George Lamming known as George William was on June 8, 1927 in Carrington Village, in Barbados and died on June 4, 2022. He was a West Indian novelist and essayist. From 1946 to 1950, Lamming was a teacher in Trinidad before migrating to England. His first novel, In the Castle of My Skin published in 1953 [1] was autobiographical bildungsroman. Lamming’s fiction is about the exploration of Caribbean migrants in post-World-War II, the problems of political independence, Caribbean politics, race and culture.  In 1951, he became a broadcaster for the BBC colonial service. In 1967, he entered academia as a writer in residence and lecturer at the creative Arts center and department of education at the University of West Indies. Later he served as a visiting professor at the University of New York and a lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Pennsylvania as well as a visiting professor of Africana studies. He also lectured at the universities in Tanzania, Denmark, and Australia. 

In this work, the analysis will be laid on the legacy of colonialism in Caribbean culture as colonial administration and slavery had had drastic consequences on Caribbean culture and led to such as phenomenon as migration. Secondly, the emphasis will be laid on the quest for cultural identity and resistance which becomes a central issue in postcolonial Caribbean literature. As colonial experience brought about a new form of oppression and racism as the quest for identity clearly highlights the sense of emancipation of the colonized which often paves the way for migration and displacement in the search of peace and freedom. 

The Legacy of Colonialism and Slavery in Caribbean History 

For several centuries, colonialism ravaged the colonized people who were already victims of the drastic consequences of slavery which deprived Africa, Asia and the Caribbean of uppermost human and material resources. In this respect, George Lamming as a West Indian scholar was one of the most prominent figures in Caribbean Anglophone literature. Lamming’s works are closely linked to colonialism, a historical process which had deprived those people of dignity and identity in Caribbean society. As a result, European colonizers believed that white people who were superior to black people who were seen as primitive and backward. 

George Lamming’s novel In the Castle of My Skin [1] as a coming-of-age work explores the childhood of a young unnamed protagonist named G who lives in a small village of Barbados. The author deals with the theme of collective consciousness versus individual will, language, racism, colonialism, education, identity etc. In his autobiographical novel, Lamming chronicles the relationship between colonial powers and its colonies. European colonists, who were concerned about “spreading the light” meaning providing civilization to the niggers, were believed to spread Western education, used as a pretext to enlighten the colonizers [1]. 

There was the imposition of foreign languages In the Castle of My Skin which allows the author to analyze how the establishment of western languages was kept to bury the local African languages which were often forbidden at schools and in public discourse.   Colonialism was also main cause of racism in Caribbean communities as darker skinned people were segregated against white people for this form of slavery was the main cause of this sense of discrimination between white and black people. In reality, European racism caused African slavery. 

The sense of cultural hybridity and exile are present in many works by Caribbean writers. In George Lamming’s The Emigrants [2], the emphasis is laid on how Caribbean people migrated from Barbados to London in the search of freedom, better job opportunities and social condition as well as to escape oppression and racial prejudice in their native lands. 

In addition, Lamming’s The Pleasures of Exile [3] which is a postcolonial novel analyses the concept of exile and displacement as the presence of colonizers led to the creation of hybrid Caribbean people who exiled with a broken heritage, cultures and history. Lamming’s autobiographical novel In the Castle of My Skin [1] completely identifies with the main protagonist of this novel. The character G who lost his father at an early age was raised by his mother who was of a mixed race while the protagonist’s father was a white man. This cultural alienation and broken identity are a major issue in Caribbean literature. 

Jean Rhys was a mid-20^th century Dominican novelist who played a key role in the development of post-colonial studies. Her novel Wide Sargasso Sea [4] explores the issues of slavery, social identity, womanhood and feminism. The writer is mainly concerned about the story of ex-slaves who work in sugar cane plantations of wealthy creoles.

For Ngugi, African realities are affected by two main events. An imperialist tradition which strives to force its domination and superior spirit on local people and a resistance tradition meaning those fighting against their state of humiliation and their situation as colonized. According to Ngugi, theft becomes a lifestyle in the quest for wealth. The consequences of imperialism have affected the political and social dimension of the colonized. On the moral side, imperialism has undermined the psychological consciousness of the colonized leaving him unable to cope with the social and cultural realities of his people. For Ngugi it is nothing but theft and the search for self-interest, an attitude which is contrary to the cultural dynamics of African culture and tradition based on communalism and spirit of the group: “For these patriotic defenders of the fighting cultures of African people, imperialism is not a slogan (…) Imperialism is the rule of consolidated finance capital and since 1884 this monopolistic parasitic capital has affected and continued to affect the lives even of peasants in the remotest corners of the countries (…) Imperialism is total: it has economic, politic, military, cultural and psychological consequences for the people of the world today. It could even lead to holocaust” [5].

