Rachel Wall

The idea of "heritage" has become a word thrown around as if it always has a positive connotation, and many people even use "heritage" as an excuse for blindly following what their geographical region or even their individual state has always done. Like "tradition" we have used the word heritage to justify following because we are too lazy to think about why we do things like hazing, for example. Indeed, the concept of ideology being passed down through families is often used to defend wrong thinking and wrong actions. Therefore, we should closely examine our heritage, "something transmitted by or acquired from a predecessor" (Webster's 536), before we decide to embrace it. Though we cannot change our genes, our upbringing, or any other background that we inherit, we can certainly weed out the bad from our thinking and actively do the right thing rather than perpetuating the wrongs of our ancestors. Recent literature has explored the individual's struggle to hold on to the past but to look to the progress (even progressive ideas) of the future.

Writers such as Alice Walker attempt to redefine true heritage by revealing how many people misunderstand and distort its meaning. For instance, in her short story, "Everyday Use," Walker contrasts the older daughter, Maggie, with the younger daughter, Dee, in respect to their views on heritage. Walker's theme reveals "one daughter's superficiality and the other's deep-seated understanding of heritage" (Tuten 125). Though it is true that Maggie has come a long way in the classic sense of coming up in the world through education and ambition, it is "backward" Dee who Walker shows as understanding heritage the most (897). While the educated, well-dressed Maggie ironically rejects her family name as a symbol of oppression and looks disdainfully at her immediate family's way of life, Dee at least knows the practical and sentimental value of family. Dee values symbols of family inheritance such as the quilts by using them and remembering those who made them. Maggie, on the other hand, sees their value only as something to hang on the wall and to show off; she is, in fact, just "collecting souvenirs"(Hirsch 207). This story shows how heritage has been distorted into a means of forgetting individual details from the past so that we can exalt a symbol without making the effort to truly know for what it stands. A proper view of heritage, then, should be more mindful of the present and future than of the past. Though there is certainly much of value to inherit from the past, we ought to analyze its appropriateness and relevance for the present before we incorporate it into our current worldview.

In contemporary literature, two authors work to change a typical view of the past as it relates to the individual. Andrea Lee and Pam Durban explore the complexities of embracing one's heritage in their novels, Sarah Phillips (1984) and So Far Back (2000). Ironically, Lee's title heroine, Sarah, initially rebels against her positive family ideology and eventually learns to appreciate it, while Durban's Louisa must learn to reject the prejudices of her family's past that she at first just accepted. However, both authors take the reader through the struggles of their protagonists to gain important insight into what our own view of heritage should be. If we did not go through the difficult process of "tarrying with the negative" (Hegel 77) along with these characters, we would not learn from the same theme of both novels. The struggle always seems to center around the desire to learn from the past but still to move on in one's own life.

Andrea Lee's Sarah Phillips has not been the subject of much critical scholarship, but it has sparked a good bit of brief comment from critics, mainly in reviews. For the most part, these reviews have been quite critical of Lee's failure to fall in step with the typical Black-American format. Though some praise her use of language and characterization, most critics do not recognize her attempt to do something new as a good thing. However, a few critics recognize Lee's innovation in showing what a child from this historic period might do if much of the civil rights activism had already been accomplished. Perhaps it is more important that Lee is "symbolizing a middle-class milieu [which] renders relatively new black situations" (Stepto 2) than that Sarah Phillips fulfill all our expectations of what Black-American literature should do. As one critic interprets:

Pam Durban's So Far Back unravels "the conflicting claims of memory and history" (Grossinger 3). One critic sums it up best when he says, "For the generations of Hilliards and Joneses and assorted Charlestonians that people this novel, their understanding of themselves has been shaped by the inheritance of slavery and the injustices and antagonisms it brought to bear upon all of them, blacks and whites alike" (Grossinger 2). Though Louisa Marion may not be the true or only protagonist, it is through her eyes of the present looking back that the reader is able to see all times for what they really are. Because Louisa is "a caretaker, a kind of civic sexton, who tends to Charleston's historical buildings and homes" (Gossinger 2), her finding the diary of Eliza Hilliard is quite believable. Durban significantly builds Louisa's character to play up the theme because Louisa has devoted her life to serving others in the church and community, and yet she never questioned her family's views on slavery until her old age. The symbol for heritage in this novel is not a quilt but a christening gown of fine workmanship. Louisa and anyone who saw this gown at the museum believed that Louisa's ancestor Eliza had made it, so it was a symbol of heritage only for the aristocracy of Charleston. However, the mystery the novel reveals is that this supposed symbol of heritage was actually made by the slave Diana who had fled. Though her owner Eliza had put her own name in it to show that her hands had fashioned the garment, the reader learns that this was a lie. For Louisa, what had been a sign of her unquestioned elitist past turns everything she had always just accepted upside down. Learning the true origin of the christening gown goes beyond the solution of this mystery. This garment is significant in showing the reader (as it shows Louisa) that the supposed "heritage" this Southern family flaunted was built on a lie. Durban convicts us all not to be duped by the history books or to believe that cities such as Charleston are the result of white labor. To idealize the past in this way denies the true horrors of which our own ancestors are guilty. As an heiress to the family estate, Louisa was financially dependent on property made possible only through slave labor. When Louisa finally understands the truth, she wrestles with how to right the wrongs of her family's past while still remembering the good in them.

