O Stay and Hear

Author - Phyllis Shand Allfrey

She was part of a family of white colonial officials. However, she didn’t
represent the white power, in fact she tried to represent black people in Dominica, she was
an outcast in her country. She even founded the Labour Party but was later expelled by
black nationalists since she didn’t represent black people’s identity (skin) and
interests.
Post-colonial authors tend to move back and forth between their homeland
(Dominica) and their “motherland” (UK, USA, etc.). Phyllis also makes her characters
interact with people of different cultures, races and classes. There’s always the
question of epiphany (literary technique, results from chance encounters) (is a theme).
Class Analysis
The short story shows a lot regarding social classes in a post-colonial country. Even
though Dominica (setting of the story) was independent, the relationship between
masters (Madame-la and Rodney, English free settlers) and servants (Melta and Ariadne)
was still well established. The relationship between both is different from the typical
relationship where the master feels superior to the servants. Phyllis subverts the stereotype
of master-servant relation, the story is about power relations, where there’s always an
oppressor and oppressed.
However, the servants are not completely powerless, they have some
resources, which despite being simple are symbolic, and help them resist this relation of
subjugation. These are mocking and laughter. The story even begins with a song
mocking Madame-la while she’s having a bath.
The servants mock and laugh at their masters, but they iron their hair to
resemble white people, they feel admiration for them. Up to the point that they refer to their
countries as “motherland.” The servants are happy for their kids having a lighter
complexion, because they reckon the whiter you are the more opportunities you’ll have,
the more privileges or the higher you’ll be in this social hierarchy (this has to do with race,
identity and gender).
In terms of skin colour, Madame-la is surprised when the servants tell her about
the hen and the chick (the chick is whiter than the hen) and compare them with their kids
(kids are whiter than the servants). Because of this, Madame-la comes up with a theory.
She says people don't make love out of romance but out of evolutionary means
(have whiter kids so that they can have more opportunities). We can say that she
experiences an epiphany, she learns something new about the island.
In the last scene of the story Mr. Whitborough (turning point in the story) he
tells an anecdote he had in the island. He was with a friend, Arbuthnot, when they
saw two girls bathing in a river and singing a Shakespearean song (according to
Whitborough, but Madame-la reckons those could have been her servants singing the same
song they sang at the beginning). Those were Melta and Ariadne. Arbuthnot went after
the girls and Whitborough finished his story because it becomes “cruel” to keep
telling it, because there’s sexual intercourse. Which is why the children of the
servants are whiter (there’s a moment where Melta says “I also have a child, a boy
named Ah-but-not [named after his father Arbuthnot]. He is even so light as Adné’s child,
and born in the same month [both conceived at the same time]”)
In the very last scene Madame-la gains a sense of mockery from the servants,
she asks Whitborough if he went after the edible crabs after all, meaning “or did you also
went after the girls?” mocking him just like the servants mocked her.