Chong 1
Sarah Chong
Mrs. E. Richardson
University English II
12 November 2012
Optimism in The Lonely Londoners
Thesis: ThroughoutThe Lonely Londoners, West Indian immigrants use optimism to cope with emptiness caused by alienation, homelessness and conflict.
- Alienation
- Londoners’ indifference
- Stereotyping
- Busyness
- Caused by racism
- Hustling women
- “Colour-Bar”
- Homelessness
- Fiscal Need
- Foreignness
- Conflict
- Women
- Aimlessness
Sarah Chong
Mrs. E. Richardson
University English II
12 November 2012
Optimism in The Lonely Londoners
In Samuel Selvon’sThe Lonely Londoners,Moses Aloettareluctantly lodges and guides West Indian immigrants as they struggle with homelessness and experience crippling prejudices in mid-1950s London. An omniscient Trinidadian speaker narrates the humorous and unfortunate episodes of immigrants through the thoughts and anecdotes of Moses, a senior Trinidadian immigrant who serves as an important link to the novel’s newer immigrants because of his seniority (as an immigrant) and softheartedness. Although some immigrants dismiss their West Indian roots and sever family ties to assimilate with “civilized” Londoners, all of the immigrants gather weekly to reminisce about their homelands and to deprecate the cold indifferences and prejudices that they experience in London. As hustling people for money becomes common and the Londoners’ personal dilemmas worsen, the new Londoners laugh instead of worrying. Throughout The Lonely Londoners, West Indian immigrants use optimism to cope with emptiness caused by alienation, homelessness, and conflict.
As the immigrants live in London, their positive energies help them to tolerate their alienation which is fueled by the Londoners’ racist prejudices and cold indifferences. Although the Londoners’ racist prejudices against the immigrants are significant causes of the newcomers’ alienation, the cold indifference that they face is also due to the busyness of the “civilized” London life: “London is a place like that. It divide up in little worlds, and you stay in the world you belong to and you don’t know anything about what happening in the other ones except what you read in the papers” (Selvon 74). Busyness spurs London’s alienating effects, and many new Londoners turn a blind eye on their cultural ties with newer immigrants.Moses advises a new immigrant: “Though the boys [immigrants] does have to get up and hustle a lot, still every man on his own. It ain’thave no **** over here like ‘both of we is Trinidadians and we must help out one another’” (37).An immigrant named Galahad initially strives to emit an independent personality but immediately feels out of place when he is alone in the busy streets of London for the first time. When Galahad crashes into a hurrying swarm of passersby in Queensway, his confidence shrivels and he begins to panic: “A feeling come over him as if he lost everything he have—clothes, shoes, hat—and he start to touch himself here and there as if he in a daze” (42). As Professor Kenneth Ramchand explains, Galahad “touches himself all over for the consolation of a familiar reality” (8) once he realizes that he is in London, “where everybody doing something or going somewhere, is only he who walking stupid” (Selvon42). The newcomer fearfully wanders the streets of London until he spots his new acquaintance Moses, to whom he whistles happily as if he were in the Caribbean, where friends whistle to one another to attract attention, instead of Queensway, London (43). This scene illustrates the newcomer Galahad’s relief when spotting an acquaintance in Selvon’s indifferent and easily alienating society.
