Alienation And Exile In The Caribbean Literature Analysis
Alienation and exile are two common themes in literature, this is due to the fact that it can elicit many deep emotions. These two important themes has was used by many Caribbean writers, this is because they either experienced having to leave their native country for political motives, or because they felt a dissatisfaction with their society and deliberately chose to live elsewhere. This comparative essay would draw to its readers the necessary attention to the distinctive experience of alienation and exile by looking at the ways in which Caribbean poets Derek Walcott and Edward Kamau Brathwaite responded to it. Selected examples from their poetry will also be discussed to argue that as a specific way of experiencing departure and migration, alienation and exile inspires specific strategies of artistic mediation and innovation. The combination of a desire for emplacement and an openness to metropolitan influences that characterizes the situation of alienation and exile results in a distinctive strategy within Caribbean poetry that can be described as experimental self-positioning. In their negotiations of the experience of alienation and exile, these two poets adapt and compare formal and …show more content…
He seeks to address the key to the problems of poetry in the West Indies in the contemporary experience of exile and the reoccurrences of this theme in his poetry. In “leaving school” Walcott’s choice of exile is seen as necessary step taken with the “exhilaration of departure” by the aspiring poet. It involved the betrayal of an early love, which was at once patriotic and personal. There is no harmonious tie between him and his uncle because of their sufferings and isolation. So, he is alienated from his own island and also from American life. . His main aim was geared towards keeping faith with reality, to rebuild the past and its
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