ABSTRACT

Alienation, as a subject matter in Caribbean Literature is not novel. This is because

it is an issue that has been featured very prominently in the literature of most
Caribbean writers who migrated to England in the 1950s. Prior to the relocation of
these writers to England, there has been an existing tradition of repudiation. Any
skin that is not white in colour is mocked, rejected and isolated. This was the
nature of the society these writers found themselves in. As a consequence, they
wrote works that were largely semi autobiographical in nature, chronicling their
bitter experiences in a society that isolated them solely on the basis of their skin
colour. Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners and Michael Anthony’s The Year
in San Fernando are the major focus of this paper. Each of the aforementioned
novels explores the subject matter of alienation in a very unique and alluring
manner. This paper, amongst many other things examines in great details the
cause(s) of alienation and how the characters concerned reacts to it, the effect or
impact of alienation on the characters, and scholarly criticisms of alienation in both
works. It rounds off by making a comparative analysis of the two texts, noting the
similarities and differences in the treatment of the subject of concern, alienation.
 In general terms, alienation, which is synonymous with abalineation or

estrangement, refers to the state of being isolated from/by something. For instance,

when we say Mr. A is alienated from his environment, we mean Mr. A

disassociated himself from his environment. Conversely, if Mr. A is alienated by

his environment, it means Mr. A’s environment isolated him, maybe because of

differing beliefs or sensibilities. There are different types of alienation. For

instance, social alienation, parental alienation, parental alienation syndrome,

alienation effect, Marxist theory of alienation, Alienation (as it concerns the legal

transfer of title of ownership to another party) and so on. But for the purpose of

this study, social alienation primarily comes to fore because we are looking at the

characters’ estrangement from/by their environment, community, society, or world.

Alienation in literature defies novelty. Often times than not, we come across

characters whose sensibilities reflect antonymy with prevalent societal

conventions. To this end, L. Harrison notes that “The proliferation of literary

characters who struggle with alienation is a result of the real-life struggle many

human beings have with feeling disconnected from, shunned by, and unrelated to

other human beings and the societal institutions that shape and guide us” (28).

Continuing this argument, Harrison avers that “Alienation is a powerful force, one

that moves humans toward the negative impulses of self-pity, vulnerability, and

violence but that can also result in the positive results of deep introspection and
intellectual independence” (28). It may not be incorrect to say that the modernist

period was the period that majorly witnessed the emergence of alienation.

Modernism, described in broad terms, connotes a radical departure from, a

criticism of, or/and a modification of what has been existing, such as traditional

forms of art to correspond with the realities of the present age. The modernist

questions almost everything. He questions the dictates of the church, he questions

the theories and philosophies of pre-modernist scholars, and he rejects the

conventional ways of viewing things. These conflicts he encounters in a new era

makes him alienate himself from his environment. Harrison, again, makes it

clearer:

Many scholars associate alienation primarily with the 20 th century and

beyond, and indeed, the modernist movement, dated roughly from
1890 to 1950, has as one of its central themes the idea that in the
modern era, with its increased reliance on science and technology, and
the gradual removal of the individual from rural community into
urban isolation, the individual and society are at odds with one
another. Modernism explores how our relationships with each other
and with social institutions such as the church, school, work, and
family have grown weaker, leading us to be increasingly
individualistic in our thinking and thus alienated. (60)
Caribbean literature is the body of literature that captures in totality, the

history/origin, experiences, and sensibilities of blacks living at the various

territories of the Caribbean region. The Caribbean was discovered in 1492 by

Christopher Columbus in the course of his expedition as Julia Udofia tells us

more:
 The history of the Caribbean is peculiar. It does not evolve gradually
and naturally out of a remote mythological and archaeological past,
but begins abruptly with the “discovery” of the Bahamas in 1492 by
Christopher Columbus… Following (this) accidental “discovery”…
the Caribbean environment has been a fertile ground for writers whose
recreations and explorations of their locale as ways of examining the
relations between the land, the people, the psychological dimensions
of their situations prefigure their determined struggle to survive, and
bond together as ways of defining their humanity and dignity. (56)
Literature in the Caribbean prominently emerged after the abolition of slavery that

offered in the post-emancipation period. The abolition of slavery in the Caribbean

paved way for the establishment of schools that also upheld colonial sensibilities

as Helen Tiffin notes:

