NOEMI MARIN

RHETORIC OF EXILIC IDENTITY: A SEARCH FOR REDEFINITION

What is a foreigner? A man who makes you think you are at home.

Exile has been a tragic and continuous social phenomenon throughout human history ( I ) . Today, immigrants, political refu- gees, emigres, and literary exiles populate the world stage, sha- ring migrating conditions, crises of identity, and attempts to ad- just in different societies ( 2 ) . What is exile? Ilie ( 3 ) contends that "exile is a state of mind whose emotions and values respond to separation and severance as conditions in themselves" (2). Sei- del (4) defines an exile as "someone who inhabits one place and remembers or projects the reality of another"; while the condi- tion of exile represents "a metaphor for the alienated or margi- nalized modem consciousness" (xi). For Codrescu the meaning of exile which in Latin is "off base" translates into "a cluster of

(1) An earlier and different version of this study is published the Berlin Institute for Comparative Social Research. See Noemi Marin, (( Eastern Euro- pean Exile and Its Contemporary Condition n, Migration - A European Journal of International Migration and Ethnic Relations, 2002, 41/42.

(2) Edward Said, (( Reflections on Exile )) Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture, eds. R. Ferguson, M. Gever, T.T. Minh-ha, and Cornel West (Cambridge, MA: The MIT P, 1990) 361.

(3) Paul Ilie, Literature and Inner Exile: Authoritarian Spuin 1939- 1975 (Baltimore: The John Hopkins UP: 1980) 1-23.

(4) M. Seidel, Exile and the Narrative Imagination (New Haven: Yale UP. 1986) ix-16.

262 Pluralisrno culturale, razzismo e xenofobia

paradoxes" (j), while for Shain ( 6 ) , exile signifies political exile. Said places exile at the core of political oppression and offers a dramatic insight into this state of difference, which is carried into the new country ('). An exaggerated sense of solidarity; re- sentment or passionate hostility to outsiders; agony; loneliness and despair: all constitute communicative barriers for "a forei- gner perpetually haunted and alone in an uncomprehending so- ciety" (Said 362). In this sense, the exile's newly chosen world remains persistently hostile to his/her difference. Exile and its complex features transcend borders of cultures, societies and ethnic groups, political and governmental regimes as the exiled people leave the native geographical territory to reside in what they hope will be more hospitable environs. Writers, poets, and political exiles have continously brought this sociocultural phe- nomenon to the forefront of alienated experiences in the world.

And yet, perhaps at no other time in human history has the presence of exile been as significant as at the end of the twen- tieth century. In a world and time of heightened tensions brought on by forced migration and the conflictual experience of diaspora, the rhetoric of exile represents more than ever a discourse of transgression.

The discourse of exiles tells the human story of this con- temporary struggle between cultural identity and adjustment ( 8 ) .

Through their discursive accounts, exiles weave distinct elements of culture, migrating conditions, and/or social positions with different sociocultural and political contexts. In their discourse, immigrants-emigrants, exiles, and expatriates unravel rich crea-

( 5 ) Andrei Codrescu, The Disappearance of the Outside (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. 1990).

(6) Y. Shain. The Frontier of Loyalty: Political Exiles in the Age of the Nation-State (Middletown. CT: Wesleyan UP, 1989) 1-28.

(7 ) Edward Said, (( Reflections on Exile, m Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture, eds. R. Ferguson, M. Gever, T.T. Minh-ha, and Cornel West (Cambridge, MA: The MIT P, 1990) 357-366.

(8) Throughout the essay, I use (( exiles )) and (( expatriates n under the umbrella meaning of political and poetical exiled authors. For a more detailed definition of (( political .exile, n see Said. Reflections 362: and for (( poetical exile. )) see Codrescu, The Disappearance 48.

Noerni Marin 263 - - -- - - ---- - --- -

.ical exile. d offers a is carried darity; re- loneliness "a forei-

mnding so- sen world .e and its eties and :he exiled : in what loets, and :ural phe- he world. .y has the the twen- tensions

xperience :n ever a

this con- men1 (8) .

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tive powers, transforming tensions derived from social, political, and cultural elements into complex narratives of identity.

