Abstract

Novelist and thinker, Earl Lovelace posits a humanistic revision of postcolonial readings of the concept of reparation in his essays in Growing in the Dark, particularly in “Reparation: For &and From Whom,” and “Working Obeah.” While he does not supplant the fundamental argument that European beneficiaries of slavery should assume some responsibility for the restitution and repair of descendants of Africa, he questions the idea of reparation as an act of dependency, something handed out by the “other,” – be it European or post-independence Caribbean governments. Instead, he imagines reparation to include the agency of the colonial subject who assumes authority and responsibility for his repair. Consequently, while Lovelace recognizes the importance of the social and economic requirements of reparation, he privileges the psychological processes. Earl Lovelace’s, The Schoolmaster provides a useful platform from which to examine the applicability of the author’s reading of the concept of reparation within the framework of repressive and hegemonic framework enforced by the British colonial administration in pre-independence, Trinidad and Tobago. This study investigates the influence of British colonizing policies on the development of masculinity in the pre-independence Caribbean, specifically the ongoing struggle for reparation. Whereas a number of prior studies use the West Indian novel to demonstrate how the crises within masculinities result from patriarchal standards of ownership and control, this study also uses Caribbean fiction to prompt meaningful discussions on the healing of maimed masculinities. Due to the psychological implications encoded in Lovelace’s conceptualization of reparation, this paper, understandably, privileges a psychoanalytic approach.