Analysis of Small Island

Small Island Summary By Andrea Levy 

The tale opens as Queenie, one of the heroes, visits the British Empire Exhibition as a young lady. She goes with her folks, who run a butchery together, and is oversaw by two of their workers, Emily and Graham. In the show on African ancestral life, every one of the three see individuals of color interestingly, and Graham noisily reports that they're not humanized and "can't get English." Hearing this, one of the entertainers shakes Queenie's hand valiantly and talks in amazing English. By the day's end, Queenie peers down on the show from a view point with her dad, who discloses to her that she has "the entire world at your feet." 

A long time later, in 1948, Hortense Joseph shows up in England from Jamaica and rings the chime of a tall London house. The house has a place with Queenie's significant other, Bernard, however he's stayed away forever from the conflict, so Queenie lives there alone. Hortense's own better half, Gilbert, has leased a room there. Hortense is angry that Gilbert neglected to get her at the dock, and that the loft he's found is minuscule and squeezed. 

Hortense relates her adolescence in Kingstown. Brought into the world to a privileged Jamaican administrator and a house keeper, she was given to her dad's cousins to raise, with the expectation that their riches and her fair complexion would give her a decent life. Their family is sterile and cold; her new parents, Mr. Philip and Miss Ma, are overbearingly strict and reprove her as often as possible. Her solitary companions are their child, Michael, and her maternal grandma, Miss Jewel, who functions as a worker in the house. Hortense goes to class until she's fifteen, after which she starts to instruct at a school run by two American teachers, Charles and Stella Ryder. At some point, a typhoon strikes the town, driving Hortense and Mrs. Ryder to take cover in the school. Michael conquers the components to discover them, however it becomes evident that he's enamored with Mrs. Ryder, not Hortense. Hortense runs out of the school to discover the residents assembled around Mr. Ryder, who has slammed his vehicle into a tree and passed on. Rankled, she uncovers that Michael and Mrs. Ryder are in the school alone together. In the following embarrassment, Michael leaves to join the Royal Air Force (RAF) in England. 

Hortense ventures out from home interestingly to go to an instructing school. There, she warms up to the more established and more sharp Celia Langley. The conflict finishes, and Hortense becomes acquainted with Celia's new beau, a previous RAF aviator named Gilbert with plans to move to England with Celia. Desirous at being abandoned, Hortense reveals to Gilbert that on the off chance that he weds her, she'll loan him cash for entry to England. Gilbert acknowledges despite the fact that he doesn't cherish her. 

The tale at that point clarifies Gilbert's history. As a young fellow anxious for experience, he joins the RAF and is shipped off Virginia, where he's stunned by the isolation and easygoing bigotry he experiences. A while later, he's sent to Yorkshire, where he fills in as a driver and coal shifter. While British regular folks some of the time offer bigoted remarks, the climate is more open than in America. Gilbert is amazed that while he spent his childhood finding out about British geology and culture, the normal Briton thinks nothing about Jamaica and accepts that it's an African country. 

Strolling in a glade one day, Gilbert meets a more seasoned, intellectually sick man and aides him home. The man is Arthur Bligh, Queenie's dad in-law; Queenie is bizarrely pleasant to Gilbert, saying thanks to him and giving him tea. A couple of days after the fact, he and Queenie take Arthur to a film, however the attendant illuminates Gilbert that he needs to sit toward the rear of the film house to oblige American preferences. Rankled, Queenie and Gilbert fight, and soon every one of the American GIs and dark troopers are annoying one another, with the regular folks trapped in the center. The battle spills into the road, and at last military police show up to control it; one of them unintentionally shoots Arthur and murders him. 

The epic goes to Queenie's history. She's brought into the world in a small town in northern England. Her everyday life spins around the difficult work of running a butchery, however they're in an ideal situation than the vast majority around there, who work in the mines. Revolted by the privately-owned company, Queenie goes to live with her Aunt Dorothy, who claims a treats shop in London. There, she meets Bernard Bligh; they don't have a lot of science, yet she realizes he can give a steady life, so she weds him. 

Before long, the Blitz starts. Individuals from besieged out lower-class areas are resettled on Queenie's road, and Queenie's neighbors and surprisingly her own significant other disdain the attack. Disturbed by their insignificance, Queenie volunteers to protect exiles in their own home and even finds a new line of work with a help association. Despite the fact that the work is hard, it gives her a recently discovered feeling of direction. Bernard is irate that she's structure a daily existence away from him. At last, Bernard joins the RAF and is conveyed abroad. 

