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Free Term Papers - English Literature Dissertation Plan

Migrating Identities: The Experience of Afro-Caribbean and Asian Migrants to Britain

Proposal

The second half of the twentieth century saw a transformation of British society in which peoples from areas of the world that had formerly constituted colonies of the British Empire migrated to Britain in large enough numbers to have a significant impact upon the host community. Over half a century, Britain became a multicultural society. However, this change did not come about without resistance and upheaval. The impact of migration was often traumatic, especially upon those individuals who had left their homes to seek a different life in what they had looked upon as the 'Mother Country'. Throughout this period, creative writers charted the experience of these migrations and addressed the impact that migration had upon the individuals involved. As depicted in the literature, the experience of the migrant is one of perpetual tension between opposing forces: the past and the present; the places from and to which the migration occurs; the wider society and the individual; the language and culture of two places. The sense of self and the identity of the migrant is thus a divided one and this division and tension is the foundation of creativity in the migrant writers under consideration.

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The dissertation plan:

(1) Introduction

(2) Past and Present

Coming to terms with an often violent history is a common theme. Grace Nichols, in her book I is a Long Memoried Woman, focuses on the subject of slavery. In East is East the intergenerational conflict between the father and his children symbolises the tension between the past and the present. The woman's body is often portrayed as the site of conflict, both in Grace Nichols's work and as when George Kahn hits his wife Ella. Dabydeen's The Intended depicts the past through flashbacks to the narrator's childhood which contrasts with his present longing for the white body of Janet. Linton Kwesi Johnson's Jamaican Lullaby is a nostalgic reverie on memories of a Jamaican home that is shot through with violence - again upon the woman's body.

(3) A Sense of Place

A sense of place is crucial to identity and there are recurrent themes of memories of a distant homeland that are juxtaposed upon the current experience of Britain. In postcolonial work there is a sense of England being the dominant metropolitan centre, while the homeland is regarded as dominated periphery. In 'Reggae fi Dada', Johnson expresses the ambivalent relationship with a homeland where poverty and violence are a part of everyday existence. Dabydeen's narrator has a similar ambivalence about his native Guyana and Nichols celebrates the beauty of the Caribbean, yet cannot escape its violence. Khan-Din's work focuses on a family where the children have been born and brought up in England, yet they still have a sense of dislocation due to their racial and religious difference.

(4) The Wider Society and the Individual

The experience of the migrant is one of conflict, both internal and external, as cultures clash and individuals feel a sense of alienation and displacement. The structures of the dominant society are controlled through white power and so the conflict is often experienced as racism. The ways in which these conflicts are experienced is often different for men and for women and the ways in which gendered differences impact upon the migrant experience are particularly significant in the host population's perception of black young men in terms of criminality and violence. In Linton Kwesi Johnson's work, this conflict is between the police and black youths ('Sonny's Lettah') or between employer and employee ('Inglan in a Bitch'). Dabydeen also addresses themes of criminality, unemployment and the role of the education system (whether in the illiteracy of its 'failures', such as Joseph, or the aspirations of its 'successes' such as the narrator). Grace Nichols personalises these conflicts in her portrayal of clashes of values that affect the individual psyche: for example 'The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping' focuses on how commerce and advertising construct the experience of black women. The aspirations of the children in East is East are dominated by popular culture such as disco music, sex and football and the cultural collisions occur when the wider society impacts upon the family relationships.

(5) Language and culture

There is a sense in which postcolonial writers see themselves as re-writing the canon and so their relationship with other cultural artefacts and the language in which they express themselves is crucial to their project. Linton Kwesi Johnson's dub poetry which is often performed with reggae musical accompaniment is an example of the creation of a new art from that fuses Jamaican and British cultures. Dabydeen's work is a response to the wider context of English literature as exemplified by Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Khan-Din's work demonstrates the different linguistic registers between the father and his children and also Saleem's aspirations as an art student place him in a relationship with the 'high culture' of Western art. Nichols and Johnson write in a form of Caribbean dialect that ostensibly situates them within an oral tradition and yet they both also engage with written culture (for example in 'Sonny's Lettah'). Dabydeen also addresses the tension between written and oral culture in his juxtaposition of Joseph and the narrator.

(6) Conclusion

The tensions present within the migrant experience and the impact of painful external and internal conflicts on individual identity are crucial to the creative impulse of this group of writers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Secondary Sources