As Moses lodges with Galahad, Moses describes to him some extreme cases of racial prejudice he had experienced in London. Anna Grmelova writes, “After ten years in London, Moses is disillusioned and embittered by racism both in the housing market and at work” (73). When Galahad insists that Moses is only describing such experiences to scare the new newcomers, Moses lashes back by advising Galahad to ask to be served in Polish family-owned restaurants that regularly ignores black guests: “In fact, we is British subjects and he [a Polish restaurant owner] is only a foreigner, we have more right than any people from the damn continent to live and work in this country[…] we who bleed to make this country prosperous” (40). Moses believes that racism in the workplace is driven by the employees’ fear for losing their undesirable jobs to the incoming West Indian immigrants who “were encouraged to come to Britain and help rebuild the war-ravaged economy” during the 1950s (Grmelova 72). During Moses’s first years in London, Moses is fired for racism-related problems when his Caucasian co-workers at a railway yard threaten to hold a strike unless Moses is fired; headlines in newspapers continued to notify readers that the “colour bar” was again causing trouble in the job market (29). As Moses waits at the Waterloo train station to meet Galahad for the first time, he pretends to be a Jamaican newcomer when a journalist asks Moses about any currently adverse conditions in Jamaica because Moses rarely had chances to express his opinions to his hurried neighbors (29). Because the temperature in London is dangerously low and winds are dangerously brisk, Moses shudders when he meets Galahad who is wearing a tropical suit and is “looking about the desolate station as if he in an exhibition hall on a pleasant summer evening” (33).In fact, scholar Grmelova draws on Moses and Galahad’s “distinct discourses” to describe Galahad’s optimistic perspectives (73): “Galahad, [in contrast to the weary Moses], comes not only with great expectations but also with an unusual zest for life and therefore, his discourse on London is different.” Despite experiencing racial prejudice in his new home, Galahad “anticipates modes of perception and living to come in the future” (74). All in all, Galahad and the West Indian immigrants are resilient to the alienation caused by their neighbors’ racist prejudices.
After experiencing years of wrongful prejudice, Galahad becomes as resistant to infliction as a “duck’s back when rain [falls]—everything running off” (88). When a child on the street exclaims, “Look at that black man!” the urchin’s mother gently chides her child without apologizing to Galahad for her child’s behavior and ignorance; the child instantly cries when Galahad kindly crouches down to ask her a question, and her mother feels uncomfortablewhen standing near Galahad in clear view of many white passersby; “if they was alone she might have talked a little, and ask Galahad what part of the world he from, but instead she pull the child along and she give Galahad a sickly sort of smile, and the old Galahad, knowing how it is, smile back and walk on” (88). Galahad’s resilience to scathing prejudices reflects the West Indian immigrants’ dismissive, positive reactions to alienation caused by racial prejudice.
To further illustrate racial prejudice in Selvon’s London, prejudice toward black Londoners is rampant enough to make the light-skinned Caribbean immigrant Bartholomew claim that he is of Latin-American descent when he meets his Caucasian girlfriend’s father, who nevertheless demands Bartholomew to leave his house and shouts that he does not want “curly-haired” grandchildren (65). Fearful about losing his clerical job to incoming West Indian immigrants, Bartholomew avoids black men’s company and becomes embarrassed when he is in the company of other black men: “he does look around as much as to say: ‘I here with these boys, but I not one of them, look at the color of my skin’” (63).Bartholomew’s nightclub-loving girlfriend disappears after Bartholomew treats her coldly, and Bartholomew becomes paranoid that he will never find another girlfriend in London. After scouring London for weeks the weary Bartholomew resigns from his prized clerical job and becomes a doorman at a bustling nightclub, hoping that “one night Beatrice would come […] by the club and he would see her again” (66). Selvon illustrates another instance of prevalent racial discrimination when the optimistic Galahad takes no notice of his Caucasian date’s embarrassment whenGalahad flirts with her in a station that is crowded with many white Londoners (91). According to Anna Grmelova, Galahad’s naïve approaches “anticipates more optimistic times to come” (74); although these men appear to be naïve, their optimistic approaches to prejudice-related situations help them to cope with being alienated within their society.
