In this week’s reading, I read “The Kingdom of This World” by Alejo Carpentier. I quite enjoyed reading this story as I found the imagery to be quite powerful throughout the book, evoking strong emotions in me as the reader. This imagery was shown to be strong from the very beginning, with Ti Noel detailing about the wax heads, “the curls of the wigs, opening into a pool of ringlets on the red baize, framed expressionless faces. Those heads seemed as real—although their fixed stare was so dead—as the talking head” (page 8).
As mentioned last week, this story delves into the world of magic realism. Coming into this course I had not read or known much about this topic and I found that this book was a great introduction to magic realism within Latin American literature for me. One thing that I found I found interesting in relation to this theme was how one’s perspective and belief played a role in how the ‘magic’ was presented. To elaborate, we see that Ti Noel is a character who believes in the practices of Voodoo, which allows him to experience the magic that plays out within the story, as well as view certain events from a different perspective, such as when Macandal is captured and burned the slaves “returned to their plantations laughing all the way” as they believed that he was saved by the African Gods. On the other hand, when Henri-Christophe begins his reign and adopts Christianity rather than voodoo, we see that the ‘magic’ and the others turn against him, as he loses his power and finds himself alone with no support. All in all, I found this to be a really intriguing part of the story.
The Kingdom of This World ends with a powerful scene where Ti Noel gains the power to transform into any animal he desires, as shown through his transformation into a bird, stallion, wasp, and an ant. However, his experience with transforming into a goose (in which he is stunned by the group of other geese) allows him to a revelation about the weight of his responsibility in “this kingdom of this world”. While this ending was very impactful to me, it made me wonder why Alejo Carpentier decided to use those specific animals in describing Ti Noel’s metamorphosis as I would have never thought of a pact of geese to be an animal that would be so significant to the ending scene. Because of that, my discussion question for this week is: Why do you think the author chose to illuminate Ti noel’s ending transformation using the pact of geese? Do you think there is a deeper significance to the geese that helps guide Ti Noel to his revelation or do you believe there would be another animal that could have had the same effect on Ti Noel? I would love to hear all of your thoughts!
If you remember the video of Dr. Beasley-Murray’s lecture there is no unanimous consensus among the critics of this novel. And after reading it, it’s easy to understand why. The way in which elements of African beliefs, still alive in the region, are presented reminds us that we cannot understand them with “Enlightenment” parameters, and that this is one of the book’s conflicts. That they still intrigue us demonstrates Carpentier’s ability to show cultural conflicts.
Great blogpost! The imagery from page 8 that you’ve quoted was a great example of some of the best images depicted by Carpentier in this book. To answer your question, I’m not quite sure why ultimately it was the pact of geese. However, I do wonder if there is any relationship with the idea of hope. For me, Ti Noel seemed to symbolize hope/ freedom to an extent. Perhaps there is a connection between geese and hope/ geese and freedom?
– Daniel C
I also found the power of the ‘voodoo’ religion versus christian religion to be interesting, and as I was reading this text, considered the similarities and contrasts of this text. I like how you mention the lack of power the christian religion has compared to the one that saved Macandal, since I argued that Macandal’s legend and life in other forms of existence came to be through the belief in their ‘voodoo’ religion.
I personally do not know why they chose a flight of geese as the final metamorphosis though, as I think the significance of the animals he embodies comes from their diversity and universality, rather than from the specific animal itself.
Hi there,
thank you for your post.
In regards to your question, I think the significance of the geese may be just the thought of taking flight with the topic projected throughout the novel while also adding a final note to the fantastical narrative that embodies the story. For myself, I think the horizon is more significant than the geese since the horizon feels a bit more aligned to the final message of embracing adversity within the Kingdom of this World.