The 1838 abolition of slavery throughout Britain’s empire was, not

unreasonably, expected to have profound implications for the
Caribbean’s entire social order. Schools of various kinds, both
secondary and primary, had existed prior to Emancipation, but it is the
post-Emancipation history that is of greatest significance here. In
preparation for emancipation, the British government, in 1835,
commissioned John Sterling to produce a document on government-
supported education in the West Indies. This report, which offered the
first educational plan for the area, was written by a man whose
experience of the region amounted to little more than a prolonged visit
to St Vincent. But he had been recommended for the job because of
his “practical acquaintance with the state of the Negro population and
his knowledge of educational inquiries in England and Europe”… As
Trevor Turner notes, Sterling’s report was written against the
background of an assumed maintenance of pre-Emancipation
hierarchies and of racist assumptions “regarding the character of the
Negro.” Sterling warned that “if measures were not taken to keep the
mass of the people within the civilising reach of British influences and
values, society would surely collapse”... Social control, the
maintenance of stability, required “a way of reaching into the minds
of the people in order to socialize them into desired patterns of
 behaviour”: “what was needed was an institution that could adapt the
Christian ethic to secular goals, a socialising instrument with universal
rather than parochial values, one whose objectives, structures, and
process of operation could be shaped, supervised, and continually
evaluated by the rulers of the colony”... (41)
Tiffin continues to argue that education was regarded as such an important part

of this socializing mission that the British Government was prepared to adopt

compulsory attendance for caribbean schools as early as 1880. She further notes

that:

As Sterling’s report indicates, social control, though allegedly

focussed on adapting “the Christian ethic to secular goals” and on
“universal” rather than on “parochial” values, was deeply imbricated
with the belief in the superiority of British civilization, of English
culture, and in “an acceptance of English methods of administration
and subservience to English imperialism”…The concern for
inculcating in West Indians the ideals of “the peace and prosperity of
the Empire” and due regard to “profitability to others” were necessary
corollaries to these beliefs.(41)
Tiffin’s argument, in summary, bothers on the fact that Caribbean literature, even

after the abolition of slavery reflected colonial sensibilities; the colonizers

maintaining the fact that black civilization and emancipation can become a

success only upon its reliance on the dictates of the White masters. Tiffin rounds

off her argument by averring:

The history of education, in particular literary education, in the West

Indies, as in many of the ex-colonies, is one of persisting Anglo-
control and Anglo-orientation. The proportion of West Indian content
has increased, but many imperial ideas about education remain… the
writers this education has produced have often been radical,
 innovative, and subversive… To establish the conditions of possibility
for a West Indian tradition, many contemporary Caribbean works
directly critique West Indian education and the discursive fields
within which it existed and often continues to exist. (48-49)
Making a similar argument, but a stronger one, and equally explaining why there

exists different classes of people in the Caribbean and what factors inform their

respective sensibilities, Udofia argues:

The blacks responded in several ways, which included the total

acceptance of foreign values which pre-supposed a negation of one’s
racial roots. There was also the rejection of Western values and a
nostalgic attachment to vestiges of folk tradition, or, a judicious blend
of the best of both cultures. This situation gave rise to the creation of a
plural society. The post-emancipation West Indies was thus, still
strongly under foreign domination through colonialism. As a result,
there exists in the Caribbean a complex situation created by the
existence and interlocking of two different sets of cultural values.
There is a foreign derived metropolitan culture which is mostly seen
among the upper and middle classes and the black Creole culture
which contains many African-derived elements and is practised
mainly by the lower classes. Thus, the various social classes act and
think differently and one class is elevated and aspired towards, to the
detriment of the other. The upper and middle classes speak Standard
English, contract legal marriages and practise the religion and culture
of their former European masters. (58)
True to Tiffin’s and Udofia’s averment (as we shall later come to see in the

criticism of our primary texts, especially in Michael Anthony’s The Year in San

Fernando), the privilege of acquiring western education becomes a major reason

that prompts the alienation of prominent characters in the works of Caribbean

writers. These characters disassociate themselves from their environment and

even cast a condescending look upon everything that goes contrary to their

(western-oriented) beliefs. Udofia again notes that:

Caribbean literature (portrays) the predominance of the alienation

theme in various forms: homelessness, rootlessness and exile. It is a
situation of being a part of what you could not become. So, the
primary cultural commitment of Caribbean writers remains the search
for identity and self-discovery… The fragmented nature of the society
gives the West Indian an acute sense of exile and because the
literature of this area reflects and attempts to come to terms with the
consequences of colonization, Edward Baugh describes it as "colonial
literature", (1978, p.13). Caribbean literature then, was to celebrate a
new ethos and identity. It established the West Indian identity as
different from the European, and neither is it African, Chinese nor
Indian but a strange and pleasurable mixture of all these. The writer in
the New World then, is engaged in an attempt at articulating a
trueness of being. (59)
Discussing Caribbean novels published from 1950-1970 (which

encompasses the publication years of our primary texts-The Lonely Londoners

published in 1956, and The Year in San Fernando published in 1965), Hena

Jelinek makes very crucial observations. Jelinek notes that these writers didn’t

start their writing careers in the Caribbean (their supposed native territories) but

in overseas accounting for the varying subject matters and themes found in their

works. She continues to argue that the peculiarity of the nature of their writings

were a consequence of their experiences overseas. Quoting her:

