Immigration as a Recuperative Process in The Emigrants

Yıl 2019, , 222 - 233, 27.12.2019

Cengiz Karagöz

https://doi.org/10.35235/uicd.619240

Öz

George Lamming is a postcolonial author who has his roots in the Caribbean
islands in which he could witness harmful impacts of colonialism on the native
population. Instead of losing his hope to resist the colonial legacy, he
attempts to develop his anti-colonialist discourse through producing literary
texts in which he aims to raise  awareness of the native peoples concerning
their cultural and psychological destruction that emerged because of a long
history of colonialism in the native land. His fiction underscores the demographic
diversity of the Caribbean islands which points to a variety of cultures, races
and ethnic descent exists as a result of immigration from other countries.
Lamming believes that these various groups in the Caribbean can establish their
political order by concentrating on their common and identical experiences as
well as sufferings in the colonial period since all of these native people
occupy the same inferior status in the eyes of the white colonisers. His novel The Emigrants
places the experiences, plight and psychological restructuring of the Caribbean
immigrants in the European metropolis at its centre. The aim of this paper is
to prove that being an immigrant in London and experiencing oppression and
racism strengthen the immigrants’ sense of identification with the Caribbean. Thus, this
process prompts them to rescue themselves from the colonial domination by
returning to their native land where they think they belong to.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Lamming, Immigration, Federation, Exile, The Caribbean, Anti-Colonial Discourse

Kaynakça

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