Metaphoric Theme of Slavery in “Indiana” by George Sand

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Introduction

Indiana is the first novel written by Amantine Aurore Dupin under the pseudonym George Sand and published in 1832. The author is particularly known for her rustic novels addressing several significant themes typical for nineteenth-century novelistic issues. In her novel about love and marriage, Sand raises a variety of central themes of that time society, including the line of slavery both from the protagonist’s perspective and the French colonial slavery. The central themes are revealed under the masterful combination of “conventions of romanticism, realism, and idealism” (Pollard 2). Moreover, considering that the main events are set partly in the French colony of Réunion, Sand managed to embody descriptions of the colony based on the travel writing of her friend Jules Néraud. With a particular focus on the metaphoric portrayal of the French wives’ slavery, Sand raises the critical questions of colonial slavery in terms of the national colonial history. Therefore, this essay aims to examine the issues of female enslavement through the historical context of one of the greatest slave-trading and slave-owning nations at that time.

The Analysis of the Protagonists

First, it is crucial to analyze the main character of the novel to better understand all the topics emanating from the protagonist’s vision and time of living. Indiana embodies a “weak heroine” who is passed from the control of one man, her father, to another man, her husband, throughout her life (Pollard 2). Even though Indiana holds the belief that women do not belong to men and should be allowed to live independently, she still relies on a man to save her from her marriage. However, he later involves her in another controlling relationship. Within her literature oeuvre, Sand embodies the variety of female characters in her novels that are all united by being inspired to a certain degree by the experience of the writer herself. Most importantly, it was a typical nineteenth-century environment for female writers who suffered under the patriarchy.

George Sand created a female character who is prohibited from being a revolutionary because she is too suppressed ever to have the ability to share her boundary-breaking values. There is a strong parallel between the protagonist and the writer herself, including the unhappy marriages, desire for freedom, and separation. Sand’s personal experience influenced the writing of the novel as she penned Indiana’s onerous journey out of the married life. Sand let her female character possess many attributes typical for “Romantic heroine,” although Indiana’s vulnerability demonstrates that women were not allowed to be heroes due to “female enslavement in the Romantic tradition and reality” (Pollard 21). Indiana is portrayed as a disempowered female by the societal boundaries of the nineteenth century and a woman enslaved to her husband. Nonetheless, she remains hoping that her only salvation is another man who can save her from enslavement. With this said, Sand depicts Indiana as an enslaved aspiring revolutionary, although with contradictory views and hopes, and blames the society that shaped her fate.

Understanding the Historical Context of the Novel

Apart from the women’s enslavement and its metaphoric equation in the novel, the scholars emphasize the peculiarities of the colonial content and context presented in the piece. Indiana is born and raised in a slave colony, and, thus, she is not only a slave as a woman but also has a strong linkage to “slavery as an institution” (Yuqiu 51). More specifically, the analysis of the themes concerning creolization, race, and border crossing, help understand the novel from both ideological and aesthetic frameworks. Yuqui suggests regarding the story as the experience of a group of transplanted colonial subjects in France in terms of the relationship between the trio of protagonists, including Indiana, Ralph, and Noun. Slavery is perceived as Indiana’s reality and a functional paradigm of the society she is brought up in. In addition, the Creole nation, the descendant of slaves, enslaved workers, and European colonists, manifested a radical difference from the Frenchness. For this reason, it can be said that Sand attempted to incorporate the sociopolitical concern of bringing the Creole people back to metropole while fighting the slave trade. Hence, according to many researches, Indiana highlights the national problem of emancipating the colonial subjects in the same way it illustrates the issue of liberating domestic women.

George Sand was called one of the most political women of her time, which marks her awareness of the salient points of the slavery issue and Empire, which established her prolific writing career. The skillful use of the metaphor of slavery by Sand in Indiana is distinct for its specific approach. The author develops the correlation between the oppressed slaves and equivalently oppressed wives in the colonial framework. By doing so, Sand provided reinforced meaning to the common metaphor of married females as slaves and focused on the complex relations confining gender and race. Furthermore, the writer brings a complete sense of slavery theme into the direct link with the real enslavement of blacks.

The institution of slavery remained a central theme in the literature and political discussions in the first half of the nineteenth century in France. George Sand was a prominent figure in French literature for being the strongest believer in the liberation from oppression among women of her time. However, instead of directly addressing slavery in her writings, the author used it as a metaphor to depict the tyranny of different degrees and types. The central historical fact underlying the issue of slavery in the nineteenth-century novels includes the restoration of slavery in 1802 by the about to be crowned emperor Napoleon. Such a historical turning point marked the time of approximately half of the century more labor, suffering, and early death for an enormous number of enslaved blacks. Slavery was terminated in the French colonies with the emancipation decree penned by Victor Schoelcher.

