Caryl Phillips’s depiction of gender and racial oppression: a case of the native and the immigrants in a Distant Shore

Abstract

This article examines how Caryl Phillips in his novel A Distant Shore depicts gender and racial oppression experienced by both the native and the immigrant and how this gives rise to practices of exclusion. In this article, we argue that although racism is one of the major contributory factors in the marginalization of immigrants, such factors can be transcended. Thus, in A Distant Shore we examine the novels’ distinguished migrants namely, Solomon, Said, Mahmood and Bright to demonstrate that Britain’s inhumane treatment and incidental social positioning of migrants is a blatant disregard for their humanity and inalienable right to socially affirming identities. We also examine how the British native woman, Dorothy is subjected to feelings of displacement and alienation in much the same way as the migrant. Hence, in his novel the migrant is not the only one who experiences a sense of change as change is also experienced by the native.

Keywords: Gender, Displacement, exclusion, alienation, migration