SOURCE: "Pigments—A Dialogue with Self," in Critical Perspectives on Léon-Gontran Damas, edited by Keith Q. Warner, Three Continents Press, 1988, pp. 99-110.

[Hurley is a Barbadian educator and critic. In the following essay, which was originally published in the journal Black Images in 1974, he interprets Pigments as an internal dialogue.]

It is understandable that it has been the practice to identify Léon Damas, the author of Pigments, as one of the leaders, along with Césaire and Senghor, of the Négritude movement. It is beyond question that the orientation of his first collection of poetry, published in 1937, around the themes of color and race, assimilation and colonization, as well as his expressed support of the ideals of Négritude lend weight to such a claim. It is true, too, that, like Césaire and Senghor, he demonstrated that his commitment to the principle of black liberation was not restricted to mere writing, however effective and important this may be, by engaging actively in politics in French Guyana. However, it would not be unfair to say of him that he lacks the poetic vision of Césaire and the cultural self-confidence of Senghor, or that, in the political sphere, he lacks the charismatic appeal of both of his colleagues. The simple fact is that he is not, either in politics or in literature, a leader.

As the present study will demonstrate, even though Pigments may be regarded as the first political statement in poetry by a French Caribbean writer, basically Damas is not speaking here on behalf of or to the particular racial group with which he identifies; he is really speaking for and to himself. Pigments, in fact, emerges as essentially a personal, if not private statement, which involves a conversation that the poet holds with himself. In order to understand this more clearly, we need to consider the components of the personality and sensibility of Damas which lead him to produce such poetry; we need to see Damas as an extremely sensitive individual, whose attitude to himself and to life in general was complicated by certain experiential factors: for example, his sickliness as a child, the assimilated bourgeois environment in which he was brought up, his experience of racial prejudice and ridicule in Paris, as well as, of course, his association with Césaire, Senghor and other black students in the metropolis. This list of factors, though obviously not comprehensive, is sufficient to suggest that racial consciousness should not be the sole or even major framework within which the poetry of Damas should be approached. His early physical fragility and his evident general psychological insecurity, strongly suggest repression and introversion as well as the constantly suppressed desire to react violently, and certainly predispose him to oversensitive responses to the stimuli provided by social contacts. This internal tension with which he has to cope can be observed throughout Pigments and in fact acts as the motive force behind his poetry. Whatever balance Damas is able to maintain depends on his self-control, on his exploitation of poetry itself as a kind of safety-valve, as is illustrated by his use of understatement and ellipsis, and ironic self-directed humor. It would therefore be a mistake to regard Pigments simply as committed "black" literature, created directly and deliberately out of the author's sense of responsibility towards his people. It would be fairer to Damas to consider it as a means of maintaining equilibrium, and as a dialogue between the poet and his inner self.

Pigments demonstrated Damas' concern over the two major problems which he is trying to resolve: on the one hand, the problem of defining his identity; on the other, that of examining the choices of response to his situation that are open to him. In other words, it is as if he continually asks himself both "who am I?" and "what am I to do?" Because there is no simple or straightforward answer to either question he is forced to enter into a kind of poetic dialogue with himself in order to clarify the issues involved.

As far as the first question is concerned, Damas' approach is to consider himself in relation to others, to base his identity on the recognition of a difference that exists between himself and a "they" that he not only does not have to qualify but also about whom he is rarely explicit. His answer to this question, therefore, is obviously "I am not 'they'". This accounts for the frequency with which this "moi"/"ils" ("I"/"they") distinction occurs throughout Pigments. In the first poem of the collection, "Ils sont venus ce soir," the undefined "they" exist only in opposition to an "I" whose African identity is not stated, but merely suggested by the dedication of the poem to Senghor, by the reference to tom-toms, as well as by the implied historical fact of slavery:

        Ils sont venus ce soir où le
        tam
          tam
            roulait de
              rythme
                en
                  rythme
                    la frénésie
        des yeux

..…

        DEPUIS
        combien de MOI MOI MOI
        sont morts
 
        They came that night when the
          tom
            rolled out from
              rhythm
                to
                  rhythm
                    the frenzy
        of eyes