Apart from the benefic realization brought by imperialism in the field of education, medical science and technology, the negative aspects of imperialism and colonialism were all the more disastrous to the lives of the African people and the Third World countries. The colonized people were viewed as the siege of abnormality, ignorance and innocence while the West is equated with futurity, reason, advance and knowledge as Ayo Kehinde illustrates: “A country of European (British and French mainly, but also Portuguese, German, Italian,) colonization left behind an African continent dazed, bewildered and confused (…). The modern world equated knowledge, modernity, modernization, civilization, progress, develop to itself and views the Third World from the antithesis of the positive qualities ascribed to itself.”

Kehinde paraphrases Homi Bhabha’s [6] statement that even newspapers and scientific works are still embedded with the negative image of African people who are depicted as savage and people of the jungle. In this respect, African people become a creation by the West. The relationship between the West and Africa is equated with that of Crusoe who attempts to diminish his manservant Friday. Epitome of diminution, Crusoe’s principle is based on obedience. This method which refers to linguistic imperialism obliges his servant to call him master. By the way, he gave him a new name and taught him the English language. This egoistic attitude is similar to the behavior of the colonial masters whose style is only subjugation and oppression. 

Crusoe uses religious imperialism as his second method in order to make Friday familiar with Christianity. In a nutshell, we can say that imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism are just connected together and represents the same social and historical phenomenon which has undermined the lives and the harmony of African communities. In this respect, Ngugi manages to show this close relationship which has led to a special way to the impoverishment of Africa as a rich continent with everlasting raw materials: “The missionary had traversed the seas, the forests, armed with the desire for profit that was his faith and light and the gun that was his protection. He carried the bible, the soldier carried the gun, the administrator and the settler carried the coin Christianity, commune civilization: the bible, the coin, the gun: holy trinity.”

Colonial system was a relationship of subjugation and exploitation of the masses. That is why Lilyan Kesteloot focusing on Cesaire’s diatribe, shows how the degrading contact between Europe and Africa was based on shame and misery. Imperialism is appropriation of raw materials through trading of goods. With colonialism, African values of dignity had vanished and replaced by western ideology and lifestyles. This cultural phenomenon was opposed to African traditional ways of life and the communal views of solidarity and parenthood. For that reason, Bernard MOURALIS shows the distorted vision of colonialism and how the colonizer for the sake of civilizing mission, has disturbed the harmony of African communities.

The sense of disillusionment with Christianity is visible through the protagonist Meka, this black man who has suffered from colonial legacy. Laurent Meka as a good Christian follower and wealthy landlord is a faithful catholic. He gave a large part of his land to the colonial master in order to build a church. For his misfortune, Meka’s two sons died during the Second World War. As a reward, the colonial administration decided to give him a medal that epitomized courage. But, Meka was finally disappointed.

The confusion caused by imperialism and colonialism remains always visible to most revolutionary movements. Marxism regenerated from western ideology was one of the most vehement movements against colonial domination and social exploitation of the colonized. The search of profit and the social gap between the worker and the colonial owner was identified as a source of bad relationship. Through Marxist ideology, humanitarian action has taken a profitable place in the dynamics of profit and investment.

Indeed, imperialist propaganda has made the Third World people especially Africans turn their backs from the specificity of their traditions and uppermost values.  As a result, disastrous consequences are felt as far as the economic, social, political standards are concerned. Many African leaders have realized the useless need of imperialism and its cultural drawbacks on the lives of the community. As an outstanding intellectual, Ngugi has firm belief that the European colonization was nothing but harmful and degrading to the African continent and everywhere leaving enormous ill-effects on the harmony of the colonized. 

