Small Island: Isolation/Disappointment

Question 1

‘_____________ my ____ against the ____’

Answer 1

‘Straightened my coat against the cold’ (Hortense)

• Last line in the novel
• Embracing the coldness (hostility/isolation) rather than cowering away
• Sense of resilience
• Facing reality, no longer living in idealised veneer

Answer 2

‘Just this? You bring me all the way just for this?’ (Hortense)

• ‘this’ = Euphemism
• Minimal/disappointment with mother country
• Disillusionment

Question 3

‘You will not be __________ to _____ here’

Answer 3

‘You will not be allowed to teach here’

• Hortense seeks out teaching job but is told she does not have the qualifications
• She is humiliated and faces blatant discrimination

Question 4

‘Why no one in this _______ understand my _______’

‘As if I had been ________ in _______’

Answer 4

‘Why no one in this country understand my english’

‘As if I had been speaking in tongues’

• Hortense attempts to assimilate into her preconceived stereotypes about the English
• Idealised views of mother country mismatch the reality
• Barriers to her assimilation

Question 5

‘I never ________ England to be like this. So _________’

Answer 5

‘I never expected England to be like this. So cheerless’

• Hortenses disappointment of England experessed
• Expectation vs reality

Question 6

‘Leave ____, leave ________, leave ____’

Answer 6

‘Leave home, leave love, leave familiar’

• Anaphoric triplet of ‘leave’
• Emphasises countless sacrifices made for mother country yet doesn’t feel appreciated

Question 7

‘Even the ________ can find no _____ but ____’

Answer 7

‘Even the sunshine can find no colour but grey’

• Pathetic fallacy (highlights Englands coldness)
• Hortense misses Jamaicas warmth, literally and metaphorically
• Relfelcts negative attitudes of host country

Question 8

‘They had _________ ways to us and knew _______ of _______’ - Blanche

‘You’ll soon get ____ to our ________’ - Queenie

Answer 8

‘They had different ways to us and know nothing of manners’

‘You’ll soon get used to our language’

• Representative of British monocultural and colonial views
• Ignorance towards other races/cultures
• Institutionalized racism
• Possessive pronoun ‘our’ isolates immigrants from their host country
• Unintentional racism = racism embedded in England

Question 9

‘We cant ___ your ____’

‘When are you _____ back to the ______?’

Answer 9

‘We cant use your sort’

‘When are you going back to the jungle?’

• Gilbert subjected to racial prejudice/discrimination when searching for a job
• Hostile host country