Antônio Olinto’s The Duel: A postcolonial analysis

Abstract

The present article has as its main aims the analysis of Brazilian science fiction from the sixties, particularly the image of the robot and its relation to Brazilian national identity. Through a descriptive and analytic approach, I extend Elizabeth Ginway’s ideas about Science fiction and racial issues by analyzing O Desafio [The Duel] by Antonio Olinto in the light of Postcolonial theories, focusing, more specifically, on the ideas of Edward Said and Frantz Fanon.

Keywords: Brazilian Science Fiction, postcolonial theories, national identity, robot

Resumo

O presente artigo tem como principal objetivo discorrer acerca da Ficção Cientifica Brasileira nos anos 60, analisando, particularmente, a imagem do robô e sua relação com a identidade nacional brasileira. Através de uma abordagem descritiva e analítica, faço uma extensão das idéias de Elizabeth Ginway acerca de Ficção Científica e questões raciais. Dessa forma, analiso O Desafio de Antônio Olinto a luz  das teorias pós-coloniais, enfatizando, principalmente, as idéias de Edward Said e Frantz Fanon.

Palavras-chave: Ficção Científica Brasileira, Teorias pós-coloniais, identidade nacional, robô.

The academic study of Brazilian Science Fiction is relatively new. Although it’s first works can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century, few researchers have given attention to this complex and rich genre. However, in the last two decades, the number of academic studies of Science Fiction has considerably increased. Critics such as Elizabeth Ginway, Léo Godoy Otero and Roberto de Sousa Causo have tried to focus on Brazilian Science Fiction as a literary vehicle for examining the perception and cultural impact of the modernization process in Brazil.

The present essay has as its main aim to provide an analysis of the literary text The Duel by Antonio Olinto in the light of postcolonial theories, focusing, particularly, on the ideas of Edward Said and Frantz Fanon. Works such as Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, white masks (1952), The Wretched of the Earth (1961) and Edward Said’s Orientalism published in 1978 have influenced critics from different parts of the worlds and inspired them to re-read literary texts from a postcolonial perspective.

In Orientalism, Said examines how the knowledge that colonizers formed about their colonies helped to justify their subjugation, this is, how colonial powers represent the colonized nation; his main focus, then, is the colonizer. In doing so, he stresses the relationship between Occident and Orient as a relationship of power, of domination and of hegemony. Said also looks at how Orientalism still survives today in Western media reports about Eastern nations, despite formal decolonization for many countries, reinforcing the idea that colonialism does not simply disappear as soon as the colonies become independent. Indeed, he shows how the modes of representation common to colonialism have continued after the process of decolonization and are still present as part of the contemporary world. During this analysis I shall explore how these modes of representation are present in Antônio Olinto’s The Duel. The main focus here will be the presence of the binary divisions constructed by the oriental discourse. The Orient (colonized) is conceived as being everything that the West (colonizer) is not; if the West is considered the seat of knowledge and learning, the Orient is the place of ignorance and naiveté. The West occupies a superior position while the Orient is its ‘other’, in a subservient position, unable to exist by itself.

Transferring this discourse to the contemporary world, it seems appropriate to put some third world nation in the position of the Orient, unable to support itself economically and intellectually, and dependent on developed countries to establish its own economy. In this regard, the American writer Elizabeth Ginway stresses that

Modernization imposes a neocolonialist reality, where technology represents the ‘mastering reason’, reducing Brazil once again to the status of slave, woman, and the Other…in the Science Fiction of the 1960s, technology, often viewed as white, male and foreign, is seen as imposing itself upon Brazilian culture, which is portrayed as black, female, and familiar (2004, p.41).

Brazilian SF writers, then, assimilates the symbols of technology into Brazilian national myths portraying them in the position of the colonized man, the black and the other. By doing so, these ‘native intellectuals’ repeat the colonizer discourse and contribute to a permanent celebration of the colonization effects.

 In The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961, Fanon calls writers attention to their important task in constructing a national consciousness. He uses the term “native intellectual” to refer to the writers and thinkers who have often been educated and supported by the colonizing power but have not invested in the indigenous national consciousness. According to him, the western-educated intellectual is in danger of identifying more with the colonizer rather than with the indigenous masses. Discussing Fanon’s ideas McLeod stresses that

The construction of a specifically national consciousness is dependent upon important cultural activities. National consciousness and national culture are inseparable from each other; anti-colonial resistance cannot succeed without them. Writers, arts and intellectuals have a vital role to play in imagining the nation, and they participate centrally to resisting colonialism (2000, p.85).

