Imperialism And Colonialism In Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place
Gentle waves, lush greenery, and sun-soaked beaches, Antigua embodies your ideal holiday destination. But Jamaica Kincaid turns your paradise upside down in her new memoir A Small Place. Using her pen as a sword, Kincaid slashes Antigua’s façade of perfection into shreds and presses the blade against the throats of tourism, colonialism and corruption. Many denounce Kincaid’s latest book as an over attack, her gaze too penetrating and intimidating. The tone of voice continuously shifts throughout the memoir, starting from sardonic, manifesting into anger, to slowly conclude in melancholy. Though particular accusations, such as when the narrator cruelly rejects “you” as “an ugly thing”, may upset the readers, Kincaid purposely provokes reactions of defensiveness and guilt to challenge us to accept an oppositional reading. By addressing the reader directly through a second person perspective, Kincaid forces the reader to take responsibility for the actions of invading foreigners. The antipathy, though cutting off reader sympathy, preserves reader-author distance, deliberately alienating the readers, creating ambivalence, and juxtaposing the differing points of views between the tourists and the natives. Although the personified reader that Kincaid outlines, an ordinary and ignorant Westerner, may strike the readers as a prejudiced stereotype, the author provides a taste of the dehumanized “Otherness” that the Antiguans have endured for generations. No longer the tranquil
Genealogical Research Of Andrea Stuart Sugar In The Blood
963 Words | 4 PagesThis book overall is effective on establishing how hard it was to begin a life on the island, how plantations developed and how the slaves were treated. The novel describes how hard it was to go to the island of Barbados and start a new life. Andrea Stuart’s ancestor George Ashby arrived from England on a ship to Barbados. She describes the journey as a hard one because
Exploitation In Michelle Cliff's Down The Shore
1526 Words | 7 PagesMichelle Cliff’s short story Down the Shore conspicuously deals with a particularly personal and specific, deeply psychological experience, in order to ultimately sub-textually create a metaphor regarding a wider issue of highly social nature. More specifically, the development of the inter-dependent themes of trauma, exploitation, as well as female vulnerability, which all in the case in question pertain to one single character, also latently extend over to the wider social issue of colonialism and its entailing negative repercussions, in this case as it applies to the Caribbean and the British Empire. The story’s explicit personal factor is developed through the literary techniques of repetition, symbolism, metaphor, as well as slightly warped albeit telling references to a distinct emotional state, while its implicit social factor is suggested via the techniques of allusion, so as to ultimately create a generally greater, undergirding metaphor.
A Habit Of Waste By Nalo Hopkinson Summary
530 Words | 3 PagesThe effects of colonialism are intergenerational, this story exposes the raw feelings of victims of colonization and the internalization of racist ideologies that often occurs as a result of Caribbean history being wrongly painted. Conforming to the standards of society is often easier than bearing the challenges associated with being an outlier; however, conformity leads to resentment and hatred. Cynthia chooses to conform to society's standards of white supremacy, which results in her discarding her own body for the figure of a white woman. Unfortunately, Cynthia begins to form a deep hatred for herself and her culture which her parents and strangers are subjected to.
Jamaica Kincaid's Blackness Essay
479 Words | 2 PagesIn the short story “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator’s consciousness develops through a process of realization that she does not have to choose between the culture imposed on her and her authentic heritage. First, the narrator explains the metaphor “blackness” for the colonization her country that fills her own being and eventually becomes one with it. Unaware of her own nature, in isolation she is “all purpose and industry… as if [she] were the single survivor of a species” (472). Describing the annihilation of her culture, the narrator shows how “blackness” replaced her own culture with the ideology of the colonizers.
The Assault By Harry Mulisch Analysis
449 Words | 2 PagesIn “The Assault”, Harry Mulisch uses the protagonist Anton to change Anton’s mood in different settings, that eventually leads him to find closure. He experiences unhealthy tension that gradually fades into a release which describes his healing process. Throughout the novel, the ugly truth is revealed to him. From stories of the past, Anton gets caught up in mixed emotions from variety of characters in the novel. Each character reveals the truth of the night he lost his family to Anton.
Analysis Of Jamaica Kincaid's The Autobiography Of My Mother
1787 Words | 8 PagesJamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother signifies a pivotal point in her writing style. Her earlier novels have some semblance of her personal life, but, in this novel, the protagonist Xuela does not share a common experience with that of the author’s life. The mother-obsessed protagonists of her earlier fiction are absent. Instead, we have a seventy year old half-Carib Dominican.
In History Jamaica Kincaid Analysis
896 Words | 4 PagesIn her thought provoking essay “In History,” author Jamaica Kincaid explores the idea of naming things in a historical context through various anecdotes. Kincaid makes a purposeful choice to tell her story non chronologically, beginning with the tale of Columbus, putting her own reflection on plant nomenclature in the middle, and ending with an overview of Carl Linnaeus, the inventor of the plant naming system. This choice gives Kincaid the opportunity to fully vet out each point that she makes, an opportunity she wouldn’t have gotten had she written her essay in chronological order. Throughout each anecdote that Kincaid tells, the theme of names and giving things names is central. Kincaid argues that by giving something a name, one unrightfully takes ownership of it and erases its history.
