Interrogating the Ironies in Andrea Levy's the Small Island and Fruit Of

Reading Multiculturalism: Interrogating the Ironies in Andrea Levy’s The Small Island and Fruit of the Lemon A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Master of Philosophy in English Studies by Namitha Merin Thomas (Reg. No. 1730025) Under the Supervision of Abhaya N. B. Associate Professor Department of English CHRIST (Deemed to be University) BENGALURU, INDIA December 2018 Approval of Dissertation Dissertation entitled Reading Multiculturalism: Interrogating the Ironies in Andrea Levy’s The Small Island and Fruit of the Lemon by Namitha Merin Thomas, Reg. No. 1730025, is approved for the award of the degree of Master of Philosophy in English. Supervisor: ______________________________________ Chairperson: ______________________________________ General Research Coordinator: ______________________________________ Date: …………………….. Place: Bengaluru ii DECLARATION I, Namitha Merin Thomas, hereby declare that the dissertation, titled Reading Multiculturalism: Interrogating the Ironies in Andrea Levy’s The Small Island and Fruit of the Lemon is a record of original research work undertaken by me for the award of the degree of Master of Philosophy in English Studies. I have completed this study under the supervision of Dr. Abhaya N. B., Associate Professor, Department of English. I also declare that this dissertation has not been submitted for the award of any degree, diploma, associateship, fellowship or other title. I hereby confirm the originality of the work and that there is no plagiarism in any part of the dissertation. Place: Bengaluru Date: ………………… Namitha Merin Thomas Reg No. 1730025 Department of English CHRIST(Deemed to be University), Bengaluru iii CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the dissertation submitted by Namitha Merin Thomas (Reg.No.1730025) titled ‘Reading Multiculturalism: Interrogating the Ironies in Andrea Levy’s The Small Island and Fruit of the Lemon’ is a record of research work done by him/her during the academic year 2017-2018 under my supervision in partial fulfillment for the award of Master of Philosophy in English Studies. This dissertation has not been submitted for the award of any degree, diploma, associateship, fellowship or other title. I hereby confirm the originality of the work and that there is no plagiarism in any part of the dissertation. Place: Bengaluru Date: ………………… Dr. Abhaya N. B. Associate Professor Department of English CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru Head of the Department Department of English CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru iv Acknowledgement I bow before my Lord Almighty with a grateful heart for being with me at every moment of my life. The dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of many people around me. I wish to express my gratitude to the Department of English, Christ University, for providing me with the wonderful opportunity to pursue this degree. With humble gratitude I would like to thank Dr, Abhaya N. B., my guide, for her constructive comments and her encouragement throughout my dissertation work. I am immensely thankful for the learning I received under her guidance. I wish to thank my internal examiner Prof. Sreelatha R. for her valuable suggestions and insightful feedback that greatly aided my dissertation. I would like to thank Dr. Arijitha Pradhan, for her guidance and support throughout. I would also like to express my gratitude to the present and former MPhil course co- rdinators Dr. Kishore Selva Babu, Dr. Sweta Mukherjee, and Mr. Joseph Edward Felix for the organization of presentations and submissions. Much love and thanks to my dearest mother for the emotional and prayerful support she provided me with. I thank my family and friends for their support and encouragement that gave me strength for the successful completion of this dissertation. v Abstract Andrea Levy, a Black British author of Jamaican descent, interestingly narrates the lived experiences of the Black Britons throughout her works. Her novels reflect her life as an immigrant and her Jamaican ancestry and heritage. Her works stand proof to her concern in binding the British history and the Caribbean history. Levy, in her novels The Small Island and Fruit of the Lemon, explores the immigrant lives of the Caribbean community in Britain. The two novels set in two different eras, The Small Island set in post World War II and Fruit of the Lemon set in 1970s England, the Thatcher Era, demonstrates a critique of multicultural Britain where the immigrants suffer racism and alienation in spite of the ‘egalitarian’ society of Britain. The thesis works to prove that Andrea Levy in The Small Island and Fruit of the Lemon subtly and tactically examines the faultlines of multiculturalism in the multicultural Britain. The thesis argues that the racial attitudes and discrimination in the ‘mother country’ forces the diaspora community to integrate into the mainstream British