"Once they lived near the sea's edge, a few feet or a few fathoms below the surface, but never far above a firm bottom. They knew the rhythmic movements of waves and tides. They could leave the shelter of the weeds at will and creep or swim about over the bottom in search of food. Now, in the middle of the ocean, they are in a new world."
I feel that this quote represents the feeling of both colonizers going to the West Indians and the indigenous people having to meet and experience the colonizers. Both people were thrown into new environments, West Indians into the societies of their colonizers and colonizers into the new environment of the West Indies, and had to learn the differences betwixt each other. Because of which, no one can feel safe or find a home even among themselves as people find new tides or waves to suit life in their new environments. This create changing of the rhythm brought on by time disturbs the tides and creates the double consciousness not only among the West Indies' indigenous but creates conflict among the colonizers and causes immense changes within both cultures.
You are right there is a huge undertone of double consciousness on both ends here. The colonizers, in my opinion, have less of that feeling even though they are technically the ones who are away from home. The indigenous people may not have moved from there homeland but because everything has changed for them, I feel like they have a bigger, more strong feeling of double consciousness. It is backwards, but their land is under different rule, and nothing is the same.
ReplyDelete