Disrupted Parenthood in Caryl Phillips’s The Final Passage

Prague Journal of English Studies

Fediakova Anastasiia¹ 

[1] Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic;

关键词: caribbean literature;    west indian families;    caryl phillips;    mother-daughter relationship;    colony and metropole;    dysfunctional parenthood;   

DOI  :  10.2478/pjes-2021-0003

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In his debut novel The Final Passage, first published in 1985, Caryl Phillips (dis)connects the English and the Caribbean spaces simultaneously imposing this inbetweenness onto his continuously misplaced characters. This paper explores the novel through the lens of disrupted parenthood, demonstrating that the ties between the family members mirror the inability of the protagonists to belong or to sustain relationships. By applying a postcolonial framework and including both canonical and recent texts produced in the field, this paper analyses how racial labels and assumptions weaken fragile bonds and further displace the characters as it also attempts to fill a gap since aspects of distress and breakdown are often neglected in literary criticism. Finally, given the background of the West Indies, the paper incorporates social and anthropological works dedicated to the region and connects Phillips’s narrative to the stories of migrants in contemporary Britain.

【 授权许可】

Unknown