culture and inhabit the liminal space of Caribbean –British. The thesis therefore questions the issues of identity and belonging in the novels in the context of multiculturalism. The thesis identifies that the immigrants evolve themselves to acquire a hyphenated identity of Caribbean – British, where they retain their Caribbean Black identity within the British society. Keywords: Multiculturalism, Hyphenated Identity, Liminality, Caribbean immigrants in Britain, Second-generation Caribbean immigrants vi Contents Approval of Dissertation ii Declaration iii Certificate iv Acknowledgement v Abstract vi Contents vii 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Andrea Levy – Authorial Voice 1 1.1.1 Defining Diaspora and a Brief Exploration of the Caribbean Diaspora 4 1.1.2 History of the Caribbean Nation and Migration 6 1.1.3 Multiculturalism in Britain 9 1.2 Thesis Statement 12 1.3 Research Question 13 1.4 Objectives of the Study 13 1.5 Review of Literature 13 1.5.1 Author’s Perspective 13 1.5.2 Scholarship on the Primary Texts 14 1.5.3 Understanding Multiculturalism 17 1.5.4. The Hyphenated Identity 18 1.5 Theoretical Framework 19 vii 1.6 Significance of the Study 22 1.7 Limitation of the study 23 1.8 Methodology 24 1.9 Organization of the Study 23 Works Cited 24 2. “My Eyes No Longer Believed What They Saw”: Examining the Ironies of Multiculturalism in The Small Island 28 2.1 The Windrush Generation of post WW II Britain 29 2.2 Immigrant as the ‘other’: Racial Attitudes and Discrimination 38 2.3 Narrating Fragmented Identities in Multicultural Space 46 2.4 Shaping of the Immigrant Identity 49 Works Cited 53 3. Multicultural Dilemma in Fruit of the Lemon 56 3.1 Multicultural tensions: Racism, Discrimination, and Othering 61 3.2 Generational Differences: Identity and Belonging 69 3.3 Questioning Identity and Culture: In search of roots 75 3.4 Negotiation of Identity 82 Works Cited 85 4. Conclusion 88 Works Cited 97 Bibliography 98 viii Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Andrea Levy – The Authorial Voice Andrea Levy is an acclaimed British author of Afro-Jamaican descent who writes about the Black British experiences in Britain. Her parents belong to the windrush generation during which multitudes of immigrants from Caribbean nation reached the shore of Britain soon after World War II. Her Jamaican heritage is what triggers her writing. She wanted to write the stories she wanted to hear the most – stories of people like her, the black Britons. She wanted to write stories that bind British history and Caribbean history together. She wanted to show that Caribbean history is a part of British history, which was long neglected. Her novels closely look at the nation of Britain, its varying population, and the close connection between British history and the Caribbean. Her flair for humour relaxes the grim topics that are dealt with in her fiction. Levy’s major works include Every Light in the House Burnin’ (1994), her first novel, in which she explores the life of a Jamaican immigrant family in London, their physical and emotional struggles in the diaspora. The novel is said to be semi-autobiographical. Her following novel Never Far from Nowhere (1996) is a tale of two sisters Olive and Vivien, second generation Caribbean immigrants, born to Jamaican immigrant parents living in Britain. Olive, a shade darker than Vivien encounters racism, which makes her question her own identity. In her Fruit of the Lemon (1999), Levy narrates the life of a second generation immigrant, Faith, in Britain whose conflict in identity and the struggles related to it leads to her visit to Jamaica to find her roots. The story explores the struggles of racism in Britain. Thomas 2 The Orange Prize winning Small Island (2004) is another work of Levy where the black- white interaction in the post-war Britain is evidently dealt with. The novel narrates the lived experiences of the first generation Caribbean immigrants and the natives. This novel also bagged her Whitbread Book of the Year and Commonwealth Writers Prize. The Long Song (2010), which was awarded the Walter Scott Prize and also shortlisted for Man Booker Prize is written as a neo slave narrative and a historical fiction where the emancipation of slavery in the Caribbean Islands serves as the backdrop of the work. It is set in Jamaica and recounts the life of July, a slave girl living in the plantation. Slavery, in the novel, is dealt with in detail through the eyes of July. In Six Stories and an Essay (2014), her most recent work, Levy provides the short stories with the historical background of each one. Levy’s works constantly proves her journey back to the past and her eagerness to connect the Caribbean history and the British history. Levy has always been keen on bringing back the Caribbean to its mother country, Britain. The fact that most people of the mother country was unaware of its history and relation to Britain was unacceptable to Levy.

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