The Traits of Caribbean Literature in Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore and Dancing in the Dark

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive review of scholarly studies on Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore and Dancing in the Dark. The study sheds light on the critical gaps covered by previous researches to accentuate Philips’ literary vitality in the Caribbean literature. Therefore, the significance of the study lies in its elaboration of diverse studies on Phillips’ novels to unravel authorial dexterity and erudite writing style which emulates world literary writings. The main objective of the study is to explore Phillips’ depiction of Caribbean life in universal realistic themes. The findings of the study will be divided into both the literary and realistic peculiarities of his writing. On the one hand, his literary style comprises Phillips’ utilization of literary elements to produced well-knotted fictional plots in perfect narrative sequences. On the other hand, Phillips’ realistic style encompasses his portrayal of the fictional events and characters via narrative simulacra i.e., quasi-real plots. Such realistic manner includes some social, psychological, cultural, and anthropological themes pursued in the course of his narrative structure. The study’s methodology, therefore, will be a qualitative review of previous studies on Phillips’ A Distant Shore and Dancing in the Dark to offer and in-depth analysis of his unique writing style as a distinctive Kittitian-British author.