When Bernard leaves, Queenie is answerable for his dad, Arthur; the elderly person doesn't talk, yet he's helpful and patient, and the two manage everything well. At some point, a companion from the rest place persuades Queenie to let three RAF fighters stay at her home during their leave. She's enamored by a Jamaican official named Michael Roberts, who's appealling and kind to Arthur. The prior night he leaves, they rest together. He abandons his wallet with photos of his family. In the first part of the day, Queenie races to the station to return it to him, yet gets trapped in a besieging and never discovers him. 

At some point, Queenie offers to show Hortense around the nearby shops. Queenie expects that Hortense has never seen stores or even bread. In the mean time, Hortense is amazed that English ladies wear frump garments that would be inadmissible in Jamaica, and that the stores are chaotic and once in a while filthy. At the point when they get back, Queenie tracks down the tragically missing Bernard remaining on the doorstep. 

In a flashback, Bernard portrays his encounters as a RAF trooper sent in India. At the point when he shows up, he's dumbfounded at the turbulent multilingual climate of Bombay, which he deciphers as proof of Indian inadequacy. He at last arrives at the base where he's positioned, a crude development under consistent danger of Japanese besieging. More seasoned than the greater part of the officers and not used to physical work, he at first feels strange yet becomes a close acquaintence with a veteran, Maxi, who causes him to feel the conflict is energizing. Reasonably soon, the Japanese acquiescence, yet while a few soldiers are sent home, Bernard's regiment moves towards Burma. A portion of the men mount a strike to request deactivation, yet as discipline they're completely shipped off Calcutta, which has been assaulted by Hindu-Muslim clash following the British choice to segment India. With his companions, Bernard sees roads loaded up with bodies and barely circumvents being murdered by hordes. Frustrated at their proceeded with presence in India, Maxi assembles a stealthy conference to design another strike; Bernard, who favors adhering to the guidelines, leaves huffily. In the blink of an eye thereafter, the sleeping quarters bursts into flames and the greater part of the men, including Maxi, kick the bucket. 

A short time later, Bernard is court-martialed for abandoning watch obligation to battle the discharge and losing his weapon. In the long run, he's delivered from prison and retired. Sitting tight for his boat in Calcutta, he visits a massage parlor and has intercourse with a very youthful whore. On the boat, he fosters a bump on his crotch and become persuaded he's contracted syphilis. Too embarrassed to even think about getting back to Queenie, he hangs out in Brighton and functions as a server for a very long time. At some point, when he at last visits the specialist, he is informed that on the off chance that he had syphilis he would unquestionably be dead at this point. Calmed, he gets back to Queenie. 

Bernard is infuriated to find that Queenie has acknowledged dark inhabitants in his nonattendance. As far as concerns her, Queenie isn't sure in the event that she needs to continue her marriage. The following day, Bernard reports that they ought to remove their inhabitants and move to suburbia. Queenie feels covered by her significant other's suspicion that following two years of nonattendance she'll promptly get back to submitting to him. 

At some point, Gilbert and Hortense get back to discover Bernard sneaking around in their room, and Gilbert begins to battle with him. Queenie comes higher up to intercede however copies over in torment. Requesting Hortense help her, she withdraws ground floor and admits she's going to conceive an offspring. While the men, dumbfounded regarding what's happening, beat on the entryway, Queenie conceives an offspring without issue and Hortense clears off the young man. The child should be ill-conceived, since Bernard has been away the previous months, however Hortense is appalled to see that he's likewise dark. She accepts Gilbert is the dad. 

Afterward, Queenie discloses the circumstance to Bernard. During Bernard's post bellum nonattendance, she got an abrupt visit from Michael, the warrior she laid down with before. They went through three days together before he got back to Jamaica, after which she understood she was pregnant. For some time, she expected a premature delivery, however at last she developed to adore and need the child. After she completes the story, Bernard silently leaves. 

One of different inhabitants, Winston, has quite recently purchased a house, which he needs to fix up and lease as lodgings. He offers to allow the Josephs to live there in the event that they help fix it up. Gilbert acknowledges fortunately, however he's stressed that Hortense dislike the overview house. Be that as it may, when he shows it to her, she's strangely cheerful and idealistic about their capacity to set it up. That evening, she allows Gilbert to rest in her bed interestingly. 

While Queenie really focuses on the child, Bernard sulks around the house. As time passes by, he gets open minded toward and afterward appended to the young man, and thusly Queenie relax towards him. In any case, on the day the Josephs move out, Queenie out of nowhere requests that they receive her child. She realizes that social shame for a biracial kid will be extreme, and she does  

Characters of Small Island  By Andrea Levy

Queenie

One of four narrators. A British woman who does her part in the second World War by opening up her home to members of the Royal British Air Force. At the close of the war when her husband fails to return from the war, she rents out the empty rooms in her home in an effort to make a living, and as a sense of freedom. She rents out her home to British of African heritage, which was a source of tension in the book among various characters and in London as a whole.

