Blossom

Dionne Brand’s Blossom: Priestess of Oya, Goddess of winds, storms and waterfall, tells the story of Blossom, a Trinidadian woman who maps out a mystical life, freeing herself from the pangs of the “nothing ain’t breaking” despair of the life in Canada. The story begins with a mystical and supernatural strain, where we learn that Blossom’s place is the "obeah house". Blossom had an indomitable spirit, “nothing not even snarky white people could keep [her] under”, she keeps trying to form a secure life for herself in the unknown land, takes courses to help her find work and also baby-sits. In spite of constantly failing, facing hardships like white rapists as employers she doesn’t allow her spirit to be shaken. Finally after continuing for ten years, at the age of thirty-six she decides to “figure out she life”. Blossom suddenly feels very tired and old. She discovers the uselessness of her marriage to Victor and of her life of hardships and “nothing shaking”. The sudden realization of the void and the nothingness of her life shake her and the violent rage and repressed emotions and desire bursts forth, breaking her. She screams and cries uncontrollably, but gets a grip on herself and turns to spirituality to guide her through.

Blossom creates a bifocal perspective, not only is she a Black immigrant but also a female. Her repeated failure to create a life for herself makes her create a powerful alter ego. This new self which she embraces is drawn from her native Trinidadian roots- its language and its beliefs, “Oya was a big spirit Blossom known from home.” Oya the Goddess of the winds, storm and waterfalls possesses her. Oya helps her view the traumatic life lead by the Black people. The knowledge strengthens and helps her rise above her grief. She enters Oya‘s “lovely womb of strength and fearlessness”. The transformation in her is marked by the way she dresses in bright colours-yellow and red, symbolizing joy and war against suffering. The Apollonian-Dionysian juxtaposition is seen in her, where she speaks in native African tongues, liberating her self from the cruel world, drawing in the strength from the Goddess Oya. Blossom entwines her powerless self with the powerful warrior Goddess-uniting the sacred and feminine in her. She becomes a force with the "power to fight, power to feel pain and the power to heal." The transformation in her, her understanding of the plight of Black people and her escape into trance like state helps her earn “fame as a obeah woman”. She rises above the marginalization and the vacuum which represented her life in Canada to an independent powerful woman who learns to “live peaceful” and have “speakeasy business”.

The city beyond its social, historical and political dimensions and its role as a crucible, offers Blossom an ideal projecting canvas for the construction of a self-image. The cityscape provides the opportunity to recompose the inner and aesthetic space, mapping out new territories for the self. Blossom's double-consciousness(Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B DuBois) helps her balance her identity as the Black immigrant and the powerful Oya and enables her to create her new self.

Suchismita Dattagupta

PG II