Displacement and Belonging Theme Analysis

Feelings of displacement plague all the novel’s main characters. As educated young people facing their limited prospects on a colonial island, Hortense and Gilbert feel out of place in their native country of Jamaica and look toward the wider world of England as a place where they can truly thrive. Less central to the novel, Queenie and Bernard’s feelings of displacement in their native society of England echo those of their immigrant tenants. All these characters try to force the world around them to conform to their expectations of it, and all are unsuccessful. By the end of the novel, everyone realizes that they can’t count on their society to make them feel at home; instead, they arrive at a sense of belonging by forging close personal relationships. While this conclusion is empowering in its insistence on the agency of individuals (especially immigrants) to carve out strong communities, it’s also a demoralizing reflection on the wider British society that refuses to accommodate diversity.

All the characters, but most importantly Hortense and Gilbert, feel out of place in the societies in which they’re born. Trained rigorously as a teacher, Hortense finds few opportunities to work in Jamaica and thinks she will find better and more rewarding jobs in the British school system. As an RAF soldier, Gilbert experiences life in Britain and all it has to offer; when he returns home after the war, Jamaica’s stalling economy and his cousin Elwood’s ill-considered business schemes fill him with dread. Dreaming of a career as a lawyer, Gilbert thinks he can only fulfill his aspirations outside his country. Importantly, Hortense and Gilbert’s feelings of displacement are caused by their education within a colonial structure, which has taught them to aspire to British lives and careers without building a Jamaican society in which such lives are accessible.

Similarly, as a young girl, Queenie is revolted by her family’s butchering business even though everyone around her is completely committed to it. Although she marries Bernard to secure a different life and escape these feelings of displacement, Queenie also feels out of place in the role of traditional, submissive housewife Bernard expects her to play. Before the war, Bernard carves out a place for himself in society by pursuing a modest career as a clerk and rigidly adhering to conventional norms. When he returns, he finds that his career isn’t valued any longer, and his marriage is on shaky ground. He can’t even feel superior to people of color, as he did during the war, because they’re living in his neighborhood and in his very house. Although Bernard’s mentality is deeply unsympathetic, he does experience similar feelings to his wife and tenants, showing that displacement isn’t limited to immigrants or other marginalized groups.

To combat these feelings of displacement, the main characters try to force the community they live in to conform to their expectations of it. Gilbert repeatedly applies to professional jobs from which he’s rejected on the basis of his race, believing that if he simply tries hard enough to belong in the British society he imagines for himself he’ll eventually succeed. Similarly, Hortense is deaf to Gilbert’s explanations that her teaching certificate is valueless in Britain; despite the racism she experiences from her first day in Britain, it’s not until she applies for a job and is rudely rejected that she realizes she can’t, through sheer will, make Britain into the paradise of opportunity she imagined.

An unusually open-minded woman, Queenie wants her neighborhood to be more welcoming towards war refugees and immigrants of color. She imagines that by accepting these people as tenants herself, and defending them from her bigoted neighbors, she can force the neighborhood into a more tolerant attitude. Of course, this is unsuccessful, and neighborhood feeling towards Queenie’s black tenants only worsens throughout the novel.

Bernard’s behavior on this front is the most egregious. Incensed to find people of color living in his neighborhood and his own house, Bernard immediately ejects all the tenants, as if by doing so he can restore both his neighborhood and his own mind to its comfortable pre-war state. When Queenie aggressively defends the tenants, Bernard realizes he’s no longer the undisputed master of his house; now he has to contend with his wife’s new independence and, when she delivers a biracial baby, to accept that the segregated society he imagines is gone forever.

Ultimately, after striving for acceptance from a society that doesn’t live up to their expectations, all the characters learn to carve out enclaves where they can achieve a sense of belonging denied to them by society at large. When Bernard arrives home and destroys Gilbert’s hopes of living peacefully in a white neighborhood, it’s Winston, one of the Jamaican tenants, who, through the Jamaican immigrant community, finds them a real house they can afford. The Josephs’ change of housing shows that they’re achieving security not by trying to become more British but by cultivating a friendly community within the generally hostile British society.

Meanwhile, Bernard does the opposite. In announcing his intention to move to the suburbs, he’s retreating from the newly heterogeneous city into an all-white enclave, just as many of his neighbors do. While he can’t rid the city of immigrants, he can live among other people who share his intolerance and recreate in miniature the society that’s since vanished with the war. The only person who doesn’t find a sense of belonging is Queenie, who can’t create or envision any community that reflects her own attitude of tolerance and compassion.

While the Josephs’ move represents perseverance and ingenuity in the face of steep opposition to their presence in Britain, Bernard’s shows cowardice and a redoubled embrace of his own intolerance. These disparate characters are linked by the similar feelings they experience, but their differing responses drive them apart. Through this contrast, the novel valorizes the struggle of immigrants to create communities where they can feel secure and valued, while also warning that bigotry can also survive in closed communities, even if the larger society around them is slowly becoming more progressive.