The construction of consciousness and identity is central in Fanon’s discourse and in this regard literature is an important instrument which can be used in favor of or against the cultural tradition of the colonized nation. If such tradition is rejected by the native intellectual, it will probably vanish. On the other hand, if the writers recover and reflect upon important aspects of the colonized nation they will naturally be involved in a process of struggle against colonialism in the present and, then, they will be participating in the forging of national consciousness. Another important element in this process is language which is essential in the construct of national identity. In Black skin, White masks Fanon focuses on the problem of identity created for the colonial subject by colonial racism, and on the consequent need to escape from the neuroses colonialism has produced. The Negro is forced to internalize the self as an “other”; He is believed to be everything the white is not. The former is irrational, depraved, and abnormal; the latter is rational, virtuous and normal.

Antônio Olinto’s The Duel (see appendix 1) was published in 1961 in the Histórias do Acontecerá collection, edited by Gumercindo Rocha Dorea. As a teacher of English, French, Portuguese, Latin, Literature and History of civilizations, Olinto had deep knowledge of Brazilian cultural history and the Anglo-American literature, as well as African culture for which he demonstrated special interest.[2] 

 Notably, Antônio Olinto deals with issues of race in The Duel. According to Ginway, “the story deals with the issue of race, or, more specifically, the idea of racial whitening, the alleged solution to Brazil’s racial problem that developed after abolition in 1888” (2004, p.50). Although the novel's setting is futuristic, its plot recalls the colonial era.  The story takes place in the year 2.462, in a the period called Second Renaissance (II Renascença), a time in which technology and science play a very important role in men’s life. There are robots for all kind of work so that it is impossible to think of a world without them; their tasks vary from household chores to office work. However, their existence can not exceed 10 years; they are programmed to work only for ten years, then they are destroyed. The Second Renaissance, as the name implies is also a time of regaining the practices of poetry and writing.  As in the colonial era, few people are literate or educated, only the ones who have had the opportunity of having an instructor or an intellectual mentor. Olinto depicts a society in which culture is predicated on the invisible labor of the ‘other’ suggesting the repetition of a figure which recalls a past situation. In regard to this kind of discourse, Said comments:

They were handed down through the Renaissance. They are all declarative and self-evident; the tense employed is timeless eternal; they covey an impression of repetition and strength; they are always symmetrical to, and yet diametrically inferior to, a European equivalent, which is sometimes specified, sometimes not (2003, p.72).

The way T-55 is characterized illustrates the view that colonized people have no meaningful culture prior to the arrival of the colonizer. The imposition of language, then, constitutes an important aspect in this symmetrical discourse of imperialism.

There are many aspects in Olinto’s work which bear witness to the relationship between The Duel and colonialism. In general terms, technology represented by the robot is clearly seen as the ‘precise economic equivalent of slave labor’. Thus the relationship between man and robot is very similar to that of master and slave; at the same time men and machines seem to live in perfect harmony, there is a relation of superiority and power, the former having more power than the latter despite its spectacular skills. For example the idea that a Transitório (robot) can not exceed 10 years, shows the power of man over it. The only reason for this short period of existence is the efficiency of machines.

Os robôs haviam recebido o novo nome de transitório a partir do momento em que, tornando-se mais eficientes, mais vivos, quase humanos, tinham também diminuído o tempo de duração para dez anos [The robots had received the new name of transient by the time they had become more efficient and smart, almost a human being, their existence had also been reduced to ten years] (p.51). 

The more efficient and smart robots become the more their existence is reduced. This paradoxical statement recalls the colonial idea that a slave could never become like a master, a free and intellectually superior man; it also suggests that the colonized subject does not have any history and past..  

In other words, the white/colonizer must be always in the control of any event and the existence and progress of black/colonized, here represented by the robot, depends on the former manipulation. Commenting on this asymmetrical relation, Said (2003, p.40) adds that “what gave Oriental’s world its intelligibility and identity was not the result of his own efforts but rather the whole complex series of knowledgeable manipulation by which the orient was identify the West”. This colonial discourse is well illustrated by Antônio Olinto in the way he shows the human attitudes toward the robot which represents the other - the black man, slave, colonized and Orient - in a more technological and modern world.

