How Is Black Identity Constructed in the Lonely Londoners?

2004 Words9 Pages
How is black identity constructed in The Lonely Londoners? In ‘The Lonely Londoners’ Sam Selvon begins the process of constructing an authentic, multi-faceted black identity that, while, at times, appears to reproduce some of the pre-conceived stereotypes present in mainstream white culture, intrinsically challenges them on his own terms. Through his presentation of the multiple origins, characteristics and experiences of ‘the boys’ he contests the narrow view prevalent in British society that ‘all Blacks are West Indians and all west Indians are Jamaicans;’ additionally, by rejecting standard English and choosing a Creolized style of speech for both narrative voice and characters he is making an empowering strike to establish a black identity as separate from the one imposed upon it by the colonial power. Selvon’s first step in presenting life as it really is for the black migrants in 1950s London, and thereby to begin to construct a black migrant identity, is to explode the white myth of ‘sameness,’ which allowed the British people to lump all black people together in, what Susheila Nasta calls, ‘narrow and hyphenated categories’ determined by the white gaze that can only view them as ‘the flat and stereotypical black subjects of Empire.’ By presenting black characters from different islands and countries of origin and showing the rich diversity of characteristics and personalities of the group in the fragmented narratives of the individual experiences of ‘the boys’, Selvon is addressing both the black working class immigrants themselves and the dominant white culture in 1950s Britain. Through the sharpness of his humour, the accuracy of his observations and his easy-going anecdotal style, he holds up a gigantic mirror so that black immigrants can see themselves in the characters of Moses, Galahad and Big City from Trinidad; Tolroy and Lewis from Jamaica;

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