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Summary
The author used to walk a half-mile every morning from his home to the rail track lines, and from the rail track lines back to his house every evening. It used to be a pleasant walk because he could enjoy the scenery. It was a good exercise also. Sometimes, the walk would be educative. He would learn new things from incidents that happened around him.
One morning, on his way to the rail track lines, he saw two boys playing in the garden of a small house. Both of them were very little boys. One was four years old and the other for about five years. The bigger of the two boys was strong, very dark with coal-black eyes and coarse black hair.
The small boy was also sturdy. He was white with hazel eyes and light brown hair. Both were wearing blue shirts and khaki pants. They did not wear shoes. Their feet were muddy as they were playing in the mud.
They were unaware of the author watching them. The small white boy walked up and down majestically. The bigger brown boy followed him and did what he was told to do. The white boy told the dark boy to pick up a stick. The dark boy picked it up. Then the white boy asked him to jump into the flowers, and he did so. Again, the white boy ordered the dark boy to fetch him some water. The dark boy ran into the house to bring water.
Summary of JAMAICAN FRAGMENT Chapter 3 Karnataka Board Class 8
The author was surprised to see the white boy imposing his will on the black boy. He was almost commanding the black boy, and the black boy meekly submitted himself. The author thought that the black boy must be the son of a house servant. Since both of them were dressed in the same kind of clothes, he again thought that they must be neighbours. He wondered why the dark boy faithfully obeyed the white boy’s orders. The author, himself being a Jamaican, was sad that the Jamaican boy had accepted the supremacy of the whites even in his own country.
The next morning the narrator saw the boys again. A man was watching them play. He was surprised to see that the black boy was commanding and the little white boy was carrying out his orders. The dark boy walked imperiously up and down and the white boy followed him obediently. The dark boy asked the white boy to get him a banana. The white boy ran inside and came out with a banana. The little black fellow ordered the white boy to peel it for him and the white boy did so and gave it to his dark master.
Summary of JAMAICAN FRAGMENT Chapter 3 Karnataka Board Class 8
The narrator then realized that they were playing a game, which he had also played in his childhood. He looked at the man standing beside the gate. He was a white man. The narrator thought that the white man would be thinking on the same lines as he had, the previous day. He went to the white man and tried to drive away his doubts by telling him that the children were only playing. The narrator told the white man that only the grown-up people were silly to think in terms of racial discrimination.
The white man smiled. He told the narrator that he knew all about the children’s game. He said that the boys were his sons and they were brothers. And he pointed to the fair brown woman on the verandah and said that she was his wife. The narrator felt very happy and proud that Jamaica brought people from different communities and cultures together. The white man smiled and said if they did not hurry they would miss the train and went away.
Theme
The theme of the story is a great life lesson. It explains to us that we can’t just jump to the first thing we think of when we see something. For example, the character in the story was thinking that it was racism that he was watching. But it was just two kids playing a simple game. The main idea of the story is that the character was thinking the 4-year-old Caucasian was forcing the 5-year-old African heritage to do whatever he commands. But it was nothing like that.
About the author
Arthur Lemiere Hendricks was born in 1922 in Kingston, Jamaica. He is a West Indian poet and short story writer. He worked as a Broadcasting Director. In all his writings we can find the taste of Caribbean Literature. In the story ‘Jamaican Fragment’, he tells us how people in his country had preconceived ideas of superiority and inferiority about colour, race and class.
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