To Da-duh in Memoriam

Introduction
Paule Marshall’s ‘‘To Da-duh, in Memoriam,’’ first published in 1967 and reissued in Reena, and Other
Stories in 1983, is a story imbued with thematic resonance. The story focuses on a rivalry between
grandmother and granddaughter; this conflict is based on several opposing forces, particularly the rural
world versus the urban world, tradition versus modernity, and age versus youth. Marshall skillfully
draws these disparate elements together, thus illustrating the cycles of time and the enduring nature of
family. These multifaceted themes, along with Marshall’s subtle evocation of Barbadian history and her
rich symbolism and metaphor, have made ‘‘To Da-duh, in Memoriam’’ one of the author’s most
interesting and discussed works of short fiction.

The story also introduces Da-duh, who appears in different forms throughout Marshall’s work. Marshall
openly notes the autobiographical nature of the piece, which she wrote many years after a childhood
visit to her grandmother in Barbados. Understanding Da-duh’s influence on Marshall is an important
tool for achieving critical understanding of the author’s body of work and her continuing themes. As
Marshall describes her grandmother in an introduction to the story published in her 1983, ‘‘She’s an
ancestor figure, symbolic for me of the long line of black women and men . . . who made my being
possible, and whose spirit I believe continues to animate my life and work.’’

To Da-duh in Memoriam Summary

‘‘To Da-duh, in Memoriam’’ is an autobiographical story told from the point of view of an adult looking
back on a childhood memory. The story opens as the nine-year-old narrator, along with her mother and
sister, disembarks from a boat that has brought them to Bridgetown, Barbados. It is 1937, and the family
has come to visit from their home in Brooklyn, leaving behind the father, who believed it was a waste of
money to take the trip. The narrator’s mother first left Barbados fifteen years ago, and the narrator has
never met her grandmother, Da-duh.

Although an old woman, the narrator’s grandmother is lively and sharp. When she meets her
grandchildren, Da-duh examines them. She calls the narrator’s older sister ‘‘lucky,’’ but she silently looks
at the narrator, calling the child ‘‘fierce.’’ She takes the narrator by the hand and leads the family
outside where the rest of the relatives are waiting. The family gets in the truck that takes them through
Bridgetown and back to Da-duh’s home in St. Thomas.

The next day, Da-duh takes the narrator out to show her the land covered with fruit orchards and sugar
cane. Da-duh asks the narrator if there is anything as nice in Brooklyn, and the narrator says no. Da-duh
says that she has heard that there are no trees in New York, but then asks the narrator to describe snow

To Da-duh in Memoriam | Author Biography Marshall was born on April 9, 1929, in Brooklyn, New
York, the child of Barbadian immigrants who were among the first wave of Caribbean islanders to
relocate to the United States. Her early life was suffused with Caribbean culture; she spoke its language
and followed many of its traditions. Marshall made her first visit to the Caribbean when she was nine
years old, which inspired her to write poetry.

After graduating from high school in 1949, she attended Brooklyn College (now part of the City
University of New York). She graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in English...

To Da-duh in Memoriam | Characters Da-duh

Da-duh is the narrator’s eighty-year-old grandmother. She has lived her whole life on Barbados and is
confident and proud of her lifestyle, surroundings, and ways of looking at the world. She dislikes the
trappings of the modern world, such as any form of machinery, and is uncomfortable in the city of
Bridgetown. When Da-duh first meets the narrator, the narrator imagines that she saw ‘‘something in
me which for some reason she found disturbing.’’ However, Da-duh also feels connected to her
granddaughter, as evidenced when she clasps her hand

“Nothing endures but change” (Heraclitus 540-480BC). People are born, only to die again. In a never-
ending cycle of life and death, new ideas replace older ones and an evolution of perspectives takes
place. Paulle Marshall aptly portrays this cyclical nature through her last line “she died and I lived”
referring to her grandmother. The death is not physical alone. It is the death of old ideologies, dated
traditions and disparate acceptance of modernization. In a vivid recollection of her grandmother Da-
Duh’s reluctance to accept change during Paulle’s childhood visit, she narrates how the old lady loathes
urbanity and finds delectation in her little island of natural beauty. The interactions that the narrator has
with her grandmother remind us of the passage of time between generations. The demise of Da-Duh
signifies the change that is inevitable, the transition from the old to the new. Symbolism Paulle
Marshall’s work is replete with a richness of literary devices like symbolism, imagery and metaphors.
Describing the foreboding character of death, the narrator feels that the planes that bring death to the
little village are “swooping and screaming…monstrous birds”. The sugarcanes that grow in the village are
Da-Duh’s delight and also the reason for the exploitation in the village. The pride of Da-Duh, the
sugarcanes appear threatening to the narrator she feels that the canes are “clashing like swords above
my cowering head”. This is a description of the duality of life. Where there is joy, there is pain and when
there is life, death is bound to follow. Imagery The life-death antithesis is depicted in the closing lines of
the book where the narrator paints “seas of sugar-cane and huge swirling Van Gogh suns and palm trees
[in] a tropical landscape . . .while the thunderous tread of the machines downstairs jarred the floor
beneath my easel.’’ Light is identified by the surrounding darkness and life, by death that eventually
follows. The transient nature of life is evidenced by the changes that happen over a period of time.
Death’s morbidity invades the colorful mind. The narrator imbues the reader’s mind with images that
allude to this dark reality. “All these trees….Well, they’d be bare. No leaves, no fruit, nothing. They’d be
covered in snow. You see your canes. They’d be buried under tons of snow.” Metaphor With a judicious
use of metaphors, the narrator has drawn us to the reality of inevitable changes that our lives are
subject to. Again, the sugarcanes are metaphorically perceived as the ominous danger that “...would
close in on us and run us through with their stiletto blades.” Later, the planes that cause the death of
her grandmother are visualized by the narrator as “the hardback beetles which hurled themselves with
suicidal force against the walls of the house at night.” She points at our dogmatism in accepting the fact
that the world is constantly changing. Those who fail to see this at first, experience it the hard way later.
Conclusion However prejudiced we might be, towards change, the hard-hitting reality of a life-death
cycle is inevitable. Time stands testimony to this fact. Paulle Marshall has illustrated this through the
depiction of conflicting ideas between her and Da-Duh and she conveys this message at the start when
she writes, “both knew, at a level beyond words, that I had come into the world not only to love her and
to continue her line but to take her very life in order that I might live.”