The Miller's Daughter Belonging Analysis
1454 Words | 6 PagesAntoinette lacks an identity, not only in the hands of her husband who reduces her personality and changes her name, but also in the eyes of everybody else. She is a puppet, something that belongs to the hands that are holding it; she is what the people think she is and belongs to nowhere. She is trapped in her “own Sargasso Sea”, trapped between two worlds, Europe and Jamaica, but without belonging to any of them. She cannot form her personal identity, but on the contrary “Rhys suggests that so intimate a thing as personal and human identity might be determined by the politics of imperialism” (Chakravorty Spiva, 250), therefore, although Antoinette wishes to become English, it is something she cannot control because there are so many prejudices attached to her Creole condition.
The Ugly Tourist Jamaica Kincaid Summary
443 Words | 2 PagesThe purpose of this paper was the fact that Jamaica Kincaid felt as though tourism in the land are only seeing the greater good of the land that they were visiting. Tourists are not seeing the side where the native families are struggling to get by. Are they trying to persuade the reader to adopt a new belief or habit, or to stop doing something? Jamaica Kincaid is trying to persuade the readers of her essay to understand why tourism is such a bad thing.
What Is The Theme Of The Return By Alistair Cleod
434 Words | 2 PagesAlistair MacLeod’s collection of short stories, captioned ‘Island’, explores the traditions and family lifestyles on Cape Breton throughout the 1960’s to the 1990’s. Throughout many of the stories, MacLeod demonstrates how the surroundings of the character affects their identity. The culture and tradition of Cape Breton affect the views of the characters and the home of the characters affect who they are. It is then the family that surrounds them that affects the morals of the character and who they really are.
On Seeing England For The First Time Rhetorical Analysis
590 Words | 3 PagesIn Jamaica Kincaid’s essay “On Seeing England for the First Time”, she clearly voices her animosity towards the one place her whole life surrounded as a child in hopes of persuading her audience into understanding that there is a fine line between dreams and realities. As an adult, Kincaid finally is able to travel to England to witness firsthand what all the hype was about and why her childhood and education happened to be based around the fantasy customs of this country. Noticing that every detail of her life revolved around England, from the way she ate her food to the naming of her family members, Kincaid found her hatred growing more and more. Coming from a British colony, the obsession with England drove Kincaid crazy to the point that she finally traveled there one day. She says, “The space between the idea of something and its reality is always wide and deep and dark” (37).
Jamaica Kincaid's Reason For A Small Place
1160 Words | 5 PagesKincaid’s Reason for A Small Place Jamaica Kincaid writing style, in A Small Place, makes the reader feel attacked. Her word choices also make the reader think about themselves. British colonization and its effect is the root of Kincaid 's anger. By looking through the Post-colonial, Marxists, and New Criticism literary lenses it reveals her reason of writing and it shows deeper emotions and ideas.
Gender Roles In Jamaicaaica Kincaid's Girl, By Jamaica Kincaid
1130 Words | 5 PagesA wise woman once said, "The more a daughter knows about her mother 's life, the stronger the daughter" (http://www.wiseoldsayings.com/mother-and-daughter-quotes/). As any girl raised by their mother can attest, the relationship between a mother and her daughter is a learning experience. As young girls, you look up to you mother as your greatest role model and follow in their steps closely. In Jamaica Kincaid 's short story "Girl", a mother uses one single sentence in order to give her daughter motherly advice. Her advice is intended to help her daughter, but also to scold her at the same time.
Jamaica Kincaid The Lessons
527 Words | 3 PagesNo matter how people learn lessons, they will stay with the person forever, and help them through life. In the short stories “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara and “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, there is lesson that a character will learn about life. Although, in “The Lesson”, the teaching was more profound and had a deeper meaning behind it, while “Girl” was a parent forcing instructions on a child in order for the child to learn how a woman is to live. This being said, the teaching is more profound in “The Lesson” than the one given in “Girl.” “Girl” is a short story that teaches that there are many lessons we learn throughout life from parents, or in this case, a single parent.
The Religious Beliefs Of Jamaica In The 1790s
146 Words | 1 PagesThe main religious belief in the island nation of Jamaica is Christianity. In the 1790’s, George Lisle and Moses Baker, who were freed slaves, arrived in Jamaica and built a massive following in Kingston and Western Jamaica. This was a problem, however, because the African-Jamaicans of the sugar plantations were not allowed to attend school or church, and certainly not allowed to read the bible. However, this all began to change when in the 1820’s when white baptist missionaries started to flood the country. They became the teacher of the African-Jamaicans, allowing them to“no longer the only ones who had been slaves”, sharing the “Jewish experience of having been an oppressed people”.
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