In response to Jamaica Kincade's "A Small Place" I ask:
1. Why did the author tell two differnt stories?
2. Are the English really to blame for everything?
3. What was the significance to telling the story about the tourist?
I will answer all three questions:
1. In Jamaica Kincade's "A Small Place" the author tells two sotries.The first is one from the point of veiw of a tourist, the other was from her point of view (an Antiguan). The author tells the two stories to show the two sides of Antigua. The first story portraying a beutiful place to go on vacation and get away from the mundaine world that you (the tourist) lives. The second story telling how the "beautiful" place the tourist is visiting came to be, how the Enlish came and made everything theirs. Kincade really wants the reader to see the different point of view the two people have of the same place. The tourist sees a great place to go on vacation with interesting native people. The native people see the reminance of what England left and how it reminds them of how much they disliked the Enlish.
2. The English in that time were taking land by storm. Just as Kincade says the English wanted to feel better about themselves so they took land from others. But the English really were just people of the time. At this time all the wealthy nations were trying to expand, they were taking land from people they thought were less than them because they felt entitled to it, the common thought was if the natives dont know what can be done with this land then they shouldent have it. Expansion was first and foremost in the wealthy nations minds, the more land and people they had to control the more powerful they were. In the case of Antigua, the English saw the land as more wealth and more people to control, they were the "superior" people so therfore they deserved the land, so they took it and made their own. But what the author doesnt mention is that they were just people of the time, tinking the same as all the other wealthy nations, doing what other nations were doing to other unclaimed land.
3.The authors point in telling the story about the tourist is to make the ironic connection that the tourist who come Antigua and thought of it as a magical place so full of beauty are the "same" English people as in the second story, people coming in to the native land thinking and doing what they want and how they want. They do everything their way, not thinking to try things in the custommary manner of the native people, and when they see the people native to Antigua they think to themselves "its so interesting and weird how they conduct themselvs and how they live their lives" when in reality the Antiguans are saying the same about the foreigners. Its true of all cultures though, as Kincade says we are all natives of our own land and we are all tourists of someone elses whenever we leave.
You made a couple of valid arguments when discussing "A Small Place." We seemed to agree that we are all tourists at one point or another. The paragraph that I particularly enjoyed was when you discussed how the English were merely doing what most other powerful empires had done in the past...expand (and at a very alarming speed)!! It may have been extremely wrong when they decided slavery was okay! But the great expansion of powerful countries like England was definitely not the first. Kincaid did sound slightly racist against the English...maybe she has the right to be. They did enslave her ancestors.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the english being the imperialists at the time. That is the bigger picture that Kincaid does not seem to understand. There are many civilizations that have came and gone because of a larger empire. Sometimes the culture has been totally stamped out and other times the cultures that have been taken over by the larger ones succumb to syncretism and the cultures combine.
ReplyDeleteWhere I sympathize with her is that she does not even seem to know where she came from. That is the real tragedy with peoples who have been displaced. Not only are they in a new land, they have lost all connection to their prior culture, they have to learn a new language, AND they have to quickly assimilate to the imperial power. As the generations progress, the question of "who am I" is unanswerable and as a human being, that is mentally taxing and can even cause tremendous amounts of anxiety. You feel like you do not "belong" anywhere. I think Kincaid thoroughly lives through this emotion and does a good job or portraying her frustration which happens to come out as an animosity towards tourists.
I like that you also take note of the author's approach in telling this tale. It's like two parts that seem so different, yet you can hear the author's voice in both parts. There is some atmosphere of sarcasm in the beginning that you can totally understand later on in the read.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a pretty good technique. The author obviously has a moral standing against the misfortune of their home and the way it's perceived but at the same time i like how they seem to be at some sort of peace and understanding for how and why it happened. It makes the reader buy into them more.
Pretty good read though..