Small Island 147-292 LR

The theme of racism continues:

“Everyone fighting a war hates…to this cocky hatred that was charging across the room to yell in the face of a coloured man whose audacity was to sit with a white woman, I was learning to despise the white American GI above all other” (147)

how segregation/racism affect each other---“This is England, I said. This is not America. We do not do this in England. I will sit anywhere I please” (153) [Gilbert]

Arthur Bligh is killed in the fight outside the movie theatre…. “Arthur Bligh had become another casualty of war—but come, tell me, someone…which war?” (160)

The idea of “small island”

Gilbert feels trapped when he returns to Jamaica and realizes the life he left behind in England

“But instead of being joyous at this demob I looked around me quizzical as a jilted lover. So, that was it. Now what? With alarm I became aware that the island of Jamaica was no universe: it ran only a few miles before it fell into the sea. In that moment, standing tall on Kingston harbor, I was shocked by the awful realization that, man, we Jamaicans are all small islanders too!” (163)

            -how does the idea of the small island represent a lack of opportunity? Or a lack of insight/knowledge of the wider world? (job opportunities, technology, racism)

            -how does Gilbert find his way off the small island?

“I am not too proud to tell you I sobbed like a boy lost. I was beaten. There was no choice before me except one. If Hortense had money to buy me then, come let us face it, my price was not too dear” (174)

 (175-176) Is the story of the brooch a metaphor for Gilbert’s experience in London?

Hortense and her perception of England/ the English

“For England was my destiny” (187)

“You’ll soon get used to our language. I told this Englishwoman, ‘I can speak and understand the English language very well, thank you” (189)

“Now, why should this woman worry to be seen in the street with me? After all, I was a teacher and she was only a woman whose living was obtained from the letting of rooms. If anyone should be shy it should be I. And what is a darkie?” (191)

“Not everything, I tell her, not everything the English do is good”  (271) [Gilbert]

[BEFORE]

How is Queenie introduced to the city? What does her background say about her character?

Is there a parallel between Queenie being groomed for marriage and Hortense’s grooming to be more English?

Why is Queenie so compelled to help others during the bombing? How does this affect her relationship with Arthur/ Bernard?

            “and it was my job to find out who they had once been and where they had once lived” (213)

What do we learn about Arthur?