In Kincaid’s A Small Place, she emphasizes how racism which was brought on by slavery, greatly impacted the lives of Antiguans. Since you are a tourist, a North American or European—to be frank, white—and not an Antiguan black returning to Antigua, […] you move through customs with ease (4). She states that Antiguan citizens are treated terribly in their own
In fact, she even says, “The invention of the this system [of naming] has been a good thing” (7). She merely tries to warn that the dangers of naming things one has no knowledge of or experience with is a destructive practice. It completely erases the object’s history, and is disrespectful to the community who already had a name for the aforementioned object, as it effectively tells them that they never had a relationship with the object in question, and that they do not have a right to it. By structuring her essay non-chronologically and making purposeful word choice, Kincaid effectively demonstrates the inherent destructiveness in
A post-colonial lens can be applied. This deals with how the events in her story were shaped by colonialism. Kincaid has strong negative views towards colonialism because of how it changed her native island. She hates the destruction and deprivation
In Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl, a mother simultaneously berates her daughter with instructions and teaches her what society expects from her. Kincaid uses repetitive details frequently throughout the story. For example, the mother tells her daughter “how to hem a dress” and “behave in the presence of men” so that the daughter can avoid “looking” and being “recognize[d]” as the “slut” she is “bent on becoming” (437-8). Her mother’s message of avoiding acting ‘slutty’ exposes modern gender stereotypes. The repetitive details suggest that a girl must dress and behave a certain way to avoid being branded a slut.
Jamaica Kincaid depicts an instructional survival guiding theme in “Girl,” about a mother giving essential advice to the daughter about very critical life issues. The advice consists of how to do many domestic acts such as Antiguan dishes, being a respectable young lady and many small suggestions to not have a ruined reputation amongst the society the young girl is living in. Throughout the short story uses symbolism to emphasize the theme entirely so the girl learns to behave and be pure in front of others who watch her every move. Moreover, the mother in this short story advises her daughter by telling her how to make certain foods. In many instances the mother does not hesitate to tell the daughter how and where to grow the vegetables needed for the dishes in which the daughter must learn to make.
By doing this, it enables the reader to fathom how Antiguans view tourists from their perspective and not from the colonialist perspective. Kincaid imposes tourism in a sarcastic manner entailing from her tone, “An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze at this…” (17). Kincaid directly speaking to the reader, they are able to understand and acknowledge her feelings. By doing so, it evokes emotion therefore the reader feels shame and empathy. Furthermore, by using second person narration it allows the the tone to be more obvious and acknowledged by the reader, “And so you needn’t let that slightly funny feeling you have from time to time about exploitation, oppression, domination develop into full-fledged unease, discomfort; you could ruin your holiday”
They saw the Filipinos manner of eating as unsanitary, unethical and disrespectful so they taught us proper manners in every occasion including table etiquettes. This is where the mindset of the eleven respondents originally came from
The significance of Kincaid’s title “The Estrangement” is to describe her deteriorating relationship with her mother. In the story, Kincaid explains how she stopped talking to her mother a few years before she died because she always made her feel like her accomplishments weren't good enough. Estrangement is the fact of no longer being on friendly terms or part of a social group and during the story Kincaid looked at her mother as a hero; but eventually developed resentment.For example, in the first sentence of the essay Kincaid said “ three years before my mother died, I decided not to speak to her again”. I think Kincaid’s essay does not have a thesis or claim; the entire story contradicts itself. In the beginning of the essay she talks
In the story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid illustrates the talk given to a young Antiguan girl about what is expected of her in order to make a point about the cultural pressures and unfair social boundaries that come with being a girl in the Caribbean. The author plays with word choice and sentence structure in a way that makes this unconventional writing style enjoyable and metaphorically resonant. Though it is possible to read this prose as a mother talking directly to her daughter and the daughter interjecting, it is actually indicative of a larger conversation between a Caribbean society and its young women; this can be most clearly seen in the discussion of Benna, of plant, animal, and human life, of promiscuity, and of manners. Benna is a musical genre similar to calypso; its lyrics often discussed British political scandals and had lewd double meanings. The daughter is instructed not to sing it in church, because the songs are about sexuality, politics and open rebellion - however, this instruction has a much larger societal meaning.
While there are several aspects of Orwell’s book that could be considered wildly insensitive and politically incorrect from a twenty-first century perspective, it seems an essential component for the author to adequately emphasize the harshness of the environment in which the story is set. The intolerant treatment of the Burmese people, as well as other non-European nationalities within the storyline, expose the cruel reality of British racism that permeated colonial life. Furthermore, the author’s use of derogatory language allows the reader the opportunity to see past the vail of time to when interracial relationships were unapologetically derided. However, it is important to note the author did include revealing clues to how cruel the indigenous population could be toward one another as well, especially toward those with low social ranking; driving the desire of the Burmese elite to be equated with the Europeans and distance themselves from their own ethnic origins. In fact, the outpost’s social