Hortense Roberts

Hortense Roberts, one of the novel’s protagonists, is a young Jamaican woman who immigrates to England. Hortense is born out of wedlock to a famous Jamaican bureaucrat, Lovell Roberts, and a penniless maid, Alberta. Raised as an outsider by her father’s cousins, Philip and Martha Roberts who prize status and respectability above all else, Hortense learns to value their world while also feeling insecure about her place in it as a illegitimate child of low birth. As a young woman, she attends a colonial teaching college, where she imbibes the narrative of British colonial superiority. Her craving for respectability and her worship of Britain lead her to immigrate to London, but the hostile and racist society she finds forces her to reevaluate her preconceptions of Britain. At the beginning of the novel, Hortense is often stuck-up about manners. She’s also self-centered, betraying her best friend Celia to marry Celia’s fiancé, Gilbert Joseph, and taking no pains to understand or empathize with her new husband. However, as an embattled immigrant develops new wisdom and flexibility—for example, she learns to appreciate her unpolished but loving husband, rather than scramble for acceptance from British people who look down on her. Later, Hortense singlehandedly delivers Queenie’s baby and then adopts it, displaying new empathy and acceptance of unconventional circumstances. Even though she’s still struggling for a foothold in British society, at the end of the novel, Hortense has achieved a respectful and loving marriage and embarks on life as a new mother. She emerges as a mature and warm-hearted woman, maintaining her dignity and generous spirit in the face of the prejudice she faces every day.

Wilfred Buxton

Queenie’s Father

Queenie’s father is a gruff and short-tempered man. Like his wife, Lillie Buxton, Wilfred is exclusively focused on the butchery, which keeps the family safe from the poverty that surrounds them in their mining town but prevents them from having any meaningful life as a family. Although Wilfred is kind to Queenie, he wishes she were a boy, as she would have been more use to him.

Michael Roberts

A Jamaican member of the Royal Airforce who knew Hortense back in Jamaica and was the focus of her admiration. Stays at Queenie’s house for a while in England and becomes involved in a short-lived relationship with her resulting in pregnancy. The connection of Michael between himself and both Queenie and Hortense is never brought to their attention.

Michael Bligh

A mixed race baby, parented by Queenie and Michael Roberts. By the end of the novel the baby is adopted by Hortense and Gilbert because all 4 characters know a colored baby cannot be raised by white parents. The baby can be seen as a symbol for the unified future of Britain. Social and cultural hybridity, both races have worked together to build a future of England.

Arthur Bligh

The father of Bernard Bligh is a veteran of World War I. Since the war he is afraid of loud noises and often wanders around aimlessly, which is when he meets Gilbert. He cheats at game nights and never speaks, but rather communicates using his expressive eyebrows. Arthur owns an old clock that he always winds up even though its noise is very annoying. He is shot by a police officer in a riot.

Aunt Dorothy

Queenie’s aunt, who owns a candy shop in London. Through this relative, Queenie escapes the drudgery of her butchery and begins an exciting new life in the city. Aunt Dorothy encourages Queenie to marry Bernard because he’s educated and of a higher class, and can therefore provide security and respectability. However, despite her good intentions, she pushes her niece into a disastrously unfulfilling relationship.

Elwood

Gilbert’s cousin, with whom he embarks as a catastrophic beekeeping business venture. Elwood, who wants to stay in Jamaica and be part of the struggle to free his country from colonial rule, is a notable contrast to Gilbert, who looks to the Mother Country for opportunity and seeks to fit into British society, rather than liberating himself from it. 

Miss Jewel

Miss Jewel is an elderly Jamaican woman who takes a job in the Roberts household to be near her granddaughter Hortense. She helps to raise Hortense but can only speak to her formally in public.

Kenneth

Kenneth is a Jamaican man who constantly schemes on how to make enough money to survive in England. He is an identical twin and often pretends to be his brother Winston to ask Gilbert Joseph and other people for money. 

Celia Langley

Celia Langley is an ambitious young Jamaican woman who dreams of moving to England to be a teacher. Celia shares her dreams with her best friend Hortense then can do nothing but look on as Hortense acts upon these dreams and marries Celia's former boyfriend Gilbert Joseph to facilitate a move to England. 