Another important aspect that leads to this thematic issue of temporality is the way the writers deal with language. T-55 is a good Portuguese speaker but it has to learn Latin which is considered the language of the intellectual elite.  This is a very important issue emphasized by Fanon in Black Skin White Masks 

To speak means being able to use a certain syntax and possessing the morphology of such and such a language, but it means above all assuming the culture and bearing the weight of a civilization…the more the black man assimilates the French language, the whiter he gets – i.e., the closer he comes to be a human being… ( 2007, p.1)

As can be seen by Fanon’s words, to be considered a human being, the Negro must speak not his own language but French which is the métropole and elite language. So, to assimilate it means to acknowledge the world expressed and implied by it. Fanon also adds that all colonized people in whom an inferiority complex has taken root, whose local cultural originality has been committed to the grave, position themselves in relation to the civilizing language.  In The Duel this same exigency is imposed upon the robot. Here, the language of power is Latin, which was also the elite language in the colonial era. To speak Latin meant, above all, being able to understand the world and control it. T-55 was able to speak Portuguese and presented great linguistic abilities but it was not enough, to achieve a higher position it had to learn Latin. However, T-55 showed some difficulties in applying the vocative for it had to take the initiative of using it and T-55 could not do it easily.

...As relações dos transitórios com o Latim eram curiosas. Homens sentiam-se ligados a uma linha de tradição. Os transitórios, não: apresentavam-se soltos de qualquer nó anterior... A linguagem anterior havia se tornado tão impessoal que abolira os chamados diretos. Já os transitórios não se habituavam ao emprego natural do vocativo. Talvez o problema tivesse ainda na relativa falta de iniciativa do transitório porque na verdade o vocativo é uma iniciativa... [The relations of the transients with Latin were curious. Men were linked to their traditional ties. The transients had no traditional link; they were free of any anterior tie. The former language had become so impersonal that had been abolished the direct calls. But the transients do not get used to the natural vocative. Perhaps the problem was their relative lack of initiative because the vocative is indeed an initiative of the speaker…(p.55)

This passage illustrates the attitude of the colonized subject toward the imposed language. If on the one hand, he accepts this imposition and posits himself in the position of a subject without any culture, any civilization and any historical past; on the other hand he is not able to learn colonizer’s language properly. In Fanon’s conception, this attitude results in a vicious circle in which Whites consider themselves superior to Blacks and Blacks want to prove at all costs their wealth of intellect and equal intelligence.  Here is emphasized the idea that there will always exist an asymmetrical relation between colonized and colonizer; in this regard Said (2003, p.40) comments that the essential relationship, on political, cultural, and even religious grounds was seen to be one between a strong and a weak partner. While the colonizer is seen as rational, virtuous, mature and normal; the colonized is seen as irrational, depraved, childlike and aberrant/abnormal By its nature, T-55 kept most of these characteristics; “Logo que a fábrica o entregara, todos compreenderam que se tratava de um tipo diferente de transitório… (p.51)” [ when the factory delivered it, everybody understood that it was a different kind of transient..]. Here, the robot can be deemed a childlike figure since it is remote from the influence of historical change. Moreover, its status does not allowed it to grow up and be independent or live by its own.

The fact of being different constitutes a very painful mark for the colonized or black man. T-55 seemed to understand that a robot was too different from the human beings. There was a huge barrier between its world and the man’s world. No matter its poetic talents, it would never be a real man. Clearly Olinto is using the colonial discourse that consists of making the Other believe that he could try to be similar to the Whites but he will never be one of them. 

This idea seemed to be internalized in T-55’s mind; the white girl would never have any kind of relationship with the robot. The way it behaves when the girl appeared in the company demonstrated that it hid any kind of feeling for her: “… sempre que a menina aparecia ele se alheava um pouco” […every time the girl appeared it behaved a little different]. T-55 acted as if he had internalized the colonial idea that it would never be more than a slave of the modern world. If on the one hand, T-55 had developed a strong relationship with Claudio, Flavio and other workmates, symbolizing the harmony between different races; on the other hand there was a huge distance between the robot and the girl which suggests that such harmony could only be possible insofar as it satisfies the man’s interests.

