Chamoiseau's Répondeurs

Patrick Chamoiseau’s memoir, School Days is a very invigorating read because of the various elements and stylistic techniques that stood out. Also, the brutality of the “Teacher” character was painful at times to read. For most of the novel, Chamoiseau speaks in limited third person, calling himself “the little boy” or “the little black boy” throughout the text, but there are various places where the author deviates from that perspective. Twice, he writes from first person, and this jolts the reader into a different frame of mind. In another section, he writes from second person, near the end of the story.

The first place where the narrator switches from third person to first is near the beginning. The author writes: “…and now see, memory, how I confront you no longer, I inhale your shimmering spindrift hanging motionless in soaring flight…” (19) and this text seems to be from the perspective of the author himself, rather than the third person narrative of the “little boy.”
This can also be seen when he writes, “You make a detour in silence, withdrawn into yourself, on the alert inside yourself, attentive to yourself. Taking a detour is like examining one’s conscience: in unfamiliar and more or less disquieting surroundings, one can only rely on oneself” (95-96). Many of these switches have a mythical quality to them. They seem to relate to the “Répondeurs” sections by a removed sense of contemplation and alacrity. Those sections reminisce on the authors own detached perspective on his life growing up in Fort-de-France, Martinique. The “Répondeurs” sections are like Muses or a Greek chorus in a call-and-response mode that includes the reader’s participation by breaking the forth wall.

(There are fifteen “Répondeurs” sections in the first section called: “Longing” and twenty-two “Répondeurs” sections in the second section called: “Survival” with thirty-seven in all.)

There is this continual dynamic between the French language, and Creole, which the students are taught to suppress their native language. Chamoiseau is successful with including various Creole slurs in the text through asterisks and footnotes at the bottom. On page 90 this is evident when the character Big Bellybutton and one of his bullies have conflict with each other. On this page, Chamoiseau lists two long paragraphs of text in the native language, and then translates it beneath it. Many of these slang-words are offensive, if not all of them. Fighting with one another is the only way the students can tolerate school and the suppression of the Creole language by the Teacher and by Monsieur le Directeur. Those two strict, if not cruel, authority figures cannot tolerate anything that is not French in history or speech. The slurs that the students yell at one another is a way to eliminate the repression of their native language/what they speak at home with their families. This suppression of Creole is harsh and unnecessary.

There is also great description and attention to detail in the memoir and it reads like a fairy tale or myth with “the little boy” as the protagonist. (I wish there was an additional section that focuses more on Chamoiseau’s home life and his family/siblings.) One section that is memorable is when Big Bellybutton finally gets revenge of his bully and brings a dried snake head to school, which freaks out even the Teacher. Another section that is memorable (and even a little uncanny) is the part when the students are given powered milk to drink from France. The narrator states, “Live anoli lizards, it was said, were dumped into the milk as an unusual remedy for asthma. More than one wildeyed witness claimed to have found his mug rare furry caterpillars to improve the intelligence of sickly children. Others swore they’d seen the eggs of blotchy toads. The afternoon milk began to teem with Creole horrors: molocoye tortoise sweat, bamboo hairs like ground glass, crud from a he-mule’s ears, feathers from black curlytailed chickens…” (108). It is fascinating how the author seamlessly weaves Creole superstitions with a more modern French teaching structure in the school systems in Martinique.