Miss Morgan

The headmistress of Hortense’s teaching college. She constantly preaches the superiority of English customs and encourages her students to emulate the “mother country” in ever possible way. However, she’s also kind to Hortense when she receives news that Michael’s plane has been shot down, and writes her glowing letters of recommendation. 

Stella Ryder

Stella Ryder is an American missionary who sets up a church and a school in Jamaica. She befriends many of her students but is forced to leave when rumors of her affair with Michael Roberts begin to spread through the community. 

Cyril Todd

Cyril Todd is a white Englishman who resents the presence of non-white people in his neighborhood and is unashamed to voice his racist opinions loudly in the street. He lives next door to Queenie and Bernard Bligh and is horrified when Queenie begins to rent rooms to Jamaican lodgers.

Winston

Winston is a sensible Jamaican man who tries to succeed in difficult conditions in England. His twin brother Kenneth often assumes Winston's identity to carry out scams, and Winston must deal with the aftermath of his brother's schemes. 

Themes of Small Island By Andrea Levy

The theme of racial discrimination

The theme of racial discrimination infiltrates the lives, decisions, and experiences of the characters that inhabit the world of Small Island, but it is also a reflection of the attitudes of post–World War II English society towards race and differences.

Small Island tells the story of Caribbean migrants Hortense and Gilbert, who lodge with Queenie and Bernard in their London home. In her homeland of Jamaica, Hortense was valued due to the colonial emphasis on lighter skin signifying superiority. Although Hortense’s mother is a dark-skinned woman, Hortense is separated from her and placed with the wealthy, light-skinned relatives of her absent father. Hortense has no significant connection with these relatives beyond their shared skin color and is effectively torn from her immediate roots—a theme that is mirrored later in the novel when Queenie feels forced to give up her mixed-race child to Hortense and Gilbert.

 Manners and Civilization

Until their arrival in England, Hortense and Gilbert believe that the “mother country” is more advanced and inherently superior to their own society in Jamaica; as colonial subjects, the best they can do is emulate British norms and hope to assimilate into British society. However, upon experiencing life in England, the Josephs realize that the vaunted civilization they’ve been taught to admire doesn’t exist, or at least is inaccessible to immigrants of color. The novel illustrates this with its often humorous focus on manners. In Jamaica, Hortense and Gilbert learned British etiquette from teachers who insisted this was the only way to become “civilized,” but in their rough and uncouth British neighborhood they discover they’re much more mannerly—and so, according to the colonial narrative, more civilized—than those around them. In fact, despite successfully crafting a narrative of their own superiority, the novel’s British characters often lack not only politeness but kindness and decency, especially in regard to people of color. Ultimately, the novel uses superficial hallmarks of advancement, like manners, to argue that a society’s preoccupation with its own civilization can undermine its fundamental humanity.

In both British and Jamaican communities, institutions and social norms promote the idea that the dominant colonial power is a civilizing influence among its backward colonies. Queenie opens her narrative with a description of visiting the British Empire Exhibition, which recreated tableaus from “every country we British owned.” The exhibition isn’t just a form of entertainment. Through essentially parodying other cultures without explaining them—an older boy, Graham, explains to Queenie that Africans aren’t “civilized” and “only understand drums”—it encourages British viewers to conclude that they are superior and deserve to exercise colonial dominion.

After generations of British rule and propaganda, Jamaican society, especially the educated echelon in which Hortense grows up, is committed to colonial ideology. Although she’s born out of wedlock to a poor mother, because of her light skin Hortense is raised by her father’s cousins, wealthy landowners whose emulation of British customs confers on them social superiority, in the eyes of others and especially their own. Educated in schools run by missionaries, Hortense learns about English history, poetry, and even the English climate rather than about her own country. She also imbibes British etiquette and even worship for British objects, regardless of their actual value. In her first appearance, Hortense remembers her friend Celia’s declaration that “in England I will have a big house with a bell at the front door.” Now Hortense gloats that Queenie’s house has a doorbell because it represents the civilization she’s been taught to admire, even though it’s irrelevant to her life and the difficulties she’ll soon encounter.

As immigrants, Gilbert and especially Hortense realize that they fulfill the etiquette that represents British civilization better than most British natives. On her first shopping trip in England, Hortense wears a trim coat and heels, and she’s astounded at the slovenly housecoats sported by the English women she’s admired from afar all her life. In contrast to Queenie’s assumption that she’s never been in a shop or seen bread before, Hortense recoils from the uncouth baker who handles her bread with his dirty bare hands. Although Hortense’s idea of civilization is predicated on imitation of the British, as far as manners and appearances go, she’s much more civilized than Queenie and her new neighbors. Episodes like this recall Queenie’s description of the British Empire Exhibition. While her teenage chaperones, Emily and Graham, amuse themselves making fun of the black actors in the Africa exhibit, one of the actors speaks to Queenie in perfect English and directs Graham to a toilet, although the boy can’t find it and has to “wee behind some bins.” Although Queenie doesn’t realize it at the time, the man she’s been taught to think of as inferior has learned his British manners better than she has.