..…

        SINCE THEN
        how many I I I
        have died

In this case the "they", which he is not, are evidently the original European exploiters of the African continent. He makes the same distinction, between himself as African and exploited and Europeans as exploiters, in "Limbé," as he expresses strong nostalgic longing for his "black dolls", the equally vague "they" being presented as thieves and robbers: "A l'oeil de ma méfiance ouvert trop tard / Ils ont cambriolé l'espace que était mien" (Before the eyes of my mistrust open too late / they have looted the space that was mine). The inner dialogue, therefore, enables him to define himself not only as being different from these "others" but also as having been exploited by them. As he pursues the conversation, he establishes a clear line of continuity between the original exploiters and contemporary "theys" (obviously white Europeans) who seek to rob him of a meaningful identity:

      Se peut-il donc qu'ils osent
      me traiter de blanchi
      alors que tout en moi
      aspire à n'être que nègre
      autant que mon Afrique
      qu'ils on cambriolée
                ("Blanchi")
 
      Is it then possible that they dare
      treat me as near-white
      when everything in me
      aspires to be only black
      as black as my Africa
      that they have looted

To the factor of the exploited/exploiter distinction is added that of a color, i.e. black/white, distinction and implicitly also an Africa/Europe distinction. This means that he further defines himself as African and as black. So far the conversational line is dependent mainly on Damas' historical perspective. What is of pre-eminent importance to him, however, is his relation to the world in which he is living. He has, therefore, to direct the topic to a discussion of his present situation, which is characterized for him by a feeling of acute discomfort, arising out of the fact of his assimilation into a society that he regards as alien, as his continued use of the "I/they" distinction illustrates:

       J'ai l'impression d'être ridicule
       dans leurs souliers
       dans leur smoking
       dans leur plastron
       dans leur faux-col
       dans leur monocle
       dans leur melon
                  ("Solde")
 
       I feel ridiculous
       in their shoes
       in their dinner-jacket
       in their shirt-front
       in their collar
       in their monocle
       in their bowler-hat

Within the same contemporary context, the essentially existential discomfort he experiences within the alien society (which we know to be European, although he has not defined it expressly as such) is paralleled by a similar discomfort in the sphere of European political and racial chauvinism, as he realizes and implies that the relationship between colonized blacks and white colonizers (presumably French) is no different from that between Jews and Nazis:

      A ce moment-là seul
      comprendrez-vous donc tous
      quand leur viendra l'idée
      bientôt cette idée leur viendra
      de vouloir vous en bouffer du nègre
      à la manière d'Hitler
      bouffant du juif
      sept jours fascistes
      sur
      sept
                                   ("S.O.S.")
 
      Then and only then
      will you all understand
      when it occurs to them
      and it will soon occur to them
      to want to stuff themselves with niggers
      just like Hitler
      stuffing himself with jews
      seven fascist days
      out of
      seven

He makes the further point to himself, therefore, that there exists a direct connection between the original enslavement and exploitation of his black African ancestors and the more recent colonization and assimilation and potential extermination of blacks like himself. As he attempts to clarify the issues involved, to establish a separate identity, he suggests another difference between the self he wants to isolate and preserve and a civilization which he can reject as having been and as still being degenerate and decaying:

        et mon rêve qui se nourrit du bruit de leur
        dé-
           gé-
              né-
                 rescence
        est plus fort que leurs gourdins d'immondices
                  ("Shine")
 
        and my dreams that feed on the noise of their
        de-
           gen-
               er-
                  ation
        is stronger than their cudgels of filth

This first part of the dialogue, in which he attempts to resolve the problem of his identity, is the only one which results in a definite conclusion; he is completely sure that he (exploited, black and African) is not "they" (exploiters, whites and Europeans); this is the only fact of the reality of his existence about which he has no doubt. As we shall see shortly, the other possible answers he suggests to the question "whom am I?" reveal a profound uncertainty, in the sense that in each case he seems to qualify whatever response he gives by saying to himself "yes, but I don't want to be". Every other aspect of his identity is affected by environmental factors which he has to concede grudgingly but which he should like to reject as alien. The poem "Hoquet", for example, admirably illustrates his unwillingness to accept the fact that he is as well the product of an early bourgeois upbringing which he despises and regards as one of the great tragedies of his life:

      Et j'ai beau avaler sept gorgées d'eau
      trois à quatre fois par vingt-quatre heures
      me revient mon enfance
      dans un hoquet secouant
      mon instinct
      tel le flic le voyou
      Désastre
      parlez-moi du désastre
      parlez-m'en
 
      And in vain I swallow seven mouthfuls of water
      three or four times in every twenty-four hours
      my childhood returns to me
      in a hiccup shaking
      my instinct
      like a cop shaking a hooligan
 
      Disaster
      tell me about disaster
      tell me about it

He realizes his impotence to escape the "disaster" of his early life, he is, as he is forced to admit, inevitably and involuntarily (as the "hiccup" image indicates) what particularly his assimilated, class-conscious mother made him. Similarly, despite his claims of being different from the "they" we discussed above, he has to face the bitter truth that he is assimilated into "their" civilization. What goes through his mind is that whilst he is not basically like "them", he has nevertheless become like "them", even though he does not want to be:

      J'ai l'impression d'être ridicule
      parmi eux complice
      parmi eux souteneur
      parmi eux égorgeur
      les mains effroyablement rouges
      du sang de leur ci-vi-li-sa-tion
                   ("Solde")
 
      I feel ridiculous
      an accomplice among them
      a pimp among them
      a murderer among them
      my hands horribly red
      with the blood of their
      civ-il-i-za-tion

The discomfort which he experiences helps him to understand more clearly his own complicity. He has the courage, however, to face up to this aspect of his identity, which is brought out mainly through the honesty and lucidity with which the inner dialogue is conducted. Ironically, both his discomfort and his awareness of complicity help him to realize that he is, additionally, an exile in the alien environment of Paris; it is precisely because he has no desire to be that he conjures up visions of his own black women:

      Rendez-les moi mes poupées noires
      qu'elles dissipent
      l'image des catin blêmes
      marchands d'amour qui s'en vont viennent
      sur le boulevard de mon ennui
                   ("Limbé")
 
      Give them back to me my black dolls
      to erase
      the image of the pale sluts
      dealers in love who walk up and down
      on the boulevard of my boredom

The fact is that Damas' integrity and frankness with himself continually reveal to him and to us aspects of his identity which, literally, he can hardly stomach. It is for this reason that there are several references in Pigments to his experiencing sensations of nausea. [In a footnote, Hurley states that this is particularly evident in the poems "Obsession", "Il est des nuits", and "Rappel".] This is related, too, to the fact that one of the most pervasive emotions felt by Damas when he looks clear-sightedly at himself is a feeling of shame, which finds its most direct expression in "Réalité":

        De n'avoir jusqu'ici rien fait
        détruit
        bâti
        osé
        à la maniére
        du Juif
        du Jaune
        pour l'évasion organisée en masse
        de l'infériorité
 
        C'est en vain que je cherche
        le creux d'une épaule
        où cacher mon visage
        ma honte
        de
          la
            Ré
              a
               li
                 té
 
        Having so far done nothing
        destroyed nothing
        built nothing
        dared nothing
        like Jews
        and the Yellow races
        for the organized mass escape
        from inferiority
 
        In vain I seek
        the hollow of a shoulder
        to hide my face
        my shame
        of
        Re
          a
           li
             ty

Evidently, in talking to himself, Damas is struck forcefully by the tragic futility of his existence. His analysis of his identity in Pigments may be regarded as both the result and the expression not only of a deep-rooted feeling of impotence, as far as revolutionary action is concerned, but also of, as he admits, an inability finally to move outside himself, to be anything but egocentric—a basic personality trait which he would like to reject:

        Trêve un instant
        d'une vie de bon enfant
        et de désirs
        et de besoins
        et d'égoismes
        particuliers
                  ("Trêve")
 
        Enough for a while
        of a good boy life
        and of private
        desires
        needs
        and selfishness

This indicates clearly Damas' recognition of the essentially personal motives that lie at the root of most of his actions. The identity about which he is most concerned is not that of the mass of exploited black people but simply his own.

