Victor Stafford Reid - Literary Themes

Literary Themes

Reid’s novels focus on the freedom of black culture and describe the struggles of black people. His works tend to focus primarily on the history, hopes, and powers of the Jamaican people. Through his writing, Reid wanted to break apart the "distortions of history" portrayed by the foreign press, which described Jamaican radicals as criminals. He wrote to prove the innocence of people who were rendered to be the opposite. Reid held that " must discover, somehow, that these people were not the criminals they were thought to be." In a way, he was telling the untold stories of the times.

Another important aspect of Reid’s writing included his desire to contribute to the education system. Previously, schools were solely taught from an English perspective and through a colonial lens. Reid, however, wanted people in school to learn about their own heritage through his writing; he wanted people to recognize that blacks, not only Europeans, participated in history. Therefore, Reid wrote novels to be used in Jamaican schools that provided a historical context of their country and heritage.

Reid was also constantly reinventing language through his writing. In his first novel, New Day, he created a newly modified language that combines both the elements of Standard English and the native Creole language. Later, in works such as The Leopard, he integrates a singing prose style of writing.