The novel doesn’t dwell on moments like these to assert the importance of superficial etiquette. Rather, they show that besides lacking the manners they use as evidence of their advanced civilization, the British often lack the essential kindness and compassion that manners are supposed to denote, especially towards colonial immigrants. While Hortense and Gilbert initially believe that by acting as British as possible they can gain acceptance, they quickly discover that most British citizens are so convinced of their inherent superiority, they’re blind to the fact that, by conventional markers, the Josephs are more civilized than they are. This is especially true of Bernard, who interprets Gilbert’s repeated gestures of civility as impertinence, calling him a “cheeky blighter” when he tries to shake hands, and boorishly shutting the door in response. This surface rudeness underscores deeper personal flaws, like Bernard’s overwhelming arrogance, and foreshadows his future unkindness to his wife. Ultimately, Hortense and Gilbert’s experience in England exposes not only a failure of British manners, but of human kindness. By the end, they’re establishing tenuous security and happiness, but they do so by forging connections among the immigrant community, not as a result of any gesture of welcome from their hosts. If the Josephs carve out a life in England, it will be in spite of British “civilization,” not because of it.

While many of the novel’s characters devote inordinate attention to issues of etiquette, superficial manners are meaningless if they don’t correspond to deeper attributes like kindness and compassion. The novel makes light of etiquette in order to show how arbitrary it is as a metric of one society’s superiority to another. More importantly, the many failures of manners underscore the failures of the values they’re supposed to represent, and argues that regardless of the manners it does or doesn’t display, a society can’t claim to be civilized in the face of the unkindness it so casually dispenses to those who arrive on its shores as immigrants.

Space

There are many spaces within the novel but the key to them are which spaces are public and which ones are private. There are clear distinctions in the interactions between black and white individuals in a space like Queenie’s house versus on the street and in public buildings. Specifically, you can see Hortense and Gilbert try to make their home on the west end of London in Queenie’s house but struggle to fit into the society around it. The threshold to the house acts as a barrier between the internal and external spaces of the novel. 

Multiculturalism

This is a theme specifically seen with Hortense and Gilbert as they first try to adapt to the proper English way of life. But through triumphs and failures, they come to realize that, ‘not everything the English do are good’ and they learn to mesh their Jamaican selves with the English culture that works for them.

Prejudices  Racism

This is a theme that is present in both the ‘before’ and ‘after’ sections of the novel. Readers see Hortense and Gilbert struggle with living in a majority white society who are not welcoming of them. And readers can observe Queenie’s ignorance towards the inequality of the races as she unknowingly partakes in the prejudice and racism sometimes. This includes the character of Hortense and Gilbert being expected to settle for less than they really deserve while in London.  

Redemption and Forgiveness

The characters in Small Island are very different, but they all share regret for events in their past. Their inner shame and regrets guide them through life as they search for a route to redemption or forgiveness. Queenie has an affair and becomes pregnant. Bernard is imprisoned and disappears for years. Gilbert enters into a sham marriage, and Hortense betrays her best friend Celia Langley. These past mistakes threaten the characters' futures. They must be resolved before the characters can hope to find happiness. Not every character finds redemption or achieves forgiveness, but the shared need for redemption and forgiveness makes them important themes in the novel.

The birth of Queenie's baby is the moment when all of the characters must confront their pasts. The baby represents many of the most pressing regrets. Queenie knows that the baby represents the one moment of passion in her life but acknowledges that there is no way she can raise an illegitimate mixed-race child in a racist society. Bernard sees the baby as proof of his failures as a man and a husband, and his growing affection for the baby cannot mask the extreme racism he has exhibited throughout the book. Gilbert is asked to adopt the baby but knows that this would further complicate the sham of a marriage between him and his wife. Even though their relationship has been improving, he is torn between selfishly ignoring the problem and accepting the baby. Hortense perhaps has the most empathy for the child. She was an illegitimate baby given up by her mother for the chance at a better life. The adoption of the baby presents Hortense with the opportunity to provide a caring, loving home that she never experienced. Many of Hortense's flaws can be traced back to her cold, distant upbringing. The adoption of the baby is a chance for her to achieve redemption for her past sins by correcting the defining sin in her own life.

