Seeking an Identity through Carnival

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Recommended: An overview of an essay on carnival

According to the article History of Carnival, in the past carnival was a tradition that celebrated the day before lent. As stated in the article History of Carnival, "Hundred and hundreds of years ago, the followers of the Catholic religion in Italy started the tradition of holding a wild costume festival right before the first day of Lent. Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale — which means “to put away the meat.” The French, who migrated to Trinidad, brought this tradition with them. As a result Africans who were enslaved by the French, adapted carnival and incorporated aspects of their culture into carnival. The carnival that occurs in Trinidad today holds a different meaning.
Carnival is a method of self-expression for the Trinidadians. Carnival is a way of defining the identity of Trinidadians and because of carnival people transcend into these characters that they wish to become. Trinidadians use carnival as a way to escape from the reality and transform into characters that they believe truly define them. Carnival is not so much about tradition, but about self- portrayal. In the book The Dragon Can’t Dance by Earl Lovelace and the film Mas Man by Dalton Narine, there are examples of people personalizing the characteristics obtained through the characters they play during Trinidad Carnival.
In the story, The Dragon Can't Dance, Aldrick is a poor Trinidadian man who resides on Calvary Hill. Aldrick lives in a small room with hardly any space for himself. He is a jobless man and his only purpose in life is fulfilling the character of a dragon, which is who he becomes during carnival. Aldrick invests a lot of time in making his dragon costume for carnival. In re...

... middle of paper ...

...val. They not only identify themselves with these characters but embody their existence. Carnival has emerged to become a way for people to discover their identities and concretize the people that they are.

Works Cited:
Green, Garth L., and Philip W. Scher. Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2007. Print.
Lovelace, Earl. The Dragon Can't Dance: A Novel. New York: Persea, 1998. Print
Mas Man. Dir. Dalton Narine. Perf. Peter Minshall. Caribbean Film, 2010. DVD.

Works Cited:
Green, Garth L., and Philip W. Scher. Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2007. Print.
Lovelace, Earl. The Dragon Can't Dance: A Novel. New York: Persea, 1998. Print
Mas Man. Dir. Dalton Narine. Perf. Peter Minshall. Caribbean Film, 2010. DVD.

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