Small Island

English Literature AS A level Wider Reading

Small Island - Andrea Levy (2004) Analysis

Struggle for Identity in Modern Literature Wider Reading

Decided to read it…

A)     The struggle for racial identity is a prominent theme in a lot of 20^th century literature and would be great for comparisons with other novels of the time.

B)      Written by a British writer about our own nation. Saw this as a contrast against all the other American literature that seems to dominate literature of the 20th century. 

Andrea Levy uses the voices of four different characters (Queenie, Hortense, Gilbert Joseph and Bernard Bligh) to paint a picture of post war Great Britain. As Jamaican immigrants escape their own “Small Island” to that of another, their “mother country” their expectations of a grand, imminent and colonial society isn’t quite what greets them.  Instead they’re faced with the economic and social turmoil of a war torn country.

This novel is not just about the character’s own search for identity, but the transformation of Britain itself. The end of the imperial age and the birth of the diverse nation we know Britain as today - the Britain that creates a home for asylum seekers and embraces athletes of all ethnicities and backgrounds into its Olympic team as we saw this summer. The Second World War was a catalyst for multi-cultural Britain.

The Author

Andrea’s father sailed, along with many others, from Jamaica on the Empire Windrush in 1948.  Her mother sailed to join him a year later.

Andrea was born in 1956 in London and grew up as a minority in a primarily white country. Through her own experiences, as well as discovering her own racial and sexual identity she became aware of the changing attitudes of the rest of Britain.

She realised into her thirties how powerful literature could be and began to “read excessively”. She found there to be an abundance of American literature covering the theme of racial identity, but little from a British perspective; so she set out to change that. She’s written five novels and won 5 literary prizes including the Orange Prize for Fiction and the  Whitbread Book of the Year 2004.

The Characters

Queenie

·         Native British

·         Open-minded, friendly,  approachable, honest.

·         Husband Bernard posted to India in the war, she doesn’t know when he’ll return.

·         She takes in Jamaican lodgers, much to the dismay of her neighbours.

·         She has a black child with Michael after a night of passion with an airman.

·         Her affair is an enlightening experience in many respects.

Bernard

·         Deeply in love with Queenie

·         Colonial British – perhaps enhanced by his posting to India.

·         Racist

·         Close Minded

Gilbert Joseph

·         Jamaican

·         Likable

·         Laid back

·         Sees the best in everyone

·         Always tries to please everyone

Hortense

·         Jamaican

·         Well-mannered

·         Stubborn

·         Haughty

·         Naïve

Extract

Mrs Bligh, or Queenie, the familiar name she desired I use, came to her door, wrapping herself in a dowdy woollen coat. I presumed she had changed her mind about the presumed excursion to the shops, for I believed this dreary coat to be her housecoat. Wishing to allay any anxiety that I might be disappointed by this alteration of plan, I told her “Do not worry yourself on account of I. I shall find my way around the shops with no problem.”

I was astounded when, closing the door shut behind her, she said, “What? What are you talking about? I’m ready.” For this dismal garment, which I had taken to be her dressing gown, was her good outside coat. Could the woman not see this coat was not only ugly but too small for her? She determined, wrestled herself in to do up the button. When she was finished this fight, she look on me distasteful, up and down. I was dressed as a woman should be when visiting the shops in England. My coat clean, my gloves freshly washed and a hat upon my head. But Mrs Bligh stare on me as if something wrong with my apparel, before telling me once more, “I’m  not worried about what the busybodies say. I don’t mind being seen in the street with you.”

Gender Quotes 
"A wife must do as her husband say. You ask a judge. You ask a policeman" In the novel, Levy highlights not only racial discrimination, but the nation's imposing view of women also - the husband likening himself to positions of notoriety and power in the "judge" and policeman" which likens a woman's duty to her husband to a act of law.

"Her frame, over the years, had obligingly hunched shorted so as to spare her husband the indignity" This shows how  some women became weak to the dominance of their husbands - encompassed in the word "hunched" meaning, furthering the metaphor of superiority physically.

Racial Quotes

"Big Nigger man" Spoken by a child, these words depict a fumbling naivety of the British which makes one think their racism is born from a lack of knowledge - like a child. Scared of the unknown.

"Have you seen Sugar? She's one of you." Although Britain never experienced segregation, this shows the influence Americans had over the British people - giving them the attitude of separation of "us" and "them".

Heritage Quotes
""Too many Poles. Overrun by Czechs. Couldn't move for the Belgians. And as for the Jews"... Mr. Todd wanted none of them down our street." Changing attitudes towards Black people and other immigrants after the war brought many people to question their own national identity - would an influx of foreign people change who they were regarded as themselves? "England is for the English and the West Indies for these coloured people… I've got nothing against them in their place. But their place isn't here"

"A universe that runs only a few miles in either direction before it falls into the sea.". Gilbert descibes Jamaica, a country he feels national pride for. "A universrse" juxtaposed against the Jamaica's tiny perimeters. 

Sexual
"The zebra of their legs twined and untwined together on the bed." Animalistic passion. 
 "Mrs Bligh, usually worked out what she could make for dinner during sexual relations with her husband" Mundane household chore.