In recent decades, new venues to understand the discourse of exile refer to narratives as re and/or de-constructions of identity in language ('). Foucault writes that "discourse . . . is so complex a reality that we not only can, but should, ap- proach it at different levels with different methods" (I0). Along similar lines of discursive approach, a vast body of scholarship in cultural studies provides some of the closest analyses of exilic discourse and life in dissent. Such literature locates exilic discourse in the liminal of society, showing how expatriation, identity, and culture are confluent in the creation of foreigners' public role in the world. In addition, cultural studies provide useful accounts on the condition of exile in marginalized public spaces, on struggles of legitimation, and/or on negotiations of cultural identity in diasporic contexts. Edward Said and Stuart Hall ("1, themselves exiles, are well known intellectuals wri- ting on exilic experiences and the consequences of antinomic existence in sociopolitical borderlands. Said ( I 2 ) , in " Reflec- tions on Exile," defines the condition of exile, emphasizing in particular the existence in the Outside, in the "nomadic," as a "contrapuntal" Other in the dominant social culture (149). Si- milar to how Said understands the intricate, processual rela- tionships developed between culture and exilic identity, Stuart Hall correlates cultural identity and diasporic context as a two- fold process of recreating frames of reference. Hall ( ' ') descri-

(9) For an ampler discussion of the differences between modernity and postmodernity see Steven Best and Douglas Kellner. Postmodern Theory: Criti- cal Interrogatrons (New York: The Guilford Press, 1991) 34-68.

(10) Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Trans. Alan Sheridan-Smith. (New York: Random House, 1970) xiv.

i l l ) Stuart Hall, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Identity: Cornmu- nity, Culture, Difference, ed.. I. Rutherford. (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990) 222-237.

(12) See also Edward Said, "Representing the Colonized" Critical In- quiry 15 (1989): 205-225.

(13) Hall's first definition of diasporic identity assists exiled intellec-

264 Pluralismo culturale, razzismo e xenofobia

bes diaspora as having (( a necessary heterogeneity and diver- sity, )) a <( hybridity, )) and identifies its existence (( through, not despite, difference, )). In Hall's view, what exile contributes to postcolonial position is precisely the representation of the "in-between," the marginal existence in relation to political [colonial] power ( I 4 ) . Said discusses precisely issues of exilic identity in relation to social and political power (I5). Like Rau- man ( I 6 ) , when showing exile and intellectuals' dislocation, Said relies mostly on the "condition of exile, the state of never being fully adjusted" (47).

As mentioned, Said, Hall, Sarup ( I 7 ) , and Radhakrish- nan ('9, to name only some of the scholars examining postcolo-

tuals to understand the "common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide the[ir] people with stable, unchanging and continuous frames of reference and meaning" (225). The second dimension of exilic iden- tity offers expatriates the ability to transform themselves through processes of ''differenceW(234). Hall writes that:"[C]ultural identity ... is a matter of 'beco- ming' as well as of 'being. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history, and cul- ture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But like every- thing which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialized past, they are subject to the continuous 'play' of history, culture, and power" (225). See Stuart Hall, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora," Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed., J. Rutherford (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990) 222-237.

(14) Ilie shares with Hall the concept of culture as crucial in exilic life. Ilie contends that emigres leave a culture that is well defined historically and geographically as they attempt to exist in a different world, going through a process of deculturalization. Deculturalization or loss of cultural identity in exile represents "a desensitizing process that makes reassimilation a difficult step for expatriates, ... a falling away by residents from the original national whole". See Paul Ilie. Literature and Inner Exile: Authoritarian Spain 1939- 1975 (Baltimore: The John Hopkins UP: 1980) 20.

(15) Edward W. Said, "Intellectual Exile: Expatriates and Marginals". Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures (New York: Pan- theon Books, 1994) 47-65.

(16) Zygmunt Bauman, "Intellectuals in the Postmodem World," Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995) 223-243.

(17) Madan Sarup, Identity, Culture, and the Postmodern World, ed., Tasneem Raja (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996) 46-67.

(18) R. Radhakrishnan. Diasporic Mediations: Between Home and Lo- cation (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996) 155-185.

Noemi Marin 265

and diver- (( through, :ontributes ion of the

political j of exilic Like Bau- slocation, : of never

2dhakrish- postcolo-

red cultural continuous exilic iden- rocesses of :r of 'beco- e past. It is y, and cul- like every- from being continuous ral Identity Rutherford

exilic life. rically and through a identity in a difficult 11 national ain 1939-

[arginals ", 'ork: Pan-

I," Life in 223-243.

'orld, ed.,

and Lo-

nial intellectuals in exile, offer extensive views on exilic identity as the Other in a social and political host culture. However, their main purpose of research lies with the significance of borderlands, and not in the rhetorical discourse offered by exiled voices about the rhetorical impact of exile on voice. In other words, understan- ding << foreignness ,, in its complex rhetorical existence continues to remain a site for interrogations of identity in language.

