Andrew King
Professor Rojas
ENG 396
8 May 2019
From Borders to Passageways:
A Literary and Cultural Analysis of Waterways and Water bodies
Rivers and other bodies of water have historically functioned in two opposing ways. On one hand, these geographic features act as cultural borders and symbols of separation; on the other hand, they are facilitators of travel and cultural interaction. By studying the ways in which waterways and water bodies operate in and on western literature, one begins to examine the cultural implications of these geographic features and of the varying modes of perception. Reading Brian Russell Roberts’s and Michelle Ann Stephens’s research and work on the “archipelagic Americas” in conversation with western literary representations of waterways and water bodies, the contingency of the cultural significance of geography becomes increasingly apparent. What becomes possible as border-waters transform into passages, modes of travel, communication, and intercultural connection?
Borders
Waterways and water bodies are often perceived as features that separate and isolate certain areas of land and, consequently, the corresponding culture. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Mississippi River acts as a dramatic barrier between Pap’s cabin and St. Petersburg; it juxtaposes the wildness of the wooded side with the strict civility, where Huck once “had to wash, and eat on a plate, … and have old Miss Watson pecking at [him] all the time” (Twain 22). This depiction of the Mississippi River-border — Huckleberry Finn taking place no more than three or four decades after the Louisiana Purchase — in many ways resembles the Rio Grande, which functions as a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border. Although the Rio Grande is regarded by many as a bold symbol of ‘natural’ separation, it is actually fairly easy to cross — speaking geo- and topo-graphically — in many areas (Peters 419). The cultural division, then, is largely a political one that has been attached to the river’s symbolism.
Even current U.S. states and territories that are not continental experience a cultural distancing from the 48 continental states. Most US maps fail to include Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the other U.S. territories and jurisdictions (Roberts and Stephens 2); additionally, Alaska and Hawaii are typically depicted in miniature boxes, placed conveniently beside “the mainland” (Roberts and Stephens 14). The post-Spanish-American War sentiment that Puerto Rico is “foreign … in a domestic sense” is one that continues to pervade the continentalized self-image of the U.S. (Roberts and Stephens 2). The typical cartographic representation of the U.S. — in its incomplete form — demonstrates and perpetuates a U.S. tendency to disregard certain pieces of itself (Prestwick 14).
Passageways (and their limits)
Waterways also facilitate transportation, trade, and cultural interaction. In Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative, he recounts his “journey” — during which he is held captive by his kidnappers — through Africa toward the coast. He reflects on “the manners and customs of all the different people among whom [he] lived” (Equiano 38), noting that he was able to learn two or three languages simply by being exposed to different cultures for extended periods of time (Equiano 35). This bilingualism can also be found in areas of multicultural trade. The Mediterranean Sea, although it separates the land masses of two continents, represents not a border, but rather a hub of “cultural pluralism” and international trade (King 13). In Huckleberry Finn, even as the Mississippi River isolates Huck and Pap from the accepted cultural norms of St. Petersburg, it also enables Pap to acquire goods that are not readily available in his seclusion. Just as Mediterranean merchants once relied on seaport trades for silk and spices, Pap relies on the ferry port for whisky, for which he trades fish and game (Twain 22). Thoreau highlights this analogy when he observes that even “the smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights” (Thoreau 238, original emphasis). However, despite Thoreau’s symbolism, his attempt to identify with indigenous cultures may be an overestimation of the symbolic power of the river. In response to Thoreau’s description of rivers as “the natural highways of all nations” (Thoreau 12), Maliseet poet Mihku Paul writes about the river, or “the water road” (Paul 150), “A signpost, our chalcedony flesh. / Blue veins you call Nature’s highway, / the map flowing inside our bodies” (Paul 150, emphasis mine). The “you” whom the poem addresses may be understood as Thoreau, appropriating these “veins” integral to indigenous cultures. Despite Thoreau’s river operating as a symbol of cultural connection, Paul’s poem is a reminder that the river cannot heal all cultural wounds.
From Borders to Passageways
Building upon archipelagic discourses, a new approach to literary analysis is possible. Waterways and water bodies suggest traditional symbolic interpretations, both literary and cultural, however paradoxical these interpretations may be. However, as archipelagic theory shifts western cultural analysis away from continentalist biases, these opposing symbolic interpretations of geography and topography impart upon the reader the responsibility of decontinentalization; the reader must actively consider how the waterways and water bodies she encounters may be understood not as borders, but rather as passageways.
