To Da-Duh, In Memoriam

The core of “To Da-duh, in Memoriam” is the relationship that develops between Da-duh and the narrator, a woman recalling her experiences as a nine-year-old girl. The events described are based on the real-life experiences of the author, Paule Marshall, and her relationship with her grandmother, Da-duh. However, the relationship is also highly figurative. Within the story’s symbolic framework, Da-duh variously represents an African diasporic connection, unyielding traditional values, and rural life in a colony, while the narrator represents novelty, urban life in the metropole, and youthful pride. Through this complex symbolic relationship, Marshall explores colonialism and diaspora, female relationships and cultural transmission, and guilt.

“To Da-duh, in Memoriam” is written in a largely realist narrative mode that avoids romanticizing or idealizing the relationship between the narrator and her grandmother—e.g., by depicting them learning to understand each other and resolving their tension. Instead, the relationship is complex, and its antagonisms manifest obliquely, as in the opening sentences, which sets the tone for the fraught interpersonal dynamics. During her first meeting with her grandmother, the narrator notes that “she [does] not touch [the narrator]” (97). Instead, the grandmother simply stares at the child, assessing her, and the child stares back.