Some would say that it is time to forget what happened during slavery, and in So Far Back, Louisa at first wants to do just that. Though it would be nice to move on, Durban implies that whites can't in good conscience move on without a sense of the past's bearing on the present. After all, Louisa needed to learn some lessons about equality herself because her attitude toward black people is still superior almost until her death. For instance, after the hurricane, she "instinctively" (Grossinger 2) calls Mamie's granddaughter, Evelyn, to see if she can help her clean up her storm-damaged house. Though she ends her request with, "I'd pay you, of course...whatever you think it's worth" (Durban 76), just asking the favor seems an insult to Evelyn after all the years she and her family had been bossed around by Louisa and her family. Through Durban's clever use of ancestor Eliza's diary in the novel, Louisa finally learns the whole truth about the skilled slave seamstress Diana and her constant battles with the mistress of the house. However, Louisa is so reluctant to learn the lessons of the past that Diana's ghost troubles her until she attempts to change the museum plaque to reflect the true creator of the christening gown. Though this effort seems small and is left without closure in the novel, at least Louisa's desire to make the change reveals an acknowledgment of the deep scar slavery has left on us all. To put something "so far back" behind us, we must deal with the issues that are still prevalently offensive -- issues that cause fundamental but unnatural rifts between people.

Though the order in which the main characters learn to create their own world view in these two novels is reversed, both authors promote the same theme of the importance of arriving at truth for yourself. Both elderly Louisa and young Sarah resist the paths their families chose for them in thought and action. Both characters develop through the novel by struggling against the complexities of whether or not to accept their heritage or to reject it. Though the characters, setting, and situations are completely different, the social and ethical issues raised and the rites of passage work to produce essentially the same positive theme. The conflicts and complexities themselves enable the reader to grow along with the characters. In fact, the Hegelian dialectic seems apparent and foundational in both quests for individual identity. Hegel saw truth as a cosmic right that could be intuited and eventually reached if one's ideas went through an active process of negation. This influential philosopher believed that everything exists by canceling out its "otherness" or "antithesis" until "synthesis" is reached (Hegel 70). In fact, Hegel describes this very necessary process as "becoming - other" (71), for the spirit "wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself"(77). In other words, to achieve Absolute Truth, one must encounter the negative -the opposition to that truth. The opposition must be confronted and put down, but the process itself makes the subject or thesis stronger and closer to universal truth. This dialectic applies to "heritage" because what we call our heritage should be constantly transformed to reflect our individual worldview. If we never change or at least adjust our beliefs as we see begin to see some things differently, we are not maturing. The Hegelian model of truth is inherently active, not stagnant. In Sarah Phillips and So Far Back, both protagonists learn from the past, but they ultimately must rely on their own judgment.

The second chapter of Sarah Phillips, called "New African" shows Sarah's minister father allowing his daughter to decide for herself when and if she will be baptized and brought officially into the church as a member. Though some may see this gesture as unrealistic, it actually shows that Reverend Phillips trusted in his own convictions concerning a person's ownership of his own conscience. Sarah herself is amazed at her father's hands-off policy in respect to her religious faith since he is rather outspoken about matters of race and politics. Especially since Sarah's father had always been so active in the civil rights movement, it would have been the height of irony for him to force his own beliefs on Sarah no matter how much he may have wanted to see her travel his path. The careful reader sees that calling a belief one's own if one has not thought sufficiently about it cancels out its meaning. The same is true of calling something heritage when it is just hanging on someone else's coat tails. This concept of personal freedom and the shaping of individual identity accounts for much of the struggle both Louisa and Sarah face.

