LONELY LONDONERS

CARIBBEAN ISLANDS : 

CARIBBEAN ISLANDS

History of Colonization of the Caribbean Islands : 

History of Colonization of the Caribbean Islands Spaniard explorers exterminated the Carib Indians during their quest for gold (1496) They sent the Taíno to South Africa to work in the gold mines and pearl beds Many Taínos committed suicide to escape this enslavement. The gold plundering continued until 1521 when larger reserves were discovered in Mexico. 1532-1648: The Netherlands, France, and England focus on expansion and colonization Each European power created its own type of colony based on its own needs at the time. Spain grew a large amount of the world's tobacco Others simply wanted land and an upper hand with which to trade goods in the region. Cuba gained its independence in 1901, but independence for all the island nations wasn't a legitimate prospect until the 1960s. In 1962, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became independent states within the British Commonwealth.

JAMAICA KINCAID(1949 - ...) : 

JAMAICA KINCAID(1949 - ...) Born in 1949 on the island of Antigua- Elaine Potter Richardson 1965 She left for New York to work as an au pair Secondary education under the British system due to Antigua's status as a British colony until 1967. Studied photography at the New York School for Social Research after leaving the family for which she worked She received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Wesleyan University in 2008 She is a visiting professor and teaches creative writing at Harvard University. Married to a composer and Bennington College professor. They live in the Vermont - USA. They have two children

WORKS OF JAMAICA KINCAID : 

WORKS OF JAMAICA KINCAID Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip (1986) Annie John (1986) Lucy (1990) At the Bottom of the River (1992) The Autobiography of My Mother (1996) My Brother (1997) A Small Place (1998)

ANNIE JOHN : 

ANNIE JOHN Written in: 1986 Originally written in chapters in The New Yorker / Annie John as a strong narrator Issues: mother-daughter relationships, lesbianism, racism, clinical depression, education, and the struggle between medicine based on "scientific fact" and that based on "native superstitious know-how". Tone: A mature and a grown up point of view.

Themes, Motifs and Symbols : 

Themes, Motifs and Symbols Bildungsroman: We see Annie John’s growing up together with the society she is in. developing societies / painful situation the characters are going through together with the society. Promotion to a higher class: Annie’s growing up resembles the caribbeans promotion to present day caribbean with the help of their colonization Her relationship with her mother: Sociological interest & the conflict between the mother-country and the daughter-colony.We witness the mother daughter relationship and her Fear to drop away from her mother: When she writes a composition and reads it to the whole class. The blurring of individual identity: Annie doesn’t know where her body starts and her mother’s end because they even wear the same clothes at times. Water: Consistently used throughout the novel to depict the separation between Annie John and her mother. Eg: The River Between”

Themes, Motifs and Symbols : 

Themes, Motifs and Symbols The colonial motifs vs. The native traits (Obeah) Trunk: My name is Annie John: The deficiency of having a seperate self in the colonial world having a collective national self extra egoism, self centricism and corroption of the soul rebellion toward a life more obssesed in bodily pleasure. The red girl is the representative of the non orderly life She is the spirit from the past non colonized not have had to be “civilized” in the cliche terms (Preserving sth that belongs to the soul) Lesbianism: the need to develop identity the need to form alternative identities.

Death : 

Death Obssession with death: identifying with the colonized. Children conduct all their misdeeds in the tombstones: The colonized’s written history. Eg: Annie's musing on the failure of the school to discuss the negative history of slavery and her delight in the imprisonment of Columbus highlight the ways in which the school teaches the students not to question the history and social order that is being handed down to them. Schools and other institutions: Run as British institutions. Teachers: Miss George and Miss Edward, teachers at Annie's school, whom are both named after English kings. Metarials: English literature, history, and culture. Dressing: Formal British style Playground: Discouraged from engaging in local activities, such as calypso dancing. THE DEATH OF A CULTURE

Slide 9: 