The Island
John Donne’s well-known metaphor assigns a clear and specific symbolic significance to the geographical island:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. (Donne 575)
Donne portrays insularity as singularity; he implies that existing as an island would prevent him from experiencing connection, from being “involved in mankind.” Indeed, a simple cartographical analysis of the U.S.’s self-image confirms the existing prevalence of Donne’s sentiment. However, island nations and archipelagos reject this depiction; in 1956, the Philippines announced:
all waters around, between and connecting different islands belonging to the Philippines Archipelago, irrespective of their width or dimension, are necessary appurtenances of its land territory, forming an integral part of the national or inland waters, subject to exclusive sovereignty of the Philippines. (Butcher 35-36)
Nearly 40 years later, the UN eventually recognized the archipelago principle in 1994 (Roberts and Stephens 15). In support of the movement toward decontinentalization, Martinican writer Édouard Glissant defines insularity not as “a mode of isolation,” but rather as a model in which “each island is an opening” to the various and interconnected cultures of all other islands; this model, he believed, creates the possibility of a global archipelagization (quoted in Roberts and Stephens 15). For Thoreau, a consideration of the geological processes of island formation challenges the aptness of Donne’s metaphor. As he travels down the river, he observes that there is often an island “at the junction of two rivers, whose currents bring down and deposit their respective sands in the eddy at their confluence, as it were the womb of a continent”; he admires, “by what a delicate and far-fetched contribution every island is made!” (Thoreau 243). Thoreau’s island, a product of geological coalescence, symbolizes the perfect opposite of isolation: as the river facilitates the merging of sediment, so does it make possible the mixing and merging of cultures.
The River
Twain’s river does not lose its border-symbolism, even as it carries Huck and Jim toward freedom; however, the river also becomes a means of passage toward freedom as the pair navigate the water-border. Huck concludes his narration by declaring that he is journeying westward “because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and civilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before” (Twain 274). Huck’s nomadism further upsets the continental perception of what it means to be connected. As Huck travels toward the pacific, he will indeed be “an island,” as well as “a piece of the continent” — he will be an island of a man, surrounded by an ocean of empty continent. The river’s border-function gives way as it ushers Huck toward new modes of life. Abenaki poet Suzanne S. Rancourt offers a complimentary example of river-transformation in “Singing Across the River.” In the poem’s title, the river represents a border between life and death; the narrator reflects on her mother’s final days. Although the border-imagery is strong (the narrator sings across the river rather than down it), the river also symbolizes a gradual passage from a living state to another, uncharted state (Rancourt 347-48).
Like Twain’s Mississippi River and Rancourt’s metaphorical or metaphysical one, the Rio Grande facilitates passage. In fact, the river proved to be a shifting border when, in 1852, extreme flooding caused the river’s course to change dramatically. Because the international border was attached to the river, the homes of some 25,000 Mexican residents were suddenly located on the U.S. side of the border (Peters 411). The jurisdiction dispute between the U.S. and Mexico was not resolved until 1933 (Peters 424); during the eighty years of negotiations, over 4,000 acres of land ‘crossed’ the border as it evolved (Peters 411). The political battle over the border’s natural shift may be interpreted as the river-border’s mode of calling attention to its own artificiality. The Rio Grande used its border-status to create a ‘passageway’ — whether or not it was desired by its recipients — which had the potential to cause real political and cultural ramifications for the residents of the disputed territory. Evidence of the eight decades of border ambiguity remains prevalent along the Rio Grande: although the busiest border crossings are closest to the Pacific Ocean, the respective cultures of the U.S. and Mexico permeate the eastern side of the border, marked by the Rio Grande, much more significantly (Bustamante 489). The Rio Grande, as a mote-like border-symbol, is often “the place where ideologues impose their prejudices”; however, it is also, in its best form, “a place where people from both sides mix words from both languages to create a new language” (Bustamante 486). Through these examples of literature and cultural study, a transformation emerges — one that morphs borders into passageways.
Works Cited
Butcher, John C. “Becoming an Archipelagic State: The Juanda Declaration of 1957 and the ‘Struggle’ to Gain International Recognition of the Archipelagic Principle.” Indonesia Beyond the Water’s Edge: Managing an Archipelagic State, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009, pp. 35-36.
Bustamante, Jorge A. “Demystifying the United States-Mexico Border.” Journal of American History, vo. 79, no. 2, 1992, pp. 485-490.
Donne, John. “Meditation XVII.” The Works of John Donne, edited by Henry Alford, John W. Parker, 1839, pp. 574-575.
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, The African, Written by Himself. W.W. Norton, 2001.
King, Russell. “Migration and Development in the Mediterranean Region.” Geography, vol. 81, no. 1, 1996, pp. 3-14.
Paul, Mihku. “The Water Road.” Dawnland Voices, edited by Siobhan Senier, University of Nebraska, pp. 150-151.
Peters, Donald W. “The Rio Grande Boundary Dispute in American Diplomacy.” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 4, 1951, pp. 412-429.
Prestwick, Roger. “Maps and the Perception of Space.” An Invitation to Geography, edited by David Lanegran and Risa Palm, McGraw-Hill, 1978, p. 14.
Rancourt, Suzanne S. “Singing Across the River.” Dawnland Voices, edited by Siobhan Senier, University of Nebraska, pp. 347-348.
Roberts, Brian Russell and Michelle Ann Stephens. “Introduction.” Archipelagic American Studies, edited by Russell and Stephens, Duke University, 2017, pp. 1-54.
Thoreau, Henry David. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Princeton University, 1983.
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1948.
