A Small Place By Jamaica Kincaid

The autobiographical-novel maintains its poetic form through repetition, alliteration, and rhythm. As Kincaid writes, “…for no real sunset could look like that; no real seawater could strike that many shades of blue at once; no real sky could be that shade of blue…” This charm lulls and immobilizes the reader, such that Kincaid’s narration graduates from the victim of such transformative power to a practitioner in her own right. The mystical form powerfully mixes with historical content, opening up new possibilities for discussions that extend the political argument beyond the metaphysical. Indeed, the deceptive simplicity of diction and the finely controlled syntax examine Antigua’s clouded process of existence with incisive clarity. An emotionally truthful, intimate, and poignant piece, A Small Place demonstrates the author’s conflicting attitudes of love and disappointment towards her birthplace. As Covi praises, “Reading A Small Place is like looking at the sea: the message is carried by the tide, but it is impossible to say upon which particular

A Small Place, a novel written by Jamaica Kincaid, is a story relating to the small country of Antigua and its dilemmas from Jamaica Kincaid’s point of view. In this novel Kincaid is trying to inform her audience that Antigua is in a poor state due to British imperial, government corruption, and tourism. Kincaid exposes her audience to the effect of these very problems in Antigua by using persuasive visual language. In the third part of Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, Kincaid does an exceptional job in arguing that, her country Antigua has corrupt government officials due to British influence by appealing effectively to pathos, logos, and ethos.

Have you ever wished that someone had given you a guide on how live the right way? Jamaica Kincaid does just that in her short story, Girl. The narrative is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly in Antigua in the 1980’s. While the setting of the story is not expressly stated by the author in the narrative, the reader is able to understand the culture for which Girl was written.

It’s hard to imagine someone’s personal experience without actually being the one enduring it; however, Jamaica Kincaid’s use of language contests other wise.Through intense imagery and emotional response, Jamaica Kincaid utilizes rhetorical appeals such as logos, pathos, and ethos, which successfully convinces her audience by creating a conversation between herself and the reader. Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place is an expression of her inner feelings on the transformation her hometown, Antigua, and the everlasting postcolonial impact that occurs. Kincaid reacts to the feelings she had as a young girl and compares that mindset to the opinions she holds today as an adult. Kincaid’s piece evaluates the foreignness, race, and power that consumes Antigua. While she descriptively explains the circumstances she faced in Antigua, Kincaid incorporates historical background which provides logical support to her purpose. Notably, the author’s first hand experiences gives her credibility, ethos, and allows the audience to clearly understand the context from her perspective. Not only does Kincaid effectively describe her experiences, but she also makes her audience feel as though they are looking through her eyes. Her purpose demonstrates the difficulty and impossibility of returning to origin after crucial influences. A Small Place proves that the effects of racism and racial inequality are long term and culture cannot simply return exactly how it once was in that specific culture,

The poem “Mothers and Daughters” is written by Pat Mora. Pat Mora is a contemporary award winning writer, who writes for children, youngsters and adults. She was born in El Paso, TX in the year 1942. She attains a title of a Hispanic writer; however, the most of her poems are in English. In her literary work, one can observe the different aspects of the immigrants’ lives such as language issues, family relationships, immigrants’ experiences and cultural differences (1187).

She feels that the Britishers showed their power everywhere and did not do anything that benefitted the Antiguans. For example, a library which was very near and dear to the author was not well-maintained by colonialists. She mentions in her book that there is a sign that says, “REPAIRS ARE PENDING” (Kincaid 9), and how there has been nothing done to repair the building. As the government was very corrupt, they were caring for themselves. Kincaid also mentions that due to racial segregation, she was very stressed and mentally weak. She describes how the natives should be treated equally without any racial discrimination and desires to be a tourist. She mentions, “Every native would like to find a way out… every native would like a tour”(Kincaid 18). This quote explains on how the natives will never get the feeling of being free, how they will never sense the feeling of luxury, and how they will always be in poverty. Jamaica Kincaid reveals that she lacks an actual culture to live up to. She always says that the English ruined it for her. As Hirsh and Schweitzer wrote, “Kincaid lacks a real homeland”. Kincaid also writes about the reason she changed her name, was wanting to express her cultural identity. In an interview with Hirsh and Schweitzer, she said that she renamed herself “Jamaica Kincaid”, because it suggested her West Indian

A Land More Kind than Home by Wiley Cash definitely fits the category of “grit lit.” It is a novel about the Hall’s, a family who is wracked with grief, anxiety, and guilt after the ‘mysterious’ death of one of their sons, Christopher or Stump. The story encompasses more than just the story of the family though as it is told from the perspective of Adelaide Lyle, an old wise woman from the town, Jess Hall the youngest son of the family, and Clem Barefield, the sheriff of Marshall who also had heartache of his own that is intertwined with this families story in more ways than one. The novel incorporates most if not all of the features that is “grit lit” including: an element of crime, a focus on the bleakness of life, lyrical language, and a central character who wishes to escape their environment or get peace inside it.