What is the rhetorical canvas on which exilic voice is con- structed in discourse? And how do exiled authors/rhetors create and/or recreate their identity in rhetorical action? How do these rhetors, in response to exile, capture tensions of different discur- sive relationships? These are some of the questions a rhetorical perspective can address in relation to exile, identity, and their relationships constructed in contemporary discourse.

Alhough some rhetorical interrogations are tangentially ad- dressed by the discourse of the Other in postcolonial scholars- hip, exilic voices coming from Eastern and Central Europe have been analyzed mainly in literary terms. Solzhenytsin, Kundera, Milosz, Cioran, or Eliade are among intellectuals who, while still continuing to pursue careers in new social contexts, speak and write about and as "exiles" from Eastern and Central Eu- rope ( I 9 ) . According to these writers' narratives, exile marks them for ever, becoming their stigma and redemption. As exiled authors/rhetors, their "condition" remains a constant part of their disruptured discourse. Exile as a condition manifests itself not just in exiled writers' literary works but also in their perso- nal re-constructions of identity. Emigrants and writers, these au- thors add to the universal canvas of narratives that enrich "that

(19) See these authors' works that deal specifically with exile, such as: Aleksandr I. Solzhenytsin, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, trans. Thomas R. Whitney (New York: Harper and Row, 1974); Milan Kundera, Milan Kundera and The Art of Fiction: Critical Essays, ed. Aaron Aji (New York: Garland, 1992); Czeslaw Milosz, The Cap- tive Mind, trans. Jane Zielonko (New York: Vintage Books, 1981); Emile M. Cioran, Temptation to Exist, trans. Richard Howard (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970); and Mircea Eliade, 1937-1960, Exile's Odyssey, trans. Mac Lin- scott Ricketts (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988).

266 . .-

Pluralism~ culturale, razzismo e xenofobia - -.

enlightening aspect of 'their' presence among us, not (concentra- ting) on their misery or their demands" (Said 364). Adding new dimension to rhetorical resistance to oppressive action, expatria- tes coming from Eastern and Central Europe offer dramatic and salient accounts of exilic identity in recent times. They also bring rhetorical questions of reconstructing identity in their writings on exilic experience. How, then, does the reality of exile tran- slate into discourse coming from East-Central European voices? What are the ways in which such exiles redefine their rhetorical identity in discourse? And what do such accounts add to the rhetorical perspective at the end of the second millennium?

Joseph Brodsky (*') in an appeal to other exiled writers in Vienna of 1987, defines the problem of exile at the confluence among discourse, questions of identity, and legitimacy of voice. Talking to exiled writers about the oppressive existence of an author in the Outside, Brodsky creates a passionate narrative of expatriation. His account becomes a powerful speech on the sociocultural and rhetorical barriers exile posits to writers left at the margins of another (host) language, away from their for- mer home countries and << dictionaries, >> estranged in discourse, yet with a mission to write against oppression. Thus, sharing with his audience (of expatriate authors) the tragic experience of migration, Brodsky locates exilic condition within discourse. Language, for Brodsky, is a "pendulum" oscillating between mo- ments of "expulsion" into the "capsule" of one's native lan- guage, and "the necessity of telling about oppression" (9-1 1). How, then, can an exiled authorlrhetor reclaim hislher identity in discourse?

Taking Brodsky's speech to be a cultural and rhetorically symptomatic exemplification of exilic voice, this essay argues that expatriate rhetors redefine identity along multiple fragments of discourse. In particular, this study addresses first the rhetori- cal importance of context for exilic voice. And second, Brodsky's

( 2 0 ) Joseph Brodsky. "The Condition We Call Exile," Altogether Elsew- here: Writers on Exile, ed. Marc Robinson. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1994)

Noemi Marin 267

~centra- ng new :pa tria- tic and 2 bring ~r i tings e tran- loices? :torical to the

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account is examined in relation to how discourse and identity establish specific fragmented and multiple tensions of rhetorical voice. Consequently, focusing on Ioseph Brodsky's remarks on exile at a literary conference in Vienna, the essay provides a rhetorical-critical view on reconstitution of identity in the ad- verse conditions of expatriation.

