%0 Journal Article
%T ¡°I have been in an earthquake¡±: Epistemic upheaval in Richard Hughes¡¯ A High Wind in Jamaica
%A Michael Titlestad
%A Simon van Schalkwyk
%J The Journal of Commonwealth Literature
%@ 1741-6442
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/0021989416685593
%X Published in 1929, Richard Hughes¡¯ A High Wind in Jamaica was praised by reviewers and critics across the spectrum of the British and American literary scenes (among them Rebecca West, Ford Madox Ford, Vita Sackville-West, Cyril Connelly, John Masefield, Hugh Walpole, and Arnold Bennett). At the same time, its readers were generally shocked by its portrait of child psychology (¡°the mind of the child¡±). While several critics applauded its realism, the record of its reception suggests that it induced ¡ª what one critic referred to as ¡ª ¡°a sort of mental panic¡±. This article considers aspects of Hughes¡¯ ¡°new psychology¡±, which derived largely from the writings of Freud and the Freudians. Reading the novel and Freud in counterpoint, the argument concludes that ¡ª while Hughes constructs A High Wind in Jamaica as a rejoinder to the ideological logic of the imperial romance ¡ª in inscribing Freudian ¡°primitivism¡± it reiterates colonial assumptions about ¡°civilization¡±
%K A High Wind in Jamaica
%K Civilization and its Discontents
%K Sigmund Freud
%K Richard Hughes
%K imperial
%K primitivism
%K romance
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0021989416685593