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The Theme of Education in Caribbean Fiction 2006

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The Theme of Education in Caribbean Fiction 2006 MASARYK UNIVERSITY Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies Hana Lyčková The Theme of Education in Caribbean Fiction B.A. Major Thesis Supervisor: PhDr. Věra Pálenská, CSc. 2006 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………………… 2 Acknowledgement I would like to thank PhDr. Věra Pálenská, CSc. for creating a very interesting and inspiring seminar, from which originates the topic of my B.A. major thesis, and also for her help and assistance in preparing it. 3 Table of Contents Preface ........................................................................................................................ 5 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 6 1 1 Earl Lovelace’s The Schoolmaster .................................................................... 8 1.1 Opposing Views Concerning the School ....................................................... 8 1.2 The Character of the Schoolmaster.............................................................. 10 1.2.1 The Schoolmaster and Christiana ............................................................ 12 1.2.2 The Villagers’ Views of the Schoolmaster .............................................. 13 1.2.3 The Characterization of the Schoolmaster ............................................... 14 2 2 V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas ............................................................ 16 2.1 Childhood in a Poor Village........................................................................ 16 2.2 The School at Pagotes................................................................................. 17 2.2.1 Lal the Teacher ....................................................................................... 17 2.2.2 The Curriculum....................................................................................... 18 2.3 Learning of Hinduism ................................................................................. 19 2.4 The Influence of School on Mr Biswas’s Life ............................................. 20 2.5 Mr Biswas’s Children at School.................................................................. 21 2.5.1 Anand in the Exhibition Class................................................................. 23 3 3 Austin C. Clarke’s Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack ....................... 26 3.1 A View on Education.................................................................................. 26 3.2 St. Matthias Boys’ School vs. Combermere School..................................... 27 3.3 The Curriculum .......................................................................................... 29 3.3.1 Teaching “Patriotism”............................................................................. 30 3.4 New Headmaster and War .......................................................................... 31 3.5 Examinations .............................................................................................. 32 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 35 Resumé ...................................................................................................................... 38 Notes ......................................................................................................................... 39 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 41 4 Preface This bachelor thesis deals with the theme of education as it is presented in three Caribbean novels written by three different authors and first published between 1961 and 1980. The works are based on the real life experiences either from Trinidad or Barbados, where the writers were brought up and educated in the 1930s and 1940s. In the introduction I try to put the explored novels into a brief social and historical context, which should help the reader to discover the link between Caribbean historical reality and fiction. The main part of the thesis is divided into three chapters, each of them dealing with one of the three novels. The first chapter is devoted to The Schoolmaster , the work written by a Trinidadian novelist Earl Lovelace. Here I examine how the establishment of school in an isolated village and the arrival of a teacher may disrupt the pastoral life of its inhabitants. In the second chapter I explore how education interferes in the life of Mr Biswas and his children in the semi-autobiographical novel A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul. The last chapter is focused on a memoir by Austin C. Clarke Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack , in which the author recalls and compares his school years at rural elementary and urban secondary school in Barbados. The conclusion, in which I point out the striking similarities that somehow connect all three novels and their authors, is followed by a Czech resume. The thesis is closed by notes to the biographies of the writers and the list of works cited. 5 Introduction The topic of my bachelor thesis originates from the seminar on Anglophone Caribbean Literature. In order to understand the message of the Caribbean novels properly, the reader should know at least the basic historical context of the West Indies that significantly influenced the writers. In my thesis I mention two Caribbean islands: Trinidad and Barbados, because they form the settings of the novels that I explore and at the same time inspired the authors, for they are their native countries. Both islands were British colonies; Trinidad, a former Spanish territory, was seized by the British in 1797 and became a free state in 1962, while Barbados was taken by Britain as early as 1627 and it remained a British colony until independence in 1966 (James 33, 65, 217). It is quite obvious that such a long colonial rule excited opposition to the West Indian colonial establishment; nevertheless literature cannot react on contemporary events but with a certain delay. This is confirmed by Lovelace’s The Schoolmaster as well as by Clarke’s Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack which, on the one hand criticise th colonialism of the first half of the 20 century, but on the other hand were published in the late 1960s and 1970s. The topic of education is an integral part of the novels of childhood which are quite common in Anglophone Caribbean fiction; among others Christopher by Geoffrey Drayton, In the Castle of my Skin by George Lamming or The Year in San Fernando by Michael Anthony. The prevalence of such novels can be easily explained by the social background in the West Indies in the 1930s and 1940s, a period of numerous strikes, riots and social disturbances followed by the Second World War. Most of the novelists, including Earl Lovelace, V.S. Naipaul and Austin C. Clarke, were growing up in this period of considerable social changes, which made them 6 interested in a close examination of that society and the consequences of colonial rule (Ramchand 193). th The system of education in the Caribbean in the first half of the 20 century presented one of the domains which were entirely controlled by the British Empire. Besides the imposition of an alien language (English), the colonial regime enforced the English curriculum at Caribbean schools. Teaching English history or geography was preferred to teaching subjects about particular Caribbean islands and thus West Indians educated under colonialism were alienated from their home in the Caribbean and taught loyalty to the British Crown. Moreover, those who wanted to continue in their studies had to go abroad to study at English, American or Canadian universities, for there were no such educational institutions in the Anglophone Caribbean until 1949 when a University College of the West Indies was founded in Jamaica (James 106). 7 1 1 Earl Lovelace’s The Schoolmaster Earl Lovelace’s novel The Schoolmaster is set in Kumaca, an insular Trinidadian village without any public building except for a small church. The inhabitants of Kumaca lead their traditional pastoral life full of innocence and happiness thanks to its considerable distance and relatively inconvenient journey from the nearest village of Valencia or the town of Zanilla. But all this is to be changed soon. The people cannot stop the advance of urbanization and the progress of the surrounding society. Rumours of a road from Valencia to be built reach Kumaca. The villagers whose majority is illiterate do not want to be backward and argue about building a school for their children. But they do not have the slightest idea how the final approval of the institution and the arrival of the schoolmaster will change their idyllic lives. 1.1 Opposing Views Concerning the School The issue of school is first mentioned in a dialogue between two brothers Robert and Pedro. Their conversation reveals the first problem arising from the foundation of a school. Robert is thirteen and he looks forward to attend school and wishes his brother and father could also learn to read and write. But Pedro warns Robert not to talk about going to school to their father and explains, “He will not go. It is his pride. He is not a child” (Lovelace 10). There appears a problem of the generation gap. On the one hand parents want their children to go to school because in education they see a source of success and wealth, but on the
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