Gilbert and Hortense accept the offer, and they leave the house with the baby. Redemption and forgiveness are not assured for either of them, but the willingness to provide a loving home for a poor child means that their actions go some way to address their past mistakes. The growing bond between Hortense and Gilbert suggests that their marriage might not be so much of a sham after all, and the baby becomes a physical representation of the growing bond between the husband and wife as well as a shared investment in the success of the marriage. Both Hortense and Gilbert now have more than just their self-interest riding on the marriage so they have more of a reason to make their marriage work. They forgive each other for the sins and transgressions they have committed, and the baby allows them to forgive themselves. Queenie makes a great sacrifice. She gives up the one person in the world whom she truly loves. Her sacrifice is a benevolent action. She knows that she and Bernard cannot provide the baby with the life he deserves. Even in the short time since the birth, the baby has made Queenie happier than she has been in years, but she is willing to give this up. The affair she had with Michael Roberts emerged from her unsatisfying marriage to Bernard. Queenie is condemning herself to this banal and wretched existence in the hope that her baby might have a better life. She gives up everything for a good cause and seeks redemption for her adultery. Queenie might achieve redemption, but Bernard does not. He cannot abandon his racism even when it becomes clear that his racist views will mean that he will struggle to raise a mixed-race son. Bernard refuses to listen to Gilbert's pleas and refuses to change his ways. He is not forgiven by his wife, and he is not redeemed in the eyes of the people he has wronged. Bernard's punishment is to return to a life of self-loathing married to a woman who hates him.

Displacement and Belonging

Feelings of displacement plague all the novel’s main characters. As educated young people facing their limited prospects on a colonial island, Hortense and Gilbert feel out of place in their native country of Jamaica and look toward the wider world of England as a place where they can truly thrive. Less central to the novel, Queenie and Bernard’s feelings of displacement in their native society of England echo those of their immigrant tenants. All these characters try to force the world around them to conform to their expectations of it, and all are unsuccessful. By the end of the novel, everyone realizes that they can’t count on their society to make them feel at home; instead, they arrive at a sense of belonging by forging close personal relationships. While this conclusion is empowering in its insistence on the agency of individuals (especially immigrants) to carve out strong communities, it’s also a demoralizing reflection on the wider British society that refuses to accommodate diversity.

All the characters, but most importantly Hortense and Gilbert, feel out of place in the societies in which they’re born. Trained rigorously as a teacher, Hortense finds few opportunities to work in Jamaica and thinks she will find better and more rewarding jobs in the British school system. As an RAF soldier, Gilbert experiences life in Britain and all it has to offer; when he returns home after the war, Jamaica’s stalling economy and his cousin Elwood’s ill-considered business schemes fill him with dread. Dreaming of a career as a lawyer, Gilbert thinks he can only fulfill his aspirations outside his country. Importantly, Hortense and Gilbert’s feelings of displacement are caused by their education within a colonial structure, which has taught them to aspire to British lives and careers without building a Jamaican society in which such lives are accessible.

Similarly, as a young girl, Queenie is revolted by her family’s butchering business even though everyone around her is completely committed to it. Although she marries Bernard to secure a different life and escape these feelings of displacement, Queenie also feels out of place in the role of traditional, submissive housewife Bernard expects her to play. Before the war, Bernard carves out a place for himself in society by pursuing a modest career as a clerk and rigidly adhering to conventional norms. When he returns, he finds that his career isn’t valued any longer, and his marriage is on shaky ground. He can’t even feel superior to people of color, as he did during the war, because they’re living in his neighborhood and in his very house. Although Bernard’s mentality is deeply unsympathetic, he does experience similar feelings to his wife and tenants, showing that displacement isn’t limited to immigrants or other marginalized groups. To combat these feelings of displacement, the main characters try to force the community they live in to conform to their expectations of it. Gilbert repeatedly applies to professional jobs from which he’s rejected on the basis of his race, believing that if he simply tries hard enough to belong in the British society he imagines for himself he’ll eventually succeed. Similarly, Hortense is deaf to Gilbert’s explanations that her teaching certificate is valueless in Britain; despite the racism she experiences from her first day in Britain, it’s not until she applies for a job and is rudely rejected that she realizes she can’t, through sheer will, make Britain into the paradise of opportunity she imagined. An unusually open-minded woman, Queenie wants her neighborhood to be more welcoming towards war refugees and immigrants of color. She imagines that by accepting these people as tenants herself, and defending them from her bigoted neighbors, she can force the neighborhood into a more tolerant attitude. Of course, this is unsuccessful, and neighborhood feeling towards Queenie’s black tenants only worsens throughout the novel.

