- What are the implications of Ourika’s narrative when considering that “Ourika’s” voice is that of Duras—a white, upper-class Frenchwoman? Noting that many of the Ourika plays that followed drew from Duras’s novel, how does this perpetuate certain stereotypes of Black women in France? And why was the tale of Ourika so captivating to French audiences that numerous plays and vaudevilles would be produced telling “her story?”
- Duras depicts Ourika in her depression as wishing to be among her “own kind” and positing that her life may have been better had she been enslaved. What is the import of portraying Ourika’s mindset this way—especially when considering the context of the Haitian Revolution or “The Troubles?”
- How were white Europeans able to justify using the voices of minorities in their writings, such as Duras, with the voice of the deceased Ourika? In this form of “racial ventriloquism” that Mitchell discusses, are those who use the perspective of minorities able to prevent cultural contamination? In other words, does the “racial ventriloquism” negatively impact the white Europeans who enact this form of appropriation?
Lesson Plan: Literary Analysis of Ourika, by Claire de Duras
Plan: This is a classroom activity designed to facilitate the examination of the literary portrayal of Ourika by French writer and salon host Claire de Duras—from which many of the proceeding Ourika plays drew inspiration. As historical narratives involving marginalized voices do not often have access to the individual’s first-person perspectives in the archives, this activity demonstrates the historian’s duty to extract information by reading against the grain from available sources.
In preparation for this class, students are expected to read to the end of Chapter Three, “Ourika Mania: Cultural Consumption of (Dis)Remembered Blackness,” and Ourika: An English Translation by Claire de Duras, translated by John Fowles. (Alternatively, a few of the most crucial excerpts are noted here and can be assigned to the class in place of the whole novel. It is recommended that students read pages 11-16 and 37-47. These selections speak directly to the analysis Mitchell conducts in Chapter Three and would lend to a better discussion.)
Claire de Duras, Ourika: An English Translation, trans. John Fowles (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1994).