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Marronage—the process of flight by slaves from servitude to establish their own hegemonies in inhospitable or wild territories-—had its beginnings in the early 1500s in Hispaniola, the first European settlement in the New World. As fictional personae the maroons continue to weave in and out of oral and literary tales as central and ancient characters of Jamaica's heritage. Attributes of the maroon character surface in other character types that crowd Jamaica's literary history—resentful strangers, travelers, and fugitives; desperate misfits and strays; recluses, rejects, wild men, outcasts; and rebels in physical and psychological wildernesses. Defining Jamaican Fiction focuses on the place of Jamaican fiction in the larger regional literature, on its essential themes, and on the strategies of discourse for conveying these themes.
"A fascinating and forcefully written study, challenging both old and new critical orthodoxies and arguing distinctive features of marronage. It is an original and important contribution to the development of theories adequate to the discussion of contemporary literature from the Caribbean and indeed the whole postcolonial world."
—Stewart Brown, University of Birmingham
| Acknowledgments | ||
| 1 | The Dimensions of Marronage in Jamaica | 1 |
| Pt. 1 | Outside In: External Views of Alienation in Jamaica | |
| 2 | An Assembly of Strangers: Isolation and British Romanticism in Jamaican Settings of the Nineteenth Century | 23 |
| 3 | The Jamaican Outsider in the Caribbean Canon | 56 |
| Pt. 2 | Inside Out: Jamaican Perspectives on Exile and Resistance | |
| 4 | Leavings | 85 |
| 5 | Naked into the Storm: Winkler and the Wilderness Within | 115 |
| 6 | The Trackless Past for Hearne's Sure Salvation | 152 |
| 7 | Re-Membering the Marooned Consciousness | 178 |
| Notes | 207 | |
| Bibliography | 211 | |
| Index | 221 |
Overview
Marronage—the process of flight by slaves from servitude to establish their own hegemonies in inhospitable or wild territories-—had its beginnings in the early 1500s in Hispaniola, the first European settlement in the New World. As fictional personae the maroons continue to weave in and out of oral and literary tales as central and ancient characters of Jamaica's heritage. Attributes of the maroon character surface in other character types that crowd Jamaica's literary history—resentful strangers, travelers, and ...