Keys To Success And Critical Issues Marketing Essay

Keys To Success And Critical Issues Marketing Essay Mcayain knives is owned and operated by Mark Hopper who is a Master Blade smith and experienced Blacksmith who has been in the Industry since the age of 15. Mcayain Knives will be a new venture for Mark Hopper whose main business is working on big architectural iron work for companies and home owners. Mcayain knives will be introducing a new product line of three designs of custom made knives that will target outdoor enthusiasts for example the fishermen, tactical groups and Hunters. The knives will be of high quality, tough, durable with a superb cutting edge. The knives will have edge holding abilities; this means with use they retain their sharp cutting edge and low edge wear guaranteed. The cryogenic steel making technology that Mcayain will use to make its knife is one that no other knife manufacturer is using at the present time, and will provide a knife that most outdoor enthusiasts will hopefully embrace to cater for all their needs without worry that they may have with other knives like edge holding capabilities. Mcayains marketing goal is to meet the needs of every outdoor enthusiast in the market in the future and to get their specialty knives out to every outdoor enthusiast including their target market of hunters, and fishermen. Mcayains will use pull strategy by advertising in Blade magazine, knife illustrated and Tactical knife Magazine which are the top knife magazines in the U.S on a monthly basis to drive consumer sales and brand awareness. Participating in trade shows and also driving consumers to check out their interactive website. Mcayain intends to sell 9,600 units and 10,560 units of Knives in 2009 and 2010 respectively. The units will bring sales of over one million dollars in the first year and hopefully increase at a 10% increase each year. As long as Mcayain keeps selling their knives at a steady rate then they will keep growing their profits as the years come. The most important factors for Mcayain to succeed in the business is for them to get notoriety for its quality of product being tough, offering a superior edge and having good design. With so many knife companies out there Mcayain will have to stand by their steel forging technology that provides a more superior outdoor knife that its competition and deliver the best interactive custom knives to their customers. Mcayain Knives fatal problems that they may incur would be Competition getting their technology and making similar products. Legislation of laws that may ban carrying and use of fixed blade knives. Mcayain would have to be a trend setter and move as the market moves and always be a step ahead of competition. Also a forum on their website for informing customers of existing laws and how it affects them then and how to lobby if needed. Product Mcayain specialty Knives will produce and Market a new product line of custom made knives that will target and appeal to customers, who are interested in high quality, tough, durable knife with a superb cutting edge. The knives will have edge holding abilities, this means with use they retain there sharp cutting edge and low edgewear guaranteed. Mcayain will offer designer style knives, which are not only good looking with great aesthetics but at the same time a knife that will function in any weather or climate. Through its marketing and promotion efforts, Mcayain knives will appeal to many customers who enjoy active outdoor lifestyles for example fishing, hunting and tactical exercises. The customers will have internet options that they can use to get interactive with the whole knife making process, they will have options as to what handle materials they want to use, the case materials and other accessories like fire starters and sharpening stones. Mcayain knives will offer three patterns of knives; the first one will be the skinning knife with a 3.5-inch blade, tactical life, with a 7.5-inch blade and the third one, which is a trout and stream knife with a 5.5-inch blade. The steel for the blades will be made using two types of technology mixed together, which are the old and the new. The old will be using forging techniques where steel is shaped by hammering and the new using cryogenic hardening which is using different temperature methods. These knives will have different steel finishes, one being a Teflon coating, which is a durable, non- reflective black finish which will appeal to a lot of the customers who enjoy hunting and who dont like a flashy knife. Another steel finish being offered is the tumbled finish, which is a matte, metallic finish. A mirror polish which has a high polished look and these will be targeted to customers who like shiny knifes. The last steel finish that will be offered will be the bead blasted finish, which is a satin metallic finish for all customers. As handle materials Mcayain Knives will offer black linen Micarta which is a tough durable synthetic material that is bonded together with linen cloth. This coarse texture helps for non-slip purposes and durability features. Another option will be the use of Cocobolo wood; this is a deep rich wood for those customers who want something pretty on their knife handles, paracord wrap/ carbon fiber and aluminum handles that are ductile, tough and offer non-slip features. The cases for the knives will be made from three different materials. The first one will be regular traditional leather. The next material for the cases will be Ripstop Nylon case, which is a lightweight case that packs close to the body and can be attached in different ways. The last option will be a Kydex case, which is a semi rigid form of plastic that is known to be tough and durable. All cases offer multiple hanging options, clips, leg harness and traditional belt loop. Mcayain Specialty Knives is offering its target market a product that is not being offered by the other knife companies in the business. The knives offered could withstand any climate or extreme condition and at the same time offer customers the options to build a customized knife according to their preferences from start to finish. A lot of Knives in the market which are being offered by top companies like Buck knives or SOG knives provide one or two of the options being offered by Mcayain knives. Industry Analysis The the last few years have been a time of transition for the knife industry. Forces within and outside the business have worked to reshape designs, materials and the industrys distribution channels (Calandra, B. (2006). On the cutting edge. Retrieved July 24, 2008 from http://www.sgblink.com). The fixed- blade segment of the industry, which is hunting, fishing and outdoor knives, has seen the most change. There has been increase in sales because of the new designs which use new technology, lighter, durable products with better cutting edges, (Calandra,B.( 2006). On the cutting edge. Retrieved July 24, 2008 from http://www.sgblink.com). According to ( Tabor, T.C. 2007).  January, Choosing the right hunting knife.  Countryside and Small Stock Journal,  91(1),  57-59.   Retrieved July 24, 2008, from Research Library  database) there is still the hardcore hunting, fishing and outdoor consumers who are buying the best quality, high tech knife with new steel and interesting blades and state of the art handles. With this in mind Mcayain knives as described in the product analysis will continue using the best steel and offer new designs that the outdoor consumer wants. The Knife industry continues to evolve with each passing, the outdoor market is looking at lightweight knives like water knives and durable, coated knives that can withstand a lot of water and tear, (Snow, J. 2007,  September. A Cut Above.  Review of Outdoor Life,  212(8),  78). Consumers of specialty knives are willing to spend money on a knife that will make their outdoor or everyday lives easier (Fowler, E. 2007). Knife Talk: The Art and science Of Knife Making. Iowa: Krause Publications). Many of them have multiple knives that they keep in their collections, trucks, boat or one on their belts (Fowler, Ed. (2007). Knife Talk: The Art and science Of Knife Making. Iowa: Krause Publications). Many people who are involved in outdoor activities or live in rural areas have a need for more than one knife and often make additional purchases where the initial purchase was made. A lot of business for specialty knives occurs during gift-giving occasions and when the hunting and fishing season begins (Fowler, Ed. (2007). Knife Talk: The Art and science Of Knife Making. Iowa: Krause Publications). A lot of businesses in the knife industry, even the small ones make sales in the millions each year, (Snow, J. 2007,  September. A Cut Above.  Review of Outdoor Life,  212(8),  78). Despite tight laws in knife carrying due to the senseless September 11 attacks, during which the knife industry worldwide experienced a slow in sales, knives are still selling and the knife market is here to stay with great potential for new businesses ( Kramer, B. (20   March). Buck Knives finds success through lean manufacturing.  Knight Ridder Tribune Business News,1.   Retrieved August 09, 2008, from ABI/INFORM Dateline  database). Market Summary According to Dan Bumps from Blade Magazine the average specialty knife buyer is male and between the ages of 30-70 years old, with education beyond high school. Most are professionals (23.4%), proprietor/ self employed (13.7%), Managerial (10.6%), Technical (14.8%) and Blue collar (19.3%) with other (8.4%) ( D.Bumps, personal communication, July 28, 2008) An average outdoor enthusiast owns an average of 132 knives in his collection; and has a knife collection worth 10,089 dollars; they purchase an average of 27 knives annually and spend an average of 1,473 dollars annually on their outdoor hobby (D. Bumps, personal communication, July 28, 2008). Dan Bumps from Blade Magazine continues to mention that the average household income of this industry is 84,507 thousand dollars and are willing to spend money on a knife that makes their outdoor life easier(D.Bumps, personal communication, July 28, 2008). Mcayain knives will fulfill market needs by introducing their knives to three subsets. The first sub-market is the hunting enthusiastic who comprises of roughly 15% of the total target market. These are the individuals who enjoy deer hunting and want a good working knife for dressing animals, while offering exceptional cutting edge advantage which is durable, comfortable and easy to use. The second sub-market is for those customers who enjoy fishing and comprise of another 15% of our market; these are the sports fishermen and casual weekend users on the lake. They will use the knife for cutting bait, preparing the fish (scaling and gutting) and a knife that is comfortable, light, with superb quality. The final sub-market is for the outdoor enthusiasts who make up the most of our target market at 70%. They are the customers who have to have these kinds of knives whether for show or use. They are the individuals who are perceived serious about the outdoors and use different opportunities to show their knives and skills in outdoor sports or other challenges. Market trends show that outdoor enthusiasts are after knives that are user friendly and can perform multiple tasks. Todays buyer is after as much versatility and quality as can be packed into one package (Fowler, Ed. (1998). Knife Talk: The Art and science Of Knife Making. Iowa: Krause Publications). Market trends also show that the consumer wants multi tools, which is essence is a pair of folding pliers high breed with a Swiss army pen knife. This knife has utilitarian tools such as a saw, bottle opener, screw drivers, knife blade, scissors, and files (Troy, M. DSN Retailing Today, Oct 2, 2000,, Retrieved on July 18, 2008, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FNP/is_19_39/ai_66034876 ). This market is something that has been well covered by other businesses and is not something Mcayain Knives is willing to venture into because the multi tool is essentially a pair of pliers and we strive to specifically make a hard working knife. Another trend in the knife industry is the tactical knife, which is a knife you have to make do with for whatever you need it at the time, whether that means to cut a person out of a wrecked car or defend yourself from an attack (Pohl, D. (2003). Tactical knives. Germany: Krause publications). This is going to be close to 50% of Mcayains Market. It is the fastest growing portion of the knife market today. According to blade magazine, 82% of consumers will increase or maintain knife buying level over the next 12months. There is potential Market growth in this knife industry that will come from new products, not old (Calandra, B.( 2006) On the cutting edge. Retrieved July 24, 2008 from http://www.sgblink.com ). Calandra says that this new growth will come from Outdoor recreationalist and not just from traditional hunting and fishing categories. The Competition Three companies lead the target market that Mcayain knives are venturing into. Primarily Buck Knives command the majority of all the recreational knife market in every genre. This for Mcayain knives would be like trying to topple coca cola but to steal 1% of their market would mean a huge profit to Mcayain. Buck knives competitive advantage lies in their over 100 years of knife making and 35million dollars in sales in the fiscal year of 2007 according to Hoovers(Buck Knives Inc. (July 15th). Retrieved July 23, 2008, from Hoovers Company Records  database). SOG knives are the second largest competition for Mcayain knives. SOG originally stood for Studies and Observation Group, an elite joint services military group designed for covert operations in the Vietnam War. Sanctioned to develop and purchase their own equipment, SOG created a knife for use in one of the harshest environments in the world. (SOGKnives, Retrieved July 23, 2008 from http://www.sogknives.com/store/index.html). SOG has a well established specialty market, they provide consumers with good quality products that have been brutally tested and designed by top military weapon designers (Hartnik, A.E. (2005). The Complete encyclopedia of Knives. New Jersey: Chartwell Books). SOG has an added advantage of having contracts with several areas of the military providing them with edged tools that can be used in combat situations or outdoor recreation. Cold Steel knives are the third largest competition for Mcayain knives. They are very meticulous in making their knives, there choice of metal is very specific and their hardening and tempering process is chosen for their superior qualities in cutting abilities and blade strength. Their steel is specially made; all their blades are forged and cryogenically hardened which provides them with a very innovative and technologically advanced process which most knife manufacturers have deemed too complicated and expensive to undertake (Pohl, D. (2003). Tactical knives. Germany: Krause publications). Cold steels market share includes the martial artist which opens up a totally untapped market by Mcayain Knives. Another added advantage is that cold steel offers San Mai III, which is laminated steel used in making their larger knives, tougher, more flexible and virtually unbreakable while still retaining their high quality cutting edge. No other knife manufacturers offer this because it is too complicated to do.