Having closely examined himself in an attempt to define who and what he is, Damas still has to explore the choices of action and reaction that are available to him. The second part of the dialogue, therefore, centers around discussion of the question which he poses to himself: "what am I to do?" Note that, as I am suggesting, Pigments is fundamentally a dialogue, so that whatever responses Damas makes are not intended to be stimuli to action that may be taken either by Damas himself or by others but simply as possibilities which he considers but which may finally be rejected. What emerges clearly from his examination of the question of his identity is his acute dissatisfaction with his condition as an exploited black man vis-à-vis European whites. It is to be expected, therefore, that he should want to change such a condition, even to react, and violently, against the unacceptable and unbearable situation in which he finds himself. There is, undoubtedly, running through Pigments, a strong suggestion of almost uncontrollable hatred and violent emotion. It is significant, however, in support of the contention that Pigments is really a dialogue, rather than an incitement to revolutionary action to be taken by blacks or even the expression of a commitment to the ideal of black liberation, that only once in the entire collection of poems, in "Si Souvent", does Damas suggest directly the necessity for violent revolt as a solution to his present problems:

        Et rien
        rien ne saurait autant calmer ma haine
        qu'une belle mare
        de sang
        faite
        de ces coutelas tranchants
        qui mettent à nu
        les mornes à rhum
 
        And nothing
        nothing could still my hatred
        as much as a fine pool
        of blood
        made
        by those sharp cutlasses
        which lay bare
        the hills of rum

Even here, it must be noted, Damas' concern is purely personal; he is interested in the therapeutic value which violence, significantly performed by somebody else, may hold for him. In other poems, although Damas considers violent action, it is not regarded as a viable possibility in the present, but, as the tense he favors in this context indicates, as a possibility that belongs to the future:

      mais quelle bonne dynamite
      fera sauter la nuit
      les monuments comme champignons
      qui poussent aussi
      chez moi
                   ("Sur une carte postale")
 
      But what good dynamite
      will blow up at night
      the monuments like mushrooms
      that grow too
      in my country

There are two points of interest here: firstly, the future tense and, secondly, the interrogative form used by Damas. They indicate not only that violence is not proposed as the form of action that he himself is prepared to undertake at the present time, but also simply that the whole idea is an almost random thought that crosses his mind in the course of his self-interrogation: Damas has not reached and will not reach the point of direct violent action; he is, and remains throughout Pigments, at the stage of reflection, of communing with himself. He suggests, nevertheless, that his own revolt is inevitable, but typically and significantly relegates this possibility to the future:

      Pour sûr j'en aurai
      marre
      sans même attendre
      qu'elles prennent
      les choses
      l'allure
      d'un camembert bien fait
      Alors
      je vous mettrai les pieds dans le plat
      ou bien tout simplement
      la main au collet
      de tout ce qui m'emmerde en gros caractères
      colonisation
      civilisation
      assimilation
      et la suite
 
      Sure enough I'll get
      fed up
      and not even wait
      for things
      to reach
      the state
      of a ripe camembert
      Then
      I'll put my foot in it
      or else simply
      my hand around the neck
      of everything that shits me up in capital letters
      colonization
      civilization
      assimilation
      and all the rest.

Once again, what stands out strongly is Damas' inner exasperation; the violence is all in his language and in his mind. Sometimes, characteristically, the frustration that seeks an outlet in violence is not even translated directly into the language, but is only suggested, taking the comparatively mild form of an implicit, unspecific threat: "Bientôt / je n'aurai pas que dansé / bientôt" (Soon / I'll not only have danced / soon) ("Bientôt"). At other times, when the internal dialogue is centered on the notion of changing his situation as an alienated individual, revolt and violence are veiled to the point where they become little more than a vague hope, a possibility which, on the surface, appears to be the product of his optimism, but which deep down is merely the transposition of his despair for the present:

