Against the Backdrop of Colonialism and Slavery: Loss of Personhood, Cultural Enslavement and Quest for Identity in Earl Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance

Abstract

Colonialism has come to be one of the defining historical features of many countries of the world which Africa as well as the Caribbean is inevitably part of. The history of the Caribbean people is the history of rather ‘unfortunate’ people who were brought together from various parts of the earth especially from Africa during colonialism and slavery and were forced to live together and forge their paths and destinies as one people following the end of colonialism and abolishment of slave trade. This common and unfortunate experience exerted a lot of influences on the Caribbean people and their writers and has come to dictate the tones and themes of their literature for years. Earl Lovelace is a Caribbean writer whose writings reflect the common themes in Caribbean literature which include quest for identity, conditions of exile, injustice of slavery, ancestral enslavement, culture dislocation, loss of self, identity crisis, search for personhood and endless longing for their original root and culture which defines every human being. This study selected one of his novels entitled, The Dragon Can’t Dance. The study examined how the novel, against the backdrop of colonialism and slavery peculiar to the Caribbean people expressed the loss of personhood, cultural dislocation and enslavement and the quest for a new identity as part of the historical realities of the Caribbean people and how the past shares a common link with the present socio-economic and political present of the people.

Keywords: Colonialism, Personhood, Quest for Identity, Cultural Enslavement, Slavery, Rootlessness