Andrea Levy’s Small Island offers its readers four distinct perspectives on the realities of living in a world shaped by European imperialism. Primarily based in postwar England, the novel’s plot nonetheless sees its characters ricochet about the continents; Hortense is first encountered in Jamaica, for example, whilst Bernard finds himself in India during the war and Gilbert, America. Each of these nations has been subject to British colonization and occupation, but each exhibits the repercussions of this shared history in different ways. It is particularly interesting to consider the contemporaneous state of race relations in the United Kingdom with the state of race relations in the United States; if one nation, as Levy seems to submit,
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The language of the white American GIs is especially telling; their every last statement is imbued with a sense of superiority. “I said sit where the lady tells ya,” one states; the very phrasing of his statement strips both Gilbert and the usherette of their agency. This GI then takes it a step further by repeatedly referring to Gilbert as “nigger.” Like “Jigaboo,” the pejorative term used by another GI, the word “nigger” is primarily a racial slur – but in repeatedly directing it at Gilbert, the American GI is asserting that he cannot and does not recognize Gilbert as an individual. The body language of this GI should also be noted. Gilbert describes his “silhouette rising like a mortal tempest”; the phrase “silhouette rising” emphasizes the GI’s monstrous nature, whilst the noun “tempest” lends him a sense of indefatigable power. This sense of power is reiterated through the fact that each white GI receives a “harmony of voices” or “volley of reply,” as though the voice of one white man carries the same weight as the voices of ten, twenty, thirty black men. It is interesting to note that whilst the GI shouts, the “tearful usherette” pleads; at first glance this would suggest that she, unlike the American GI, is a …show more content…
The existence of such difference is highlighted, first and foremost, by Gilbert’s confusion; he states that he “was perplexed” by what he witnessed and then corrects himself by saying, “No, we were all perplexed.” He cannot comprehend the manner in which his American “hosts” evaluate the relative worth of black skin, or the distinctions they make so easily between “you boys” and the “American nigger.” This indicates that race is less complex an issue in Britain: that prejudices do exist, but that they are also predicated solely on observations of physical difference. Gilbert’s experiences suggest that American popular rhetoric reasons that there is an irrevocable gulf between white and black bodies because the differences between the two are genotypic – not phenotypic. The Americans seem to have reduced their black statesmen to a subhuman species: something straight out of “the animal kingdom.” Gilbert’s incredulity at seeing this being discussed with “black faces, up against (…) black skin” should also be noted. His bewilderment suggests that such discourse is not freely disseminated in Britain – or that its being proffered by “smiling” faces is so jarring an image that it simply cannot be processed by a rational
The language of the white American GIs is especially telling; their every last statement is imbued with a sense of superiority. “I said sit where the lady tells ya,” one states; the very phrasing of his statement strips both Gilbert and the usherette of their agency. This GI then takes it a step further by repeatedly referring to Gilbert as “nigger.” Like “Jigaboo,” the pejorative term used by another GI, the word “nigger” is primarily a racial slur – but in repeatedly directing it at Gilbert, the American GI is asserting that he cannot and does not recognize Gilbert as an individual. The body language of this GI should also be noted. Gilbert describes his “silhouette rising like a mortal tempest”; the phrase “silhouette rising” emphasizes the GI’s monstrous nature, whilst the noun “tempest” lends him a sense of indefatigable power. This sense of power is reiterated through the fact that each white GI receives a “harmony of voices” or “volley of reply,” as though the voice of one white man carries the same weight as the voices of ten, twenty, thirty black men. It is interesting to note that whilst the GI shouts, the “tearful usherette” pleads; at first glance this would suggest that she, unlike the American GI, is a …show more content…
The existence of such difference is highlighted, first and foremost, by Gilbert’s confusion; he states that he “was perplexed” by what he witnessed and then corrects himself by saying, “No, we were all perplexed.” He cannot comprehend the manner in which his American “hosts” evaluate the relative worth of black skin, or the distinctions they make so easily between “you boys” and the “American nigger.” This indicates that race is less complex an issue in Britain: that prejudices do exist, but that they are also predicated solely on observations of physical difference. Gilbert’s experiences suggest that American popular rhetoric reasons that there is an irrevocable gulf between white and black bodies because the differences between the two are genotypic – not phenotypic. The Americans seem to have reduced their black statesmen to a subhuman species: something straight out of “the animal kingdom.” Gilbert’s incredulity at seeing this being discussed with “black faces, up against (…) black skin” should also be noted. His bewilderment suggests that such discourse is not freely disseminated in Britain – or that its being proffered by “smiling” faces is so jarring an image that it simply cannot be processed by a rational