In accordance with the knowledge that prejudice fuels the Londoners’ alienation, critic Shondel Nero utilizes a dialogue between Galahad and his date Daisy to describe the ways by which dialectic prejudice causes alienation. When Daisy responds to Galahad’s clear question by telling him that she cannot understand him (“The way you West Indians speak!”), Galahad defends himself by asserting, “Is English we speaking” (93). Drawing on the fact that the average Caribbean speaker is not aware that Caribbean English is non-standard English, Nero explains that the dialogue between Daisy and Galahad “illustrates a clash of assumptions—curious because Galahad assumes that he and Daisy speak a common language” (501). Nero continues to assert that “Daisy’s response frames his language as ‘other,’ ‘non-English’—in short, as nonnative, prompting Galahad’s retort which claims ownership of English, but that, ironically, alienates him further from Daisy because of its nonstandard phrasing” (501). This alienation between Daisy and Galahad extends to an alienation between the Caribbean-English speakers and supposedly native English speakers, as Nero explains that most Caribbean people are totally unaware of the existence of “academic debates [that are based] on language versus dialect” (502). As the new Londoners experience alienation from their society, they choose to laugh and create new memories instead of fretting about their situation.
Because Selvon’s non-black Londoners label Caribbean-English speakers as nonnative and uncivilized, a Jamaican immigrant mimics the “so ladeda” rhetoric and fashion of the civilized society and refuses to embrace his West Indian roots and relationships; the desensitized and wealthy Social Darwinists of London ungenerously toss tanners at the poor working-classmen through their expensive window shutters;and the wealthy white Londoners invite the supposedly exotic and primitive Caribbean immigrants to their parties and assume that most Caribbean immigrants hustle marijuana. The consequences of the Londoners’ stereotypes of the Caribbean immigrants are illustrated in a fete which the Jamaican mimic man called Harris arranges for “distinguished guests” (115). Harris forgets to speak with a proper London dialect when reminding his Caribbean guests/comrades to stand when God Save the Queen plays (to abolish the English people’s belief that blacks are “still uncivilized”), walks away when his childhood friend tries to reminisce with him, and tells his beloved babysitter from Jamaica that he would rather dance with a distinguished stranger than she (120-122). Nevertheless, the Caribbean immigrants meet again on a Sunday at Moses’s residence “[as if it] is confession” to reminisce, laugh and smoke cigarettes (138); the new Londoners laugh and create new memories instead of pitying their alienation from their society.
In like manner, the new Londoners utilize their optimistic attitudes to cope with the homelessness that is incited by their experiences with foreignness and fiscal need, in addition to feeling alienated by their society. As Galahad struts Bayswater Road in anelegant suit, he thinks, “This is life oh lord, to walk like a king with money in your pocket, not a worry in the world” and remains indifferent to the passersby’s impolite replies to his greetings (87).When months pass, however, Galahad loses his job during an economic depression and his hunger impels him to capture and cook a pigeon, just as his neighbors had done in Trinidad; when a wealthy Englishwoman sees Galahad twisting a pigeon’s neck, she calls Galahad a cruel beast and calls for the police (124). This scene not only reflects many well-to-do Londoners’ impersonal “a rich man, a poor man” attitudes, but also intensifies Galahad’s feeling of homelessness and foreignness in his new home (87). Among the working class who live in dingy houses on an aptly named Harrow Road, Galahad strives to appear financially and mentally independent while living in Harrow Road, where residents regularly hustle people for money in hopes of paying the housing fees (73-74). As Professor Ramchand suggests, Selvon illustrates the new Londoners’ feelings of foreignness by devising the novel’s first paragraph toconvey an “ominous opening utterance, through whose first half, thick with fog and delaying phrases…begins to signal the approach of an alien planet” (8). When Galahad walks the cold and foggy streets of London alone for the first time, he compares the shining sun in the sky to a “force-ripe orange” and becomes frightened by the “desolate colour of the sky”; the grey fog is mentioned again when a Nigerian immigrant sees the fog and backs away in disgust. The grey fog symbolizes a melancholy and foreign air to the new Londoners (52). A nomadic and poverty-stricken immigrant nicknamed Cap is emblematic of the optimistic attitude toward homelessness. Cap manages to live the heartiest among the West Indian community by hustling others for money by utilizing hispleasant voice and fraudulent anecdotes; and although he is usually penniless, Cap laughs heartily and often enough to give himself the illusion of prosperity (49). After Cap gleans money from prostitutes or by illegally purchasing automobiles for Englishmen, he indulges in high-quality cigarettes and extravagant foods and later scorns his neighbors for smoking cheap cigarettes (49). Reluctantly, Moses lodges this shiftless and hedonistic immigrant whenever hotel and hostel wardens chase Cap for not paying his exponential residence fees, for Cap has selective hearing: “you can’t insult [fellows like Cap]…If you tell him to get out, he would look at you and laugh. If you tell Cap he is a nasty, low-minded son of a bitch, he would ask you ‘why you don’t put the kettle on the fire to make tea?’” (64) What underlies Cap’s unscathed attitude is, as Grmelova argues, “the accepted condition of non-belonging” (82). The unemployed immigrants use optimism to cope with their experiences of poverty and homelessness.
