The Polished Hoe

Austin Clarke's novel is not a whodunnit, but a whydunnit. Its 462 pages cover just a few hours, in which space of time almost nothing happens--except that, on an imaginary Caribbean island, Miss Mary-Mathilda Bellfeels makes a Statement (the capital letter is Clarke's) to the Crown-Sargeant about what she has just done with her hoe. What she has done, as the reader soon figures out, is murder Mr. Bellfeels--first her overseer during her youthful days working in the cane fields, then the father of her sole surviving child. Mary-Mathilda's Statement, which grounds her act in an entire lifetime of suffering, soon reveals decades upon decades of racial and sexual exploitation. Her narrative unravels leisurely through a combination of dialogue and stream-of-consciousness recollection, complemented by the Crown-Sargeant's own memories of his long-unrequited passion for her.

In The Polished Hoe, slavery has faded so far into memory that even the black villagers, like the Sargeant, harbor doubts about its existence on their island. But, as Mary-Mathilda's Statement makes brutally clear, slavery lingers on: in the island's racially-delineated power structure; in the ongoing work of the Plantation; in the "cultural cringe" of the villagers when faced with European achievements (an anxiety embodied in Mary-Mathilda's Oxbridge-trained son, who carries the ironic name of Wilberforce*); and, above all, in the freedom with which white men like Mr. Bellfeels assert their sexual rights in black women like Mary-Mathilda. Indeed, Clarke refracts most of the novel's political issues through sexuality. The widely-loathed Mr. Bellfeels had carried on a long-term affair with Mary-Mathilda's mother--a fact which establishes an important plot point late in the novel--before beginning to groom the very young Mary-Mathilda as a suitable replacement (with her mother's partial consent, although it's unclear what "consent" could mean under the circumstances represented here). As it turns out, Mary-Mathilda's relationship with the very married Mr. Bellfeels is the ticket out of poverty--after all, in return for her sexual favors, she receives a house, lifetime maintenance, and the best education available for their son. But, as she is also perfectly well aware, it reduces her to both a slave and a prostitute; if she is called "Miss Bellfeels" by courtesy, that courtesy also indicates that she belongs to Bellfeels. Her class status-by-courtesy puts her out of the Sargeant's reach, as he reflects more than once, but so too does Bellfeels' habit of brutally assaulting any black man who dares to look at her.

But, for Mary-Mathilda, the ultimate violation seems to be not so much of her body (in fact, she can sometimes conjure up surprisingly fond memories of the liaison) as of her identity. Her class position is ambiguous; the villagers regard her as simultaneously a saint and a whore; she has been denied an education but has picked up bits and pieces from her son's reading, enough to be aware of and ambivalent about European and American culture. And then there is the question of her father, which is what ultimately triggers the murder. Mary-Mathilda's identity crises echo elsewhere. The Sargeant balances his devotion to the law with his uneasy awareness that some can flaunt the law more easily than others. Wilberforce, heralded throughout the novel as one of the island's true intellectuals, makes his sole appearance as a drunk. Even Mr. Bellfeels, apparently the local embodiment of white power, turns out to be somewhat less white than he appears.

This novel requires some patience. Mary-Mathilda's Statement turns back on itself over and over again, developing according to associative logic instead of strict chronological order. (The same is true of the Sargeant's memories.) I've not touched on the novel's many other themes--the cultural and political significance of America, for example, or of Nat Turner's rebellion. And Mary-Mathilda isn't necessarily a reliable narrator, as the Sargeant himself occasionally realizes. At times, I felt things were going on just a tad long--the reader sees the final revelation a little too early. If you don't like political fiction, then this is probably not the book for you; otherwise, though, there's much to think about.

*--Clarke discusses the importance of English culture in Barbados (the model for his fictional island) in this interview.