To Dah-Duh in Memoriam - Literature Notes SUMMARY

This short story is about a young girl's visit, from New York, to the island of Barbados. The protagonist,
along with her sister and mother, visit Dah-Duh. The visit is an interesting one in which Dah-Duh and the
protagonist develop a caring, yet competitive, relationship. Dah-Duh introduces her to the riches of
Barbados (nature), while the protagonist introduces her grandmother to the steel and concrete world of
New York (industrialism). There is a competitive edge to their conversations because they each try to
outdo each other on the merits of their separate homes. Dah-Duh, however, is dealt a blow when she
learns of the existence of the Empire State building, which was many stories taller than the highest thing
she had ever laid her eyes on – Bissex Hill. She lost a little bit of her spark that day and was not given a
chance to rebound because the protagonist left for New York shortly after. The story progresses with
the death of Dah-Duh during the famous ’37 strike. She had refused to leave her home and was later
found dead, on a Berbice chair, by her window. The protagonist spent a brief period in penance, living as
an artist and painting landscapes that were reminiscent of Barbados.

SETTING
The story is set in Barbados, in the 1930's.

CHARACTERS
Dah-Duh:

A small and purposeful old woman.

Had a painfully erect figure.

Over eighty (80) years old.

She moved quickly at all times.

She had a very unattractive face, which was ‘stark and fleshless as a death mask’ (Marshall, p.178).

Her eyes were alive with life.

Competitive spirit.

Had a special relationship with the protagonist.

Protagonist:

A thin little girl.

Nine (9) years old.

A strong personality.

Competitive in nature.

Had a special relationship with Dah-Duh.

THEMES

Race:
This theme is apparent when Dah-Duh and the protagonist discuss the fact that she ‘beat up a white girl’
in her class. Dah-Duh is quiet shocked at this and exclaims that the world has changed so much that she
cannot recognize it. This highlights their contrasting experiences of race. Dah-Duh’s experience of race
relations is viewing the white ‘massa’ as superior, as well as viewing all things white as best. This is
corroborated at the beginning of the story when it was revealed that Dah-Duh liked her grandchildren to
be white, and in fact had grandchildren from the illegitimate children of white estate managers.
Therefore, a white person was some-one to be respected, while for the protagonist, white people were
an integral part of her world, and she viewed herself as their equal.

Love and family relationship:

This story highlights the strong familial ties that exists among people of the Caribbean, both in the
islands and abroad (diaspora). The fact that the persona and her family left New York to visit the
matriarch of the family, in Barbados, highlights this tie. The respect accorded to Dah-Duh by the mother
also shows her place, or status, in the family. The protagonist states that in the presence of Dah-Duh,
her formidable mother became a child again.

Gender Issues:
This is a minor theme in this short story. It is highlighted when it is mentioned that Dah-Duh liked her
grandchildren to be boys. This is ironic because the qualities that are stereotypically found in boys -
assertive, strong willed, competitive - are found in her grand daughter. An example of this is the manner
in which the protagonist / narrator was able to win the staring match when she first met Dah-Duh, this
proved her dominance and strength.

SYMBOL
Empire State Building
This building represents power and progress. It is in the midst of the cold glass and steel of New York
city and, therefore, deforms Dah-Duh’s symbol of power; Bissex Hill. It is not by accident that the
knowledge of this building shakes Dah-Duh’s confidence. Steel and iron, the symbol of progress, is what
shakes the nature loving Dah-Duh. It can, therefore, be said that her response to the knowledge of the
existence of the Empire State Building – defeat – is a foreshadowing of her death. This is the case
because it is metal, in the form of the planes, that ‘rattled her trees and flatten[ed] the young canes in
her field.’ (Marshall. p.186). This is a physical echo of her emotional response to the knowledge of the
existence of the Empire State building. The fact that she is found dead after this incident is not a surprise
to the reader.
Do you think that either Da-duh or the child won their "battle of wills" in "To Da-duh, in Memoriam"?