Creole Emancipation in Indiana

Despite the accustomed perceptions on the Anglo-American portrayal of slavery, there is a clear juxtaposition between the Creole people and Frenches, or more particularly, Parisians. As described by Powell and Pratima, Sand wrote the novel with a deep feeling of “horror and beastly enslavement” (41). However, the bondage in her vision is associated with the restricted, limited status of married French women. Indiana’s theme of slavery is concerned with the inequitable position of the French woman in marriage, family, and society in general. Sand managed to convey the voice of the protests for female liberation when brutal oppression of women and the leading role of men. George Sand was a radical feminist of the nineteenth century; however, even the author had to use a male pseudonym because male writers were far more respected than female ones. With this in mind, the topic of slavery in Indiana has to be analyzed through the lens of the time when it was created and the writer’s primary goal and message to the readers.

The notions of being a woman, a wife, and a slave are highly intertwined throughout the novel. Indiana was “brought up in the wilds” and was “living surrounded by slaves whom she could help only with her pity and her tears” (Sand 51). As such, the emancipation of slaves appears as a natural development of Indiana’s slavery from the bondage of her marriage to Colonel Delmare. The protagonist herself condemns this type of slavery after the night spent at her lover’s home: “I know I’m the slave and you’re the lord” (Sand 176). Indiana also claims how the society at that time encouraged deeply embedded female oppression: “You have the right of the stronger one, and society confirms you in it” (Sand 176). Sand created her novel during the time when republican France emancipated its colonial slaves, and, therefore, she asserted that women are slaves as a matter of principle. As it can be seen, the colonial history of slavery in the French Empire in the nineteenth century plays a pivotal role in defining the concept of slavery and its extension through the main protagonist.

It starts from the French transition to an elected government in the early 1790s and the renewed slavery subjection by Napoleon. Such critical historical events echo through the main events occurring in Indiana. The conversation about the false liberties promised to colonial subjects in France is grounded in the scene where Indiana confronts Raymon about the Noun’s death, a Negro Indian female. Raymon vigorously interprets Noun’s death, initially Noun’s suicide because of Raymon, as a “loving self-sacrifice” (Powell ad Pratima 45). Indiana yet allows herself to be a slave in the hands of her lover, Raymon, as she says, “It’s me. It’s your Indiana. It’s your slave..”, “I am your property, you are my master…”(Sand 231-232). Raymond failed to recognize his Creole mistress as a human being and was unable to acknowledge his paternal obligations for their unborn child. The era of the late 1820s marks the time of the Napoleonic restoration of France, which revealed that the broad emancipation of French slaves was an empty promise akin to the one of Raymon addressed to Indiana.

Understanding the historical context of Creole emancipation and the general governmental approach to reinforcing slavery in French colonies is crucial in studying George Sand’s novel. Within the text, these key historical moments of slavery reflect in Indiana, although they are enhanced with the metaphoric undertone of female enslavement. The colonial history in Sand’s piece helps obtain information of the transnational arrangement of the author’s domestic fiction. The recurrent episodes of misinterpretation of Creole people in Indiana identify the fate of freed colonial subjects in relation to the fates of metropolitan women. Such a writing strategy helps explore how both of these destinies are sentenced to passive citizenship, as well as deceptive patterns of liberty. As a prominent writer of her time, Sand was well-aware of the French restoration government, which only excused the fraudulent slave trade. It also prohibited divorces to falsely revive marriage in the interest of religion and monarchy, and its established oppressing morals.

The Issue of Slavery in the Sand’s Novel

Therefore, George Sand’s perspective on the theme of slavery merits particular consideration since it can be regarded as a critical element in the trilateral structure of race, class, and gender, which defines her literary heritage. Sand’s writing career begins only in the 1830s; however, she refers to slavery during the time of the First Empire in her novels. As such, the author asserts the absolute incompatibility between despotism and freedom and Napoleon’s connection with dictatorship. Hence, Indiana marks a crucial step in the literature guided by temperament and political conviction towards the Empire and monarchy of George Sand. Concerning the critics’ opinion about Sand’s novel, many argue that there is a strong correlation between women’s oppression in marriage and the general issue of slavery in the French colonies.

