Appunti esame Letteratura inglese, prof. Deandrea, libro consigliato The lost child, Caryl Phillips

Chapter 1: Separation

The first chapter is about a woman called the Crazy Woman. She’s old and ill and she cannot be employed anymore. She’s a beggar. She has a child of 7 years old that takes care of her, son of a man who already has a family.

The first chapter is characterized by some flashbacks about the life of the Crazy Woman. She has to face 2 deportations: the first journey is from Africa to the Indies (American Colonies), where slaves are treated like beasts; the second one is from the American Colonies to England, where she’s abused by the captain of the ship.

Another flashback narrates the relationship between the Crazy Woman and a businessman, who already has a wife and a family. The outcome of this sexual relationship is a child, but the man progressively gets away from them. In this chapter, there is another voice of the novel, that of the Crazy Woman’s ghost; this ghost (gothic novel) will soon leave her body = her soul is going to die.

The chapter ends with the Crazy Woman and her child sleeping in an inn. The woman says that “she must go and walk away from him” she’s going to die.

Chapter 2 and Chapter 3

Monica Johnson and the relationship with her father

[Flashback] She studied at Oxford University and her father (Ronald) visits her and gives her an ultimatum: he tells her to stop her relationship with a Jamaican man (Julius), but she doesn’t want, so she decides to cut ties with her family.

In these chapters, the narrator tells the difficult relationship between Monica and her father: she always seems set against him, while, on the other side, he had always tried to please Monica.

Ronald Johnson was a geography professor. He has always exercised his patriarchal authority over his wife, in fact, Ruth wanted to have a second child, but he didn’t want to because of the war.

Ronald doesn’t like her boyfriend Julius, because he comes from Jamaica, but she doesn’t want to stop her relationship, so she cuts ties with her family and marries Julius. Monica decided to take a leave of absence from her studies in order to follow Julius, in fact, he began to work as a Junior lectureship in the south coast of England.

From the very beginning, they do not get along because Julius is too self-centred. Moreover, Julius thinks that Monica needs help because she’s a mental illness: she doesn’t talk to him and she often has a blank stare. When their children (Ben and Tommy) were born, the relationship between Monica and Julius gets worse. Julius continues to behave indifferently towards his wife and his children, and Monica thinks that it embarrassed him to be seen in public with her.

Julius decided to go back to Jamaica because he has found a new job there, but she doesn’t want to follow him, so there’s a separation between Monica and Julius. She doesn’t even explain the reason for this decision. She finds a job in Leeds, she works as a junior librarian in Leeds; she decides to visit her parents for some days with her children.