THEMES AND VISION IN EDWARD KAMAU BRATHWAITE’S

ISLAND

BY
AYEBANOA, TIMIBOFA
15/PG/AR/EN/016
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
UNIVERSITY OF UYO

SUBMITTED

TO

DR. CHRIS EGHAREVBA

FOR

CARIBBEAN POETRY (ENG.636)

September, 2016
ABSTRACT

This study engages Edward Kamau Braithwaite’s Island via the postcolonial critical

approach. The paper examines the themes the poet preoccupies himself with in this artful

collection. The researcher finally projects the poet’s vision of hope and rediscovery of the

Caribbean Island as part of his major concern in this paper.

THEORETICAL FRAME WORK

Postcolonialism as a literary theory emerged in the early 19th century and gained momentum

in the late 20th century. The theory is give s a kind of psychological relief the colonized. The

interest of the postcolonial critic is to expose the evils of colonialism. It sees literature as a

means to probe into the history of society by recreating its past experiences to forestall future

occurrences. In his work The Empire writes Back: Theory and practice in postcolonial

literature Bell Ashcroft et al, averts that postcolonial criticism covers’’... all culture affected

by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to present’’ (152). Awan Ankpa

also views that the concept in like manner as representing’’ those fields of significations in

which people who have been colonized by Europe struggle to redefine themselves and their

environment in the face of Eurocentricism’s epistemological violence(172). Thus,

postcolonial criticism attempts to dismantle in the words of Ayo Kehinde the hegemonic

boundaries and determinants that create an unequal relations of power based on binary

opposition such as ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, first words, and third word ‘white’ and the ‘Black’

colonizer and colonized (273). This approach suitable for this study as it will enable the

researcher examines the effect in the text and the hope the poet project in the end.
INTRODUCTION

In Island’s the poet captures his return to the West Indies and the quest and his search for

identity and existence. According to Dabydeen and Wilson Tagoe, Brathwaite’ island

challenges the colonial view of the Caribbean as an uncreative product of the imperial order.

In this third section, the poet brings to bear the challenges of poverty, nostalgia, loneliness,

forced emigration, footlessness and identity, exploitation and oppression from the colonial

power.

THEMES

Poverty is a common theme in Caribbean poetry. Brathwaite again in this section brings to

bear the theme of poverty, to refresh his readers the state of the average Caribbean man and

woman Africans living in the Island. In ‘’Tizzic” the poet noted that due to the level of

poverty and hunger the average Caribbean man or woman has resorted to various kind of life

to replace their current state. In this poem, the poet captures the life style of the unemployed

Caribbean blacks. Who resort to all forms of vices in order to survive, he put it clearer in the

lines below:

An’ then there was Tizzic,

He prefers to booze
An’ women

It shame muh to heart to think

How many t’ings he had wide chile:
Shirley, Bots, Phosphorine
 Yet you know mister man, Hick TTizzic
Was one o’de few hard black man
Livin’ down hey... (103)
Furthermore he went ahead to depict the gruesome life of the blacks in the Caribbean in the

in island which according to the poet is not worthy of mention as they go hungry for days

without food a condition that resulted which lead many to live various kind of immoral lives

just to survive. In “Ogun’’ the Yoruba god of iron, believed to be the custodian of the Yoruba

people, the poet capture the economic problem ragging the island artificially created by the

colonizers thereby leading to this state of hardship only for the black:

But he was poor and most days hungry

Dry shuttered eyes, slack anciently exerted
Lips, flat ruined face, eaten by pox ravaged by rat (86)
This theme is further magnified by the way the colonizers enrich themselves with the

resources of the black but living their lands under developed. They sap the blacks’ blood each

opening day till down in the sugar cane farms for hours without food, living like beggars in

their home land a condition the poet considers very inhuman.

Again in “Caliban’’ the poet focused on same theme. The poet stressed that the condition

which the white man has presented is not romantic which has kept them the way they are

today, bemoaning this scenario he observed that although, the black have the highest

population in the Island, they remain the wretched of the island ; Here what he says:

Ninety- five percent of my people poor

Ninety- five percent my people black
Ninety- five percent my people dead
You have heard it all before o Leviticus o Jeremiah
O Jean- Paul Sartre.(34)
The poet emphatically repeats the phrase ‘’Ninety- five percent of my people” to stress the

seriousness and truancy of the issue, And to show how the economy of the land is controlled

by a few capitalists i the island.

