This thesis aims to interpret the construction of cultural identity of the Caribbean islands in Derek Walcott¡¦s The Haitian Trilogy: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haitian Earth. To rely on the postcolonial and cultural critics¡¦ study on mimicry, multiple voices and identity construction, I take the construction of cultural identity as a transitional process to fabricate a way to identify with the land that people live on. The colonial background and the postcolonial exploration in the Caribbean islands combined with its diverse racial components, the Caribbeans always experience the predicament in identity construction. Derek Walcott composes his writings from this complex environment and represents the identity formation through continuing observation and exploration. In Introduction, the historical context and the literary development in the Caribbean islands introduce the theme of history and cultural as the common consideration of Caribbean writers; therefore, among their writings, the construction of cultural identity situates a significant position in their writings. The Haitian Revolution plays a significant role in the cultural identity formation in the Caribbean literary writings, since it is the turning point to lead this area from colonization to postcolonial situation, and it inspires writers to review the historical incident and to rewrite the history that they, at this time, write by themselves. Derek Walcott¡¦s The Haitian Trilogy comes not from a planned writing sequel, but from spontaneously reiterative consideration of the Haitian Revolution as a means to write the history of one¡¦s own land and to construct the cultural identity from the self-articulation. Chapter Two¡XHenri Christophe examines the means of mimicry to loosen the colonial control over the colonized and furthermore subvert the colonial power. Chapter Three¡XDrums and Colours portrays the colonial and postcolonial subject relation by way of writing the colonial history and juxtaposing multiple voices of the different classes of characters. Chapter Four¡XThe Haitian Earth aims to demonstrate the struggle to free from the colonization in order to construct the cultural identity from the identification with the land rather than with the remorse of the suffering past. The conclusion collocates the above discussion about the trilogy for the transitional process of the cultural identity formation and illuminates Walcott¡¦s position on the construction of the cultural identity in the Caribbean islands and other similar areas.

Este trabajo tiene como propósito analizar la novela El reino de este mundo de Alejo Carpentier (1949), centrándose en el personaje literario de Paulina Bonaparte. Nos preguntamos si Paulina Bonaparte representa la nueva élite de Europa y la fascinación de ciertos personajes de la población del Caribe por Europa en la novela El reino de este mundo. Con esta pregunta destacamos al personaje Paulina Bonaparte desde un punto de vista nuevo, que hasta ahora no ha sido enfocado de esta manera en los estudios literarios, por lo que sabemos. La hipótesis que se formula es que Paulina Bonaparte se representa como una sinécdoque de las nuevas élites europeas durante los primeros años del siglo XIX en el libro El reino de este mundo. Principalmente hemos utilizado extractos de la novela y de artículos académicos que apoyan nuestra hipótesis. También hemos estudiado la obra analítica Historia y utopía en Alejo Carpentier de Oscar Velayos Zurdo (1990). Podemos concluir que hay indicios que muestran que Paulina Bonaparte representa la nueva élite de Europa en la novela El reino de este mundo.

In modern historiography, Henri Christophe, king of northern Haiti from 1816-1820, is generally given a negative persona due to his controlling nature and his absolutist regime, but in his correspondence, he engages in diplomatic collaborations with two British abolitionists, William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, in order to improve his new policies and obtain international recognition. This paper argues that the Haitian king and the abolitionists engaged in a mutual collaboration in which each party benefitted from the correspondence. Christophe used the advice of the British abolitionists in order to increase the power of Haiti into a powerful black state, and Wilberforce and Clarkson helped the king position Haiti as a self-sufficient nation to fuel their abolitionist argument of the potential of post-emancipation societies.