No Telephone to Heaven

The history of British colonialism is present throughout No Telephone to Heaven. Harry/Harriet provides many illustrations of Jamaican colonialism for Clare, showing her how vestiges of British imperialism haunt the Jamaican landscape. Harry/Harriet speaks of a former slave hospital and shows Clare how poor the villagers are while British and Americans extract wealth from Jamaica’s resources. Harry/Harriet explains how Jamaicans continue to internalize the mentality of inferior, colonized subjects:

We punish people by flogging them with cat-o’-nine-tails. We expect people to live on cornmeal and dried fish, which was the diet of slaves. We name hotels Plantation Inn and Sans Souci. … A peculiar past. For we have taken the master’s past as our own (127).

Harry/Harriet’s most powerful illustration is the story of their own rape by a white British colonist when they were a small child. Harry/Harriet explains that their adopted mother, Hyacinth, took care of them when she learned of the incident, fearing that Harry/Harriet’s biological parents would see them as “ruined” (129). As Hyacinth explained, “Wunna is on sufferance here” (129). Because so many Jamaicans are afraid to stand up to British colonists—recognizing their own vulnerability—they are apt to blame victims for their own mistreatment.