Brodsky's Address: Re-Definition of Exilic Voice

In 1987, Brodsky delivers a speech on the condition of exile, at a literary conference in Vienna, Austria. By this time, Brodsky is already a Nobel Laureate, already a famous exile himself, already a powerful literary force whose exilic identity represents a well established p:-esence in the literary (and politi- cal) arena. Like other critical intellectuals in exile, Brodsky be- longs and contributes to thr social and political context of de- mocratic unrest in East-Central Europe ( 2 ' ) . His speech is delive- red in 1987, a time where a vast number of writers are in exile or in prison under communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe ("). In addition, Brodsky addresses his colleagues in Vienna, one of the most significant gates to freedom from com-

(21) lorgensen, Tismaneanu, Havel, Kundera, Konrad, and Michnik of- fer extensive and significant contributions on the role of critical(and exiled) intellectuals in East-Central Europe. lorgensen contends that critical intellec- tuals are the counter-elite social group "engaged in conflict and collective action and political thinking" (35). See Erik Knud Jorgensen, "The End of Anti-politics in Central Europe", Denzocracy and Civil Society in Eastern Eu- rope. ed. Paul G. Lewis, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990); Vladimir Tismaneanu, Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe from Stalin to Havel (New York: The Free Press, 1992); Vaclav Havel, Summer Meditations. Trans. Paul Wilson.(1992; New York: Vintage Books, 1993); George Konrad, The Melan- choly of Rebirth: Essays from Post-Communist Central Europe. 1989-1994. Trans. Michael Henry Heim (San Diego: Harcourt, 1994); Milan Kundera, "The Tragedy of Central Europe". Trans. Edmund White, From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945, ed. Gale Stokes (1984; New York: OUP, 1991): Adam Michnik, Letters from Prison and Other Essays (Berkeley, U of California P, 1985).

(22) In Reinventing Politics, Tismaneanu offers an extensive account of the creation and function of samizdat literature in East-Central Europe. See Tismaneanu, Reinventing 185.

268 Pluralismo culturale, razzismo e xenofobia

munism. Thus, his rhetorical text on the significance of exilic condition takes rhetorical dimensions within specific geographi- cal and historical context of address.

Speaking about exile as a literary and existential condition, Brodsky creates rhetorical appeals for authors to re-adjust their exilic existence. Reflecting on the characteristics of such identity, Brodsky shares with his emigre writers his thoughts on the neces- sity of re-defining voice, while asking for a difficult participatory task in new sociocultural realities. In spite of all difficulties as exilic writers, in spite of creating discourse in a foreign language, in different sociocultural, hostile environments, in spite of bearing the stigma of marginalization while living a tragicomic existence, Brodsky encourages his audience members to share his purpose for exilic voice. In his conclusive remarks, the poet states that: "our (exilic) condition should serve as a warning to any thinking man toying with the idea of an ideal society. That is our value for the free world. That is our function" (*j) (1 1). Brodsky's address urges exiled authors to act (rhetorically, in my view) through language and speak up against oppression. Brodsky writes that "our (exiled writer) greater value and greater function lie in our being unwitting embodiments of the disheartening idea that a freed man is not a free man, that liberation is just the means of attaining freedom and is not synonymous with it" (1 1).

Thus, one wou\d think that exiled intellectuals, once out- side oppressive regimes, manage to voice their presence in the new public arena, bringing to their transnational audiences ap- peals for democratic values. And yet, throughout his speech, Brodsky remembers and reminds his audience of the distorted, painful, and multiple facets of exilic existence, where no di- scourse is home anymore. Starting from the position that (< lite- ratuye is the greatest-surely greater than any creed- teacher of

(23) Sharing similar views, Kristeva points out that exile as a linguistic force assists intellectuals in bringing about "multiple sublation of the unnamea- ble" forming the "real cutting edge of dissidence" (300). See Julia Kristeva, "A New Type of Intellectual: The Dissident", trans. Sean Hand, The Kristeva Reader. ed. Toril Moi (1977; New York: Columbia UP. 1986) 300.

a - -

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human subtlety, )) (24) the poet reminds his confreres that (< life in exile, abroad, in a foreign element, is essentially a premoni- tion of your fate in book form >>(Brodsky 9). (( Exile >> might not make all writers reside in Paris, or sever authors from all rea- dership. However, in spite of distinct experiences of expatriation for each author, all writers have (( a common denominator )> for what binds all together is the << book-like fate >) of a condition called exile (Rrodsky 9). The poet continues his speech stating that: (( [Flor one in our profession, the condition we call exile is, first of all, a linguistic event: an exiled writer is thrust, or re- treats, into his mother tongue. From being his, so to speak, sword, it turns into his shield, into his capsule. What started as a private, intimate affair with the language, in exile becomes fate-even before it becomes an obsession or a duty u (10) Hence, living with what Baranczak calls "the tongue-tied eloquence," Brodsky's Vienna address calls for intellectuals in exile to rede- fine their identity in the discourse of borders, between native and host languages, between old political oppression and new social insignificance, between former and present silences ( 2 5 ) .

