Race and Caribbean Culture - 1709 Words

Race and Caribbean Culture Each culture is unique in its attitudes about which groups within the cultural community will comprise the majority and which the minority. The culture also determines how the minority culture will be treated and how the two groups will be classified. Often, differentiation of groups is determined by race, rather than things like religion or class. Throughout literary history, authors have endeavored to capture the past as well as recreate and articulate sociological inequalities within that past. Issues of race, being one of the primary examples of social inequality, often appear in controversial and important works of literature. In the Caribbean Sea, people have had to deal with centuries of racial prejudices and sociological inequity, since the first explorers arrived on the island and demanded that those with darker skins become the slaves of those with light skin. Three particular works of literature, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpenter , and The Farming of Bones by author Edwidge Danticat have recreated the historical scenarios of life in the Caribbean during the time of oppression of the native peoples by white Europeans and shows just how disturbing and destructive attitudes of superiority and inferiority regarding racial differences can truly be. Perhaps the most famous example of literature regarding Caribbean oppression is Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. In this novel, a white woman namedShow MoreRelatedCaribbean Studies Essay999 Words   |  4 Pagesfor the changing role that Race, Colour and Ethnic affiliation play in Caribbean Society and Culture Subject: Caribbean Studies Teacher: Mrs. L. 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