If a novel is truly grounded in a worldview, as do authors who find themselves essentially "baseless," trapped in a web of shifting families, cultural affiliations, and ethnic identities? find their unique vision? Paule Marshall and Caryl Phillips, both authors of Caribbean origin (St. Kitts and Barbados respectively) who grew up in distant countries (Marshall in Leeds and Phillips in Brooklyn) attempt to articulate the changing identity that derives from this diaspora. Marshall explores Barbadian ethnic identity through the struggles of its people, who survived imperialism. In The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, Marshall uses the Bournehills conflict to represent conflict on a historical and global scale. Phillips examines his own ethnic identity in The Nature of Blood through stories of European citizens, the imperialists themselves. He writes on a large scale; his works span six centuries. Phillips therefore employs a technique completely opposite to that of Marshall, which personalizes the historian and encloses his story within a single continent. Both authors use silence and space to examine the characters' sense of self and otherness. History manifests itself in both novels as an important force of both isolation and unification. At the heart of each text are questions of how ethnicity is defined within one's culture, how it changes when one becomes "the other" in the dominant culture, and how the notion of cosmopolitanism can help or hinder such questions of identity . These issues dominate the texts so fully that their presence changes the aesthetic structure of the narratives themselves. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Essential to understanding issues related to changing identity and culture is understanding the idea of ​​cosmopolitanism. For Homi Bhabha, this needs to be discussed from a majority/minority perspective. Traditional culture is a construction; once defined, those who do not “fit in” become “the other”. Imperialism and racial constructions are based on this division, justifying the oppression or annihilation of the "other". Bhabha sees cosmopolitanism as a method by which one can break away from this mindset by not trying to "fit" into the identity that comes from one's sex, race, language, religion, or country of birth. Anthony Apier believes it "allows people to name themselves", even if that name is not tied to a particular ethnic or cultural identity. Marshall's childhood in a Caribbean home in New York—a benefit of what Werner Solles calls America's "polyethnic" quality—facilitates this sense of fluid identity. It is somewhat easier for her to achieve than for Phillips, whose upbringing and environment were typically "British." This helps the reader understand why Phillips tends to write in "Western" English about "Western" topics, but he is just as eager as Marshall to understand his place in the culture, both as an insider and an outsider. Even as Marshall writes of the “motherland” and the scars its people bear as a result of literal (and now cultural) imperialism, his portrayal of Merle conveys the same sense of “placelessness.” In The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, ethnicity is firmly tied to community; it's the easiest way to separate the "us" and "them" categories. The central conflict is between the people of Bournehills and the American research team (whose well-intentioned but patronizing attitude is embodied in the lost and conflicted Harriett). Within every field, however, there are still outsiders. Saul's identity as a Jewish man sets him apartby Americans, and Merle's time in Europe and her eccentricities also make her feel out of place in the community. The bond they form in the novel is firmly tied to each character's recognition of the other as a fellow "hybrid." The importance of community is underlined by the ambiguity of the novel's protagonist. It is conceivable that the protagonist could be Merle or the people of Bournehills as an entity. The community's function as both a refuge against imperialism and an oppressive environment is illustrated in the celebration of Carnival. Relentless revelers overtake the signs of economic imperialism, drowning out the cries of Harriett, who believes the crowd will stop simply because she tells them to. It's a small, but terrifying, triumph. At the same time, although Carnival is advertised as a celebration of culture and history in Bournehills, it is itself imported and feels unpleasantly like a tourist attraction. Likewise, the Bournehills community teeters precariously on the line between cultural preservation and oppression. As the environment seeps into each character, they almost become a character themselves. Saul's importance as an outsider to (and oppressor of) the people of Bournehills is closely tied to Othello's experience of the Jewish ghetto in The Nature of Blood. Even Othello, as a man of power, stands apart and slightly above the inhabitants of the ghetto, but at the same time, as a Moor, he is completely isolated in Venice. The cultural divide between individuals is more pronounced in The Nature of Blood than in The Chosen Place, The Timeless People. Each character is "the other" and yet has another character "other" than himself - and the punishment for this "otherness" is the worst imaginable. Eva wonders how she will ever be able to integrate back into the human race, much less return to a home she no longer has. This sense of utter homelessness, of “placelessness,” is essential to the harrowing content and style of The Nature of Blood. Faced with the challenge of writing a moral novel about the Holocaust, Phillips's writing must play with the very nature of the conventional novel. The nonlinear, overlapping passages confront the reader with the intertwined nature of these forms of oppression, separated by time and purpose, but all originating from the same fear and hatred of “otherness.” This is what makes Othello's ghetto experience and Saul's Bournehills experience so compelling: it would take an outsider to see the objective truth of the experience of the oppressed, but for Saul to understand the emotional horror behind to it, he must have known oppression. himself. One of the techniques used by both Marshall and Phillips is silence, which serves as a metaphor for both resistance and oppression. Silence can be used as a refusal to acknowledge an oppressor or as a hesitation to speak out against injustice. DeLamotte describes Marshall's use of silence as "doubleness" (DeLamotte, 3). It manifests itself in different ways, such as the silence of Bournehills and the silence of desolate places that have outlived their usefulness. Merle's incessant talking is a defense against a history of silence that she, as a black woman, is expected to continue regardless of what she has experienced in her life. Phillips uses silence in a slightly different, but no less important way. For him, silence is not so much an expression of submission but rather a manifestation of a tortured inability to speak. Jacob, Moses and Servadio are unfairly tried. It is a form of legal silence, because nothing they say can prove their innocence. Othello cannot speak the language in Venice. Although it can make noise, it cannot be understood. The silence and the, 237-58