Page 1 of 8

European Journal of Business &

Social Sciences

Available at https://ejbss.org/

ISSN: 2235-767X

Volume 07 Issue 05

May 2019

Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 273

Female Migrants and Postcoloniality in The Final Passage by

Caryl Phillips

Anchal Maheshwari

Research Scholar

School of Studies in English

Vikram University, Ujjain (M.P.)

E-mail- anchalmaheshwari01@gmail.com

Abstract

Due to the globalization and multiculturalism many people migrated to England from

their native place. People migrated with a hope for their golden future but gradually their

hopes scattered when they came to know about the reality of the crucial behavior of the

host countries. During the migration, people always swing between two cultures, the

native culture and the culture of the host country in which they migrate. Apart from the

cultural problem migrants have to face a lot of other barriers in building their future or

identity. Migration is the major theme of the postcolonial literature and herewith the

paper will reflect light on the condition of female migrants. It is true that all migrants

suffer during the process of migration but female migrants have to suffer more because of

their inferior sex, as regarded by the society. In this paper a scrutinized study will be done

in the terms of the predicament of female immigrants of Caryl Phillips’ The Final

Passage.

Keywords- Migration, Female Migrants, Postcolonial, Multiculuralism.

Page 2 of 8

European Journal of Business &

Social Sciences

Available at https://ejbss.org/

ISSN: 2235-767X

Volume 07 Issue 05

May 2019

Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 274

In the context of postcolonial culture, Helen Tiffin claims in his essay Postcolonial

Literatures and Counter Discourse that “Postcolonial cultures are inevitably hybridized,

involving a dialectical relationship between European ontology and epistemology and the

impulse to create or recreate independent local identity” (95). Postcolonial literature gives

voice to the silent characters and expresses their predicament throughout the world.

Every kind of literature always deals with some autobiographical elements. As Edward

Said remarks in The World, the Text and the Critic that writing is the “the complex and

generally orderly translation of many different forces into decipherable script, forces that

all converge on the desire to write which is a choice made over the desire to speak, to

dance or sculpt” (129). This means that literature always spreads the message of the

author to the world. Literary works are created not only for the pleasures of the society

but the aim of the literature is also to bring a change in the society. Through the powerful

voice of the author, people come to know about the social and political visions.

Therefore, whenever a writer creates his work on a particular theme, the work is always

inspired or influenced by the writer’s own experience of life and this is what Caryl

Phillips has done in all his writings who is a post-modernist writer with multicultural

background and wide travelling experiences. His works express his experiences and

knowledge about the condition of migrants during migration which he observed through

his journey all over the world. Phillips has produced the experiences of displacement,

Page 3 of 8

European Journal of Business &

Social Sciences

Available at https://ejbss.org/

ISSN: 2235-767X

Volume 07 Issue 05

May 2019

Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 275

rootlessness and recognition of Blacks who were implicated in slavery and mass

fluctuation from the African territories to the Americas, Europe and Carribbean Islands.

Caryl Phillips is a versatile genius of Caribbean origin who later settled in

England. Phillips was born in St. Kitts to Malcolm and Lillian Phillips. When he was

only four months old, his parents moved and settled in Yorkshire, England. After the

completion of his graduation in 1979, he had an urge to visit all-over the world in order to

survey the condition of migrants and black people.

As he had migrated in very early age so he came across the condition of migrants.

He has felt the pain, suffering and nostalgic experience which can be find in his every

work. His short journey to United States plays an important role for writing on such

themes like colour discrimination, slavery and identity crisis. As Benedict Ledent points

out in his Master of Ambiguity-

“His experience at Oxford and a short journey to the United States in 1978 during

which he discovered the writing of Richard Wright, had indeed provided him with

a further insight into the duality of the society in which he was brought up,

reinforced his resistance to all forms of exclusion, and above all aroused in him

the need to come to terms with “the cultural confusions of being black and

British”. (1)

Caryl Phillips has credited literature by his several precious gems of fiction, non- fiction, anthologies, plays, radio plays, film and translations. In all these works he has