What is now seen as a specifically West Indian sensibility (from the

1950s to the 70s) has grown and found expression in subtly varying
and multifarious ways. For instance, a proportionately large number
of excellent writers are from Guyana and have spent their formative
 years not in Georgetown, the capital, but in New Amsterdam or in
some areas often described as colonial backwaters on the edge of the
South American continent. Perhaps their very isolation, the call of the
unknown both from the outside world and from the immense
territories at their back, were a unique stimulus to their imagination,
which, in spite of a common language, marked them off from the
island writers. (127)
Jelinek continues to aver that unlike English or American fiction, the West Indian

fiction in the 1950s were characterized by their criticism of pertinent issues like

the conundrum of isolation and alienation in the Caribbean. She expands the

argument:

Since it was in the 1950s that West Indian fiction appeared on the map
of world literature, we may ask what its major characteristics were
and in what way it differed from English or American novels, which,
until then, must have been the staple reading diet of the educated
middle class, at that time still a small minority. Unlike fiction in
English from other former British colonies, and in spite of V.S.
Naipaul’s vision of West Indian mimicry, there was no long period of
gestation or imitation of the metropolitan tradition in the anglophone
Caribbean. This is not to suggest that fiction suddenly erupted out of a
literary void. No literature or literary genre does anywhere, and apart
from specifically Caribbean cultural elements, such as the little
magazines or the possible influence of an oral tradition — for
instance, the Anancy tales — novelists were very much aware of the
European tradition of social realism. But they modified it from the
start, partly by dealing with inescapable Caribbean issues such as
exile, isolation and alienation, fragmentation, race, and the need for
self-definition, and partly through their use of Caribbean idioms,
which led to the recreation of so many Caribbean voices. (127)
Another salient feature of the fiction of this period is the emergence of

protagonists from the lower class who often identified with the experiences of the

ordinary people. He is considered the representative of the masses, and through

his actions and inactions, we see a mirror of the life of the citizenry. Most of the

novelists who wrote during this period were not university graduates, but they

taught themselves as they realized that the key to good living, amongst other

things the Whiteman’s civilization offers is to be educated. Jelinek explains

elaborately:

(Some of) these novelists were not university graduates and were
therefore less subject to the tyrannies of established forms. Beyond
secondary school, at the time still a luxury, the majority of Caribbean
novelists were autodidacts who often, though not always, sprang from
the people and realized that education was a passport of escape from
colonial isolation. Contrary, again, to the usual development of
literature elsewhere, Caribbean fiction does not begin by
concentrating on the socially important man, or the hero. The singled-
out character is often a man of the people in the literal sense.
Caribbean fiction, then, tends to be oriented toward the folk and the
community, while the values it explores concern the group, rather than
individual, achievement… The European novel, which developed
from an ironic subversion of the epic and the traditional hero, was in
turn subverted in the Caribbean to accommodate the European hero’s
victims. (127-128)
Samuel Dickson Selvon (1923-1994) was a very important Trinidadian

writer who rose to critical acclaim in the 1950s. Susheila Nasta, an acclaimed critic

of Samuel Selvon’s works talks more about Selvon:

Sam Selvon’s fiction, published between 1950 and the mid-1980s

when he left Britain to live in Canada, was a milestone in the history
and development of Caribbean and black British literature. Frequently
described as the father of ‘black writing’ in Britain, a ‘natural
philosopher’ and ‘alchemist of language’, Selvon was one of a group
of now-distinguished writers who arrived in Britain from the
Caribbean during the 1950s. Whilst in Britain, Selvon wrote ten
 novels set both in Trinidad and London, and was a frequent
contributor to BBC Radio, author of several radio plays as well as co-
author of the screenplay for Pressure, directed by Horace Ove in 1975.
(12)
Born in San Fernando in the south of Trinidad, Selvon’s parents were East Indian:

according to Louis James, “his father was a first-generation Christian immigrant

from Madras and his mother’s father was Scottish” (5). Selvon’s formal education

ended at the secondary school level having attended the Naparima College there in

San Fernando. He subsequently gained employment working with the Royal Naval

Reserve as a wireless operator from 1940-1945. James notes that “It was during

long hours as a wireless operator in the Royal Navy in the Second World War that

he turned seriously to writing. When demobbed, he became sub-editor of the

Trinidad Guardian Weekly, one of the few writing outlets on the island” (5).

Afterwards, Anna Roy notes that:

(Selvon) moved north to Port of Spain, and from 1945 to 1950,

worked for the Trinidad Guardian as a reporter and for a time on its
literary page. In this period, he began writing stories and descriptive
pieces, mostly under a variety of pseudonyms such as Michael
Wentworth, Esses, Ack-Ack, and Big Buffer. Selvon moved to
London, England, in the 1950s, and then in the late 1970s to Alberta,
Canada, where he lived until his death from a heart attack on 16 April
1994 on a return trip to Trinidad. (10)
Selvon had two wives: Draupadi Persaud whom he married in 1947 and who bore

a daughter for him, and Althea Daroux, whom he married in 1963, with whom he
had two sons and a daughter. Selvon’s literary career began when he immigrated to

England in 1950. James tells us more:

In 1950 Selvon was one of the wave of Caribbean immigrants coming

to England in search of fame and 'streets paved with gold'. He found
neither, and there followed a hungry period, living in an immigrant
hostel, then in a basement flat in Notting Hill, west London. This was
to prove a formative period, turning a writer with yearnings to write
romantic accounts of Trinidad (an early influence was Richard
Jeffreys), into a sharp observer of the vagaries of immigrant life. . In
1952 he published A Brighter Sun (his first novel), and excellent
reviews encouraged him to become a full-time writer. (10)

Selvon eventually relocated to Canada where he wasn’t apparently recognized as

an important writer. Roy elaborates more:

After moving to Canada, Selvon found a job teaching creative writing

as a visiting professor at the University of Victoria. When that job
ended, he took a job as a janitor at the University of Calgary in
Alberta for a few months, before becoming writer-in-residence there.
He was largely ignored by the Canadian literary establishment, with
his works receiving no reviews during his residency. (6)
However, Roy goes further to claim that:

Selvon's papers are now at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research

Center at the University of Texas, Austin, USA. These consist of
holograph manuscripts, typescripts, book proofs, manuscript
notebooks, and correspondence. Drafts for six of his eleven novels are
present, along with supporting correspondence and items relating to
his career. (6)
Selvon’s writings have garnered mixed criticisms. While his writings have

been criticized for the excessiveness of the biographical information of characters,

his writings have also been criticized for the indiscriminate creolization of the

language of his characters. Talking about the former, Helon Habila notes that

“Some critics have described The Lonely Londoners as really nothing more than a

collection of mini biographies, a group of lives interacting with each other” (2).

True to Habila’s observation, The Lonely Londoners is a novel that depicts mini

biographical information of most of the black characters featured in the novel. The

mini biographical account of characters in the novel like Henry Oliver (Galahad),

Captain, Bartholomew and others validates the prevailing argument. Commenting

on the latter, Roydon Salick notes that “criticism of (selvon’s) works has largely

been imbalanced, with most scholarship focusing primarily on his language” (iv).

Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, published in 1956, tells the story of a group

Caribbean immigrants who migrated to England (London) in search of greener

pastures. According to Habila:

The novel, published in 1956, is set in 1950s London and concerns the
group of Caribbean immigrants known as the "Windrush" generation,
who arrived on the SS Windrush in 1948. A lot of them had fought for
Britain in the Second World War and, having found that they couldn't
settle back into their small island communities, decided to seek better
opportunities in the "mother country". (2)
Told in the third person omniscient point of view, the novel narrates in vivid

details the peculiar stories of nearly all the black characters mentioned, capturing

in essence, their trials and tribulations in a country that does not recognize or value

their existence. The novel begins by introducing its protagonist, Moses Aloetta,
who, according to the novel is the oldest black immigrant (from Trinidad) in

London, who also serves as someone that receives fresh immigrants at the station

(in Waterloo) from the Caribbean upon their arrival. For instance, the beginning

lines of the novel present us a picture of Moses going to Waterloo to receive a

fresh immigrant, Galahad. Throughout the novel, it is not difficult to notice the

subject matter of alienation. The existing society before their arrival at London

(which, of course, was predominantly a ‘white’ society) has been a prejudiced one.

The colour of one’s skin determines the kind of work he gets, where he goes, who

he talks to, how and where he lives, and how he is treated. When it seemed that

Galahad cannot bear the isolation any more, he laments:

Lord, what it is we people do in this world that we have to suffer so?

What it is we want that the white people and them find it so hard to
give? A little work, a little food, a little place to sleep. We not asking
for the sun, or the moon. We only want to get by, we don’t even want
to get on… (Looking at his hands, he says:) Colour, is you that
causing all this, you know. Why the hell you can’t be blue, or red or
green, if you can’t be white? You know is you that cause a lot of
misery in the world. Is not me, you know, is you! I ain’t do anything
to infuriate the people and them, is you! Look at you, you so black
and innocent, and this time so you causing misery all over the world!
(72)
The loneliness and isolation Galahad felt on his first day of job hunt is one

not to go unnoticed. Prior this moment, Galahad had been remarkably boastful:

against the advice of Moses who offered to help him look for a job, because of the

difficulty of getting jobs by blacks in that area, Galahad refuses to be helped,

saying he can take care of himself. But the opposite was the case when Galahad,

upon reaching the tube station, stood transfixed, numb and dumb. According to the

narrator:

Galahad make for the tube station when he left Moses, and he stand
up there on Queensway watching everybody going about their
business, and a feeling of loneliness and fright come on him all of a
sudden. He forget all the brave words he was talking to the Moses,
and he realize that here he is, in London, and he ain’t have money or
work or place to sleep or any friend or anything and he standing up
here by the tube station watching people, and everybody look so busy
he frighten to ask questions from any of them. You think any of them
bothering with what going on in his mind? Or in anybody else mind
but their own?... Everybody doing something or going somewhere, is
only he who walking stupid. (25-26)
The pattern of habitation by the two worlds (that is the world of the blacks

and that of the whites) in the novel also depicts alienation. The omniscient narrator

tells us that people living in the same vicinity or neighbourhood and even opposite

each other do not know themselves, not to talk of knowing what happens in each

other’s home. According to the narrator:

