gain a hearing in the male intellectual oligopoly, not to be locked out of the recognized realm of intellectual discourse" (xvii). This nature, one in which she appears to condone the European masculine view of freeing slaves as derogatory to the slave itself, appears again in the play. M. de Saint-Fremont claims, "I dare hope that before long there will no longer be any slaves" (143), but his complicity in supporting the structure goes unquestioned by even Zamor, who is about to die along with his love, and yet claims, "Yes, Monsieur, he is a Frenchman and the best of men" (139). He claims that he would offer his life for the governor; but throughout the play, there is no mention of the governor's complicity in the entire structure. This reminds me of Anouilh's Creon, who loves Antigone, yet must do "his job." Thus, Antigone dies, Haemon dies, Eurydice dies...but the job goes on.