Reflection on The Rum Diary

Paul Kemp is a supposedly failed writer who ends up traveling to Puerto Rico. Here he finds and gets a job in a local newspaper in Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan. We can appreciate how Paul and Sala are othered by the newspaper’s editor who presumptuously thinks he is better than those two alcoholics, thus since the beginning we can appreciate how othering takes place in this Young man’s life.

Everyone has an identity, but not everyone gets to perceive the real identity of a person. However, his new coworkers quickly sentenced Paul identity. Then there’s Chenault, a fascinating woman who he met while she was skinny dipping, avoiding a Union Carbide Party. This same woman out groups Paul, she already met him and she indiscreetly pretends to meet him for the first time. It’s evident and clear that there’s a shift in perspective from both sides, especially from Chenault who now has a fiancée named Sanderson, a freelance realtor who offers Paul a job in which consists on writing ads for his latest venture.

The story develops and Kemp’s perspective changes, he starts to understand the local’s point of view. There’s a lot of poverty and misery in this new lands in which he resides. He starts assimilating how the tourism is a mask of the reality, he starts to comprehend the location and perspective of the locals, and that the newspaper does not want him to write about the reality because it may compromise the island’s tourism. We see how he is practically forced to out group the locals and in group himself with his superiors at work. He must exclude the poor, somewhat ignoring the real life situation, and write to promote the tourism.

Kemp eventually prefers to participate in a real estate scam with Sanderson and Sala. As it goes wrong he ends up in jail, further realizing that there is much poverty not only on Puerto Rico, but on St. Thomas as well.

As the story develops, both Sala and Kemp are excluded from the real estate deal. Searching for a job they head to the newspaper they worked before, to their surprise the newspaper is closing.

He then takes matter into his own hands when he decides to write an article about poverty and murky deals. They need money and can’t seem to find any, so they commit illegal actions participating in a cockfight and winning it, but the police is searching for them.

Finally Kemp abandons his new life on the island escaping with a boat. He gets to New York, he publishes his articles, he marries Chenault, find his voice as a writer and becomes a successful journalist.