Hostility towards social refinement

Hostility towards social refinement

“They both looked at the girl, whose elegance was no less conspicuous than the solitary white face beside her.” (Lamming, Season of Adventure, 21)

It is apparent that Crim and Powell are conspicuous not only of Charlot, a white man of English descent. They are also conspicuous of Fola, who in their eyes became tainted by the influence of the western culture after spending three years in an English school. She educated herself in the western ways, which Powell considers disingenuous and two-faced.

“…’education an’ class just twist that girl mouth right out o’ shape. Like all the rest she learn fast how to talk two ways. She got open-air talk an’ inside-talk,’ said Powell. ‘Like tonight she go talk great with the stranger man. Grammar an’ clause, where do turn into doos, plural an singular in correct formation, an’ all that.’ ” (Lamming, Season of Adventure, 21)

In Powell’s opinion, learning the ways of western conduct has contributed to Fola’s detachment from her own culture. For the sake of being accepted among the higher spheres of society, she has surrendered her own language, and adopted the grammatically correct language that is associated with the English, who are on the other side of the metaphorical barricade.

Continuing the dialogue, Powell praises Fola for refusing to forget the ways of her homeland and keeping the Caribbean identity, when he comments on the way she returns to her old habits of speech when she is in the village, among her own,.

“’But inside, like between you an’ me, she tongue make the same rat-trap noise. Then she talk real, an’ sentences come tumblin’ down like one-foot man. Is how them all is.’” (Lamming, Season of Adventure, 21)

The fact that Fola went to a prestigious British school has also resulted in certain enmity, or at least a feeling of ambiguity towards her from the other girls in the village.

“It had caused endless argument among those girls who conceded her gifts; yet sulked at any mention of the privileges these had brought her.” (Lamming, Season of Adventure, 23)

Even though Fola was born and grew up in the village like the other girls, her education resulted in an impression of being privileged in the eyes of other girls, who spent all of their lives in the rural environment of the village. The feeling of detachment that Fola was experiencing was described as a sensation of “being a stranger within her own forgotten gates” (Lamming, Season of Adventure, 22)

The negative feelings towards the educated and members of the higher spheres of the society are also discussed in In the Castle of My Skin. On one occasion, the boys spend a whole day outside and for that they are expecting trouble at home, so they prepare for the questioning by their parents that is to come. G. invents a clever lie that is based on exploiting his mother’s preoccupation with good manners. He says that he was invited for a meal and had to stay late not to insult the host, to which the other boys comment:

“’You goin’ to be a lawyer,’ Boy Blue said.

‘Or a politician,’ Trumper said.

‘ ‘Tis the same thing by a different name, ‘ Bob said, ‘ ‘Tis the same thing since they both equal to blasted liar.’” (Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin, 158)

It is clear that to the boys, the politicians and lawyers seem as liars, because the language they use is different from theirs. The language in which the laws are written and is used by the government representatives and officials is the language of the British. It is the same language that was used by the colonial usurpers, using complicated foreign words that are often incomprehensible to the uneducated villagers. It is the same kind of elocution that was abused to justify the inhumane treatment of slaves with a stamp of law.

In one of his reflections, G. contemplates on the way people in the village talk to each other, and while he praises the language that the educated people use, he unwittingly illustrates the hypocrisy that is associated with it. He observes that educated language serves as “a kind of passport” (Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin, 154) into higher places in society, that people who can speak the correct language have it easier when dealing with the authorities or petitioning for a job. However, he also believes that this level of elocution enables you to tell lies and get away with them.

“You could say what you like if you know how to say it. It didn’t matter whether you felt everything you said. You had language, good, big words to make up for what you didn’t feel.” (Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin, 154)

Perhaps G. has frequently been deceived by people using educated language, or perhaps this experience was relayed to him through the collective unconsciousness of the society he was raised in. One way or another, the image that Lamming is trying to depict stays the same. It is yet another example of distrust to persons with traits similar to those of the former colonizers, in this case, the usage of the English language with high level of elocution, as compared to the villagers’ Creole. G. also thinks that the language can let you do things that would otherwise be considered crazy:

“Nothing would ever go pop, pop, pop in your head. You had language to safeguard you.” (Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin, 154)

When using the term “crazy”, G. might be referring to all the crimes against humanity that were committed on the Caribbean people by their British colonizers. In the era of slavery, the slaves were treated as material possessions of their masters, while basic human rights and dignity were denied to them. The British slave owners were, however, always able to advocate their slave policies in the boundaries of European law and ethics, using the language as an instrument for justifying the atrocities that were committed on the population of the Caribbean region. As it was mentioned earlier in the thesis, the concept of one person owning another as a piece of property seems crazy to the young boys. Therefore, G. thinks that a high level of elocution can help a person vindicate themselves from something even as “crazy” as slavery.