( Pohl, D. (2003). Tactical knives. Germany: Krause publications). Future competition for Mcayain knives comes from Diamond Blade Company. This company is an up and coming company whose innovation in cutting edge technology has taken the knife industry by surprise (Knives Illustrated, 2008, Retrieved July 23, 2008, from http://www.knivesillustrated.com/ ). They have spent the last five years developing a way to create differential hardeners in their knives and improve the edge holding ability exponentially from traditional knives. Diamond Blade Company has managed to develop steel that is over 300% more wear resistant than conventional D2 steel but still flexible enough to bend at 90 degrees without breaking, which ensures a superior knife(Knives Illustrated, 2008, Retrieved July 23, 2008, from http://www.knivesillustrated.com/ ). Keys to success Critical Issues There are several things that Mcayain knives need to do to succeed:- Mcayain needs to get notoriety for its quality of product being tough, a superior edge and having good design. This will be done by editors of magazines having the product for destruction testing. Mcayain needs a superb advertising strategy that brings awareness of the quality and diversity of its products. This would be both in print media and electronic media targeting not only the conventional knife user for example the hunters, fishermen but also cyclists, gun collectors, golfers or runners who might be interested in a specialty knife. Mcayain will need to design and produce products that meet market demand. Mcayain has to pay attention to the following critical issues:- Constantly monitor customer satisfaction, ensuring that the growth strategy will never compromise service and satisfaction levels. Mcayain has to establish itself as a market innovator that listens to its customers desires and needs. Mcayain needs to pursue controlled growth that dictates that all expenses will never exceed revenue base, this will help protect against recessions. Marketing strategy Mcayain has a limited budget, so the marketing strategy will be simple. Mcayains goal is to meet the needs of every outdoor enthusiast in the market in the future and to get their specialty knives out to every outdoor enthusiast including their target market of hunters, and fishermen. Developing visibility and brand equity is the key. To do so, Mcayains will use pull strategy by advertising in Blade magazine, knife illustrated and Tactical knife Magazine which are the top knife magazines in the U.S on a monthly basis to drive consumer sales and brand awareness. Participating in trade shows and also driving consumers to check out their interactive website. Mcayain is offering three knife patterns, the skinning knife with a 3.5-inch blade, tactical knife, with a 7.5-inch blade and the third one, which is a trout and stream knife with a 5.5-inch blade. The pricing structure of the knives is based on a tumbled finish blade and a cast aluminum handle in a rip stop nylon case. The basic price for the skinner is 130 dollars, trout and stream price is 140 dollars and the tactical knife will be 150 dollars. Additional blade finishes, additional handle materials and case options are add- ons that will increase the price of the knives according to customer needs and preferences. Using its interactive internet site, Mcayain will offer consumers chances to win free custom made knives by having competitions on who will introduce the most customers to the site, discounts for customers who purchase knives on a regular basis using their customer database to increase and drive sales. Marketing objectives The Knife Industry is a very competitive industry which is always changing. It is vast and diverse with many different levels of businesses from the large manufacturer to the single custom maker. Over the next three years Mcayains is targeting a Market share of roughly 2%. This may seem as a small percentage but in actuality it will give Mcayains a profit in the millions. Considering our main competitor Buck knives Inc, made $35 million in sales in 2007, and just to claim 2% of their Market would give Mcayains a profit of $700,000. This would just be one of the competitors Market share not including the rest. This will be done by Maintaining steady growth in each month by developing new products and features and allowing the customers to have more influence in the creation process of their knife. Also Mcayain will grow through increase in new customers who are turned into long-term customers. Financial Objectives Table 1: Production cost for Mcayain Tactical Knife (Most Expensive in the line) Manufacturing cost $ D2 Steel 6 Aluminum Handle 1.50 Handle Bolts 3.50 Rip stop Nylon 1.50 Press studs .75 Drill bits 2 Carbide chip 5 Ceramic belt Forging time:- 5minutes Machining of blade:-30minutes Sharpening:- 15minutes Heat treating :- 10 minutes 7 1.70 10 5 3.40 Machining Handle:- 10minutes Making case:- 30 minutes Assembling parts:- 5minutes Power TOTAL COST 3.40 10 1.70 20 82.45 The price unit of a tactical knife is $150; it costs Mcayain $82.45 to manufacture it. Advertising, Insurance and Workshop Rent are ongoing monthly expenses which equate to $7640. From the Manufacturing costs calculations, Mcayain can make 800 knives a month this divided into the ongoing monthly expenses gives an additional cost of $9.55 per knife. The total production cost for a knife is 82.45+ 9.55= $92.00 This gives Mcayain a profit of $58.00 per unit. This is a profit Margin 38.7% Mcayains major in-house expenses would involve new dyes for the forging process, CNC programming for machining centers for blades and handles. The dyes would cost $2,000 a piece per design ($6,000). CNC programming would cost $1,000 per design ($3,000). This would be a total of $9,000 in expenses. Taking our profit of $58.00 per unit and dividing into our total expenses of $9,000 we would need to sell 155 units to make profit. Mcayain would expect to be profitable within two months of advertising. Positioning Strategy The knife Industry is quite competitive and always changing, in order for Mcayain to obtain a good market share it should create PODs (points of differences in their knives. The number one thing going for Mcayains knives is the superior quality of steel and the cryogenic way of forging it that no other knife company is doing right now. As a web-based company it will offer interactive features that the customer can get involved in. Customers will be able to go in and design their knife from scratch to finish and change features as they wish and Mcayain will custom make the knives according to the customers preferences and mail it to them. Mcayain intends to keep up with customer needs and add new features and interactive capabilities to their Website and Knives. Marketing Mix Mcayain intends to use more than one marketing channel to increase market coverage and decrease any channel costs that they may incur. To do so they will use a multi-channel market system (Kotler, P., Keller, K.L. (2008).Marketing Management, 13e. (p.468-470). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall). The company will use direct marketing by selling all its 3 kinds on knives on line. The customer as mentioned before will be able to design their knife from the first stage to the final stage according to their preferences. If customers do not want to custom make their own design then they will have options to simply buy the ready-made knives. Customers will be able to go online, read reviews and get every detail of information about the knives. If they have any questions they can either email write or call and customers will be able to order knives through mail and phone. Advertising is one of the major channels that Mcayain intends to use and spend a lot of money on in pushing their product and creating brand awareness. Mcayain intends to advertise in the top three Knife magazines in the US market which are, Knife Illustrated, Blade Magazine and Tactical Knifes. The advertising cost for a 4 color full page advertisement is going to cost Mcayains a total of $ 10,920 a month in all three publications. Mcayain intends to send samples of their knives to Knife magazine editors, outdoor teams and Military tactical teams to test their product. Mcayain believes their product is superior and will sell itself through these channels. Word of mouth will help spread the word about the knife and hopefully drive customers to the Internet site. The company will use the magazines advertising to promote sales by offering customers to send in design ideas and vote on the best, and whoevers design gets chosen receives a free custom made knife. This will drive traffic to the site and hopefully get Mcayain some sales. Mcayain also plans to attend craft/ trade shows to show case their knives to all the knife enthusiasts attending. In the US a lot of knife shows are held throughout the calendar year. This will introduce the knives to any new potential customers and anyone else who would be interested in knowing about the Knives. Financial, Budgets and Forecasts The following sections provide the breakeven analysis, sales forecast, and expense forecast for Mcayain Knives. As a benchmark Mcayain knives will use the Tactical knife pricing to calculate its profit and loss because this is the more time consuming of the three designs, so the comparable percentages or profits of the knives are the same which is 38.7%. 12.1 Break Even Analysis With an estimated fixed cost of $445,640 for, 2009, the breakeven is: Break Even = Total fixed costs/ Unit contribution= 445,640/ 58 =7684 units. Mcayain Knives targets to sell 9,600 knives this comes from calculating how many knives they can make in a year. (800* 12). Therefore the profit for 2009 becomes: Profit = (9,600* 58) 445,640) = $111,160 The calculations are same for years 2010 and 2011. Table 2 shows the break even and profit for the next three years. Table 2. Break even and profit Impact for the next three years. Year Units sold Fixed costs Break Even Profit 2009 9,600 knives $ 445,640** 7684 knives $111,160 2010 10,560 knives* $ 436,640** 7529 knives $175,798 2011 11,616 knives* $ 436, 640** 7529 Knives $237,046 **Fixed costs are estimated for all three years. * Units sold for 2010 and 2011 are estimated assuming 10% market increase every year. 12.2 Sales Forecast Table 4 provides the sales forecast for the next three years for Mcayain Knives. Sales for 2009 are calculated using the following equation: Sales= Price per unit* units sold= $ 150 * 9,600 knives = $1, 440,000 Table 3:- Sales forecast for the next three years. Year Units Sold Price Per Unit Sales 2009 9,600 units $ 150 $ 1,440,000 2010 10, 560 units $ 150 $ 1,584,000 2011 11,616 units $150 $ 1,742,400 12.3 Expense Forecast Table 4 gives the expense forecast for the next three years. Expense for 2009 is calculated using the following equation:- Expense = (variable cost per unit * units sold) + fixed costs = ($92 * 9,600) + $445,640 =$1,328,840 Table 5:- Expense forecast for the next three years Year Units sold Variable cost per unit Fixed costs Sales 2009 9,600 $92 $445,640 $1,328,840 2010 10,560 $92 $436,640 $1,408,160 2011 11,616 $92 $436,640 $1,505,312 Marketing and Sales Organization As of right now Mcayain Knives has no sales or Marketing force in the Organization. The manager/ Owner of Mcayains, Mark Hopper intends to do all the initial Marketing of the product by attending trade shows, dealings with knife magazines and sales pitches to any potential clients. The reason for this is that all the other staff are production staff except for the secretary who makes sure all knife orders are fulfilled and shipped to customers. Mark Hopper who designed and developed the products and the processes that involve in making the knives, feels that his knowledge and experience of theses knives puts him in the best position to communicate the qualities and the designs to his future clients. Therefore he is the best for Marketing Mcayain Knives. In the future Mcayain Knives would like to have a specialized team of people who move upward from their original production positions into sales, management and product design and development positions. This will give the staff in these positions in-depth knowledge of the production processes and the product, which will aid them greatly in their new roles. Contingency Plan Mcayain knives is versatile enough to move with the trends of the market as well as being a trend setter. This is due to the fact that coming up with a new product would only be a $10,000 investment in CNC programming, tooling and die making. Right now Mcayain knives produces only fixed blade knives rather than folding knives or multi-tools, so it does not cover all aspects of the knife market, this could be seen as only having a single sale strategy. Another risk could be caused by legal legislation outlawing the carrying and use of knives; this would have a detrimental effect on Mcayains market. Competition is always a concern; this is because it is very simple in the knife industry to take someones idea and develop it further. To minimize the Market moving and Competition, Mcayain Knives has to be a trend setter in the interactive designs of knives. They have to make sure their products are always exceptional and constantly developing. Keeping the customers excited in what they will do next. For legislation laws Mcayain Knives intends to open a forum on their website informing people of proposed legislations and possible movements within the law.

