A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid - Analysis

Written by
Jamaica Kincaid


Style

·       Addressing the reader
·       Run on sentences
·       Sarcasm

·       Accusatory tone, hostility

Themes

·       Discrepancy between living in Antigua and coming there as a tourist
·       Difference between Antigua and America
·       Cheating tourists
·       Search for authenticity

·       Government corruption in Antigua
·       The paradoxical influence of the british over Antiguans – they wanted and got independence but have deteriorated and become corrupted since
·       Racial guilt transferred down generations
·       Affluent people are foreigners and drug smugglers
·       Weather as friend or foe
·       Difference between tourism and homelife
·       Closed-mindedness of locals
·       Native resentment of tourists stems from their own desire to be a tourist but their inability to do so
·        Accusing the criminal in the criminal's language is problematic
·       The ubiquity of English influences in Antigua
·       Seeming authentic beauty of poverty

Response to the text and remarks

A "real"/realistic travel guide

What Kincaid thinks of the tourists, all of them

The tourist's self involvement
By “Nice person, ugly person” – I think she implies that in fact we are all ugly always but tourism makes it obvious because we are amongst others, and not among like-minded people who give us the stamp of approval that makes us think we're cool


Appropriation


Tourism as a solution to a feeling of not fitting in


Ironic or not? Must be, generalization usually is. Also, once they are no longer slaves, the islanders have new problems to contend with.

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