It have people living in London who don’t know what happening in

the room next to them, far more the street, or how other people living.
London is a place like that. It divide up in little worlds, and you stay
in the world you belong to and you don’t know anything about what
happening in the other ones except what you read in the papers. Them
rich people who does live in Belgravia and Knightsbridge and up in
Hampstead and them other plush places, they would never believe
what it like in a grim place like Harrow Road or Notting Hill… they
don’t know about hustling two pound of brussel sprout and half-pound
potato, or queuing up for fish and chips in the smog. (58)
For the blacks, London was especially unfriendly, hostile and unaccommodating. It

bothered them to know that they left their various countries for London in order to

achieve financial comfort and that their coming seemed futile. The protagonist,

Moses seems to be the one most bothered by this realization as he laments:

Sometimes I look back on all the years I spend in Brit’n and I surprise
that so many years gone by. Looking at things in general life really
hard for the boys in London. 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. Here is not like home where you
have friends all about. In the beginning, you would think that is a
good thing, that nobody minding your business, but after a while you
want to get in company, you want to go to somebody house and eat a
meal, you want to go on excursion to the sea, you want to go and play
football and cricket. Nobody in London does really accept you. They
tolerate you, yes, but you can’t go in their house and eat and sit down
and talk. It ain’t have no sort of family life for us here. (114)
At this juncture, it is pertinent to know that blacks were also alienated by their

fellow blacks in the novel. Perhaps, the black skin appears so cursed that some

blacks felt that it was necessary to alienate themselves from the black caucus.

Harris, in the novel, is one black who finds it very difficult to associate with the

rest of the blacks, preferring instead to be in company of the whites, behaving like

them and slaving for them. The narrator tells us more:

Harris is a fellar who like to play ladeda, and he like English customs
and thing, he does be polite and say thank you and he does get up in
the bus and the tube to let woman sit down, which is a thing even
Englishmen don’t do. And when he dress, you think is some
Englishman going to work in the city, bowler and umbrella, and
briefcase tuck under the arm, with The Times fold up in the pocket so
 the name would show, and he walking upright like if is he alone who
alive in the world… Man, when Harris begin to spout English for you,
you realize that you really don’t know the language… Harris moving
among the bigshots, because of the work he does do… (95)
Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners was written six years after he immigrated to

London in 1950, giving him the ample opportunity to witness firsthand what it

meant to be a black in London. The 1950s was a time of immense literary activity

for the Caribbean immigrants in London as Nasta explains:

Although a sense of the need to migrate clearly affected early writers

born in the Caribbean such as the Jamaican Claude McKay, who left
in 1912 for the United States, and the Trinidadian C. L. R. James, who
arrived in Britain during the 1930s, the period immediately following
the Second World War was particularly important for the arrival in
London of a number of talented young West Indian artists. As Henry
Swanzy, the producer of the influential BBC Radio programme
Caribbean Voices observed, London had become a ‘literary
headquarters’, a place where writers from the various islands were
meeting for the first time and attempted, paradoxically perhaps, to
establish a firm West Indian cultural identity. (56-57)
Continuing her argument, Nasta avers that:

Whilst the majority of the writers came to Britain with the intention of
getting their work published and to escape from the parochial
‘philistinism’ of the West Indian middle classes common at that time,
they did not come alone. Their departure from the islands coincided
with a period when over 40 000 West Indians emigrated to Britain in
search of employment. Originally invited to the ‘mother-country’ by
the postwar government as an attempt to solve the temporary labour
crisis following the Second World War… (56)
Validating Nasta’s averment, George Lamming, Selvon’s contemporary and a

fellow Caribbean immigrant reveals what he understands by the term migration

quoted in Nasta:

Migration was not a word I would have used to describe what I was
doing when I sailed with other West Indians to England in the 1950s .
. . We simply thought that we were going to an England which had
been planted in our childhood consciousness as a heritage and place of
welcome . . . It was the name of a responsibility whose origin may
have coincided with the beginning of time. (56)
An interview with Nasta reveals what Selvon himself had to say about his

protagonist, Moses:

Susheila Nasta: The central figure in this group of novels, which spans
about thirty years, is called Moses and we first meet him in The
Lonely Londoners. How did you come to create Moses?
Sam Selvon: Well, I think I wanted to have a voice belonging to the
old generation, the first immigrants who came to this country [in the
1950s] and Moses is representative I think. He came as an immigrant,
he went through all the experiences that he relates, he typifies to my
mind all that happened among that older generation and he also spoke
in the voice, in the idiom of the people. I think that in spite of all his
presumptions to be English, that he still remains basically a man from
the Caribbean, and that this comes out in the way he relates all the
experiences that happen to him and through using this identical voice
which is so much a part of the West Indian immigrant. (13)
Selvon’s response to Nasta’s question, I believe, is self explanatory. Moses

represents a typical Caribbean immigrant in the face of a society remorselessly

prejudiced and discriminatory. Critiquing Selvon’s work, Lorraine Leu avers that

in The Lonely Londoners:

 The vagaries of immigrant life are captured brilliantly in the hopes
and disappointments, struggles and celebrations of the novel’s tragi-
comic heroes. Facing racism, enduring hunger and bitter cold, most of
the characters manage to scam their way from one meal and one dingy
room to the next, living in picaresque fashion either off the goodwill
of the West Indian immigrant community or by working the system as
best they can. (534)
Rounding off her argument, Leu states that “There are moments of triumph and

tenderness, which suggest hope in the ability of the indomitable West Indian spirit

to adapt and survive without losing key aspects of identity” (534).

From the foregoing, one can say that alienation in Selvon’s The Lonely

Londoners is a consequence of racist sensibilities. The blacks are alienated simply

because they are blacks – an inferior race, supposedly. They are alienated by the

white community simply because they do not possess the same skin colour as the

whites. Selvon wrote this novel, perhaps, to explain the situation in London in the

1950s, capturing in essence, the alienated world of the blacks.

Another Caribbean writer whose works depict the subject matter of

alienation is Michael Anthony. Anthony was born on the 10 th of February 1932 in

Mayaro, Trinidad. Anthony was educated on the island at Mayaro Roman Catholic

School and Junior Technical College in San Fernando. He subsequently took a job

as a laundry worker in Pointe-à-Pierre for five years but had ambitions to become a

journalist. Later on, his poems were published by the Trinidad Guardian in 1953.

Anthony's voyage to the UK on board the Hildebrandt took place on December

1954. In England he held several jobs, including as a sub-editor at Reuters news

agency (1964-68), while developing his career as a writer, writing short stories for

the BBC radio programme Caribbean Voices. In 1958 he married Yvette Phillips (a

poet) and they had four children — Jennifer, Keith, Carlos and Sandra Anthony.

Four years later, Anthony published his first book, The Games Were Coming, a

cycling story inspired by real events. He followed up its success with The Year in

San Fernando and Green Days by the River. He eventually returned to Trinidad in

1970, after spending two years as part of the Trinidadian diplomatic corps in

Brazil, where his novel King of the Masquerade is set, and he worked variously as

an editor, a researcher for the Ministry of Culture, and as a radio broadcaster of

historical programmes. In 1992, he spent time at the University of Richmond in

Virginia, teaching creative writing. In his five-decade career, Anthony has had

over 30 titles published, including novels, collections of short fiction, books for

younger readers, travelogues and histories. He has also been a contributor to many

anthologies and journals, including Caribbean Prose, Island Voices, Stories from

the Caribbean, Response, The Sun's Eyes, West Indian Narrative, The Bajan, and

BIM magazine. In 1979, Anthony was awarded the Hummingbird Medal (Gold) for

his contributions to Literature, and he received an honorary doctorate from the

University of the West Indies (UWI) in 2003. According to Keith Jardim, “Much

of his works after 1975 consists of historical research into his native island” (22).
 Anthony’s The Year in San Fernando, published in 1965, tells the story of a

twelve year old peasant boy, Francis, who leaves his hometown, Mayaro, for the

city, San Fernando, to go to school, as well as work as a servant-companion in the

house of an old lady, Mrs. Chandles. According to Paul Edwards and Kenneth

Ramchand who wrote the introduction of the play, “The experiences of Francis in

the novel are based upon a year Anthony himself spent in San Fernando from after

Christmas 1943 to just before Christmas 1944, when he was twelve years old. The

novel was written in England in the late 1950s and early 1960s…” (v). Told in the

first person point of view, the story is relayed from Francis’s childish point of

view, Anthony’s creative ingenuity praised by Edwards and Ramchand:

… the author (Anthony) neither imposes adult ways of seeing life on

his adolescent narrator (Francis), nor allows the older man he himself
has become to break into the narrative; from start to finish the
experiencing consciousness of the novel is that of the boy, Francis. It
is a source of the novel’s irony that people and places can be seen
objectively through the boy’s observing eyes and subjectively in terms
of his responses to them… (v)
Alienation in the novel is significantly informed by the acquisition of

education and exposure to western civilization. Francis tells us about Mr.

Chandles:

We had heard only very little of Mr. Chandles. The little we had heard
were whispers and we didn’t gather much, but we saw him sometimes
leaning over the banister of the Forestry Office, and indeed he was
aristocratic as they said he was. He looked tidy and elegant and he
always wore a jacket and tie, unusual under the blazing sun. These
 things confirmed that he was well off, and his manner and bearing,
and the condescending look he gave everything about him, made us
feel that he had gained high honours in life. (1)
Describing Mr. Chandles’ manner of dressing, Francis equally reveals: “… he was

refined… from his very dress you could tell he was of a class apart” (6). From all

indications, Mr. Chandles epitomizes modernity in its entirety. He is educated, has

a good job, and living in a very magnificent house. From Francis’s description of

Mr. Chandles, one can feel a respectable distance between them that is largely

informed by social status. Francis was unlettered, wretched, and an alien to

modernization unlike Mr. Chandles. This explains why Francis rightly remarked

that Mr. Chandles casts a condescending look on things, and this mainly happens

when Mr. Chandles visits the village because he is very aware of his financial,

academic, and material superiority. This, perhaps, again explains why Ma

(Francis’s mother) had no problem sending off her child to the city to go and slave

for the Chandles solely upon the promise that her son would be sent to school.