An Inverted Tooth Chain Engineering Essay

An Inverted Tooth Chain Engineering Essay An inverted-tooth chain operates quietly and smoothly and is also known as a silent chain. Silent chain consists of a series of toothed link plates assembled on joint components in a way that allows free flexing between each pitch. The teeth on the link plates mesh with a sprocket, similar to the way a rack meshes with a gear. The great majority of silent chain is used in drives. Silent chains are made up of stacked rows of load carrying link plates. Increasing the number of rows of links increases the chain width, tensile strength, and load carrying capacity. Using this feature, manufacturers make silent chains ranging from less than a 1 in. wide to more than 20 in. wide, with power capacities ranging from a fraction of a horsepower to more than 2000 hp. A chain is a reliable machine component, which transmits power by means of tensile forces, and is used primarily for power transmission and conveyance systems. The function and uses of chain are similar to a belt. There are many kinds of chain. It is convenient to sort types of chain by either material of composition or method of construction. There are five types of chains: Cast iron chain Cast steel chain Forged chain Steel chain Plastic chain Demand for the first three chain types is now decreasing; they are only used in some special situations. For example, cast iron chain is part of water-treatment equipment; forged chain is used in overhead conveyors for automobile factories. History: Chains have been used for centuries to drive machines and move materials on conveyors and elevators. In 225 B C, Philo described a chain- driven water lift. Leonard da Vinci sketched the chain designs in the 1500s. Some are similar to modern bar link, leaf, and silent chains. Cog chain was developed in the early 1800s to transmit power or motion between the shafts of treadmills to water elevators, weaving looms and harvesting machinery. This chain was used to mechanize farm implements, but it broke easily and was difficult to repair in the field. Cast detachable chain was introduced in 1873 and overcome many of the problems of cog chain. This chain was made of simple identical cast links that were easily coupled and uncoupled by hand. This basic detachable chain design is one of the early chain concepts that have been unchanged nowadays also. After few years cast detachable chain was introduced, a chain made of all steel parts was introduced for driving bicycles. A patent for roller chain was issued in 1880. By early 1900s, roller chains drove the wheels of safety bicycles, as well as automobiles, trucks, and the propellers of the Wright Brothers airplane that flew at Kitty Hawk. Two major factors combined to make the roller chain industry were automation and standardization. Automation helped manufacturers meet the demand for the large amounts of high quality that were used on machines made by other industries. Standard dimensions and capacities ensured that roller chains would fit and operate as the designer planned. The result was that the industry soon became as the precision roller chain industry. Engineering steel chains were first developed in the 1880s. They were developed for greater strength, speed and shock resistance and for better dimensional control than could be obtained from cast chains. Pitch, strength, wear life, and carrying capacity were increased to meet the heavy duty needs of industry. There are many types of engineering steel chains. Those with steel rollers are the most widely used on both drives and conveyors. The bushed, roller less style are the needs of many conveyor and bucket elevator applications. Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel supervised the building of the Great Britain, and it was a revolutionary ship design. It was the first sea going iron steamship, the first propeller driven steamship to cross the Atlantic, and the first vessel driven by inverted tooth, or silent chain. The silent chain drive delivered power from the engines to the propeller shaft by way of large wooden- tooth sprockets. From 1895 to 1925, the chain industry improved the design of silent chains. From 1930 onwards, silent chain was used in a variety of industrial applications such as drives in paper and textile mills, flour and feed mills, printing presses, pumps and machine tools. Throughout the 20th century, the industry improved material quality, processing technology, and chain designs to increase the load and speed capacity of silent chain. Silent chain is also used in the drive train of snowmobiles and four wheel drive recreational vehicles. Outside the power transmission market, silent chain can be used as a conveying surface in a variety of material transport applications. Major improvements were made in the production of food and beverage products. The introduction of high speed processing, filling, and packaging equipment drove the need for a chain with a flat carrying surface for material handling. The first flat-top chains were produced by welding steel plates to roller chain, producing a flat surface where products or packages could be carried. These first flat-top chains were made of carbon and corrosion resistant steel and were widely used in the brewing industry to convey glass bottles. Construction and Features: Silent Chains have a very simple construction: only plates and pins. Silent Chains are actually an update of a 19th-century design.  ANSI  B29.2M-1982 regulates the standard pitch, width, and kilowatt ratings of the chains and sprockets. There are eight different pitches from 9.52 mm to 50.8 mm. The link plate receives tension and has a notch for engaging the sprockets. There is no notch on the guide plate. These plates act as guides for the sprockets. Pins may be round or have other shapes, such as D-shape. All the chain components share the tension. Silent Chains have higher capacity than roller chains of the same width. Since the link plates of Silent Chain strike the sprocket at an angle, the impact and the noise are reduced. This is why these chains are called silent. The higher the chain speed, the greater the difference from roller chains. Driving Links: Driving links, also known as plain links, engage with sprocket teeth to drive the chain. They are typically the most common component in the chain. Guide Links: Guide links maintain proper tracking of the chain on sprockets. They are positioned on the outer edges of the chain in side guide and multi guide chain or in the centre, with the centre guide chain. Pins: Pins allow the chain joint to flex and hold the assembled chain together. Chains may have a single pin in each joint or two pins, depending on the chain type. Design considerations: Tensile loads and strength: Silent chain with single pin assembly may be subjected to all of the tensile loads, but silent chain with two pin assembly eliminates chordal action. It is not affectd much by tensile loads from chordal action. Fatigue limit: It is a most important consideration in designing silent chains. The lower speed part of the power ratings for silent chain is based on a minimum fatigue limit. Fatigue strength: Loads exceed the fatigue limit in very high performance drives. The chain must have adequate fatigue strength to endure these loads only if the chain is to be used in high performance drives. Fatigue strength in the finite life range is an important consideration in designing silent chains. Wear: Wear is an important consideration in designing silent chain. The two major types of wears are joint wear and link plate and sprocket wear. Joint wear: As the chain runs over the sprockets, the joints flex. Material is worn off the joint components and chain gets longer. Then chain then rides out farther on the sprocket teeth. This increase noise and reduce efficiency. Link plate and sprocket wear: These wears are also caused by friction on the chains which reduces the efficiency of the silent chains. Advantages of silent chain drives: Silent chain drives require nearly as precise alignment as gear drives to obtain peak performance and service life. †¢ Silent chains are less affected by chordal action and joint friction than other chains; silent chains engage sprockets with reduced vibration, noise, and frictional losses. †¢ Silent chain can operate at loads and speeds that often exceed the capability of belts and other types of chain. †¢ Silent chain drives are quieter and smoother than roller chain drives, and in some cases are quieter than gear drives. †¢ Silent chain drives are more compact than gear drives when the shafts must turn in the same direction. Manufacturers of inverted tooth chain are: Bosch Rexroth AG, Germany:- Bosch Rexroth is an engineering company based in Germany. It is the result of merging between Mannesmann Rexroth AG and the Automation Technology Business Unit of Robert Bosch. It employs over 35,000 people worldwide. The industries Bosch Rexroth serves are Agricultural machinery, automotive manufacturing, Machine tools, Civil engineering and many more. Rexroths inverted tooth chains: The largest delivery program in the world for inverted tooth chains used for driving and transporting are from Rexroth. Rexroths new inverted tooth conveyor chains come with the axle pivots welded to the outer plate by laser. This new technology prevents lateral movement of the joint pivots. These innovative inverted tooth conveyor chains are fully interchangeable with previous design and the sprockets do not require any machining. .Advantages of Bosch Rexroth inverted tooth chain drives over: Gears / Transmissions Belts Roller Chains Reduced bearing loads Non-slip Rolling pivot joint Insensitive to temperature fluctuations Higher Speeds High maximum velocity No need for intermediate sprocket Silent no whistling Low-noise Zero tooth flank backlash Space-saving Smooth running due to involute toothing running Larger permissible tolerances for shaft installation Small sprocket diameters 99% efficiency Vibration damping Insensitive to extreme temperatures or humidity levels Wear-resistant sprockets Low-cost sprockets Reduced bearing loads Vibration damping The advantages over other conveyor systems are: Due to high power density, the space used is optimum Extremely long service life and availability Very low lubrication requirements High temperature tolerance Highly robust and resistant Comparison with different types: Characteristics Tooth chains Roller chains Toothed belts Toothed wheels Noise behaviour Very good Average Bad Good Temperature sensitivity Good Good Bad Good Space required Good Average Bad Very good Wear Good Bad Average Very good Maintenance Partly necessary Necessary Not necessary Not necessary Ramsey Products in USA is another major company. Ramsey manufactures an extensive range of silent chain and sprockets for use in industrial power transmission and conveying applications. For the companies that work with glass, silent conveying chains offer many benefits in applications like handling to precision inspection and measurement from hot-end and cold-end. These chains are made through hardened steel link plates and case hardened steel pins. Characteristics of Ramsey chain: Flatness and uniformity: The flat, uniform surface of the chain provides transport of smaller bottles without any trouble. Surface velocity: The chain wears, the pitch increases uniformly throughout the chain, and velocity remains constant. Uniform velocity reduces breakage. Heat resistance: The temperatures are high with hot-end handling, to withstand these temperatures chains are made from hardened steel. Heat transfer from transported glassware and heating torches does not effect the uniformity of the conveyor surface. Economy: Improved product handling, and requires very less maintenance, chain provides a cost effective means for conveying glassware in high speed production lines. Types of chain: Ramsey manufactures four basic types of conveyor chain. Ultralife Standard Lo-profile Extended pitch Ultralife are best quality conveyor chain. They consists single pin and two pin assembly. The straight edge of the aperture maximizes the link area contacting the pins and reduces joint bearing stresses and wear. Single pin joints provide a durable, smooth acting joint, satisfactory life, and easy to install than two pin joints. These are developed specifically for the glass industry. Two pin joints are originally developed for use in power transmission and have been adapted for use in conveying chains. They have the advantages such as long life, low friction and high efficiency. Advantages of Ramsey silent chain over : Gears / Transmissions Belts Roller Chains Greater elasticity and shock absorption capability No slippage Longer sprocket life Less critical shaft location and alignment Higher Speed and power capacity High speed and power capacity No end thrust Greater efficiency 99% efficiency Detachable and easily replaced Easily installed More uniform wear characteristics Lower bearing loads Lower bearing loads Less velocity variation More economical with large centre distances Larger drive ratios Reduced noise and vibration Reduced noise and vibration Less affected by temperature Less affected by chordal action R. Prinz KG Maschinenfabrik, Austria Wippermann jr. GmbH, Germany ZITEC Industrietechnik GmbH, Germany These are major companies in manufacture of inverted chain and exporting them. There are many small industries in China, India which manufacture these chains. Applications of Inverted tooth chains: Roller table drive applications Cost-efficient group drive Uniform synchronous running No backlash when reversing Quiet even at high speeds Good meshing conditions minimize wear Outer tooth ring applications More cost-efficient than a milled tooth ring Suitable for large transmission ratios Full circle rotary motion or swivel motion along an angle segment possible in reverse or continuously Gripper and robot drive applications Precise synchronized motion High load capacity even at narrow widths Optimum meshing depth on the toothing provides a high a degree of security against skipping Flexible shaft coupling applications High elasticity Uncouples quickly by opening the lock or by radial offset when closed Angles can be shifted to 1 ° and shafts can be shifted radially to 2% of the pitch

Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Invisble Man :: Invisible Man Essays

Powerful Stereotypes in Invisble Man Ellison creates many stereotypes of African Americans of his time. He uses this to bring less informed readers to understand certain characters motives, thoughts, and reasoning. By using each personality of an African American in extremes, Ellison adds passion to the novel, a passion that would not be there if he would let individualism into his characters. Individualism, or lack there of is also significant to the novel. It supports his view of an anti-racial America, because by using stereotypes he makes his characters racial these are the characters that the Americans misunderstand and abominate. Dr. Bledsoe is the stereotypical submissive African American. He seemingly is peremptory, but this is just a façade. Though all of the African Americans in his community hold him in a high regard, he has no such respect in the "white-mans" world. College students tell stories about how when in the north, he is called Mr. Doctor Bledsoe. Yet in his letter addressed to Mr. Emerson, he ended the letter with, "I am your humble servant." It is this cowardly submission that Bledsoe uses to "gain power." He enjoys what little power he has in the African American community, so much in fact that he says that he would rather see every black man in the country lynched than give up his "power." Ras the Exhorter (later the Destroyer) is the stereotypical black supremacist. One of the most memorable characters to me, Ras battles for social equality; literally. Literally meaning prince in one of Ethiopia's languages and mimicking the sound of Ra, the Egyptian sun God, Ras encompasses the stereotypical black-nationalist. By using these allusions, Ellison is establishing the character's personality even before he acts. Ras's philosophy, one that was unorthodox at the time of publishing, is that blacks should cast off oppression and prejudice by destroying the ability of white men to control them. This inevitably leads to violence. This anti-segregation from blacks was unheard of. These two offer the reader a sense of variety and contrast. Both causes conflict with the Invisible Man, yet they also offer an inspiration and wisdom. Bledsoe taught him to not be so naïve, even to his own people.

Protagonists Essay -- English Literature Essays

Protagonists The protagonists in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper†, â€Å"The Storm†, and â€Å"Eveline† all seem to have similarities in their character. They are all women that have lived in an era in which women are seen as nothing. This woman had no identity in this world because they were told what to do by men. Human nature is also another important element that these women have in common. Calixta from â€Å"The Storm† is a married woman with a family. She is living in a time period in which woman have no control in what goes on in their life. The husband handles everything and she does the housework and childbearing. Te other two women in the novels seem to be in the same situation. Throughout the novel there seems to be a lot of sexuality and passion as another man enters the picture. This man is an old boyfriend who comes to take shelter from â€Å"The Storm†. Calixta and Alcee rediscover the passion there is between them. â€Å"Alcee’s arm encircled her, and for an instant he drew her close and spasmodically to him† (362). While the storm is going on outside the passion inside the house is also storming between Calixta and Alcee. In â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† the protagonists is also dealing with the issues of control with her husband. She is also living in the same era as Calixta where she is told what to do. This poor woman seems to have been pushed in to the state of mind that she is currently in because of her husband. She basically was living in a prison with watch guards at her side. She ...

A comparison between Jean Rhys and Una Marson Essay

Voyage into the Metropolis: Exile in the Works of Jean Rhys and Una Marson. In Jonathan Miller’s 1970 production of Shakespeare’s â€Å"The Tempest† the character of Caliban was cast as black, therefore reigniting the link between the Prospero/Caliban paradigm as the colonizer/colonized. It was not a new idea, indeed Shakespeare himself envisaged the play set on an island in the Antilles and the play would have had great appeal at the time when new territories were being discovered, conquered, plundered and providing seemingly inexhaustible revenue for the colonisers. What is particularly interesting, however, is how powerful the play later becomes for discourse on colonialism. This trope of Caliban is used by George Lamming in â€Å"The Pleasures of Exile† where he likens Prospero in his relationship with Caliban, to the first slave-traders who used physical force and then their culture to subjugate the African and the Carib, overcoming any rebellion with a self righteous determinism. In â€Å"The Pleasures of Exile† Lammi ng sees Caliban as: â€Å"Man and other than man. Caliban is his convert, colonized by language, and excluded by language. It is precisely this gift of language, this attempt at transformation which has brought about the pleasure and the paradox of Caliban’s exile. Exiled from his gods, exiled from his nature, exiled from his own name! Yet Prospero is afraid of Caliban. He is afraid because he knows that his encounter with Caliban is, largely, his encounter with himself.† 1 The Prospero/Caliban paradigm is a very relevant symbol for the colonizer/colonized situation of the West Indies but it nevertheless remains a paternalistic position. Where does that leave women of the Caribbean? It could be argued that the Caribbean woman has been even further marginalized. That in making Caliban the model of the Caribbean man it is therefore providing him with a voice. Yet nowhere in the Tempest is there a female counterpart, rendering the Caribbean woman invisible as well as silent and ignoring an essential part of their historical culture. Another issue raised here, is that Caribbean literature has for many years been male dominated. Just as the colonizer sought to ignore and marginalize their savage ‘Other’ so the Caribbean male has ignored their female counterpart. Opal Palmer Adisa, in exploring this issue, believes that it is â€Å"out of this patriarchal structure, designed to make her an object, part of the landscape to be used and discarded as seen fit by the colonizer, that the Caribbean woman has emerged.†2 It was out of such a ‘patriarchal structure’ that Jean Rhys and Una Marson emerged. The writing of both women revise and expand theme and personae, subverting a colonial and patriarchal culture. Both women â€Å"may exist in different ethnological and ontological realms but they both exist in worlds which have, at one time or another, attempted to censure, silence or ignore the ideals and interests of women†3 Like many of their male Caribbean counterparts to succeed them, their writing was greatly influenced by voyaging into the colonial metropolis and living in exile. In this essay I will discuss the importance of that journey in seeking to find a voice, an identity, and even a language to challenge established notions of Self, gender and race within the colonial structure. But essential to their experience is their struggle. Naipaul recognised, in Rhys, the themes of â€Å"isolation, an absence of society or community, the sense of things falling apart, depende nce, loss†.4 This could also be said of Marson. Jean Rhys was born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams on 24th August 1890, in Roseau, Dominica to a Creole mother of Scottish descent and a Welsh father who was a doctor. Rhys left Dominica in 1907, aged sixteen and continued her education in a Cambridge girls’ school and then at the Academy of Dramatic Art which she left after two terms. Rhys experienced feelings of alienation and isolation at both these institutions and these feelings were to stay with her for much of her life. Upon pursuing a career as a chorus girl under a variety of names Rhys embarked on an affair with a man twenty years older than herself and which lasted two years. It is broadly accepted that this early period of her London life formed the structure for Voyage In The Dark, and like all of Rhys’s novels, explores homelessness, dislocation, the marginal and the migrant. The character of Anna, like most of her female protagonists exists in the demimonde of city life, living on the wrong side of respecta bility. What Rhys does effectively in this novel is to centralize the marginalized, those subjects â€Å"who belong nowhere, between cultures, between histories.†5 Una Marson was born in rural Jamaica in 1905. Her father was a well respected Baptist minister and as a result of his standing within the community Marson had the opportunity to be educated on a scholarship at Hampton High School, a boarding school for mainly white, middle class girls. After finding employment as a stenographer, Marson went on to edit the ‘Jamaican Critic’, an established literary publication, and from 1928-1921, her own magazine ‘The Cosmopolitan’. Having established herself as a poet, playwright and women’s activist Marson made the decision to travel to Britain. Her achievements in London were impressive; a social activist within the League of Coloured Peoples which led to her taking a post as secretary to the deposed Emperor Haile Selassie and later she was appointed as a BBC commentator. In reality, however, Marson, like Rhys found the voyage into the Metropolis very difficult. Facing blatant racial discrimination like ‘so many West Indian women migrants of the 1950s, Una found herself blocked at every turn. She complained and cried; she felt lonely and humiliated,’. 