SOURCE: “The Strains of Apocalypse: Lamming's Castle and Brodber's Jane and Louisa,” in Journal of West Indian Literature, Vol. 4, No. 1, January, 1990, pp. 28-40.

In the following essay, Cooke studies the effect gender has on the tone of a “coming of age” novel written by a Caribbean writer. In the Castle of My Skin is written from the male standpoint, whereas Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home is written from the female point of view.

George Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin is self-consciously built around three apocalyptic scenes: the opening flood; the prolonged episode of the heroic fisherman at the “other side” of the island, beyond the lighthouse and the pivotal “needle” of land; and the closing demolition of the village houses on land from which a secret expulsion has been arranged. The first house to come down is that of the shoemaker whose study of...