Small Island: Isolation/Disappointment Flashcards

1
Q

‘_____________ my ____ against the ____’

A

‘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
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2
Q
A

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

  • ‘this’ = Euphemism
  • Minimal/disappointment with mother country
  • Disillusionment
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3
Q

‘You will not be __________ to _____ here’

A

‘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
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4
Q

‘Why no one in this _______ understand my _______’

‘As if I had been ________ in _______’

A

‘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
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5
Q

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

A

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

  • Hortenses disappointment of England experessed
  • Expectation vs reality
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6
Q

‘Leave ____, leave ________, leave ____’

A

‘Leave home, leave love, leave familiar’

  • Anaphoric triplet of ‘leave’
  • Emphasises countless sacrifices made for mother country yet doesn’t feel appreciated
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7
Q

‘Even the ________ can find no _____ but ____’

A

‘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
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8
Q

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

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

A

‘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
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9
Q

‘We cant ___ your ____’

‘When are you _____ back to the ______?’

A

‘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
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