在《迷失的孩子》中,卡里尔·菲利普斯重新定位并解构了艾米丽·勃朗特经典小说《呼啸山庄》中诸多身份问题,并阐明了18世纪大英帝国殖民政治对20世纪英国社会的滞后性影响。简言之,菲利普斯描述了前殖民者所犯罪行和所承受的家园焦虑与前被殖民者的“复仇”行动之间的因果关系,而这一因果关系可被形象地比喻为“帝国回飞镖”。菲利普斯认为,当下英国社会的人种景观迫切需要英国社会道德景观的巨大变化与之匹配;唯有如此,由大英帝国殖民史而引发的英国人的道德恐慌与家园焦虑才能得到消减乃至消除。
In The Lost Child, Caryl Phillips relocates and deconstructs a number of issues regarding social identity depicted in Emily Bronte's classic novel Wuthering Heights. He illuminates the delayed effects of the 18th century British imperial politics on the racial and political assumptions of the 20th century British national ego; in short, Phillips depicts the cause- effect relationship between the guilt and home anxiety of the former colonizers and the "revenge" of people who were once the colonized subjects. This relationship can be described as the imperial boomerang. Phillips makes the argument that the current ethnic landscape of the United Kingdom necessitates a drastic change in the British moral mindscape. Only when such a change comes into being, Phillips argues, can British people's moral panic and home anxiety caused by British colonial history be minimized or dispelled.