In America, the British colonization brought about racial discrimination and segregation, political anarchy, and increased the gap between the black minority and white community. The phenomenon of racism emerges and shows the complete separation between black and white. In South Africa, the situation was all the more disastrous. The black minority was victim of ethnic, social, political and cultural discrimination in a white-dominated society. Apartheid as a radicalized ideology was the symbol of humiliation, violence and the source of all types of discrimination against the black minority in South Africa: “The present predicaments of Africa are often not a matter of personal choice: they are from a historical situation. Their solutions are not so much a matter of personal decision as that of a fundamental social transformation of the structures of our societies starting with a real break with imperialism and western ruling allies. Imperialism and its comprador alliances in Africa can never develop the continent preface” [5].

Orientalism is the idea shaped in post-colonial area by Western discourse and representations of eastern world which depicts the Orient as feminine, dismissive, passive and not dynamic. According to Said [8], the relationship of power existed in political, social, and cultural circles. A public intellectual and cultural critic, Said has also produced many essays as Reflections on Exile and other Essays. Walter Rodney as one of the most engaged intellectuals has also shown the ill-effects of colonialism on the social, cultural and political development of colonized nations [8]. 

For that reason, Rodney considers colonialism as one-armed bandit who has underdeveloped Africa. This situation of subjugation and self-assertion is also visible in Ayo Kehinde’s critical analysis of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Therefore, the protagonist Crusoe who is the prototype of European superiority is equated with vision and light. He is the master endowed with guidance and religious directness. His servant Friday is an African devoid of intelligence, symbol of darkness and cannibalism. 

For that, Crusoe’s first method is to implement his orders as a chief. This linguistic imperialism is to teach his manservant Friday a foreign language. Religious imperialism is destined to turn Friday from the traditional polytheist religion regarded as idolatrous, false, into a new reformed one based on light and righteousness. By the way, Kehinde emphasizes James Joyce’s statement that Friday is the true symbol of subject race. In fact, culture does represent people’s identity. For that, many African intellectuals are concerned about its continuity in an area where western values remain a lifestyle for most Africans. 

The situation of discrimination in South Africa was also the direct result of colonization in that area. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a leading figure in South African history. He fought drastically against the white segregated system of apartheid. Born on 18 July, 1918, Mandela achieved a good education attending Health Town College and Fort Hair University College and became politicized when he began to attend African National Congress (ANC) and South Africa Communist Party (SACP). With ANC, Mandela aimed at overthrowing Apartheid Legislation after returning from Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central African meeting in Ethiopia. 

Mandela was accused of inciting a strike and leaving South Africa without passport. He was respectively jailed for three and two years for each charge. With other militants, Mandela was victim of life imprisonment on 12 June, 1964 according to a sabotage act. Therefore, Apartheid meaning separateness was a system of legal racial discrimination enforced between 1948 and 1994 by white minority in South Africa in which the black people were denied their rights and discriminated against the white minority in South Africa. So, colonialism was the major cause of this racial differentiation as apartheid was enforced during the general election of 1948. The South African community was divided into four groups; the white, colored, black and Indians.

Segregation existed everywhere in the area of education, employment, and health. In the 19^th century, British colonial rulers were the first to introduce apartheid through the system of Pass Laws. To move from one area to another which was occupied by the white, black people should have a signed pass. Black people were not allowed to enter a white occupied area such as Cape Colony. They were denied their rights according to the general Pass Regulations Bill of 1905. The prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, between persons of different races was a social dilemma. Separate Universities for black, Indian and white people also existed and accentuated racial discrimination in South Africa. 

Under apartheid and colonialism, colored people suffered a lot from gender discrimination. They had no access to education; no rights and most black people became agricultural workers. In 1949, the internal resistance of ANC leaders especially the youth wing began to pave the way for the abolition of apartheid leading a radical Black Nationalist program which caused strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience.

On 6 November, 1962, apartheid was banished by United Nations general assembly putting an end to racial discrimination. Organization of African Unity created in 1963, was aimed at eradicating colonialism, social and economic trouble. In February, 1990, Mandela was released from jail by the president Frederic de Klerk after twenty-seven years. In December, 1991, the Convention of a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) started negotiation with the multiracial government. In 1993, de Klerk and Mandela were awarded Nobel Peace Prize for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.

According to these historical events, we can say that imperialism was not all the more positive as most European critics think. The negative aspects of imperialism, culturally, religious and economically speaking overweigh the positive ones and continue to affect the present, and the future of Third World countries where the concept of cultural identity and resistance becomes a watershed in postcolonial literature.