Exploitation, suffering and oppression are other themes closely linked to the above theme. In

“Anvil’’ the poet sings further the brutality and oppression meted on the blacks in the island.

Using the image of Uncle Tom which depicts slavery and suffering of the black man in the

Caribbean Island, the poet captures this scenario through the voice of Uncle Tom:

Here old Uncle Tom lived: his whole life

Tight house no bigger than your
Sitting room. Here was his world
Banged like fist on broken chairs
Bare table and the side
Board dresser where he kept his cup.
One wooden only door, still latched,
Hasped broken; four slates still intact
one window, wooden
Darkeness pours from these wretched boards
And from these wretched boards and from the crab- torn spaces underneath
The door(91)
Brathwaite pictures the living place of old Uncle Tom in this poem as a metaphor for the

entire Caribbean man and woman in the island, living in slums and tightly constructed houses

meant for slaves. He takes out time to describe the outdoor and interior design of the house

uncles Tom’s inn to make the reader see the picture clearer and more so for the reader to see

the fate of the Caribbean personality in humanly created.

Another theme which the poet examines in this section is the theme of Nostalgia, the longing

for home and home sickness as the new found Island seems to be unfriendly as their former
home. In the “Islands’’ the poet captures the nostalgia the Caribbean experiences in the Island

as a result of the sudden invasion of their Island history. He reminiscences the ravage done on

his people in historical time:

Looking through a map

Of the Antilles, you see how time
Has trapped
Its humble servant here
Decendants of the sl;aves do not lie
In the lap
Of the more fortunate gods
That rat in the warehouse is as much king
As the sugar he plunders. (47)
A similar theme of loneliness, rootless and separation of the blacks from their ancestral land

is presented in “Ananse’’. The poet in this poem using the flash back narrative technique,

captures his beautiful African past which he has been detached from and which he long to be

attached with again. This is so because the present environment sees them more like animals

and bound slaves with strictures attached to their daily living. He explains it better in the lines

below:

With a black snake’s un

Winking eye
Thinking, thinking through glass
Through quartz
Quarries of sony water
With a doll’s liquid gaze, crystal,
His brian green chrysalis
Storing leaves,
Memories trunked up in a dark attic,
 He stumps up the stares
Of our windows, he stare, stares
He squats on the tips(6)

This theme of roots still manifests in ‘’Ancestors’’ in this poem the poet recalls the beautiful

African roots by tracing his ancestral root to Africa. He reflect on the African past, her glory

pride, moral values which has been corrupted with the colonialist carefree life styles and

practices alien to Africa. Using the image of “my grandfather’’ the poet symbolizes the

ancestors of the Islands. He noted that life was at its fullest when the colonial masters came

with their wrong value system, thereby making things to fall apart:

...great caterpillar tractor clatter down the

Broken highway now; a diesel engine
Grunts where pigs once hunted garbage... (82)

VISION

The poet according to Ezekiel, Solomon captures the hope and redemption of the Caribbean

personality, like Walcott , Braithwaite believes in the continuous existence of the Caribbean

man or Woman hence stresses the need for the past to be studied in order to avoid repetition

(86). He speaks like a teacher similar to Walcott the poet believes that, despite the ugly past

the future can always be better if both are consciously married. By this, according to the poet,

the island will recover her lost glory and a phase of life will emerge in the new world.

Therefore, it is this hope and quest for a better life which the poet examines in the poems in

the Island.
CONCLUSION

The paper has so far engaged Braithwaite’s Island through the Postcolonial critical angle with

regards to his thematic preoccupation. It has also examined these themes in details ranging

from of poverty, nostalgia, loneliness, forced emigration, footlessness and identity,

exploitation and oppression etc.

The finally considers something critical to his poetry which is his vision. The researcher

captures his positive vision of hope and rediscovery, using ample poems from the Island.
 WORKS CITED

Aschcroft, Gareth and Helen. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Postcolonial

Literature. London: Routledge, 1989.

Edward, Brathwaite. The Arrivants. A New World Trilogy, London: Oxford University Press.

Julia Udofia. The History and Shapings of the Caribbean Literature: American Journal of

Humanities and Social Sciences, 1.2, 2013: 56-62.

..., Caribbean Literature and its Background. Ibadan: Kraft books, 2015.

Solomon, Ezekiel. African in the Imagination of Brathwaite, Gullen And Walcott. Zaria:

Amadu Bello University printing press, 2015.