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• Three of the main themes in Leave Taking are family, culture and education.

• The author, Winsome Pinnock, creates the theme of family through developing realistic characters with complex relationships.

• Ideas about culture are used to explore conflict and identity in the play.

• Education is important to Enid and she tries to share that belief with her daughters.

Remember

A theme is a big idea that can be found throughout the text. It is created by repeating ideas at different points in the text.

Major themes can overlap with other smaller themes and ideas. For example, the theme of education can include the smaller themes of poverty or ambition, as education in the play is closely tied to wealth and a successful career.

The play’s focus on three close-knit members of the same family means that this theme runs throughout the play.

There is a sisterly bond between Del and Viv. Despite their different attitudes towards school, work and even their own mother, they have a close and often playful relationship.

Viv covers for Del when Del loses her job, and they both joke about Mai’s "powers" in Scene One. Even when they fight after Viv reveals she has walked out of her A-level exam, Del’s frustration towards Viv is because she wants Viv to fulfil her potential and have a better life.

Viv also gives the money meant for her university studies to Del, in a protective gesture that reverses the traditional roles of older and younger siblings. Viv recognises that Del will need the money for her child more than she will need it for university.

At the end of the play, Del and Viv have become more tolerant of their different attitudes and are closer than ever before.

The play also explores parent-child relationships in different ways.

• Enid sees her children as a reflection of herself. She tells Mai about her "shame" when she was once called to pick up Del, who was caught shoplifting.

• Enid’s visits to Mai are focused on her sense of responsibility towards her daughters, even though Del believes that Enid ‘hates’ her.

• Enid does not speak about Del after she moves out, but then feels a paralysing guilt about the relationship with her own mother, who also treated Enid coldly when she left home.

• Enid’s relationship with Viv is stronger, but Viv feels pressure from her mother to do well academically.

Pinnock shows the differences between present family and family abroad: Brod and Enid’s lives in the UK are a stark contrast to their families’ lives in Jamaica.

There is tension with Enid’s family because those living in poverty in Jamaica seem to envy the supposed wealth of those living in the UK. Enid is expected to send money back home to her family, even though she works two jobs and appears to be relatively poor herself.

Brod’s wife and children have returned to Jamaica, and he seems to feel that it is almost impossible to be reunited with them. Unlike Enid, he thinks that many aspects of his family’s life in Jamaica are like living in paradise.

This theme is often the impetus for both inner and external conflict in the play, but it is also something which can create a feeling of safety and belonging.

There is a clash between the first-generation and second-generation experiences of growing up.

• Enid and Brod are first generation immigrants. They remember their childhood in Jamaica and can compare it to the way they live now in England.

• Del and Viv are second generation, which means they were born and raised in England, and have never been to Jamaica. This means that there is sometimes a clash between their attitudes and those of the older generation because they have experienced different sets of values and ideals.

An example of this is what the adults and teenagers see as an 'improved' life: for Enid, it is university studies and a well-paying job, but for Del, it is having independence and being able to socialise freely. Brod makes fun of this when addressing Viv, putting on an accent to suggest that a "Hinglish girl" should be "out with her boyfriend every single night like all the other Hinglish girls".

The customs and traditions which are relied upon in new places are also important in the play.

Mai’s place in the narrative is to act as a bridge between Caribbean and English culture. Although Mai has lived in Deptford for many years, it’s clear that Mai preserves many aspects of Jamaican culture, without being changed by the English world around her.

For Enid, Mai’s bedsit is a safe place that feels more like home than her own flat in north London, and a place to find guidance and support for living in a culture that is different to the one she grew up in.

When Enid opens up to Viv about her childhood, this could also be said to be part of an oral tradition – something that Brod encourages Enid to do throughout.

Ideas about culture are reflected in the religious and spiritual beliefs discussed in the play, such as Mai’s Obeah practices and readings and Enid's belief in Christianity.

Enid scrubs her house clean and wears her Sunday best in anticipation of a visit from the Christian pastor and his wife, and sings along to a traditional hymn as she clears up after their visit. Although she visits Mai for Obeah readings, she is conflicted about this as she tells Brod that she has "made a covenant with God".

Mai’s values and actions are traditional, especially in her rejection of Western medicine. Mai repeats the line, "What doctor know about a Black woman soul?" in Scene Six and Scene Eight.

Spirituality is the backdrop to Del’s character development. She rejects it at the start of the play, but gradually becomes immersed in Mai’s culture and becomes an Obeah practitioner by the end of the play.

Culture in the play is also about a sense of belonging.

• Viv becomes increasingly disinterested in the English literature she is studying as she cannot see herself in the writing.

• Brod has paid for British citizenship, but his sense of permanence is still fragile: he believes that he will never be fully accepted by England because of his race and background.

• Brod has experienced racism, as has Del, who despite her British upbringing is treated badly. Del says her manager at the burger bar "talks to me as if I can’t speak English".

• Brod also uses patois frequently as a way of asserting his Caribbean identity.

Pinnock shows us several interpretations of this theme across the play.

Enid believes in education as a way of saving her family from poverty. She pushes Viv academically in the belief that Viv will have greater opportunities the more that she studies. Enid does not want Viv to have to work two jobs, like she does.

Del’s opposition to formal education clashes with Enid's view and this causes problems in their relationship, especially as Viv wants to make Enid happy.

• Several of the characters assume Viv has some privilege over them because of her education.

• Brod blames colonialism as the reason that Viv will be going to university while her cousins in Jamaica will not.

• Del’s anger when Viv walks out of her exam is expressed in Del’s belief that Viv is throwing away a form of power that comes with academic success.

• Brod and Enid also associate a lack of education with a lack of power. They are disappointed at their lack of formal educational achievements. Brod tells Viv that Enid failed her postmistress exam, and now ‘wants better’ for Viv.

• More positively, Viv's choice to read Black Studies at the end of the play could symbolise a way of taking back power over her own education and culture.

The characters have experienced Eurocentric education. For Enid, Mai and Brod, the British curriculum they studied in school in Jamaica reflected a different culture to the one they were living. Viv and Del, who have been entirely educated in England, have not been taught about Obeah or Caribbean culture.

Brod is surprised that an "A-class student" like Viv does not know anything about "Nanny a the Maroons". This creates a conflict between the knowledge of Jamaican history and culture valued at home and the knowledge that is valued in school. By later choosing a course which centres her racial identity, Viv rejects the power that traditional studies in English Literature once had over her.

A motif is an idea that is repeated throughout a story to highlight a larger theme.

The most powerful and important motif that Pinnock uses is the motif of leaving a family, which is echoed in the title of the play. Each character has an experience of leaving home, and although this motif is most closely linked to the theme of family, its presence is also important to understanding the themes of culture and education.

Examples of this are:

• Enid and Brod leave their family homes in Jamaica to travel to England for a better life

• Brod’s wife and children leave him to return to Jamaica

• Del leaves Enid’s home after their argument

• Mai’s son leaves and becomes estranged from her

• Viv leaves home to attend university.

Traditionally, the meaning of ‘leave taking’ is ‘the act of saying goodbye’. In all of the examples used in the play, the actual farewells either happen offstage or do not happen at all, and the ‘leave taking’ has far-reaching and emotional consequences.

Test your knowledge of the themes in Leave Taking by completing this multiple-choice quiz.