In So Far Back, the reader feels Louisa's resentment for her mother and even her relief when she dies because of the mother's superior attitude toward everyone but especially toward those she always thought of as slaves. Perhaps what is annoying about Louisa's mother is what reveals her true moral character, not just her personality or her old age. Perhaps her mother insists on retelling the Cooper River Bridge story because her mind was troubled by her family's treatment of Mamie. Though this treatment did not necessarily involve whipping or anything overtly cruel, it was the idea that people could own someone else. When Louisa's mother would ask her husband if Mamie could stay behind, he would say," She'll ride with us as usual...I'm not going to inconvenience my family to accommodate Mamie's superstitions" (Durban 19). Forcing Mamie to cross a bridge that terrified her plainly shows an assumption, not just of error or misunderstanding, but of wrongdoing. Though Louisa never confronts her mother before she dies, the reader senses that Louisa realizes the injustices of her family's past and wishes she could correct them.

Similarly, Sarah Phillips travels far from Philadelphia to seek a totally different life overseas for a time. She seems to think that she can escape her past and start life anew away from her parents' values. Sarah even expects to find more acceptance of racial diversity in this far away land, but instead she is amazed to find prejudice here as well, and not just in strangers but primarily in her French lover, Henri, who humiliates her in the restaurant when he makes up a story about her parental origin (Lee 11). It is this scene which finally makes Sarah realize that she has not escaped the issues her parents were taking up. On the other hand, "Her quest for independence is undermined by persistent feelings of guilt and betrayal; her search for personal fulfillment is tempered by loneliness and a desire for community" (Enomoto 209).

Throughout this novel, the reader wants to see Sarah's outrage at the treatment of blacks, but she seems to deliberately ignore it. Though many critics see Sarah's ambiguous if not downright clueless reactions as examples of Andrea Lee's betrayal of Black-American expectations for literature, it is this examination of reality that enables Sarah to create her own identity without just blindly accepting the belief system of her parents. Sarah leaves France to embark on a "complicated return" (15). She knows she has been a child "reacting against its training" (15) even if only as a conscious but temporary escape. The fact that it is a complicated return and not an easy or automatic return reveals the dialectical necessity of her development as her own person with her own values. If we simply inherit the worldview passed down to us by our families, they are not our own, and our reactions to life are mindless. Our "heritage" is something we choose to take along.

The complexity that Sarah must deal with is the fact that unlike Louisa's ancestors, her parents are mostly thinking and doing the right thing, and yet Sarah feels that their issues are not her issues. Though some of this character's rebellion can be attributed to typical adolescent rebellion, it is also true that it is in adolescence that all children slough off some of the beliefs of their parents in order to find their own identity. In fact, what adults have trouble understanding is that the turbulence of adolescence is essential to maturing into one's own person. If the process were smooth instead of rocky, we would all be mimicking the values of our parents without thinking them through or making them our own. Readers of Sarah Phillips see the good in Sarah's parents and want her to embrace their ideals. However, not everything her parents think and say is perfect. For instance, Sarah's father exhibits an elitist attitude toward lower-class blacks as well as toward the gypsies who are seen in their neighborhood even though he admits that "everybody's got to feel better than somebody"(Lee 44). Though Sarah's mother goes along with not making Sarah be baptized, she is not so open-minded about her son dating a white girl. Indeed, the mother sparks a family uproar at dinner when she says, "I expect that Martha's parents are probably wondering the same thing that we are: why it is that their children can't stick to their own kind" (Lee 64). The reader also sees the underlying prejudice in the adult world of this novel when Sarah encounters the "Thunderbirds" (74). Probably most readers would feel the same fear of the influence of these gang members, but we can also see that Sarah's fascination with them is typical of a young person who simply desires community and does not understand adult fear of what is different. While most readers would probably not want their children camping with the likes of the Thunderbirds, we can't help sympathizing with them and the girls who make a gesture of friendship with them as they are packed off as contaminants (80). Though Lee's protagonist has little to complain about in her upbringing, there are obviously some parts of her heritage that need weeding out if Sarah is to emerge as an individual who believes in equality and diversity for all, even if "the world is not all we would like it to be" (64).

