Mimicry and Re-Mimicry, Becoming Other

Imagine living between the spaces of reality and fantasy. Imagine giving up all that you have known: your life experiences, your family, your identity, your language, your dreams, your culture, the very fiber of your being. Who you are and what you want suddenly become your defining factors. Suddenly you find yourself floating in a world of borders and spaces--always on the margins of reality, slowly losing yourself and becoming consumed by fantasy and fetish. You are something other, twisted left and right between what you consciously desire, yet at the same time consciously despise. Imagine this other you, trapped within a body that is not your own. Always performing, covered by a cultural facade, a mask of terror and domination. Underneath your alien exterior your reality is scratching to get out, but it must never show, for if it does you lose the control you have so carefully constructed, so carefully manipulated. YOU MUST keep that part of yourself locked away and embrace the reality of mimicry and otherness.

Scary isn't it?

I know because I have been there, I have faced the horrors of mimicry--albeit not in a post-colonial society. It's not the easiest to identify as gay when you live in a society that define itself as strictly heterosexual. Growing up I was forced to live between the spaces of fantasy and reality. I "pretended" being straight, even though I consciously detested the idea of maintaining a heterosexual facade. I acted the part of the dominant male heterosexual. I was living in a reality that was truly a fantasy, dictated by spaces and borders. Always on the outside looking in. I loathed my best friend who identified as gay, and always taunted him for not being what society said he was "supposed" to be. Jealousy consumed me. How dare he be what I so desperately wanted to be! How dare he perform the role that I so consciously desired. How dare he open a space that challenged all normal societal conventions that dictated my everyday life. HOW dare he !!?!?!?!?!?

Alas, I digress, but what does all this have to do with post-colonial theory?

I didn't know then, but what I was dealing with was mimicry--specifically the ambivalence of mimicry. Even though I myself wasn't a product of colonization the idea and concept still carries over into what I was dealing with socially and culturally. It was a result of hegemonic forces; the ideal of being superior by modeling yourself according to what is considered superior.

Mimicry is another concept, like language and nation, that is of utmost importance when it comes to post-colonial theory studies. The thought of never being able to have an identity that is uniquely your own is a challenge that every colonized person must face. It deals with the physical results that arise from colonization, the process of becoming something other--the result is an imbalance that can never fully be filled in both the colonizer and the colonized. Yet underneath this imbalance, is a power structure that has worked long and hard to keep the colonizers in power and the colonized subdued.

In order to understand the ambivalence of mimicry, I think it's best to start with a truly esteemed post-colonial theorist who illuminates this powerful concept in ways that are truly intellectual and groundbreaking--Mr. Homi Bhabha.

Let's get down to business in tackling this tricky theoretical concept by understanding Bhabha's definition of mimicry. Bhabha defines mimicry as "the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite...constructed around an ambivalence; in order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference" ("Of Mimicry and Man" Postcolonialisms 266). In other words the colonized works on creating a new identity modeled off of the colonizer. The indigenous becomes the gentile European. However the indigenous can never fully become the European, because mimicry is a constant balancing act, a back and forth; a slippage between fetish, fantasy, and desire. The colonized must become harbingers of what Bhabha terms the "duality" of mimicry. This duality is what Bhabha calls "the menace of mimicry, its double vision" (Postcolonialsms 268). It is within this duality that the colonized understand the meaning of authority, and begins to shape it, twist and distort so that it no longer exist. The colonized understand themselves as human, so that the otherness that "deauthorizes them" enables them to become that which they desire (271). In other words the colonized is able to understand himself in terms of the otherness that defines them. It would seem that Bhabha is trying to articulate the fact that the colonial gaze is flipped on its head and the colonized is able to understand the flaws and imperfections of the colonizer.

That's a lot to take in, but what Bhabha fails to mention is what happens when the "mimickers" become the "mimicked." What happens when the colonized become the true representations of Other?  Meaning, they may not acknowledge themselves as either European or indigenous because they have become enmeshed between the two. Bhabha calls these people hybrids, which is a topic I will discuss next week because this post is strictly based on mimicry and its effect on the colonial space. I think it is within this idea of re-mimicry where colonial authority can truly be challenged and understood for its flawed superiority. It is within this conception of re-mimicry that the flaw of colonial discourse and authority can be understood.

In order to understand how the "mimickers" become the "mimicked" it is best to take look at a piece of post-colonial literature that exemplifies this idea of re-mimicry--to do that its vital to take a look at Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions. The passage that contains this idea of re-mimicry is Chapter 5 where Tambu begins to experience the life of the "colonized" with her Aunt, Uncle, and cousin Nyasha. The relationship that develops between Tambu and her cousin Nyasha is what Tambu calls "my first love-affair, the first time that I grew to be fond of someone of whom I did not wholeheartedly approve" (78). So what causes Tambu's disapproval of her cousin Nyasha, and why is Tambu constantly at odds with the way she feels about Nyasha? The answer is simple, Nyasha is the true representation of hybridity, she has become the colonized "Other." She even admits to Tambu that her parents "are stuck with hybrids for children...[and that she] offends them" (72). Tambu herself becomes entangled within the balancing act of mimicry or in her case re-mimicry--however Tambu is able to soften the blow that mimicry has dealt Nyasha and prevent herself from becoming to colonized.

There a two examples within Chapter 5 where this notion of re-mimicry can be discerned.

The first passage is where Tambu has dinner with her new family. The conversation that ensues is one of mimicking and re-mimicking. For example the conversation that takes place is:

'Good evening, Baba,' Maiguru greeted him in Shona. (Mimic of Native)

'Good evening Daddy,' Nyasha greeted in English. (Mimic of Colonial)

'Good evening, Babamukuru I said mixing the two languages... (Re-mimicry)

'How has the day been?' Maiguru asked in English. (Mimic of Colonial)

'Have you spent the day well?' Nyasha asked in Shona. (Mimic of Native)

'Have you spent the day well, Babamukuru?' I repeated. (80) (Re-mimicry)

As you can see I have highlighted the dual coding of mimicry and remimicry. Language and culture are so thoroughly mixed up and each of the three women has a turn at mimicry, but ever present is Tambu's constant act of re-mimicry. She is unsure of which to be, the indigenous or the colonized, and because she sees the flaws within her cousins disrespectful and inappropriate behavior she is unable to fully mimic and become the hybrid Nyasha has become, even though she herself is always mixed between.

The final passage I would like to examine in order to better understand this other form of mimicry or re-mimicry is on pg 92 where Tambu is first introduced to the mission school.

Tambu says that:

We set off for school, dressed in identical blue gym-slips, socks and shoes, carrying identical briefcases. To look at us you would have thought we were sisters, which is how I would have arranged matters had I been consulted. I strutted along beside my thoroughbred cousin, imitating her walk and the set of her head so that everyone would see that we were a unit. Thus began my period of reincarnation" ( Dangaremga 92).

Yes Tambu was being reincarnated yet she was also re-mimicking what her colonized cousin was. She desired to be the way her cousin was because of the power in which she saw her cousin held, her superiority over others. A superiority which made the other girls hate Nyasha, and made Nyasha and her father constantly at adds as to who was in control. However, Tambu objectifies her cousin Nyasha and desires to become the thing which is constantly mimicked. She becomes the re-mimicked.

As one can see, mimicry is a powerful and rather tricky concept to understand, and I think this idea of re-mimicry is one that can be understood in terms of hybridity--which is a different concept for a different post. It can result in a blending of two cultures and creates what I shall try to understand within my post next week--the concept of hybridity and how one truly becomes the colonized Other. In the mean time I hope I have shed some light on what mimicry means and its place in post-colonial theory.