14 The Palm Porch (1925 New Negro Version) – Introduction
A Note on Walrond’s “Palm Porch” Revisions
from The New Negro to Tropic Death
Caitlyn Georgiou
In Louis Parascandola and Maria McGarrity’s analysis of prostitution and subversion in “The Palm Porch,” Miss Buckner, who is the foundational centerpiece of Palm Porch—both the fictional house and Walrond’s narrative—is an unseemly protagonist who uses what resources she has to try to gain acceptance into the middle class. Though her methods involve employing her daughters in a bordello and murdering anyone who stands in her way, Miss Buckner’s primary motive is to advance the social standing of her and her family—a task that, as Parascandola and McGarrity remind us, symbolizes not a criticism of Miss Buckner but rather a criticism of “the patriarchal, racialized Canal Zone social strata.”[1] Contextualizing Miss Buckner’s scheme is the widespread belief that the US government was backing the migration of Caribbean women to the Canal Zone to be prostitutes for workers; in other words, she wants to game the system. The point, they argue, is that, though she might claim ownership over this system in “a temporary victory,” she “will never gain full acceptance into middle-class society.”[2] Because Walrond’s story represents a critique of this social hierarchy that limits Miss Buckner’s choices, Miss Buckner herself can be considered both unlikeable and resourceful, her actions as problematic as they are seemingly subversive.
The revisions Walrond made between editions of “The Palm Porch” reflect a deepened sense of this complexity. Though Parascandola and McGarrity call the story featured in Tropic Death a “revised, more fleshed-out version” of the earlier iteration published in the 1926 anthology of African and African-American literature The New Negro, many of Walrond’s modifications indicate a shift in the characterization of Miss Buckner. In revisions to both the general storyline and the wordings of certain scenes and descriptions, Walrond places a brighter spotlight on Miss Buckner as an unlikely protagonist. He does so by minimizing brazenly negative descriptors of Miss Buckner’s body, substituting neutral language for critical language when characterizing her and her children, and emphasizing positive attributes she possesses, such as her bravery, cleverness, and confidence. In general, the New Negro version takes as its focal point Miss Buckner’s mysteriousness and indifference to violence, while the revised Tropic Death version showcases Miss Buckner as a woman asserting what little agency she is afforded within a system of oppression.
One of the most noticeable differences between the two versions is their introductions. While the New Negro edition’s first paragraphs paint Miss Buckner and The Palm Porch with strokes of inscrutability, noting that “nobody had ever heard of Miss Buckner before she swept into The Palm Porch” and that the house with its “glowing dust and scarlet” loomed over “the squalid cosmos of Colon,” in Tropic Death the story begins by elucidating life in the Canal Zone and how it has evolved since Miss Buckner first arrived. This change in focus from cryptic characterization to contextualization indicates movement away from Miss Buckner as a “target,” as Parascandola and McGarrrity say, of the story’s criticism.[3] In line with this shift are the initial descriptions of Miss Buckner’s appearance; in New Negro, there is an “idea of surfeit” about her, while in Tropic Death it is an “idea of sober reality.” Additionally, the New Negro version casts a garish, almost cartoonish light on her body, from her “oxen hips, long, pliable hands, roving, sun-staring breasts” to “a head the shape of a sawed-off cocoanut tree top.” Tropic Death, on the other hand, applies categorical approach, where Miss Buckner’s hands are “unfeminine,” her breasts are “dangling,” and she has “a small, round head.” Significantly, too, in New Negro Miss Buckner’s bobbed hair is “unheard of” among maidens in the tropics, but the Tropic Death iteration takes this counter-cultural move a step further to say that she “courageously” bobbed her hair “at a time when it was unseasonable to do so” and still maintained “a semblance of respect among the Victorian dames of the Spanish tropics.” These revisions in Tropic Death seem to magnify Miss Buckner’s role as an unlikely protagonist who makes the most of her means and attributes a sense of bravery to her endeavors.
The language Walrond uses to describe Miss Buckner’s daughters shifts slightly from The New Negro to Tropic Death to carry a more neutral tone. In New Negro he characterizes them as “innocent darlings,” accentuating Miss Buckner’s exploitation of her own children, while in Tropic Death, by contrast, they are simply “her five daughters.” Moreover, Tropic Death uses less charged language to introduce not only Miss Buckner’s daughters but also her feelings toward their life choices—particularly, the fact that two of her daughters have run off with dark-skinned men. The New Negro version portrays Miss Buckner as so disturbed by their judgment that she thinks to herself that “her poor little ones were going to the dogs.” But the story in Tropic Death hints at a deeper meaning behind Miss Buckner’s disapproval: “few knew the secret of Miss Buckner’s sorrow, few sensed the deep tragedy of her.” This revision not only casts a more morally lenient picture of her character but also suggests a larger system at play preventing Miss Buckner from simply enjoying her daughters’ happiness.
Perhaps one of the most significant changes between versions is the lens of agency that Tropic Death employs to illustrate Miss Buckner’s mannerisms and the way she conducts herself around men. For instance, the New Negro story describes a scene in which “one or two British youths, palsied with liquor, desire, glared at her … then, at the olive figure, gold and crimson epaulets, high, regal prancing, at the uncovered, wolf-like fangs of the Captain. …” Tropic Death’s telling of the same scene shifts the perspective to allow readers a glimpse into Miss Buckner’s view and grants a clearer picture of her clever maneuvering: “It was a risky job, wading through the lanes of wine-fat men. As she and the Captain sped along, she was careful to let him see that she admired his golden epaulets, and the lofty contemptible way he’d step over the drunken Britons, but she in her own unobtrusive way was hurling to one side every one that came in contact with her.” Illustrating the scene from Miss Buckner’s perspective showcases not only her cunningness to play to the captain’s ego through flattery but also her strength to do so while discreetly shoving away any man who touches her. This scene as it plays out in Tropic Death epitomizes the subtle shifts Walrond makes toward casting Miss Buckner as a complex protagonist whose primary goal is to game the Canal Zone’s hierarchical system.
As Parascandola and McGarrity remind us, though, Miss Buckner’s schemes are ultimately futile. Just as Walrond’s revisions make clearer the attempts she makes to subvert the system and gain acceptance into the middle class, so too they highlight the fact that her actions “are actually adhering to [the system’s] most established tenet: respectability.”[4] In illuminating Miss Buckner’s ingenuity and gumption alongside the prostitution of her daughters, Walrond points out that the children are not the only victims of the story, and their mother is not the true mark for his criticism; it is rather the system in place that prevents Miss Buckner and her family from upward mobility and encourages these kinds of sacrifices for even the hope of respectability. The illusion of advantage over the men she tricks is just that: an illusion. In the end, Miss Buckner is no different than them, as they are all “unwitting victims of the society to which they yearn to belong.”[5] The revisions Walrond makes from The New Negro to Tropic Death do not simply flesh out characterizations and ideas already present, but rather shift the story’s focus to emphasize Miss Buckner as complex protagonist and unsuspecting victim and to elucidate the Canal Zone’s social hierarchy as its true object of criticism.
