Philosophy in the West Indian Novel »

"Earl McKenzie's pioneering philosophical study of the West Indian novel is based on three main assumptions: first, that philosophy is a reflection on the fundamental questions we can ask about ourselves and our world; second, that literature, particularly the novel, is the best method yet devised to provide a "human face" to these reflections; and third, Caribbean philosophy is at present embedded in other forms of cultural expression, like literature, and these forms need to be excavated to reveal what lies within." McKenzie examines ten novels by George Lamming, Roger Mais, Wilson Harris, V.S. Naipaul, Orlando Patterson, Jean Rhys, Erna Brodber, Lakshmi Persaud, Earl Lovelace and Jamaica Kincaid, each selected to represent differences in geography, chronology, ethnicity and gender. In this cross-section of novels, McKenzie identifies ancestral influences from the philosophies of Europe, Africa and India, and shows how West Indian fiction embodies ideas from several areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of education, social and political philosophy, ethics, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of literature.

Introduction 1

1 Aims of Education: Historicism and In the Castle of My Skin 6

2 The Meaning of Life and Black Lightning 17

3 The Inner Radiance of the Self in Palace of the Peacock 26

4 Knowledge and Human Understanding in A House for Mr. Biswas 43

5 Existentialism and The Children of Sisyphus 54

6 Tragic Vision in Wide Sargasso Sea 56

7 African Conceptions of a Person and Myal 73

8 The Law of Karma in Sastra 87

9 The Morality of Reparations in Salt 98

10 Plato versus Kincaid? A Reading of The Autobiography of My Mother 111

Conclusion 122

Appendix The Authors 131

References 137

Index 145