SOURCE: Povey, John. “The Search for Identity in Edward Brathwaite's The Arrivants.” World Literature Written in English 27, no. 2 (autumn 1987): 274-89.

In the following essay, Povey characterizes The Arrivants as a description of Brathwaite's personal search for identity that resonates with an overarching quest for a Caribbean identity.

Once when we went to Europe, a rich old lady asked: Have you no language of your own no way of doing things did you spend all those holidays at England's apron strings?(1) 

A central theme in Caribbean literature is the absence of a national or regional identity. History denied the residents of these islands the common process that formulates group cohesion. The iniquitous slave trade established African origins which constitute the ultimate inheritance, but that remains folk memory against which present experience is measured, rather than a system which can be adopted directly. A nearer impact derives from the consequences...