While these terms focus on literary movements of the French-speaking Caribbean, they also broadly apply to literary movements accross the Caribbean. The movement emerged specifically as a protest against French colonial rule and the French policy of assimilation. Negritude implies the total acceptance of African heritage. An important element of this movement is the influence of oral tradition. Many authors of this movement attempt to combine the oral language of Creole with the written language of French.
Creolite authors place importance on the popular culture of Caribbean peoples.
Popular music, popular religion, folk traditions, and folk tales all have an influence in literature of the Creolite movement. The theme is used to show the difficulty of living in a society that has been controlled by outside powers. It dramatizes the difficulty of expressing identity in a colonial language that does not value Caribbean cultural ideals.