        Il ne faudrait pourtant pas grand'chose
        pourtant pas grand'chose
        grand'chose
        pour qu'en un jour enfin tout aille
        tout aille
        aille
        dans le sens de notre race à nous
                                     ("Ils ont")
 
        And yet it wouldn't take much
        yet not much
        much
        for one day finally everything to go
        everything to go
        to go
        in the direction of our own race

He is painfully aware of the hopelessness of the situation in which he finds himself and equally aware of his own selfishness and egocentricity (cf. "Trêve" quoted above), which prevent him both from moving outside himself and from taking effective retaliatory action. The doubts he has of himself inhibit him further, but he cannot repress the obsessive thought that he has to escape from this unbearable situation:

        nuits sans nom
        nuits sans lune
        où j'aurais voulu
        pouvoir ne plus douter
        tant m'obsède d'écoeurement
        un besoin d'évasion
                                ("Il est des nuits")
 
        Nights with no name
        nights with no moon
        when I would have liked
        to be able to doubt no more
        so disgustingly obsessed am I
        by a need to escape

It seems as if Damas, in this dialogue with himself, reaches the conclusion that there is nothing to be done, since in the present all action is either futile or impossible. He is left, therefore, simply either expressing the anguish that results from this realization or shaking in impotent rage:

        Blanchi
        Abominable injure
        quand mon Afrique
        qu'ils ont cambriolée
        voudra la paix la paix rien que
        la paix
        Blanchi
        Ma haine grossit en marge
        de leur scélératesse
         Near-white
         Abominable insult
         that they will pay me for very dearly
         when my Africa
         that they have looted
         wants peace nothing but
         peace
         Near-white
         My hatred grows along
         with their villainy

It is clear that Damas' violent hatred, his feelings of frustration and impotence need to find some outlet. It is because of this that humor operates in Pigments as a kind of safety-valve. Damas' use of humor in language has already been commented on [by Keith Warner in "New Perspective on Léon-Gontran Damas", Black Images (1973)], but it can be argued additionally that what is important to an understanding of his intentions in this collection is not simply, although this is true, that Damas likes playing with words or that he laughs so as not to cry, but that, within the context of the dialogue which he has with himself, self-directed, ironic laughter is one of the logical responses to the question "what am I to do?" He cannot revolt, he cannot escape, he cannot move outside himself, he cannot even do nothing, he can only suffer, though not in silence, and laugh bitterly at himself. It is for this reason that he concludes the poem "Pour sûr", quoted above, with anti-climactic self-derision: "En attandant / vous m'entendrez souvent / claquer la porte" (Meanwhile / you'll hear me often / slamming the door), since he fully realizes his impotence to do more than act symbolically.

It is important to note that the problems of identity and action are not resolved by Damas in Pigments, as they are by Césaire in his Return to my native land. Damas reaches only two definite conclusions in this collection: firstly that he is an exploited black man of African heritage and not a European, and secondly that something ought to be done about the unacceptable conditions of his existence which he shares with others like himself. Important as these conclusions doubtlessly are, they cannot however be regarded as firm statements of Damas' commitment to the ideal of black liberation which is one of the primary concerns of Négritude. The poems of Pigments are in their essence the product of an inner dialogue conducted between Damas the pseudo-European and Damas the newly-conscious black man, who in fact finds it necessary to hold this dialogue in order to be able to cope with the almost unbearable tensions that threaten to tear him apart. While it is true that he articulated in poetry, before either Césaire or Senghor, the feelings of the Négritude group, it is equally true that his sensitivity, affected by his unfortunate experiences as a student in Paris, played a larger part than for either of the others in determining his attachment to the ideals of Négritude. It is evident that his poetic vision is directed inwards rather than outwards. Pigments is the concrete expression of emotions that have been internalized; in this collection commitment is subordinated to emotionalism; the poems represent Damas' use of language as a personal means of escape and as a safety-valve rather than reflect his concern with awakening consciousness-in others. He is concerned less with laying the foundation for the liberation of oppressed black peoples than in achieving and maintaining a personal, inner harmony.