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Racism and the Windrush generation in Leave Taking — theme analysis

Leave Taking · Winsome Pinnock · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) — Modern texts option; not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes

In one sentence. Racism is everywhere in the play, mostly offstage, and each character responds to it differently.

Build your reading of Racism and the Windrush generation in Leave Taking, teach it to an AI pupil, then defend it in a marked debate — this study carries all three.

How Racism and the Windrush generation works in Leave Taking

The play shows racism mainly through stories told on stage: Enid made to clean up vomit at a hospital party; Del spoken to at work as though she could not speak English and watched by the police; Gullyman abused until his mind broke; Brod told he may be put out of the country; Del's father treated with contempt at work every day.

Pinnock is interested in the different ways people respond. Enid keeps her head down, works and insists England has been good to her. Brod turns to anger, to Jamaica and to drink. Del fights back with her mouth and her refusal to conform. Viv turns her criticism on what she is taught.

Key moment. Brod telling Del that her father, humiliated at work, took his anger out on Enid (Scene Seven). The play traces how racism outside the home becomes violence inside it, without excusing the violence.

The play also shows prejudice within the Jamaican community: Enid's own mother disliked her, Enid believes, because her skin was dark. This colourism, a prejudice that favours lighter skin, wounds Enid long before she reaches England.

Colourism: Prejudice that treats people differently according to how light or dark their skin is, including within the same community.

Avoid. Never repeat the racist words the characters report. Describe them as racist and say what they do to the person they are aimed at.

The characters who carry Racism and the Windrush generation

An essay on Racism and the Windrush generation is built from the characters. Each line below is from that character's own study — follow it for the full analysis.

Essays on Racism and the Windrush generation in Leave Taking

Thesis statements that argue it

  • Through Enid, Pinnock shows that the Windrush generation's loyalty to Britain was a hard labour that the country did not repay.
  • The title gathers every leaving in the play, from Jamaica, from home and from life, and asks what each generation can carry forward.

Think you understand it?

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Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Teach it — Explain your reading of Racism and the Windrush generation in Leave Taking to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  2. Defend it — Hold your reading of Racism and the Windrush generation in Leave Taking against the writer in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
  3. Then the exam — exam-style practice, marked on Incandio.

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Carry on through Leave Taking

Every study of Leave Taking