Locating the redefinition of exile at the gates of Western and Eastern Europe, Vienna and the entire rhetorical context of the literary conference add salience to Brodsky's speech. Therefore, let's take a moment and consider the historical context in which his address takes place.

Historical Context: Complex Locus for Exilic Voice

Even before starting his speech, Brodsky has already taken advantage of the rhetorical situation, Vienna of 1987 already constituting a salient rhetorical narrative for his audience. The context of these writers' conference becomes a meta-discourse on expatriation from authoritarian/communist countries. Why? Because the late 1980s mark the dismantling of more than four

(24) Brodsky 4. (25) Baranczak, Stanislaw, Breathing under Water and Other Eust Eu-

ropean Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP) 1990.

270 Pluralismo culturale, razzismo e xenofobia

I

decades of communism in Central Europe. Politically, the year 1987 belongs to the troubled period preceding the 1989 revolu- tions in Eastern and Central Europe (2b). After 1987, with the Soviet Union endorsing certain rights of communist nations to "engage in struggles to democratization" (27) , Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany all advance towards the concept of civil society. However, in 1987, solid dissident move- ments continue to voice the necessity for civil rights in their societies ('". In December 1987, expatriate authors from this part of the world constitute familiar voices of resistance in the European political arena ('9. Such writers represent at the same time audiences for other, synchronic exilic voices as well as co- participants in the ongoing discourse of resistance against oppres- sive sociopolitical systems in the world.

Choosing Vienna as the site for his speech, Brodsky declares that exile plays a missionary role in the literary and political discourse of all European communities at the end of the twen- tieth century. It is no coincidence that Brodsky delivers his speech on exile in Vienna just a couple of years before the Iron -- --

(26) Tismaneanu, Reinventing 115. (27) Tismaneanu, Reinventing 185. (28) Tismaneanu, Reinventing 185. (29) Czeslaw Milosz, Vaclav Havel, Danilo Kis, Gyorgy Konrad, Adam

Michnik. Milan Kundera, and many others dissidents and exiles can provide enough entries for a contemporary dictionary of Eastern European dissent. Differentiated from the power elite in their countries of origin, critical intel- lectuals represent the troublemakers whose discourse constitutes the rhetoric of opposition. Tismaneanu, in Reinventing Politics, writes that: (< [I]n Central Europe intellectuals played a crucial role in articulating values and defending the cultural memory of nations long deprived of state existence. In Poland. Hungary, Czechoslovakia. and Romania intellectuals were widely perceived as moral standard-bearers )). See Tismaneanu, Reinventing 1 1.

(30) By the mid-80s these writers' essays are known both outside and inside their countries through the underground media. Classical writings are Havel's "The Power of the Powerless", (1979), Kundera's essay on Central Europe. (1984) and Konrad's "Antipolitics" written in 1984. All these literary works transcend national borders as they become popularized throughout Ea- stern and Central Europe as manifestos of freedom. See Gale Stokes, ed., From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945 (New York: Oxford UP, 1991).

the year 3 revolu- with the ltions to Poland,

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Curtain falls. According to Brown, most political refugees esca- ping from communist regimes go through Vienna. Consequently, Amnesty International and other world organizations have head- quarters in Vienna (Brown 287). In addition, located at the geo- graphic border between communism and the free world, Vienna represents the metaphoric limit of freedom for all the nations of the region. Expatriates percieve Vienna as a city of hope, a place from where their actions and speeches will somehow be heard, over Austrian borders, inside their native countries. Brodsky's speech delivered in the Austrian capital brings his audiences as co-participants and insiders/outsiders on the stage where the lron Curtain needs to fall, Consequently, the historical context in which Brodsky addresses the significance of exile bears rhetorical salience to his appeal. Brodsky's call for exilic voice adds tempo- rary and spatial rhetorical tensions to a dramatic and multivalent discourse of expatriation in the Europe of 1987.

Exilic Voice: Fragmented, Multiple Identities

As mentioned, for writers like Brodsky, living in exile means existence at the intersection of multiple tensions of di- scourse. Living fragmented realities, humbled by life experiences and a "quest for significance," torn between past and present, expatriate authors embody a tragic condition of re-definition in language (Brodsky 4). What are, then, some of the loci for rhe- torical voice in exile?