Bernard’s behavior on this front is the most egregious. Incensed to find people of color living in his neighborhood and his own house, Bernard immediately ejects all the tenants, as if by doing so he can restore both his neighborhood and his own mind to its comfortable pre-war state. When Queenie aggressively defends the tenants, Bernard realizes he’s no longer the undisputed master of his house; now he has to contend with his wife’s new independence and, when she delivers a biracial baby, to accept that the segregated society he imagines is gone forever.

Ultimately, after striving for acceptance from a society that doesn’t live up to their expectations, all the characters learn to carve out enclaves where they can achieve a sense of belonging denied to them by society at large. When Bernard arrives home and destroys Gilbert’s hopes of living peacefully in a white neighborhood, it’s Winston, one of the Jamaican tenants, who, through the Jamaican immigrant community, finds them a real house they can afford. The Josephs’ change of housing shows that they’re achieving security not by trying to become more British but by cultivating a friendly community within the generally hostile British society.

Meanwhile, Bernard does the opposite. In announcing his intention to move to the suburbs, he’s retreating from the newly heterogeneous city into an all-white enclave, just as many of his neighbors do. While he can’t rid the city of immigrants, he can live among other people who share his intolerance and recreate in miniature the society that’s since vanished with the war. The only person who doesn’t find a sense of belonging is Queenie, who can’t create or envision any community that reflects her own attitude of tolerance and compassion.

While the Josephs’ move represents perseverance and ingenuity in the face of steep opposition to their presence in Britain, Bernard’s shows cowardice and a redoubled embrace of his own intolerance. These disparate characters are linked by the similar feelings they experience, but their differing responses drive them apart. Through this contrast, the novel valorizes the struggle of immigrants to create communities where they can feel secure and valued, while also warning that bigotry can also survive in closed communities, even if the larger society around them is slowly becoming more progressive. 

Manners and Etiquette

Manners and etiquette dictate how a person should operate in society. This theme is treated differently by different characters. Some believe in manners while others do not. Hortense is the best embodiment of this theme. She treats manners and etiquette as a demonstration of character. She believes in good manners and politeness above all else, but this view is undermined by her actions. Hortense may act as though she values manners and politeness, but she does not hesitate to betray her friends and undermine social institutions in the pursuit of her selfish ambitions. Hortense makes a business proposal to Gilbert Joseph who is her friend's boyfriend. She offers to pay for his boat fare to England on the condition that he marry her. She will then follow him to England in a short time because she does not want to make the journey as an unmarried woman. Hortense has betrayed Celia, stolen her dreams and her boyfriend, and then agreed to marry a man she does not love to move halfway around the world. Hortense is not polite in these moments. She uses etiquette as an excuse to marry Gilbert and demonstrates that the social institution of marriage means nothing to her. Hortense is manipulative, ambitious, and unafraid of justifying her actions using the manners and etiquette she learned in school.

This dependence on etiquette is a shield for Hortense. She grew up in an unloving household after being abandoned by her mother, her father, and her cousin Michael Roberts. She has lost everyone she loves, and all she has left is manners. She uses social politeness and the rules she learned in school to keep everyone at a distance. Hortense does not allow her husband Gilbert to touch or kiss her because she believes this is inappropriate. Manners and etiquette are coping devices Hortense uses to manipulate the world around her. She hopes to move to England in search of success. She sees England as a place that can match her ambition and her devotion to politeness and manners even if she will not or cannot admit to herself the reality of her relationship with etiquette.

Hortense is a deluded person. She acts selfishly and blames her behavior on manners and etiquette. Her delusions extend further than this when she travels to England. She expects that she will be immediately welcomed because she has learned and practiced all of the arcane rules of polite society. She believes that her eloquence and her manners will make her a success. Hortense arrives in England and is forced to confront her delusion. People cannot understand her accent, they patronize her, they treat her impolitely, and no one adheres to the strict system of etiquette in which she has entirely invested herself. Hortense discovers that her manners or her politeness are not important to others. Instead she is viewed entirely through the lens of skin color. People see her race above all else and treat her accordingly. Even a proclaimed non-racist such as Queenie constantly points to Hortense's race as the most important part of her character. Hortense's worst moment occurs when she visits the education authority. She has her letters of recommendation which are physical representations of Hortense's understanding of manners and etiquette. The letters mean nothing, and Hortense is laughed out of the building. She drops the letters in the street, and she struggles to pick them up. This moment becomes a manifestation of Hortense's confrontation between delusion and reality. The physical representations of her politeness and manners are scattered in the street like her broken ideas of English society. Hortense must pick up her ideas from the ground and recreate herself more realistically. Her delusions are torn apart and scattered through the street, and Hortense needs to rebuild herself and her future while grasping for the idea of what she once was.