Louisa of So Far Back would not immediately be repulsed by her family heritage either. Even when learning the details of plantation life through Eliza's diary, Louisa gets to know a woman who felt it was her Christian duty to manage and discipline the slaves in her charge. In fact, Durban develops the character of Eliza to the point where the reader finds her initial intentions noble despite the fact that slavery was so ingrained in her that she never questioned its existence. However, both Louisa and the reader finish the diary feeling horrified by Eliza's maniacal obsession with Diana, the only slave who stood up for herself and actually had the temerity to think she might be able to keep the money she had earned by her own time and labor (147). Durban builds the complexity Louisa must face in the fact that Eliza seems like such a moral, selfless character in almost every way except in this superior attitude toward blacks culminating in her last advertisement attempting to get Diana back but encouraging brutality against her (209). Obviously, this one blight on Eliza's character is enough to render her whole memory a stain on positive family heritage. Louisa's dilemma is whether or not to reject her family past entirely or to accept the good and the bad. Perhaps neither of those choices is sufficient for Louisa or for us. There is always something in the past of our families and heroes that makes us think twice about looking up to their memory at all. Names like Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, and many others come to mind when we remember someone fondly and add, "Yes, but ..." to acknowledge our disapproval of something they said or did. We do not deny the contribution of these less-than-perfect people. Even baseball players get an asterisk beside their name if their home-run record was achieved in more games than are played by another record breaker. Other "role models" in sports have done so well because they take steroids. We still debate over whether or not such poor moral decisions disqualify athletes from the list of "greats". If the truth were known, all of us would have an asterisk noting our shortcomings even though our triumphs might outweigh the bad. The goal is to pick and choose the aspects of our heritage that we truly admire and embrace those while rejecting any belief or action that rubs our conscience the wrong way. Unfortunately, no person, country, or ideology is perfect all of the time. We might have to qualify all that we have faith in and admire with reservations about some of their components.

Much of today's literary criticism implies that there have to be clear-cut distinctions between the admirable and the dishonorable. Though right and wrong issues should be more obvious than postmodernist relativism would have us believe, people and groups usually should not be lumped together and summarily represented as all good or all bad. Consequently, it is true that "Andrea Lee's Sarah Phillips provides an ideal text for analyzing tensions between theory and tradition, for the protagonist of the novel struggles to liberate herself from restrictive traditions while she constructs a new identity that better reflects her own subjective experience of reality" (Enomoto 2). To the careful reader, it seems that this novel's epiphanies (at least one in each chapter) point out the prejudices in all of us, and much of the discrimination is not even racial. The novel also exposes gender and class bias among people who know better and who even make it their life's work to battle such narrow mindedness. Perhaps Sarah Phillips is "an often-neglected text that has been excluded and marginalized" (Enomoto 1) by critics because it is misunderstood. While praising her innovation, Enomoto admits that "Lee's vision is characterized by a mixture of hope and despair" (235). Because Lee has created a unique character who doesn't feel like she fits anywhere but believes she ought to fit anywhere, readers are awakened to something new in this short novel. We learn that Black-American literature can be more than one type of writing, and we learn the theme of taking only what one wants from his/her heritage. We don't have to be burdened with the issues our parents try to place on our shoulders, and we have the right to abandon the things they did that we see as wrong. On the other hand, we can also make our own what we see as good in the values of the past but live our own lives with this building on and weeding out.

While Sarah Phillips shows a side of Black-American literature readers do not expect by downplaying the postmodern relevance of racism in some respects or at least showing prejudice in a different light, So Far Back seems to be attempting something extremely rare because its white author creates a Southern, white character who only comes around to the right attitude toward slavery at the very end after being haunted by a slave ghost. These circumstances may exemplify the point about heritage needing to be redefined even more than the themes of the novels themselves. Both authors show courage in standing up for what they believe even if their own race or regional members accuse them of betrayal. Clearly, then, heritage is not something automatic that is forced upon us; rather, heritage is what is passed down that we make a conscious decision to take for ourselves. We must free ourselves to reject those parts of family history that hurt others unnecessarily while retaining positive memories of people who may have participated in things we despise. Though So Far Back is mainly about what Louisa learns from the past, this novel ends with her niece Ann learning that her grandfather was involved in a lynching. Because Ann remembers her grandfather fondly, she has a difficult time reconciling this new, horrible image of him with what she had always relied on. This shocking discovery seems to cloud even her memories of when she and her husband were falling in love. The novel closes with Ann's trying to negotiate in her mind how she can maintain both good and bad memories of the people she has always loved. What will she teach her children about the past and its bearing on the future?