"AND YOU CAN DRINK THE WATER" 9

 Daughters and No Telephone to Heaven clearly articulate Alexander's
view of tourism rather than MacCannell's. I intend to explore their
critiques of tourism by examining the representations of the Caribbean
in tourist literature and its connection to the appropriation of the
landscape by tourists and filmmakers in the two novels. I will further
articulate the ways in which the novels work against these
representations on two different levels: on the descriptive level,
Marshall's and Cliff's depictions of Triunion and Jamaica function as
correctives to tourist depictions, and on the narrative level, the two
protagonists defend the land against misappropriation by (re)inhabiting
it themselves.
 Although tourist literature employs many strategies in order to
render the Caribbean more appealing, including depictions of the
"friendliness"' of the locals and the exciting but ideologically
neutralized colonial past, the most important feature of the tour guide
depiction of the Caribbean is the description of the land itself, which
focuses on rendering the landscape exotic/erotic, clean, and emptied
of local inhabitants. Caribbean Ports of Call 1998, a guide designed to
help cruise passengers plan their activities for their brief stopovers
on various Caribbean islands, is careful to characterize the various
destinations it recommends as "filled with the romance of a tropical
wilderness," emphasizing natural beauty and relying heavily on such
terms as "lush," "wild," and "tropical," in order to suggest an unspoiled
wilderness (126). The guide's brief description of the landscape in
Martinique is a particularly clear example of this idealizing, primitivizing
drive: "Martinique, is lush with wild orchids, frangipani, anthurium,
jade vines, flamingo flowers, and hundreds of hibiscus varieties. Trees
bend under the weight of tropical treats such as mangoes, papayas,
bright red West Indian cherries, lemons, and limes" (Ports of Call 137).
This emphasis on such sexually charged symbols as flowers and fruits,
particularly the "bright red West Indian cherries," the only fruit whose
appearance is so caressingly described, is very much in keeping with
the tradition of presenting landscape as eroticized and feminized. As
Alexander points out, this emphasis on the eroticized virgin landscape
is particularly significant for Caribbean tourism: "For the tourist, the
state-managed [semiotic] system adheres to the feminization of nature


 See M. Jacqui Alexander, "Imperial Desire/Sexual Utopias: White Gay Capital
and Transnational Tourism." Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a
Transnational Age. Ed. Ella Shohat. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. 299.