Speaking to his literary confrerie, Brodsky depicts the drama of exiled writers as people struggling between "humility" and "an appetite for recognition," while experiencing the "meta- physical dimension" of the "reality of exile" in their "quest for significance" (6-7). Posited between the ability to appreciate the "social and material advantages of democracy far more intensely then its natives are" and finding themselves "totally unable to play any meaningful role in (their) new society" ( 3 ' ) , expatriated

(31) Brodsky 4.

Pluralismo culturale, razzismo e xenofobia

authors live this condition as "fate" (10). Yet, this distorted destiny justifies these authors' mission to speak "about oppres- sion" as exile "should serve as a warning" ( 1 I ) . Utilizing litera- ture as their form of expression, experiencing exile as a traumatic condition of humility, remembering the political oppression in their countries of origin, literary emigres are caught among mul- tiple tensions of interpreting social reality. Brodsky states that:

[llt would seem to me that the condition we call exile is due for a fuller explication: that, famous for its pain, it should also be known for its pain-dulling infiniteness, for its forgetfulness, detachment, indif- ference, for its terrifying human and inhuman vistas for which we have no yardsticks except ourselves (10-1 1 ) .

Thus, emphasizing how exilic tensions converge in rhetori- cal action, Brodsky argues that flexible, discontinuous usage of language shapes these writers' very identity.

Language represents, for exiled authors, a discontinuous dimension, fragmenting and at the same time, uniting writing and readership. Brodsky states that, on the one hand, "one is left with oneself and one's own language, with nobody and no- thing in between" (10) and on the other, "exile" as a "moment of departure" has no name, for it "lacks a name" (9). Language tells a broken story of identity, being, as Brodsky observes, a "capsule" gravitating into isolation, outside the new society, ac- celerating living in the condition [of exile] where "all one [exiled writer] is left with is oneself and one's own language, with no- body and nothing in between" (10). Sharing similar views with Kristeva and Said, Brodsky emphasizes that language assists exi- les to merge and disperse interpretations of reality through their discourse ( j2) . The condition of exile becomes a "linguistic event" which shifts between a "shield" and/or a "sword," beco- ming an "obsession or a duty," having a "centrifugal propensity- and propulsion" (Brodsky 10). Clearly, in Brodsky's view, lan- --

(32) Brodsky writes: (( But perhaps our greater value and greater func- tion lie in our being unwitting cmbodiments of the disheartening idea that a freed man is not a free man, that liberat~on is just the means of attaining freedom and is not synonymous with it )) ( 1 1)

Noemi Marin 273

s distorted )ut oppres- zing litera- 1 traumatic ~ression in mong mul- ~tes that:

e is due for be known

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in rhetori- s usage of

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:ater func- jea that a ' attaining

guage and discourse interact continuously as living forces that influence expatriated authors' everyday existence as well as their literary works.

Yet, unlike any other existence, exilic identity forces au- thors into fragmentation of linguistic expression. Brodsky, one more time, reminds us that:

[I]f one would assign the life of an exiled writer a genre, it would have to be tragicomedy. Because of his previous incarnation, he is capable of appreciating the social and material advantages of democracy far more intensely than its natives are. Yet for precisely the same reason (whose main byproduct is the linguistic barrier) he finds himself totally unable to play any meaningful role in his new society. The democracy into which he has arrived provides him with physical safety but rcnders him socially insignificant (4).

Brodsky reminds his audiences how exile becomes the rhe- torical "traversee" through which writers converge/diverge their existence in literary works, offering metonynlic narratives of so- cial, cultural, and political realities in worlds present and/or past. Exile gives authors "that kind of opportunity" to present in their discourse fears of oppression, to argue social responsibi- lities, and to influence "any thinking man" on the values of the "free world" (Brodsky 11) . In Brodsky's account, expatriation becomes a rhetorical condition, where in response to disconti- nous and plural contexts of contradictory existence, authors as rhetors create and re-create their voice in language. Hence, wri- ters participating in the rhetorical condition of exile constitute themselves at the intersection of fragmented identities, where no singular discursive strategy can be utilized.

