ASSESMENT 1 PART 1 BASED ON THE TWILIGHT OF DAISY POWELL-MARVIN VICTOR

DONE BY :TEHILLA MALONEY REG NO:620100803

Ghost stories, more locally communicated as ‘Folklore’, have been embedded in Caribbean community life since there
was a community for it to be embedded into. It is coloured by the different races and religions upheld by the people as
well as the historical and increasingly ‘modernized’ West Indies. It has been an enjoyable way in which the culture(s)
present within the sphere have been preserved; Especially the period of servitude. Though it may be a waning tradition to
write and to tell, ghost stories continues to reveal key concepts and ideas about bondage buried inside the Caribbean ‘s
timeline from past until now. This impression is expounded on further in the story The Twilight of Daisy Powell by
Marvin Victor.

Daisy Powell, suggested to be a ghost, can be said to be a parallel of elements present in the Caribbean past which
continue to haunt and dominate us, reducing us, like the narrator, to the role of servant. He (the speaker) continually
describes himself as someone of lowly status. “…send me flying into the abyss I myself represented…the place always
symbolized for me the true domain of the conquered, the outcasts…” The very use of the word ‘conquered’ resurfaces so
much of the Caribbean past which is painted with instances where such a word would find a dysfunctional home;
Especially that of the initial contact of Europeans and the Americas, that they dedicated to themselves, calling it similarly,
a conquest. From the onset, as soon as the persona encounters Miss Daisy, he begins to describe her as someone superior
to himself, not of this world. In her presence she ‘felt uneasy’, backward even. Even Columbus himself noted that “with
50 men you could subject everyone and make them do what you wished” (Glencoe) This is almost ironic as the persona is
suggested to be a servant of the late Powells. Miss Powell then, her ghostly status incorporating folklore into the short
tale, through her relationship with the narrator, reveals to us parts of our past in reference to slavery and Indentureship

Additionally, issues present in the West Indies currently are also eloquently emphasized on in this account. The speaker
talks about beginning to serve again. That “[He] was made for the role of serving her…since her mother left he had
forgotten the motions, leading [him] to believe the estate belonged to [him] – until her arrival shook [him] out of his futile
dream.” The power of this statement really alludes to the fact that the Caribbean has gone back to a state of neo-
colonialism; even though our ‘mother’ has left our shores, her ‘daughter’ coming back in the format of same European
countries and the USA, returned to the estates to remind us of our lowly positions. “The imposition of structural
adjustment programs in the Third World since the 1970s has been characterized as a war against the poor, a process of
[neo] recolonization” (Turner). This statement, though subtle is assumed to be illustrated very subtly through the
narrator’s relationship with the ghost of late Daisy Powell, further disclosing how the Caribbean is constantly serving a
master she cannot really see.

In conclusion, this composition, through the characters and their relationships demonstrated in the short story “The
Twilight of Daisy Powell,” showed how ghost stories continually highlight past and present issues and circumstances in
the Caribbean Basin.i

Glencoe, MaGraw-Hill. Native_Peoples. 2003.

<http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/btt/columbus/native_peoples.shtml>.

Turner, Terisa E. "Arise Ye Mighty People! Gender, Class and Race in Popular." Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press (1994).
Document.