There is a sense in which both the narrator and her grandmother are losers in their "battle of wills,"
although overtly the child is the winner in this competition. When she tells her grandmother that there
are taller buildings than the tallest tree on her island, the narrator feels she has won, but that this
victory has come at rather a great price:

Finally, with a vague gesture that even in the midst of her defeat still tied to dismiss me and my world,
she turned and started back through the gully, walking slowly, her steps groping and uncertain, as if she
were no longer sure of the way, while I followed triumphant yet strangely saddened behind.

The way in which the granddaughter is strangely saddened indicates the cost of this victory, and the way
that we could debate whether it was actually a victory at all. Note how the story ends and the final
paragraph that points towards the way in which the granddaughter actually loses in a very significant
way as well:

She died and I lived, but always, to this day even, within the shadow of her death.

The narrator feels the need to go through a period of penance when she becomes an adult, which
reinforces the impression that although she did "win" the battle of wills, it was a victory that she came
to intensely regret, and a victory that she realises was paradoxically a defeat.

In "To Da-duh, in Memoriam," describe one moment in the story when the relationship between the
granddaughter and grandmother changes. I think throughout this excellent story that narrates the battle
that occurs between Da-duh and her granddaughter, the most important moment and the climax of the
story comes when Da-duh shows the narrator the highest object on the island in a last-ditch effort to try
and prove that her world is superior to the New York that the narrator tells her about. As she shows the
tree to the narrator that "appeared to be touching the blue dome of sky," and asks her if she has
anything this tall in New York, note the narrator's response:

I almost wished, seeing her face, that I could have said no. "Yes," I said. "We've got buidlings hundreds
of times this tall in New York."

It is after this, of course, that Da-duh begins to ail and die, as "all the fight went out of her at that." It is
after this that she leads the way, and the narrator follows "triumphant yet strangely saddened" behind,
as she counts the cost of the bitter victory that she has now won.

In "To Da-duh in Memoriam," what is the narrator's reaction on her first encounter with her
grandmother?

We are presented with an incredibly vivid description of the narrator's grandmother when she first
meets her. The narrator tells us how she is overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of Barbados, never
having left the States before, and so it is only when she is alerted to her grandmother's approach by her
mother's tightening hand that she looks up and sees a "small, purposeful, painfully erect figure of the
old woman." The description that follows gives us a real insight into the grandmother's character:
Her face was drowned in the shadow of an ugly rolled-brim brown hat, but the details of her slight body
and of the struggle taking place within it were clear enough--an intense, unrelenting struggle between
her back which was beginning to bend ever so slightly under the weight of her eighty-odd years and the
rest of her which sought to deny those years and hold that back straight, keep it in line.

We can see how the intense determination of her grandmother is expressed in her constant conflict to
keep her back straight when gravity is pushing it towards the ground. She is certainly an incredibly
strong and resilient individual who will not give in easily, which thus sets the stage for the conflict that
will occur in the rest of the story between the narrator and her grandmother.

To Da-duh, in Memoriam

Have you ever read a poem that has complicated symbolism and descriptions? These things make this
short story a great story. Paule Marshall, the author, uses an interesting point of view, tone or dialect,
and symbolism to create a feeling of competition between the two main characters in the story “To Da-
duh, in Memoriam”.

The story is told by the nine-year-old version of the narrator. As a little girl, she doesn’t see or think
much about everything. When she sees Da-duh, her grandmother, for the first time, she sees a “small,
purposeful, painfully erect” figure and a face that is “as stark and fleshless as a death mask”. As the story
goes along, the reader starts to understand the competition between the narrator and her grandmother
from the point of view and the eyes of the narrator.

As it is mentioned in the last paragraph, Da-duh and her granddaughter experience a competition in the
story. The competition is about whose home is better, Da-duh’s home in Barbados Island or the
narrator’s home in New York. Each argument starts from a simple thing, like “I know you don’t have
anything like these in New York”. They both have strong will and heart; those feelings are shown in the
dialogues they have during the narrator’s visit to Barbados from New York.

This story has a lot of adjectives and symbolism to form the reader’s picture of the people and the
places. For example, when Da-duh starts to hear about New York from her granddaughter, the author
writes, “I came to know the signs of her surrender: the total stillness that would come over her little
hard dry form, the probing gaze that like a surgeon’s knife sought to cut through my skull to get at the
images there, to see if I were lying; above all, her fear, a fear nameless and profound, the same one I
had felt beating in the palm of her hand that day in the lorry”. This is a pretty long and complicated
sentence, but it’s filled with adjectives so that the reader can have a better feeling to the story.

In “To Da-duh” story, the author uses a child’s point of view in explaining the tone and the mood in the
story. The tone in every dialogue in the story shows a competition and love of each person’s home. In
the end, an irony is shown when the narrator gets a house in a loft above a noisy factory with machines
sounds that her grandmother was pretty afraid about. Within this irony, Paule Marshall ends the story
with a sad and love feeling between the narrator and Da-duh.