In addition, Brodsky points in his speech precisely to coexi- stent, plural places and times for exilic voice. Thus, authors par- ticipate in language by revealing how exilic fragments of identity are located at the intersection of multiple temporal and spatial dimensions of rhetorical discourse. For example, in response to exile, rhetors shift continuously between former and present time and space in their reconstruction of identity. Any exiled writer's eyes are (( firmly trained on his (her) past >> observes Brodsky (8). Such authors converge polychronic time as they are "retrospec-

274 Pluralisrno culturale, razzismo e xenofobia -- -- -

tive" beings "overshadowing reality and dimming the future "in order to justify their existence as emigres (Brodsky 7). Brodsky cannot escape the fragmentation of voice, as exiled authors punc- tuate in discourse how time transforms the kaleidoscopic spec- trum of their condition. The poet states that:

a writer in exile is by and large a retrospective and retroactive being. In other words, retrospection plays an excessive role - compared with other people's lives - in his existence, overshadowing his reality and dimming the future into something thicker than its usual pea soup (6) .

Exilic voice, in Brodsky's approach, bears multiple, discon- tinuous mirrors of temporal existence. "This retrospective ma- chinery is constantly in motion in an exiled writer" in re-expe- riencing the past as "a safe territory", postponing the tomorrow, intensifying "the repetitiveness of nostalgia" both in literary works and in everyday life (Brodsky 8 ) . Thus, expatriated au- thors write with a palette of past, present, and/or future colors, reminiscing of old or present linguistic lands of expression. Exile triggers in writers the (( retrospective machinery >> where, (( whe- ther pleasant or dismal, the past is always a safe territory, if only because it is already experienced >> (8). For, (( [eJven having gai- ned the freedom to travel, >> any expatriate author will cr stick in his (her) writing to the familiar material of his(her) past >>

(Brodsky 6). And all of these multiple points of retrospection in discourse function merely cr not for cherishing or grasping thc past ... but more for delaying the arrival of the present, >>

yet another time of strangeness (Brodsky 8). But, is it only on the temporal axis that expatriates find

their voice in multiple locations? The rhetorical existence in exile hosts multiple and frag-

mented places of voice in discourse. Past and present times ent- wine with homeland and new cultures, old and new geographical locations delineate the strange territory of exile. What are, then, the rhetorical fragments called cc place >> in exilic discourse?

One rhetorical locus from where authors participate in di- scourse is constituted in the metaphoric country of literature, between the literary idiom from back home and the possible

-6 'l't. lUture "in new anonymity in host language. What the exilic condition trig- lSky 7). Brodsky gers for such writers is to accelerate their awareness of place, 'd authors punt- locating them (( into the condition in which all one is left with is idoscopic spec- oneself and one's own language, with nobody and nothing in

between >> (BrodskylO). Fearing the present and the unknown and retroactive culture, Brodsky observes that (( to be lost in mankind, in the

)le , 'Ompared crowd ... among billions; to become a needle in the proverbial

5 his reality and I haystack ... that's what exile is all about >> (5). The condition of

pea soup (6) exile becomes a visit in language to different spaces of identity. t i~le. discon- Here, authors articulate their discursive works from "a dictionary $Pective ma- of the language in which life speaks to man" as they merge their

literarv and rhetorical existence in isolated places of expulsion ' tomorrow, with a "gigantic library's reading room" where readers can find in li terarv out how exilic fragments of identity coexist (Brodsky 9-1 1). Thus,

along with articulating 'home,' Brodsky acutely points towards Ire colors, the rhetor's dis-place-d and/or mis-place-d existence in and ion. Exjje through exilic discourse. For him, exiled writers live (( abroad, in ej whe- a foreign element" as a premonition of "fate in book form, of Y r if only being lost on the shelf" while being forced to "abandon his(her)- ring gai- country" and drift into lands of "isolation" (Brodsky 9-10). stick in As mentioned, expatriates add to discourse rhetorical con- past >) cepts of "home," "past," or "present" as plural fragments of

Pection voice. Like Codrescu, "home" for exiled authors and Brodsky 'asping himself represents living within the paradoxical, plural (my em- 'sent, )) phasis) position of outsider and insider simultaneously. The land

on which the exile lives is the "Outside," a "vast, expansive, 9 find changeable, paradoxical, perverse (condition), traversed by all

escape routes" (Codrescu 107). "Reality" for such writers consists frag- of "fighting and conspiring to restore his (the writer's) signifi- ent- cance" both for the "folks home" and for the "village of h ~ s ical fellow emigres" (Brodsky 5-6). Thus, the rhetorical loci of exilic en, identity become in Barthean terms "metonymic" and without "clo-

sure," a woven texture in which past memories, literary works, 3- and everyday lives function as a palimpsest into reality ('j). Space

I e ( 3 3 ) Roland Barthes, " From Work to Text", Methods of Rhetoricul 1

276 Pluralismo culturale, ruzzismo e xenofobia

and time collapse in discourse, as authors redefine their identity along fragments of multiple locations and time(s). Again and again, Brodsky's address reveals how the rhetoric of exile assists writers to converge existence and literary works by offering meto- nymic narrativcs of social, cultural, and political realities in worlds present and past.

