Tansian University Journal of Arts, Management & Social Sciences

This paper analyzed the concept of the historical novel and situated it within the confines of George Lamming’s thematic thrusts of colonialism in his pioneer novel In the Castle of My Skin (1953). The examination of the deployment of history both as a thematic and stylistic tool remained perhaps one of the most important perspectives that could be used in assessing the colonial and migratory scopes of West Indian or Caribbean literature. Indeed, that historical encounter with the white man have been a most febrile story source for her writers, providing “the impetus and even the motivation for much of the literary production in the continent" (Ogwude 2011). The postcolonial literary theory guided our explorations as we embarked on our literary adventure. The Marxist literary theorist Gregory Lukacs’ position on The Historical Novel (1962), as well as ZeverdeiBarbu's book Problems of Historical Psychology (1960) equally assisted with our conclusions which held that the traumatic experience of colonialism took a huge toll on both the colonized and the colonizer.

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