Introduction

  Empire, Patriarchy, and Piracy

  Creole Feminist Identity

  Allegory for Jamaican Independence and Identity

  Conclusion

  Margaret Cezair-Thompson:   “My intention was not to write about a powerful white man who takes advantage

of a vulnerable island girl; that story has been told again and again and typically undermines the voice and identity of the native woman and her nation. I wanted the woman and her country to be center stage” (An Interview).

  “Jamaica is a matriarchal society, although it’s almost as if the women don’t realize their own power. Officially it’s a man’s world in Jamaica, but the women really are the backbone in an invisible, hidden way” (Kenan).

  Thesis: Over the course of transition from colony to independence, perpetuated forms of empire, patriarchy, and piracy have historically dominated the Jamaican discourse and silenced Jamaican women. Although Ida is unable to overcome these haunting elements of history, May reconciles her history with the history of Jamaica through her voice as a Creole feminist. The Pirate’s Daughter powerfully positions multiple generations of Jamaican women at the center of the nationalist narrative.

  England   Presence of colonial literature- Robinson Crusoe

  America   United Fruit Company

  Patriarchy   Forced dependency   Relationships between races   Illegitimacy and abandonment

  Piracy   Jamaican land and women   Tourism

  “He didn’t want to marry me because I have black blood…And my father who was white didn’t marry you. And the white man who was my grandfather, bless his soul, I loved him, how come he didn’t marry my black grandmother? Don’t tell me color has nothing to do with it! It does!” (Cezair-Thompson 273)   May was rejected by Ian because she was black and illegitimate   Ida was rejected by Flynn (Hollywood pirate)   Esme was rejected by Eli

  Oni was rejected by society (obeah linked to African ancestry)

  “In The Pirate's Daughter, May's search for answers about her paternity must be understood in relation to the abandonment of offspring by wealthy colonialists who reaped the sexual benefits of their status and privilege without taking responsibility” (Smith).   May looked to piracy for answers about her Hollywood pirate father   Link between colonialism, patriarchy, and piracy

  Smith article supports the idea that May challenges the white patriarchal system through her narrative

  The impact of colonialism and patriarchy in Jamaica shapes the narrative of May

  Affective response to race, class, and gender relations- feeling of unbelonging   May expresses herself and ultimately threatens patriarchy through her ambiguous gender

identity and involvement in the Caribbean masculine tradition of piracy and adventure   Piracy as deviation and source of power

  May creates her gender identity in opposition to her mother’s   Femininity v. tomboyism

  “Handsome woman” (Cezair-Thompson 2)   Short hair, interest in boys but not dependency, outdoor activities

  “The stories my mother told me weren’t the ones I wanted to hear, stories about the man she said was my father, stories that seemed to come not just from her but upon her, unguarded and effusive, or as we say in Jamaica, “Mouth open, story fly out.” I loved stories about the pirates who used to rove among the islands…And then at some point, with all those lofty phrases in my head, I began making up my own story. I called it Treasure Cove” (Cezair-Thompson 1).

  Gardner article analyzes the identity struggle that Esme, Ida, and May face   The Creole woman appears to be white, but claims Caribbean heritage with pride

  “In-between” space occupied by Creole women   Imperial othering

  Silencing of historical archive

  Feeling like outsiders, Ida and May experienced identity confusion as Creole women– both looked white but identified with Jamaica   Ida’s mother was of African and Chinese ancestry, and her father was white   May’s mother Ida was of white, African, and Chinese ancestry, and her father Errol

Flynn was white   May was called “white witch”

  Call for Creole feminism   May as a heroine through her narrative

  Creole role in construction of Jamaican national identity (Lewis and Carr)   Supports the idea that marginalized identities contributed to the nationalist project

despite the dominant narrative

  Independence   Women supported independence, but men were against it (Cezair-Thompson 42)

  Allegory   Ida- old Jamaica

  Feminized, searched for and needed a man, raped, branded by patriarchy   Errol Flynn- England

  White patriarch

  May- new Jamaica   Masculine and feminine, independent, searched for identity

  Defies white patriarchal system by telling her country and family’s story in her voice by writing Treasure Cove

  “It used to give me a ghostly feeling to hear stories about the days when men like Bligh and Admiral Nelson were in Jamaica. Not that they were ghostly but that I was, creeping around their big, conspicuous ruins. I’d feel ghostly too when I’d hear stories about my father. Because women like my mother, Sabine, the White Witch of Rosehall, women like me, are usually heard of only in legends about haunted places. But it’s not a haunted house that I’ve inherited; it’s history” (Cezair-Thompson 390).

  Empire, patriarchy, and piracy have shaped Jamaican history and society. May ultimately overcame the haunting of Jamaican women by telling the story of her family and country in her voice. Through The Pirate’s Daughter, Margaret Cezair-Thompson has created a space where the voice of Jamaican women is heard through a rise of Creole feminism and Jamaican nationalism.

  Cezair-Thompson, Margaret. The Pirate’s Daughter. New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2008.

  Gardner, Joscelyn. “Re-presenting Creole Identity: Theorizing a (White) Postcolonial Creole Feminism.” http://www.joscelyngardner.com/pdfs_texts/Re-Presenting.pdf

  “An Interview with Margaret Cezair-Thompson.” Book Browse. https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/1492/margaret-cezairthompson#interview

  Kenan, Randall. “Margaret Cezair-Thompson.” Bomb Magazine. http://bombmagazine.org/article/2270/margaret-cezair-thompson

  Lewis, Anthony R. and Robert Carr. “Gender, Sexuality and Exclusion: Sketching the Outlines of the Jamaican Popular Nationalist Project.” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies. Issue 3. 2009.https://sta.uwi.edu/crgs/november2009/journals/Lewis_Carr.pdf

  Smith, Karina. ‘“These Things Not Marked on Paper’: Creolisation, Affect and Tomboyism in Joan Anim-Addo’s Janie, Cricketing Lady and Margaret Cezair-Thompson’s The Pirate’s Daughter.” Feminist Review. Issue 104. 2013. http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v104/n1/full/fr201313a.html