Since human beings have existed, storytelling has been an essential part of culture in which it preserves memories, stories, moral values, and traditions. Stories have also been used to understand the complexities and losses of life. In his novel, Texaco, Patrick Chamoiseau highlights the significance of stories and how their techniques reflect the nature of cultures through framing and stories.
The Technique of Framing
One of the ways Chamoiseau structures his story, Texaco, is through the technique of framing which was popularly used in oral cultures such as Creole. Framing tells the story inside of another story. This technique is scattered all throughout the novel. Specifically, Esternome’s mother tells Esternome a story, who tells it to his daughter, Marie-Sophie, who tells the Christ. Marie-Sophie tells this story to Chamoiseau’s alter ego, Oiseau de Cham, who tells the story to readers. The framing can go on.
A possible reason why framing is important could be power structures. Lee Haring, a professor emeritus and researcher on oral literature, writes that “stratified societies favor frame-stories” (“Framing in Oral Narrative” 229). Stratified societies are those that contain sections among people. In Texaco, there is a class system. One possible reason for this favor might be found in Haring’s words: “people in marginal cultures, people oppressed by the encroachment of international capitalism- often make use of traditional verbal art as a means of deconstructing dominant ideologies and expressive forms” (241). In other words, structuring stories in ways that have layers reflects the very system they seek to bring down and rebuild. Chamoiseau uses framing not only because it is a cultural norm, but also because it may undermine the system he is firmly against. However, while framing is an important literary component, it “ultimately remains to be studied” (“Techniques of Creolization” 25).
Chamoiseau’s novel is complex in that it not only includes cultural techniques but that it encapsulates the nature of culture. Texaco was written using a mixture of Creole and French which speaks to the complexity of the novel. Although framing was mostly used in predominantly oral cultures, Haring also proposes that is a very human thing that is used universally: “Framing is more than a mechanism; it is a human habit (Goffman) and a cultural universal” (“Framing in Oral Narrative” 230). Framing is something that everyone does, whether it is a cultural technique or not, and it applies to every culture. Just as it was said before that stratified societies use framing to perhaps move through the levels that they cannot in their culture, it is also viable to then conclude that people from all cultures use framing to move through levels where they feel stuck in their personal lives and cultures. As Haring describes it, what is framing except a “people’s habit of interrupting their discourses, of going to another level?” (230). Framing creates a complexity of layers. Since humans are very complex, then it can be concluded that cultures are complex, especially as they fuse together.
Why Stories Matter
Stories are often used as a tool to understand the moments in life that are hard to grasp. It is for this very reason, perhaps, that Chamoiseau wrote this novel. One such example is when Esternome tells Marie-Sophie fantastical stories of how Ninon left to make sense of her disappearance (Chamoiseau 146). The inclusion of this part of Texaco’s story highlights the significance of stories as they not only create a culture but also give a person a place to process the hard, complex, deep disappointments of life as Esternome did.
Not only are stories used to cope, but they are also used to preserve life although Marie-Sophie holds tension with this. She tells Oiseau de Cham that as she was writing about her Esternome she began to “die a little” as “each written sentence coated a little of him, his Creole tongue, his words, his intonation, his laughs, his eyes, his airs, with formaldehyde” (Chamoiseau 321). As Marie-Sophie wrote about her papa, she was capturing him, but she could not fully capture Esternome due to a language barrier and perhaps even due to the translation from real life to paper. Stories may not perfectly preserve life and cultures, but they do allow for them to live on in some way, however imperfectly that is.
Final Thoughts
Chamoiseau structures his novel in such a complex, culturally diverse way that it often confuses readers. Despite its complex nature, Texaco captures the complex nature of culture and an interconnected world while crafting an emotional story about life in all its sufferings, hopes, and victories. Intentionally or unintentionally, Chamoiseau writes a story that leaves readers grappling with the realities of living life in a globalized world.
Works Cited
Chamoiseau, Patrick. Texaco. Translated by Rose-Myriam Rejouis and Val Vinokurov, Vintage International, 1997.
Haring, Lee. “Framing in Oral Narrative.” Marvels & Tales, vol. 18, no. 2, 2004, pp. 229–45, https://doi.org/10.1353/mat.2004.0035.
—. “Techniques of Creolization.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 116, no. 459, 2003, pp. 19–35, https://doi.org/10.1353/jaf.2003.0010.
Editorial Collective
Kayla Doerr, Sage Biggers, Nikolai Careaga