With knowledge that the Caribbean-Londoners experience homelessness, Grmelova asserts that the novel’s Trinidadian narrator must have used calypsonian features to narrate the new Londoners’ homelessness, as “the Calypsos of the 1950s […] offered the most telling insights into the early days of the migrant experience” (72). Grmelova distinguishes Selvon’snovel because its calypsonian features “differ in tone and attitude from other early representations of London”: “the spirit of the calypso, with its vibrancy, confidence, positive attitude and humor, is reflected in the modified Creole language, which Selvon devised for the novel” (73). George O’Brien describes the immigrants’ optimism and “pursuits of happiness, or at any rate, a good time, is relentless, spirited, and essentially optimistic,” much like the Calypso-style songs of the Caribbean. Mechanisms that the new Londoners use to cope with foreignness not only include reminiscing but also giving new names to locations and people. Grmelova believes that the boys rename their usual surroundings“in an effort to familiarize them” as the boys give each other nicknames (such as Captain, Big City, and Five Past Twelve) and give names to their surroundings: “their world is ‘the Gate’ (Notting Hill Gate), ‘the Water’ (Bayswater) and ‘the Arch’ (Marble Arch)” (74). In fact, the new Londoners’ desire for finding familiarity in their new homes reflects their feelings of foreignness,such as when they gather on Sundays at Moses’s residence to reminisce, become delighted when West-Indian grocery stores open and dance calypso-style at sophisticated parties.These scenes illustrate the new Londoners’ optimistic approaches to combat foreignness.
When the new Londoners focus their energy on survival, they engage in purely sexual relationships with women and thereby create much conflict between themselves and females. As the male Caribbean Londoners live as if they are calypsonians, they objectify women as “pieces of skin,” “bags of *****,” “cats,” “things,”as women are objectified in calypso music. When the gullible Lewis complains to Moses that his wife has sued him for domestic abuse, Moses reminds him that women are not treated the same way in Britain as they are in Jamaica: “they have rights over here, and they always shouting for something” (69).Grmelova explains, “Selvon’s West Indians tend to depersonalize the female—as they themselves have been depersonalized” and suggests that they lack the ability to maintain meaningful relationships with others as a result of expending much energy for survival (76). In addition, Grmelova draws on the ways Galahad shows more interest in sightseeing and bragging about his sexual conquests than forming relationships with women (76). For example, Galahad anxiously invites his date to his home because “the boys would never finish giving him tone for spending all the money and not eating” (92), and Lewis jubilantly boasts about beating his wife Agnes, who consequently returns to the Caribbean (47). The womanizer Cap hustles prostitutes while engaging in sexual relationships with them, even as he maintains steady relationships with Englishwomen; in fact, when Cap marries a girl for monetary benefits, he flees the wedding after giving an illegitimate housing address to the wedding vicar (58). When Cap is forced to live as a husband, he pretends to work at a railway yard instead of hustling women, insists that Moses should introduce Cap to Moses’s various prostitutes, and later pretends to be working at home instead of listening to the music player that his wealthier wife purchases; Cap’s abuse of women illustrates how the male Carribean-Londoners hedonistically use women to lessen their inner conflicts.