Marriage and Women’s Roles

At the end of the 1940s, British and Jamaican society are highly restrictive of women, seeking to confine them to marriage and domestic roles. However, while they do spend most of their time within the home (specifically, within Queenie’s home), Hortense and Queenie both chafe against the limiting prospects of domesticity and subservience to their husbands. The women’s failure and refusal to submit to traditional roles causes friction in their marriages. However, while Gilbert eventually comes to appreciate his wife’s headstrong and high-minded behavior, after initial resistance, Queenie eventually submits to Bernard’s self-centered vision of their future, even though it makes her feel trapped and unhappy. By the end of the novel, both marriages have reached a state of agreement, but the contrast between the Josephs’ optimism and the Blighs’ dim future argues that purchasing such agreement by fulfilling gender norms won’t lead to happiness.

Hortense is in many ways a conservative and prim woman, but she continually flouts and eventually forces Gilbert to rearrange his expectations for a wife. While she’s sometimes annoyingly obsessed with her rights and status as a wife, it’s clear that she’s married Gilbert not in pursuit of conventional romance, but in order to get to England and pursue her own goal of becoming a teacher. Rather than being oriented around the home, she’s outward-looking and has strong career aspirations. This is underscored by her lack of domesticity; she’s unable to cook for Gilbert when she arrives in England and isn’t interested in learning how.

When Gilbert first tries to sleep with her, Hortense is offended and kicks him out of the bed. Displaying a sexual prudery inherited from her Victorian schoolteachers, on one level Hortense is proving herself committed to a very conservative vision of femininity. However, she’s also showing a strong will and a refusal to obey her husband unthinkingly. When Hortense finally invites Gilbert to share the bed at the end of the novel, it signals that she’s finally ready to begin her marriage, but only after her own period of adjustment and on her own terms. For his part, Gilbert often bemoans his wife’s lack of traditional skills and belittles her unrealistic attempts to secure a teaching position. However, he ultimately comes to her aid; although he can’t find her a job as a teacher, he encourages her in the pursuit, saying that “a teacher you still will be” even if she has to take a menial job in the meantime. His anxiety that Hortense approve of the new house he finds at the end of the novel, contrasted to the peremptory decisions he used to make about their future, shows his appreciation of his “proud, haughty […] even insufferable” wife and his willingness to undertake a marriage of partners.

Seemingly abandoned by her husband and in no hurry to see him return home, Queenie at first seems much more unconventional than Hortense; but by the end of the novel she’s again entrenched in the marriage she thought the war had liberated her from. For most of the novel, Queenie is stationed firmly within the feminine sphere of the home, stewarding her husband’s property and taking care of his father during the war—fulfilling traditional expectations of a wife. At the same time, she makes her home the staging grounds for a domestic revolt, taking in Jamaican immigrants even though she knows Bernard wouldn’t approve, and conducting the first sexually satisfying affair of her life. Bernard’s absence liberates her from marriage while his house, paradoxically, gives her the economic means to become an independent woman.

When Bernard reappears, Queenie resists allowing him to resume the role as head of the family. She banishes him to a guest bedroom and insists that the renters come to her to adjudicate her problems, even though Bernard insists he should be in charge. Bernard’s chagrin that Queenie shouts at him “in front of the coloreds” highlights his wife’s unusual independence and his own anxiety about losing his domestic status. Queenie’s defiance is largely fueled by her secret knowledge that she’s pregnant with a biracial baby, an incredibly transgressive act in her society. However, once she decides to give up the baby, she’s fatalistically resigned to resuming life with Bernard, speaking of their life with “proper decent neighbors out in the suburbs” as if it’s a given, rather than a choice she’s making. Although she loves her son, her realization of the difficulties of raising a black child drive her back to her conventional, repressive marriage.

At the end of the novel, both the Josephs and the Blighs, once almost irreparably divided, are living together and seemingly reconciled. However, while Hortense is settling into a marriage that accepts and values her strong will and sense of independence, Queenie is resuming a relationship against which she’s always chafed, and for which she has to give up her son. The contrast between Hortense’s new optimism and Queenie’s uncertain future happiness argues that while marital concord is important, and compromise between disparate personalities may be required to achieve it, prioritizing domestic security above one’s sense of self is a dangerous gamble. 

Setting of Small Island 

Mainly set in 1948, the plot focuses on the diaspora of Jamaican immigrants, who, escaping economic hardship on their own "small island", move to England, the Mother Country, for which the men have fought during World War II.