Small Island (150-288)

Small Island Title

• I feel like Levy decides to name the book Small Island to highlight the realization that Jamaica is only a dot in the grand world. This is a hard realization Gilbert faces. 
• "...shocked by the awful realization that, man, we Jamaicans are small islanders too!" (163)
• "The world out there is bigger than any dream you can conjure. this is a small island. Man, we just clinging so we don't fall off." (172)
• I also believe Small Island can also relate to the issues of race and racism Gilbert and Hortense face when they're in England. Coming from an island where they are the majority, the way they are treated does come as a shock. It puts the fact that the whole world isn't like Jamaica into perspective--it's just a Small Island.
• Though Gilbert realizes racism more than Hortense, he still had his struggles accepting it.
• "Segregation, madam, there is no segregation in this country.... This is England, not Alabama" (154)
• "We fighting the persecution of the Jew, yet even in my RAF blue my coloured skin can permit anyone to treat me as less than a man" (154)
• Hortense still doesn't seem to comprehend the concept of race.
• "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." (191)

The Illusion of a Better Life in England

• "That jewel was no more than a cluster of flies caught by the light, the radiant iridescent green the movement of their squabbling backs. My eyes no longer believed what they saw. For after the host flies flew that left me with just the piece of brown dog's shit they had all gathered on" (176)
• Both Gilbert and Hortense thought they would find a better life in England with more opportunities but they are greatly disappointed
• Hortense thought she was going to a large house, but instead just gets a room and life is much more bleak than she expected.
• "I never dreamed England would be like this. So cheerless" (186)
• "And let me tell you, the Mother Country--this thought-I-knew-you place--was bewildering these Jamaican boys" (175)
• "And every one of use was fat as a Bible with the faith that we would get a nice place to live in England" (177)
• Even Gilbert's thought of Queenie as his friend is ruined once he starts living there
• "cha, me thought you say she your friend. So why the woman act like bakkra?" (184) (bakkra: slave master/oppressor)
• "This woman start vex me so I think her husband a sensible man to lose him way between here and India" (185)