nities.
Ma is a woman who says "'Twill be so til time change to eternity (Lamming, 257)." What this means is that this old woman who has seen the worst of colonialism and lived through the transition to something resembling independence, recognizes that race matters very much and that economics dictate social and political status. These are the realities of the colonial world which are transmitted from one generation to another. What Ma impresses upon the narrator's mother is that "you must keep an eye on things all the time, 'cause you never know what happened in these places, an' you can't afford to lose one blessed thing (Lamming, 131)." Women like the narrator's mother and Ma -- and all the other women of the village in Barbados -- recognize that it was their "privilege to speak (Lamming, 311)." They are fully possessed of the right to tell their children and their grandchildren of the difference between right and wrong and to argue for always doing the right thing in order to be the right kind of person. Identity is thus very much shaped by these seemingly powerless women.
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