The girl’s name, Lactea, is hugely suggestive of some of the assumptions present in colonial discourses. The whiteness of the girl raises an unbreakable barrier between the protagonist and her; to be white means to be inaccessible and untouchable. Indeed, there is no dialogue or contact between the two characters, despite T-55’s ability of speaking. Which child, seeing a robot, would not approach and talk to it? We would expect children to react in this way toward robots. In the Duel, however the opposite happens, the girl acts as if T-55 did not exit which reflects an uncommon behave for a child since in most modern narratives children are always playing and making use of the robots. Olinto’s decision to maintain distance between the girl and the robot reflects the logic of colonial power and suggests the author's complicity with such power.  

In discussing the prejudice between whites and blacks, Fanon relates the episode of Jean Veneuse, a black poet who falls in love with a white girl but could not tear the barrier of prejudice and had to understand that he lived in a world that was not his.

…Here is our black man who through his intelligence and hard work has hoisted himself to the level of European thought and culture, but is incapable of escaping his race…Jean Veneuse believed in this culture and had began to love this new world he had discovered and conquered for his own usage. What a terrible mistake!... Feeling that he would be unable to live without love, he dreams it into being through poetry: “When you fall in love, you must never say so, better to keep it a secret from oneself” (2007, p.47). 

The similarity between the ways in which the two writers deal with race is undeniable. It is possible that Olinto had read Fanon by the time he wrote The Duel which could have influenced him in some aspect of his work.  Fanon enlarges the scope of his description to include every colonized subject, which means that the facts depicted by him are not isolated in time and space but represent a worldwide view generated by the phenomenon of colonization. 

Although Olinto had written The Duel during the sixties, he opts to adopt a discourse which advocates the values of colonization and imperialism as necessary to a nation. He does not show any resistance to this vicious circle. Instead, he is inspired by the attempts to copy the dominant trends in the literature of the colonized power, as described by Fanon (McLeod, 2000, p.86). In so doing, he joins a group of writers who according to Fanon, are in danger of identifying more with the middle-class bourgeoisie of the colonizing nation rather than with the indigenous masses. Thus, as native intellectual, he opts out of involvement in the people’s struggle against colonialism. 

Appendix 1

O Desafio [The Duel]

Antônio Olinto’s The Duel follows the story of T-55, a robot with abilities superior to any other robot in the epoch, the year 2.455. It can speak and is able to unify images and associate sounds and senses; it is almost a human being except for its lack of emotions. In the beginning of the story, T-55 meets the daughter of its boss, Flavio, and since then, every time it sees the girl, it behaves in a different way. Seven years have passed and the robots (Transitórios, as they were called) have become each day more modern and sophisticated. Inspired by the surprising characteristics of T-55, scientists talk about the possibility of making robots which can reproduce themselves, and which have emotions.

 As T-55 has special inclinations to languages, Claudio who works with it, decides to teach it Latin and poetry so that it could participate in the poetry challenge which happens every year and gathers inhabitants from different planets and galaxies. The challenge consists of reciting poems created spontaneously in response to other participants’ poems. In preparation to the challenged, T-55 had studies Virgil, Horatio, Ovid and many other important poets; for the first time in the history a man and a robot would compete in a duel of poetry. There were some protests against T-55’s participation in the contest but the Olympic commission allowed its participation.

 Months before the duel happens, the fall of a spaceship injures Flávio’s daughter and she dies. The girl was white as milk, different from any white person ever seen, her name was Lactea, which means milky, and T-55 was the first to arrive at the place of the accident. For some minutes T-55 seems to have missed its senses, it stands still and distracted. The accident shocks everybody in the company. And T-55 has to be transferred to another unity specialized in poetry so that it can be well prepared for the challenge.

The day of the duel comes. T-55 and its adversary Márcio Mistral are presented to the audience. The contest is transmitted by all means of communication in the Earth and other planets. The language is Latin or any other language spoken in Earth. Initially T-55 is the favorite to win; its poems are more creative, grammatically correct, and richer in words and meanings. However, in the last few minutes Márcio recites a poem whose contents remind T-55 of Lactea and although it tries to continue a poem using the word lactea (milky), it stopped and repeated the word ‘lactea’ uncountable times  as if it were a child mumbling a song. First it stood still, and then it fell down the stage. The whole universe watched that scene. Claudio and Flavio approached T-55 and tried desperately to find a reason for its breakdown, since the life span of a robot was 10 years and it was only 8. Suddenly they remembered that T-55 had broken down repeating the name lactea which was Flávio’s daughter’s name. At this moment they realized that the reason of T-55’s destruction was the feelings it felt for the girl. 

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