For instance, Rogers states that Indiana managed to embody the subjection of married women and its relation to the institution of slavery (Pollard). This can be traced in the similar lack of education of women and blacks and their corresponding absence of power under the legislation. In addition, Kadish focused on Indiana and Ralph’s choice at the end of the novel to live away from the island with white colonists (Pollard). As a result, they dedicated themselves to help the black slaves. Such a viewpoint on the text presents the case for defining Noun as a woman of color, whose servant’s status reflects the position of a slave. With this in mind, the characters’ representation by George Sand incorporates a clear judgment of slavery, affecting both blacks and women in the novel. The author also attempts to connect all the major points to Napoleon, together with the antislavery policies of the First Empire.

Furthermore, Indiana takes a special place in the literary research in recent decades, particularly for highlighting the metaphoric issue of slavery. Many researchers analyze the role of slavery “as a figurative discursive practice” in the first novel of George Sand, Indiana. According to Okoli, the scholars note the repetition of such a metaphor in the book, thus, manifesting “the institutionalized oppression of women on many levels in nineteenth-century France” (201). For instance, Okoli examines Indiana as a fictional message of colonialism and rhetoric.

By discursively employing the enslaved condition as a developed metaphor for oppressed females, including the protagonist, the writer enhances the racial conversations and enthusiasm of a colonialist ethos. The culminating point of the novel, based on the romanticized representation of French Empires-utopia on the island of Bernica, serves as a space of personal emancipation for white Creole lovers, including Indiana and Ralph. Summing up, the ideological ground deepened in Sand’s feminist idealism in the main female character partially depends upon the privileges of the “imperial capitalist reverie” (Okoli 205). The latter is strongly associated with the currency exchange, labor, and black bodies as portable possession at the heart of the expansion of the French Empire.

Metaphorical Undertone of the Slavery

Indiana embodies a much deeper meaning of slavery as a metaphor of gendered power structures, rather than illustrating the institution of colonial slavery. For instance, Jenson states that the exaggerated analogy of the cruelty towards white married women to lifelong and racially biased enslavement can be perceived as a “problematically narcissistic end” (Okoli 204). Moreover, the enslaved population presented in the novel serves more as an additional element of colonial scenery. This can be explained by the author’s primary aim to critically demonstrate the gendered power relations oppressive to French females, whether in the colonies or on the continent. Sand represents Indiana as an archetypal woman under siege, mirroring the universalism’s commencement essential to the French republican ideal. Therefore, in the symbolic context of slavery, Sand’s approach to depicting the protagonists as the expected manifestation of universal feminine experience can impact the specific exclusion of certain groups of women. This also refers to the struggles of enslaved and colonized women of color as vulnerable components of the Empire.

The distinct experience of slavery in world history was adjusted into a narrative about the universal feminine issue through the writer’s abstraction. Based on the analysis above, it can be argued that the core of the conversations about slavery within the novel applies the enslavement as a metaphor for Indiana’s position as an oppressed woman. The theme of captivity can be seen as “the material reality of slavery” only as an environmental component of the colonies aimed to reflect upon Indiana’s establishment as a feminine subject (Okoli 206). However, slavery represents an inevitable environmental factor, which continuously affects the protagonist of Indiana and shapes the sentimental education of this “cœur de femme” (Sand 162). In this case, the metaphorical interpretation of enslavement serves as a decorative and captivating element, the definition of Indiana’s willing slavery to desire and love. The protagonist is indeed not a slave in real life; however, her subjugation to the rooted male dominance and power remains a lasting point of feminist conflict in the novel.

George Sand adheres to a feminist rhetorical approach in illustrating the theme of slavery in the novel, wherein it is primarily liable to the gendered experiences of the white female body. The characters marked as black interpret and enhance apprehensions of race in the nineteenth century in France and French colonies to preserve the socio-economic structures of the Empire. To be more specific, the rhetorical manipulation of slavery as a general discursive ware of the French civil activists of that time is deprived of any obscure political impetus for abolition. It is also important to note that the metaphor of domestic slavery is inherently linked to the examination of the Creole characterization because Sand made her heroine a Creole mainly to reinforce such metaphor. The symbol of women’s enslavement is enhanced with the metonymic depiction of a wife surrounded by slaves, forming the relationship of proximity developing on its own in the novel.

