on This song just poped into my mind thinking about the work Matthew has to accomplish “Day and night”. Before listening to it again I wasn’t sure there was a strong relevance to the book or a particular passage, but watching the video, I see something linked to this world “beneath the streets” Matthew brings up in the letter addressed to Katulya, in which he’s describing the tunnel’s construction.
Like magical creatures underground, truth hid in Darkness but ready to reach the surface, etc.
on I chose this song because of the fact that Towns went home in the book. Although this track has no words, I still think it fits the theme of Part IV (partly). The song has this musical layer that absorbs the listener and has a feeling of love in the air. The song, through the usage of major chords and ambient sounds, creates this triumphant feeling. After not being able to see the person that he has loved for so long, I feel like Towns would have the feeling of triumph after waking up with her.
on The novel mentions that on Matthew and Kautilya’s first morning together after their reunion, Matthew puts on Dvorak’s largo inspired by African-American folk songs, which would be from Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), Op. 95. The song was inspired by Dvorak’s own homesickness as well as by African-American folk songs, though the song itself is not an African-American folk song, and lyrics were later added by one of Dvorak’s students, William Arms Fisher. Fisher wrote a statement about the piece at the beginning of the 1922 sheet music, and unsurprisingly, he expresses racist sentiments: “The Largo, with its haunting English horn solo, is the outpouring of Dvorak’s own home-longing, with something of the loneliness of far-off prairie horizons, the faint memory of the red-man’s bygone days, and a sense of the tragedy of the black-man as it sings in his ‘spirituals.'” Fisher seems to see Native people and Black people as being crushed, perhaps hopeless people, whereas Kautilya and Matthew have hope for the liberation of people of color.
The version of the song that I’ve posted has the lyrics and is sung by a British boys’ choir, Libera. This rendition is interesting given that this song is meant to give the feel of an African-American spiritual and yet none of the boys are African-American (they’re British), and also given the role of the British Empire more broadly in oppressing and enslaving people of color around the world, which relates to topics discussed in Dark Princess.
I feel that this song has both a sense of longing and comfort, and I feel like those are emotions that Matthew and Kautilya felt from being apart and then finally being reunited. Connected to the lyrics, Matthew and Kautilya have both long been laboring, hoping for the day when they could “go home” to the comfort of each other.
on “Is the enemy inside or out? I doubt
I can afford to figure this out later
So we joust, til one of us is ousted
And revealed as traitor or saviour”
“Hold onto hope,
Hold onto love, and
Never let go.”
This part of the lyrics resonated with me and reminded me of Matthew’s inner conflictions. The song continues to talk about hope which is something I feel Matthew needs to hear at the moment while he’s stuck in this political machine that is making him unhappy (Dark Princess, Part III).
on “Always, in the midst of this he was organizing and coraling his voters. He knew the voting strength of his district to a man. Nine-tenths of them would do exactly as he said. He did not need to talk to them—a few words and a sign. Orators came to his corners and vociferated and yelled, but his followers watched him. He saw this group of thousands of people as a real and thrilling thing, which he watched, unthrilled, unmoved. Life was always tense and rushing there – a murder, a happy mother, thieves, strikers, scabs, school children, and hard workers; a strange face, a man going into business, a girl going to hell, a woman saved. The whole organism was neither good nor bad. It was good and bad. Rickety buildings, noise, smells, noise, work – hard, hard work –
“How’s Sammy?” he would hear them say.
“How many votes do you want? Name your man.”
Thus, he built his political machine. His machine was life, and he stood close to it – lolling on his favorite corner with half-closed eyes; yet he saw all of it.”
Matthew, who is still coping with his time in jail and sudden release, is in a state of dissociation. The scene is described as “this group of thousands of people as a real and thrilling thing”, yet Matthew watches “unthrilled, unmoved.” His mental state is completely different from the solidarity advocate that readers saw in the previous parts of the book and the loss of faith that used to fuel him does not linger any longer.
It is not completely lost though, we see a glimpse of Matthew’s true passion when he was divulging on stage about his life sequences which gained much enthusiasm from the crowd, but he cut himself short and reverts back to facts once the sequence drew close to his encounters with the princess and Berlin, which seems to be a coping mechanism in dealing with his pain.
The dullness Matthew feels contrasts with the exciting pulsing subjects happening around him: “vociferated and yelled”, “thrilling”, “tense and rushing”, “murder,… thieves, strikers, scabs”, “a girl going to hell, a woman saved”. The word choice is so intense, yet Matthew addresses it so casually with no reaction which shows his general detachment from life. The way the subjects go back and forth portrays the pendulum in his mind. It swings to one side and then the other, with no preference for either side. “The whole organism was neither good nor bad. It was good and bad.”
