{"id":297,"date":"2014-06-10T18:24:02","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T18:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/?p=297"},"modified":"2017-05-26T17:41:05","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T17:41:05","slug":"hodge-merle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/2014\/06\/10\/hodge-merle\/","title":{"rendered":"Hodge, Merle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biography<\/h3>\n

Merle Hodge was born in 1944, in Curepe, Trinidad,\u00a0the daughter of an immigration officer. She received both her elementary\u00a0and high school education in Trinidad, and as a student of Bishop Anstey\u2019s\u00a0High School, she won the Trinidad and Tobago Girls Island Scholarship in\u00a01962. The scholarship allowed her to attend University College, London,\u00a0where she pursued studies in French. In 1965 she completed her B.A. Hons.\u00a0and received a Master of Philosophy degree in 1967, the focus of which\u00a0concerned the poetry of the French Guyanese writer,\u00a0Leon Damas<\/a>. Hodge did\u00a0quite a bit of traveling after obtaining her degree, working as a typist\u00a0and baby-sitter to make ends meet. She spent much time in France and Denmark\u00a0but visited many other countries in both Eastern and Western Europe. After\u00a0returning to Trinidad in the early 1970s, she taught French for a short\u00a0time at the junior secondary level. She then received a lecturing position\u00a0in the French Department at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.\u00a0At UWI she also began the pursuit of a PhD in French Caribbean Literature.\u00a0In 1979 Maurice Bishop became prime minister of Grenada, and Hodge went\u00a0there to work with the Bishop regime. She was appointed director of the\u00a0development of curriculum, and it was her job to develop and install a\u00a0socialist education program. Hodge had to leave Grenada in 1983 because\u00a0of the assassination of Bishop and the resulting U.S. invasion. Hodge is\u00a0currently working in Women and Development Studies at the University of\u00a0the West Indies in Trinidad. She primarily participates in and facilitates creative writing workshops, and has retired from lecturing.<\/p>\n

Themes<\/h3>\n
\n
\"Crick<\/a>
Crick Crack, Monkey, 1970<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
To date, Merle Hodge has written two novels:\u00a0Crick\u00a0Crack, Monkey<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Life of Laetitia<\/em>\u00a0(1993).\u00a0The Life of Laetitia<\/em>\u00a0is the story of a young Caribbean girl\u2019s first year at school away from home.\u00a0Crick Crack, Monkey<\/em>\u00a0(1970) concerns the conflicts and\u00a0changes a young girl, Tee, faces as she switches from a rural Trinidadian\u00a0existence with her Aunt Tantie to an urban, anglicized existence with her\u00a0Aunt Beatrice (See Colonial Education<\/a>). With Tee as narrator, Hodge guides the reader through an\u00a0intensely personal study of the effects of the colonial imposition of various\u00a0social and cultural values on the Trinidadian female. Tee recounts the\u00a0various dilemmas in her life in such a way that it is often difficult to\u00a0separate the voice of the child, experiencing, from the voice of the woman,\u00a0reminiscing; in this manner, Hodge broadens the scope of the text considerably.\u00a0Hodge has also published various essays concerning life in the Caribbean and the life and works of Leon\u00a0Damas, including a translation of Damas\u2019 collection of poetry,\u00a0Pigments <\/em>(see also Anglophilia<\/a>, Gender and Nation<\/a>).<\/div>\n

