Double Oppressions Of Caribbean People In The Lonely Londoners

Samuel Selvon(also called Sam Selvon) is one of the most prominent Caribbeanliterary artists. He has created numerous works on the London life of Caribbeanimmigrants during his life. Among those writings, the most representative ones are his“Moses trilogy”, of which the first and most quintessential is The Lonely Londoners.Therefore, The Lonely Londoners is of great importance to the research of CaribbeanLiterature and post-colonial literature. Most research done about this novel mainlyfocuses on the post-colonialism of novel and the writing skills applied in the novel.However, the inner world of the Caribbean characters has seldom been touched. Byfocusing on The Lonely Londoners as an important text in the research on Caribbeanpeople in post-colonial literature, this paper tries to analyze the inner world of thoseCaribbean characters through Freudian theory on “uncanny” and Lacanian idea on“the O/other”. Through the analysis, the thesis indicates that the inner tensions fromthe Caribbeans’ uncanny feelings as well as the oppressions imposed on them by theWhite society have formed an unbreakable circle which has encompassed theimmigrants. By investigating the inner state of the immigrant, the paper attempts toprove, through the predicament of those Caribbeans’ physical and psychologicalconditions, Selvon has managed to express his concern on the inner oppression andouter suppression of Caribbean immigrants.