Escapism and Dreams

The escapism demonstrated by the characters within the novel shows the boundaries of what the human spirit may withstand. Although they must all contend with varying levels of comfort and distress as West Indian immigrants, they must maintain a facade of normalcy to the larger society for the purposes of respectability, contributing all the more to individual delusions of escape and return to their countries to be free from prejudice and indignity as Black people in England.

Initially, Bat is presented as a character who cannot help but dream of another life far from his dingy basement apartment where he struggles to pay the rent for a space he feels is despicable. The heartbreak of leaving home runs in the undercurrent of the novel because he had built a life of comfort there. Selvon suggests that dreaming of escaping will take on their own...