The Differentiations of Creoleness

In the novel, Sand incorporated the multiracialism of two Creole women in the story, Indiana and Noun. Most importantly, there is a definite and robust distinction concerning the acceptance and attitudes toward “Creoleness” of European and non-European origin in the metropole (Yuqiu 52). The author illustrated the complex mechanism of how the metropole dealt with its colonial subjects through the lens of racial bias and established slavery. To be more specific, the multiracial dimension of the Creole population should be critically acknowledged within the novel since it is deeply grounded throughout the book and defines the society of the nineteenth century in France. Two Creole characters are ongoingly contrasted with the French women; however, a poor coherence in depicting the typical features of Indiana and Noun inevitably reveals the ambiguity of the authentic notion of Creoleness. Sand conveyed a message of colonial sexuality through Raymond’s desire of both Creole females, reflecting metropolitan France’s allure to such fantasy.

At the same time, the novel highlights the importance of differentiating the Creole natives of European descent and the Creoles of African and Asian lineage. On the Île Bourbon, which serves as Indiana’s native island, the notion of Creoleness is considered a “malleable concept for the colonists,” encompassing hierarchy (Yuqiu 53). The French identity embodied by Indiana is reinforced by the island’s conservatives and represents the embedded construction of the authentic Frenchness. Indiana’s origin is perceived as the “pure essence of France,” rather than a cross-culturalism product, which remains untainted on the island in the Indian ocean (Yuqiu 53). In contrast, Noun is another Creole character, but with a different background, she is the descendant of slaves. Noun is the offspring of the indentured workers and European colonists, and, thus, she symbolizes the maximum contrast from the concept of Frenchness.

As it can be seen, Indiana is easily recognized as French, although her father is Spanish and her mother is of an unknown origin. Instead, Noun is not presumed French in the novel, which keeps the descendant of slaves in some state of uncertainty regarding her nationality. Therefore, one can argue that the Creole female of non-European background, whether of African or Asian ethnicity, is assumed undesirable. Moreover, she is commonly presented as a dreadful character enhanced by this accepted vision of slaves in nineteenth-century society. Consequently, the underlying love triangle in the plot between Raymond, Indiana, and Noun, represents a new extent of meaning. More specifically, Yuqiu states that Sand employs a “deep structure of metropolitan France’s differential conceptualization” of its subjects under colonial status together with the racial groups (54). Such a structure is based on Raymond’s encounters with two Creole women, representing a pure and genuine Frenchness of the man.

Underlying Racism as the Catalyst for Slavery

Racial connotations and racialized criteria take a special place in defining the manifestations of slavery in Indiana. The deeply entrenched racism in that time society can be seen in Raymond’s behavior towards Noun and his cruel abandonment of her as a mistress with an unborn child. The racism is enhanced when Raymond shows his preference toward Indiana instead of staying responsible for his clandestine encounter with Noun. In addition, Raymond gives Noun a characteristic of a Negro and an Indian, and, thus, he acknowledges the missing “element of European descent” in Noun’s cultural background (Powell and Pratima 47). Instead, this lacking component defines Indiana and marks the reason for Raymond’s preference of her as a lover.

The Sand’s perspective on slavery and its illustration in the novel merits particular attention as a crucial element in the trilateral system of race, class, and gender. These are the features that define George Sand’s oeuvre and her contribution to the literature of the nineteenth century. The author aimed to promote the humanitarian ideas that would later delineate her writing. One should note that the literature about black people from the 1820s formed many fundamental ties between “race and other forms of oppression” (Powell and Pratima 47). Indiana entails race-based enslavement, involving the representatives of different cultural backgrounds and biased societal considerations accordingly. The novel requires enhanced social importance despite the metaphorical quotations and race and slavery in terms of the real issues of race and human bondage.

However, Raymon’s confusion of Indiana with Noun might be regarded as the author’s attempt to blur the lines of racial determinacy in the text. Sand possibly wanted to destroy racial representation essential to colonialist discourse and social structures of that time. The novel presents many racially ambiguous evocations of the “Creoleness concept” (Yuqiu 53). Nevertheless, Indiana remains laden with discussions about biologically defined race, including Ralph’s Creole mix of inherently Spanish and English traits. Colonial perceptions of race dealt with the concerns of racially mixed Creoles while, at the same time, they continued to hold on to their faith in the integral partition of “black” from “white” and related austere racial classifications.

The False Liberties

The Creole character, Indiana, created by George Sand, is captured in the domestic space, wherein she straddles between the feminine ideal and female deviance. Indiana is depicted as both unfaithful and pure in terms of her ignorance of “French domestic freedom” (Powell and Pratima 50). By examining the novel through the prism of Creole representation, one may trace the important role of the debates regarding colonial slavery and imperial nationhood in the nineteenth century. The literature piece by Sand aimed to revise the domestic standards on the side of women through women as a nation. Sand managed to provoke the political responsibility for colonial enslavement and domestic norms established by society.