Thus education becomes a distinguishing factor that can alienate one from the

society. One again notices that Mr. Chandles begins to become friendly with

Francis immediately they leave Mayaro and enter San Fernando, thus validating

the argument that the village is perceived as being synonymous with uncivilization,

a place to be avoided or isolated. When they got to Romaine Street, Francis tells

us:
 Mr. Chandles spoke for perhaps the first time since we set out… It
was strange to see the expression on his face now. He might have
awakened from a long dream. Maybe it was the relief in being here
that brightened him. In the glow of the street-light, I could see a
certain warmth on his face. As he spoke, I could see, too, a lot of
surprise. Surprise, maybe, at my bewilderment – at my looking so lost
in a place where it was natural to feel at home. (10)
True to Francis’s observation, it was the relief of being in San Fernando that

brightened Mr. Chandles. Prior to this moment when they were still on the road (in

the bus) Mr. Chandles kept to himself. He refused communicating with the

commuters (the Mayaro villagers). He even ignored the bus conductor, Balgobin

and the jokes he intermittently cracked. Worse still is the discomfort and

embarrassment Francis felt as a result of Mr. Chandles’ alienated nature. The ever

friendly Balgobin tries to engage Francis in a conversation, but because he is with

Mr. Chandles who cannot bring himself to be friendly with Balgobin, Francis

declines Balgobin’s invitation to a conversation which earned him ridicule by

Balgobin that made some people in the bus laugh. Francis tells us:

I remember the journey to San Fernando mainly through Balgobin,

who was a conductor on the first stage (of the journey)… Balgobin
was an old friend, and he spoke to me freely, and Mr. Chandles kept
looking at him in a certain way, and I could not answer Balgobin
properly and I wished he would hush up. Balgobin was excited about
my going to San Fernando and he asked me all sorts of questions
although he saw Mr. Chandles was with me. He asked me where I was
going to stay and I tried to make him an eye to show I was going to
stay with the person beside me, but he did not understand, and he said
loudly, ‘what happen, boy? You afraid to talk?’ This made all those at
the front look round; and some laughed… I was so embarrassed I
could not look to see how Mr. Chandles’ face was. It was a very
 coarse crowd – as usual – and Balgobin spoke coarsely, and I could
guess what Mr. Chandles was feeling to be sitting here… He said not
a word and when Balgobin came to collect the fares, he just dropped
the money into his hand. Balgobin gave him his change, looking at me
most of the time, and before he moved away, he said ‘Well, Franco
boy, I may see you down San Fan one of these days. I know San Fan
you know!’ I merely said, ‘yes.’ He looked shocked. ‘You shame to
talk to me?’ he said ‘Well I never!’ And he gave out a long, big cackle
of a laugh, which made most of the people on the bus laugh too. I felt
so foolish I didn’t know where to turn my head. I knew I was acting
silly with Balgobin but I could not help it. I felt very odd because of
Mr. Chandles. I wanted him to feel I was of some refinement. And yet
I wished I could be free with Balgobin. I felt so dejected… (6-7)
Furthermore, to show how he regards Mayaro, Mr. Chandles threatens to send

Francis back to the village, Mayaro, if he continues “to idle under (the) house”

(33). So many scenes in the novel reveal a serious brawl between Mr. Chandles

and his mother. Later, it is revealed that the cause of this recurrent brawl bothers

on the ownership of the magnificent house they all live in. Mr. Chandles insists

that he owns the house because he pays the rates. Conversely, Mrs. Chandles

stresses that the house was bought in her name, making her the rightful owner of it

instead. It is these violent arguments that drive Frances down to the lower chamber

of the house. It is in of such scenes, (after Mr. Chandles and his mother have

quarreled) that Mr. Chandles comes down to the lower chamber of the house and

accidentally meets Francis whom he tells he will send back to Mayaro if he

continues to remain idle in the house. However, the most important thing in this

scene is Mr. Chandles’ synonym for Mayaro. Threatening Francis, Mr. Chandles
thunders: “‘Listen,… ‘Your mother said you wasn’t lazy. If you think I brought

you here to feed you and clothes you for you to idle under this house, I’ll teach

you! I’ll pack you right back in the bush!’ (33). Perhaps, Mr. Chandles found it

very convenient to call Mayaro “bush” because he regards Mayaro as a place

devoid of modernity or modernization, a place to be isolated. Little wonder he

alienates himself from anything and anyone when he visits Mayaro.