Consequently, Brodsky's explorations of alienated identity I in plural space and time open rhetorical discourse to multiple redefinitions of exilic voice. The fluidity of Brodsky's text posits speaker, initial audiences, extended audience members, and di- scourse itself at the crossroads of divergent identities in exile. And yet, why do such rhetorical tensions become salient for the contemporary public arena?

Plural and Fragmented Identity: Exilic Voice Revisited i

As argued, exilic discourse captures precisely disconti- nuous, fragmented voices, calling for re-definition and re-inter- pretation of Otherness in the contemporary world. Viewing text and context as co-participants in creating meanings, exilic di- scourse assists in understanding the dynamic relationships bet- ween culture and identity. Central is a rhetorical re-constitution of voice in discourse, in that it transcends singular, limited defi- nitions of exilic identity and crcates new, plural ones for both rhetors and their audiences. When defining and redefining their identities, expatriate authors attempt to bring forward an under- standing of their personal experiences in relation to the multiple cultures they live in, and with audience who instantiate those cultures. In doing so, rhetors call forth new understandings of their own identities within rhetorical action.

Consequently, expatriates' discourse opens up possibilities for rhetorical investigations on contextual interactions among historical circumstances, author/audience(s) participation, and

Criticism: A Twentieth-Century Perspective, eds. Bernard L. Brock, Robert L. Scot t , and James W . Chesebro. 3rd ed. (1979: Detroit: W a y n e State UP, 1990) 44 1-447.

sibilities among

on, and

Robert L. JP. 1990)

identity rain and e assists lg meto- lities in

identity multiple rrt posits and di-

in exile. t for the

disconti- re-inter- ring text mxilic di- lips bet- stitution ted defi- for both ng their I under- multiple te those dings of

Noemi Marin 277

different views on occurrences (j4). The exiles' history of a past in former homelands merge with shattered images of existence in scattered place and time contextual frames, bringing in discourse narratives far apart. Like Brodsky, Edward Said adheres to di- scontinuity ( 3 5 ) as an exilic axis of identity as he writes that "exile is life outside habitual order. It is nomadic, decentered, contrapuntal; but no sooner does one get accustomed to it than its unsettling force erupts anew" (366). Said states that:

[elxile is fundamentally a discontinuous state of being. Exiles are cut off from their roots, their land, their past ... Exiles feel ... an urgent need to reconstitute their broken lives, usually by choosing to see them- selves as part of a triumphant ideology or a restored people. The crucial thing is that a state of exile free from this triumphant ideology-designed to reassemble an exile's broken history into a new whole-is virtually unbearable, and virtually impossible in today's world (360).

Hence, taking into rhetorical consideration plural and di- scontinuous narratives of exile, how can such discourse enrich contemporary scholarship? The rhetoric of exile constitutes a dynamic and complex articulation of voice; calling for re-concep- tualization of the traditional relationships between rhetors and their audiences, the discourse of exile reveals discontinuous, ten- sioned contexts of rhetorical interaction. Brodsky's speech on cc the condition we call exile >> illuminates how distorted identi- ties, negotiations of difference in (oppressive) societies, and mul- tiple sociopolitical contexts becomes one more opportunity to visit the infiniteness of "human vistas" in discourse.

(34) Carole Blair, Marsha S. Jeppeson, and Enrico Pucci, Jr. "Public Memorializing in Postmodernity: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial as Proto- type", Critical Questions: Invention, Crt.ativity, and The Criticism of Discourse and the Media, eds. William L. Nothstine, Carole Blair, and Gary A. Copeland ( 1 99 1: New York: St Martin's Press, 1994) 355.

(35) Abdul JonMohamed's account of Said's writings on exile empha- size precisely this angle of analysis. See Abdul JonMohamed, "Wordliness-wi- thout-World, Homelessness-as-Home: Toward a Definition of the Specular Bor- der Intellectual", Edward Said: A Critical Reader, ed. Michael Sprinker (Cam- bridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992) 96-121.