Crossing the Mangrove

Crossing the Mangrove is told through a third-person omniscient narrator and various characters’ first-person perspectives. The first-person perspectives of young women and men in particular allow the reader to empathize with Rivière au Sel’s vulnerable—those who carry the burdens of their ancestors. Each chapter of “The Night” begins with a character’s monologue regarding the deceased Francis Sancher at his wake. The narration shifts in style and time, typically telling the story of when a chapter’s character met Sancher. At the heart of the novel is the mystery of how Sancher died—or was killed. There is no clear cause, and each chapter presents its character’s motive for wanting the outsider dead. Retired schoolteacher Léocadie questions her choice of taking a different path home, wondering what compelled her to do so. This suggests a mysterious force at work, perhaps something malicious—which is reinforced by the village’s dogs being described as monsters the “color of Satan” (3).

While sudden, Sancher’s death doesn’t seem to surprise the residents of Rivière au Sel. Postman Moïse even goes so far as to confirm Sancher’s fear of fate while alive, as if this makes the death any less sudden—adding to the novel’s suspense. Although the reader learns about Sancher’s arrival through other characters, much of his past remains a mystery, introducing the theme of The Intersectionality of History and Memory. He has no formal job or other means of financial support, which is the reason why Moïse believes the others hate him. While his accent and real name suggest Spanish origin, he “Frenchified” his name to fit in with Guadeloupe’s colonial history. Yet, the villagers see through Sancher’s façade and fixate on his move to the cursed Alexis house that allegedly killed three men and his alleged sexual assault of local woman Mira. As if to justify themselves, the villagers weave their dislike of Sancher and his wealth into these stories, as well as speculation of drug smuggling, arms running, and murder. This mob mentality is what reinforces the village’s collective sense of belonging and exclusivity, while people like Sancher, and even longtime residents Moïse and Mira, remain outsiders. While Moïse finds his fellow villagers’ stories dubious, he does believe Sancher’s wealth “was of dubious origin” (22). He clearly has something to hide, mentioning “original sin” (The Weight of Ancestral Sin) and being able to “escape punishment” in his sleep (24). The “Satanic” dogs heard at his wake echo these nightmares, their howling a reminder of his own ancestors’ crimes.

Like Sancher, Moïse is a marginalized character, in large part because he is half-Chinese—the son of a Chinese woman, Shawn, whom his father Sonson brought to the village instead of joining the Free French Forces as he claimed. Moïse is bullied for his diverse ancestry throughout his childhood, which is surprisingly traditional for a village with many residents with diverse ancestries. Despite 19th century racialized theories like colorism framing lighter skin as desirable, characters like Mira still suffer for her Otherness. The novel explicitly uses the term “Negropolitans” for “French West Indians who have lived most of their lives in Metropolitan France,” and “have been yellowing their hides for years from the sunless winters of the Paris suburbs” (25). Sexuality is another troubling topic for Moïse, as other villagers gossip about his and Sancher’s friendship—framing them as makoumeh, an insulting Caribbean term for gay men. When Mira is speculated to have been sexually assaulted, the villagers wonder if Sancher, presumably gay, could have done such a thing—erroneously equating sexual attraction to a crime predicated on power and control. Despite the village being grounded in colonial history, the residents reject newcomers in need of support and understand little of non-traditional power dynamics, touching on The Intersectionality of Class, Race, and Gender and the lingering of colonial power structures.

Like Moïse, Mira’s first-person perspective creates intimacy—reflecting her secret life. While teenagers often distance themselves from their parents in order to practice independence, she had no choice in her physical and emotional separation from her family (bar her half-brother Aristide): She is the illegitimate daughter of a Black woman who died in childbirth, and was eventually taken by her father Loulou and raised in a mansion with her half-brothers and stepmothers, Aurore Dugazon and then Dinah. Mira’s illegitimacy and lighter skin make her a target of bullying, which she recognizes as jealousy from fellow women, lust from men, and hostility from her half-brothers (again, bar Aristide). At some point, residents speculated that she was sexually assaulted, but her chapter reveals the true nature of her encounter with Sancher: She was a willing participant in their sex, believing he was the man she was waiting for at her beloved Gully. This chapter eroticizes and exoticizes the act of swimming: When Mira slips into the Gully, the water “penetrates her to the very depths of her body” and thrills her with its “rough fondling” (32). When she finds the sleeping Sancher, she describes him as “a devil’s darning needle” (either a dragonfly, crane fly, or stick insect), a phallic insect that invokes “Satanic” danger as the wake’s “Satanic” dogs do. Likewise, she is the aggressor in this encounter, kissing and undressing Sancher despite his unconsciousness (36-37).

Again, Mira’s beauty evokes jealousy from women and lust from men, who often disguise their desire with disdain (38). With her lighter skin, she embodies the “Myth of the Tragic Mulatto,” a stereotype that emerged in the 19th century and reflects anxieties about racial mixing, as white colonizers feared that non-white people would “sully” their lineage. While the archetypal “mulatta” (woman of mixed race) often had the physical features of a white woman and could pass as white, she also possessed “exotic” African blood that sexualized her and led to her downfall. Despite Mira being Black, she still suffers the scorn and sexualization of her community. The singer-turned-sex worker Isaure reinforces this interrogation of race—specifically, the stereotype of a sexually insatiable woman of color. Overall, the novel frames her as a good person who attends mass and knows herself, no matter how far she has “fallen” in the eyes of her community (53). She is also called a câpresse, a light-skinned person with “good” hair—with “good” indicating European hair, rather than traditional African hair. In modern day, having European (white) features is still seen by some as the pinnacle of beauty, this colorism being the legacy of European colonialism. The Spanish casta system codified racial heritage into hierarchical legal categories similar to a caste system. Traces of this racist system can be seen in the attitudes of many characters, suggesting The Intersectionality of Class, Race, and Gender is still dominated by the scars of colonialist ideology.

While two of Mira’s half-brothers are hostile to her, her third brother and closest companion, Aristide, wrestles with incestual love. The two siblings grow up angry at their father, their stepmother Dinah, and Loulou’s other lovers: In their shared hatred, Mira reflects “[…] I loved him only like a brother. But I thought I had found my happiness in this taste for evil and forbidden fruit” (35-36). The use of “only like a brother” and “forbidden fruit” suggests their relationship strayed from that of siblings. Later, Mira hides information about Sancher because she knows “how jealous” Aristide could be (39)—which frames him as a possessive lover rather than a brother. Loulou goes so far as to look at Aristide when Sancher claims Mira was not a virgin when they met—which implies he already suspected an incestuous relationship between the siblings and may lust for Mira himself. When Mira returns home, Aristide’s desire is made explicit, as he feels freed of his “guilty love” (57). Part of the “Myth of the Tragic Mulatto” is the danger of sibling incest, a warning against racial mixing in the 19th century: In such stories, a white patriarch would impregnate his Black mistress, creating a mixed daughter. The patriarch’s white son would then fall in love with this beautiful woman, unaware of their shared blood. However, in Aristide and Mira’s case, they are aware of this, which makes their relationship doubly transgressive. Later, Mira admits she only pursued Sancher, an outsider, to escape the prejudice of Rivière au Sel; perhaps, whatever transpired between her and Aristide was of a similar nature rather than true love, familial or otherwise.