Contrary to popular belief, Mr. Chandles believes in a wedding ceremony

that has very few people in attendance. In a discussion with Francis, Mr. Chandles

reveals to Francis that his marriage will have very few people in attendance. Mr.

Chandles’ affirmation of court narriage shows he lacks emotional connection with

so many people, depicting him as an alienated being. Expressing his surprise at Mr.

Chandles’ marital preferences, Francis says the following:

And then he talked about Boxing Day. That was the day he was going
to get married, very quietly, no fuss at all… I did not know about
weddings that were quiet without any church-bells and without cars
and without speeches and many guests. He said something about
‘registry’, but I didn’t quite get hold of that. It was all strange to me. It
sounded more like a secret than like a wedding… He said some
people liked a big show. He liked to do things in a small way. (126)
Francis also gives us an insight into the nature of his stay in Mr. Chandles’ house

in San Fernando. This argument is perhaps best appreciated in Francis’s narration

of what happened at some point in the novel. Francis tells us:

 There was elaborate preparation and plenty of cooking that morning,
and though it was Easter Day, I was a little surprised about this… And
just before lunch time all the preparation explained itself. Mrs. Princet
arrived… I had the most unexpected honour of sitting at table with
Mrs. Chandles and Mrs. Princet. Mrs. Princet seemed to think it was a
natural thing for me to be there and maybe she thought I lunched with
Mrs. Chandles every day, but I felt so uncomfortable and out of place
sitting here that I hardly knew what I was doing… (48-49)
From the revelation above, it is quite evident that much prior to the lunch time,

Francis had never lunched with Mrs. Chandles. In fact, the usual thing was leaving

Francis’s lunch in the kitchen, after which he would go and pick it up. Francis’s

narration goes a long way in depicting a level of alienation and a remarkable level

of communication with the Chandles. In the narration, he expressed profound

discomfort at the invitation to have lunch with the ladies, “… I felt so

uncomfortable and out of place sitting here that I hardly knew what I was doing”

(49).

Comparing Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners to Anthony’s The Year in San

Fernando in terms of the exploration of the subject matter of alienation, one can

say that both novels treated the subject differently. For instance, while alienation in

The Lonely Londoners is a consequence of racist sensibilities or racial segregation,

alienation in The Year in San Fernando comes as a result of the feeling of

superiority, informed largely by the acquisition of education and material wealth

and vice versa. Furthermore, the black boys in The Lonely Londoners felt alienated

in another country, and by another race, whereas in The Year in San Fernando, the
opposite is the case. However, one can also notice similarities in the treatment of

the subject matter of the alienation by both novelists. Both novels were written in

England, semi-autobiographical in nature, and a consequence of the feeling of

alienation by the writers respectively at one or various points in their lives.

Alienation is a very crucial subject matter that predominates the writings of

most Caribbean writers. The detailed attention given to the development of this

subject in various works comes as a result of the unique experiences of Caribbean

immigrants upon their arrival in England. As we have seen, these works capture in

vivid details the unique experiences of the Caribbean in the face of a fully

industrialized world where the acquisition of education particularly guarantees a

stake in the ‘share of the national cake’. Harris in The Lonely Londoners appears

more financially and materially favoured than the other blacks because of his

‘Englishness’. On the other hand, Mr. Chandles is much revered and respected

because of the way he carries himself, a typical representation of the ‘modern’

man. All these point to the fact that the importance of education and

enlightenment, especially in the modern period, defies overemphasis.

 WORKS CITED

Anthony, Michael. The Year in San Fernando. Kingston: Caribbean Writers Series,
1965. Print

Edwards, Paul and Ramchand Kenneth. “Introduction”. In Michael Anthony The

Year in San Fernando. Kingston: Caribbean Writers Series, 1965. Print.

Habila, Helon. “Out of the Shadows”. The Guardian. 17 Mar. 2007. Web. 6 July,
2014. http://theguardian.com/books/2007/mar17/society1

Harrison, L. “Literary Themes: Alienation”. Literary Articles. Web. 4 July, 2014.

http://literacle.com/literary-themes-alienation/

James, Louise. “Obituary: Sam Selvon”. The Independent. Web. 4 July, 2014.
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Jardim, Keith. “Anthony Michael”. In Daniel Balderston and Mike Gonzalez

(Eds.) Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature (1900-
2003). New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Leu, Loraine. “Selvon Samuel”. In Daniel Balderston and Mike Gonzalez (Eds.)
Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature (1900-
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Nasta, Susheila. Home Truths: Fictions of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain.
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Nasta, Susheila comp. and ed. Writing Across Worlds: Contemporary Writers Talk.
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Roy, Anna. “Samuel Selvon”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 6 July, 2014.
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Selvon, Samuel. The Lonely Londoners. London: Longman Group Limited, 1956.
Print.
Tiffin, Helen. “The Institution of Literature”. In James Arnold et al. (Eds.) A
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Udofia, Julia. “The History and Shaping of Caribbean Literature”. American

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