6 In spite of many literary and social connections she remained an isolated and marginal figure. Her poetry displays the uncertainty of cultural belonging where her language ties her to colonialism yet also provides her with a powerful tool with which to challenge it. In placing Rhys alongside Marson as pioneering female writers, it is important to explore the notion of nationality, of being Caribbean and to question the grounds upon which such ideas are constructed. Both women were writing at the same time, having been born and educated in the British colonies. Both these writers, whose lives span the twentieth century, are situated at the crossroads of the colonial and post-colonial, the modern and post modern, where the threat of fascism and war result in anti colonial struggles and eventual decolonisation across the world. Their voyages from the colonies into the metropolitan centre generate similar experiences. What is clear with both is that by journeying into the metropolis, as women, they occupy a double marginal position within an already marginalized community. Their journey can be seen as an exploration of displacement where, according to Edward W. Said, the intellectual exile exists ‘in a median state, neither completely at one with the new setting nor fully disencumbered of the old, beset with half involvements and half attachments, nostalgic and sentimental at one level, an adept mimic or a secret outcast on the other.’7 Rhys and Marson, having left the Caribbean are asking us to consider what it means to write from the margins. Within their work, both women challenge notions of women’s place within society and women’s place as a colonized subject in the metropolitan centre. The protagonist, Anna Morgan, in Voyage in the Dark, reflects Rhys’s own multi indeterminate, multi conflicted identity. Anna, like Rhys is a white descendent of British colonists and slave traders who occupy a precarious position of being â€Å"inbetween†. Hated by the Blacks for their part in oppressing the slaves and continuing to cling on to that superior social position, they are also regarded by the ‘mother country’ as the last vestiges of a degenerate part of their own history best forgotten. Moreover, 1930s England, still under the shadow of Victorian moral dicta, continued to judge harshly a young woman without wealth, family, social position and with an odd accent. Throughout the novel Anna is identified with characters who are â€Å"usually objectified and silenced in canonical works: the chorus girl, the mannequin, the demimondaine.†8 Much has been made of her reading of Zola’s Nana and indeed there are many parallels between the two characters. Anna, like Nana becomes a prostitute and in the first version of Voyage in the Dark Anna like Nana dies very young. There is of course the obvious anagram of her name but, as Elaine Savory highlights, some interesting revisions by Rhys. Whereas Zola, in Nana, creates a character who brings about the downfall of upper class men not through power but â€Å"with only the unsophisticated currency of youth and raw female sexuality†9 Rhys, in Anna, creates a character who is herself destroyed by men. â€Å"In Rhys’s version the men who use her youth and beauty are for the most part evidently cowardly or downright disreputable: Anna herself begins as naively trusting, passes through a stage of self destructive hopelessness and passivity and ends, in Rhys’s preferred, unpublished version, by dying from a botched abortion.†10 If we are to see Walter Jeffries as the original European, existing in a world viewed certainly by himself as principally ordered and reasonable then Rhys is, through this character, highlighting the degenerate aspect of using power to commodify and even destroy, thereby subverting the colonizer’s position in relation to the colonized. Through the character of Anna, Rhys explores those oppositions of â€Å"Self† and â€Å"Other†, male and female, black and white. Even though she outwardly resembles the white European, enabling her, unlike Marson, to blend visually within London, her association with the Caribbean sets her apart as between black and white cultures and as an exotic â€Å"Other†. This ambiguity of Anna’s position results in â€Å"slippage†. Anna and her family would have been regarded in the West Indies as the white colonizers. In England and in her relationship with Jeffries she becomes the colonized â€Å"Other†. In being read as the colonized subject Anna is continually having to adapt her world view and sense of identity to the perspective being imposed on her. A good example of this is the chorus girls’s renaming her as the â€Å"Hottentot† aligning her more with the black African and demonstrating the homogenizing of the colonized peoples b y the colonizers. This is similar to Spivak’s belief that ‘so intimate a thing as personal and human identity might be determined by the politics of imperialism.’11 Interestingly, â€Å"Hottentot† is the former name for the Nama, a nomadic tribe of Southern Africa. A somewhat apt comparison which reflects Anna’s own nomadic existence as she moves from town to town as a chorus girl and from one bed sit to another. The term â€Å"Hottentot† developed into a derogatory term during the Victorian era and became synonymous firstly with wide hipped, big bottomed African women with oversized genitals and then with the sexuality of a prostitute. Jeffries is fully aware of the implications of the name â€Å"Hottentot†. In response to hearing Anna’s renaming he says, â€Å"I hope you call them something worse back.†12 Elaine Savory makes a strong connection between Anna’s renaming and her relationship with Jeffries, her eventual seducer. Whilst â€Å"not looking at Anna’s body in an obvious way, eventually the transaction between them is understood fully on his side to be a promise of sexual excitement from a white woman whom he perceives as having an extra thrill presumably from association with racist constructions of black females in his culture.†13 Franz Fanon, in his book Black Skin, White Masks perceives these complex colonial relations as being in a state of flux rather than fixed or static. In his introduction to Fanon’s text, Homi Bhabha highlights this point, stating that the ‘familiar alignment of colonial subjects†¦Black/White, Self/Other†¦is disturbed†¦and the traditional grounds of racial identity are dispersed.’14 So it is in the relationship between Jeffries and Anna. In transposing the colonizer’s stereotypical images of a black woman onto Anna he is disrupting and dispersing those ‘traditional grounds of racial identity’. Moreover, Anna is subconsciously enacting a mediated performance, aware of her impact upon him and the implications of her actions, in an attempt to adhere to his preconceptions of her. The relationship cannot be sustained on these fundamentally unstable preconceptions. Anna, both as a female and racial â€Å"Other† is penetrated by Jeffries and with the exchange of money is commodified. Without independent means Anna becomes that purchasable girl who is at the mercy of and eventually becomes dependent upon the upper middle class Jeffries. The relationship between these two characters reflects Rhys’s own location in the world where the West Indies was at the time still a commodity of the British Empire. In another analysis of the colonial stereotype, Homi Bhabha challenges the ‘limiting and traditional reliance of the stereotype as offering, at any one time, a secure point of identification on the part of the individual,’15 in this case Jeffries and Hester. Bhabha does not argue that the colonizer’s stereotyping of the colonized ‘Other’ is as a result of his security in his own identity or conception of himself but more to do with the colonizer’s own identity and authority which is in fact destabilized by contradictory responses to the Other. In order to maintain a powerful position it is important, according to Bhabha, for the colonizer to identify the colonized with the image he has already fixed in his mind. This image can be ambiguous as the colonized subject can be simultaneously familiar under the penetrable gaze of the all seeing, all powerful colonial gaze and be incomprehensible like the ‘inscrutable Oriental’. The coloni zed can be â€Å"both savage†¦and yet the most obedient and dignified of servants†¦; he is the embodiment of rampant sexuality and yet innocent as a child; he is mystical, primitive, simpleminded and yet the most worldly and accomplished liar , and the manipulator of social forces.†16 In short, for Bhabha, the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies which, when imposed upon the colonized ‘Other’, cause a crisis of identity. So it is with Anna. Jeffries upon first meeting with the very young Anna can see that she is as ‘innocent as a child’ and is ‘most obedient’ sexually, but by her association with the Caribbean and the Hottentot as I have previously explored, she is subsequently attributed with being ‘the embodiment of rampant sexuality’ resulting in his taking of her virginity, abandoning her to prostitution but also leading to as Veronica Clegg observes ‘a loss of temporal referents’17 Anna’s stepmother, Hester, also attempts to impose an identity upon Anna which not only conflicts with Anna’s own sense of identity but is also based around stereotypical perceptions. . Hester, whose ‘voice represents a repressive English colonial law’18 believes that Anna’s father’s troubles resulted from his having lost ‘touch with everybody in England’19 and that these severing of ties with the Imperial motherland is a signal to her that ‘he was failing’,20 losing his identity, reduced to the level of the black inhabitants of the island. This idea of contamination and racial reduction is explored by Paul B. Rich who explains that there was a belief in the early twentieth century that white people in the tropics risked ‘in the absence of continual cultural contacts with their temperate northern culture, being reduced to the level of those black races with whom they had made their â€Å"unnatural home†Ã¢ €˜.21 In Hester’s eyes this apparent loss of identity is also experienced by Anna. She continually criticizes her speech, her relationship with Francine the black servant, and also insinuates degenerative behaviour on the part of her family, particularly Uncle Bo. Hester’s views reflect the growing disapproval in England at that time, of relationships between white people and the black population in the West Indies. Inter-racial relationships were discouraged for fear of contamination of the white ‘Self’. In voicing her disapproval of Anna’s friendship with Francine along with her continual use of the racist and derogatory term â€Å"nigger†, Hester is alluding to the fact that, in her opinion, Anna, especially through her speech, has indeed been contaminated and reduced racially and that Anna’s association with Francine thwarts her attempts to reconnect her with the colonizer’s ‘cultural contacts’. Hester rails that she finds it ‘impossible to get you [Anna] away from the servants. That awful sing-song voice you had! Exactly like a nigger you talked†¦and still do. Exactly like that dreadful girl Francine. When you were jabbering away together in the pantry I never could tell which of you was speaking.’22 Hester’s constant criticism only serves to undermine Anna’s real identity and dislocate her further from the Caribbean world she once inhabited and the alienating London world she is now experiencing. Her accent sets her apart, drifting between two worlds. Anna’s difficulties in negotiating these two worlds is a result of the ‘return of the diasporic’ to the metropolitan centre where ‘the perplexity of the living is most acutely experienced.’23 This can certainly be seen in her response to the weather which, according to Bhabha, invokes ‘the most changeable and imminent signs of national difference’24 The novel opens with; â€Å"It was as if a curtain had fallen, hiding everything I had ever known. It was almost like being born again. The colours were different, the smells different, the feeling things gave you right down inside yourself was different. Not just the difference between heat and cold; light, darkness; purple, grey. But a difference in the way I was frightened and the way I was happy. I didn’t like London at first. I couldn’t get used to the cold.†25 And later upon arriving in England with Hester she describes it as being ‘divided into squares like pocket-handkerchiefs; a small tidy look it had, everywhere fenced off from everywhere else’ 26and then in London where the ‘dark houses all alike frowning down one after another’27 Throughout the novel Anna continually experiences feelings of being enclosed. Many of the bedsits are restricting and box-like. On one occasion she remarks that ‘this damned room’s getting smaller and smaller†¦And about the rows of houses outside gimcrack, rotten-looking and all exactly alike’.28 The many small rooms between which Anna moves emphasize her disempowerment through enclosed spaces. These spaces, in turn, serve as metaphors for the consequences in voyaging into the metropolitan centre. She is at once shut inside these small monotonous rooms and shut out from that world which has sought to colonize her. It is perhaps ironic that the further she mo ves into the centre of the city, ending up as she does on Bird Street, just off Oxford Street , the more she is shut out and marginalized by that imperialist society. Her memories of the West Indies are in sharp contrast to her impressions of England. The images of home are always warm, vivid and exotic, ‘Thinking of the walls of the Old Estate House, still standing, with moss on them. That was the garden. One ruined room for roses, one for orchids, one for ferns. And the honeysuckle all along the steep flight of steps’.29 When comparing the two worlds she remarks to herself that ‘the colours are red, purple, blue , gold, all shades of green. The colours here are black, grey, dim-green, pale blue, the white of people’s faces – like woodlice’. 