Theoretical background

Critical discourse is

Located in Colombian territory, Caribbean region is one of the major natural areas
composed of many divisions bordering the Caribbean Sea. It expands to the north
of America and the east of Mexico (Kline 95). The soil of Caribbean area lends
itself to easy agriculture of various products like sugarcane, cotton, tobacco, etc.
The temperature is very suitable for plantation with the winds regularly refreshing
the terrain (Kline 95). Unfortunately, this apparent paradise, which was inhabited
by black people, is often seen as the prey of many colonists who have taken full
advantage of it. European colonizers decided that the economic potentials of this
area must be fully exploited (Hyman 209). Hence, the region faced the problem of
competition among the colonists who were so ambitious in their quest for quick
self-profit. In this case, the Caribbean became a real battlefield on which the main
colonial powers, Spain, England, and France, fought against each other (Doumerc
21). They practiced different racial ways to suppress the blacks. Their main aim
was to distort the blacks’ identity to have authority over them. Racism was the
starting point through which the colonists maintained this task.

Accordingly, the white supremacy violated one of the most fundamental principles
of human rights which can be summarized in one phrase: ''all human beings are
born free and equal'' (Joseph 47). In terms of dignity and rights, this principle is
usually gained by protecting the individual's life and preventing some people from
imposing unjust, degrading treatment on others. If this principle is breached, it
would cause a disaster in which many colonized people will be sacrificed by the
dominant class (Crocker and Steele 510).

The colonial practices nourished the distortion of blacks’ identity. One of these
practices is racism. The latter is the superior ideology which is used to rationalize
the differential treatment of members of ethnic groups by the dominant class. It is
the institutional and individual practices that create and strengthen repressive
systems of racial relations for the abuse of fragile people in society. It eliminates
the uniqueness of the black-skinned (Brennan 13). Nevertheless, the colonizers
enslaved, tortured and killed a large number of the natives in the Caribbean lands.
They also introduced European diseases to which the indigenous people had less or
no resistance. In fact, the process of killing the blacks extended to the helpless
children. Those vulnerable creatures were either exploited for their naivety or
terminated by brutal colonial ways. Some of those children remained alive, but
they suffered from many psychological traumas resulting from the killing of their
parents before their eyes or torturing them in order to be subjugated to colonialism
(Hamilton 21-22). As a reaction to that, a wide range of responses against
colonization were represented not only in forms of rebellions but in forms of
writings as well. The Caribbean writers of different genres rushed to show the
reality of the depressed situation in the colonized land through literature, enraged
by pressures and racial activities. One of them is the Caribbean black woman, Una
Marson (1905- 1965).

Marson was a poet, social activist, feminist, playwright, journalist and BBC
broadcaster. She was the first black female of the entire Caribbean region who
emerged in the West as the representative person of black population. She intended
to resuscitate the black people psychologically so as to overcome the traumas and
difficulties resulted from the racist colonialism. Her writings are directed at the
struggle between colonialism and colonized people, supporting black women,
protecting black children and strengthening the cultural (Jarrett-Macauley vii). She
tried to restore respect to the powerless and marginalized communities. Therefore,
her name excited interest in the early twenty-first century as the Jamaican feminist
writer whose works pioneered the articulation of racial oppression against black
occupied groups. Therefore, Marson's writings deal energetically with portraying
the distortion of non-white people’s identity. They reveal the painful experience of
living in a white civilization in which the illuminations of the self were negated by
many cruel colonial attitudes towards the black race (Donnell 11).