The Concept of Exile and Cultural Identity in Postcolonial Novel

In fact, independence led to no alleviation, it generated poverty and political repression. Great mismanagement became the direct result of coup d’état, intra-class fratricide, and total disillusionment. After the age of independence, there was the era of neo-colonialism in the seventies. This period corresponds to the ascendancy of US and era of globalization colored by the dominance of transnational and the political forces that start a new economic and political colonization or just continue the task started by the colonial ghost. Although, nationalist movements became widespread at the end of the 18^th century. 

The league of revolutionary black workers strived so far to rise against racism and all forms of discriminations. Conscious of their struggle, the intellectual writers who side with the welfare of their nations tend to struggle against Western mores. In the 1934s, Senghor, Cesaire and Damas for the sake of cultural unity founded l’Etudiant Noir, an intellectual movement which was against all forms of cultural assimilation. This review advocated a return to African tradition and black identity through Negritude; an affirmation of the values of the black race. Negritude as an intellectual and ideological movement is developed by black francophone elites in the 1930s. 

It is a cultural concept which allows the black man to identify himself as a Negro and rejects colonial racism and discrimination in order to promote African identity. Negritude as an expression for self-identification and assertion has led to a specific way to the colonized people’s determination and political liberation. The rise of nationalism became only effective after the Second World War when powerful European nations recognized their weaknesses in the face of the enemy. This situation caused the conquered people’s self-consciousness and availability to defy the enemy and get political freedom as Ngugi remarks: “However until the advent of the Second World War, colonialism remained the dominant form of imperialism. With the war, the imperialist powers were weakened which gave way to the upsurge of national liberation struggles, democratic working-class struggles, and the triumph of socialism” [9].

The Negritude movement led a pacific revolt against colonial prejudices. This protest movement was galvanized around literary and cultural renaissance which was initiated by francophone students in 1930. Among these intellectuals, we can name Senghor, Damas, and Cesaire. They aim at protesting against racial stereotypes of African people forged by Europeans as Cesaire quotes: “My Negritude is not a stone with its deafness hurled against the clamor of the day. My negritude is not dead water in the dead eye of the earth. My negritude is neither a tower nor a cathedral. It plunges into the red flesh of the ground. It plunges into the ardent flesh of the sky pierces through the opaque despondency by its straight patience” [10].

Besides, David Diop [11] was also a revolutionary African poet who analyses the problems caused by colonialism and gave a message to Africans to bring about change and freedom. He points out the beauty of African past and traditional values which he strives to beautify contrary to the materialism of western culture. He was a follower of the Negritude movement together with black writers and artists as Senghor and Damas who protest against French colonialism and its effects on African culture. David Diop showed the nostalgia for his continent which was ravaged by the effects of slavery and colonialism: 

Africa my Africa

Africa of proud warriors

In ancestral savannahs 

Africa of whom my grandmother sings

On the banks of the distant river

I have never known you 

But your blood flows in my veins

Your Beautiful black blood that migrate 

The fields

The blood of your sweat

The sweat of your work

The work of your slavery

The slavery of your children

Africa tell me Africa

Is this your back that is bent?

This back that breaks under the weight of humiliation (…) [11]

The poem is a dramatic monologue about pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial Africa. The author explores how the sweat of Africa was lost during slave trade as well as the themes of oppression and humiliation because most African people were compelled to work for their colonial masters. The quest of African identity is also a watershed for the revalorization of identity, culture and tradition. David Diop states that colonialism paralyzed Africa; we should work hard to bring about development [11]. 

Ngugi as a revolutionary writer believes in struggle in order to fight against the enemy. Revolt is a physical manifestation for the masses to rise against the misdeeds of colonial master. It is a way to acquire a new freedom and the responsibility to act as a human being capable of any political and economic advancement. The writers have shown the ways and mean leading to political, cultural and economic emancipation of the masses in a context torn by economic exploitation. According to Edward Said [8], the war of liberation has given way to an epistemological revolution or a transformation of social consciousness that needs a fertile culture of resistance. For instance, the Palestinian intifada was one of the great anti-colonial uprisings.