Furthermore, Indiana examines the system of European laws of nationhood and family institution by including Creole characters in the urban environment and homes and recording the failure of Creole assimilation. In her novel, Sand reevaluates the “female virtue and imperial national identity,” which directly depends on Noun’s death, who is a Creole (Yuqiu 53). Despite all the historical facts regarding the governmental policies advocating for full political and civil rights of people of color, such core principles of philanthropy remained only a theory within the colonial territories. These false liberties promised to colonial subjects in France in the 1830s pervade the final encounter between Indiana and Raymon. In general terms, Restoration France during Napoleon’s reign revealed the joint emancipation of French slaves to remain an empty promise. When Raymon was unable to recognize the Creole woman, the novel proved the displacement of slaves in France.

Understanding the recurring scenes of Creole misrecognition in the novel has a direct linkage to comprehending the theme of slavery and Sand’s multiple approaches to employ it in the text. Such a misinterpretation of a particular cultural background connects the “fates of freed colonial subjects to the metropolitan women” in Indiana (Powell and Pratima 54). The deeply inserted female enslavement through the novel and the lives of Indiana, Noun, and purely French women, demonstrates how they are convicted to such passive citizenship. They are unable to be free and independent subjects in the established marriage system based on patriarchal order and are failed to be recognized for their national identity. It only doubles the experience of being a slave from two different perspectives: being a slave as it is commonly perceived in that time society and being a slave under the husband’s control and marital restrictions. With this being said, Sand’s striking novel identifies the brutal inscriptions of the term free (libre) within a French law and regulations in the nineteenth century after the first French Revolution.

Understanding the Fundamental Slavery in the Novel

George Sand managed to write both a romantic novel and suppressed revolutionary piece using her protagonist as the oppressed French-Creole female attempting to fight for her rights, although contradicting her own self. Another character, Noun, shows the historical undertone of the real slavery recognition in the French society of that time. Sand created the powerful feminist novel that confronted the position of a woman in the society and family and the socio-political ideals that ensured such a position. A narrator clearly states that “woman is naturally foolish” to clarify Indiana’s naive behavior (Sand 192). The author reasonably used a male narrator with a sexist worldview to reveal the established adverse statements about French women, Creole women, and women in general.

Therefore, the novel reveals the male power over oppressed women, referring to females’ weakness based on emotional, physical, and mental aspects. Society has critically failed in empowering and recognizing women by restricting their gender roles. As such, Sand demonstrated a woman trapped in “violent slavery to her husband and society,” justifying women’s subservience to men as an expected natural occurrence (Yuqiu 55). This fundamental disagreement between the grounded attitude towards females and Indiana’s rebellious spirit asserts the vivid feminist motivations behind George Sand’s writings.

Conclusion

By analyzing the central theme of slavery and its multiple perspectives presented in Sand’s novel Indiana, one can state that the novel serves as a social critique of females’ disempowerment. The author attempted to reveal the social injustice of women’s condition in the nineteenth-century society in France. Being a strong feminist herself, Sand created an influential piece based on the radical contradictions of the revolutionary protagonists who failed to act as one. Indiana was fighting against female enslavement; however, she allowed her lover to be considered a slave. Together with the consistent allusions to blacks’ slavery, Sand reveals how the fundamental societal values fail to address the issue of justice, equality, and freedom in the marital and colonial environment. For this reason, the illustrated escape from the restricting and abusive society, Sand’s work became a phenomenal feminist piece, brave enough for the nineteenth-century literature.

References

Okoli, K. Adele. ““Que ne sommes-nous assez riches”: Colonialist Reverie in George Sand’s Indiana.” Nineteenth-Century French Studies, vol. 44 no. 3, 2016, pp. 201–217. Project MUSE. Web.

Pollard, Delaney. George Sand and Her Heroines: Boundary-Breaking Women in the Age of Romanticism. 2020. Baylor University, Honors Thesis.

Powell, David A., and Pratima Prasad. Approaches to Teaching Sand’s Indiana. Modern Language Association, 2016.

Sand, George. Indiana. Oxford University Press, 2001 (first published 1832).

Yuqiu, Meng. “Continue Recanonizing Sand: Creolizing Indiana.” European Journal of Literature and Linguistics, no. 4, 2019, pp. 51–55. Web.

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