“Of course, sometimes, what with our teachers and our books, it was hard for us to tell on which side we really now belonged – with the masters or the slaves – for it was all history, it was all in the past, and everybody behaved differently now; all of us celebrated Queen Victoria’s birthday, even though she had been dead a long time. But we, the descendants of the slaves, knew quite well what had really happened, and I was sure that if the tables had been turned we would have acted differently; I was sure that if our ancestors had gone from Africa to Europe and come upon the people living there, they would have taken a proper interest in the Europeans on first seeing them, and said, “How nice,” and then gone home to tell their friends about it” (p.76)

SAMUEL SELVON (1923–1994) : 

SAMUEL SELVON (1923–1994) Author of novels/plays/scripts for film, television, and radio. Born in Trinidad an Indian father and an Indian-Scottish mother Naparima College, San Fernando Moved to England1950. – Canada 1978 Awards: Two Guggenheim Fellowships (1955, 1968) Trinidad's Humming Bird medal for Literature (1969) An honorary doctorate from the University of Warwick (1989). Married twice in 1947 and 1963 had 4 children

WORKS OF SAMUEL SELVON : 

WORKS OF SAMUEL SELVON A Brighter Sun (1952) An Island is a World (1955) The Lonely Londoners (1956) Ways of Sunlight (1957) Turn Again Tiger (1958) I Hear Thunder (1965) The Housing Lark (1965) The Plains of Caroni (1970) Those Who Eat The Cascadura (1972) Moses Ascending (1975) Moses Migrating (1983)

LONELY LONDONERS : 

LONELY LONDONERS Written in 1956 Roughly three years (1950s) No plot in the strict sense of the word: The life of West Indians in post World War II London Large flow of Caribbean immigrants with their extended families arrive in U.K. Daily lives of its characters, Their difficulties in finding accommodation/jobs Bad weather The racism and fear Loneliness and survival Rare examples of friendship

Narrative Technique, Language and Style : 

Narrative Technique, Language and Style Third person narrator Creolized form of English Linguistic and cultural decolonization Grammatical incorrectness Slang expressions Conversational narrative style(a symbol of the emergence of the pidgins and creoles). Colloquial idiom associated with the speaking voice and oral literature The beginning: “One grim winter evening when it had a grim unrealness about London...”

Themes, Motifs and Symbols : 

Themes, Motifs and Symbols TITLE: Lonely Londoners: refugee or migrant? AUDIENCE: “I never wrote for caribbean people, I wrote to show caribbean people to the other parts of the world, and to let people look and identify” Not for Caribbean back at home or to entertain those in London. More international ideal. THE IDEA OF THE “OTHER”: The boundries between these societies were more clear cut once they were both host and the guest in each others countries: An ideal/ housing / The need to make friends

Themes, Motifs and Symbols : 

Themes, Motifs and Symbols Waterloo Station: A point of conduct between migrants and their destination A new illustration of the London map with all of its social, racial and class boundries. The wandering of the Caribbean’s migrants on the country. The Caribbeans’ reinterpretation of the Queen’s England History escapes the hands of the decided monopoly The London of Dickens, Eliot and Woolf is rewritten. Consuming of an ideal of Englishness which was usually exported to other nations with the claim of “White Man’s Burden”.

COMMON ELEMENTS OF THE BOOKS : 

COMMON ELEMENTS OF THE BOOKS Post-war Caribbean people and their problems Migrations to England Identity and identifying problems because of the formation of “the other”. Comparison of the native culture and the new one History escapes the hands of the decided monopoly

CALYPSO : 

CALYPSO Different sounds and many styles of music. Its ties to African music are strong,. Calypso's beginnings in the Caribbean are well-known: Trinidadian slaves were not allowed to speak to one another (e.g. Blues) socially-conscious and lyrically-oriented style of music. precise ability to capture the political pulse. Lyrics traditionally expressed political opinions or discussed slave massacres to help unite the slaves in their sorrow. Calypso's lyrics often encourage listeners to become involved in politics.