African writers who are concerned about the welfare of their nations focus on the portrayal of the legendary heroes who embody the struggle for freedom against the colonial system. Ngugi’s The Black Hermit is a symbol of the African intellectual, who imbued with responsibility and personality, is ready to fight against tribalism. In his novel Matigari, Ngugi shows another symbol of coherence where the protagonist keeps on fighting for justice throughout his country. Matigari is a new truth searcher who strives to discover justice and order for his people who are threatened, exploited and humiliated by the white man. 

In South African context, the situation was the same owing to the social, cultural and economic exploitation of the white dominated system of apartheid. Violence and discrimination against black community became a lot for many colored, Indian and black people in South Africa. As an example, Xuma the protagonist in Abrahams’s Mine Boy [12] through hard-working conditions in the mines, rebels against the racist authority of his master. This is a means to fight against the segregated system of apartheid and at the same time to assert his dignity and personality as a black man. In his critical approach, Ngugi often defends the Marxist view that the situation of the oppressed is only changeable through violence against the oppressor. For Ngugi, resistance and identity become the mainstream of revolutionary act and a means to rise against discrimination.

Caribbean culture is largely shaped by the history of slavery and colonization which had a heavy impact on the lives of Caribbean people as a whole. In this respect, West Indian scholars largely deal with in their works the concept of exile, migration, racial discrimination and the politics of resistance and identity. In the light of West Indian literature, Vidiadhar Naipaul addresses many issues in his books which range from the themes of alienation, the burdens of the past and the confusions of the present. His works throw light on postcolonial and post imperial societies. 

In his outstanding novel The Mimic Men, Naipaul highlights how the concept of cultural difference diminished his identity to mimicking the values of the colonizer. The author also views the dilemma of exile and the sense of estrangement that resulted from migration to a racially complex society as it reevaluates the problems of an isolated minority. As a record of displacement, The Mimic Men is an attempt to evaluate the sense of hopelessness which results from migration. In this respect, the author quest for a new order in London, an alien society seems more secure compared to the male character Singh’s native land which reminds the author of the hard conditions of slave trade and the devastating scene of colonial experience which entirely handicapped the freedom of the colonized. In The Castle of My Skin by Lamming [1] is built around the idea of identity, mimicry, hybridity and ambivalence. The Pleasures of Exile which is Lamming’s firsthand work of nonfiction is published in the 1960s and records the politics of exile, culture and migration. As a postcolonial novel that reflects on the condition of Caribbean writer who is often between self- imposed or forced exile in his country of adoption as he is confronted with the hard realities of colonial past and devastating experience of slavery. The Pleasures of Exile [3] can be read in the light of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, as both literary works reflect on the postcolonial concept of exile and identity which turns out to be a central issue in Caribbean literature.

Colonial enterprise undermined the lives of many colonized people, who, for several centuries were victims of subjugation, alienation, oppression and exploitation by white European colonizers. Colonization as a historical process had had serious consequences on the political, economic, social and religious impacts on the colonizer’s culture especially the Caribbean culture. Colonial powers brought about racism, dislocation of cultural values of the colonized people who were often marginalized and considered to be the inferior race. 

This feeling of alienation from white community made black people to migrate to other countries in search of peace, freedom and justice. George Lamming as a West Indian novelist, essayist like most African postcolonial writers drastically castigates former colonization. This historical process was seen as the main cause of the colonized people’s cultural and economic disintegration and underdevelopment according to Walter Rodney’s historical novel How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. However, there is a real need for the former colonized people to struggle for economic, cultural and political development of their nations by promoting, democracy, good governance through education for all, peace, security and justice. 

1. Lamming, George. In the Castle of My Skin. University of Michigan Press, 2001.

2. Lamming, George. The Emigrants. McGraw Hill, 1955.

3. Lamming, George. The Pleasures of Exile. University of Michigan Press, 1992.

4. Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Norton, 1966.

5. Ngugi, Wa Thiong’o. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. James Currey, 1986.

6. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.

7. Ngugi, Wa Thiong’o. Petals of Blood. Heinemann, 1977.

8. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. Vintage Books, 1993.

9. Ngugi, Wa Thiong’o. Moving the Center: The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms. James Currey, 1993.

10. Césaire, Aimé. Notebook of a Return to the Native Land. Wesleyan University Press, 1939.

11. Diop, David. Africa in Coup de Pilons. Présence Africaine, 1956.

12. Abrahams, Peter. Mine Boy. Heinemann, 1946.