Research Paper on:
Immigrant Development in Camara Laye's Radiance of the King

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
world that he does not understand. It is the story of Clarence, a white man, who has become shipwrecked on a land filled with natives. He journeys through the book  while slowly growing and developing as a character. In the following paper we examine the growth of Clarence in Layes book. Clarence In the beginning of the book we  find Clarence to be a man who is very ignorant of the people he encounters. This is not surprising considering that he is a white man in a world and  a culture of natives. However, we also note that while he has common presumptions, those which many white men have, he is not altogether a man who feels he is  more than the men he encounters. In many tales of white men we see the white men as very powerful and very pretentious individuals who find nothing of worth in  such a savage culture. With Clarence we immediately get the understanding that while he thinks his position as a white man is powerful he is also open to the culture  he had landed in. We note his first moment of intrigue with the people and the culture when he is witnessing a dance: "Clarence watched the dancers for a long  while. It was the first time he had witnessed one of the native dances, and the novelty and strangeness of this rather barbaric spectacle were such that he could not  take his eyes away from it" (Laye 7). When he did take his eyes away and comment to the native man next to him that this was excellent dancing  he was not above taking criticism for his remark as the native told him that was not dancing, but hopping. Clarence agrees that it is hopping, giving us a picture