Alienation and Isolation
‘They say when trouble come close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks.” (Opening line.)She does not fit into her community or her family. She has been kept from the land she grew up on and understands. Her husband is an ‘alien’ whom she finds it difficult to understand.
Ultimately the motivation behind the Cosway’sisolation is racially based. As the opening line reveals, the family was excluded because they were not white or at least the right type of white.BUT they are also not black and the ex-slaves of Jamaica despise all whites-although even they know the difference between the English and the Creoles. They also understand class/social structures:“Old time white people nothing but white nigger now, and black nigger better than white nigger.”