Disturbers of the peace: representations of madness in Anglophone Caribbean literature

Abstract

Exploring various representations of madness in Anglophone Caribbean literature, Disturbers of the Peace: Representations of Madness in Anglophone Caribbean Literature argues that madness is an overlooked theme that should be treated as “a significant part of the West Indian literary aesthetic” (2). While Kelly Baker Josephs acknowledges that the theme of madness was prevalent in Anglophone, Francophone, and Hispanophone Caribbean literature in the first half of the twentieth century, she notes that there was an increased interest in the theme in Anglophone Caribbean literature in the latter half of the twentieth century. She argues that this heightened awareness was occasioned by the “concurrent shift from colonial to postcolonial status” (2), the quest for independence from British (colonial) rule. The first full-length study on madness in Caribbean literature, Disturbers of the Peace is a valuable contribution to the study of postcolonial literature. Josephs’s many disclaimers—namely, “I have generally avoided autobiography. . . . I have also used less formal literary theory than perhaps expected” (12)—bear the imprint of an apology and diminish her contribution. Nonetheless, Josephs’s sustained study of the theme of madness in the work of male and female Caribbean writers is effective and novel, as is her grouping of the selected authors. Divided into five chapters and an epilogue, Disturbers of the Peace exhaustively analyzes representations of madness in the work of V. S. Naipaul, Sylvia Wynter, Jean Rhys, Derek Walcott, Erna Brodber, Zadie Smith, Maria-Elena John, and David Chariandy. Whereas Chapters One through Five examine the trope of madness in selected works published from 1959 to 1980, the epilogue focuses on representations of madness in twenty-first-century fictions. Detailing the failure of the West Indies Federation (1958-62), the importance of nationalism and