Small Island Day One

Chizoba Ukairo, Laura Miron, and Kathryn Lazarchick

Small Island Discussion part 1

19 November 2014

Prologue:

After Queenie and her parents attended the British Empire Exhibition, she claimed to her class that “I thought I had been to Africa”(1).

• Queenie then goes on to explain her experience at the exhibition as she discovered the “Ripe, green, crisp”(3) smell of the Apples present in Australia and the “women brightly dressed in strange long, colorful fabrics”(4) in India.
• The young narrator continues to illustrate her thoughts as she discovers the wonders of each nation at the exhibition.

-How does the narrator’s depiction of Africa and the “monkey man sweating a smell of mothballs [who was] blacker than when you smudge your face with a sooty cork,”(5)  vary Queenie’s observations of the other nations at the exhibition?

-What significance does the prologue play in introducing racial issues of the novel?

-What stereotypes about Africa are introduced in this section of the novel?

Romanticized vision vs reality: Hortense’s arrival to England

• Romanticized vision
• dreams of moving to England to teach
• talks to her friend Celia Langley who dreams of “leaving Jamacia...and going to live in England” (9)
• her nose in the air
• yet arrives and does not reach her expectations
• Dreamed of her husband Joseph Gilbert waiting for her at the docks
• his “double breasted suit”
• Ringing her new doorbell in her new England house
• Reality  
• no one is at the docks
• her husband fell asleep- lied about cleaning but,etc.
• suit that she loved is hanging on the hanger alone
• has a run down run in a house with other tenants
• the doorbell she dreamed of does not even work
• filthy, sad, small room run down by WWII
• Basically a nightmare, that really saddens Hortense and makes her first impression of England miserable
• yet her husband, Gilbert, after her less than positive reaction to the conditions sets her in her place

“Yes and you know what else, little Miss Stick-up-your-nose-in-the-air, you will have to wash your plate, your vegetable and your backside in that basin too. This room is where you will sleep, eat, cook, dress, and write your mummy to tell her how the Mother Country is so fine. And, little Miss High-class, one thing about England you don’t know yet because you just come off a boat. You are lucky” (27).

-Gilbert claims that “There been a war here, Everyone live like this”(17) as he shows Hortense his living area. How has war altered society?

Michael and The Ryders:

Upon watching the embrace of Michael and Mrs. Ryder, Hortense “wanted to burst from the room, blow through the windows, to blast through the walls, and escape into the embrace of the dependable hurricane”(46).

-Why is this scene significant?

-What was the town’s reaction to this scandal? Hortense’s reaction?

-In regards to The Ryders, how does the couple’s lifestyle differ from the rest of the town?

Hortense describes her upbringing:

Hortense reflects on her time with Mr. Philip and Miss Ma as they “had taken no more notice of my leaving the homestead than if I were a piece of their livestock whose time had come to be sent for slaughter”(51).

• “Those diligent years of my upbringing--feeding me with the food from their plates, dressing me in frocks made of cotton and lace, teaching me English manners and Christian discipline-were they to mean no more than the fattening of a chicken on best coconut, which, after they had feasted on its carcass, stripping it of all goodness, they threw out as waste?”(51).

- Does Hortense’s description of her upbringing allow the reader to gain another dimension to her character as she is released into the world?

-What significance does the capture/shower scene (pg 54-55) play within the novel? (if any significance…)

Race

Race as a social construct is clearly shown throughout the novel so far.  Gilbert does not know about racism in America, and he is constantly discriminated against as an airmen while with the US men.

“Coloured, black, nigger.  All these words has been used to characterise me in the last few minutes.  Insults every one,” (126).

“master-race theory: Jim Crow!” (110)

Gilbert also feels a level of distress when he can clearly describe Jamaica’s connection with Britain, but no one understands him or knows it for themselves.  How do you interpret the passage below?

“Give me a map,  let me see if Tommy Atkins or Lady Havealot can point to Jamaica.  Let us watch them turning the page round, screwing up their eyes to look, turning it over to see if perhaps the region was lost on the back, before shrugging defeat.  but give me that map, blindfold me, spin me round three times and I, dizzy and dazed, would still place my finger squarely on the Mother Country,” (119).

“But for me I had just one question - let me ask the Mother Country just this one simple question: how come England did not know me?” (117)

-How did reading the explicit racism make people feel? Was it as uncomfortable for you all as it was for me?

-Is it possible to interpret the white soldier’s behaviors objectively in this connotation? Why or why not?

Queenie’s neighbor is apprehensive about her being a landlady for colored people.

Hortense and Gilbert

Do you consider the couple’s marriage legitimate? Explain

How do you interpret the scene when the couple was alone in the room after their wedding?  (85-87) What does it say about Hortense’ view/feelings about the marriage?