Nostalgia And Andrea Levy’s Critique Of Englishness In Small Island

Andrea Levy(1956–2019)is a Jamaican-British novelist.Since its publication in2004,Small Island has received numerous prominent literary awards.This work not only illustrates the difficulties faced by Jamaican immigrants of the Windrush Generation in London but also depicts the nostalgia of British whites as a result of imperial decline and the influx of coloured immigrants.Most academics have examined this novel from the perspective of the identity crisis of Jamaican immigrants.Few articles examined the nostalgia of British whites.In Small Island,the British whites tried to revive imperial Englishness through nostalgia in order to alleviate postwar anxiety over national identity,which was caused by the end of the British Empire and the influx of coloured immigrants.This thesis will explore the nostalgia of the British whites and reveal their nostalgia for imperial Englishness that lies behind this nostalgic behaviour of the British public.This study finds that the author,Andrea Levy,expresses her critique of white British attempts to recapture imperial Englishness.She seeks to subvert the traditional myth of Englishness and imagine an ideal postwar Englishness.This dissertation is divided into five chapters.Chapter One introduces Andrea Levy and Small Island and summarizes previous studies on the novel by both domestic and foreign scholars.Moreover,the theoretical basis,research task,and structure of the thesis are also introduced in this chapter.Chapter Two and Chapter Three focus on the British whites’ nostalgia for imperial Englishness in this novel,i.e.,for national and racial superiority.These two chapters mainly concentrate on the reasons for nostalgia and its manifestation in the novel.Chapter Two delves into the British whites’ longing for the imperial Britain in the aftermath of the British Empire’s decline.They wanted to restore national greatness by reclaiming Britain as the world hegemon in the British Empire Exhibition and recapturing war heroism,through which they wanted to recapture national superiority.Chapter Three delves into the British whites’ nostalgia for the white Britain as a result of the inflow of coloured immigrants.They wanted to reinvigorate racial purity by implementing the omnipresent white gaze at the Jamaican immigrants and racism as well as xenophobia against the racial other,through which they wanted to recapture racial superiority.Chapter Four concentrates on Andrea Levy’s critique of imperial Englishness and her imagination of postwar Englishness.In this novel,Levy demonstrates her criticism on imperial Englishness,which is characterised by national and racial superiority,by deconstructing imperial myths and challenging British racial exclusion.Chapter Five is the conclusion.Andrea Levy thinks that postwar Englishness should feature multiculturalism.In the novel,the birth of the brown baby best exemplifies Levy’s imagination of postwar Englishness.At the same time,Levy expresses her concern over the future of multicultural Britain.