Strangers in the Land of Paradise by Lillian S. Williams explores the settlement of African Americans in Buffalo in the time of the Great Migration. In this book, Williams discusses the process in which migrants from the South made their own black communities in Buffalo while bringing their beliefs and traditions with them, and having those beliefs evolve over time in a new setting. Her work sheds light on the experiences of blacks in Buffalo during a time where many changes were occurring; the Civil War had just ended and the Industrial Revolution was underway. She also speaks on how Buffalo was unique in that it became the final point for those escaping the racism and violence in the South, since it was the last point before crossing into Canada. In her own words, “the book examines the growth and development of Buffalo, the movement of European immigrants and African American migrants into the city, and their ability to secure an economic foothold. It tests the extent to which family and friendship networks for blacks were a significant force in their migration and acculturation. It also describes the establishment of institutions that African Americans created to shape their modern, urban community" (p. xiv).

Elaine Potter Richardson, more famously known as Jamaica Kincaid, is recognized for her writings that suggest depictions of relationships between families, mainly between a mother and daughter, and her birth place, Antigua, an island located in the West Indies. She is also familiarized with Afrocentrism and feminist point of views. Kincaid’s work is filled heavily with visual imagery that produces a mental picture in readers that helps them connect stronger to the reading. An example of this really shines through in her short story piece, “Girl.” This short story describes the life of a lower class woman living in the West Indies, and also incorporates thick detailing between the relationship between her and her mother. Jamaica Kincaid structures the story as if her mother is speaking to her. She writes broad, but straight to the point, allowing readers to imagine to picture her experience. Kincaid uses visual imagery and repetition consistently throughout “Girl” to reveal the theme and tone of the story; conflictual affair between a mother and daughter.

Jamaica Kincaid’s success as a writer was not easily attained as she endured struggles of having to often sleep on the floor of her apartment because she could not afford to buy a bed. She described herself as being a struggling writer, who did not know how to write, but sheer determination and a fortunate encounter with the editor of The New Yorker, William Shawn who set the epitome for her writing success. Ms. Kincaid was a West-Indian American writer who was the first writer and the first individual from her island of Antigua to achieve this goal. Her genre of work includes novelists, essayist, and a gardener. Her writing style has been described as having dreamlike repetition, emotional truth

1. What is the main theme of your picture book? Are there any other themes presented? What causes you to think this is a main theme of the book? (100 words)

Yet an explicit affirmation of this hatred is not necessary; the reader is quick to appreciate the irony and utter absurdity of her situation and that of Antigua. Kincaid makes us want to condemn the imperialistic attitudes which fostered this indoctrination of English values and also the supposition that this culture was somehow inherently superior to any other. By putting her readers in her own position, and by appealing to their sense of the absurd, Kincaid is very effectively able to elicit sympathy.

Antigua is a small island that was discovered in 1493, by Christopher Columbus. The natives that lived there were made slaves by the British and the economy thrived on producing sugar. In 1834 the British abolished slavery giving Antigua its independence. The sugar industry was failing so the economy relied on tourism. A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid is about Antigua. Kincaid narrates her novel in second person, blaming the tourists for ruining the culture of Antigua. Kincaid explains that the British were cruel to the Antiguan people but she forgives them for it. Kincaid also talked about how the Government is currently corrupt and how beautiful Antigua’s land is. Kincaids novel is broken up into four parts that address all of these issues in Antigua.The way A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid was written is effective in the way that it tries to persuade and inform the readers.

Repetition is used numerous times in the novel to further depict Kincaid’s thoughts and ideas. By using repetition, the author is portraying the thought as a rant as well as in a more aggressive and serious tone. This is displayed in the novel when Kincaid says “...maybe they weren’t from the real England at all but from another England, one we were not familiar with, not at all from the England we were told about…”. In this quote, Kincaid is repeating word England in order to further emphasize how god-like England is. Kincaid is expressing how England is a place that is not within their reach and that it is placed only for the chosen ones. Kincaid expresses these thoughts in her initial reaction to the atrocious behavior of the Europeans. This quote also displays the effect of colonization on people like Kincaid. The shock that Kincaid experienced is proof that she thought very highly of the Europeans and was dismayed as soon as she found out about who they truly are. During the time of colonization, everyone was made to believe how close to God Europeans are and were forced to acknowledge how superior they were compared to them. Another quote that demonstrated the use of rhetorical questions is when Kincaid says “Antigua is a small place. Antigua is a very small place. In Antigua, not only is the event turned into every day, but the everyday is turned into an event”. In the quote, the phrase that is being repeated is “Antigua is a small place”. In this quote, Kincaid is trying to emphasize the fact that Antigua is a small place compared to the rest of the world. By saying small place, Kincaid was not only trying to convey how small Antigua is based on its land but as well as

The book also seems to be an organised rant by Kincaid and is probably the autobiography of the state. Jamaica Kincaid has used her language for purposes other than Achebe or Synge. Though all of them serve as authors from the colonial world, she uses it to critique that form of colonialism which has led to the economic degradation of Antigua and how tourists who visit Jamaica for holidaying purposes are oblivious to the true essence of what Antigue is, partly because of how the nation is portrayed. Throughout her text we see rift between the author and the tourists and also the ugliness of tourism itself. For instance, when she is referring to tourists, she believes tourists who visit Antigua are ugly both morally as well as physically. She perfectly illustrates this by using the quote “pastry like-fleshed”. Here she is using figures of speech from the English language in the context of her native town to mock potential English speaking tourists. Through her language, Kincaid manages to depict how tourists who visit Antigua only view the beauty of the city and the beauty serves to act as a tool to overshadow the difficulties the people face there. We also observe that Kincaid assumes a sense of knowledge of the modern difficulties that a colonial nation faces and hence is able to gather the mockery from her writings. However, she goes on to