Folklore Narrative and Six Novels

In an essay on the search for narrative archetypes present in great literature, Northrop Frye says that it is important to consult "preliterary categories such as ritual, myth, and folk tale" (646). In folk customs and aesthetic artifacts can be found the impulse of human beings to "synchronize human and natural energies by way of song and festivals" (648). The "preliterary" designation is decisive because it implies folklore's oral as opposed to formal or written narrative tradition. The distinction between written and oral tradition has also been suggested by a distinction between the fairy tale and the folk tale: "The folk tale is part of a precapitalist people's oral tradition expressing social struggles and aspirations. The fairy tale is the bourgeois counterpart" (Zipes 116). Despite the difficulty of pinning own a unitary definition of the folklore tradition, it seems c

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nces between the two worlds he straddles and the fact of his differentiation from each of those worlds because he appreciates the difference. When living in the village, he describes himself as being "on the circumference of two worlds" (244) and an exile or alien in each of them. Whereas G makes the difficult decision to leave a loved home culture for the hazards and opportunities of formal culture, Lovelace's character George in Salt makes the choice of remaining attached to his indigenous culture in Trinidad with a view toward developing and transforming it from within. The themes are wide in scope because they demand that the central character confront the double effect of strong narrative tradition, one that both celebrates and circumscribes the experience of those born into the tradition. The novel opens with a folktale of escape by Guinea John, George's ancestor, from the horrors of harsh reality in the period when Trinidad was a center of Negro slavery. The theme of escape, indeed, dominates George's life since he has always been on the outside even within his cultural circle. He does not get invited to be on the cricket team, but he does get invited to be a teacher by the government, and he longs to escape the confinemen
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Approximate Word count = 3303
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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