30 Her memory of home is experienced sensuously as she recalls the sights and smells: â€Å"Market Street smelt of the wind but the narrow street smelt of niggers and wood smoke and salt fishcakes fried in lard’ and the sound of the black women as they call out, â€Å"salt fishcakes, all sweet an’ charmin’, all sweet an’ charmin’.'†31 Anna attempts to convey this richness to Jeffries. His failure to appreciate the beauty she describes merely underlines the differences between the two. He expresses a preference for cold places remarking that ‘The tropics would be altogether too lush’.32 Jeffries’s reaction to the West Indies in fact reflects the colonizer’s view that the ‘ruined room for roses’ and ‘orchids’ portray a disorder, a garden of Eden complete with its implications of moral decay and as Bhabha states, a ‘tropical chaos that was deemed despotic and ungovernable and therefore worthy of the civilizing mission.’33 Anna’s association with this world sets her up, in Walter’s eyes, as a figure representing a secret depravity promising forbidden desires. Anna, like the West Indies is something to be overpowered, enslaved and colonized, where the colonizer seeks to strip their identity and impose their own beliefs and desires. It is significant, therefore, that following this scene Anna loses her virginity to Jeffries and recalls the memory of the mulatto slave girl, Maillotte Boyd, aged 18, whose record Anna once found on ‘an old slave list at Constance’.34 Like Maillotte Boyd, Anna is now merely a commodity and Jeffries has no intention of ever seeing her as an equal. Her purity, in his eyes isn’t worth preserving as he already considers her the contaminated ‘Other’. By his actions he succeeds in maintaining that patriarchal imperialism which relies on institutional forms of racial and national separateness. Anna, as a twentieth century white Creole, is no freer than the nineteenth century mulatto slave. Just as Maillotte Boyd is, as racially mixed, suspended between two races, so Anna as a white Creole is suspended between two cultures, leaving her dislocated. Anna’s voyage into the imperialist metropolis leads to boundaries and codes of behaviour, language and dress being constantly imposed upon her. She is aware for example of the importance of clothes as a means of controlling her social standing and also her standing as a woman. Through her dress Anna almost becomes that elegant white lady, mimicking London’s female high society. For Jeffries, Anna represents the ‘menace of mimicry’, which , according to Bhabha is ‘a difference which is almost nothing but not quite’ and which turns ‘to menace- a difference that is total but not quite.’35 This mimicry serves to empower Anna as it ultimately destabilises the essentialism of colonialist ideology, resulting in Jeffries imposing upon Anna the identity of the West Indian ‘Other’ This in turn leads to feelings of loss, alienation and dislocation, a rejection of being white and a desire to be black. ‘I always wanted to be black. I was happy because Francine was there†¦.Being black is warm and gay, being white is cold and sad.’36 Anna’s association with Hester meant that she ‘hated being white. Being white and getting like Hester, †¦old and sad and everything.’37 Yet the warmth she expresses in her memories of Francine are always tempered by her realisation that Francine disliked her ‘because I [Anna] was white.’38 Her feelings of being between cultures and feeling dislocated are never fully resolved. Anna’s voyage in the dark, reflects Rhys’s own sense of exile and marginality as a white West Indian woman. Teresa O’Connor remarks that ‘Rhys, herself caught between places, cultures, classes and races, never able to identify clearly with one or the other, gives the same marginality to her heroines, so that they reflect the unique experience of dislocation of the white Creole woman.’39 The language used to express feelings of exile and loneliness, destitution and dislocation is both sparse and economic. It is neither decorative nor contrived, devoid of sentiment or without seeking sympathy. In commenting upon an essay written by Rhys discussing gender politics, Gregg writes that ‘It is important to note her [Rhys’s] belief that writing has a subversive potential. Resistance†¦can be carried out through writing that exposes and opposes the political and social arrangements.’40 Helen Carr, in her exploration of Rhys’s language believes that: â€Å"Rhys in her fictions unpicks and mocks the language by which the powerful keep control, while at the same time shifting, bending, re-inventing ways of using language to open up fresh possibilities of being.†41 Una Marson, another Caribbean to voyage into the metropolis, also experienced loneliness, isolation and a struggle with the complexity of identity. Like Rhys, Marson fought with these feelings throughout her life, resulting in long periods of depression. Her belief in women’s need for pride in their cultural heritage established Marson as ‘the earliest female poet of significance to emerge in West Indian literature’.42 She not only ‘challenged received notions of women’s place in society’ but also raised questions about ‘the relationship of the colonized subject to â€Å"the mother country†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢43 There was a considerable amount of poetry emerging out of the West Indies around this time but most of it was dismissed as being ‘not truly West Indian’,44 the reason for this being partly because many of the writers were English but also because many of the styles used by these writers mimicked colonial forms. Many of Marson’s early poetry reflects this mimicry showing a reliance upon the Romantics of the English poetic tradition, particularly Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron. The poem Spring in England reveals this indebtedness to the Romantics, including as it does a stanza where, having observed the arrival of Spring in London, the poet asks: ‘And what are daffodils, daffodils Daffodils that Wordsworth praised?’ I asked. ‘Wait for Spring, Wait for the Spring,’ the birds replied. I waited for Spring, and lo they came, ‘A host of shining daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees’ (The Moth p6)45 Clearly there are echoes of Wordsworth’s Daffodils throughout the stanza, reflecting the drive by colonialism through education to eradicate the West Indian selfhood. Yet for Marson this harnessing of English culture not only posed few problems but indeed was, I would argue, a necessary step in her voyage of self discovery. As seen with Rhys, mimicry was a subversive threat to colonial ideology, especially through language. Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry seeks to explore those ambivalences of such destabilizing colonial and post-colonial exchanges. â€Å"The menace of mimicry is its double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority. †¦The ambivalence of colonial authority repeatedly turns from mimicry – a difference which is almost nothing but not quite – to menace – a difference that is almost total but not quite. And in that other scene of colonial power, where history turns to farce and presence to a ‘part’ can be seen the twin figures of narcissism and paranoia that repeat furiously, uncontrollably.†46 Bhabha’s essay in recognising the power, the play and the dynamics between the colonizer and the colonized offers an alternative to the pessimistic view held by V.S. Naipaul who believed that West Indian culture was doomed to mimicry, unable to create anything ‘original’. Marson’s mimicry of the Romantics could be seen as a preparation to enter the colonizer’s metropolis, and to attempt to assimilate into the colonizer’s world. In making that voyage to the metropolis, Una Marson succeeds in taking that step from ‘the copy’ to the ‘original’. By remaining in Jamaica Marson risked remaining in an environment too rigidly ingrained by colonial prescriptions. Una Marson’s voyage into ‘the heart of the Empire’, however, resulted in intense disappointment. For the first time, Marson experienced open racism and according to Jarrett-McCauley ‘The truth was that Una dreaded going out because people stared at her, men were curious but their gaze insulted her, even small children with short dimpled legs called her â€Å"Nigger†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦She was a black foreigner seen only as strange and unwanted. This was the ‘Fact of Blackness’ which Fanon was to analyse in Black Skins, White Masks(1952), that inescapable, heightening level of consciousness which comes from â€Å"being dissected by white eyes†.’ 47 Unlike Rhys, Marson was finding it impossible to blend visually within London. Consciousness of her colour made Marson conscious of her marginality. This consciousness led her seriously to question the values of the ‘mother country’. Marson’s work moved from mimicry to anti-patriarchal discourse, seen in her poem Politeness where she responds to the William Blake poem Little Black Boy with: They tell us That our skin is black But our hearts are white We tell them That their skin is white But their hearts are black (Tropic Reveries p 44) The poem demonstrates Marson’s growing resentment at being alienated by the colonial power. There is an uncertainty in her desire to both belong and to challenge, echoing Rhys in her sense of cultural unbelonging. Those anti-patriarchal feelings are present once more in her poem Nigger where she communicates the anger she feels at being abused and marginalized as the racial ‘Other’. They call me ‘Nigger’ Those little white urchins, They laughed and shouted As I passed along the street, They flung it at me: ‘Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!’ She retorts to this abuse furiously with: You who feel that you are ‘sprung Of earth’s first blood’, your eyes Are blinded now with arrogance. With ruthlessness you seared My people’s flesh and now you still Would crush their very soul Add fierce insult to vilest injury.48 In its repetition of the shocking term ‘Nigger’, Marson is confronting the white colonialist’s use of the word to exert power over and oppress the colonized. The violence of its use reflects the violence of their shared history where ‘Of those who drove the Negroes / To their death in days of slavery,’ regard ‘Coloured folk as†¦low and base.’49 In highlighting this history of violence, oppression and slavery, Marson is attempting to invert this oppression and dislodge the notion of white supremacy, whilst attempting to negotiate a position from West Indian to African and in doing so, fashion an identity. By writing the poem in the first person singular and moving from ‘They’ to ‘You’ when addressing the white colonizers, Marson succeeds in centralizing herself and reversing the binary system of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’. Nigger marks Marson’s sharpened perspective on issues such as racism and identity. Her voyage into the metropolitan centre triggers those ’emergent identifications and new social movements†¦[being]†¦played out’.50 It was a time in Marson’s life where she was made to feel inadequate, lonely and humiliated but it also roused her to ‘resist the corrosive force of her oppressive world.’51 Nigger reveals this sense of belonging and not belonging felt by Marson, of being part of the empire but never part of the Motherland, yet it simultaneously challenges the very essentialism in which the colonial Self is rooted. Moreover, the hostility she experiences in many ways acknowledges the success of Marson’s performance as a hybrid. Marson’s frustration and anger was compounded by the fact that in being middle class and educated she possibly saw herself as ‘a notch above the poor, black working class women from the old communities in Cardiff, Liverpool and London’52 Marson explores this question of how middle class West Indians negotiate being educated and yet marginalized and even considered inferior in her play London Calling. The play, based on the experiences of colonial students in London charts the story of a group of expatriates who, upon being invited to the house of an aristocratic English family, dress up in outlandish native costume and speak in ‘broken’ English. The play, a comedy, takes a light hearted look at the stereotypical images held by the British, at the same time countering the myth of black inferiority. There is, in the play, a curious twist as the students from Novoko are presented as black versions of the British in their dress and behaviour, ‘mimic men’ and yet they themselves attempt to ‘mimic’ their own folk culture. They are eventually discovered by one of the family, Larkspur, who then proposes marriage to Rita, one of the Novokans. The play ends with Rita declining Larkspur’s proposal in favour of Alton, another Novokan. This rejection of Larkspur places Rita in a powerful position. Rita is no longer the undesirable ‘Other’, she has resisted the oppressive world of the colonialists and placed herself as the centralised ‘Self’. Rita is Marson’s fantasy where the black woman is recognised as beautiful and an equal. Marson’s activities in the League of Coloured Nations gave her purpose, direction and the opportunity to advance her political education whilst introducing her to the Pan – African movement ‘a sort of boomerang from the horrors of slavery and colonialism, to which Una, like many of her generation, was being steadily drawn.’53 Marson’s work around this time reflects a desire to reclaim and restore that ‘Other’ cultural tradition, a difficult task as the Caribbean was not an homogeneous agency and it was not easy to establish a pre-colonial culture. The ethnic mix was large and hybrid making the notion of ‘Caribbeanness’ less easy to define. The Pan-African movement provided links with an alternative body to European colonialism and offered Marson a platform to renegotiate and redefine her idea of ‘Caribbeaness’ and race, an option not offered to Rhys. Having established a sense of being a black person in a white imperialist centre, she now needed to make sense of being a black woman within this paternalistic centre. The poem Little Brown Girl attempts just this, constructing a dialogue of sorts between a white Londoner, whose gender is unclear, and a little brown girl. The poem begins with a series of questions put to the child: Little brown girl Why do you wander alone About the streets Of the great city Of London? Why do you start and wince When white folk stare at you Don’t you think they wonder Why a little brown girl Should roam about their city Their white, white city? (The Moth, p11) The questioning of the little brown girl’s presence in London suggests a linguistic imperialism. It may be construed as the speaker challenging her right to be in the city, establishing her as the nameless, black ‘Other’. Her feeling of difference is emphasized in the repetition of the word ‘white’ on the final line of the second stanza. The third stanza plays out an interesting reversal in notions of blackness. The speaker asks why she has left the ‘little sunlit land / where we sometimes go / to rest and get brown’54 alluding to the desire of white skinned people to tan which for the white colonialist signifies wealth, for the black ‘Other’ being inferior and uneducated. From here there is a subtle shift of speaker and London is seen through the eyes of the little brown girl. Her perception of the city is distinctly unattractive where ‘There are no laughing faces, / people frown if one really laughs’ and: There’s nothing picturesque To be seen in the streets, Nothing but people clad In Coats, Coats, Coats, (The Moth, p11) If the poem began with the strangeness of the brown girl to the white gaze, here it teases out those feelings of alienation felt by the little brown girl at being in such a cold, drab place, so different from her own home. Once more Marson creates a reversal in the stereotype as she seeks to objectify white people observing that ‘the folks are all white -/ White, white, white, / And they all seem the same.’55 In homogenizing the colonizers, the hybridity of the West Indians are then celebrated in the many varied skin tones of ‘black and bronze and brown’ which are themselves homogenized by the label ‘Black’. The vibrancy, colour and friendliness of ‘back home’ where the folks are ‘Parading the city’ wearing ‘Bright attractive bandanas’ contrasts with the previous stanza of the dour images of London. The dialogue is handed back to the white speaker who attempts to establish the origins of the little black girl but succeeds in once more re-establishing the homogeneic white gaze indicated in the speaker’s inability to distinguish between many distinct nations : And from whence are you Little brown girl? I guess Africa, or India, Ah no, from some island In the West Indies But isn’t that India All the same? (The Moth, p13) More than anything the poem conveys that sense of isolation felt by the little brown girl in the city. She never answers the white speaker directly and is positioned in the middle of the poem, again centralizing the colonized. In asking the question ‘Would you like to be white/Little brown girl?’ there is a sense of the colonizer attempting to manipulate and dominate the colonized, to Europeanise, ultimately leading to mimicry. Yet the questioner responds himself with ‘I don’t think you would / For you toss your head / As though you are proud / To be brown’. 56 Marson, here, signals a move away from being a ‘mimic man’ seeking to challenge that whole Eurocentric paternalistic world and centralise the black women, the most marginalized figure in society. The themes central to Little Brown Girl’s themes echo Rhys’s own negative reactions to London seen in the opening page of Voyage in the Dark. Like Rhys, Marson succeeds in capturing that colour and warmth of the West Indies contrasting greatly with the misery of London, experienced by both and which reinforce that racial and national separateness. Those differences prove for both to be irreconcilable, making it impossible for both Rhys and Marson to integrate, leaving both women dislocated from the metropolis. Little Black Girl serves as a useful reminder that many immigrants were women. This encounter between the city and a woman (in Marson’s case, a black woman) echoes Anna’s encounter in Voyage in the Dark albeit as a prostitute. Both walk the streets of the city and as women-as-walkers encounter the metropolis, negotiating its spaces. Denise deCaires Narian suggests that certainly Marson could be considered as a flaneuse.57 Neither Rhys nor Marson, however have the confident panache of the flaneuse and neither fulfil the requirements of flanerie originally set out by Baudelaire. The flaneur, he asserted, saw the ‘crowd as his domain, †¦ His passion and his profession is to merge with the crowd’.58 The flaneur and therefore the flaneuse is engaged in strolling and looking but most importantly merging ‘with the crowd’. For Marson this is impossible as she is a black woman in a white city. Moreover, Baudelaire expands upon the idea of the flaneur as having ‘the ability to be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world’.59 Again this is problematic for both Marson and Rhys as their wanderings around the metropolis seek only to reinforce those feelings of ‘Otherness’, isolation and marginality. For Marson these feelings of alienation gained her the reputation of being a ‘true loner who didn’t exactly seek out company’60 leading to a ‘heightened level of bodily consciousness’ which comes from ‘being dissected by white eyes’.61 In her struggle with being marginalized as a black women always at the mercy of the white metropolitan gaze, Marson was always aware of that Europeanised sense of beauty being white. This idea of beauty was so entrenched, even within the black community that they themselves set beauty against the paleness of their own skin. The importance of popularly disseminated images is tackled in Cinema Eyes where a black mother in addressing her daughter attempts to challenge the idea that ‘Europeans still provide the aesthetic reference point’.62 The speaker urges her eighteen year old daughter to avoid the cinema fearing that it might reinforce the idea that white is beautiful causing the girl to lose sight of her own beauty: Come, I will let you go When black beauties Are chosen for the screen; That you may know Your own sweet beauty And not the white loveliness Of others for envy. (The Moth, p88) By growing up with a ‘cinema mind’ the mother has allowed herself to be at the mercy of those tools used by the colonizer to marginalize and indoctrinate, promoting their own superiority. Once again the ‘mimic man’ re-emerges when black women reject their own in seeking an ‘ideal man’. ‘No kinky haired man for me, / No black face, no black children for me.’63 This rather melodramatic narrative within the poem tells of the mother’s ‘fair’ husband shooting her first suitor whom she had initially rejected for being too dark, and then committing suicide. The shooting scene, a re enactment of a gun fight in a western, presents the cinema as a racist and degenerate institution. By the end of the poem, the speaker acknowledges her mistake in rejecting the first lover and finds a sense of self, previously denied by the saturation of cinematic images. In shaking off the colonizer’s indoctrination, which seeks to marginalize her, she addresses the question posed by Franz Fanon which is ‘to what extent authentic love will remain unattainable before one has purged oneself of that feeling of inferiority?’64 Black invisibility in the cinema results in white ideology being forced upon a black body and essentially commodifying it and it is this which Marson seeks to deconstruct. Another poem which tackles the reconstruction of female identity is Black is Fancy, where the speaker compares her reflection in the mirror with a picture ‘Of a beautiful white lady’.65 The mirror serves to reclaim the idea of black as being beautiful and a rediscovery of self: Since Aunt Lisa gave me This nice looking glass I begin to feel proud Of my own self (The Moth, p75) The speaker eventually removes the picture of the white woman suggesting that black worth and beauty can only really exist in the absence of white colonialism. The poem ends in a victory of sorts as she declares that John, her lover has rejected the pale skin in favour of ‘His black ivory girl’.66 Kinky Haired Blues represents Marson’s quest for a more effective and authentic poetic voice in its use of African American speech.. The poem explores the rhythms and musical influences found in Harlem and gathering momentum about this time. Kinky Haired Blues like Cinema Eyes and Black is Fancy criticizes the oppressive beauty regime of white colonialism which seeks to disfigure and marginalize the black woman. The poem opens with the speaker attempting to find a beauty shop: Gwine find a beauty shop Cause I ain’t a belle Gwine find a beauty shop Cause I ain’t a lovely belle. The boys pass me by They say I’s not so swell (The Moth, p91) The speaker seeks to Europeanise her black features in an attempt to make herself more attractive. Male indifference experienced in the metropolis forces the speaker to see herself as an aberration, thrusting her onto the margins of a society which is continually projecting the idea that ‘white ‘is ‘right’. The beauty shop contains all the trappings of the colonizer’s idea of beauty, ‘ironed hair’ and ‘bleached skin’. Yet she is caught between being left to ‘die on de shelf’ 67 if she doesn’t change herself, or eradicating her ethnic features and therefore her inner self if she does. By using blues within the poetry she is able to communicate this misery felt within her, that male perceptions of beauty projected by the colonizers dictate that she must distort her own natural beauty in order to fit in and conform. The poem highlights the struggle Marson experiences in trying to preserve her selfhood against such oppressive cultural forces. Marson defiantly attempts to stand against this patriarchal order. She proudly announces that ‘I like me black face / And me kinky hair.’ Inspite of this brave stand Marson eventually succumbs and admits that she is ‘gwine press me hair / And bleach me skin.’ She, like Rhys can only resist internally to the colonialist’s ideals imposed on them. As writers voyaging into the metropolis both Rhys and Marson share in their writing a pervasive sense of isolation where, from the location of London, their particular voices and concerns are, at the time, not recognised. Both writers, from this isolated position on the periphery of the centre. explore issues of womanhood, race and identity,. Marson’s experiences bring about an acute awareness of her difference and ‘Otherness’ as a Black woman. Her work is a defiant voice against this marginalisation and isolation. She was, as Jarrett MaCauley claims ‘the first Black feminist to speak out against racism and sexism in Britain.’68 She was a pioneer in a growing literary culture which was to become the new postcolonial order. Rhys, by contrast, a white West Indian from Dominica was experiencing a declining white minority status against a growing black population, itself an isolating factor both at home and within the metropolis. Kenneth Ramchard suggests that the work of white West Indian writers is characterized by a sense of embattlement: â€Å"Adapted from Fanon we might use the phrase ‘terrified consciousness’ to suggest the White minority’s sensations of shock and disorientation as a smouldering Black population is released into an awareness of power.†69 It is this ‘terrified consciousness’ which contributes to the struggle experienced by Anna in Voyage in the Dark . Located simultaneously both inside and outside West Indian socio cultural history, her journey to the ‘mother country’ seeks only to exacerbate these feelings of ‘in-betweenness’ and to suffer feelings of dislocation and alienation. Both writers, therefore, in their voyage into the metropolis endure different kinds of anxieties in their sense of ‘unbelonging’ to either or both cultural worlds. Both use their writing to speak for the marginal, the hegemonic, the dispossessed, the colonized silenced female voice situated as they were within the cold, oppressive, hierarchical colonial metropolis attempting to impose an oppressive identity upon the exiled women.    1 George Lamming The Pleasures of Exile (London: Alison, 1960) p15 2 Palmer Adisa De Language Reflect Dem Ethos† in ‘The Winds of Change: The Transforming Voices of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars’ ed. By Adele S. Newson and Linda Strong Leek. (New York: Peter Lang 1998 p23) 3 ‘The Winds of Change: The Transforming Voices of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars’ ed By Adele S. Newson and Linda Strong-Leek. (New York: Peter Lang 1998 p6) 4 V.S. Naipaul New York Review of Books 1992. Quoted in Helen Carr Jean Rhys (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd., 1996) p15 5 Helen Carr Jean Rhys (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd., 1996) p. xiv 6 Delia Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998) p51 7 Edward W. Said Representations of the Intellectual (London: Vintage 1994) p49 8 Molly Hite The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narrative Quoted in Joy Castro ‘Jean Rhys’ in The Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 20, 2000. www.highbeam.com/library/doc.3.asp p6.Accessed 1 December 2005. 9 Elaine Savory Jean Rhys p92 10 Elaine Savory Jean Rhys p93 11 Gayatri Spivak ‘Three Women’s Text and a Critique of Imperialism’ in Henry Louis Jr. Gates Race, Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) p269 12Jean Rhys Voyage in the Dark (London: Penguin Books 1969) 13 Elaine Savoury Jean Rhys (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998) p 95 14 Homi Bhabha ‘Remembering Fanon’, forward to Franz Fanon ‘s Black Skin, White Masks (London: Pluto, 1986) p ix 15 Homi Bhabha ‘The Other Question’ Location of Culture (London: Routledge 1994)p69 16 Ibid p69 17 Veronica Marie Gregg Jean Rhys’s Historical Imagination: Reading and Writing the Creole (North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995) p115 18 Sue Thomas The Worlding of Jean Rhys ( Westport: Greenwood Press 1999) p106 19 Jean Rhys Voyage in the Dark p53 20 Ibid 21 Paul B. Rich Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) p19 22 Voyage in the Dark p56 23 Ibid p320 24 Homi Bhabha â€Å"DissemInation: Time, Narrative and the margins of the Modern Nation† The Location of Culture p319 25 Voyage in the Dark p7 26 Ibid p15 27 Ibid p16 28 Ibid p26 29 Ibid p45 30 Ibid p47 31 Ibid p7 32 Ibid p46 33 Homi Bhabha The Location of Culture p319 34 Voyage in the Dark p45 35 Homi Bhabha Location of Culture p85 36 Ibid p27 37 Ibid p62 38 Ibid p62 39 Teresa O’Connor The Meaning of the West Indian Experience for Jean Rhys (PhD dissertation, New York University, 1985)cited in Caribbean Woman Writers; Essays from the first International Conference. p19 40 Taken from Rhys’s non fictional analysis of Gender Politics. Veronica Gregg, Jean Rhys’s Historical Imagination p47 41 Helen Carr Jean Rhys, (Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Ltd, 1996) p 77 42 Lloyd W. Brown, West Indian Poetry (London: Heineman, 1978) p 38 43 Denise deCaires Contemporary Caribbean Women’s Poetry: Making style (London: Routledge, 2002) p 2 44 Ibid p4 45 Una Marson The Moth and the Star, (Kingston, Jamaica: Published by the Author, 1937) p24 46 Homi Bhabha The Location of Culture, (London: Routledge, 1994) pp85-92 47 Delia Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson pp 49, 50 48 The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature ed. Alison Donnell and Sarah Lawson Welsh (London: Routledge, 1996) p140-141 49 Ibid 50 Homi Bhabha Location of Culture p 320 51 Jarrett-MaCauley The Life of Una Marson p51 52 Ibid p51 53 Ibid p54 54 Una Marson ‘Little Brown Girl’, The Moth and the Star. (Jamaica: The Gleaner. 1937) p11 55 Ibid 56 Ibid p13 57 deCaires Narain puts forward an interesting link between Marson and Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners highlighting external identity in her book Contemporary Caribbean Women’s Poetry p 21 58 Baudelaire The Painter and the Modern Life cited in Keith Tester The Flaneur (New York: Routledge, 1994), p 2 59 Ibid p3 60 Jarrett-MaCauley, p53 61 Ibid p50 62 Laurence A. Brainer An Introduction to West Indian Poetry (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), p154 63 Una Marson ‘Cinema Eyes’ The Moth and the Star. (Jamaica: The Gleaner.1937) p87 64 Franz Fanon Black Skins, White Masks (London: Pluto, 1986), p4 65 Una Marson ‘Black is Fancy’ The Moth and the Star p75 66 Ibid p76 67 Una Marson ‘Kinky Hair Blues’ The Moth and the Star p91 68 Jarret MaCauley pvii 69 Kenneth Ramchard The West Indian Novel and its Background (London: Faber, 1870), p225

The Evils of a Broken Bone

Finally, the wait was over. Finally, after nine never-ending weeks, I could climb, swim, play, and once again partake in the numerous activities that fill the lives of six-year-old girls. The hard, bright orange constraint around my arm had been weighing down my life, and keeping me from being the carefree child that I knew should be. Finally, as I sat in the back seat of the car headed towards the doctor's office, looking out the window at the soft snow, I knew this weight would be removed once and for all. I wondered what it would feel like to move my arm again, and I smiled at the thought of such freedom. I hadn't been so free since that dreadful day nine weeks ago. Mrs. Thompson had just dismissed us for recess, and I sprinted through the doorway into the sunlight. The world was wonderfully bright with fall colors, and I ran out to the playground with the leaves crunching beneath my feet. I looked around the playground, trying to decide where I would play that day. Every piece of equipment was a colored a different vibrant shade. The blue monkey bars were closest to the school, with the yellow and orange wavy slides behind them. Then there were the green swings and the huge black tires sticking up from the ground. None of those things seemed very enjoyable to me, so after some consideration I walked over to the dome-shaped jungle gym to the left of the swings. It was huge, with shiny red bars criss-crossing like a spider's web. I was feeling extra adventurous that day, and my goal for those twenty minutes of recess was to reach the top of the dome by climbing from the inside, suspended upside-down from my arms and legs. I stepped through the dome, grabbed on to one of the bars with my hands, and swung my body upward so that my feet were supported against one of the lower bars. I slowly began climbing, reaching up to the next highest bar with my right hand, and moving my right foot up to where it had been. Then the left side of my body followed suit. I continued this process until, sooner than I had expected, I had reached the very top of the dome, facing the bright blue sky and the clouds above. I moved my feet through the top bars and wrapped my knees around them. I decided to let go with my hands, so that I was simply hanging upside down from my knees. I looked down at the woodchips below; by this time they were a mile away. I tried not to get intimidated, and was sure I must be invincible if I'd made it this far, so I began to swing back and forth from my knees. I was having a wonderful time of it, but suddenly something wasn't right. My mood changed from content to panicked when I swung too hard, my knees came loose from the bar, and I found myself plummeting face-first towards the ground. The woodchips below became more defined as they grew nearer and nearer, and I knew I would soon come into contact with them. I tried to break my fall with my arms, and when I hit the ground, I heard a loud crack as a sharp pain shot through my right arm. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at my arm. My wrist didn't look quite straight and I couldn't move it. Cradling my hurt arm with my healthy one, I walked over to the teacher who was nearby. I was determined to be a big girl, and, trying not to cry, I told her what had happened. She immediately helped me inside to the nurse's office. That fifty yards to the nurse seemed like a thousand miles, and each step I took was more painful than the last. I didn't understand what was happening. Why did it hurt my arm to put weight on my legs? As I reached the doorway to go inside, I sadly glanced over my shoulder to take one last look at my beloved playground. Suddenly it didn't look as inviting as it always had. The bright colors had faded into dull and dreary in my mind's eye. I had experienced countless joys on this playground; it was my friend that had always made sure I was happy and safe. At that moment I felt like my friend had betrayed me. I reached the nurse's office in the school, and soon my mom was there to rush me to the hospital. When we got there, the emergency room was jam-packed. The waiting room was full of people with various problems, and nurses and doctors were frantically running around. Some of the other patients in the waiting room included an elderly lady in a wheel chair, a middle-aged man taking sharp intakes of breath, and a young man with a bleeding ankle. Why did everyone in the world choose this day to get injured? I needed the doctors to focus on me. In all I waited for about an hour. That hour was one of the worst I've been through. I still hadn't had any pain reliever to speak of, and the pain in my arm was dull, agonizing, and unrelenting. At last, one of the nurses paid me some attention and gave me some thick, syrupy liquid pain reliever. She took me into a dark room and took an x-ray of my arm; it was confirmed that I had broken two bones in my forearm. The next thing that happened was excruciating. The doctor took me into a room without my parents, and explained that he needed to reset my arm since it was crooked. He flat out told me that this was going to hurt, and not just a little bit. I sat up on a table, and the doctor gave a hard yank on my wrist. I heard another crack! exactly like the one earlier that day, and agonizing pain again shot through my arm. The pain was unbearable, and this time I couldn't keep back the tears. I couldn't understand that the doctor was only trying to help me, and I was angry with him for prolonging my suffering instead of ending it. The worst was over†¦ at least as far as physical pain. I got my cast and was on the road to recovery, but the majority of the pain came after my arm stopped hurting. I was normally such a bright, happy, little girl; but with a broken arm I was constantly feeling sorry for myself. I kept asking God why I was the one who had to go through this. Why did I have to sit at home while my dad took my sister to the indoor pool? Why did I have to sit and watch while my friends played softball? I soon felt like my life and my freedom had been ripped away from me as soon as I heard that crack on the playground. This could never happen again. Nine weeks later, sitting in that waiting room, I thought to myself. My cast would be off in just a couple of minutes, and I would have my freedom back. But I couldn't abuse that freedom. I would always be more careful now; I would never again subject myself to the evils of a broken bone.