On "Orphans Of The Empire" And The Imagination Of Home In The Lost Child

Caryl Phillips(1958—)is a renowned contemporary British African-Caribbean novelist,often referred to as a Black Atlantic writer due to his focus on the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade and its impact on the African diaspora.Published in 2015,The Lost Child writes about the experiences of the African diaspora in Britain at different times,spanning from the period of the 18th-century slave trade to the second half of the 20 th century.Most scholars have emphasized the novel’s intention to restore black people’s place in British history and literature,but few have approached the issue of black identity and home writing in the novel from the perspective of diaspora.This thesis intends to examine the identity predicaments and the issue of belonging of the African diaspora in Britain within the context of diaspora and racial culture theories,and further reveal the crucial insights of the work on the construction of diasporic identity and Phillips’ s vision of home carried therein.This thesis is composed of six chapters.Chapter One briefly introduces Caryl Phillips and The Lost Child,reviews the relevant research on the novel by critics at home and abroad,and explains the research task and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two analyzes the historical and social causes of the “orphans of the empire.” On the one hand,the transatlantic diaspora of blacks across the centuries and their tragic plight are the product of the colonial history of the British Empire.On the other hand,Britain’s long-standing racial consciousness has excluded them from mainstream society.Chapter Three examines the representation of the “orphans of the empire” in the novel,which includes not only the rootless African diasporans who drift across the Atlantic Ocean over the centuries,but also their white wives and mixed-race children who ended up in exile in their native land due to their racial ties to blacks.Chapter Four examines the African diaspora’s failed quest for a single,fixed home.In the novel,the African diaspora is neither possible to “reach” Britain nor to “return” to the Caribbean,demonstrating that the conventional notion that “home must be rooted in one place” does not apply to the diaspora.Chapter Five explores how the younger generation of the African diaspora achieves self-salvation and identity reconstruction,reflecting Phillips’ s re-imagination of a mobile,open home and his cosmopolitan vision of constructing a cross-racial community of understanding,inclusion,and communication.Chapter Six is the conclusion.Through writing on the “orphans of the empire,” the novel not only reveals the impact of the British Empire’s slave trade and colonial history on contemporary multiracial British society,but also embodies the rethinking and relocating of diasporic cultural identity in the context of globalization.