Colonialism In The Lonely Londoners

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The Caribbean region is known for its very unique history which is as a direct result of colonization by the Europeans. Within the domains of these islands, lies a shared colonial and post-colonial experience amongst its peoples which has inescapably left them with a fractured psyche. Postcolonial literary writers, through their works, have addressed, criticized and highlighted many issues faced by Caribbean people. This ‘quarrel with history’ is centered on issues of race, social class structure, gender, culture and identity. Writers such as Sam Selvon in his novel ‘The Lonely Londoners’ and V.S. Naipaul in ‘The Mystic Masseur’, through their writing, have disempowered various factors that affects the colonized. The literary techniques used …show more content…

It functions to illustrate the stark contrast of their past and present further highlighting the alienation that besieged them. The recollection of hardships suffered in his younger days when his father had to resort to pigeons for food, Galahad is forced to reenact those said actions in Kensington Gardens. Typically Moses drifts away into nostalgia which is representative of the futuristic ideal and hopes for a better life: ‘I would get a old house and have some cattle and goat, and all day long sit down in the grass in the sun, and hit a good corn cuckoo and calaloo now and then’ (p. 125). Moses is the main linking element between the main characters of the novel. The narratives of Moses and Galahad are mostly interwoven. Reminiscing is a pivotal aspect of their relationship. They share memories of characters and events of their past in Trinidad giving readers insight about who they are and where they came from. It is also used as a source of comfort towards the end of the novel during ‘one bitter season’ (p.116) where they faced hardships and turned to their memories to escape their current realities. On the other hand Galahad is presented as a logical realist: ‘It ain’t have no prospects back home, boy’ (p. 125). Memory plays a significant role for these characters and is reiterated by Moses: ‘This is a lonely miserable city, if it was that we didn’t get together now and then to talk about things back home, we would suffer like hell’ (p.

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