The passage continues with his nonchalant thoughts when Matthew gets interrupted by someone. Du Bois continues to emphasize how little Matthew is paying attention to his surrounds by the sudden interruption along with Matthew’s personal thoughts being described as “he would hear them say.” This makes the person feel much more anonymous, showcasing how Matthew sees all the people who stop at his corner, all-in-one, the same, “them”. There is no distinction; all part of the machine. This leads the readers to feel this monotonous machine is, in fact, Matthew. It does end in a hopeful note; although his eyes are “half-closed”, “he saw all of it” which alludes to the idea that the Matthew we knew in previous parts is still in there, lying dormant.
on One thing that stood out to me in particular about this passage was the extreme use of detail to describe the moods and feelings between the princess and Matthew. Du Bois does a beautiful job creating this elaborate and ornate description of what’s going on in part 4, almost dramatic and dragged out. Toni Braxton’s Un Break My Heart has a very dramatic tone to it. The mood of song almost makes me want to turn it off listening to the drama in her voice and in the lyrics. This was the same feeling I got reading some of the interactions with the princess and Matthew. In the song as well, by listening to the lyrics you get a sense of the true love and yearning Braxton is trying to express, which I think relates nicely to how Matthew and princess felt after being reunited after all those years.
Kennedy Graves, 2020
on “‘It seemed that the scales had fallen from my eyes. I understood a hundred incidents, a dozen veiled allusions and little singular happenings. I suddenly realized that these dull, loud, ugly people actually thought me inferior because my skin was browner than their bleached and roughened hides. They were condescending to me–me, whose father were kings a thousand years before theirs were ragpickers'” (231).
There is a clear difference in how Sara and Kautilya are portrayed in Dark Princess. Sara is a tightly held together woman, who is stiff and calculated within an inch of her life. Kautilya, on the other hand, is a woman who breathes and lives an exotic, royal life. Even after she lowers herself to the place of a servant, Kautilya exudes, at least to Matthew, an inexplicable beauty.
This can be seen in the way Du Bois chooses to frame section 4 of Dark Princess. Kautilya speaks as if she is a poet. She is revered and clearly educated, but in a natural way. In this portion, she discusses how when she was younger, an English boy who she had spent countless days with had proposed to her. Yet, in his proposal, he had told her: “Yes, I mean to marry you. I am going to have you. I don’t care if you are colored” (231).
When describing her anger, Kautilya is impossibly descriptive. When Kautilya remarks that , “it seemed that the scales had fallen from my eyes”, it is although Du Bois is alluding to the conversion of Saul to Paul in the book of Acts. Acts 9:18 reads “Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.” In her description of her personal revelation, it is as if Kautilya is placed in the ranks of one of the greatest Christian apostles, someone with intense influence. Kautilya is able to capture abstract ideas, such as “veiled allusions” and “little singular happenings” in an understandable way. She then goes on to talk about her royal fathers who had been kings, in contrast to “dull, loud, ugly people”. There, she uses short and curt adjectives and continues to describe their skin with textured words: “bleached” and “roughened”.
Du Bois writes Kautilya’s story in a vivid and smooth manner, with long flowing sentences that describe distant lands and peoples. Even her awakening to the oppression of black people (and darker people on the whole) is somehow more beautiful than it is vengeful or dark. In contrast, Sara is written in a curt and short manner. Sentences are shorter, words are less colorful, and descriptions always read as tired and contrived. Although this passage is short, it exemplifies how differently Matthew feels about these two women. One difficult line of thought that comes from this distinction is why there is such a difference between Sara and Kautilya. Is it simply the difference of passion and love? Or is it more, and does it have to do with Sara being a light skinned woman?
on “Then came the beautiful days. I love England. I loved the work of my tutors and the intercourse with the new world that spread before me. I stayed two full years, until I was fourteen, and then again came clouds. There was a tall English boy of whom I saw much. We had ridden, run, and played together. He told me he loved me. I was glad. I did not love him, but I wanted him to love me because the other girls had sweethearts. But he was curiously fierce and gruff about it all. He wanted to seize and embrace me and I hated the touch of his hands, for after all he was not of royal blood, which then meant so much to me.
One day he suddenly asked me to run away and marry him. I laughed.
‘Yes I mean to marry you’, he said. ‘I am going to have you. I don’t care if you are colored.’ I gasped in amazement. He didn’t care. He, a low-born shopman’s brat, and I, a princess born. I, ‘colored‘! I wanted to strike him with my croquet mallet. I rushed away home.
It seemed that the scales had fallen from my eyes. I understood a hundred incidents, a dozen veiled allusions and little singular happenings. I suddenly realized that these dull, loud, ugly people actually thought me inferior because my skin was browner than their bleached and roughened hides. They were condescending to me – me, whose fathers were kings a thousand years before theirs were ragpickers.” – pg. 231 Dark Princess Part IV (III)
Kautilya parallels ideal weather with the more enjoyable periods of her life; periods of learning and gaining new experience. The clouds signify a turning point, during which she comes to an important realization: In many societies, being of color takes precedence over being of nobility.
It is interesting to see how during that moment, Kautilya had her own standard of social structure that she subscribed to (i.e. “low-born” v “princess born”) but never juxtaposed it against her race and status in England until then. The italicization of “colored” visualizes Kautilya’s othering of the word. The reader can sense that it is a foreign term that Kautilya rejects vehemently.
All the passive-aggressive interactions she had with those who viewed her as inferior became defined as such, only after that clarifying encounter. Dubois use of commas between each negative adjective (“dull, loud, ugly”) push the reader to pause and feel Kautilya’s disdain for the English that dared to label her as less than. Pausing for emphasis is used again when Kautilya contrast herself from the people described (to me – me,), finishing with one final blow regarding their ancestry. It is ironic how Kautilya defends herself from being placed in social strata of the English by placing them in one of her own.