#7 A Small Place - Kincaid's Identity on Ch. 1 & 2

Upon reading the first two chapters from A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, I can say that even though Kincaid was born and partly raised in Antigua, she does not consider her identity to be Antiguan. This is partly because of the tone that she portrays throughout the first two chapters in which she comments on Antigua’s past and present, seen through the eyes of a tourist and through her own eyes, a past resident of Antigua. Kincaid talks about the things that happened to Antigua that led it to be what it is now, she uses the example of the Barclays Brothers and how they went from being successful slave traders to becoming rich and powerful bankers, and explains the feeling of retribution she gets whenever she thinks about the bad deeds and bad thoughts that the Barclay Brothers and many others, had put upon the Antiguans while being slave traders or bankers. 

Throughout the second chapter, Kincaid not only talks about the fact that the island was for some time part of England but also, about the rich English men that came to Antigua. She explains to us that not even the fact that the English had more money than the Antiguans, made them better people than the Antiguans. I say this mainly because even though the island was part of England none of the residents, as said by Kincaid, felt inferior. It was actually the other way around, the Antiguans felt superior, since they were better behaved and full of grace, and the English, says Kincaid, were badly behaved and empty of grace, even though after saying this she adds that she now knows that good behavioris the posture of the weak, of children, this phrase or fragment really got to me.

In her second chapter, it seems as if Kincaid is letting us know that she doesn’t consider herself part of any land, that she has no identity, no motherland. The author says that she feels as one of those many people that were made orphans by the English with:

 “no motherland, no fatherland, no gods, no mounds of earth for holy ground, no excess of love which might lead to the things that excess of love sometimes brings, and worst and most painful of all no tongue.”

This can be interpreted as a sense of rebellion against the English since they left her with the language with which she is writing this book, English, but also as a rebellion to the Antiguans who supported and kept doing throughout the years the types of activities the English did to make Kincaid feel neither English nor Antiguan.