Between Memory and History: Crossing the River as a Polyphonic Archive of Diasporic Identity

Abstract

Crossing the River (1993) by Caryl Phillips has been the subject of numerous research studies that celebrate the novel for its portrayal of slavery, the Middle Passage, its vocal/choral nature, vocal plurality, and hyper-textuality, as well as its archival memory. My paper analyzes the novel using Paul Gilroy’s project of the ‘Black Atlantic’ as the main lens of analysis, integrating the ideas on the archive by Derrida and the vocal features of the novel in my discussion, presenting how the vocal nature and plurality of the novel help in developing an archive of what Gilroy calls the ‘Black Atlantic’. Though scholars have read the structure of the novel as paradigmatic of Gilroy’s theoretical model, my study is unique in its métissage of the framework of ‘Black Atlantic’ and Derridean concept of ‘Archive’ with the vocal elements in discussion of Phillip’s novel, e.g., the voice of the guilty father figure, the popping in and out of voices of the slave trader and the father, the multitude of voices of the African diaspora, along with the references to music and the drum beating, all contributing to creation of a polyphonic archive of the diasporic identity.