Below is an excerpt of the last paragraph from a character sketch I did after reading Andrea Levy's novel, Small Island. I chose to write about the secondary character, Bernard Bligh. I recommend this novel to any reader.
What makes Bernard such a prolific character is that he is an embodiment of a post-colonial Britain, still reeling from the brutalization of bombing and deprivation. Just as England does not live up to its image of a mother land due to its loss of colonial power, Bernard does not live up to the conventions of what a man is supposed to be. There is an overwhelming sense of disillusionment in the novel, that the demoralized Bernard experiences. Just as he feels no attachment with himself, he no longer feels an attachment to his country or his family, which have transformed by the time of his return. To conclude, Levy does a fantastic job in showing this theme of disillusionment through every character, but with Bernard it is so engrained in his character that it even pertains to the writing style of his passages. Bernard’s chapters are not only exceptionally short, but they also come off as very mechanical with the use of short, stacattoed sentences. These passages demonstrate the lack of a human quality and reflect the fragments of what is left of Bernard. Bernard proves that all human beings are affected by the trauma they have experienced—some just have a more convincing façade than others.