Works by Merle Hodge (including criticism)<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Hodge, Merle. \u201cBeyond Negritude: The Love Poems.\u201d\u00a0Critical Perspectives\u00a0on Leon Gontran Damas<\/em>, ed. Keith Warner. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents,\u00a01988.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014. \u201cChallenges of the Struggle for Sovereignty: Changing the World\u00a0versus Writing Stories.\u201d\u00a0Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the\u00a0First International Conference<\/em>, ed. Selwyn R. Cudjoe. Wellesley: Calaloux,\u00a01990. 202-08.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0Crick Crack, Monkey<\/em>. Andre Deutsch, 1970; London: Heinemann,\u00a01981; Paris: Karthala, 1982 (trans. Alice Asselos-Cherdieu).<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0\u201dThe Folktales of Bernard Dadie.\u201d\u00a0Black Images: A Critical\u00a0Quarterly on Black Arts and Culture<\/em>\u00a03:3 (1974), 57-63.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0For the Life of Laetitia<\/em>. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1993.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>“The Language of Earl Lovelace.”\u00a0Anthurium\u00a0<\/i>4.2 (2006).<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0\u201dNovels on the French Caribbean Intellectual in France.\u201d\u00a0Revista\u00a0Review Interamericana<\/em>\u00a06 (1976): 211-31.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0\u201dThe Shadow of the Whip: A Comment on Male-Female Relations in\u00a0the Caribbean.\u201d\u00a0Is Massa Day Dead? Black Moods in the Caribbean<\/em>,\u00a0ed. Orde Coombs. New York: Anchor Books, 1974, 111-18.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0\u201dSocial Conscience or Exoticism? Two Novels from Guadalupe.\u201d\u00a0Revista Review Interamericana<\/em>\u00a04 (1974): 391-401.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0\u201dYoung Women and the Development of Stable Family Life in the Caribbean.\u201d\u00a0Savacou<\/em>\u00a013 (Gemini 1977): 39-44.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Selected Works about Merle Hodge<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    • Balutansky, Kathleen. \u201cWe are All Activists: An Interview with\u00a0Merle Hodge.\u201d\u00a0Callaloo<\/em>\u00a012:4 (Fall 1989): 651-62.<\/li>\n
    • Brown, Wayne. \u201cGrowing up in Colonial Trinidad.\u201d\u00a0Sunday\u00a0Guardian<\/em>\u00a0(Trinidad) (June 28, 1970): 6, 17.<\/li>\n
    • Cobham, Rhonda. \u201cRevisioning Our Kumblas: Transforming Feminist\u00a0and Nationalist Agendas in Three Caribbean Women\u2019s Texts.\u201d\u00a0Callaloo<\/em>\u00a016:1 (Winter 1993): 44- 64.<\/li>\n
    • Gikandi, Simon. \u201cNarration in the Post-Colonial Moment: Merle Hodge\u2019s\u00a0Crick Crack Monkey<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0Past the Last Post: Theorizing Post-Colonialism\u00a0and Post- Modernism<\/em>, ed. Ian Adam and Helen Tiffin. Hertfordshire:\u00a0Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991, 13-22.<\/li>\n
    • Harvey, Elizabeth. Review of\u00a0Crick Crack Monkey<\/em>.\u00a0World Literature\u00a0Written in English<\/em>\u00a0(April 1971): 87.<\/li>\n
    • Japtok, Martin.\u201dTwo Postcolonial Childhoods:\u00a0Merle\u00a0Hodge\u2019s\u00a0Crick Crack, Monkey and Simi Bedford\u2019s Yoruba Girl Dancing\u201d.\u00a0<\/cite>Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies<\/em>, 6:1-2 (Fall 2001).<\/li>\n
    • Zonana, Joyce.\u00a0\u201dTee,\u2019 \u2018Cyn-Cyn,\u2019 \u2018Cynthia,\u2019 \u2018Dou-Dou\u2019: Remembering and Forgetting the \u2018True-True Name\u2019 in\u00a0Merle\u00a0Hodge\u2019s\u00a0Crick Crack, Monkey<\/em>\u201c.\u00a0\u00a0Middle Passages and the Healing Place of History: Migration and Identity in Black Women\u2019s Literature.\u00a0Ed.\u00a0<\/cite>Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. Columbus, OH: Ohio State UP; 2006.\u00a0pp. 139-54.<\/li>\n
    • Kemp, Yakini. \u201cWoman and Womanchild: Bonding and Selfhood in Three\u00a0West Indian Novels.\u201d\u00a0SAGE: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women\u00a0<\/em>2:1 (Spring 1985): 24-27.<\/li>\n
    • Lawrence, Leota S. \u201cThree West Indian Heroines: An Analysis.\u201d\u00a0CLA Journa<\/em>l\u00a021 (December 1977): 238-50.<\/li>\n
    • Meehan, Kevin.\u00a0\u201dRomance and Revolution: Reading Women\u2019s Narratives of Caribbean Decolonization\u201d.\u00a0Tulsa Studies in Women\u2019s Literature<\/em>, 25: 2 (Fall 2006) 291-306.<\/li>\n
    • Thomas, Ena V. \u201cCrick Crack Monkey<\/em>: A Picaresque Perspective.\u201d\u00a0Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the First International Conference<\/em>,\u00a0ed. Selwyn Cudjoe. Wellesley: Calaloux, 1990, 209-14.<\/li>\n
    • Thorpe, Marjorie. \u201cThe Problem of Cultural Identification in\u00a0Crick\u00a0Crack Monkey<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0Savacou<\/em>\u00a013 (Gemini 1977): 31-38.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Author: Stefan Pinsky, Fall 1996
      \nLast edited:\u00a0May 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Biography Merle Hodge was born in 1944, in Curepe, Trinidad,\u00a0the daughter of an immigration officer. She received both her elementary\u00a0and high school education in Trinidad, and as a student of Bishop Anstey\u2019s\u00a0High School, she won the Trinidad and Tobago Girls Island Scholarship in\u00a01962. The scholarship allowed her to attend University College, London,\u00a0where she pursued studies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[66,156,49,12,89,13,53,38,41,42,83,97],"class_list":{"0":"post-297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-authors-and-artists","7":"tag-caribbean","8":"tag-colonialism","9":"tag-denmark","10":"tag-diaspora","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-feminism","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-gender","15":"tag-identity","16":"tag-race","17":"tag-trinidad","18":"tag-west-indies"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paWL6U-4N","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2779,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/2779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}